Faraday was overcome with horror. What had happened? How had Qeteb managed to seize
Katie. Why hadn’t Azhure looked after her properly?
She began to weep, great, soul-tearing sobs that came from the very core of her bearing. “Oh,
Katie!” she whispered. “Katie! I cannot let this happen to you!”
There was no choice, and Faraday knew it.
“Take me,” she said. “Take me.”
Sheol broke into triumphant laughter, and rose from Faraday’s feet, seizing Faraday’s
shoulders in a grip so painful that Faraday cried out and almost lost consciousness.
“You stupidest of bitches!” Sheol said. “I’ve won, and that means DragonStar has lost! ”
“I’m sorry,” Faraday whispered into the swirling snowstorm, knowing no apology could ever be
enough. “I’m sorry.”
Three to two. The balance was in Qeteb’s camp. DragonStar had failed.
Qeteb turned to DragonStar. He spoke, but with the mind voice only.
The preliminaries are over, Enemy. Now it is just you and me.
DragonStar, impassive even in utter defeat, nodded. Just you and me.
Qeteb smiled. The choices are made, the outcome assured.
DragonStar bowed his head. Aye. I accept it.
Then let the Hunt begin!
And Qeteb vanished, and as he vanished, the billions of creatures in and about the Maze let loose an
almighty roar as if with one voice.
Let the Hunt begin!
Leagh clutched her Child to her breast, her eyes round and fearful. “We’ve lost!”
Ur stared into the distance, seeing something that no-one else could. “Perhaps.”
Chapter 65
Abandoned
Sheol threw Faraday down on the mausoleum floor before Mot and Barzula. Mot laughed, the sound
violent and horrifying, and Faraday only barely managed to find the courage to raise her head.
Katie still struggled in their grip, her eyes round and terrified, her face so white Faraday wondered
that she had not already fainted.
“Let Katie go,” she said. “Let her go. I have offered myself to take her place.”
“Let her go? Let her go?” Sheol giggled from behind Faraday. “Why?”
“You promised! You said that Qeteb would swap Katie for me! You said that Katie would go
free!”
“She lied to you, bitch.”
The voice, harsh with hatred and something else that, when Faraday comprehended it, filled her with
nauseous dread. No! No! Not this again!
Qeteb walked around Sheol and stood with Mot and Barzula. His metal armour clanked and
shrieked with every movement.
Faraday, still cowering on the floor, wrenched her gaze from Katie to look at him.
Slowly Qeteb raised a hand and lifted the visor of his helmet.
Something horrible writhed inside, and Faraday screamed.
A forked tongue flickered over the lip of the helmet’s chin-piece, as if in anticipation.
“You promised to let her go!” Faraday screamed. “Take me, but let her go!”
“Didn’t you hear me, cow?” Qeteb took one step towards Faraday, and she screamed, and would
have wriggled away had not Sheol stamped a foot into the small of her back, pinning her to the floor.
“Oh,” Qeteb said, “how I adore to see a woman writhing before me.”
“Take me —” Faraday began.
“Oh, and now she begs for me!” Qeteb crowed.
“—but let Katie go!”
“I do not subscribe to the principle of honour,” Qeteb said, now squatting down by Faraday. “I
don’t mind ensuring DragonStar’s death any foul way I can.”
She buried her face in her hands, unable any longer to look at the unspeakable flesh wriggling inside
the helmet. Something grabbed her hair, and she knew it was Qeteb.
He wrenched her head back, forcing her to look at him.
Faraday gagged, the Midday Demon’s power not even allowing her to screw her eyes shut.
“Katie stays,” Qeteb said, “as do you. You are both far too useful to me to let go.”
He turned his head slightly, speaking to the other three Demons. “Take Katie aside, and
keep her fresh for me. Wait.”
“And you?” Sheol asked, knowing what he intended to do, but also knowing that Qeteb wanted her
to ask the question.
“Me?” Qeteb turned back to stare at Faraday again. His forked tongue slithered forth to
hang dripping over his metal chin-piece. “Aren’t we repeating Prophecy here for the amusement of poor
Faraday? There is only one thing for me to do to while away the time. Enjoy myself, and ease my lusts.”
His free hand reached forward, sliding under Faraday’s gown and gripping one breast so painfully
Faraday whimpered.
She twisted, her body straining against Qeteb’s hold, and she despaired. What had Noah told her?
That she would either win, and achieve complete and lasting happiness, or she would fail and achieve
total annihilation.
She had failed, and thus annihilation was hers for the asking.
Please, God, grant me death, she pleaded, and far away, nestled against the warmth and
comfort of Leagh’s breast, the Girl turned Her head and answered, No.
Then grant me insanity! Please! I beg you!
No. This is your destiny.
Qeteb’s hand tightened remorselessly, and Faraday screamed, abandoned to her fate.
Chapter 66
Choose, DragonStar!
DragonStar sat his Star Stallion before the Maze Gate. He had been here before, but that time seemed
now to be a hundred light years ago.
He sat, completely still, his head bowed, his almost naked body exuding the faintest of glimmers in
the evening air. His stallion, mane and tail ablaze, waited patiently, although he shifted
occasionally: stamping a hoof, lowering and shaking his magnificent head, or raising it
again to stare through the open Gate.
The pack of Alaunt waited to one side, the blue-feathered lizard once more in their midst — albeit
hiccupping slightly.
DragonStar sat, his face lowered, eyes almost closed, lost in his thoughts.
Rather, lost in the thoughts and memories of the Enemy.
Images and sounds of the Enemy’s battle with the Demons on their long ago world flickered through
DragonStar’s mind. But deeper memories also surfaced, of yet older worlds, and even more ancient
battles against the Demons.
The fight against the Demons — whether that of the Enemy’s, or of yet other enemies — had been
fought since the beginning of time. And always, the Demons had won.
Now? Now was the last battle, the final confrontation. Whoever won here would carry the
victory into eternity.
Here, this night, awaited the final choice.
Belaguez snorted again, and DragonStar raised his head and opened his eyes.
The StarSon looked through the Maze Gate.
Hell waited within. Millions, perhaps billions, of deformed bodies and minds tumbled and scratched and
pummelled as one entity, caught in the infinite bleakness of the beating heart of the Maze.
It writhed and pulsed and throbbed.
It screeched and caterwauled and mewed.
It sang seductively, it beckoned enticingly, it begged for his presence.
In the Dark Tower.
The Dark Tower.
The Dark Tower was where Qeteb waited … with his choice. Qeteb’s lieutenants had won the
battle of the Demons and witches, now it lay with Qeteb to offer the final choice.
DragonStar blinked, and refocused on the Gate itself.
The millions of seething characters had all gone, and the Gate surrounds were now blank stone.
Save for the single carving that topped the archway.
It depicted The Sacrifice. The Sacrifice that DragonStar would have to choose. Katie? Faraday? Or
himself?
DragonStar stared at the carving, and nodded, for it told him nothing he had not known for a very
long time.
The carving blurred, and then rippled away, leaving nothing but bare stone in its passing.
DragonStar turned his head slightly to look at Sicarius sitting at the head of his pack. “Wait here,” the
StarSon said, “until I whistle my need for you.”
Sicarius inclined his head. The Hunt was surely close now.
Then DragonStar looked at the blue-feathered lizard, sitting slightly to one side of Sicarius.
“Wait here,” said DragonStar, “until I have need of your light.”
And the lizard inclined his head.
DragonStar looked back to the Gate, and drew his lily sword. Belaguez tensed.
“For this,” DragonStar cried, “you and I were both born, Demon!”
And the Star Stallion leapt through the Gate.
As soon as he had disappeared, the forty-two thousand trees drifted as close to the Maze as
they dared, forming a single line around its entire perimeter.
There, Ur standing and shifting impatiently from foot to foot among them, they waited.
DragonStar rode, but he did not find the journey to the Dark Tower as easy as the first time
he’d ridden through the Maze.
Then, the way had been free and clear, and the Maze had sung and screamed its
encouragement propelling him towards the Dark Tower.
Now foulness sought to block his way. All the creatures packed into the veins of the Maze seemed
as one. Legs and arms and limbs and teeth lunged at him indiscriminately, as if attached to the
one body, the one mind. DragonStar sliced to this side and to that with his sword, and it
wrought great damage, but it was Belaguez who worked best to clear a path for him.