The maze disintegrated, and Faraday‘s mind was freed.
She smiled, an expression of pure coldness.
Every rodent, worm and burrower and crawler within Carlon suddenly stopped what it
was doing and turned itself towards the building where Faraday had just killed their leader.
Then, as a single entity, every one of them screamed (or screeched or moaned or rasped),
then scuttled for the nearest dank hole leading back to the sewers.
The brown and cream badger grunted in fury. He quivered, and then gave the order his
furred comrades had been waiting to hear for a long, long time.
Faraday blinked, and realised that the room was full, not only of those who‘d come
through Spiredore with her, but with five or six terrified men and women, huddled in a far
corner.
Faraday walked over to them, touched the cheek of the nearest woman, and smiled, with
warmth this time.
―Do you see that door?‖ she said softly, indicating the glowing rectangle of light. ―It
leads to escape and to wonder. Take the hand of this Icarii man behind me, and he will guide you
through.‖
One of the men huddled at the back of the group was wrinkled with age, and the joints on
the trembling hand he now raised were swollen and painful.
―Queen Faraday?‖ he whispered. ―Is that you?‖
―My name is Faraday, indeed,‖ she said, taking his hand, ―but I am queen of nothing but
my own destiny. Now, will you come?‖
Even though Faraday, Leagh, Gwendylyr and Goldman had all moved to different parts
of the city, the business of evacuating two hundred thousand people from a burning and
fear-filled city through five small doorways was a mammoth and well-nigh impossible task.
Nevertheless, several things worked in their favour.
Sheer luck—or Spiredore‘s good sense—had placed Faraday in the very room the
patchy-bald rat inhabited, and her ability to trust in, and use, pure instinct, together with a long
familiarity with the processes of power, had witnessed the patchy-bald rat‘s demise and the
subsequent panic and flight of all his comrades within Carlon.
Suddenly, the creatures that had panicked the entire city were gone.
The Alaunt and the members of the Lake Guard moved almost as one, hunting out
pockets of terrified humanity and directing them towards the rooms where the women and Drago
had erected their doorways of light.
Goldman, of course, relied on the cats.
Faraday, Leagh and Gwendylyr induced calm by their very presence. People huddled
choking and close to death in a corner of an attic or kitchen or on a landing of their stairwells,
would look up to see the smiling face of what they first thought was an apparition of one of the
spirits who guided souls in their journey through to the Gate of the AfterLife. Lovely, serene,
dressed in flowing white robes, the apparition would bend down with an extended hand, and
people would suddenly, startlingly, realise that they looked into the face of Queen Leagh, or the
Duchess Gwendylyr or, for some of the older people, the face of the mythical, enchanted
Faraday.
There were no questions, no panic. They took the hand offered them, and followed the
Icarii who guided them, and they stepped through glowing rectangles of light into a maze of
twisting stairs and crazily-canted balconies, then onto a bridge—who spoiled the dreamlike
quality of their journey thus far with some persistent questioning—and then found themselves on
a flower-lined road that led to a magical valley.
Goldman had as much success as his three female companions, but with a slightly
different method. Like Gwendylyr, Goldman was still absorbing the full impact of his journey
from crazed psychotic to a man not only restored in body and soul, but also augmented with
something…more. A depth that he‘d never realised he‘d possessed. Whatever this ―depth‖ was,
it did not feel in the least foreign, but very much a part of him, and Goldman realised that he‘d been living a half-life to this point.
Now he felt more the priest than the guild master, more the mystic than the hard-talking
and scheming Master of Guilds.
He felt as if his spirit had come home.
Goldman was certainly home in body. He knew Carlon better than he knew the contours
of his favourite pillow. He‘d been born in this city, had spent his childhood scrambling about its
roofs and creeping through its cellars, had spent his youth learning its idiosyncrasies in the city
workshops, and had spent his adulthood exploiting those idiosyncrasies for the gain of the city ‘s
guildsmen and traders.
Now he put a lifetime of knowledge, plus his new-found ―depth‖, to good use. The cats
helped Goldman, as the Alaunt helped the women. They found the secret places where parents
had hidden children, and the cunningly disguised doors that led to smoke-filled closets filled
with the hidden.
They also invariably led Goldman through kitchens to get to where they had to go, but
when Goldman clapped his hands and told them to get to the business at hand, they would do so
uncomplainingly, even though they flicked their tails in disgust.
But Goldman had far more in mind than going through his section of the city room by
room. Already he could hear buildings crashing down as walls and supports burned through.
Drago may have cleared the city of much of the choking smoke, but he could do nothing about
the spreading flames through tight-packed tenements that shared walls and roofs.
Goldman knew this was no time for a leisurely stroll through the deathtrap his beloved
city had become.
―ProudFlight,‖ Goldman said to the Lake Guard Lieutenant who led the group of
guardsmen and women WingRidge had assigned Goldman. ―We are within two blocks of the
Wool Weavers Guild Hall. Get me there.‖
―But—‖
―Get me there, and then get on with your task of getting people into the doorway.‖
―And you?‖
Goldman would have grinned, save the situation was getting more desperate by the
moment. ―Get me to that Hall, and you shall see.‖
They moved into the street, wrapping spare cloths about their heads as some protection
against the thickening fumes. Now that Drago‘s door was again evacuating people, the smoke
was rapidly rebuilding to a point where it was causing serious difficulty in breathing. Burning
cinders and ash drifted down from fiery buildings, and ProudFlight spread a wing over Goldman
to protect him, disregarding the cinders that burned holes through his feathers.
Fortunately, the streets they took were not badly obstructed by burning debris, and they
reached the Wool Weaver‘s Guild Hall in a relatively short time. Thank the gods, Goldman
thought, that the Wool Weavers were a rich enough guild to build with brick rather than wood
and shingle!
―Leave me,‖ he said to ProudFlight, gasping for breath. ―I will be safe enough here for
the moment. Fetch me…fetch me when the bells stop.‖
―The bells?‖
―When the bells stop! Now, go!‖
Goldman gave ProudFlight a shove, and after a glance to make sure the Master of the
Guilds had entered the building, the birdman ran back down the street towards the block his
command were currently evacuating.
Goldman stumbled inside the building, and stood for a moment to orientate himself. The
Guild Hall was not yet seriously alight, but its interior was nevertheless filled with the smoke
and cinders of the conflagration to either side, and Goldman knew he couldn‘t waste time by
running aimlessly from room to room.
Ah! There! Goldman walked as fast as he could through the shifting, grey-filled gloom,
keeping a hand on a wall for direction and support.
He reached a small and almost hidden door, opened it, and climbed the stairway it
revealed.
Drago glanced over his shoulder at the group of people that Herme herded into the room.
They stared at the glowing door, then walked through without question, glad enough to escape
the certain death that awaited them in Carlon.
He returned his gaze to the sight out the window. The Maze was evident as darker
smudges of grey under the silvery waters of Grail Lake.
―How long?‖ he asked WingRidge standing beside him.
―It will take some days, perhaps a week, to fully emerge,‖ WingRidge said. ―It will gauge
its rising to the approach of the Demons.‖
Drago nodded absently, his attention now focused on what he could feel of the
TimeKeepers. They were still distant, many days travel away…but they were very, very angry.
Enraged.
―StarSon!‖ WingRidge barked, and Drago leapt out of his reverie, surprised not only by
the tone in WingRidge‘s voice, but by the title.
However much Drago had thought he‘d accepted it, reminders of his heritage still came
as uncomfortable shocks.
―StarSon!‖ WingRidge said again. ―Look!‖
Drago stared to where the captain of the Lake Guard pointed, and drew his breath in
sharply in shock.
―Dear gods!‖ he whispered.
The gates of Carlon were rocking back and forth, back and forth, and Drago realised the
guards who manned and maintained them were either dead or gone.