Pilgrim (62 page)

I
t took the Maze five days to rise, and all that time Drago stood atop Spiredore and witnessed.

WingRidge watched with him, and talked to Drago of many things, but mostly of what he and his fellow Lake Guard knew of the Maze and what they knew of its needs.

“It is a gigantic city,” Drago murmured on the fourth day, and WingRidge nodded.

“Fifty times the size of Carlon,” he said, and both men glanced towards the blackened and still smoking ruin across the rising Maze.

“And infinitely more complicated,” WingRidge continued. “See how each street, each tenement contributes to the Maze?”

Drago nodded. The extent and complexity of the Maze astounded and frightened him. How would he ever find his way to its centre?

“The heart will call to you,” WingRidge said.

The waters had vanished, consumed or absorbed by the rising Maze. It was evident where the heart lay. There was an all-consuming darkness at the core of the Maze. All twists and conundrums of the Maze led to a central circular space, and in the centre of this space was a great dark tower rising to the height of the encircling walls.

It was the exact duplicate of Spiredore, but as Spiredore was white and filled with light, so this tower was its darker
twin. Its open windows absorbed all light about the circular space,
ate
all light, and still it seemed hungry for more.

“This dark tower is the heart of all Tencendor,” Drago said.

WingRidge nodded. “This tower will become the heart of everything once Qeteb rises.”

“His palace,” Drago murmured. “WingRidge, where is the Maze Gate?”

WingRidge pointed to a section of the external wall slightly to the south of Spiredore. “There.”

Drago looked, then nodded. “Facing east to the dawning sun.” He gave a small smile. “A positive sign…I hope.”

WingRidge turned from the Maze and looked at Drago. “It is almost time.”

“Yes. And time you were gone to Sanctuary. Here. Take the Wolven and quiver with you.”

WingRidge hesitated before he did as Drago requested, then leaned forward and embraced Drago. “Will you say farewell to Caelum for me?”

Nothing WingRidge could have said could have more deeply touched Drago. He could not speak, and merely nodded again, his eyes filled with tears.

“Then goodbye, StarSon,” WingRidge said softly. “I wish you good…journeying.”

He snapped a formal salute, and then stepped down into Spiredore.

During that night the Maze completed its journey into the open air. It soared into the sky, its walls so tall that even atop Spiredore Drago could no longer see the dark-towered centre.

But he could feel it, calling out to him.

Come, come, come, come…

Its cry surged through him, making the blood pound in his head, and Drago rubbed at his temples, trying to lessen its force.

Come, come, come, come…
the pounding got worse and worse, and eventually Drago could stand it no longer.

“Yes! Yes!” he cried, “I
will
come, damn you!”

The call abated somewhat, enough for Drago to straighten and let his hands drop back to his sides, but not enough to enable him to ignore it.

He descended into Spiredore, his staff and sack at his side.

It took Drago until mid-afternoon to reach the Maze Gate.

The gate had grown. Its stone arch reached forty-five paces into the sky, and the twin wooden doors that hung between them were some forty paces high and twenty-five wide.

It was unbelievably huge.

The symbols WingRidge had told Drago he would see about the arch now numbered in their millions…and were no longer static. They wriggled and surged and capered about the stone archway. They moved so fast Drago could not concentrate on any one of them long enough to read it—but read he did not have to do, for the shifting symbols formed moving pictures.

Pictures of death and destruction, of a world gone mad, a landscape barren and desecrated.

Tencendor, as it would be within days.

It showed an aerial view of the Maze itself, and a poor desolate figure desperately scurrying through it, harried by a macabre and demonic hunting party. There was no escape. The figure was cornered, and impaled, and the hunters raised their lances and swords in triumph and the darkness in the world intensified twofold. Drago had to turn away, unable to bear the horror.

When he looked back again the stone was bare of symbols save for one in the righthand side of the archway.

A sword, a lily wound about its blade.

Drago stared at it, his right hand dropping his staff and slowly rising as if of its own volition.

Slowly, slowly, he reached out to the sword, but just as he was about to lay a hand on it there was a sudden movement behind him.

Drago spun about, grabbing his staff again as he did so.

Five or six paces behind him stood the Star Stallion. Belaguez snorted, and tossed his wild mane of stars. He half-reared, his fore hooves raising dust from the arid plain as he landed.

Then he stepped forward, trembling.

Drago switched his staff to his left hand and held out his right to the stallion.

The horse tentatively reached forward with his creamy nose, snorting hot breath over Drago’s palm, then he took a step closer, and Drago was able to run his hand over the horse’s cheek and neck.

“Welcome, Belaguez,” he murmured, feeling the stallion relax under his caressing hand. “Has the Maze called you, too?”

Belaguez snorted, and again tossed his head.

Drago grinned, and without thinking, vaulted on to the stallion’s back.

Belaguez skitted about, but did not attempt to throw Drago off, and after a moment Drago lightly touched his heels to the stallion’s flanks, and guided him to the wooden doors.

There Drago again took the staff in his right hand, and tapped the doors gently with it. Thrice, then twice again.

“I come to claim my heritage,” he said without any thought as to why he spoke the words.

The doors swung open and Belaguez sprang forward…

…into a cataclysm of wind and sound and light and pain.

Drago felt as if he had again stepped through the Star Gate. His entire being exploded in agony, scraps of flesh and blood and breath mingling into a spray of bloodied moisture about the void into which he’d been propelled.

He screamed, or thought he screamed, but how could he cry out with no throat and lungs with which to form sound?

And then he blinked, and all pain was gone, and his body was whole and the stallion moved smoothly beneath him.

He was naked, save for the irritating rasp of the sack hanging from a rope belt about his waist, and a sword in his right hand.

It was the same sword he’d seen carved into the stone of the archway, except that the emerald stem of the lily now wound about the golden hilt, the spaces between its leaves providing snug purchase for his fingers, and the bright-mirrored blade sprang from the creamy throat of the flower itself.

DragonStar grinned, and wound his left hand amid the stars of the stallion’s mane, and with his right brandished the sword above his head.

“To the Dark Tower!” he cried, and the stallion sprang forward.

DragonStar rode through a maze of mystery and enchantment, and it felt like a home to him.

He hesitated at no turn, nor questioned no path.

He knew the path, and he knew what he rode towards.

Sometimes the Star Rider and Stallion galloped between confining walls of stone, and sometimes they ran through infinite fields of flowers. Sometimes the stallion splashed through shallow lakes of silver, and sometimes descended stairwells that wormed into the depths of creation itself.

Sometimes they passed between confining walls coloured grey and grim, and sometimes through gloomy halls filled with the rusting ruins of giant machinery.

And always they ran towards the Dark Tower, and always the Dark Tower called—

—
screamed
—

—to them, begging, pleading, crying that they should waste no time in attending…

…
for close ride the Demons…

…and it wanted to touch them, embrace them, speak with them.

DragonStar tore the sack from his side, for the rub of its hessian against his bare skin had become unbearable. He held it aloft before him.

“Does DragonStar wear a
sack
at his hip? Nay, I think not!”

And the sack transformed, and became a beautiful jewelled purse of gold links and diamonds and rubies, and DragonStar smiled, and hung the purse on the matching belt that now encircled his hips.

He dug his heels into the stallion’s flanks, grabbing once again at his mane, and he brandished the sword aloft.

“
To this I was born!
” he screamed, and the stallion reared, and screamed with him.

And the Dark Tower smiled, and thought:

To this were you made.

They galloped into the circle of flagstones surrounding the Dark Tower, and the Star Stallion skidded to a halt before its open door.

DragonStar sat his mount and studied the tower.

It was the precise twin of Spiredore in height and construction, save for its blackness. DragonStar knew what it would contain. He slid from the stallion’s back and walked over to the door, housing his sword in the jewelled scabbard that hung from his belt.

Just before he stepped through the open chasm of the door, DragonStar stood momentarily, revelling in the strength, and the strength of enchantment, that infused him.

Finally. Finally!

He smiled, and entered the Dark Tower.

If the Dark Tower was Spiredore’s twin on the outside, then on the inside it was its opposite. No stairways and crazily canted balconies cluttered this interior. Instead a great dome of black marble reared a hundred and twenty paces into the air. Below the dome, similarly dark and desolate marble columns crowded close as if they wanted nothing or no-one to escape. They encircled a space some forty paces in diameter. The floor was of black marble.

This dark tower was a mausoleum, and empty save for a chest-high tomb that lay centred under the dome. On the
tomb rested a suit of black armour, and a frightful lance and a sword lay over the armour, gripped in the as yet empty gloves.

The visor of the black, horned helmet was down, and over it lay a length of white linen.

DragonStar walked slowly over to the tomb and stopped by the visor. Slowly he reached over the armour, taking care not to touch it, and lifted the length of linen from the visor.

It fluttered in a non-existent breeze, and the entire tower tensed in a deep, anticipatory breath.

DragonStar smiled at the beautiful soft ripples of linen as they floated before him, and, stepping back from the tomb, shook the cloth out and regarded it thoughtfully.

Then, in swift, economical movements, he girded it about his loins and between his legs, hiding his nakedness.

Thus armoured, he whistled the Star Stallion to his side, took his sword in hand, and with its blade of light, drew a doorway in the space before him and stepped through.

Without hesitation, the Star Stallion followed.

Urbeth and Caelum sat in the snowy, frozen wastes of Gorken Pass and talked of many things. Urbeth had just reached into a tub of fish for a snack when a glowing rectangle of light appeared in the snow before their fire.

From it stepped a man that Caelum had only ever dreamed about.

“DragonStar,” Caelum said, and stepped forward and embraced his brother.

“It is time,” DragonStar said. “Are you ready?”

T
he Demons pushed their mounts until the black beasts’ breathing rasped through their throats and their flanks heaved in hungry effort for air. The Demons pounded their heels into flanks, their fists into shoulders, and every so often they would lean down and bite as deeply as they could into the snake-like necks jerking and weaving before them.

The StarSon was at the Maze! They could feel him!

The Demons growled and hissed and spat. The StarSon thought to destroy them, but it was he who would be destroyed.

Nothing would stop them now!

At least nothing once the StarSon had been destroyed.

They’d not thought him this powerful, nor this resourceful. From where had he drawn his power? He’d emptied not only Carlon, but the entire land of good feeding, and taken the prey into a cunning hiding place that the Demons could not yet espy.

The StarSon must be destroyed! The StarSon must be destroyed!

He must die…die…die!

It was all they could think of. Kill the StarSon before he discovered too many of the Enemy’s secrets. Kill him, and then
nothing
could ever seize this land from them. For a million years the TimeKeepers had been seeking a haven, a
land they could truly call a home, and this was it. This was home. This was
their
home, and no petty Icarii prince was going to deny them.

And so they rode, desperately, hatefully, and faster and faster until they were only a blur over the landscape. With every stride they drew closer to the Maze, with every stride they drew closer to the Dark Tower, and there lay their salvation, there lay Qeteb’s soul, there lay their destiny.

They were now so close to the Maze—a few leagues, no more—that they could draw power to themselves, power to pull themselves forward, faster, faster, faster…

And all the time the Dark Tower sang to them.

Come to me! Come to me! Come to me!

The dark Demons came.

WolfStar thought this wild demonic ride would kill him. His internal injuries, constantly worsened by successive rapes, were being pounded into a desperate state by the bounding and jouncing of his mount. He was still slung on his belly over the beast’s back, his wrists and ankles tied underneath the beast’s own belly, his wings bouncing and trailing through the air.

Blood dribbled from his mouth, staining both the beast’s flank and the landscape through which they passed.

StarLaughter rode her beast as a maniac. Excitement consumed her to the point where she’d lost all coherent thought. She sat bolt upright, her tattered and filthy gown snapping in the wind of her passing, her hair tangling in her wings behind her, one hand buried in her beast’s mane, the other raised aloft as if in triumph.

A constant thin wail trailed from her open mouth.

StarLaughter was riding home.

The Qeteb-man and the Niah-woman sat their beast passively, although they swayed rhythmically to the surge of its gait. The Qeteb-man’s fingers still groped up and down the body of the woman he held before him, and even though his thick tongue trailed wetly from a corner of his mouth, his eyes were blank and, as yet, purposeless.

The Maze, now inextricably married to the blackened twisted streets and tenements of Carlon, hove into view, and as one the Demons shrieked and screamed, beating their mounts into further efforts until the foam that flew from the snake-headed mouths became thickened with blood.

The Resurrection was nigh.

Nothing would stop them now!

Caelum and DragonStar stood atop Spiredore and watched the dreadful cloud roll closer.

Caelum felt ill, not only at the approaching horror, but also at the destruction about him. Carlon—gone! And the land…the land was a desecration.

He dropped his eyes to the seething mass of animals about the Maze.

“Is there
anything
left?” he asked softly.

DragonStar shook his head. “Tencendor is empty of coherent and cogent life, Caelum. We,” his mouth smiled very slightly, “are the only two left.”

“Qeteb will destroy this land,” Caelum said. “He will murder it!”

“Yes,” DragonStar said. “But you understand why that is necessary?”

Caelum was quiet a long while before he finally nodded. “And after I…after I…”

He could not bring himself to complete the question.

“Then,” DragonStar said, “satisfied the StarSon can no longer irritate their plans for utter hegemony, Qeteb and his companions will rape and destroy this land until nothing remains. Not even hope. They will make for themselves a world fit for their society. Caelum…
do
you understand?”

“Yes.” Caelum looked his brother full in the eye. “They will not do that if they think you are still alive. They need to think you dead.”

Caelum’s face took on an expression of utter despair. “There are no words that can be said at this moment, brother, but so many words that need to be said. I—”

DragonStar took Caelum’s face between his hands and smiled with exquisite loveliness and gentleness. “There are
no
words that need to be said, Caelum.”

Caelum stared into DragonStar’s deep violet eyes, and saw in their depths not only power and surety, but something far, far lovelier.

The rich field of flowers.

“Will I—?” he began, and DragonStar leaned forward and kissed him softly on the mouth.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, you will.”

Caelum gripped DragonStar in a fierce hug, and tears flowed freely down both the brothers’ faces.

“I am glad,” Caelum whispered, “that I have finally known my brother, DragonStar.”

The cloud rolled closer.

“Where must I go?” Caelum asked.

“I will show you.”

The Demons screamed and shrieked and wept in their overweening hysteria. For so long, so very,
very
long they had been riding towards this…

And now it lay before them.

As the Demons rode to within a half-league of the Maze Gate they began to change. All resemblance of human bodies vanished, and they took on shifting, lumpish forms that one moment resembled eels, the next grossly deformed frogs or dogs. Appendages wove forth from all aspects and every shifting plane of their bodies, some tentacle-like with pop-eyes at their extremities, others like grasping many-fingered hands. They barked and howled and slurped, slipping in and out of one grotesque transformation after the other.

WolfStar retched, but StarLaughter whooped and screamed with joy.

Such power! Such revenge!

And soon her son would come into what was rightly his!

Above wheeled a cloud of Hawkchilds, screeching with the Demons. They swept over Spiredore and saw—

The StarSon! The StarSon atop the white, white tower!

What does he do?
Sheol asked of them.

Nothing. He stands, his hands on the parapet, and waits.

Fool! He but waits for his death!

And all the time the Dark Tower wept and wailed and sobbed:
Come! Come! Come!

The Demons swept under the Maze Gate and it did not hinder them.

They swept through the Maze, and neither did its conundrums impede them. Indeed, their way was as an avenue, wide and smooth and kind, leading them directly to the Dark Tower. Behind them swept the vast army of slavish animals and lost souls, finally free to join their master.

The Maze filled with the demonically insane, a great sweeping tide of fury and darkness.

The Demons paid the horde no attention. They were almost out of control. They gibbered and slobbered, scratching deep gouges of joy into their mounts’ necks, and still the black beasts ran, ran straight for the Dark Tower.

The door to the mausoleum swung open, and Demons and mounts and their companions together swept in.

On his tower, Caelum sighed and stepped into the stairwell. “Take me to the Maze Gate,” he requested.

The Demons sat their mounts still and silent.

They stared at the tomb with the black armour spread out atop it.

The Demons had once again regained their humanoid forms. Tears trickled down their faces.

It was very hard to believe that, after all they’d been through, the time and the trouble and the trials, they were finally here.

Silently, reverently, they climbed down from their mounts.

StarLaughter also slid down, and strode over to WolfStar. “Watch,” she murmured as she cut his bonds and pulled him down from his beast into a heap on the black marble floor. “Watch as your son gains his heritage!”

The Demons helped the Niah-woman and the Qeteb-man to dismount. The Niah-woman they took over to the side, out of the way, and indicated that StarLaughter stand with her.

StarLaughter obeyed, dragging WolfStar over at her heels, and smiled cruelly at her husband. “See,” she said, “what will become of our son.”

The Demons grouped reverently about the Qeteb-man and guided him towards the tomb. Once there they patted and fondled him, and then each Demon picked up a piece of the armour and, mumbling strange words in an even stranger tone, laid it against Qeteb’s flesh and tied it to his body.

It fit perfectly—but not because the armour fit Qeteb. Instead, as successive plates were fitted against his body, the Midday Demon’s flesh swelled to horrible proportions to fill every space inside the armour.

The air grew heavy, and WolfStar could not stop a dreadful sense of oppression sweep over him.

StarLaughter, intent on watching her son, let the chain tethered to WolfStar’s collar drift unheeded to the floor.

Slowly, very, very slowly, WolfStar backed away, his fingers fumbling at the loathed collar until it fell to the floor.

He backed into the shadows of the pillars, and wondered: Should I escape? Or attempt some rescue of Niah?

Completely unaware of WolfStar’s slow drift away, one of the Demons fitted another piece of armour to Qeteb’s body, and again flesh swelled to meet metal for a perfect fit.

Now there was only the visor to go.

Sheol lifted it from the tomb, aided by Mot, and raised it over Qeteb’s head.

WolfStar stared from the shadows. Qeteb’s face was transforming into something hideous as the Demons slowly lowered the visor.

Gods! WolfStar could not bear to look any further, and pushed his face against the cold floor.

Silence, and then a faint clunk as the visor was secured into the neck and shoulder fittings of the armour.

Everything left above in the land of Tencendor paused, and then turned in the direction of the Maze.

The forests fell silent, the waves ceased to batter the rocky shoreline of the Icebear coast, the animals crowding the Maze outside the Dark Tower fell to their bellies, the Hawkchilds settled on the top of the Maze’s walls and folded their wings.

Seated atop his white stallion, the StarSon lifted his eyes and wept.

Underneath the stallion’s hooves, the great bridge of Sigholt groaned and fell silent.

A great roar pounded forth from the heart of the Maze.

I am reborn!

Qeteb raised his black-metalled fists and thrust them above his head.

I am reborn!

WolfStar dug his fingers into his ears and screwed his eyes tight shut,
praying
for death!

“I am reborn,” Qeteb whispered in a voice hoarse with disuse, and his visored head slowly turned about the circle of the mausoleum.

It stilled each time as Qeteb locked eyes with each of his companion Demons.

“Where is Rox?” he whispered harshly.

“Great Father,” Sheol said, her eyes downcast lest Qeteb think her presumptuous, “the Enemy laid a trap, and he was destroyed.”

Qeteb growled. The noise was so low it could not be heard, but its vibrations rippled out across the floor. Qeteb’s hands lowered to his sides, and they slowly clenched.

“Then I shall destroy!” he cried, and he flung out his arms and splayed open his hands, bending back so far the face of his visor looked directly into the dome of the mausoleum.

Hate rippled forth over the land of Tencendor.

Caelum, standing outside the Maze Gate, felt it coming, and huddled behind the protective wall of the archway so it fled by without touching him.

The forests felt it coming, and screamed—and the next instant their leaves exploded from them in a great, rising cloud of pain.

Star Finger felt it coming and shuddered, and the next instant it exploded as well and crumbled into the glacier surrounding its eastern and northern walls.

Urbeth and her daughters felt it coming, and buried their noses deep into the snow and it did not touch them.

DragonStar felt it coming, and he gripped the mane of his stallion. “Steady,” he said, and, protected by the bridge, the hate rushed over without harming them.

“Who?” Qeteb demanded, pointing at the two female figures to one side.

WolfStar crouched as close to the floor as he could. Niah was lost now, lost, all his dreams and plans were dust, and the only thought that crowded WolfStar’s head was escape. Escape, and somehow regroup. And Caelum. Somehow…somehow…

As Qeteb walked towards Niah and StarLaughter, WolfStar slithered carefully ever further into the shadows.

Qeteb stopped before the two females. His visored face turned slowly towards StarLaughter. “Who?” the Midday Demon demanded.

“I am your mother!” StarLaughter said, her voice proud. “I have loved you and protected you and nourished you and—”

“Who?” Qeteb said yet again, and raised one mailed fist.

“I am your mother,” StarLaughter repeated, “and you are—”

“I have no mother!” Qeteb screamed abruptly. “I am whole within myself!”

StarLaughter went rigid with shock—and with pure terror. She cast her eyes frantically about, seeking escape, but Qeteb had already forgotten her.

“Who?” he said, indicating Niah.

“Your wife,” Sheol said.

Now secreted in darkness a dozen columns away, WolfStar lowered his head and wept silent tears.

“Wife?” Qeteb said, and stroked Niah’s cheek with surprisingly gentle fingers.