Pilgrim

And sometime, WolfStar, StarLaughter thought, hugging her child to her and casting her eyes about the shadowy spaces of the Woods, sometime we will catch up with you!

StarLaughter lowered her eyes, and looked about. They sat their mounts at the very edge of the Cauldron Lake, the five Demons staring silently at the strange, golden waters.

“Well?” StarLaughter asked.

There was a silence, and StarLaughter wondered if she ought to speak again, louder this time, but Rox finally answered her.

“Tens of thousands of years we have travelled,” he said in a voice not much above a whisper. “Aeons. And here … so close …”

Sheol raised her brilliant sapphire eyes and stared at StarLaughter. “We must proceed carefully, for the Enemy will have laid traps.”

“But surely they are so old they will have lost their potency?” StarLaughter said. Why were the Demons always rattling on about traps?

Mot shook his head, then slid off his horse. Bones poked helter-skelter through his pallid skin, but his face had a satisfied plumpness about it. Mot had fed well at dawn.

He squatted down by the Lake’s edge, and ran a hand through the water. It glowed, and filtered between his fingers, but it did not run as a liquid would, rather … as a mist.

“Ssss,” the Demon said, and jerked his wrist so that the remaining globules of mist scattered over the surface of the Lake. They were absorbed instantly. “The magic lives, more potent than ever!”

“But not too potent for us, my friend,” said Sheol, joining him. “We will go down at dusk, I think, for that will give us the power of Raspu and then Rox. An entire night to ravage through this craft and find what we need.”

“Nevertheless,” Barzula said slowly, casting his eyes about the Lake. “I feel the Enemy powerfully here. We must be careful.”

“We did not come this entire way to waste our chance on thoughtless rush,” Sheol said shortly.

She sat down on the damp earth and crossed her legs. “StarLaughter, my dear, come join me, and let me cuddle your child.”

Across the Lake, Faraday and Drago likewise sat, hidden in shadows.

Drago’s eyes hardly blinked, so intent was he on watching the Demons.

“Why do they wait?” Faraday asked.

“They wait for their time,” Drago said. “It is only just noon. They will wait for the sun to set.”

“And then?”

“And then they will leap.”

It grew dark earlier within the trees than elsewhere, but the Demons waited until the entire land was wrapped in dusk before they began.

First they stood in a perfect line on the shore, about a handspan back from the water’s edge.

Raspu, whose hour was at hand, stood in the centre of the line, his head tilted back slightly, his eyes closed, the veins in his neck taut and throbbing.

A grey haze enveloped his head, and tendrils lazily lifted off and floated into the night air.

“What is happening?” Faraday whispered.

“He is feeding,” Drago said. “As that grey mist spreads, so does pestilence sweep the land, gathering to itself all those who are not within some kind of shelter.”

“Why did they wait until now?”

“Now they have the longest time span in which to work — from dusk to dawn. Once Raspu’s time is done, then Rox will spread his terror over the land for the entire night. See, even now Rox prepares himself.”

Faraday grimaced. Rox was trembling — so violently she could see it even from this distance — and his mouth was working; every so often his lips would tighten into a silent snarl, showing slippery, yellowed teeth.

Something about him, not his actual appearance, but something else, reminded Faraday vividly of the Skraelings and she shuddered.

Now all the Demons were trembling violently, almost convulsing. Behind them StarLaughter paced back and forth. Her child, as always, was tight in her arms.

One of the Demons — Drago could not tell which — screamed, and StarLaughter cried out and jerked to a halt.

Behind her, the dark horses milled and tossed their heads, pawing at the ground, although whether in fear or ecstasy, Drago could not tell.

The Lake began to boil — to seethe.

“What is happening?” Faraday whispered, one of her hands clutching Drago’s arm in tight fingers.

“They are channelling the power Raspu and Rox have gathered into the water.”

“But they are —”

“Destroying it. Yes, I know. Faraday, I … I don’t think this Lake will ever be quite the same once the Demons have worked their will with it.”

Faraday remembered what she and Zenith had seen when they’d walked the shadowlands: Grail Lake burned so completely away that the waters had disappeared to reveal the Maze beneath. A Maze that had grown to envelop Carlon. A Maze that had held such horror Faraday could hardly bear to remember it.

She lowered her head and closed her eyes. This was a beloved Lake, and she could not bear to see it die.

The next instant her head jerked up and her eyes opened as a sharp crack sounded behind her. She twisted about, and gasped. The trees were writhing and moaning, their bark splintering, yellowish cracks appearing in trunks and branches alike.

“Drago!”

“I can do nothing, Faraday. What do you want me to do? What? Whatever I am supposed to be, or supposed to do, lies at the foot of this Lake — at the moment I can do nothing!”

Faraday linked her arm through his, and leaned against him. “I’m sorry, Drago. I … this Lake is special to me. It is hard watching it die.”

“They are all special,” Drago said, and somewhere in a corner of his mind came the unbidden thought, And they will all die.

No!

The scene before them had turned into a nightmare. The water was boiling, great bubbles breaking the surface to send gouts of golden mist spurting into the night air. Soon the trees nearest the water’s edge were laced with tendrils of gold.

The Demons were forcing the Lake to empty out its life over the Silent Woman Woods.

Beyond the seething water the Demons still stood in a line, but they were rocking and twisting violently, and screaming and shrieking unintelligibly. StarLaughter was crouched at one end of the line, by Sheol’s feet, staring at the water.

She was laughing.

Suddenly the entire Lake exploded.

Drago threw himself over Faraday, rolling her as far behind the nearest tree as he could get her. He felt something crawl over his back, and almost screamed before he realised it was the feathered lizard. It scrambled under one of his arms and thrust its head under the neckline of his tunic, its feet scrabbling, trying to drive itself completely inside.

“Cursed —” Drago began, catching at the lizard with one hand, trying to prevent it getting any further, when a frightful silence fell as suddenly over the Lake and forest as the explosion had erupted only moments before.

Drago slowly raised his head, Faraday beside him.

The lizard took the opportunity to scramble completely inside Drago’s tunic.

But even the frantic tickling of its feet could not tear Drago’s eyes from the sight before him.

The golden waters had vanished. Now the slope of the forest floor continued down, down, down …

Down into another forest, one not of wood and leaves, but of crystal and gold.

The Demons and StarLaughter had disappeared.

10 The Crystal Forest

StarLaughter stood and stared. She could hardly believe the beauty of the crystal forest. She lifted one hand and stroked the trunk of the tree nearest her. It was cool and solid, but somehow vibrant.

“Exquisite,” she said.

The Demons were grouped two or three trees beyond her. StarLaughter could see their dark and distorted forms through the transparent trunks.

“Dangerous,” Barzula said. He had his arms wrapped about himself, and his golden eyes flickered uncertainly at the trees.

StarLaughter walked up to them, slipping a little on the glassy footing, and noting that the golden leaves of the trees — and how smooth and silky they felt! — were exactly the same shade as Barzula’s eyes.

“Dangerous?” she said. “How so?”

Mot rounded on her, baring sharp teeth, but he pulled himself up at the look of surprise on StarLaughter’s face.

“A trap,” he said, and waved his hand about. A thousand hands reflected back at him from a myriad of trunks and branches. “This is a trap designed by the Enemy.”

StarLaughter frowned, and tightened her hold on her son. “You must not let it harm him.”

“Fear not, Queen of Heaven.” Sheol slipped an arm about StarLaughter’s shoulders and gave her a brief hug. “No harm shall come to your son. Now …”

Her tone suddenly brisk, Sheol turned to Rox. “How do we proceed? Which way?”

Rox shrugged. “Down. Everything slopes down. The Enemy’s craft is down. What we need is down.”

“Then why do we still stand here?” StarLaughter asked, raising one eyebrow. She shifted her son to a more comfortable position, and took a step forward. “Can’t you use your power to scry out the … the place?”

Rox looked at the others. “Shall I? It is my time — my power grows each minute as terror feeds off this pitiful land.”

“We need to move,” Raspu agreed. “If we stand about and wait the trap will only snap shut.”

But will it snap shut the instant we move? Sheol shared her thought with her companion Demons, but not with StarLaughter.

Rox looked her in the eye. There is only one way to find out.

Sheol nodded. “We must risk it. Let loose your terror, Rox. Shatter these trees, and find the hiding place for us.”

Rox smiled. He shifted so that he stood with his feet wide apart, and tipped back his head. His grin widened, became more feral, then he spread his arms out wide, his fingers trembling slightly … and screamed.

Terror raged through the trees. Every nightmare possible, every fear imaginable, every horror that was ever conceived, flooded rampant through the crystal forest.

Far away, hidden at the edge of the crystal trees at the point where it joined the waterways, WolfStar cried out and sagged to the floor. His breath cramped in his chest, his eyes bulged, and his limbs trembled.

His hands convulsed, and tightened about the tiny, cold corpse he carried.

“No!” he whispered, and then gagged.

In yet a different part of the crystal forest, the Survivor leaned against a tree, and grinned. His brown eyes danced with merriment.

“Predictable,” he whispered. “But foolish. Very, very foolish.”

Terror raged through the crystal forest. It bounced and jangled through the trees — and then it reflected, reflected back toward its source a thousand times stronger than it had been born.

Straight back to the Demons and StarLaughter.

It hit them with unimaginable force.

Every one of them, StarLaughter included, fell to the crystal floor, bruising flesh and jarring joints, their mouths opening for screams that never came because of the sheer weight of the terror that consumed them.

The baby slid out of StarLaughter’s arms, rolling downhill until he slammed against a tree and lay still.

Completely still, his eyes wide open and blank, unaffected by the terror that assailed those who cared for him.

As quickly as the terror had hit the group, it dissipated. Rox had withdrawn his power in the extremity of his own fright, and once the source was shut off, so the terror dimmed until there were only faint shadows left to chase each other through the forest.

Mot was the first of the Demons to recover. He struggled to his feet, his pallid flesh quivering.

“I had always wondered how the Enemy had trapped Qeteb,” he said hoarsely. “Now I know. They must have used his own power against him. They must have reflected it back at him!”

Sheol bared her teeth, arched her neck, and then howled, letting the sound echo through the forest a full minute before she shut her mouth with a snap.

“Then, knowing, we are the stronger,” she said. “No-one can ever use that trap against us again. Come, rise, and we shall set off on foot to find our stolen treasure.”

StarLaughter came out her fugue with a start, and suddenly realised that her child was missing. She cried out, then spotted him some paces away. She scrambled over on her hands and knees, ripping the hem of her robe where it caught under one knee, and gathered him into her arms, crooning softly.

“Was he hurt?” Raspu asked.

StarLaughter shook her head. “He is well, see how well!”

The five Demons were now gathered about her in a circle. They stared down at the unmoving infant, then lifted their eyes and stared at each other.

And smiled.

The Survivor ran one hand back through his silvered hair.

Then he straightened his black leather jacket with a tug at its hem.

“Good,” he said. “Good girl.” He patted the tree affectionately. “That scared them! Now, we may as well let them have what they want, and let them leave. No use holding them up any more than we have already.”

The Survivor smiled slowly to himself. “But that was fun to watch.”

Then he tensed, his eyes on a far distant form moving stealthily from tree to tree. He caught a brief glimpse of golden wings, and coppery hair.

WolfStar!

Noah swore. He hoped the Enchanter wasn’t going to make a nuisance of himself.

He stilled, watching the distant form carefully. Noah suddenly realised that WolfStar had outlived his usefulness by many, many years.

“Something should have been done about you a long time ago,” he murmured.

Then suddenly Noah’s face blanched, and his right hand clutched at his chest, and he forgot all about WolfStar as the craft wreaked their deadly havoc within him.

In the end, it wasn’t the Demons that Noah had to fear at all.

Sheol stood talking quietly to Rox, making sure he hadn’t been harmed too greatly by the sudden reflection of his power, then turned and gestured to StarLaughter and the other Demons.

“Come. Let us waste no more time here than we must.”

She turned and walked deeper into the forest, her feet slipping and sliding on the treacherous floor.

After an instant’s hesitation, the others followed her.

They found the going difficult and nerve-wracking. Feet constantly slid out from underneath them, and their hips and knees were continually jarred and bruised by sudden heart-lurching tumbles.

StarLaughter, her arms so tightly wrapped about her unliving son that they sunk into his flesh, had to spread her wings in order to maintain even the semblance of balance.

But even that worked against her, because the feathers invariably got caught in low-slung branches. Sharp crystal twigs dug into her feathers until blood speckled the path behind her, and she was constantly being spun about as a wing was securely lodged between branches.

StarLaughter gritted her teeth against the pain, and struggled forward. Damn all the Stars into eternal darkness that she no longer had her power!

And why didn’t she? Hadn’t the Demons promised that her power would be returned to her when she came back through the Star Gate?

Raspu caught her thought and paused, leaning a hand against a tree trunk to maintain his balance.

The ground was now sloping alarmingly, and yet the slopes below showed more tangled crystal branches and golden leaves for as far as the eye could see.

As StarLaughter drew level, Raspu slipped an arm about her waist and drew her tight and hard against him.

StarLaughter, her breath momentarily jerked from her body, looked into his eyes in fright — and then relaxed, feeling the power and warmth of his body against hers.

“Be still, Queen of Heaven,” Raspu whispered, his breath warm against her cheek, his arm still warmer about her waist. “Power shall be yours, but you must wait a little longer for it. Once our own power has been strengthened by this Lake, then we will have some to share with you. A different power than what you once commanded, but still power.”

“Of course,” StarLaughter said, accepting. “The Star Dance is no more, is it?”

“No,” Raspu whispered, and leaned down to softly brush her lips with his. “No more.”

The Demons struggled lower and lower. No more tricks leapt out at them, but their tempers grew progressively shorter as they went deeper, until they lashed out as they stumbled, their arms and hands striking twigs and leaves from branches, leaving a scattering of crushed crystal and trampled leaves in their path.

“Where?” snapped Sheol.

“Where?” snarled Rox.

“What is wrong?” StarLaughter whispered, now walking close to Raspu.

“It must be here somewhere!” he said, then jerked to a halt. “Wait!”

“What?” Sheol asked, turning to look at him.

Raspu stilled, sending his awareness slinking out between the trees. There was something … something …

“Something is out there!” Mot said.

“What we are looking for?” StarLaughter asked, her eyes bright.

Raspu shook his head slowly.

“Something … else. Something … watches.”

Noah stilled in his efforts to get back to his craft. Pain still arced through his chest and arm, but it wasn’t as fierce as it had been previously.

Or maybe he was simply getting used to it.

He raised his head slightly and peered about. Could the Demons see him? Sense him somehow? He tried very hard not to even breathe. No doubt the pain they would visit on him should they catch him would be even worse than this he currently endured.

Noah remembered the horror that had been wreaked on his own world, the frightfulness of the campaign to trap Qeteb, and he shivered.

“Drago,” he mouthed soundlessly, and looked up through the crystal-clogged slopes rising above him. Drago!

And agony such as he could not have even imagined knifed through his body.

“It feels almost like the Enemy,” Sheol said, a deep frown twisting her face. “I remember how they felt, how they tasted. And this tastes so familiar.”

Rox shook his head. “It could not be. They were mortal, they could not still live.”

“But still,” Raspu said, and looked about. “Still … there is something out there.”

“But it is not a danger,” Mot said briskly. “Come.”

And he set off again.

The other Demons looked at each other, shrugged, and followed him, Raspu holding StarLaughter’s hand.

But still they kept their awareness sensing out about them.

They found what they where looking for eventually, when they were so tired and impatient that they were at the point of sinking their teeth into each other.

It sat before them, bubbling quietly.

“Warmth!” Sheol whispered, and sank to her bruised knees.

StarLaughter stood, staring, unable to believe that after so long, the first of the jewels of the Grail stood before them.

A large, spreading pool of blood in the very pit of the crystal forest, gently steaming and bubbling.

“Yes!” Raspu screamed … and then lunged at StarLaughter.

She pulled back instinctively, her arms tight about her son, but Raspu was far too quick and far too strong for her, and he yanked the baby from her arms.

“Yes!” he cried again, and tossed the baby towards the pool of blood.

The child arced through the air — and then fell, hitting the pool with a sickening heavy-wet splash.

Blood splattered out in a great circle where he had hit the pool, covering both the Demons and the nearest crystal trees.

StarLaughter cried out in horror, her hands to her face. Her child had gone! Disappeared!

“Wait,” Raspu said, his voice now calm. “Wait.”

Every one of the Demons was now still, tense.

Waiting.

Suddenly there was an agitation within the pool of blood, as if it were being stirred by an unseen hand, and then something floated to the surface.

A child.

But an infant no longer. A toddler of perhaps three or four. A boy, his hair thickened and clotted by the blood in which he floated, his eyes closed under gelatinous clumps of the stuff, his pale skin made rosy by the blood running off him.

“DragonStar!” StarLaughter cried, and waded into the pool.

She sank to her thighs almost immediately, but she struggled on, the blood rising up through her pale blue gown and soaking her breasts and wings. She lunged for the boy, missed, lunged again, and grabbed him by the hair, pulling him to her.

“DragonStar,” she whispered this time, and drew the boy to her, offering him her slimy, crimson breast.

The nipple plopped out of his unresponsive mouth, but there was a difference in him — and the difference was not only his size.

StarLaughter looked up to the Demons anxiously standing at the edge of the pool.

“He is warm,” she said, tears slipping down her cheeks. “He is warm!“

WolfStar watched from his hiding place twenty paces distant. He lay flat along the forest floor, his head raised only enough so that he could see through the transparent roots before him.

This was his first sight of the Demons — and of his wife, StarLaughter.

He was shocked that after four thousand years she could still rouse emotions in him. There she stood, so dark and beautiful, her coagulating robe clinging to the body he still remembered, could still feel.

And in her arms, their son.

DragonStar.

No, he thought, trying to drive down his feelings for StarLaughter —

— remember the nights they had shared? Remember the love and the laughter?

And remember also that she plotted to take your place on the throne, and conspired with our unborn son to that purpose.

— no, not DragonStar. Qeteb. Born and yet unborn.

StarLaughter was willing to let a Demon inhabit the body of their son.

WolfStar’s lips drew back in a silent snarl. No wonder he loathed her. She had deserved her death, and he wished she’d been made to suffer more than she had.

Perhaps he could still arrange it.

The Demons grouped about StarLaughter, drenched in clotted blood and now standing out of the pool. As their hands patted at the boy, and their faces bent to kiss him, WolfStar slithered carefully forward, one hand dragging the tiny corpse behind him.

There. Again! Raspu thought, sharing it only with the other Demons.

Who?

What?

Where?

WOLFSTAR!

Yes, Raspu nodded to the others. WolfStar.

StarLaughter, unaware of what was going on about her, crooned and laughed at her child, one hand trying to wipe the clots of blood from his body.

What should we do? What is he doing?

They considered, their jewel-like eyes sharp.

Watch, Sheol thought, and the others silently agreed. Watch — and learn what it was that WolfStar did here.

Raspu laid a hand on StarLaughter’s arm and pulled her gently back up the slope.

“It is time to leave, Queen of Heaven,” he said. “Time to move to the next site.”

“Yes.” StarLaughter had a great smile of happiness on her face. “Yes.”

As they moved off, Barzula lagged behind, concealing himself with power and keeping his senses focused on the blood pool.

Thus he was aware when WolfStar furtively ran forward to the pool, now considerably smaller in circumference than previously, and threw in his own still corpse.

A tiny girl bubbled back to the surface, as still as the male-child had been, but just as warm.

Barzula frowned, only barely repressing the urge to confront WolfStar — how dare he use the pool! — when he stopped himself, and smiled.