Pilgrim (40 page)

The stairs ended in a wide circular cavern, walled and floored in smooth grey stone. In the centre of the cavern flowed a waterway, entering through an arch on one wall, and exiting through an identical arch on the opposite wall. The waterway was narrow, only three paces wide, but like most others in the Underworld it was edged in white stone.

Moored to the side of the waterway, directly across from the stairs, was a flat-bottomed boat.

StarDrifter walked half the distance between waterway and stairs, then halted and addressed Drago. “Should you have given that book to—”

“Yes,” Drago said sharply. “Caelum will need it.”

“But—”

“He will return it,” Drago said, his tone more even. “In time.”

“And he accepted…?” Faraday asked. The girl clung close by her, unwilling to let her go even for a moment.

Drago nodded.

“Then the Stars will dance in his honour evermore,” WingRidge said, in a tone far more respectful than he had ever used to Caelum’s face. Drago almost told them that Caelum had been the one to murder RiverStar—but why should he? It changed nothing, and he had a feeling that most in this group realised it, anyway.

“And do
you
finally accept?” WingRidge asked Drago. His face was very still, his eyes fathomless, as he stared at Drago.

A thousand answers raced through Drago’s mind, ten thousand words, a myriad excuses, and yet none of them would do, would they?

“Yes,” he said. And this moment was, indeed, the moment when he truly did accept the burden.

WingRidge took a deep breath, and his face tightened with emotion. Then abruptly he fell to one knee, bowed until his forehead touched the knee of his bent leg, and splayed his wings behind him in the traditional Icarii gesture of homage.

“StarSon DragonStar,” he said. “My name is WingRidge CurlClaw, and I commend myself and my life to your service. I am one of the six hundred, and I am their leader. Thus I speak with their voice as my voice when I vow them and myself to your name, your word and the vision you embrace. Our lives are yours, our souls are yours…StarSon, this entire land is yours.”

He slowly lowered his head until his forehead touched the ground before Drago’s feet, then he raised himself back into his kneeling position, his head still bowed.

“WingRidge,” Drago said, and placed a hand on WingRidge’s bowed head. “I do thank you for your belief, and I do thank you for your patience. I gladly accept your service, and that of your command.”

Drago looked up at the others in the chamber. “I do thank all of you.”

StarDrifter took a step forward, gazing intently at his grandson. “Has Caelum welcomed you into the House of the Stars?”

Drago nodded.

“Then I welcome you into my heart, StarSon, and into the House of SunSoar. Will you accept my service?”

Drago smiled gently. “Oh, aye, grandfather,” and he leaned forward and embraced StarDrifter.

Then SpikeFeather stepped forward, thinking how appropriate it was that Drago should take the first vows of service in this chamber where, so many years ago, Orr had taken SpikeFeather’s life into service.

“I am yours, StarSon,” he said, and Drago nodded and embraced him as well.

“I know it, SpikeFeather.”

Then, slowly, he looked at Faraday.

She opened her mouth, but did not know what to say. If she vowed him her service, her life, did that mean she promised to love him? She couldn’t do that, she couldn’t.

Drago saw her distress, and understood her hesitation. He took one of her hands gently between his. “Faraday, I pledge to you
my
service. You have already done enough for this land.”

Emotion threatened to overwhelm her. She stared at him through eyes swimming with tears. If he’d said anything else, or demanded a single promise from her, she would have felt justified in hating him…and justified in denying him. Now she had to stand here silent and gape at him. What he’d said was, firstly, as formally bonding as any marriage vow—a stronger bonding, in fact, given who and what he was—and secondly…secondly…didn’t it mean that he put her
before
Tencendor?

No. No! It could not be! He had already vowed that he would let nothing stand in his way in order to save the land. That was his father in him all over again. No, no, she could not, would not, believe him…she
dare
not!

“No,” she whispered, and pulled her hand from his. “I do not accept your service.”

There was an audible gasp in the chamber, probably from either StarDrifter or WingRidge, for Drago’s face had gone stark white and he was so obviously shocked he was incapable of speech.

Faraday stared at him, wondering what she had done.

One part of her screamed to take his hand back before it was too late, another part screamed at her that she should turn and run, run before it was too late, run before she admitted to herself that she was so deeply in love with him she would murder herself all over again if it meant he could live…

“As you wish,” Drago whispered in a frightful, rasping tone, and turned on his heel and walked towards the boat.

As he moved away, StarDrifter and WingRidge stared at Faraday with such utter incomprehension on their faces, such tightly controlled anger, she thought she
would
have to turn and run. Then…

…then the little girl, forgotten, slipped her hand into Faraday’s cold one, and buried her head in Faraday’s skirts. Faraday closed her eyes and shuddered, and from somewhere deep inside her drew the strength to carry on and walk towards the boat as if she had but brushed away a piece of inconsequential fluff.

“
Y
ou see,” StarDrifter said hurriedly, trying to think of
something
to say to cover the dreadful awkwardness in the chamber. “I have discovered the secret of the waterways. They are connected to the craft, they link them, and thus they serve the crafts’ will. Thus, as long as the travellers’ wish corresponds to the crafts’ overall intention, the waterways will do exactly what you will.”

“That’s very interesting,” Drago said, and at the sound of Drago’s voice StarDrifter shut up.

“Why would the waterways send us three boats?” Faraday asked, looking at a distant point over StarDrifter’s shoulder, and trying to sound normal. Curse Drago for putting her in this predicament!

There had been a boat moored to the side of the waterway when they’d arrived, but during the conversation on the landing two more boats, linked by ropes, had drifted out of the tunnel entrance.

StarDrifter turned, stared, and faced the group again. “Obviously there has been some kind of—”

“Silence!” WingRidge barked, his entire body tensing, and he laid one hand on the hilt of the knife he carried.

Everyone stilled.

There was a distant sound…rather like soft rain. A scuffling, but regular, and very persistent.

“Something is coming down the stairwell,” SpikeFeather said, who was closest to the stairs.

WingRidge looked at Drago. “Would Caelum have—”

“No. Whatever this is has not been instigated by Caelum,” Drago said. But our parents? he wondered. Axis would have little reason to hold his hand.

The regular scuffling resolved itself into the padding of many paws.

“It is the Alaunt,” Faraday said, and without reason all the childhood tales she’d heard of the hounds—mythical man-hunters, ferocious devourers, child abductors—came rushing back, and she clutched Katie tight to her. The child caught some of her fear, and whimpered.

One of the Alaunt appeared at the curve of the stairs. Sicarius. He paused, looking carefully between the members of the company, and then he sunk as low as he could, whined, and crawled down the final flight of steps on his belly.

Behind him, successive Alaunt did the same.

Sicarius reached the floor, paused, then wriggled his way towards Drago, his tail wagging gently behind him. His golden eyes remained steady and unblinking on Drago.

Drago returned his stare with equally unblinking eyes, and Faraday frowned as she looked at him. His eyes were deeper, far more powerful than she’d ever seen them.

Compelling.

He is discovering more of his true nature every day, she thought, just as I did when I travelled south to the Island of Mist and Memory. Drago had spent much of their journey from Gorkenfort in deep introspection, exploring, growing, learning to trust his instinct and to recognise the ancient power of Noah as it coursed through his veins. The speed at which Drago learned and grew was almost frightening, and Faraday repressed a shiver, already regretting her dismissal of his vow. Not so much that she’d refused it, but that she’d done so in such cruel manner.

She had been
right
to refuse it…hadn’t she?

Faraday closed her eyes briefly, and drove into a deep, dark place the nagging thought that she’d done the wrong thing, and that it might, just might, be safe to allow herself to love him, and to accept his love.

Drago squatted down before Sicarius and laid the palm of his right hand on the hound’s skull.

“Do you present me your service?” he asked.

As one the entire pack of Alaunt leapt to their feet and burst into cry, the sound of their clamour resounding about the rounded chamber.

For an instant, Drago caught Faraday’s eyes.
They
are not afraid of me…why are
you
? She turned her head away.

Just as Faraday thought they were over their quota of shocks for the day, there was a further scuffling on the stairs, and around the corner and down the final flight scuttled the feathered lizard, grinning cheerfully. Faraday’s mouth dropped open. It was at least twice the size it had last been.

To save anyone the embarrassment of finding something to say, the two new boats bumped gently against the side of the waterway and the hounds and lizard happily scrambled in.

“A
lizard
?” StarDrifter said slowly. “I think, Drago, that you must tell me what you and Faraday have been up to.”

“No time.” Drago stepped into the front boat. “We have a detour to take before we can approach Fernbrake Lake. SpikeFeather. Here, come sit with me. You did well to find Sanctuary,” Drago looked up and forced a smile, “before StarDrifter found a new source of enchantment to magic it up out of thin air.”

“Detour?” StarDrifter said. He sat down. “What detour?”

“Sigholt,” Drago said, and held out his hand to Faraday to help her in. After a brief hesitation, she took it, then let go as she turned to lift the girl in.

“There is something there I must collect,” Drago finished, and settled himself into the boat.

Just as StarDrifter began to ask what Drago needed to
collect, Drago’s mood altered so sharply those watching could see the change sweep over his face.

“The Demons are well on their way to Fernbrake,” he said. “They are more powerful than before, and travel with the speed of wind. Once at Fernbrake they will do their best to close Sanctuary forever.”

“Then why waste time detouring to Sigholt?” StarDrifter cried, half-rising. “We need to get to—”

“Patience, StarDrifter,” Drago said. “Sigholt can aid us. Well?”

“Well…
what
?” StarDrifter said.

“If you have discovered the secrets of waterway traffic, grandfather, then I suggest you demonstrate your knowledge to get us to Sigholt.”

StarDrifter laid a hand on the smooth wood of the boat.

“Drago needs to go to Sigholt,” he said.

The boat glided forward.

“Although the Stars alone know why,” StarDrifter murmured, “when the peoples of Tencendor need Sanctuary more than Drago needs his trinkets.”

Drago chose not to respond to that.

The boat, SpikeFeather observed, took them on the normal route to the Lake of Life, although previously SpikeFeather had always had to use his muscles to travel the distance. Now the boats slid silently and swiftly through the tunnels of the UnderWorld. The two that contained the dogs and the feathered lizard, which spent the journey jumping enthusiastically from boat to boat (and once splashing into the waterway from where Drago had to rescue it), followed obediently behind the one that StarDrifter commanded.

“These waterways connect the craft under the Sacred Lakes?” Drago asked WingRidge.

“Yes.”

“And extend yet
further
,” SpikeFeather said. “Over the years, I have travelled through waterways that stretch under the entire breadth and length of Tencendor and the Ferryman,
Orr, told me that they also extend for leagues under the surrounding oceans.”

“And every last one of them forming patterns,” Drago mused, his eyes fixed on some distant spot.

SpikeFeather hesitated. “I suppose so. Why?”

Now Drago hesitated. His eyes refocused on SpikeFeather. “Is it much further to the Lake of Life?”

SpikeFeather swallowed his resentment that Drago chose to ignore his question. “At this rate? No. An hour, perhaps.”

“Good,” Drago said, and leaned back against the side of the boat and said no more.

Within the hour the three boats glided onto the Lake of Life, and Drago sat up and looked about keenly.

“Lakesview is deserted,” he said.

“The Lake Guard arranged its abandonment when we knew the Demons approached,” WingRidge said.

“Where are the people now?”

“In the surrounding hills. We did not know where, or how, to take them further. Should I now start moving them to Fernbrake?”

Drago shook his head. “Not by normal means, no. It would take too long. We have…” he frowned slightly, “we have only some three or four weeks before the Demons will complete their quest. Before Qeteb—”

The others in the boat seemed to draw in their breath as one at the dreadful name.

“—walks again. The peoples of Tencendor must use other means to approach Sanctuary than their legs, methinks.”

“
How?
” StarDrifter asked. “Dammit, Drago, stop giving us ambiguities to pin our lives on.”

“StarDrifter, I am sorry. Sigholt will give all who linger nearby a direct route into Sanctuary. Believe me.”

And with that, StarDrifter had to be content.

The boats glided to a stop at the wooden pier that sat some fifteen paces north of the moat that surrounded Sigholt. Everyone, dogs and lizard included, were glad to get out of
the craft. The waters of the Lake seemed somehow corrupted; thick and loathsome, they yielded reluctantly to the demands of the boats.

“It has been the touch of the Demons,” Drago said, looking back over the waters as StarDrifter helped Faraday and Katie from the boat. “The waters no longer wish to live. Within weeks they will have evaporated completely away.”

Faraday looked back, and shuddered. She wished she could have seen this place when it had been vibrant with life and magic, but her duties, whether as wife to Borneheld, or as Tree Friend, had always kept her well away from it. She turned and looked up at the silvery-grey Keep. Here was Axis and Azhure’s home, she thought. Here they lived for decades in laughter and love while I trod the byways of the forests, looking for tender grass shoots and missing my son.

Here is where my son grew up to adolescence. Without me.

Surprised by her sudden spurt of bitterness, Faraday dropped her eyes and looked at Drago, only to see sadness and bitterness in his face as well.

Sigholt contained no good memories for him, either.

Or was he thinking of her rejection?

“Come,” he said, and walked forward without looking at the others.

“Wait!” Faraday cried. She ran after Drago, caught at his arm and pulled him to a halt, and then looked at StarDrifter.

“Will you take Katie on with you, StarDrifter? We won’t be long.”

He nodded, picked up the girl, and then the three Icarii walked forward, leaving Drago and Faraday by the shores of the Lake. He was silent, looking at her.

“I cannot, Drago,” she whispered. “You know that.”

He let his eyes drift over the waters. “I love you, Faraday.”

She flinched. “I did not ask for that.”

He looked back at her. “No. You didn’t, did you? I apologise for putting you in a difficult position. It must have been embarrassing for you.”

Her jaw tightened. “We have a journey to make, you and I, and it will be difficult enough without your sarcasm to add to its trials.”

His eyes narrowed, and she could not tell if he was angry or trying to repress merriment.

“I am a SunSoar, Faraday. I do not take rejection well.”

Her lips twitched—he was laughing at her! And suddenly she burst into laughter.

“Are we friends, Drago?”

“Friends, Faraday.” He held out his hand, and she took it with only the slightest hesitation. He pressed it gently, then let it go, and they walked after the others.

“And you know the other thing about us SunSoar males, Faraday?”

“No…what?”

“We never give up.”

They walked directly to the bridge, the hounds sniffing curiously about, the feathered lizard investigating the undersides of several stones, as if he expected to find a meal awaiting him there.

Drago stopped before the bridge, and turned back to the others. “Wait for me here,” he said, and before anyone could ask him any questions Drago had stepped onto the bridge.

“Well,
second
son,” the bridge said. “You return at last. Is Zenith well?”

“Yes,” Drago said. “Far better than when she last crossed you.”

“Good.” The bridge hesitated. “Drago, you have surprised me.”

Drago’s mouth quirked. “I have surprised many people, including myself.”

“And will surprise more to come,” the bridge said. “Sigholt waits for you.”

Drago nodded, glancing at the Keep. “Bridge…you destroyed Rox.”

“Yes,” the bridge said happily.

Drago sighed. “I can understand your wish to do so,” he said, “but nevertheless the Demons need to succeed in their quest to resurrect Qeteb.”

The bridge was silent, sulking.

“I only took a
bite
,” she eventually said.

“Nevertheless,” Drago repeated.

“The Demons will manage well enough without him.”

“I hope so.” Then Drago gave a quirky grin. “I’m glad you finally managed to take a bite at
someone.
”

The bridge considered whether or not to be offended at this remark—was he referring to the fact that he’d managed to dupe her when he was but an infant?—then decided to laugh softly.

“I have waited aeons for a chance like that,” she admitted.

“Did he taste good?”

“Delicious!”

Drago laughed with her. “Well, then, despite my reservations, I do thank you for making the night a safer place. Bridge…bridge, from the depths of my heart I do apologise for my trickery of you so long ago.”

“And I have been waiting some forty years to hear
that
,” she said softly. “Go now, DragonStar SunSoar, and collect another trifle of your heritage.”

Drago resumed walking along the bridge’s back. When he was about to step onto the gravelled walkway before Sigholt’s open gates, the bridge spoke again: “I am glad you came home, DragonStar.”

Drago faltered a little in his stride, then recovered. “Thank you, bridge.”

And then he was through the gates and into the inner courtyard of Sigholt.

Everything was still, silent. Hay bales, half-empty crates and tangled tack lay scattered about the cobbles, bespeaking the haste in which the Keep had been evacuated. Wisps of blue mist drifted about the courtyard, losing and then refinding themselves among the half-open doorways. Yet Drago understood that Sigholt felt in no way abandoned. She was just waiting, waiting for whatever millennium approached.