Crusader. Novel by Sara Douglass

the boulder might yet tumble prematurely and crush you? You have the time — you hope. What do you

want to do? Risk your own life to try to save the cub, or ensure your own safety by standing by and

witnessing the cub’s misery and eventual death?”

The two hounds looked at DareWing, glanced at the bear cub, now sobbing almost like a

human child, and then looked back at DareWing.

Then, very, very quickly, they glanced at Goldman.

Their eyes returned to DareWing, and they both slobbered and grinned.

And sat down.

“We wait,” Mot said, “for we feed off misery and pain.”

“Not what you expected?” Qeteb said to DragonStar. “Did you really think that bear cub’s suffering

would move them?”

“Wait,” DragonStar said.

“Yes,” Qeteb said, and grinned malevolently beneath his visor. “Why don’t we do just

that?”

Goldman looked at the cub. It was wriggling, trying so desperately to free itself, that Goldman’s

heart went out to its bravery and suffering.

How could it understand that it was merely part of a spell, a test?

In its own mind, the bear cub existed.

And suffered and sorrowed.

It wanted its mother. It wanted to be free, and free of the agony coursing through its mangled body.

“Gods,” Goldman whispered.

Qeteb’s grin stretched even further, and he felt the power of success flood his veins.

Now Mot and Barzula lowered themselves to their bellies, and Mot yawned.

“I wish that boulder would hurry up and fall,” he said. “The wait bores me.”

But teeter and shudder as it might, the boulder did not fall, and the bear cub continued to mew

and sob in its pain and sorrow.

Goldman looked desperately at Dare Wing. “I can’t just stand here …” he said.

“Goldman!” DareWing cried, appalled. “We can’t —”

“I can’t listen to it any more,” Goldman whispered. “I won’t!”

He turned, and dashed for the rock scree.

“Goldman!” DareWing screamed, and lifted into the air.

Goldman scrabbled up the rock scree, not hearing the laughter of the hounds beneath him.

All he could see, all he could hear, was the bear cub writhing just above him. If only he could reach it,

comfort it somehow, then all would be well … all would be well…

DareWing, hovering just above Goldman, reached down and tried to grab Goldman’s tunic.

“Goldman! Leave it alone! Leave it —”

DareWing could have flown to safety. But he didn’t. He chose to stay with his friend, who

had chosen, from pity, to save the cub.

The choice was made, and now others would live and die by it.

Goldman had scrabbled within an arm’s length of the bear cub, despite DareWing’s hand now

buried in the back of his tunic. He reached forward, touching the cub’s flailing paw.

The cub screamed …

… and the boulder toppled.

Not slowly, not reluctantly, but with a haste and purpose that was demonically assisted.

It struck the cub, sending a spray of blood and flesh outwards, and then in the next

heartbeat it struck Goldman, and, as it rolled inexorably downward, it caught DareWing’s

hand, and dragged him under its surging weight.

There was a brief crack, as if of splintering bones, and then the boulder was tumbling madly down

the scree, leaving behind it a wet slick of blood and flesh in the shaft of soft moonlight.

Both hounds nonchalantly moved out of the way as the boulder rolled past them, and then

sat down and shook with laughter.

“And in that instant,” Qeteb said, turning his head to stare at DragonStar’s shocked face, “and

for the love of a bear cub, we’re even! Even! Faraday … Faraday shall prove the decider.” And he

tipped back his head and roared with laughter.

The Butler opened the gate and prepared to welcome the visitors through.

But the three shook their heads, one saying: “Thank you, good sir, but we would wait awhile.

One of our number has yet a task unfinished, and must return.”

“Then perhaps we can talk,” said the Butler, “to pass the time. I have,” he bent down and

lifted something from the flowers about his legs, “a jug of creamy ale I rescued from the cook.”

“Oh, well done!” cried Goldman.

Chapter 62

Katie, Katie, Katie..

They drifted through unknown waterways, closer and closer to the Maze. The buildings and structures to

either side of the waterways grew ever more strange, and ever more depressing: great, grey statues of

fierce-chinned men, staring into the distance, shields and spears in hand. Other statues as tall as buildings,

crouched in contemplation, or with their faces buried in hands, as if all thought inevitably led to suicide.

Still more lay stretched out along the ground, cracked and crumbled, their stony faces reflecting some

long distant horror, and with twisted crosses tattooed deep into their biceps and chests.

In one cavern Azhure’s gaze was caught by the remnants of a great statue of a woman — only her

head, neck, and one shoulder and arm, were in one piece, while other bits of her toppled across what

had once been a huge parade ground. The statue’s head was majestic, crowned by a stone diadem, her

eyes wide and staring. Her outflung stone arm held a great torch, long extinguished.

Azhure gazed at it, sickened, yet not understanding why. She was not to know that the statue’s

fragments almost exactly mirrored Zenith’s remains as Axis had seen them.

Eventually, she dragged her eyes away, nauseated by these grey stone relics of a world long gone.

Katie sat with Azhure’s hand in hers. “You will see her again,” she said. “Surely. In the

Field of Flowers.”

Azhure nodded, but her face was as sad as those of the statues that lay to either side of

them. “I suppose I will, but, oh Stars! I have spent too much of my life grieving!”

“Death is but a doorway,” Katie said.

“I have come to loathe doorways,” Azhure said and took her hand from Katie’s, “for one can never

be sure of the truth that is said to lie on the other side.”

To that, Katie said nothing, and the punt glided on.

“You know,” Qeteb said as he and DragonStar rode their beasts eastwards towards the Maze, “I have

decided on a small game to help pass the time until I can hunt you through the Maze, dear companion.”

“And that is?” The Alaunt streamed out behind the Star Stallion, periodically deviating to

nip at the fetlocks of Qeteb’s strange black beast.

The beast took no notice of them.

“Well,” Qeteb said, shifting himself more comfortably in his saddle. “I remember a small game that

Gorgrael played.”

DragonStar looked at him sharply.

“And I thought you might enjoy it,” Qeteb continued. His visor was thrown back, and his perfect,

handsome face grinned into the wasteland. “I remember that Gorgrael debated back and forth, back and

forth, Azhure, or Faraday? Azhure or Faraday? Which? Do you remember that, DragonStar?”

DragonStar stared at the Demon, but said nothing.

“Ah, you were but a babe in arms, then,” Qeteb said. “Well. Gorgrael knew that one of them would

prove the distraction that would destroy Axis’ concentration when your golden father finally met

the warped and unlovable Gorgrael, but the poor chap wasn’t sure which one. He had time and

resources to go for only one. Finally, as legend well knows, he decided on Faraday, which was the

wrong choice because your father loved Azhure more and could afford to ignore Faraday being torn to

bloody pieces before his eyes.”

“What is the point of all this, Qeteb?”

“Well, I am glad you asked me that, my good friend, because I am faced with much the same

dilemma. I am certain that there is one woman around who could destroy your concentration when we

finally meet face to face in the Maze, but I am dithering over which it might be. Faraday, or …”

“Or?”

“Or … Katie.”

DragonStar turned aside. “I do not love Katie.”

“You do not lust for her in the same way that you lust for Faraday, but, oh yes, you do

love her. And, far more importantly, you need her. For what, I am not at all certain, but I can feel your

need for her bubbling through your veins.

“And so the game is, what will destroy your concentration more? Watching Faraday, whom you love

and for whom you lust, torn to shreds before your eyes … or Katie, whom you need for whatever noble

and magnificent purpose you have been created?”

Again DragonStar made no reply.

“The game, my dear and wonderful cousin,” Qeteb whispered, kneeing his beast so close to

Belaguez that the stallion snorted with disgust, “is that I don’t have to choose, do I? I have the resources

to take both. How will you feel, Drago-dearest, when I toss both their broken bodies at your feet?”

DragonStar pulled Belaguez to a head-tossing halt. “I don’t believe you. There is no way you can