Pilgrim

  Instantly the water came to life about them.

  An eel reared out of the water, its huge head blocking out the sun, and lunged down at one of the Alaunt.

  But in the instant before it seized the hound in its fangs, its head fell off, glancing off the side of the boat into the water.

  The boat swung wildly, not only from the blow struck by the falling eel’s head, but also because a half-dozen other eels began fighting over the head and body of their fellow.

  Gripping her seat tightly with one hand, and Katie as tightly with the other, Faraday stared wildly about, trying to see from what direction the next inevitable attack would come from.

  “How…what happened?” she gasped.

  “Watch,” Drago said, and pointed behind her.

  Faraday twisted about, desperately trying to keep her balance, and saw that the lizard was sitting alertly in the prow. Another eel reared just to her right, and Faraday flinched, but not before she saw a shaft of brilliant light sear through the eel’s head, sending it tumbling back into the water.

  Again an eel reared out of the water, and this time Faraday saw exactly what happened. The lizard raised one of its claws and arced it through the air in a great cutting motion. As it did so, its diamond talons flared with light, and the beam flashed through the space between lizard and eel cutting off the monster’s head.

  Faraday looked back to Drago, absolutely astounded. “I had no idea it could do that,” she whispered.

  “I told you to trust me,” he said, and his face relaxed into a wide grin.

  Even Faraday could not resist that smile. Her mouth twisted, twitched, and then her resistance crumbled and she smiled. Katie clapped her hands delightedly, and the lizard joined in the fun by slicing off two eels’ heads with a single flashing arc of light.

  It was the last they were troubled by the eels. Whether the other eels had learned from the fate of their companions, or they were too busy feasting on the remains of those others, the boat sailed serenely across to the other side of Grail Lake.

  As they neared the section of the city walls that rose directly from the waters, Drago lifted the oars from the water and let the boat slow to a glide.

  “Carlon is ringed thirty deep with the Demons’ minions. We could fight our way through—I am sure the lizard would prove more than useful—but I would prefer to arrive in a slightly more anonymous manner. I remember stories of the night my father bested Borneheld in this place. Did he not enter through a postern gate somewhere close to the water’s edge?”

  “Yes.” Faraday did not particularly want to remember those eight days spent in the lie of Axis’ arms, but she could not avoid it. First Gorkenfort and memories of Borneheld, and now Carlon and the shade of Axis’ betrayal. What was Drago doing, dragging her to every site in Tencendor bound to stir up unwanted and painful memories?

  “Yes?” Drago prompted.

  “Ah.” Faraday shook herself out of her train of thought. “Yes, Axis told me about it, as did Rivkah and Yr. It should be…” she twisted about so she could see the approaching sheer wall, “…it should be just beyond that corner there, tucked into an alcove that lies deep under a rounded tower. Yes. There!”

  Drago leaned back into the oars, and the boat swung close to the tower. Five paces away he shipped the oars securely, and clambered forward to the prow, pushing aside sundry hounds and cats as he did so. A chorus of indignant grunts and yowls followed his pathway.

  Once at the prow, Drago leaned over the form of the lizard, who had curled up and was watching proceedings carefully with one of its light-absorbing black eyes, and caught the iron ring by the door, tying the boat up with swift, sure movements.

  Then he seized the door ring, and pushed.

  The door swung inwards—

  —and instantly Drago was knocked to his face, only avoiding falling in the water by the most strenuous of actions, by the mad rush of lizard, hounds and cats for the open doorway.

  Drago hauled himself back into a safe position, and looked back to Faraday. Both she and Katie were bent almost double in silent paroxysms of laughter.

  Drago grinned himself, shaking his head slightly, then he held out his hand and silently helped Faraday and Katie, both still giggling, into the door.

  “If you disbelieve me,” Theod spat. “Then kill me now! I have nothing left to live for!”

  Zared again locked eyes with Herme, and then he sighed and placed both his hands stop the table. “I cannot believe you anything else but my friend. I am sorry for doubting you.”

  Theod’s face did not relax. “And so when do we ride north? Ride to save—”

  “My friend,” Zared said as gently as he could, “we will not be riding north. By this time there will be nothing left to save…and you know as well as I that we can’t help those who have been—”

  “Coward!” Theod shouted, and stumbled to his feet. “I will ride back myself if I—”

  He stopped, and stared at the door.

  Zared and Herme turned to see what had quieted Theod. They, too, stilled. Sitting in the doorway, its tail swishing softly to and fro behind it, was an enormous blue-feathered lizard which had a brilliantly coloured plumed crest on its head.

  Norden had somehow managed to escape beyond the doorway, and they could see him edging slowly back down the corridor. He stopped and turned, as if he had seen someone. But Zared’s, Herme’s and Theod’s attention was now all on the lizard.

  It hissed, and Theod took a step back from the table.

  His chair crashed to the floor behind him.

  Zared rose to his feet, his hand now finally drawing his dagger.

  “What?” he asked hoarsely. “Have the creatures gained entrance?”

  “Not yet,” a voice said, and Drago stepped through the door and—rather carefully—around the lizard. “But it seems to me that the miasma of despair has truly worked its horror within this room.”

  He stopped and looked at the three men. “Tell me, why so sad?”

  Drago and Faraday sat on two chairs before the fire, Katie at Faraday’s feet, their various creatures curled up about the room, and grieved silently as first Zared and then Theod spoke of the disasters that had befallen them.

  “Why do you weep?” Theod said to Drago as he finished his tale. “Have you not returned successfully from the dead?”

  Drago hesitated in his reply, Theod’s words making him pause for thought. “I grieve for all this land, Theod, and for you and Zared and Herme.”

  Theod’s mouth twisted, and he turned his face aside.

  Faraday rose from her chair and walked over to a far wall, ostensibly to inspect a wall hanging, in reality to sorrow for Leagh in semi-privacy. Leagh! She didn’t deserve such a dreadful fate. But then, who did? Did Drago truly know what he was doing, allowing Tencendor to be so ruined, and its people to be so decimated?

  Katie, still sitting by Faraday’s chair, looked between Drago and Faraday, her beautiful eyes swimming with grief herself. No-one grieved more for Tencendor and its peoples than did Katie.

  Drago sighed. “Faraday and I bring good news. Sanctuary is open—”

  “—for those still able to enjoy it,” Theod put in.

  “Surely that must be enough!” Faraday cried, turning back from the wall. “Those left must be saved. Theod, how many are left in the western ranges, do you think?”

  He shrugged, almost uncaring in his cynicism and grief. “It has been over a week, more, since I left. Zared thinks all must now be…gone. I agree with him.”

  He paused. “I went north to rescue twenty thousand, and ended by leading all to their deaths. Every one of them. Gone.”

  “Including the Strike Force,” Drago said, and looked into the fire.

  Including the Strike Force. His eyes stared dreamily into the fire. The Strike Force, lost to the forces of madness.

  “Where is this Sanctuary?” Zared asked, uncertain of Drago’s reaction to this disastrous news. “And how do we reach it?” He ey
ed the girl curiously, but was not inclined to ask about her. One small girl amid the tragedy that currently engulfed them was a problem that could be left to later, more leisurely times.

  Faraday glanced at Drago, still deep in thought, and answered, “Sanctuary lies under Fernbrake Lake.”

  “That would be death for anyone trying to reach it from Carlon!” Theod cried, and turned and slammed his fist into the mantelpiece. “Have you not seen how hemmed in we are? How we sit and wait for starvation to claim us.”

  “The trip to Sanctuary will take little more than two hours for most people,” Drago said, and looked up.

  Theod merely raised his eyebrows disbelievingly.

  “Spiredore,” Drago said softly.

  “You can work Spiredore?” Zared said. “But I thought…Axis said—”

  Drago shrugged. “He should have trusted in Spiredore more. At the least it would have saved him, Azhure and Caelum a difficult journey to Star Finger.”

  “How is Caelum?” Herme asked. “Have he and his parents found any solution to the Demons?”

  “Caelum has the means to do what he must,” Drago said. “And I do what I can to make the path easier for him.”

  Zared glanced at Faraday, who had dropped her eyes into her lap at Drago’s statement, then looked back to Drago.

  “When do we start the evacuation?” he asked.

  “Leave it several days, if only because there are still tens of thousands of Icarii filing down into Sanctuary, and the arrival of Carlon’s bulk would only create more chaos.”

  “So we just sit here until—?” Theod began.

  “No.” Drago rose from his chair and picked up his staff. “There are several things to be done. First…Leagh.”

  53

  The Enchanted Song Book

  For two days the combined wisdom of Star Finger pondered the riddle of the Enchanted Song Book. It was read, fingered, examined, held up to the light and gently tapped for hidden spaces, and although Axis and Azhure shook their heads, as did the other Star Gods, and the scholars admitted themselves perplexed, Caelum seemed unperturbed.

  After two days, as his parents and Adamon uselessly thumbed through the book in Caelum’s apartment, he retrieved the book from their fingers, opened it up, and explained.

  “Drago showed me how—”

  “Drago?” Axis asked.

  Caelum hesitated a little before answering. “He learned well in his journey through the Star Gate.”

  Axis bit back a tart reply. Drago had learned only treacheries, more like—and what twisted advice had he now passed on to Caelum?

  Caelum opened the book, and pointed to the strange scribblings that meandered up and down lines.

  “Yes, yes,” Adamon said, leaning over Axis’ shoulder. “A script, to be sure, but we know of none like it, and it is not like that about the Maze Gate—”

  “Drago told me that it is written in the language of the ancient Enemy,” Caelum said, “but it does not represent words, it represents—”

  “Music!” Azhure cried. “It is music.”

  Caelum grinned and nodded. “Yes. Songs…and once we decipher the music, and learn the Songs, we will know to what purpose that can be put.”

  Axis slowly raised his head from the open book before him, and smiled.

  Dance.

  It did not take them long to decipher the script into music. The tune was easy, for the odd black-fletched circles ran up and down a series of horizontal lines, and to merely follow their progress was to decipher the tune.

  Tone was a little more difficult, until Azhure noted the strange symbols at the start of every tune, and wondered if it was they that set the tone. From there it was merely a process of finding the tone that suited each symbol, and to a race which had spent its existence surrounded by music, that was but child’s play.

  And once they’d deciphered each Song and committed them to memory—again, a trifling chore to those addicted to music—there was the problem of discovering the steps that suited each Song.

  Again, not a difficult task to those who were more Icarii than human, although all were careful not to complete an entire dance lest they call some unknown and dreadful destruction down upon themselves.

  Within but a few days, Caelum not only had the book, he had the Dances the book contained. Once again, hope drifted about the corridors of Star Finger.

  “We must test this,” Caelum said one morning, as the dawn miasma cleared to reveal a glorious clear day atop Star Finger.

  “I agree,” Axis said, and walked some way about the platform that encircled the huge central shaft which fed light and air into the mountain.

  They were alone on the peak. Caelum and his father had made it a habit to stroll the heights each morning to watch the miasma disappear. It always vanished from the high places first, and as they emerged, they could see the grey, bleak haze sliding down the mountain and rippling over the plains, back towards its source.

  “They must be close to Fernbrake Lake now,” Axis murmured, watching the miasma contract to a point far in the south.

  “Yes. Father, I must meet them at Grail Lake.”

  Axis nodded, opened his mouth to say something, and then involuntarily ducked as something dark swooped down from the out of the sun.

  Caelum suppressed a cry, remembering not only Gorgrael’s plunge from the sky, but also the Gryphon that had attacked him and Azhure atop Spiredore.

  It was a lone Hawkchild, and it contented itself with one swoop, not daring to attack on its own.

  “No doubt reporting our movements to its masters,” Caelum said, biting down nausea.

  “What better time to test out the dances,” Axis said. Stars! How he wished this was his battle to execute. “Think only of the Hawkchild, direct all your concentration to it, direct the dance to it…and see what happens.”

  Caelum squinted into the sun. The Hawkchild was circling high in the sky above him.

  He lowered his eyes to his father, and gave a curt nod.

  Axis stepped well back, giving Caelum full use of the space available.

  Caelum stood for a while, his head down, thinking and focusing his concentration. Which one to attempt? Eventually he decided that any would be as good as the next, for he could not know what any of them would do until he tried it.

  And so he picked one of the shorter dances, one with savage staccato foot and leg movements and angry, violent body rhythms. Savage anger was something Caelum felt like letting out—but he also knew the dance would work. It had to. It was fated to.

  Wasn’t he the StarSon? He suppressed a grim smile.

  Caelum commenced the dance, and, apart from keeping the image of the circling Hawkchild at the forefront of his mind, he lost himself entirely in its rhythms.

  As he moved further and further into the dance, Caelum felt himself begin to seethe with hate and violence, radiate it. He felt power infuse him—not quite in the same manner as it had when he’d sung Songs, but just as powerful—and he let the rage and hate ripple forth.

  Standing in the alcove leading to the stairwell, Axis gasped, and started in shock.

  Caelum’s face had twisted into a mask of malevolence, and his fingers were twitching violently—not a requirement of the dance.

  “Caelum?” he said, and tensed as if to take a step forward.

  Caelum roared, and Axis flinched in deep shock. The sound had been frightful, and he found it difficult to believe that it had come from Caelum—he had literally felt the waves of hate rippling off his son.

  What was happening?

  “Caelum!” he yelled, and prepared to stop his son…what was this dance transforming him into?

  Just as Axis made up his mind to dash Caelum to the ground and out of the dance, there was a terrible scream from overhead. Axis jerked his neck up, cricking his neck painfully.

  A black shape plummeted from the sky—the Hawkchild—but as it fell closer, Axis could see that it had been twisted and mangled as if by a brutal, an
gry hand.

  Axis looked back to Caelum. He was moving so fast he was almost a blur, his arms and legs and head all jerking violently to the demands of the hate-filled dance.

  “Caelum!” Axis screamed…and then the Hawkchild hit the platform about two paces from Caelum.

  It broke apart on impact, splattering blood and flesh about the entire mountain top. Both Axis and Caelum were covered in it.

  Caelum faltered to a halt, staring down at the remains of the Hawkchild with eyes clouded with rancour. He roared again—a frightful sound—and threw himself upon the ground, tearing into the bits lying about with his fingernails and teeth.

  “Caelum!” Axis screamed yet once more, and threw himself atop his son, dragging Caelum’s head back until he heard his neck creak. “Caelum, damn you! Wake out of this rage!”

  For an instant Axis thought he’d lost his son completely, then Caelum’s body relaxed and the hate faded from his face.

  “Let me go,” he wheezed.

  Axis hesitated, then decided that he’d heard enough reason in Caelum’s voice to risk freeing him. He stood up, slipping a little in the blood and flesh that surrounded them, and let Caelum’s head go.

  Caelum rose to his hands and knees, then retched so violently Axis had to kneel down and support him.

  “Stars, Caelum,” he whispered when his son had finally done. “What happened?”

  Caelum slowly sat up and wiped his mouth. “I have never felt like that before. It must have been a dance of pure hatred, and in performing it, I felt every nuance of that hatred and rage. Gods, father! It almost tore me apart. If I’d had to continue any longer…”

  He looked about him. “Well, at least we know it works.”

  Sheol tipped her head back and screamed and roared and yowled. Every one of the other Demons did the same, and their demon-horses screeched and bucked.

  Grey miasmic haze issued forth from their mouths, enveloping the company in a mist of corruption.