Crusader. Novel by Sara Douglass

far too late.

“And tell my daughter that I love her beyond measure.”

Niah tried to say something else, but she suddenly gagged and blood poured from her mouth. She

sagged to the ground, and Leagh cried out.

Niah go home, Leagh’s child said. To eternity. Home to the flowers.

Leagh bent her head over the corpse and wept.

Katie sat up from the ice woman’s lap and pushed the glossy brown curls out of her eyes. She looked

solemnly at Azhure, sitting at the other end of the barge with SpikeFeather, who still had his arms about

her.

“Your mother has gone home,” she said. “Sweetly, innocently, and with a final happiness.”

“Welcome, ma’am,” said the Butler, and swung open the garden gate.

“Dare I?” said Niah. “Dare I? After all I have done?”

The Butler smiled, and if it were not for the dignity of his position, would have hugged her.

“You are deeply loved and needed, ma’am,” he said. “Please, enter.”

Niah looked at him, not daring to hope.

“The lilies await you,” said the Butler. “And one else.”

Niah turned to the gate, and looked through. She stared, unbelieving.

Zenith stood among the flowers, the lilies tugging at her skirts and at her ebony wings.

She held out her arms, as granddaughter to grandmother, and smiled with love and welcome.

Niah burst into tears, and walked through the gate: sweetly, innocently, happily.

Qeteb’s fingers curled into the white cloth and he wrenched it off the table with a roar of fury.

He leapt to his feet and tossed the cloth high into the sky.

It fluttered down slowly into the crater.

“Two down,” said DragonStar. “And two wins. To me. My girls have done me proud.”

And he lifted his head and smiled at Qeteb.

“Cauldron!” Qeteb snarled, and turned away. “There you will fail!”

“Why leave now?” DragonStar said. “Don’t you want to stay for the birth?”

Chapter 59

Midwiving Deity

Pretty Brown Sal pulled them into Fernbrake Lake just in time, for which Axis was supremely grateful. If

he’d had to put up with Ur’s cries and clamours for just one more hour …

Axis hated to think what Ur would have said had they arrived late.

He swung down from Sal, Zared and Gwendylyr a moment behind him.

The instant Axis’ feet hit the ground, he was almost bowled over by Ur hurrying forward with her

pot.

“Make way! Make way!” she cried, and Axis was stunned to see that she was weeping with joy.

The next instant Gwendylyr had pushed past him, and was hurrying after Ur into the birthing

chamber.

“I think I should wait here,” Axis said to Zared, but Zared shook his head.

“No. I don’t know why, but I think that you should be present as well.”

And so Axis, still so desperately sad he wondered that he could actually walk and talk and ride,

followed Zared through the lines of the Lake Guard and into the birthing chamber.

The Lake Guard silently followed him, lining the interior of the chamber as silent witnesses.

There was one other silent witness. DragonStar, atop the ridge and staring into Fernbrake

crater.

The best place for your birth, he said to the child, now so gripped in the struggle for birth she

could not respond. Fernbrake. The Mother of all Life.

Leagh lay on the birthing bed and writhed, drenched in sweat. Gwendylyr sat at one shoulder, silently

sympathising, one hand wiping the sweat from Leagh’s forehead.

At Leagh’s other shoulder sat a distraught Zared, wondering what he could do, and yet so glad, so

relieved to have Leagh safe again it swamped all his fears.

Axis stood, almost wrapped up in one of the billowing curtains at the edge of the chamber,

part of the circle of Lake Guardsmen inside the chamber. Before him, crouched in a huge huddle, lay

Urbeth, her head on her paws, her eyes locked on the struggle before her.

This baby would be birthed with many witnesses.

Ur stood at the end of the birthing bed, quivering with excitement, staring at the baby beginning to

emerge, her pot still held in violently trembling hands.

Axis watched her with some concern. Shouldn’t she be doing more? He remembered the births of

his eldest and his youngest. At both, midwives had helped and aided Azhure in a way that Ur most

definitely was not helping and aiding Leagh.

Ur was just standing there. Watching. And now quivering so violently in her excitement that Axis

thought she would drop the pot at any moment.

And then he jumped, for everything about them changed.

They stood in an infinite field of flowers. Leagh was walking slowly between two women, both in

mid-life and so beautiful Axis’ breath caught in his throat at the sight of them.

Ur and Urbeth, their arms about Leagh, encouraging her with every step.

The scent of flowers, a warm wind and the gentle sound of waves crashing beneath a distant

cliff filled the air.

Zared and Gwendylyr were here too, as were the Lake Guard, but they stood to one side,

anxious spectators.

“Axis.”

Axis turned slightly at the sound of the voice.

DragonStar, glorious in his near nakedness, the lily sword scabbarded in the jewelled belt.

“Have you come to watch?” Axis said.

“I have come to accept,” DragonStar replied, and he walked past his father towards Leagh,

Ur and Urbeth.

Leagh gave a great groan, and twisted to one side as the child slithered from her body.

“The Baby! The Baby!” Ur cried, and she did what Axis had been afraid all along she would do.

She dropped the pot, and it shattered on the floor.

Several things happened at once. Zared rose to stare at the tiny, wriggling baby that had just

slithered into the world. Leagh struggled to sit up so that she, too, could look. Urbeth leapt to her feet,

and roared and shook as if possessed. And as one, all the Lake Guard present took a great breath, and

shouted, their fists thrust triumphantly into the air.

And while all this was going on, something indescribable filled the birthing chamber.

Leagh gave a great groan and would have sunk to the ground were it not for the support of the

two women who held her.

“The Baby! The Baby!” Ur cried.

DragonStar strode forward and sank to his knees before Leagh, an expression of utter

wonder on his face.

He held out his hands to catch the Baby.

Axis could not describe what then filled the tent in words, only in emotion.

Wonder, gladness, joy, beauty.

Hope, salvation, pity.

Warm wind on cold cheek, and soft touch on despairing heart.

Being. A Being beyond comprehension.

It was the combination of what had been in Leagh’s womb, and what had been in the pot.

Ur lifted the child in her hands. It was a Girl, chubby, wide-eyed and joyful.

“The Mother?” Axis said, trying to make sense of it all.

DragonStar caught the child as She slithered from Her mother.

“The Mother?” said Axis.

DragonStar took a moment to respond, and when he did, his voice was filled with gladness.

“The Mother transformed and drawing breath as one with the Infinite Field of Flowers,” he

said, “so not the Mother at all.”

He looked up, and lifted the Girl into Leagh’s arms.

“My Child,” said Leagh, and took her Daughter in her arms.

DragonStar rose to his feet amidst the flowers and stared into Axis’ eyes. “Not the

Mother at all” he repeated. “God.”

Chapter 60

The General’s Instructions

Qeteb turned slowly about, one arm extended as he indicated the wasteland that stretched for

leagues about them. Balls of dust and ice rolled slowly across the plains of Skarabost, while great fingers

of mould and putrilage crept over the southern parts of the continent.

Qeteb was all black armour: visored, inscrutable, indestructible.

Before him Mot and Barzula stood attentive and quiet.

They respected the consuming anger that filled Qeteb.

“All this lies at risk,” Qeteb said, his voice a hiss behind his visor. “All this beauty. Our home. How

hard have we fought to attain this? How many millennia? How many worlds? And now all is at risk!”

Mot and Barzula flinched, but otherwise did not move.

Qeteb strode to within a pace of the two other Demons. “You go together to meet DareWing and

Goldman. You rise or fall together. I do not need to explain what this means.”

Having said that, Qeteb made a lie of his words. “Raspu and Roxiah have fallen: one turned, one

dead. If you fail then I am weakened to a point where I may flounder myself.”

“We will not fail,” Mot said.

“Make sure that you do not,” Qeteb whispered, then reached forward and grasped each Demon’s

chin in his mailed hands. “Do not fail!”

He let them go, and the Demons turned and faded into the wasteland.

Qeteb stood a moment, watching the space where they had vanished, then he turned about.