Crusader

by Sara Douglass

  “Skraelings,” Urbeth said. “Yes. It is also very close to Tencendor, and the way south is relatively unrestricted now the forests have gone.”

  Behind her, Ur moaned, and hugged her pot tighter.

  “But the biggest positive is the Skraelings,” Urbeth finished.

  “Why?” Axis said.

  “Because I think we can come to some arrangement with them,” Urbeth said, and Ur cackled with laughter.

  “One that might not be entirely to their liking,” she said, and then Urbeth and her daughters, and Katie also, who still sat with Ur, were laughing as if the entire future were clear of Demons and shadows alike.

  Chapter 34

  WolfStar Feels Better

  Urbeth said the tundra, and so the tundra, Axis supposed, it had to be. As for the Skraelings, Urbeth (and Ur, whom Axis privately thought was more than slightly senile) remained silent on that point, and said that it would be easier to show than explain.

  Skraelings. Stars! Axis thought he had seen the last of them when Azhure and the eastern forests had destroyed Gorgrael’s Skraeling army in Gorken Pass. But they’d all forgotten that the Skraelings came from the far north-eastern frozen tundra, and Axis supposed that a breeding population would have survived there even after the debacle of Gorken Pass.

  Now they’d had forty-odd years to breed back to pre-Gorgrael numbers. Axis shuddered, remembering the nests that he and Azhure had discovered under the ruins of Hsingard. A breeding pair could lay hundreds of eggs per year. No doubt the northern tundra was now riddled with Skraelings.

  And now they didn’t even have the Alaunt, or the Wolven, let alone their magic.

  What Axis wouldn’t give for just one of Azhure’s Moonwildflowers drifting down from the night skies!

  He shook himself out of his memories and his regrets. There was far too much to do without wasting time in fears, as warranted as they were.

  Urbeth had told him that the populations of Sanctuary, in escaping to the frozen tundra, would not need to survive very long before they would have a permanent shelter arranged.

  “What kind of shelter?” Axis had asked, and Urbeth—back in her ursine form by this stage—had grinned and slouched off.

  And what was “not very long”?

  Axis sighed again, and turned back to his task.

  Himself, Zared, Theod, Herme, WingRidge and Gustus, Zared’s lieutenant, were deep within Sanctuary’s main stores complex. Until an hour ago they had not known where this complex existed, but when Axis voiced a wish to see what stores Sanctuary contained, a corridor and a flight of stairs leading down into a series of massive stone-vaulted chambers appeared.

  And these chambers were packed with stores. Food, clothing, blankets, medical supplies. All was here…except

  “What would be more than useful,” Zared said to Axis as they began the tiring task of inventory (which, if truth be told, Axis had delegated to the Lake Guard, but someone had to supervise the procedure), “is a few hundred carts with which to transport them.”

  And precisely at that moment, FeatherGrip, a Lake Guardsman, shouted from twenty-odd paces away: “StarMan! There’s a series of chambers here filled with carts!”

  Axis glanced at Zared and Theod, grinned, and added, “Equipped with sleigh runners for their easier movement across the snow and ice would be nice.”

  “And they’ve got sleigh runners fitted over their wheels as well!” came FeatherGrip’s voice.

  “Anything else we need?” Axis said quietly. “I do not think that Sanctuary will deny us a single quilt, if we ask it.”

  “I’ll make a list,” Theod said, “once WingRidge can tell me the precise numbers we’ve got in Sanctuary.”

  “Don’t forget to put millipede food down,” Zared said, grinning. “As well as starling fodder, seal snacks, and Bogle Marsh creature dinners.”

  Theod rolled his eyes, and walked away.

  Zared’s grin faded. “How long do we have? The logistics of the situation, the help of Sanctuary notwithstanding, are beyond a nightmare.”

  Axis stared into the distance of the underground vaults. “I have no idea, Zared. It could be two hours, it could be two weeks.”

  Pray gods that it’s the latter, Zared thought, for we would never save more than ten percent of the peoples and creatures in Sanctuary if we only have two hours.

  Roxiah, still naked, and delighting in that nakedness, stood before Sigholt—legs apart, arms wide, head thrown back and eyes closed.

  Inside its body, the Rox foetus was exploring the Enemy’s power contained within Niah’s flesh. So many thousands of years—so many tens of thousands of years!—had the Enemy denied them, and toyed with them, and made them scamper across half the universe, and now the Enemy’s power was theirs!

  Or mine alone, if I work this well, thought the infant Rox deep inside its developing brain cells, but, like most foetuses, it was patient, and was content that it should, for the moment, work its master’s will.

  And so it was doing: Roxiah was employing the Enemy’s power to destroy Sigholt, stone by stone.

  For thousands of years Sigholt had stood, a bastion of magic by its magical lake. It had laughed with its companion bridge, frowned at the mistakes of the Icarii and human alike who had lived within it, overseen the conception of Axis StarMan atop its roof (ah! the day that StarDrifter had spiralled down from the skies to seduce Rivkah!), witnessed the birth of Caelum, and tended—as much as it was able—the growing SunSoar brood.

  Now, Sigholt was dying.

  Noisily.

  Sigholt did not so much scream in its dying, as it wailed. Its wails crept up and down the scale, a dirge to mourn its own passing, as well a melancholy lullaby to croon Tencendor through its prolonged dying.

  Sigholt’s incessant wailing was annoying the Demons hugely.

  Qeteb, as did Sheol, Raspu, Mot and Barzula, strode up and down behind Roxiah, screaming abuse at Sigholt, shaking fists and exposing various bits of their anatomy as their anger took them. As each stone tumbled down, and Sigholt’s wailing continued, the Demons grew more irked, their curses more foul, their exposings more puerile.

  Why couldn’t the cursed thing just collapse!

  Finally, after hours of wailing, Sigholt obliged them. It had resisted Roxiah’s destruction to a point where it just gave up: it was too tired, it had seen too much in its long life, and resisting Roxiah’s power was, in the end, futile.

  Besides, Sigholt knew that something better awaited. The Field of Flowers.

  So it decided to just collapse. Implode. Create a mess.

  The roar of collapsing masonry enveloped the Demons an instant after the dust and shrapnel of Sigholt’s self-destruction struck them.

  In a heartbeat the Demons’ curses turned to gut-wrenching coughing as they struggled as far away from the rubble as they could.

  Behind them, the rubble sighed, and passed on.

  Qeteb finally managed to get his breath, and spit out all the black grime that had found its way down into his throat and lungs, and pick out the shards of rock from his anatomy.

  “Spiredore!” he said. “Spiredore is next! Destroy the means of movement for the StarSon and his ineffectual helpers and for those cowering ants in Sanctuary, and we have them!”

  “And after Spiredore?” Sheol said, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.

  Qeteb glanced at her distastefully. “Then? Then Sanctuary. We will be there by the morning.”

  Sheol smiled.

  StarDrifter threw open the door to WolfStar’s chamber—the single Lake Guardsman on duty outside had been no match for StarDrifter’s fury—and confronted the Enchanter.

  WolfStar was alone in his sick chamber, sitting on the edge of his bed, holding his chest carefully with one arm as he coughed into a snowy cloth.

  He looked at the cloth carefully—good, no blood—before he looked up.

  “Well, well,” he said softly. “If it isn’t StarDrifter come to offer me his good wishes for my
recovery—”

  He got no further, for StarDrifter had crossed the room in five strides and hit WolfStar as hard as he could.

  WolfStar fell back across the bed, but made no move to either rise or strike StarDrifter himself.

  “Did that make you feel better?” he said, his tone still soft, although more than sarcastic. “If you like, I could recommend you for a place in the Strike Force…such aggression should not go unused.”

  “You piece of filth!” StarDrifter said, standing several paces away. His fists were clenched, although he held his arms rigid by his sides.

  WolfStar raised an eyebrow. “What have I done now?”

  Although StarDrifter had come to this chamber to accuse WolfStar of tampering with Zenith’s already damaged soul, all he could think of were the past three thousand years in which WolfStar had manipulated and controlled, sending tens of thousands to their death along the way, and all the time justifying his every crime and sin as necessary for the achievement of the final end.

  “What have you done?” StarDrifter whispered. “What have you done? Oh Stars! Don’t get me started!”

  “Zenith knows her own mind,” WolfStar said, not in the mood for indirect conversations.

  “Zenith knows her own mind?” StarDrifter began.

  “Oh for the gods’ sakes, man, stop repeating everything I say!”

  StarDrifter stepped forward a pace. “Then let me say this! Were you the one who helped save her when Niah—with your encouragement!—tried to destroy her? What of my efforts, and Faraday’s, in pulling her through the shadow-lands until she could reclaim her own body?”

  “You meddlesome idiot. Perhaps it had been better that Niah had succeeded, for then she wouldn’t be in the Demons’ grasp!”

  “Oh no, don’t think to justify your own failures by blaming either me or Zenith—”

  “I wasn’t blaming Zenith,” WolfStar put in quietly. He rose slowly from his bed, one hand still gripping his ribs.

  “—when it was you who has done so much damage. You who put Niah into the Demons’ hands. You who—”

  “Oh, shut up! What in Stars’ sake did you come down here to say? Just say it and leave me in peace!”

  “Keep your bloodstained hands off Zenith.”

  WolfStar gave a nasty smile. “I have hardly laid a single ‘bloodstained’ finger on Zenith, let alone an entire hand.”

  “Leave Zenith alone.”

  “Why? Do you think her yours?”

  “Leave her alone.”

  WolfStar brushed past StarDrifter and poured himself a glass of wine from the jug on the table. “Would you like some wine, StarDrifter?”

  “Leave Zenith alone!”

  “Zenith is revolted by the idea of your bloodless hands touching her, and she is certainly unable to placidly contemplate the act of love with you, fool! Let Zenith make up her own mind about who she wants, and how she wants them.”

  “She loves me!”

  WolfStar’s mouth curled. “But she cannot stand your touch. A poor kind of love, wouldn’t you say?”

  StarDrifter stared, knowing he was coming off the worst in this exchange, but needing to not only let off some of his raging emotions, but also to somehow make this fiend realise that he should leave Zenith alone.

  “You have raped and abused her,” he said, making his voice as calm and as even as he could. “You have willingly conspired with another for the death of her spirit, her soul. Isn’t there even a scrap of guilt in you?”

  “No.”

  StarDrifter closed his eyes, refusing to believe he’d lost Zenith.

  “Have you slept with her?”

  WolfStar grinned. “Oh yes, but that was many months ago. Don’t you remember? It was under the warmth of the moon—”

  “I mean recently! Since you’ve been in Sanctuary!”

  “No. I have held her hand.” WolfStar shifted slightly, standing more erect, letting the light of the lamp play over his body. “But I think it is time to correct that. I am feeling so much better.”

  StarDrifter stared at him, then turned and stalked out of the room.

  The door crashed shut behind him.

  WolfStar’s grin broadened, and he drained his glass of wine.

  Chapter 35

  Dispersal

  “We have almost no time,” DragonStar said to his five witches grouped about him. They were alone in the basement chamber of Star Finger, save for the pack of Alaunt, the lizard among them, huddled in an indistinguishable pile of pale fur against a far wall. StarLaughter was wandering some of the still-intact apartment complexes on a higher level—no doubt searching for the right shade of colour to drive WolfStar mad with lust, DragonStar thought dryly—and the Strike Force were sheltering amid the tumbled rocks on the surface. They would all have to move. Soon. And very, very fast.

  “And so—” Faraday began.

  “And so you must listen to me, and listen well,” DragonStar said, matching Faraday’s stare.

  She dropped her eyes.

  “All of you must meet one of the Demons,” DragonStar said. “This you know. But which ones? DareWing and Goldman, your task will be the easiest, for you will eventually work as a team rather than individually. You will meet Barzula and Mot; which of you meets which one, I care not.”

  “Why together, and where?” DareWing said.

  DragonStar hesitated briefly before replying, again wondering how much he should tell his five.

  “I thought it was happenchance that I created five of you,” DragonStar said, “but now I realise it to be the Star Dance’s design. There are five Demons, not counting Qeteb whom I must meet, and there are five of you.

  “As there were five Sentinels.”

  The others looked among themselves, their faces reflecting varying degrees of shock. None of them had realised the connection.

  “In this game I do not believe in coincidence,” DragonStar said, watching them carefully, “and I will not ignore the signs posted along our torturous route. DareWing and Goldman, despite your different temperaments, you work well together, and you will make a team—”

  “Ogden and Veremund,” Faraday said softly. “Cauldron Lake.”

  “Yes—” DragonStar began, but was interrupted by Goldman.

  “Are you trying to say that DareWing and I are Ogden and Veremund?”

  “No. The Sentinels still exist, but are far distant, drifting among the stars. What you are is simply another aspect of the Enemy’s plan that the Sentinels once represented.”

  “And I…I represent Yr,” Faraday said, her eyes far distant.

  DragonStar smiled at her, and she did not look away, or frown. “Yes. At Grail Lake.”

  Now she shuddered, and averted her eyes. “The Maze.”

  “I am sorry, “ DragonStar said. “But at least I will meet up with you there.”

  “You will meet Qeteb in the Maze?”

  DragonStar nodded. “The final hunt must be conducted within the Maze.”

  “And which Demon must I meet?” Faraday asked.

  “Sheol. Despair.”

  Faraday’s eyes widened. She, who always despaired of her own future, must confront despair?

  DragonStar held her eyes, and eventually Faraday nodded. “Very well, I will meet Sheol at Grail Lake.” Mother, how would she manage this task!

  And at the Maze, she would also be close to Qeteb, for Qeteb would surely gravitate there in order to meet DragonStar.

  Close to Qeteb. Close enough to be snatched.

  Faraday shuddered again, and lowered her face into her hands.

  DragonStar pitied her, but could not comfort her now. Time was too short, too precious.

  “And I?” Leagh asked.

  “You,” DragonStar smiled, a beautiful, loving gesture, “carry life within you. You are life, and so your place will be Fernbrake Lake, the Mother of all Life. You represent Jack, for you share the same strength and determination. At Fernbrake you will meet the Rox-Niah.”

&nbs
p; “Why?” Leagh’s face showed no fear, no denial, only acceptance and courage.

  “I cannot put my knowledge into words,” DragonStar said. “I can only say that this is where, and this is the Demon, that you must meet.”

  She nodded.

  “Gwendylyr,” DragonStar said, and took her hand.

  “There is not much left for me, is there?” she said, and her face was as determined as Leagh’s. DragonStar thanked every star in existence for the strength and trust of these five.

  He glanced at Faraday. Of them all, she was both the weakest and the strongest link.

  “I represent Zeherah, and I will meet Raspu, Demon of Pestilence, at the Lake of Life,” Gwendylyr said.

  “Yes.”

  DragonStar looked down at his hands, hesitating before he told them of what was at stake, resting on their success. That he had to tell them, DragonStar had no doubt, but he also had no doubt of the frightful pressure the knowledge would place on every one of them.

  “DragonStar?” Faraday, concerned and frightened, because knowing him as well as she did she knew he was concealing something.

  DragonStar raised his face. “There is more,” he said quietly. “Whether or not you are successful will directly affect whether or not I can defeat Qeteb.”

  As his witches watched, their eyes riveted on DragonStar’s face, he explained the “legal niceties” of their confrontations.

  “Thus,” he finished, “if three or more of you fail—”

  “Then you must inevitably fail,” Goldman said, “for the balance will have tipped irretrievably in Qeteb’s favour.”

  DragonStar nodded, watching the pale faces before him, more concerned about how the knowledge would affect them than whether or not they could succeed.

  “Then,” Goldman said, “we will do our best for you.”

  “DragonStar,” Leagh said. “How do we confront these Demons? They are so powerful…and we…”

  DragonStar managed a smile for her, but included all five in his response. “Qeteb is so confident of his overall victory he has ‘magnanimously’ given us the choice of weapons and place—”