Pilgrim by Sara Douglas

wondering at the curiosity and mysteriousness of the creatures that flashed briefly before her

eyes.

When the tide had ceased, Faraday raised her eyes and contemplated the forests. The

trees sang to her, strangely offering her comfort when they, as she, knew that they would be the

ones to die.

Faraday touched the band about her waist where lay secreted the arrow and the sapling,

but tears still sprung in her eyes. For Faraday, this would be a death as painful as that of a child.

―Goodbye,‖ she whispered, and stepped into the doorway.

69

The Dark Tower

It took the Maze five days to rise, and all that time Drago stood atop Spiredore and

witnessed.

WingRidge watched with him, and talked to Drago of many things, but mostly of what he

and his fellow Lake Guard knew of the Maze and what they knew of its needs.

―It is a gigantic city,‖ Drago murmured on the fourth day, and WingRidge nodded.

―Fifty times the size of Carlon,‖ he said, and both men glanced towards the blackened

and still smoking ruin across the rising Maze.

―And infinitely more complicated,‖ WingRidge continued. ―See how each street, each

tenement contributes to the Maze?‖

Drago nodded. The extent and complexity of the Maze astounded and frightened him.

How would he ever find his way to its centre?

―The heart will call to you,‖ WingRidge said.

The waters had vanished, consumed or absorbed by the rising Maze. It was evident where

the heart lay. There was an all-consuming darkness at the core of the Maze. All twists and

conundrums of the Maze led to a central circular space, and in the centre of this space was a

great dark tower rising to the height of the encircling walls.

It was the exact duplicate of Spiredore, but as Spiredore was white and filled with light,

so this tower was its darker twin. Its open windows absorbed all light about the circular space,

ate all light, and still it seemed hungry for more.

―This dark tower is the heart of all Tencendor,‖ Drago said.

WingRidge nodded. ―This tower will become the heart of everything once Qeteb rises.‖

―His palace,‖ Drago murmured. ―WingRidge, where is the Maze Gate?‖

WingRidge pointed to a section of the external wall slightly to the south of Spiredore.

―There.‖

Drago looked, then nodded. ―Facing east to the dawning sun.‖ He gave a small smile. ―A

positive sign…I hope.‖

WingRidge turned from the Maze and looked at Drago. ―It is almost time.‖

―Yes. And time you were gone to Sanctuary. Here. Take the Wolven and quiver with

you.‖

WingRidge hesitated before he did as Drago requested, then leaned forward and

embraced Drago. ―Will you say farewell to Caelum for me?‖

Nothing WingRidge could have said could have more deeply touched Drago. He could

not speak, and merely nodded again, his eyes filled with tears.

―Then goodbye, StarSon,‖ WingRidge said softly. ―I wish you good…journeying.‖

He snapped a formal salute, and then stepped down into Spiredore.

During that night the Maze completed its journey into the open air. It soared into the sky,

its walls so tall that even atop Spiredore Drago could no longer see the dark-towered centre.

But he could feel it, calling out to him.

Come, come, come, come…

Its cry surged through him, making the blood pound in his head, and Drago rubbed at his

temples, trying to lessen its force.

Come, come, come, come… the pounding got worse and worse, and eventually Drago

could stand it no longer.

―Yes! Yes!‖ he cried, ―I will come, damn you!‖

The call abated somewhat, enough for Drago to straighten and let his hands drop back to

his sides, but not enough to enable him to ignore it.

He descended into Spiredore, his staff and sack at his side.

It took Drago until mid-afternoon to reach the Maze Gate.

The gate had grown. Its stone arch reached forty-five paces into the sky, and the twin

wooden doors that hung between them were some forty paces high and twenty-five wide.

It was unbelievably huge.

The symbols WingRidge had told Drago he would see about the arch now numbered in

their millions…and were no longer static. They wriggled and surged and capered about the stone

archway. They moved so fast Drago could not concentrate on any one of them long enough to

read it—but read he did not have to do, for the shifting symbols formed moving pictures.

Pictures of death and destruction, of a world gone mad, a landscape barren and

desecrated.

Tencendor, as it would be within days.

It showed an aerial view of the Maze itself, and a poor desolate figure desperately

scurrying through it, harried by a macabre and demonic hunting party. There was no escape. The

figure was cornered, and impaled, and the hunters raised their lances and swords in triumph and

the darkness in the world intensified twofold. Drago had to turn away, unable to bear the horror.

When he looked back again the stone was bare of symbols save for one in the righthand

side of the archway.

A sword, a lily wound about its blade.

Drago stared at it, his right hand dropping his staff and slowly rising as if of its own

volition.

Slowly, slowly, he reached out to the sword, but just as he was about to lay a hand on it

there was a sudden movement behind him.

Drago spun about, grabbing his staff again as he did so.

Five or six paces behind him stood the Star Stallion. Belaguez snorted, and tossed his

wild mane of stars. He half-reared, his fore hooves raising dust from the arid plain as he landed.

Then he stepped forward, trembling.

Drago switched his staff to his left hand and held out his right to the stallion.

The horse tentatively reached forward with his creamy nose, snorting hot breath over

Drago‘s palm, then he took a step closer, and Drago was able to run his hand over the horse‘s

cheek and neck.

―Welcome, Belaguez,‖ he murmured, feeling the stallion relax under his caressing hand.

―Has the Maze called you, too?‖

Belaguez snorted, and again tossed his head.

Drago grinned, and without thinking, vaulted on to the stallion‘s back.

Belaguez skitted about, but did not attempt to throw Drago off, and after a moment Drago

lightly touched his heels to the stallion‘s flanks, and guided him to the wooden doors.

There Drago again took the staff in his right hand, and tapped the doors gently with it.

Thrice, then twice again.

―I come to claim my heritage,‖ he said without any thought as to why he spoke the

words.

The doors swung open and Belaguez sprang forward…

…into a cataclysm of wind and sound and light and pain.

Drago felt as if he had again stepped through the Star Gate. His entire being exploded in

agony, scraps of flesh and blood and breath mingling into a spray of bloodied moisture about the

void into which he‘d been propelled.

He screamed, or thought he screamed, but how could he cry out with no throat and lungs

with which to form sound?

And then he blinked, and all pain was gone, and his body was whole and the stallion

moved smoothly beneath him.

He was naked, save for the irritating rasp of the sack hanging from a rope belt about his

waist, and a sword in his right hand.

It was the same sword he‘d seen carved into the stone of the archway, except that the

emerald stem of the lily now wound about the golden hilt, the spaces between its leaves

providing snug purchase for his fingers, and the bright-mirrored blade sprang from the creamy

throat of the flower itself.

DragonStar grinned, and wound his left hand amid the stars of the stallion‘s mane, and

with his right brandished the sword above his head.

―To the Dark Tower!‖ he cried, and the stallion sprang forward.

DragonStar rode through a maze of mystery and enchantment, and it felt like a home to

him.

He hesitated at no turn, nor questioned no path.

He knew the path, and he knew what he rode towards.

Sometimes the Star Rider and Stallion galloped between confining walls of stone, and

sometimes they ran through infinite fields of flowers. Sometimes the stallion splashed through

shallow lakes of silver, and sometimes descended stairwells that wormed into the depths of

creation itself.

Sometimes they passed between confining walls coloured grey and grim, and sometimes

through gloomy halls filled with the rusting ruins of giant machinery.

And always they ran towards the Dark Tower, and always the Dark Tower called—

— screamed—

—to them, begging, pleading, crying that they should waste no time in attending…

… for close ride the Demons…

…and it wanted to touch them, embrace them, speak with them.

DragonStar tore the sack from his side, for the rub of its hessian against his bare skin had

become unbearable. He held it aloft before him.

―Does DragonStar wear a sack at his hip? Nay, I think not!‖