Crusader

by Sara Douglass

  “Who are you?” said WolfStar, wondering if he was going to spend the rest of his life asking: Who?

  “Who are you?” said the one flesh-solid Icarii among them.

  WolfStar rolled slightly so he could stare the birdman in the face. “I am WolfStar SunSoar and I demand you take me to the StarSon.”

  The birdman laughed, and, raising his eyes to a spot somewhere behind WolfStar, said, “I think he comes to greet you, renegade.”

  And WolfStar rolled over, groaning, and stared to the east.

  A man and a white horse had emerged from a canyon, and the horse’s mane and tail dripped with stars.

  “Gods,” WolfStar whispered as he finally recognised the man’s face.

  “Well met, WolfStar,” DragonStar said, and grinned. “I should have known that you would somehow survive the Demons’ attentions.”

  WolfStar could barely manage to keep his face bland as the man dismounted from his horse and walked towards him. Drago? The StarSon? And, ye gods, feel the power that radiated from him!

  “And I should have known,” WolfStar responded softly, “that you’d always find a way to realise your ambition, Drago.”

  “DragonStar,” he corrected, and squatted by WolfStar’s side, running a gentle hand over the Enchanter’s body. “You are hurt. Badly.”

  “I have been out and about,” WolfStar said, “while others donned pretty clothes.” He flicked his eyes over DareWing and the members of the Strike Force that had gathered around.

  DragonStar’s face tightened, but he did not respond to WolfStar’s taunt. “Whose blood is this?”

  “Caelum’s.”

  DragonStar rocked back on his heels in surprise. “Caelum’s? You were there when Qeteb—”

  “Killed him? Yes. The fool boy, he walked straight onto the tip of the Demon’s sword. Had you enchanted him into stupidity, Drago? Or was it a natural fault…Caelum ever had a sackful of those.”

  DragonStar reached out and buried his fingers in WolfStar’s hair, and the birdman winced in pain. Was everyone going to haul him about Tencendor by the roots of his hair?

  “Caelum died a hero’s death!” DragonStar said.

  “How can you be sure of that?” WolfStar snapped. “Were you watching?”

  “What happened?”

  WolfStar chose not to respond.

  DragonStar gave the Enchanter’s head a wrench. “What happened?”

  WolfStar growled, and grabbed at DragonStar’s hand with both of his own.

  DragonStar’s grip did not loosen, and WolfStar could not pry him free.

  “What happened?” DragonStar gave WolfStar’s head such a twist that all present could hear the bones in the birdman’s neck crack.

  “Caelum walked into the portion of the Maze where I lay,” WolfStar ground out, hate and resentment for DragonStar filling every nuance of his voice, “as if he were walking into a picnic ground. He had a stupid, vacant smile on his face.”

  He was already walking through the Field of Flowers, thought DragonStar, and the smile he had on his face must have been beauteous, not stupid. “And then?”

  “Then Qeteb rode his black nightmare up behind Caelum, and Caelum turned.”

  “And?”

  “And Qeteb ran his sword through Caelum—Gods! The boy reached out and grabbed the blade as it sliced into him!”

  DragonStar stared at WolfStar. There was something else…something that WolfStar was not deliberately holding back but thought so unimportant as not worth the relation.

  “And what else?” DragonStar said, his tone compelling.

  WolfStar sighed and rolled his eyes dramatically. “Caelum said something to the Demon that drove him crazy.”

  “What?”

  “He said, ‘Oh, how I do love you’.”

  DragonStar still stared at WolfStar, but his eyes were far, far away. Caelum must have turned in the Field of Flowers and seen RiverStar. He had spoken to her, not Qeteb.

  But what he’d said had driven the Demon…“crazy”?

  DragonStar refocussed his eyes on WolfStar. “I apologise for what I am about to do to you,” he said, “but methinks you have used it on many a soul before now.”

  And DragonStar forced the memory of Caelum’s death up from WolfStar’s subconscious into the full light of consciousness.

  Caelum, turning, smiling, holding out his hand. “Oh, how I do love you.”

  And Qeteb going crazy with…what? Hate?

  Or…fear?

  “For thousands of years you have roamed about doing nothing but mischief in the name of ultimate good,” DragonStar said, “but finally I think you may have done this land a service. Come on, stand up.”

  DragonStar got to his feet, and—once again—WolfStar found himself being hauled upwards by his hair.

  He shouted with rage and squirmed about, but DragonStar’s grip did not loosen.

  DragonStar turned to DareWing. He was annoyed with the birdman for leaving the Field of Flowers, but for the moment that annoyance could wait. “None of the Demons are about, and I think this place safe enough for the time being. Watch Belaguez and the Alaunt for me, will you? I think I know just the place for WolfStar…if it can bear the shock.”

  And, so saying, DragonStar unsheathed the lily sword, drew his rectangle of light, and stepped through Spiredore as quickly as he could into Sanctuary, dragging WolfStar with him.

  Chapter 16

  Fischer

  DragonStar moved briskly through Spiredore—gods alone knew how dangerous it was getting now—while dragging WolfStar behind him. The birdman was muttering something incoherently about StarLaughter and the tower and his hair, but DragonStar paid him no heed.

  His mind was full of jumbled thoughts and images, and they were all to do with Caelum’s smiling, love-filled face, and the mystery of the Enchanted Song Book, which, somewhat unbelievably, for he had not been aware of it for some time, DragonStar still clutched under his free arm.

  Suddenly they were tumbling through the doorway of light onto the approach to Sanctuary, and DragonStar briefly wondered how he’d managed it with his hands full of the Song Book and WolfStar.

  “Where are we?” WolfStar gasped, rubbing his head as DragonStar finally let him go.

  “Somewhere I imagine you thought you’d never see,” DragonStar said. “Somewhere safe. Sanctuary.”

  “What?”

  DragonStar did not answer. An Icarii birdwoman was spiralling above them in the sky, and DragonStar beckoned her down.

  “This is WolfStar SunSoar,” he said, and the birdwoman paled. “He is injured. Can you arrange that he be taken where his injuries can be healed? But, ware! Do not trust him.”

  She shook her head violently.

  “I ask also that Axis and Azhure supervise his care,” DragonStar said.

  The birdwoman nodded soberly and rose back in the air. DragonStar waited impatiently—refusing to respond to any of WolfStar’s taunts or answer any of his questions—until he could see Axis and a group of four or five men draw near with a stretcher. He nodded to the group and smiled to his father, then he stepped back into Spiredore without further ado, the Song Book still in his grasp.

  DragonStar had someone he needed to talk to.

  Someone who could confirm what DragonStar had finally realised was probably the true purpose of the Enchanted Song Book.

  The bridge at Sigholt was in mourning. Her sister was gone—a necessary precaution—but the bridge still missed her.

  She was immensely grateful when she felt DragonStar’s feet upon her back.

  “StarSon! You have come home!”

  “Only briefly, bridge. I admit myself glad you still stand.”

  “I can resist the Demons a while longer, StarSon.”

  He nodded, looking about. Sigholt was still standing, but it looked wan, as if its life was draining away.

  “None of us will last for much longer,” the bridge said, sadly.

  DragonStar’s attention re-sharpen
ed on the bridge. “None of you? What about Spiredore?”

  “She also will die,” the bridge said. “The Enemy’s heritage has passed into you, StarSon, and none of us have much purpose left.”

  Spiredore would die? But what would that mean? He’d be trapped either in Sanctuary, or in the wasteland.

  And either would be fatal, both to him and to his witches, and, eventually, to Tencendor.

  “Do you feel strong enough for a last request, bridge?”

  “A conversation?” she said hopefully.

  DragonStar smiled, but it was sad. “Yes…but not with you, bridge. I would like to speak to the trap you harbour within you.”

  “That effort will kill me,” she said, and DragonStar felt tears spring to his eyes.

  “I know,” he said.

  The bridge hesitated. “I will do it for you. StarSon?”

  “Yes?”

  “Win for us.”

  “I will,” he whispered. “Bridge…bridge, know that you go with the love of many.”

  She did not speak, but he could feel her emotion shuddering through her, and he stepped onto the roadway that led into HoldHard Pass.

  “Goodbye,” she said…and transformed.

  Not into her arachnoid form, but into the shape of an archway constructed of pale, unmortared blocks of stone.

  Goodbye bridge…

  The archway formed over the moat between the road and Sigholt, its lip touching the ground several paces away from DragonStar.

  A man walked out of the arch.

  He was white-haired and emaciated, and his entire form trembled as he walked. His face was deeply lined, his eyes faded and tired.

  “Who are you?” he said, stopping a pace before DragonStar.

  “My name is DragonStar SunSoar,” he said, “and I am the result of your mistakes.”

  The old man cackled with laughter. “DragonStar? What kind of a name is that?”

  He peered about him. “Where are we? Topside again?”

  DragonStar wondered if the old man still thought he was on his home world. “What is your name?”

  “Me? Oh, my name is Fischer. Where am I?”

  DragonStar stared at him. He’d talked to the bridge about the moment when this man—a vastly younger version, apparently—had appeared and taunted Rox and the other Demons. Then the man had been full of confidence and knowledge. Now?

  Ah, but that man was only a phantasm of the trap. The bridge had sent him the original. No wonder the effort had killed her.

  “You are in the remains of a land called Tencendor,” DragonStar said, “where the craft from your world crashed tens of thousands of years ago.”

  Fischer looked sharply at him. “Ah, and the Demons have followed?”

  “Look about you.”

  “Aye,” Fischer said, and grimaced. “Aye, they followed. Have you summoned me to blame me?”

  “No. I need to ask you a question.”

  “Ah! I’d rather that you blamed me! I am sick of questions…what to do? When to do it? How? How? How? It took us forty years of questions before we came anywhere close to a single answer, and even then we only patched up the problem, we did not solve it. What is your question?”

  “You reflected the Demon’s hatred back at him, thus trapping him.”

  “Yes. Is that your question?”

  “No. It trapped him, and it dismembered him, but it did not kill him. Why not?”

  Fischer looked at the man carefully. He was pretty enough, and had a strange charismatic appeal, but Fischer did not know if he would be strong enough to do what was necessary. If he was merely told, then he would never get the strength. If he discovered it for himself, then he just might have a hope.

  “I cannot answer the question,” Fischer said, “but I have a piece of advice. Evil cannot be destroyed, it merely festers.”

  “Why can’t you answer the question?”

  “I cannot teach you what is right or wrong. In this battle the answers must come from your spirit. You must learn what will work against the Demons.” Fischer looked at him steadily. “You must learn from our mistakes.”

  DragonStar stared, and then relaxed. “Thank you, Fischer.”

  Fischer grinned, and nodded his head. “My pleasure, m’boy. Finish it for us, I beg you. Our world was destroyed. I hope yours will be reborn.”

  DragonStar started to say something, but jerked in surprise as a stone fell from the archway and thudded into the ground behind Fischer.

  Fischer likewise jumped, then scurried back under the arch as another, and then another, stone fell.

  “Finish it this time,” he whispered, and then the entire arch caved in, and the last DragonStar saw of Fischer was the man’s arms raised in a hopeless attempt to protect himself against the falling masonry.

  There was a rumble, and the archway collapsed into the moat.

  Finish it for us.

  DragonStar stood there a long time, staring into the moat and the pile of rubble he could dimly see in its depths.

  Then he pulled the Song Book out from under his arm and leafed slowly through it.

  The Enchanted Song Book did not tell him how to destroy the Demons at all. It was literally a list of the Enemy’s previous mistakes.

  What the Enchanted Song Book told him was what not to do.

  DragonStar hesitated, then, with a quick twist of his wrist, tossed the Song Book into the moat.

  It flared briefly as it fell, its pages rippling and cracking in the wind of its passing, then it vanished.

  DragonStar smiled sadly, then let it fade. He did not have much time, and he had much strength to gain before he could put this knowledge to use.

  Chapter 17

  Escape from Sanctuary

  Isfrael was impatient to make his deal with the Demons. Then he would escape with the Avar to the Sacred Groves, and leave the Acharites and Icarii to their fate.

  But he had one small problem. Getting out of Sanctuary.

  DragonStar could do it, wielding Enemy Acharite magic to do so, but Isfrael could not. This place was crafted of Enemy enchantment, and only those of Acharite blood—and who had reawoken into their powers—could use it. Isfrael had Acharite blood aplenty from his parents, Axis and Faraday, but he’d not been through the process of death that was needed to be able to make use of the power, and Isfrael had no intention of dying for his ambitions.

  No, there had to be some other way to get out.

  He sat under a great spreading whalebone tree in the heart of the forest that Sanctuary had created in order to make the Avar feel at home. Isfrael did not appreciate Sanctuary’s efforts at all. The entire forest seemed false: it did not sing, and it did not vibrate with power.

  And the Avar watched him out of the corner of their eyes…almost as if they were keeping an eye on him, by the Horned Ones, rather than waiting for his will!

  Although the Avar people tolerated Isfrael among them, the Avar Banes avoided him completely, and that made Isfrael more furious than anything else. He knew the Banes talked with Faraday, although they took pains to do so in private.

  The Banes—perhaps all Avar—are keeping secrets from me, thought Isfrael, and the wild blond curls on his forehead tightened into even crisper, angrier knots, and his horns twinkled, as if they sharpened themselves on his thoughts.

  His fingers dug into the soft earth at his side.

  How could he get out of here?

  Isfrael remembered how DragonStar drew the doorway of light to move to and from Sanctuary—through Spiredore, Isfrael thought—and he lusted for a doorway for himself.

  He almost laughed. DragonStar was hardly likely to give him the doorway, was he? And Isfrael did not like his chances of trying to wrest it off the man: he’d likely set his pet lizard (another of Minstrelsea’s creatures that had betrayed Isfrael) or one of his hounds to his destruction.

  There had to be some other way.

  And then Isfrael stilled as memory came to his aid.

  Farada
y had used the doorway to evacuate the Avar from the forests into Sanctuary!

  The same doorway, or a different one?

  Isfrael could hardly breathe for excitement. DragonStar and his “witches” (Isfrael would have laughed had he not been so preoccupied) had had only a relatively few days to evacuate all of Tencendor. If Faraday had been given a doorway with which to work, then had the others?

  Probably…probably…

  And of the others, Leagh was the most trusting…and the most vulnerable.

  Isfrael smiled.

  Zared laughed at something Theod had just said, but there was a hard edge to his merriment. Here he sat with Theod and Herme in this marbled palace in Sanctuary, drinking the finest of wines and nibbling on the most delectable of fruits, and yet above their heads Tencendor lay wasted with horror.

  And Leagh, as also Gwendylyr, were going to have to go out there and do personal battle with the Demons in order to retrieve it.

  Zared did not like it at all, and neither did Theod. Herme hardly said a word, feeling both guilty and relieved that his wife didn’t have to face a Demon.

  The three men sat with Leagh and Gwendylyr in a square chamber that opened out onto a balcony. Scents of wildflowers and grasses wafted in.

  It should have been peaceful, but Zared was left itching with the need to do something. He and Theod had kept themselves as busy as they could, making sure the Acharites were settled, reconstituting what councils they could, trying to keep people busy, but it was a sham business.

  All Zared wanted to do was get on a horse and lead an army somewhere…or, at the very least, be given the chance to build a permanent home for his people somewhere. He hated being trapped in this boring prettiness.

  Gwendylyr leaned forward and threw her set of gaming sticks onto the ghemt board, then clapped her hands in delight. She was winning, and loving it.

  Herme chuckled and reached for some more wine, while Theod rolled his eyes in mock despair at Zared, and conceded his squares on the board to his wife. “And with that, my love, you have won the entire board!”

  Gwendylyr grinned, and gathered up everyone’s gaming sticks. “Another game?”