Pilgrim (63 page)

Niah showed no response.

“Wife,” Qeteb said yet again. He paused. “A wife.” A rasp of laughter came from behind the visor. “A wife who neither talks nor thinks?”

He turned back to the other Demons. “She will do
well
!”

The Demons, particularly Sheol, visibly relaxed.

For her part, StarLaughter had regained a little of her equilibrium. He will accept a wife but not a mother? she thought. What kind of son is that?

Qeteb, thinking to explore this wife further, turned back towards Niah when he spotted WolfStar amid the shadows and stopped. “Who—” he began, but a voice drifted in the doorway, interrupting him.

“I am Caelum StarSon,” it said, “and I dare you to butcher
me
, Qeteb!”

“He thinks to destroy us!” Sheol said, moving to stand by Qeteb’s dull metalled shoulder. “In the past few weeks his power has grown to be…irritating. It would be best, perhaps, to remove him now.”

“No-one can best me!” Qeteb roared, WolfStar completely forgotten. “He is no threat!”

“Of course not,” Barzula and Mot said as one.

“But it
would
be best to remove him now,” Barzula added. “He has, as Sheol said, grown to be an irritating nuisance. He has prevented us feeding.”

“He has
hidden
our food!” Sheol said.

“No-one prevents us feeding,” Qeteb whispered, and strode to the door. As he passed close to the column behind which WolfStar hid, the Enchanter risked another glance.

Qeteb’s black armour rippled and moved as skin would, and his wings…his wings had changed completely from golden to black, their feathers now dull metal plates.

The Midday Demon was made entirely of metal. No flesh, no feather—and certainly no mortal weakness—remained.

The Demons hurried after their Great Father, Sheol seizing Niah by an arm as she passed. Best to keep the automaton safe now that Qeteb had approved her.

For an instant, StarLaughter stared after the Demons, then she strode after them. “Think not to abandon me
now
,” she said.

Very carefully, WolfStar raised his head and looked about. Then, grimacing with pain, he inched forwards.

C
aelum strode through the maze. He wore no armour, just a simple linen shirt and dark breeches. His black hair curled back from his brow, his face was composed, although pale.

“I hope to every star in the sky,” he whispered, “that you make what I am about to do worthwhile, brother.”

There was no answer, not in words, but Caelum nevertheless felt DragonStar’s presence, and it comforted him.

As with the Demons’ voyage, the Maze allowed Caelum a direct route towards the Dark Tower. Walls twenty, sometimes thirty, paces high reared on either side of him, sometimes so close his shoulders brushed against them, sometimes so wide it seemed to Caelum as if strode through a stone…field.

Writhing, wriggling symbols covered all the walls. If Caelum had felt the urge to read them he would have found the task impossible, for they moved too fast, but Caelum had no eyes for anything save the journey before him, and no thought but for what had to be done.

The sky was so low and so dense with dark clouds Caelum could not tell the time of day. The atmosphere was thick, humid and almost warm, despite the time of year.

Caelum began to sweat.

Animals, and occasionally those which had once been human, appeared in greater numbers. They eyed Caelum
hungrily, but they hung back, whispering, moaning and growling as he passed.

This prey belonged to their master.

Gradually, as Caelum walked further and further into the Maze, he realised that the animals no longer looked at him, but had turned their eyes towards the centre of the Maze.

Something came.

Despite his resolve, despite having accepted his fate a long time previously, Caelum grew nauseous, his palms damp, his muscles weak and trembly. Had Axis felt this way when he’d gone into Gorgrael’s Ice Fortress? No. No, he hadn’t, because Axis had always been supremely confident. Axis had always known he would
win.

No, this was the way Faraday had felt when
she’d
walked towards the Ice Fortress.

Caelum walked. After a while he came to a circular space. It had only two exits. One through which he’d entered, the other directly across the circle in the opposite wall.

Caelum’s gait faltered, and he stopped.

He knew what would come through the opposite opening.

The Demons, powerful beyond imagining, hungry beyond anything they’d ever experienced previously, and furious beyond compare, rode their mad mounts in a devilish black cloud through the twists and turns of the Maze.

At their head rode Qeteb, his lance secured to his saddle, a massive black sword in his hand, his armoured body drawing in all light about it, his arms flung wide, his head back.

I’m coming for you StarSon!

Die, die, die, he must die, for this StarSon had learned too many secrets of the Enemy. What if he learned enough to deny Qeteb a life again? What if he grew strong enough to deny Qeteb his world?

Die, die he
must
, and when he was dead, this world, this wasteland, would be Qeteb’s forever, and every beetle that crawled its surface would be his forever, and nothing,
nothing,
nothing
would dare breathe or live without Qeteb’s gracious consent.

And under Qeteb’s terms, of course.

Qeteb began to laugh, a howling litany of madness, that streamed out behind him in a maniacal wake, a rippling cloud of malevolence.

It enveloped WolfStar, crawling as fast as his ruined body would allow him, and he curled into a tight ball, crying with despair.

All he’d done, all he’d planned, come to this…to this.

Caelum stood in the centre of the open space and waited. As yet he could hear only distant murmurs, but he could
feel
the Demons’ approach.

It felt like a motionless wind, rushing at him from all directions. Trapping him, binding his arms by his side, stripping him of all hope.

Caelum sobbed, and his entire body sagged, but just before he collapsed on the ground, a vision filled his mind with such loveliness that he gasped, and straightened.

A single white lily in a field of blue.

Caelum blinked tears away. “Thank you,” he whispered, and the next instant he heard a sound in the Maze, and a pool of darkness drained into the space from the opposite opening.

A diabolical apparition emerged from it.

A dark rider, on a dark mount, a great black sword in his hand. Worse, far, far, worse than any of Caelum’s foulest nightmares.

Behind the black rider, his party of hunters, gibbering with delight.

The prey had been sighted.

Caelum held out his arms wide. “I am StarSon Caelum!” he cried, his voice mercifully clear and strong. “Get you gone from this land, Demon!”

And he began to dance.

He danced the worst dance of all those in the Enchanted Song Book, because he knew that this might be his only chance to…impress…the Demon. His arms and legs flailed, his head jerked about on his neck like a puppet in the hands of a convulsing child, his breath wailed in fits and starts from his mouth.

It was the Dance of Death.

Qeteb roared, and prepared to dig his heels into his mount. He recognised the dance for what it was—simply another method by which the Enemy had originally trapped him.

This StarSon must be stopped, before he stopped Qeteb.

But just as Qeteb prepared to ride to deal the jerking human death, he paused, stared…and roared again, but in laughter this time.

This was a parody of power, a parody of the Dance of Death.

The man had access only to a shadow of power—the dance was useless…save for the amusement it afforded Qeteb. His laughter became consuming, and soon the entire Maze was laughing: every Demon, every animal, every scrap of existence it contained, save for Caelum consumed in his dance, WolfStar, who had now resumed his painful crawl towards the Demons, and Niah and StarLaughter, waiting forgotten near the Dark Tower.

Caelum faltered to a halt, hearing the laughter ringing through him even as he struggled to draw breath. He’d done everything he could, every step, every movement had been correct. And yet nothing.

Save for the laughter.

Caelum stood with his hands on his knees, jerking in his breath, staring at the horror waiting across the space, and wondered if death in truth would be as painful and as humiliating as death in dream.

Qeteb finally dug his heels into his mount and raised his sword. “To the hunt!” he roared. “
The hunt!
”

Caelum turned and ran.

It was as terrifying as his dreams. Always Qeteb and his hunting party thundered a bare ten paces behind him, whichever way he twisted, whatever turn he took. The Maze closed in about him, trapping him in a labyrinth of hopelessness.

Above the Hawkchilds dipped and soared, screeching and wailing and giggling, driving him ever forward, ever forward, making sure the quarry gave the Huntmaster a good run for his entertainment. Sometimes they swooped so low their wings beat about his head, and Caelum fell to the ground, screaming in terror, his arms wrapped about his face.

Then he’d struggle to his feet again as he felt the approaching hunt through the trembling ground, and he’d falter forward, his breath rasping through his throat.

And always the hot breath of the hunters behind him.

Once, when he faltered, Qeteb rode close enough that he could prick Caelum in the buttocks with the tip of his sword, and Caelum screamed and darted forward, and Qeteb laughed, and held back the hunt for a few minutes.

“Let him think he has evaded us,” he whispered.

But Caelum knew he would never evade the hunt. They would catch him, as they had always done, and he would die with the tip of the sword or lance, or whatever it was Qeteb chose to drive into him, slicing through breast and lung and heart until he died with his life bubbling out through his mouth, and Qeteb leaning down harder and harder on the blade until Caelum felt his spine splinter and shatter and…

…would death ever come?

Or would Qeteb keep him eternally on the point of his sword? Would he spend eternity itself impaled, screaming for merciful oblivion?

Caelum began to cry. Is this how RiverStar had felt? Had death been an eternity for her as well?

He stumbled about another twist in the Maze, and fell over. For a heartbeat he lay there, then he scrambled to his
feet again, his hands and face bleeding where he’d scraped them against the rough stone of the Maze, and floundered forward.

“I’m sorry, RiverStar,” he muttered between gasps for air. “Forgive me…”

And everything about him changed.

The Maze vanished, and in its place Caelum found himself running through a field of flowers.

His strength returned, and he ran freely, joyfully, through this most wondrous of fields. The sun was warm overhead, the scent almost, but not quite, overwhelming, the colours exquisite, the grass and leaves green and damp with freshness.

Behind Caelum, Qeteb grew tired of the chase. He hungered for the pain and horror he would see reflected on the StarSon’s face when he drove his sword through his chest. He would
feed
from the pain and the horror!

Qeteb screamed, and drove his mount forward.

Caelum slowed to a walk the better to savour the sights and scents. He smiled gently, oblivious to everything but the beauty surrounding him.

WolfStar could crawl no more. He was trapped within the magic of the Maze, and he had no idea where it had taken him. He propped himself up against a wall, holding his belly with one hand, dragging air into his lungs.

Suddenly Caelum walked about the corner and came directly towards him.

He had a beatific smile on his face.

“Caelum StarSon!” Qeteb screamed, and stood in his stirrups and raised his sword.

Caelum, now directly before WolfStar, turned and stared at the horror approaching.

“Caelum?”

Caelum turned and stared.

RiverStar stood there…but not the RiverStar he remembered. Her features and loveliness were the same, but her expression was tempered by understanding and gentleness.

“Oh, how I love you,” he said.

Caelum turned and stared at the rearing, plunging creature above him, and at the Demon screaming on its back.

“Oh, how I love you,” he said.

“No!” Qeteb shrieked, driven beyond the realms of anger, not only by Caelum’s words, but by the serene expression on his face.

The Demon drove down his sword.

RiverStar smiled and held out a flower.

A lily.

“For you,” she said.

“I thank you,” Caelum said, and reached out a hand and took the flower.

WolfStar could not believe it. As the sword plunged downwards, Caelum held out his hand and seized the blade.

It made not a whit of difference.

The sword sliced through Caelum’s hand and plunged into his chest, driving Caelum back against WolfStar, who grunted with shock and shifted slightly to one side so the blade would not impale him as well.

Qeteb leaned his entire weight down on the sword, twisting it as deep as he could go, feeling bone and muscle and cartilage tear and rip, seeing the bright blood bubble from the StarSon’s mouth.

And still the man smiled.

“Welcome,” RiverStar said, “into the field of flowers.”

And she leaned forward and kissed him.

“Here,” Caelum said, “shall we finally be husband and wife.”

She smiled anew, tears glistening in her eyes, and he took her hand, and they walked deeper into the field of flowers.

WolfStar screamed and screamed, unable to believe the horror that Qeteb visited on Caelum’s corpse. Again and again the Demon drove his sword into Caelum, time and time again, until all that was left of Caelum was a mass of redmangled flesh that was barely recognisable.

And still, somehow, unbelievably, his smile and utter serenity continued to shine through.

Qeteb did not even seem to understand that WolfStar was present. All he wanted to do was wipe that smile from Caelum’s face, because that smile was what truly hurt, that smile was what cut deeply into him, that smile was what needed to be destroyed before all else.

Finally, Qeteb leaped down from his mount and crushed what remained of Caelum’s head between his mailed hands, crushed it until all resemblance to a head had gone, crushed it until bone and blood and brain and teeth enmeshed into one shapeless mess.

The smile had finally gone.

Qeteb stopped, stared—still not seeming to realise WolfStar’s presence—and then turned back to the crowd of watching Demons and screamed.

“
Tencendor is mine! I shall consume it!
”

Tencendor died. Rivers dried up, fields crumbled into dust, mountains cracked into jagged, sterile peaks.

The forests were raped and then murdered as they screamed their defiance. Roots were torn from the ground, trunks snapped, leaves were flayed from branches, and entire trees were flung about the landscape as a windstorm throws dried tumbleweeds.

The groves and glades of the Avarinheim and Minstrelsea were exposed first to a hot red sun, a ball of fire, and then to a gale of pure maliciousness.

All magic died.

Everything.

All creatures that had somehow escaped both the Demons’ attentions to this point, or the emptying of Tencendor by DragonStar’s witches, succumbed to madness.

Every one.

Tencendor, haven of enchantment and of mystery for ten thousand generations, died in a single instant.

Gone.

WolfStar gathered what remained of Caelum’s corpse into his arms and wept, caring not if the Demon turned and drove his sword into him as well.

A single object remained in the smoking wasteland that had once been spreading forest.

The enchanted wooden bowl that the silver-backed Horned One had once given Faraday as a means to access the Sacred Groves. It had lain forgotten for forty years after Faraday had completed the planting of the forests. She’d witnessed the rush of the fey creatures into the trees, and had then unharnessed the white donkeys to let them run free. Crippled by her labour pains, Faraday then entered the Sacred Groves to bear Isfrael.