Pilgrim by Sara Douglas

through death and returned to walk in life.

―Who else commands this power?‖ Adamon asked.

―Faraday,‖ Gwendylyr said, ―and Leagh, Goldman and DareWing—‖

―DareWing?‖ Xanon said.

―DareWing has Acharite blood flowing through his veins.‖

Azhure‘s mouth twitched. ―He had a roving ancestor, it seems.‖

―So it seems,‖ Gwendylyr agreed. ―Our master and teacher in all this, is—‖

―Drago,‖ Azhure interrupted softly. She had slipped a hand through Axis‘ arm, and now

gently pushed his hand from the hilt of his sword.

Gwendylyr stared at her, seeing the understanding in Azhure‘s eyes. ―Yes. Drago. He has

made this doorway for me.‖

Axis‘ face lost its tenseness and grew instead tired. ―And Caelum?‖ he asked. ―Where

does Caelum fit into all this?‖

―My Lord Axis,‖ Gwendylyr said, ―will you believe me when I say that everything and

everyone works only to aid the StarSon?‖

Of those listening, only Azhure understood what Gwendylyr really meant. The others

only comprehended what they wanted to understand.

She nodded very slightly at Gwendylyr, but it was Adamon who answered.

―Yes, we believe you, Gwendylyr. One of the few skills that remain to me is the power to

discern truth. What is this Sanctuary?‖

―A very beautiful place,‖ Gwendylyr said, although she‘d not yet seen Sanctuary herself.

―And who currently has sought Sanctuary?‖ Xanon asked.

―All of Tencendor we can save,‖ Gwendylyr said. ―The people…and whatever creatures

accepted our offer.‖

The image of the thousands of millipedes that had crawled over her feet suddenly filled

Gwendylyr‘s mind, and Azhure, who caught just a little of Gwendylyr‘s instinctive abhorrence,

stifled a grin. Just about everything that could crawl had taken refuge in Sanctuary, it seemed.

―There are relatively few of us here,‖ Azhure said. ―It will not take long for us to collect

what we need.‖

Axis hesitated. He did not know what to make of this woman, and there was something

that had passed between her and Azhure that he could not understand.

But if Azhure trusted her…and if Adamon and Xanon were nodding and moving back

down the stairwell as if to gather those below…

―It is a tragic thing,‖ he said softly, ―that this mountain must once again be emptied.‖

―It survived foulness before,‖ Gwendylyr said, ―and so we must hope it will again.‖

―Come, Axis,‖ Azhure murmured, and tugged lightly at his arm. ―There is one thing that

must not be left behind.‖

After the Mother had left her, Faraday went to her childhood home of Ilfracombe in the

southern Skarabost Plains. This area was not her territory—by this time Gwendylyr had already

emptied it—but Faraday had to say goodbye to her home.

It was abandoned, and Faraday hoped it was because Gwendylyr had moved its

inhabitants into Sanctuary and not because whoever had lived here had been captured body and

soul by the Demons.

Who had lived here? Were her two elder sisters still alive? Did they have children?

Faraday suddenly found herself desperate to know what had happened to whatever remained of

her family, and she moved through the house room by room, running fingers over remembered

furniture, and studying the miniature portraits that hung in the audience room.

There, her two sisters and their husbands, portraits drawn recently, to tell from the

wrinkles and aged eyes.

Faraday stared at them a long time, trying to come to grips with the aging of her sisters.

Here she stood, in physical form not a whit older than twenty-one or two, and here their

likenesses hung, older than Faraday remembered their mother when she‘d died.

Unnerved, she turned away.

Children had lived here—perhaps her sisters‘ grandchildren—for all the bedrooms had

been occupied, and in many of them toys lay scattered as if thrown about in the ruckus of a hasty

departure.

Faraday hoped that meant Gwendylyr had taken them, and the children had grabbed what

toys they could in the time they‘d been given.

But what moved Faraday the most was that her own bedroom had been left exactly as

she‘d left it…what? Forty-five years ago? Her bed, dresser, and drawings lay as last she‘d placed

them. Even her favourite rag doll sat on a chair where she‘d always put it as a child.

Faraday stared at the doll a long time, then impulsively she snatched it up, and fled back

through the house to where the glowing doorway waited outside.

From Ilfracombe she went to Arcen, packed with frightened and increasingly desperate

people.

They needed no persuasion to empty into her doorway. Once Arcen was bare, Faraday

moved to the few communities remaining in Tarantaise—the hamlets in the northern Plains of

Tare had been lost to the Demons—and from Tarantaise Faraday went to the one place she‘d not

had time to study when she‘d passed through here forty years ago as she‘d planted out the

forests.

Bogle Marsh.

It bubbled and seethed happily under a grey and low-slung sky.

Did anything save dragonflies and insects live in this pestilent marsh? In her childhood

Faraday had heard of strange creatures that lived here, but were they tales meant to scare

children or versions of reality?

She clutched her rag doll and stared uncertainty at the marsh.

―Sanctuary?‖ she asked with some considerable hesitation.

Instantly a number of the strangest creatures Faraday could ever have imagined—and she

had seen some strange things in her lifetime—emerged from the marsh in a series of loud

sucking sounds as the mud reluctantly let them go.

The creatures were covered in grey mud so thickly the true lines of their forms could not

be discerned, but what Faraday could see made her take an instinctive step back.

The creatures were large and bulky, larger than a horse and twice as heavy, but with

cumbersome flippers rather than legs, and lumpish faces with wriggling snouts for noses. Behind

them they carried wide, flat muscular tails which they used to propel themselves forwards.

Bright brown eyes regarded her happily as they humped and lurched past Faraday into the

doorway, and she could hear them snorting and thumping as they negotiated the stairs within

Spiredore.

―Goodness,‖ she said quietly as the last one managed to get itself through the doorway,

and, picking up her skirts very carefully in one hand, she followed them through.

And after Bogle Marsh there was only one thing left for Faraday to do, and something

she had purposely left to last.

The fey creatures of the forests.

And Raum.

She met him the instant she re-entered the forest of Minstrelsea. He waited for her in a

glade, his white coat luminescent even though there was no sunshine, his skin trembling even though there was no obvious danger.

He held his head high, and slightly to one side, and his eyes great and dark and staring.

The Sacred White Stag of the forests.

She stood and stared at him, then moved slowly forward, lovely herself in her white robe

with her chestnut hair cascading down her back.

He trembled anew as she neared, but he let her stroke his coat.

Do you remember that night you bonded me with the Mother, Raum?

The White Stag thought, a dim memory of himself as Raum stirring in his mind.

Faraday‘s mouth jerked in a tiny movement that may have been a smile.

That night was the first time a man had ever seen me naked.

The White Stag regarded her anew, wondering that nakedness was something to be

remembered and noted.

Now, too many men have seen me naked, and seeing, attacked my vulnerability.

The Stag understood now that the woman was talking in metaphors, and metaphors he

understood very well.

The forests lie naked before the rape that would be inflicted on it. They are vulnerable,

lovely woman.

Do you remember the years I ran at your side?

I had a mate, but she disappeared.

Aye, she disappeared. The woman‘s mind grew sadder. Wild one, these forests will soon

die. Will you now step through the door into Sanctuary?

And my brethren?

Take them with you.

Will you join me?

Yes, but I will never run by your side again.

The White Stag shifted in sorrow, then he moved away from the woman‘s hand. She

withdrew a cube of light from her pocket and extended it into a doorway. She stood still,

regarding it silently, then she stretched it even further, making it at least the height of two men

and three times as wide.

She stepped back. Run, my friend. Run!

The Stag snorted, and with a wild bell-like cry he leaped through the doorway.

Faraday waited, her heart thudding, and then suddenly there was a movement above her,

and a Grey Guardian owl fluttered down from a tree and flew straight through the door.

And then, as when they‘d first entered Minstrelsea, there was a massive onslaught of

hundreds of thousands of fey creatures, rushing from trees to doorway, a euphony of feather and

fur and flashing eye. Faraday stood by a tree, well out of the way of the enchanted stampede,