Pilgrim by Sara Douglas
The Warden of men hath wasted this world
Till the sound of music and revel is stilled,
And these giant-built structures stand empty of life.
He who shall muse on these mouldering ruins,
And deeply ponder this darkling life,
Must brood on old legends of battle and bloodshed,
And heavy the mood that troubles his heart:
‗Where now is the warrior? Where is the war horse?‘
The Wanderer, Anon., Anglo-Saxon, circa 900s
I wrote this book while replanting and laying out the century-old gardens of Ashcotte,
and their thousands of lilies and cornflowers and peonies and poppies and violets somehow
found their way through the open spring windows onto these pages. Thus, Pilgrim is in part the recreation of the field of flowers which surrounds Ashcotte.
Table of Contents:
Prologue
1 Questions of Conveyance
2 The Dreamer
3 The Feathered Lizard
4 What To Do?
5 The Prodigal Son‘s Welcome
6 The Rosewood Staff
7 The Emperor‘s Horses
8 Towards Cauldron Lake
9 Cauldron Lake
10 The Crystal Forest
11 GhostTree Camp
12 The Hawkchilds
13 The Waiting Stars
14 In the Chamber of the Enemy
15 Hidden Conversations
16 Destruction Accepted
17 The Donkeys‘ Tantrum
18 Shade
19 The SunSoar Curse
20 Sicarius
21 Why? Why? Why?
22 Arrival at the Minaret Peaks
23 The Arcness Plains
24 The Dark Trap
25 Askam
26 The Hall of the Stars
27 Drago‘s Ancient Relics
28 Sunken Castles
29 The Mountain Trails
30 Home Safe
31 The Fun of the Blooding
32 A Seal Hunt…of Sorts
33 Of Sundry Travellers
34 Poor, Useless Fool
35 Andeis Voyagers
36 Gorkenfort
37 The Lesson of the Sparrow
38 The Sunken Keep
39 The Mother of Races
40 Murkle Mines
41 An Angry Foam of Stars
42 The Lake of Life
43 The Bridges of Tencendor
44 Aftermath
45 The Twenty Thousand
46 The Secret in the Basement
47 StarSon
48 Companionship and Respect
49 Sigholt‘s Gift
50 Sanctuary
51 A SunSoar Reunion…of Sorts
52 Of What Can‘t Be Rescued
53 The Enchanted Song Book
54 The Cruelty of Love
55 An Enchantment Made Visible
56 The Field of Flowers
57 Gorken Pass
58 The Deep Blue Cloak of Betrayal
59 A Fate Deserved?
60 Of Salvation
61 The Bloodied Rose Wind
62 A Song of Innocence
63 The Fields of Resurrection…and the Streets of Death
64 The Doorways
65 Evacuation
66 Cats in the Corridor!
67 The Emptying
68 Mountain, Forest and Marsh
69 The Dark Tower
70 The Rape of Tencendor
71 The Hunt
Epilogue
Glossary
MORE GREAT READING FROM
THE AXIS TRILOGY
THRESHOLD
Acknowledgements
Prologue
The lieutenant pushed his fork back and forth across the table, back and forth, back and
forth, his eyes vacant, his mind and heart a thousand galaxies away.
Scrape…scrape…scrape.
―For heaven‘s sake, Chris, will you stop that? It‘s driving me crazy!‖
The lieutenant gripped the fork in his fist, and his companion tensed, thinking Chris
would fling it across the dull, black metal table towards him.
But Chris‘ hand suddenly relaxed, and he managed a tight, half-apologetic smile. ―Sorry.
It‘s just that this…this…‖
―We only have another two day spans, mate, and then we wake the next shift for their
stint at uselessness.‖
Chris‘ fingers traced gently over the surface of the table. It vibrated. Everything on the
ship vibrated.
―I can‘t bloody wait for another stretch of deep sleep,‖ he said quietly, his eyes flickering
over to Commander Devereaux sitting at a keyboard by the room‘s only porthole. ―Unlike him. ‖
His fellow officer nodded. Perhaps thirty-five rotations ago, waking from their allotted
span of deep sleep, the retiring crew had reported a strange vibration within the ship. No
mechanical or structural problem…the ship was just vibrating.
And then…then they‘d found that the ship was becoming a little sluggish in responding
to commands, and after five or six day spans it refused to respond to their commands at all.
The other three ships in the fleet had similar problems—at least, that‘s what their last
communiques had reported. The Ark crew were aware of the faint phosphorescent outlines in the
wake of the other ships, but that was all now. So here they were, hurtling through deep space, in
ships that responded to no command, and with cargo that the crews preferred not to think about.
When they volunteered for this mission, hadn‘t they been told that once they‘d found somewhere
to ―dispose‖ of the cargo they could come home?
But now, the crew of The Ark wondered, what would be disposed of? The cargo? Or
them?
It might have helped if the commander had come up with something helpful. But
Devereaux seemed peculiarly unconcerned, saying only that the vibrations soothed his soul and
that the ships, if they no longer responded to human command, at least seemed to know what
they were doing.
And now here he was, tapping at that keyboard as if he actually had a purpose in life.
None of them had a purpose any more. They were as good as dead. Everyone knew that. Why
not Devereaux?
―What are you doing, sir?‖ Chris asked. He had picked up the fork again, and it quivered
in his over-tight grip.
―I…‖ Devereaux frowned as if listening intently to something, then his fingers rattled
over the keys. ―I am just writing this down.‖
―Writing what down, sir?‖ the other officer asked, his voice tight.
Devereaux turned slightly to look at them, his eyes wide. ―Don‘t you hear it? Lovely
music…enchanted music…listen, it vibrates through the ship. Don‘t you feel it?‖
―No,‖ Chris said. He paused, uncomfortable. ―Why write it down, sir? For who? What is
the bloody point of writing it down?‖
Devereaux smiled. ―I‘m writing it down for Katie, Chris. A song book for Katie.‖
Chris stared at him, almost hating the man. ―Katie is dead, sir. She has been dead at least
twelve thousand years. I repeat, what is the fucking point?‖
Devereaux‘s smile did not falter. He lifted a hand and placed it over his heart. ―She lives
here, Chris. She always will. And in writing down these melodies, I hope that one day she will
live to enjoy the music as much as I do.‖
It was then that The Ark, in silent communion with the others, decided to let Devereaux
live.
1
Questions of Conveyance
The speckled blue eagle clung to rocks under the overhang of the river cliffs a league
south of Carlon. He shuddered. Nothing in life made sense any more. He had been drifting the
thermals, digesting his noonday meal of rats, when a thin grey mist had enveloped him and sent
despair stringing through his veins.
He could not fight it, and had not wanted to. His wings crippled with melancholy, he‘d
plummeted from the sky, uncaring about his inevitable death.
It had seemed the best solution to his useless life.
Chasing rats? Ingesting them. Why?
In his mad, uncaring tumble out of control, the eagle struck the cliff face. The impact
drove the breath from him, and he thought it may also have broken one of his breast bones, but
even in the midst of despair, the eagle‘s talons scrabbled automatically for purchase among the
rocks.
And then…then the despair had gone. Evaporated.
The eagle blinked and looked about.
It was cold here in the shadow of the rocks, and he wanted to warm himself in the sun
again—but he feared the grey-fingered enemy that awaited him within the thermals. In the open
air.
What was this grey miasma? What had caused it?
He cocked his head to one side, his eyes unblinking, considering. Gryphon? Was this
their mischief?
No. The Gryphon had long gone, and their evil he would have felt ripping into him, not
seeping in with this grey mist‘s many-fingered coldness. No, this was something very different.
Something worse.
The sun was sinking now, only an hour or two left until dusk, and the eagle did not want
to spend the night clinging to this cliff face.
He cocked his head—the grey haze had evaporated.
With fear—a new sensation for this most ancient and wise of birds—he cast himself into
the air. He rose over the Nordra, expecting any minute to be seized again by that consuming
despair.
But there was nothing.
Nothing but the rays of the sun glinting from his feathers and the company of the sky.
Relieved, the eagle tilted his wings and headed for his roost under the eaves of one of the
towers of Carlon.
He thought he would rest there a day or two. Watch. Discover if the evil would strike
again, and, if so, how best to survive it.
The yards of the slaughterhouse situated a half-league west of Tare were in chaos. Two of
the slaughtermen had been outside when Sheol‘s mid-afternoon despair struck. Now they were
dead, trampled beneath the hooves of a thousand crazed livestock. The fourteen other men were
still safe, for they had been inside and protected when the TimeKeepers had burst through the