Crusader

by Sara Douglass

  The Dream grabbed both of them. They were hunting through a Maze of stars, dipping and swaying with the interstellar Star Dance.

  All existence held its breath, awaiting the outcome.

  DragonStar urged his Star Stallion forward, the Alaunt streaming out to his flanks like the twin tails of a comet, but, despite their speed and power, the great dark beast behind him was gaining, and DragonStar could sense the weapon Qeteb lifted above his shoulder.

  Qeteb took a step forward, and half raised the axe he still held.

  The Dream shifted slightly, and DragonStar knew that Qeteb was as much in control of the Dream as he was in control of the Hunt.

  “The weapon I wield,” Qeteb screamed through the universe, “is not of metal or even of power. It is the weapon I will fashion from your weakness! See! See!”

  And, despite himself, DragonStar turned to see what it was that Qeteb wielded.

  Faraday—or what was left of her.

  DragonStar felt a cry tear itself from his breast, and the Star Stallion faltered, and the Alaunt milled in confusion, and the next instant Qeteb was upon him.

  As Qeteb moved forward, Axis shifted to urge Sal forward as well, but DragonStar shook his head almost imperceptibly, and Axis stilled.

  “Neither of us can escape what has been foreordained,” DragonStar said, and none failed to note that his voice trembled slightly.

  Everyone watching could feel the amusement radiating out from Qeteb.

  “No,” he said, “we can’t. But since I have given your witches such a good head start, I thought it only fair that I amuse myself with this convoy in the meantime. Fair’s fair, after all.”

  The sense of amusement—almost joy—radiating out from Qeteb increased tenfold until both Axis and Urbeth were forced to back away several steps.

  “And I find,” the Demon continued, “that I have enjoyed myself so much I may well be back for another nibble.”

  Qeteb hefted the axe, then hurled it into the ground before the Star Stallion.

  Belaguez’s ears flickered, and his eyes rolled slightly, but he did not flinch.

  “Don’t bother,” DragonStar said. “This column is invulnerable.”

  His only reply was laughter, and DragonStar flinched at its virulence.

  Qeteb’s laughter slowly subsided, then, with a final chuckle, he lifted into the air, and was gone within heartbeats, Barzula behind him.

  Axis lowered his head from watching the Demons fly away towards the other end of the avenue and looked at his son.

  “Tell me you can defeat him,” he said. “Tell me…”

  Chapter 46

  South

  Qeteb strode into the still squabbling fracas of four Demons and tore them apart. He was in a high good humour—surely he had forced DragonStar’s hand to the point where the starry idiot would try and move the sixth elsewhere…an elsewhere that might be more vulnerable than the column—and thus he did the four no permanent injury. The abrasions and tears he did cause healed themselves within the moment.

  SpikeFeather, as Urbeth’s two daughters and the Ravensbund warriors, straightened in alarm—SpikeFeather moving even closer to the two women—but Qeteb laughed and waved a dismissive hand.

  “Enjoy your victory while you can,” he said, “for your eventual defeat is but a week or so away.”

  And then all six Demons vanished.

  Qeteb rose so far into the sky that he was invisible from the ground.

  Then he rose higher still, until even enchantment could not touch him.

  Then, so high he had risen into the blackness between air and space, he rolled over onto his back. He closed his eyes, summoned all his power and concentration, and sent a tiny but potent shaft of his perception shooting down towards the column.

  “Reveal yourself, mine Enemy,” Qeteb whispered. “Reveal yourself!”

  DragonStar dropped his head and rubbed his eyes. Before him Axis and Azhure, Katie, StarDrifter and Zared and Theod sat in a concerned circle.

  “What will happen, DragonStar?” Axis asked for them all.

  “Qeteb’s five companions will each confront my five witches. Individual jousts, if you will.”

  Zared and Theod, even though they had known of this, still shook their heads in a combination of concern for their wives and anger that DragonStar had put them in this frightful predicament.

  “And will they win?”

  DragonStar looked up and met Axis’ eyes. “I hope so,” he said.

  “Hope is not—”

  “It is all I have!” DragonStar said harshly, and Axis nodded.

  “Very well.” Axis paused. “What will happen if all or any of them fail?”

  DragonStar took his time replying. “If one fails then it means that I will be seriously weakened. Any more than that and I may fail—”

  “Gods!” Zared exploded, “I care not for you and your ‘may fail’! I care only for my wife! As Theod cares only for his wife! What happens if our wives fail?”

  “If any of the witches fail, then they will ultimately die,” DragonStar said, turning his steady gaze from Axis to Zared.

  “Ah!” Zared said, and half turned away, still furiously angry.

  “There is nothing you can do for the moment,” DragonStar said, reverting his gaze to his parents, “but move south.”

  “And there…?” Axis said.

  “Clear as much of the land of the crazed creatures that cover it as you can,” DragonStar said. “Most of the creatures will be below the Nordra, moving towards or in the Maze, or gathered about the other three lakes. Journey south via the Lake of Life and Fernbrake.”

  Zared turned back to DragonStar. “Thank you,” he said softly.

  DragonStar shrugged slightly. “Gwendylyr’s and Leagh’s battles will have been fought and won or lost by the time you reach them,” he said, “but at the least, you will know.”

  He looked back to Axis. “Take this…this convoy south—peoples, creatures, trees—and meet me at the Maze…what was once Grail Lake.”

  “And there?” Axis said.

  “And there will the final battle be played out,” DragonStar said, “and we move on or we flicker out of existence forever. There, the fate of the stars themselves will be decided. Whatever, you…everyone, will need to be present and to witness.”

  DragonStar looked back down the column, then spoke to Theod. “Will you go and find SpikeFeather for me? Tell him I need him urgently.”

  Theod nodded, and left.

  “Why SpikeFeather?” Axis said.

  DragonStar hesitated before he spoke. “I need to get Katie away from this column,” he finally said. “To take her to somewhere as safe as possible.”

  What if Qeteb did come back for a nibble? What if he found Katie?

  Azhure nodded understanding. “The waterways.”

  “Yes. Azhure…”

  “I will go with Katie,” she said, taking Katie’s hand. “I promised Faraday I would look after her.”

  “But—” Axis began.

  “We will be safe,” Azhure said, and smiled reassuringly at her husband. “What could happen to us in the waterways?”

  Far, far above in the higher atmosphere, Qeteb smiled, and drew his perception back into his body.

  This girl, this tiny girl, this Katie. She was the one that DragonStar fretted about and sought to protect.

  She was the key, the heart incarnate.

  And now DragonStar, as Qeteb had hoped, was going to move her somewhere he thought safe.

  “What can happen in the waterways?” Qeteb murmured to himself as he began the long descent. “What, indeed!”

  He rejoined his companions.

  “It is your time,” Qeteb said. “Go.”

  And the five scattered in the winds above the wasteland, their hearts capering with joy.

  “Why did you dive screaming for the Demons?” one of the ice women asked SpikeFeather.

  The birdman was seated with Urbeth’s two daughters about a
small fire to one side of the Ravensbund warriors’ larger camp. Both ice women sat close to him, and the one who spoke rested her hand on his knee.

  SpikeFeather supposed he should feel uncomfortable, but in truth he rather enjoyed the closeness.

  “It was all I could think of doing,” he said. “You were both so…”

  He wasn’t sure if it would be the best idea to mention how tired they were; if SpikeFeather had learned one thing over the past few decades of dealing almost daily with highly magical people, it was that they tended to be sensitive about any implied criticism, however slight.

  The other ice woman shrugged. “My sister and I were exhausted, as was our mother.”

  “You brought us a pause,” her sister continued, and her hand tightened very slightly on SpikeFeather’s leg, “during which we could regain composure—”

  “—and some measure of thought,” her sister finished for her, and she lifted her face and smiled at SpikeFeather.

  He grinned, and relaxed.

  “Tell us about the Underworld,” one of the ice women said, and SpikeFeather wondered if he would remember to ask after their names at some point.

  “We have always wondered about the Underworld,” her sister said, and leaned so close that her breath played over Spike Feather’s cheek.

  He suddenly became aware of how attractive, and compelling, if not precisely beautiful, the two were.

  “The Underworld seems to us to be so much like our beloved icepack,” the other said. “As full of dangers, as full of twists and conundrums.”

  “Tell us…”

  “Please, tell us…”

  And SpikeFeather found himself telling, and revelling in the closeness and warmth and loveliness of these two enchanted creatures.

  So absorbed was he, he did not notice Theod’s approach.

  “SpikeFeather?”

  SpikeFeather jumped, startled, and the ice sisters’ hands tightened on his arms.

  “SpikeFeather, DragonStar needs to see you.”

  He finally had something to do? SpikeFeather jumped to his feet, the ice sisters with him.

  “I can smell an adventure!” one of them said.

  DragonStar dropped down beside Zenith and WolfStar, and took the plate of food that Zenith handed him.

  “I am not surprised to find you visit us,” WolfStar said around a mouthful of food. “It feels that half this convoy has individually appeared and pleaded with Zenith to come to her senses and return home to her mother and father like a good girl.”

  His eyes watched DragonStar carefully as he wondered how it was he could use Zenith to control this man. Perhaps he would wait until the man disposed of the Demons, and control of Tencendor would be there for the taking. Perhaps…Ah! WolfStar let the problem slide from his mind for the moment. The how would come to him eventually, and WolfStar did not mind the wait. The mere fact that DragonStar was here showed the depth of his feeling for his sister…and revealed the extent of his vulnerability. Zenith could be used, WolfStar had no doubt of that at all, and power would eventually be his for the taking.

  DragonStar looked at Zenith, and found that she met his eyes cleanly and honestly.

  He sighed, and fiddled about with his food. “You can understand that most people find your, ah, union to be somewhat surprising,” he said. “Perhaps even unexpected.”

  WolfStar laughed softly. “Oh, aye, and I imagine that StarDrifter heads the brigade of the righteously indignant,” he began, but stopped when Zenith put a hand on his arm.

  “Don’t belittle StarDrifter,” she said. “I have loved and do love him, and will not sit here and listen to you ridicule him.”

  WolfStar’s face tightened, and he averted his gaze.

  “Zenith,” DragonStar said, “you mean a great deal to me. When everyone else in Tencendor turned their backs on me,” and DragonStar shot a hard glare at WolfStar, “you believed in me, and aided me, even through your own distress.”

  Another glare WolfStar’s way.

  “If you now tell me,” DragonStar continued to his sister, “that you love—no, I do not want to hear that…if you can look me in the eye and tell me truly that this is a course you have chosen of your own free will, and that you stay at WolfStar’s side through your own choice, and with no coercion on his part, and that this is what you want, then I will walk away and make no attempt to dissuade you.”

  Zenith looked him in the eye, and her gaze did not falter. “I am here of my own free will and of my own choice, DragonStar,” she said, “and I would that you respected that.”

  DragonStar stared at her, searching into her soul, and then he sighed again, dropped his eyes, and nodded.

  “Then there is only one more thing I must say,” he said.

  “Yes?” WolfStar said, and DragonStar raised his eyes and looked at him.

  “StarLaughter is on her way,” he said, “and gods alone knows what she will do when she finds you—”

  DragonStar’s eyes shifted slightly, “—with Zenith.”

  Chapter 47

  The Door

  The Lake of Life had once been a beautiful body of water nestled within the protective Urqhart Hills and the bridge’s hazy blue mists. Now it was an undulating smear of disgusting sludge and stench, pustules rising, ripening and then bursting in slow, horrid abandon across its entire surface.

  Occasionally body parts of indeterminate species would rise to the surface, sometimes to slowly sink again, other times to be snatched out of the sludge by loathsome flying creatures that had once been birds but now…but which now were something else.

  This was pestilence, and it was to this that Pestilence came home.

  Raspu danced in glee on the side of the spreading sludge. This was his creation, and this was where he felt at home. His naked body mirrored the surface of the lake: sores and running blisters besmirched his skin, and his hands occasionally scrabbled thoughtlessly (but nevertheless mirthfully) at the spreading rashes that scabbed across joints and face.

  Raspu fell to his hands and knees and drank of the loathsome lake.

  His skin roiled as the sludge slid down his throat.

  Raspu tipped back his head and laughed. Nothing could outmanoeuvre him!

  Two figures sat their mounts atop adjoining hilltops.

  On one, Qeteb sat fully armoured and arrayed in spiked and bladed weaponry on his black beast. The creature was mostly snake now, its massive body coiled beneath the Demon, resting on six muscled legs and balancing by the four small wings that sprouted from behind its horse-like skull. Qeteb gazed down on the scene below him, and smiled.

  Millions of creatures clustered about the shores of the lake, parting only when Raspu began to move slowly towards the line of hills where the witch Gwendylyr had made her stand. The creatures howled and screeched, now grovelling on the ground when Raspu passed, or when they thought their Great Master might look down on them from his hilltop.

  Their blackened mass spread from the shores of the lake, past the pile of rubble that had once been Sigholt, and up a gully which Qeteb supposed led to Gwendylyr.

  At the head of the mass several Wing of the Strike Force—and Qeteb thought they looked very pretty with their ethereal bodies and sparkling jewel-like wings—kept back the worst of the tide, but Qeteb could also see that within hours of Gwendylyr failing, as fail she must, the pretty flying creatures would be overwhelmed.

  Qeteb laughed, and turned his head so he could see his opponent on the adjoining hilltop.

  There DragonStar sat the Star Stallion, the Alaunt crouched about the stallion’s hooves, baying and growling at the Demon who laughed at them.

  “A wager, StarSon?” Qeteb called, but DragonStar ignored him.

  He felt sick to the stomach. This would be the first test, the first confrontation.

  Strangely enough, although of all the five witches Gwendylyr was the most unversed in matters of power, DragonStar had the most confidence in her. But this meant, conversely, that if Gwendylyr fai
led, then it was unlikely that any of the others would succeed.

  DragonStar concentrated on the sight of Raspu moving through the crowd of demented creatures.

  “What is the trap, StarSon?” Qeteb called. “What will the poor girl try to frighten the Demon of Pestilence with?”

  A choice, thought DragonStar, but this is not what he told Qeteb.

  He raised his head, and smiled sweetly, and he called across the gully between them: “She will offer him the position of butler, Qeteb. How will he manage a household of fractious servants, do you think?”

  Qeteb stared at DragonStar, then looked for Raspu.

  He had vanished.

  One moment he had been passing through the ranks of the adoring, slavering creatures, the Strike Force soaring and dipping prettily—and mostly uselessly—overhead, and the next he stood alone before the door of a great house.

  Raspu blinked, and scratched absently at a particularly virulent pustule that had just appeared on his left cheek.

  He looked up, and then around, very carefully.

  A great moor stretched out to either side and behind him. It was a featureless sweep of fog- and cloud-wrapped rolling hills, its only adornment low gorse bushes and struggling, spiky grass.

  A wall of sleet was moving in from the south-west.

  Raspu grunted. He would not let the distraction of such beauty affect his concentration.

  He returned his stare before him. The door was very ordinary, set in a featureless wall of grey stone that stretched as high and wide as the Demon could see. The door itself was some five paces high and two wide, fitted into a great arch with a tree carved into the door frame and a man and a woman similarly carved on either side of the door; the woman was holding an apple.

  Curved iron hinges—slightly rusted in this atmosphere—supported the considerable weight of the door. An iron knocker, in the shape of an imp’s head with glowing red eyes, was centred on the wood.

  Raspu stared at the door.