Pilgrim

  “You are Faraday’s Noah,” he said, and then stepped forward to touch Noah’s shoulder. “What is wrong?”

  Noah’s mouth twisted. “I am suffering the ill-effects of redundancy,” he said. “No, no, that is wrong. I am simply being recycled.”

  “I don’t understand,” Drago said. He touched Noah’s shoulder again, leaving his hand resting there this time. “What can I do to help?”

  Noah lifted his own hand to pat Drago’s. “First of all, you can sit down. Then you can listen and accept.”

  “I meant,” Drago said softly, “what can I do to aid you?”

  “Me?” Noah raised tortured brown eyes and looked into Drago’s violet gaze. “You can do nothing to help me. I am dying. After all this time, I am finally, finally dying.”

  Then he grunted with pain, doubling over in the chair.

  Drago dropped his staff and grabbed him, wanting to help, but not knowing what to do. In the end he just knelt by the chair and held Noah, trying to give some measure of comfort.

  Noah managed to straighten. His face was slick with sweat.

  “We have all been waiting too long,” he whispered harshly, “for me to die before I tell you what you must know.”

  “All?” Drago said.

  Noah lifted a trembling hand and pointed to the window filled with the tens of thousands of stars beyond.

  “All of us,” he repeated. “The Stars.”

  14

  In the Chamber of the Enemy

  Noah looked at one of the empty chairs, as if considering asking Drago to sit in it, then gave a tired sigh and took Drago’s hand in his. He glanced at the newly-healed scar on Drago’s neck, but said nothing.

  Drago settled on the floor, moving the staff to one side as the lizard crept over and curled up against his legs.

  “Tell me,” Drago said, and Noah nodded, raised his head, and searched the panels under the window.

  “Will you press the copper knob on the panel?” Noah asked, and Drago leaned over, hesitated, then firmly pressed a glowing knob.

  Instantly the view from the forward window changed. The stars disappeared, and Drago found himself looking out on a world filled with mountains and valleys, plains and oceans.

  He frowned. “I have not seen this place before.”

  “Nay. This is not Tencendor, although it is much like it. It is my world. My home.”

  Drago looked at Noah. Beneath his pain, the man’s face was lined with memory and regret.

  “And its name?” he said.

  Noah’s hand clenched a little more deeply into the black leather of his tunic. “Not important. For all I know it no longer exists. It has been hundreds of thousands of years since I have seen it.”

  The view altered. There were the same mountains and valleys, plains and oceans, but all had changed.

  Now they were a wasteland of pain and despair, of tempest, pestilence and starvation. Maddened people and animals roamed, tearing at their own bodies and at the bodies of any who ventured near them. Their eyes were blank save for their madness, and ropes of saliva hung from their mouths. All the people were naked, their bodies emaciated and covered with boils and streaks of rot. They lived, but in a hell that Drago could barely comprehend.

  “The same world,” Noah rasped into the silence, “after the TimeKeeper Demons had come to ravage. Drago, listen to this my story.”

  The view in the window shifted again, back to the stars.

  “We do not know from where they came. We simply woke one morning to find half our world gone mad with hunger, and the pain continued through the day, and then into the night.”

  Drago remembered how the TimeKeepers had leapt from world to world. No doubt they’d found some other poor soul to drain in order to enter Noah’s world.

  “Hunger, then such tempest as we’d never before endured, and then midday—oh God! Midday!” Noah shuddered violently, struggled to control himself, then continued, his voice hoarse with the remembered horror.

  “Midday is too terrible to even speak about—thank every god you pray to, Drago, that Tencendor has not yet been subjected to Qeteb’s malice!”

  Yet. The word echoed about the spaces between them.

  Drago studied Noah’s face. The man seemed in more pain than when Drago had first entered. “But you found a way to trap him.”

  “It took us forty years, Drago.”

  “Forty years?”

  “Can you imagine,” he whispered, “what those forty years were like?”

  “How did your people survive?”

  “In caves and tunnels and basements, mostly. Drago, your first lesson, and one Faraday already understands, is that the Demons, even Qeteb, cannot touch any who rest under shade. They cannot work their evil in shade. For some reason, the mere fact of shade protects the mind and soul from their touch.”

  There was more, but Noah was in too much pain to be bothered explaining it to Drago. The man would discover it soon enough, in any case.

  “Ah, thus the forest keeps myself, Zared and his army,” Drago slid a glance towards the feathered lizard, “and all the fey creatures safe.”

  “Until the Demons gain enough power to strip the leaves, yes.”

  “And Qeteb? How did you manage to capture him?”

  “With mirrors. We trapped him inside a chamber that was completely mirrored. He could not escape, and any power he used was turned back against him.”

  “Mirrors? How could they—”

  Noah grunted, and his face paled even more than it was already. He took several deep breaths, and then spoke rapidly, as if he knew he had not much longer.

  “Mirrors…we mirrored him back to himself, we mirrored his hate back to himself. But…” Noah suppressed a groan, and momentarily closed his eyes, “unfortunately you will not have the same success now. The TimeKeepers are somewhat wary of mirrors and reflections.”

  “And so you—”

  “And so we—or those who had the skill among us, for not all among us commanded the strength—dismembered him. They took his breath and warmth and movement and soul and separated them.”

  “His body?”

  Noah shrugged. “It was useless. I think we burned it, although I am not sure.”

  And thus the need for a new body to house Qeteb, thought Drago.

  “No-one initially knew what to do with these life components,” Noah continued. His voice and breath were easier now, as if his pain had levelled out. “In themselves they were still horrendously dangerous. We tried to destroy them, but found we could not. The other TimeKeepers were doing their best to steal them back from us—and they were powerful. Too powerful for us to hold out against for very long.”

  “So you decided to flee through the universe with them.”

  “Yes. It was the best we could do. I volunteered to lead the fleet of craft—”

  “Craft?”

  Noah looked up at the chamber. “We sit in the command chamber of the command craft. The craft are, ah, like ships that sail the seas, but these sail the universe.”

  Drago nodded hesitantly, struggling to come to grips with the concept.

  “We set sail with four craft, one for each of Qeteb’s life components, for we dared not store them in the same place. It was a mission that all of us—”

  “Us?”

  Noah’s mouth thinned at the constant interruption—could the man not see he was in pain? “We had twelve crew members in each of the craft. Well, anyway, it was a mission that we all doubted we could return from.”

  “You knew you would never go home again. Noah…who did you leave behind?”

  Tears slid down Noah’s cheeks. “A daughter—my wife was dead. Her name is…was…Katie. It was…it was hard, but I went knowing she would live in a better world for my flight.”

  Drago placed a hand on Noah’s knee. “I am sorry, Noah.”

  “I know you are. Thank you. Well, we fled through the universe. For many thousands of years.”

  Drago frowned, n
oting Noah’s deteriorating state. “You are immortal? How else could you survive a journey of so long?”

  Noah gave a harsh bark of laughter. “Immortal? Nay, obviously not! Our craft were equipped with…sleeping chambers, I guess you can call them, and in these we spent most of our time. The craft were set with self-guidance systems, and we generally slept, trusting in them to do their best.”

  Noah paused. “As a race, we had travelled parts of the universe before, but never so far or for so long as our fleet did. We did not realise what such lengthy travel through the stars would do to our craft.”

  Noah paused, remembering, and this time Drago did not bother him with a question.

  “Our craft were woken by the music of the stars,” Noah eventually continued. “And from that music they learned.”

  “Learned?”

  Noah did not speak for some minutes, and when he finally did, his voice was soft with wonder. “Drago, your Icarii race speak of the Star Dance, the music that the stars make as they dance through the universe. While we slept, the music of the Star Dance infiltrated the craft, changing them, creating an awareness that was not there previously.

  “They changed, and were filled with a purpose of their own. They changed,” he repeated, as if still trying to understand it himself.

  “Periodically we woke from our sleep to make sure the craft were operating normally. On one memorable occasion,” Noah actually managed a smile, as he remembered the shock of his crew, “we woke to find that the craft would no longer obey our instructions. We found ourselves passengers, as much cargo as Qeteb’s life parts.

  “The craft altered course, heading for a different part of the universe than that which we intended to go.”

  Noah paused, his face emptying of all expression. “Gradually, I became ‘aware’ of the craft, and of the music that filtered through the stars. No-one else among us did. I was the only one graced.”

  “You were the only one picked.”

  Noah’s mouth twitched. “Aye, Drago, you are right. I was the only one picked. I learned that the craft headed for a world—this world. I was appalled. Infect another world with what we carried? And with the other TimeKeepers?

  “We knew,” he added, “that the five remaining TimeKeepers would follow us as best they could, hunting down Qeteb’s life parts. It was one of the reasons we fled through the universe, knowing that in doing so we would rid our own world of all the TimeKeepers.”

  “And so you brought them to this world.”

  Noah turned his head and stared out the windows. Faint starlight illuminated the scores of lines about his forehead and reflected the pain in his eyes.

  “The craft brought them to this world,” he said softly, still not looking at Drago. “Not I. Not my race.”

  “You thought only to flee, not thinking of the eventual consequences.”

  Noah turned his eyes back to Drago. “Do not condemn us, Drago. Not you.”

  Now Drago dropped his eyes. “Then why did the craft bring them here?”

  “It has taken me a long time to come to this understanding, Drago. Let me speak, and do not interrupt me. What you hear will be hard.”

  Noah swivelled his chair back to the windows. “Behold what will happen to your world when the TimeKeepers reconstitute Qeteb.”

  When, not if? But the view in the window shifted before Drago had a chance to ask the question.

  As Drago had seen the Demons ravaging Noah’s home world, now he saw them ravage Tencendor. Wasteland. Insanity. Deserts. People with no hope, nowhere to go. All beauty, love, hope and enchantment destroyed.

  Drifting ashes where once had been forest.

  Bones littering dust-swept streets where once had been cities.

  Maddened animals ravening at will.

  Horror.

  Hopelessness.

  “Tell me how to stop this!” Drago said.

  The lizard stirred from its doze, lifted its head, stared at the image in the window, and then at Drago. Then it momentarily locked eyes with Noah.

  Drago was too appalled by the vision of a devastated Tencendor to notice.

  “I asked you to remain quiet,” Noah said, a note of command ringing through the pain in his voice. “What you will hear will be hard, and you must hear it all before you speak again.”

  Drago jerked his head, apparently in acceptance. His violet eyes were very dark, and very hard.

  Noah looked at him, and then waved a hand. The image of the devastated Tencendor was once more replaced with the tens of thousands of stars.

  Drago relaxed very slightly.

  “The craft brought Qeteb’s life parts to Tencendor,” Noah said, “because, drifting through the universe, they had come to the understanding that here, and here only, could Qeteb and his fellow demons finally be destroyed.”

  Noah sighed. “Drago, you must allow the TimeKeepers to reconstitute Qeteb. Allow them to destroy Tencendor.”

  “No!”

  Noah did not chastise Drago for the outburst. He had the right.

  “It is the only way to defeat him, Drago. Listen to me. We tried to destroy his life parts, and could not. But a whole Qeteb can be destroyed. This land is steeped in magic, although you—as so many of your brethren—are completely blind to it. Once Qeteb walks again, then, yes, Tencendor will become a true wasteland. The Demons will completely destroy it. Nothing will be left.”

  Nothing save the existence it will gain through death, thought Noah, but knew he did not have the time to explain that to Drago. It was a knowledge better learned than told. “Nothing but its inherent magic,” Noah said. “And nothing but you.”

  “Me? I came back through the Star Gate to aid Tencendor, Noah! To aid Tencendor and Caelum. Yet now you ask that I allow it to be destroyed.” Drago gave a bitter laugh. “Yet what else could be expected of Drago the treacherous, Drago the malevolent? No wonder all hate me.”

  “Few truly hate you, Drago, although most are puzzled by you.”

  “How will allowing Qeteb to rise again help? How can allowing Tencendor to be devastated—”

  “Qeteb must be defeated this time, Drago. He must be dealt to death.”

  Drago’s face was tight and tense, a muscle flickering uncertainly in his lower jaw. “How?”

  “Listen,” Noah said, and he spoke for a very long time, his voice soft and desperate, his words tumbling over each other, and this time Drago did not interrupt at all.

  When he finished Drago sat motionless, his own face almost as ashen as Noah’s, his eyes despairing. “No.”

  “Yes. You have always known it.”

  “No.”

  “You knew it as an infant, it was instinctive knowledge! You acted badly, but you cannot be blamed for what you believed.”

  “No!”

  “You know it now. Why else that sack that hangs from your belt?”

  Drago fingered it. “I…I just thought it…”

  “Yes,” Noah said softly, and finally sat back down. “You just ‘thought’. Instinctively you knew it was necessary. Drago, from your parents you have inherited the magic of the stars and of this land. From…elsewhere…you have inherited the magic of this craft. You have been born and you have been made exclusively for this task. Qeteb will be defeated only by a combination of these craft—which are now entirely star music—and Tencendor’s enchantment.”

  Drago shook his head slowly, trying desperately to deny what Noah had told him. “I cannot do this to Caelum again. I cannot.”

  “You must.”

  “I have already destroyed his life!” Drago cried. He scrambled to his feet and stared at Noah huddled in his chair. “Now you would have me feed him to the Lord of Darkness all over again?”

  Drago took a deep breath. “He is the StarSon, Noah, and I will not again deprive him of that right!”

  “I think you will find he may insist,” Noah said somewhat dryly.

  “No,” Drago said in a very quiet and almost threatening tone. “Caelum is the StarS
on. Caelum will meet Qeteb, and I will do everything in my power to aid him in that quest. I will not betray him again.”

  “You have very much to accept,” Noah said quietly. “Very much.”

  “I—”

  “But if you want to do your best to aid Caelum and Tencendor, then do this. Go north, north to Gorkenfort. Seek your mother.”

  “Azhure?”

  “Nay,” Noah said, and smiled with such love that he unsettled Drago. “Your true mother. Your ancestral mother. Listen to her if you will not listen to me.”

  And ignore her if you dare.

  Drago stared at him, then slowly sank down to the floor before the dying man.

  “How can I let Tencendor be destroyed?” he asked again, his voice breaking. “I came back through the Star Gate to save it, and yet you tell me to stand witness to its destruction! Would you have me deepen my sin against the land?”

  Noah reached out a hand and gently cupped Drago’s chin. “You are a Pilgrim,” he said, “and all pilgrims must first learn their own soul, and the power of their own soul, before they can save anyone else. If you take but one piece of advice from me, Prince of Flowers—”

  Prince of Flowers?

  “—then take this. Go north, and listen to your mother.”

  Drago was silent a long time. The lizard crawled into his lap, and Drago sat stroking it absently, his eyes unfocused.

  When he finally spoke, his voice was heavy with acceptance. “I will go north to Gorkenfort. What else can I do?”

  “The craft are not insensitive to the devastation that will occur. Somewhere within the waterways, I know not where for I have not been granted the knowledge, lies a sanctuary. A place of shelter. The craft would not let the peoples of this land suffer ultimate extinction. Do you understand?”

  Drago nodded. “If the craft have that much compassion,” he asked, “then why do they let you die?”

  “So that another may be reborn,” Noah said, but speaking with the voice of the craft.

  So that another may be reborn? he thought, and then his eyes filled with tears as he understood what the craft were doing. They were using his life to create another, and the beauty of that other was enough for Noah to accept his death with gladness.