Qeteb turned his visored face in her direction, and Leagh felt, if not saw, his malicious grin.
Tremble not, sweet thing, a voice whispered in her head, for I have other and better prey to occupy me for the moment. But fear not either, for I have not forgotten you. Others will be along to attend you shortly.
His laughter rang out, threatening to overwhelm Leagh, and she twisted away, jamming fingers in her ears and screwing her eyes shut.
When Leagh finally found the courage to open her eyes again, she saw Sheol, the last of the Demons now above ground, step into the hole that led to the stairwell to Sanctuary.
“I pray to every god in every existence,” Leagh whispered, “that you have found a way out of there, Axis.”
Chapter 38
Sanctuary No More
Through the night and into the morning Axis rode Sal through the frantic preparations, sometimes stopping to murmur encouragement, other times to help lift provisions into a cart. And always he kept turning his eyes to the sky.
In the end, it was the woman he was helping to settle her children into an already crowded cart that suddenly exclaimed and pointed upwards.
Axis jerked his eyes skyward.
Emerald cracks were zigzagging and wriggling their way from a point just off-centre across the entire sky.
As the emerald cracks widened, a sickly silver gleamed through.
“Gods!” Axis cried, and without further ado, grabbed Sal’s halter, sprang onto her back, and pushed her forward at a gallop through the shouting, pointing, terrified groups about him.
Six shapes crouched across the chasm that the silvery bridge had once spanned.
They were no longer recognisable as humanoid, or animal, or even as Demons. They were just great, dark, slimy masses of shifting black and pink and orange that oozed pure evil.
There was an outer ring of five crouched about one in their centre. The central mass was Roxiah, drawing on all the power of the Enemy within Niah’s body, and using Rox’s soul to magnify it and then distribute it to the other five Demons.
And from there, all six hurled it at the enchantments that protected Sanctuary.
It felt good, the destruction of this beauty, and that good itself increased the power of the Demons to the point where they had power to spare, and sent crazy spurts of it out into the universe to dance about the stars and disrupt the harmony of the Star Dance.
It knew, that beautiful, melodious power that sang through the stars, that the final confrontation was nigh.
“Urbeth!” Axis screamed as he dashed through his palace and up to the balcony where Urbeth spent much of her time. “Urbeth!”
“She’s not here.” Azhure: beautiful, calm, terrified. Dressed in a midnight blue robe and a thick, scarlet cloak.
She took Axis’ arm. “She’s downstairs. On the lawns behind the palace. Most others are down there with her. I’ve been waiting for you. Where have you been? Urbeth has been—”
But Axis was already moving, and Azhure ran after him.
A gigantic fissure appeared in the sky above Sanctuary.
Whatever lay outside that crack, on the outer side of the Dome that protected Sanctuary, was of a much lower pressure than the atmosphere inside.
Sanctuary’s air streamed towards the crack. Clouds screamed as the low pressure outside pulled them towards the ever-widening crack.
The dark mass of the Demons grew larger as they tasted the inevitability of Sanctuary’s death, and that further increased their power twofold.
Axis, as everyone else, stopped and stared for a heartbeat or two, unable to come to terms with what they saw.
Then something huge and powerful thudded into his back.
A white paw. One of Urbeth’s daughters stood behind him. “Move!” she growled. “Mother is anxious to go!”
“As am I!” muttered Axis, but he ran forward onto the lawns anyway, Azhure a half pace behind him.
And again, Axis stopped, stunned by what he saw on the ground rather than what was happening leagues above him.
Somehow, in the intervening minutes since Axis had seen the first tiny cracks appear in the sky, Urbeth had managed to get all life within Sanctuary into line.
Literally.
Before him stretched a column the breadth of five carts wide. It snaked back across lawns and through orchards and groves and fields as far as Axis’ eye could see.
To his left Urbeth, several times her normal size, paced anxiously back and forth at the head of the column.
“Hurry!” she roared, and Axis jumped. He turned slightly, and whistled.
Pretty Brown Sal trotted out from behind the palace and over to Axis, her halter rope trailing.
“Have you a mount?” Axis asked Azhure.
She shook her head. “I hadn’t even thought of it. But I can travel in one of the carts—”
Before she could finish, Axis seized her waist and lifted her up onto Sal’s back. An instant later and he was behind her, pulling her back against him and turning Sal’s head towards the column.
“Just like old times, isn’t it?” he whispered in Azhure’s ear, and she laughed deep in her throat, and shook out her raven black hair, and for a moment both of them rejoiced in the thrill of once more being together against danger that appeared insurmountable.
Axis’ arm tightened, and then they were cantering down the side of the column towards its head.
Before them, Urbeth roared, and then swelled into gigantic proportions.
Further back in the column, seven figures slipped furtively away, ducking into the cover of trees, and then into buildings.
In the terror and haste of the moment, no-one noticed their departure.
The enchantments protecting Sanctuary collapsed completely. The chasm, which had moated Sanctuary in, heaved and fell to pieces, destroying itself in a massive earthquake.
When it had subsided, there was a huge pile of rubble where the chasm had once been, burying the blue-fletched arrow that DragonStar had left there.
The six black masses finally moved, flowing obscenely across rock and crevice like thick, corrupted smoke.
Axis ducked his head, and Azhure twisted about and buried her face in his shoulder. Above them there was a massive roaring, and Axis dimly realised it was Sanctuary’s atmosphere escaping through the great rent in the sky.
The pressure in Axis’ ears was agony, and his breath screamed through his chest and throat.
Sal bucked slightly and then stumbled, and Axis had to exert every skill he had as a horseman to keep her steady on her feet.
He choked, and felt both Azhure and Sal do the same.
There was no air!
All about him the once-orderly column erupted into chaos as beasts and people alike clawed for breath.
There were no screams, for no-one had any air left with which to scream.
Something white flowed and billowed before him, and in the dim recesses of his mind Axis knew that Urbeth was doing something ahead.
He hoped it would mean they actually managed to breathe before—
Ice-cold air slapped him in the face and shot down into his lungs. Axis jerked in pain and surprise, and he had to tighten his grip about Azhure as she similarly jerked.
Snow obliterated the men and carts closest to him, and cold such as Axis could not remember having previously encountered gripped his entire being in a merciless fist.
“Goodness,” he heard Urbeth say somewhere in front of him.
Once across the chasm the Demons shape-shifted into half-humanoid, half-raven forms. Their heads and bodies were mostly humanoid, but their shoulders and arms flowed into great black wings, and tattered fans of feathers sprouted from the bases of their spines.
Qeteb’s body was cast entirely in metal rather than flesh.
He lifted into the rapidly thinning air and soared upwards. “Sanctuary!” he screamed, and then all the Demons were in the air and winging their way towards the mouth of the valley leading to Sanctuary.
Below them, the flowers and shrubs wilted and died as the Demons’ shadow enveloped them.
The frozen air abated somewhat, and Axis finally managed to raise his eyes and look about him.
Sal was struggling through knee-deep snow, as was every other beast and person.
Azhure shuddered in Axis’ arms, and she tightened her cloak about her.
“Urbeth has done it,” she said. “She got us out of Sanctuary.”
Axis glanced at the sky above him. It was dull and leaden with snow clouds, but it was intact.
He grinned, and kissed the top of Azhure’s head. “We’ve jumped from the frying pan into the frozen wastes,” he said, and Azhure laughed.
“Where’s Urbeth?” she said as her laughter died away.
Axis looked ahead. Sal was within three or four carts’ length of the front of the column, but all that currently headed it was Zared riding a white draughthorse which was making surprisingly good speed through the snow.
He may not have chosen for the parade ground, Axis thought, but he has chosen well.
He twisted about on Sal’s back, looking behind him.
There was nothing but league after league of frozen tundra, and league after league of the refugee line from Sanctuary.
No Urbeth, and neither of her daughters.
Axis turned back, frowning slightly, then urged Sal forward to join up with Zared.
They ran through one of the palace complexes, and then finally stumbled into an orchard that lay on the road to Sanctuary’s entrance.
“No air!” Xanon gasped, almost falling as she lurched onto the road.
Adamon, the other five close behind him, took his wife’s elbow. “No matter,” he said. “We’ll be dead soon enough, anyway.”
Xanon lifted her beautiful eyes and looked at Adamon with more love than she’d ever felt for him before. Ever since the Demons had broken through the Star Gate, sapping and destroying all their power, the Star Gods had felt worse than useless. They had alleviated and they had advised, but they had managed to do nothing to help.
And they were supposed to be Gods, curse it!
Now, they were doing something to help.
It was evident as the Demons broke through into Sanctuary that Axis, and the column containing all the life that was left of Tencendor, were going to need all the assistance they could garner to escape in time.
The Demons must not be allowed to catch them before they’d escaped, or be allowed to follow them through whatever doorway Urbeth had created.
The Star Gods’ decision had been silent, and unanimous. They could surely delay the Demons those critical minutes Axis and Urbeth needed to get the column to safety.
That they would die in the attempt, none of the Star Gods had any doubt.
But they would help.
They would make a contribution.
And they would save many, many lives.
Xanon leaned on her husband, and the seven stumbled further down the road towards Sanctuary’s entrance.
A blackness swelled to meet them.
Sheol saw them first, and she laughed. “The first of our feeding makes a willing offering of itself,” she said, and the other Demons howled with her.
Adamon lifted his head, gasping so badly for air he could barely see.
Something loathsome oozed its way down the road towards him. It appeared one complete mass, although once he’d peered closer, Adamon could see that there were distinct shapes within the single entity.
As he rubbed his eyes, bending over to haul in as much of the thinning air as he could, the Demons separated yet further.
Qeteb led them, striding down the road in the form of a man made completely of blackness. Behind him came the other five Demons, scampering and skipping, wearing the forms of plump, bright-eyed children.
“Why,” said Qeteb as he came to a halt a few paces before the huddled, panting group, “if it isn’t the Star Gods! What do you here, Gods? A welcoming committee, perhaps? Come to present us with the freedom of Sanctuary? Here to offer your services as—”
“We come with greetings,” Adamon began.
“How kind!” said Qeteb.
“And a message,” Adamon finished.
The five chubby children capered and clapped their hands, and Qeteb raised the eyebrows of his ebony face. “Do say! And what might that be?”
Now Xanon raised her face. She smiled, and her smile was full of love.
Qeteb, as the other Demons, took a step back.
“Our power has gone,” Xanon said, her voice utterly sweet, “and our skills in warfare are negligible. Thus we do not come to fight you, only to deliver you our final will and testament.”
Qeteb’s eyes narrowed. He did not like the joy he felt emanating from the group. What was wrong with them?
“For tens of thousands of years,” said Flulia, her arm about Silton’s waist, “we had imbibed the music and the magic of the Star Dance.”
“Much good that it does you now,” Mot sneered.
“Its power has gone from us,” Silton said, as Flulia choked on a desperate gasp for air, “but its love and message has not gone.”
Xanon continued: “The Star Dance spoke to us of many things, and there was one thing it told us above all other things.”
“And this,” said Pors, “is what we must now tell you.”
“What?” Qeteb snapped.
Adamon spoke for all of them, and as he spoke, all seven of the Star Gods raised themselves straight and tall, and they smiled, their eyes gleaming with emotion.
“Never underestimate the power of Love,” Adamon said, “and the choices it drives you to.”
There was silence. The Demons stared at the Star Gods, loathing their calmness, their assurance, and, above all, their serenity.
Barzula growled, deep and low and utterly incongruously in his child’s throat.
And then, in less than the space of a breath, the Demons surged forwards, once again assuming the form of a single entity of blackness that rolled over the Star Gods with the inevitability of a tidal wave.
The Star Gods stepped forward and embraced both Demons and Death.
Xanon blinked and opened her eyes to stars and to music.
She slowly turned and behind her she saw Adamon, and then Pors and Zest and Silton, Narcis and Flulia close behind.
They were drifting free among the stars.
And all about them, the Star Dance embraced them and loved them.
Urbeth and her daughters huddled, unseen, under the trees of an orchard.
“Why did they do that?” one of the daughters hissed, low and angrily. “They could have been saved if they stayed with the column!”
“I think they have just saved themselves,” Urbeth commented, as the Demons snapped and snarled and twisted themselves into knots trying to find where the corpses of the Star Gods had got to. “And given Axis a precious few more minutes. As we must do! Come!”
The Demons lifted into the sky, or what was left of it, furious that the Star Gods had somehow evaporated before they could be torn satisfactorily to pieces.
Never mind. There was doubtless far better and far more extensive eating ahead. The Star Gods would have made thin fare, anyway.
Almost all the air had gone, but its lack did not bother the Demons at all. Evil existed as easily within an airless vacuum as it did dancing among the leaves of the most agreeable of apple trees.
They soared, and basked in their power.
Beneath and before them spread beauteous orchards, delightful palaces and shaded groves.
All empty.
At first this did not concern the Demons overmuch—surely the doomed peoples would have sought a hidey-hole somewhere—but as they soared and dipped and tore apart palace after palace and toppled orchard after orchard, the Demons began to get impatient.
And frustrated.
Where were the people?
“Deeper and deeper,” growled Qeteb, and so they flew deeper an
d deeper, their destruction growing more wanton as they went.
And yet no people.
“It is one of the Enemy’s tricks!” Sheol cried, but Roxiah growled a disagreement.
“The Enemy have nothing to do with this. Nothing! They built no Sanctuary within Sanctuary, and no Sanctuary after Sanctuary. This was the last stand.”
“Then where are they?” screamed Mot and Barzula in unison.
Qeteb remained silent, soaring higher and higher until he could see, in the very distance, something that made his blood literally boil in fury.
A small crack in the horizon.
And through this crack, a shifting mass that looked very much like people and animals fleeing into the distance.
His entire body burst apart in the extremity of his wrath, and boiling blood scattered over all of Sanctuary.
“Zared? Where’s Urbeth?”
Zared turned and stared at Axis and Azhure. He was wrapped close in several blankets, but even so, what Axis could see of his face was blanched with the freezing conditions.
“Gods, man,” Zared said. “Aren’t you cold?”
Axis suddenly became aware that, firstly, he was wearing nothing but a black wool tunic and trousers as well as boots, and, secondly, he was, indeed, frozen nigh unto death.
He shuddered, and hugged himself closer to Azhure.
Zared beckoned to a man in a cart behind him, and the man rummaged in the tray of the cart before tossing Axis a hooded cloak.
He grabbed at it, fumbled and almost dropped it, then managed to drape it over his shoulders and back and pull the hood close about his face.
“Urbeth?” he said again.
Zared shrugged. “She said nothing. Just growled, and vanished.”
Qeteb pulled himself together with the most extreme of efforts, but even then columns of smoke rose over Sanctuary where his blood droplets had fallen.