Crusader. Novel by Sara Douglass

his brow, murmuring to him, holding him close.

Azhure thought she could have done with some of their comfort, but the ice sisters had no thought of

comforting anyone but SpikeFeather, and Azhure thought she would get little compassion from the

GateKeeper.

The woman sat at her table before the pulsating glow of the doorway into the Afterlife. Before her

were two bowls, but the GateKeeper’s thin, pale hands sat in idleness before them.

She transferred no balls from one bowl to the other.

The GateKeeper raised her eyes and saw Azhure’s stare.

“No souls pass this way now,” the GateKeeper said softly. “All bypass the Gate and step directly

into the Field of Flowers.”

“Is that what lies beyond the Gate?” Azhure said.

The GateKeeper smiled, a secretive expression on her face. “I have never told what lies beyond the

Gate,” she said, “and will not do so —”

She broke off, and stared at a distant point over Azhure’s shoulder. “Another customer?” she said.

“Why? How?”

Azhure twisted about.

Far away a glowing outline glided along the black River of Death towards the island of the Gate.

The GateKeeper took a harsh intake of breath, and, as the figure glided closer and mounted the

loose grey gravel of the island, Azhure gave a soft cry herself.

It was Katie.

Katie was dead?

“As ever she will be,” murmured the GateKeeper, and then the shade of Katie was standing before

the woman’s table, her eyes great and sorrowful, her hands folded neatly before her.

The GateKeeper lifted a metal ball from one bowl and held the hand over the other bowl. “Are you

going through, Katie?”

“Aye,” Katie said, then her expression cleared and she smiled. “Rejoice, GateKeeper, for your task

is done. Time is ended, and the Gate must close.”

The GateKeeper smiled also, an expression of such sweetness that Azhure, watching, felt her eyes

fil with tears.

“Then go through, my child, and rejoice yourself that your task is done.”

“Katie?” Azhure said. “Katie —”

Katie turned her head very slightly so she could see Azhure. “When you see Faraday,” she said, “will

you tell her that I love her? That I love her enough to die for her this time?”

And then she was gone.

The instant she glided through the doorway the GateKeeper seized her two bowls and flung them

into the air.

“Done!” she screeched. “Done!”

Metal balls rained down, and Azhure, as SpikeFeather and the two ice women covered their heads

with their arms.

“Take my hands!” the GateKeeper cried, and literally lunged over her table towards the foursome.

“Take my hands!”

And she grabbed Azhure with one hand, and SpikeFeather with the other as the sisters gripped the

GateKeeper’s forearms.

The Gate exploded.

Azhure screwed her eyes shut and screamed, but even as she did so she heard the GateKeeper cry out

herself. “The Gate is dead! Time is extinct!” And then there was nothing but a black void.

Chapter 67

Bring Me My Bow of Burning Gold…

Something had gone horribly, horribly wrong, and Qeteb knew it the instant the blood splattered out

from Katie’s throat.

He had gutted the wrong girl. DragonStar had chosen correctly.

But how could this be so when his captains had won, three to two?

They had won, hadn’t they?

Or was there something he’d misinterpreted?

Tencendor took one last, dying breath, and the devastation of death consumed the land as the last of

Katie’s blood flowed from her tiny, frail body.

The sky cracked.

The earth shattered.

The air exploded.

Qeteb threw Katie’s drained corpse to one side. “Then it’s just you and me,” he said, calm now in the

face of disaster, “as it ever was.”

“As it ever was,” DragonStar agreed.

Qeteb, blank-faced, stepped away, vanishing into the shadowy land beyond the encircling columns

of the mausoleum. The silent, dark forms of Mot, Barzula and Sheol vanished directly after him.

DragonStar took Faraday — now deep in shock — and led

her unresisting to one side, sitting her down against one of the columns. “Wait,” he said. “All will be well.”

Axis, as everyone in the column, panicked as Creation withered about them.

Firestorms raced across the plains, and mountains trembled and collapsed in upon themselves.

The darkness and coldness of a complete vacuum descended upon the land.

Wait, a voice echoed through the minds of all within the convoy, and they knew it for the voice of

Leagh’s Child, all will be well.

And even though darkness consumed them, and the feel of the land beneath their feet vanished, all

continued to survive.

All that remained of the land that had once been Tencendor was the black pulsing thing that was the

Maze: an island of madness in a sea of destruction.

DragonStar straightened, and whistled.

The baying of the Alaunt filled the air, and their creamy, eager bodies wound about his legs.

A shadow darkened the doorway of the mausoleum.

“At your service, sir,” said Raspu, dressed for the destruction of Creation in his stiffly starched

butler’s uniform, “as always.”

DragonStar nodded. “Good.” He held out his hand. “Deliver me my bow.”

And Raspu inclined his head, and stepped forward. In his hands he held the Wolven, and its quiver

of blue-fletched arrows.

DragonStar took the bow, and slung the quiver over his shoulder and back.

He held out the bow, and looked at the lizard.

The lizard grinned and, lifting a claw, sent a shaft of light glimmering along the entire bow.

It burst into fire, although the flames did not consume the wood, nor harm DragonStar.

DragonStar nodded at the lizard, then slung the burning bow over his shoulder.

Then he lifted his voice, and sent it singing through the Maze.

“Run, Qeteb,” he said, “for the clouds are about to unfold, and the Hunt about to begin.”

Chapter 68

Twisted City

Qeteb fled through the Maze, Sheol, Mot and Barzula at his heels. DragonStar did not instantly

follow. He straightened the quiver of arrows, and adjusted the Wolven so it lay, comfortable, across his

back. He lifted and resettled his jewelled belt and purse.

He walked over to Katie’s corpse — the floor of the mausoleum was slick with her blood

— and he squatted down beside it.

“We thank you and honour you, Katie,” he said, and, wiping the fingers of his right hand

through her blood, marked his forehead and breast with it as Raum had once marked Faraday.

“Who was she?” Faraday whispered.

DragonStar looked over at her, still sitting by the column. “She was Tencendor’s lifeblood,” he said.

“The land’s soul.”

“Why did she need to die?”

“So the land can move through death, and live again,” DragonStar said, “and so the land could repay

you for all you have done and sacrificed for it.”

He rose and walked over to Faraday, bending down to give her a brief but passionate kiss. “You

and I,” he whispered, “are given the task of re-creating the land free of the discord and evil which once

stalked it… which once stalked all of Creation.

“But for the moment —” he straightened “— I have a small task to accomplish, the Hunt to

complete.”

And, smiling gently, he left her.

Raspu walked over, balancing very carefully on one hand a tray with a silver pot, and a cream

porcelain milk jug, sugar bowl, and cup and saucer. “Would ma’am like some tea?” he asked.

Faraday blinked, and then decided not to try to make sense of any of it. “That would be very nice,”

she said. “Thank you.”

The Butler poured her cup of tea, painstakingly added sugar and milk in their proper proportions,

and held the cup out to Faraday.

“Ma’am.”

She accepted it without a word, but her eyes widened in surprise as she tasted the tea. “It is very

good.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Raspu shifted slightly, as if embarrassed. “Ma’am, I regret that I shall have to

leave you for a moment or two. Sir has asked me to take care of one or two small tasks for him.”

“Of course,” Faraday said, and Raspu gave her a small bow, and tucked under his arm a large

account book he’d apparently obtained from thin air. Then, without further ado, he disappeared.

Strangely, Faraday did not feel lonely or vulnerable at all. The tea was very good indeed.

DragonStar strode through the door into the Maze, and the Star Stallion lifted his head and screamed as

the Alaunt milled about and bayed.

DragonStar leapt on Belaguez’s back, and drew the lily sword.

The Alaunt broke into clamour.

“Hunt!” DragonStar said.

And so it began.

DragonStar was his mother’s son. As Azhure had once hunted Artor, so now DragonStar hunted Qeteb

and his remaining companions. But this was the real hunt, the Hunt that the Star Dance had been

engineering for hundreds of thousands of years.

This was the moment, and this was the StarSon.

The Hunter.

Qeteb fled through the Maze. The millions of demented creatures that had once throbbed and