Sara Douglass - Pilgrim

Noah sighed. “Drago, you must allow the TimeKeepers to reconstitute Qeteb. Allow them to destroy Tencendor.”

“No!”

Noah did not chastise Drago for the outburst. He had the right.

“It is the only way to defeat him, Drago. Listen to me. We tried to destroy his life parts, and could not. But a whole Qeteb can be destroyed. This land is steeped in magic, although you — as so many of your brethren — are completely blind to it. Once Qeteb walks again, then, yes, Tencendor will become a true wasteland. The Demons will completely destroy it. Nothing will be left.”

Nothing save the existence it will gain through death, thought Noah, but knew he did not have the time to explain that to Drago. It was a knowledge better learned than told. “Nothing but its inherent magic,” Noah said. “And nothing but you.”

“Me? I came back through the Star Gate to aid Tencendor, Noah! To aid Tencendor and Caelum. Yet now you ask that I allow it to be destroyed.” Drago gave a bitter laugh. “Yet what else could be expected of Drago the treacherous, Drago the malevolent? No wonder all hate me.”

“Few truly hate you, Drago, although most are puzzled by you.”

“How will allowing Qeteb to rise again help? How can allowing Tencendor to be devastated —”

“Qeteb must be defeated this time, Drago. He must be dealt to death.”

Drago’s face was tight and tense, a muscle flickering uncertainly in his lower jaw. “How?”

“Listen,” Noah said, and he spoke for a very long time, his voice soft and desperate, his words tumbling over each other, and this time Drago did not interrupt at all.

When he finished Drago sat motionless, his own face almost as ashen as Noah’s, his eyes despairing. “No.”

“Yes. You have always known it.”

“No.”

“You knew it as an infant, it was instinctive knowledge! You acted badly, but you cannot be blamed for what you believed.”

“No!”

“You know it now. Why else that sack that hangs from your belt?”

Drago fingered it. “I … I just thought it …”

“Yes,” Noah said softly, and finally sat back down. “You just ‘thought’. Instinctively you knew it was necessary. Drago, from your parents you have inherited the magic of the stars and of this land. From … elsewhere … you have inherited the magic of this craft. You have been born and you have been made exclusively for this task. Qeteb will be defeated only by a combination of these craft — which are now entirely star music — and Tencendor’s enchantment.”

Drago shook his head slowly, trying desperately to deny what Noah had told him. “I cannot do this to Caelum again. I cannot.”

“You must.”

“I have already destroyed his life!” Drago cried. He scrambled to his feet and stared at Noah huddled in his chair. “Now you would have me feed him to the Lord of Darkness all over again?”

Drago took a deep breath. “He is the StarSon, Noah, and I will not again deprive him of that right!”

“I think you will find he may insist,” Noah said somewhat dryly.

“No,” Drago said in a very quiet and almost threatening tone. “Caelum is the StarSon. Caelum will meet Qeteb, and I will do everything in my power to aid him in that quest. I will not betray him again.”

“You have very much to accept,” Noah said quietly. “Very much.”

“I−”

“But if you want to do your best to aid Caelum and Tencendor, then do this. Go north, north to Gorkenfort. Seek your mother.”

“Azhure?”

“Nay,” Noah said, and smiled with such love that he unsettled Drago. “Your true mother. Your ancestral mother. Listen to her if you will not listen to me.”

And ignore her if you dare .

Drago stared at him, then slowly sank down to the floor before the dying man.

“How can I let Tencendor be destroyed?” he asked again, his voice breaking. “I came back through the Star Gate to save it, and yet you tell me to stand witness to its destruction! Would you have me deepen my sin against the land?”

Noah reached out a hand and gently cupped Drago’s chin. “You are a Pilgrim,” he said, “and all pilgrims must first learn their own soul, and the power of their own soul, before they can save anyone else. If you take but one piece of advice from me, Prince of Flowers —”

Prince of Flowers?

“— then take this. Go north, and listen to your mother.”

Drago was silent a long time. The lizard crawled into his lap, and Drago sat stroking it absently, his eyes unfocused.

When he finally spoke, his voice was heavy with acceptance. “I will go north to Gorkenfort. What else can I do?”

“The craft are not insensitive to the devastation that will occur. Somewhere within the waterways, I know not where for I have not been granted the knowledge, lies a sanctuary. A place of shelter. The craft would not let the peoples of this land suffer ultimate extinction. Do you understand?”

Drago nodded. “If the craft have that much compassion,” he asked, “then why do they let you die?”

“So that another may be reborn,” Noah said, but speaking with the voice of the craft.

So that another may be reborn? he thought, and then his eyes filled with tears as he understood what the craft were doing. They were using his life to create another, and the beauty of that other was enough for Noah to accept his death with gladness.

“Drago,” he said, “I have not much time. Will you tell Faraday something for me?”

“What?”

“Ask Faraday to find that which I lost. She will know. Now go, Drago. Go. I would die alone, as I have spent an eternity alone.”

Drago slowly stood, picking up his staff. “Goodbye, Noah.”

“Goodbye, Prince of Flowers.”

He sat in his chair in the empty chamber, staring at the screen full of stars, and let their love and comfort infuse him. He could feel the life ebbing from him, but it no longer hurt, and it no longer distressed him.

“Katie,” he said. “Be strong.”

His chest heaved, and again, then fell still.

In the dank basement, surrounded by dark and the stale air of a thousand years past, a light glowed faintly, and then flared into sudden brilliance.

When it faded, the thin voice of a desperate child filled the darkness.

“Mama? Mama? Where are you? I’m lost! Mama? Mama!”

The sacrifice had begun.

Drago hesitated outside the doorway to Noah’s chamber, then turned back.

The doorway had closed behind him, and there was no longer a panel of knobs by which to gain access.

“How can I do this to Caelum?”

But no-one in this barren corridor, least of all the lizard, was going to answer him, so Drago took a deep breath and walked slowly back to the rectangular chamber.

Here he again hesitated. He’d meant to retrace his steps to the crystal forest, and from there to rejoin Faraday, but on impulse he took one of the other open doorways.

And found himself in the waterways.

Drago stopped dead. Before him a tunnel disappeared into the distance, a deep channel running down its centre. He walked to the white-stoned edge of the waterway and looked down. The river that ran there was deep emerald. In its depths shone the stars.

The stars are everywhere, thought Drago. Somewhere, surely, still lingers the Star Dance. But where? In these waterways? In the craft of the Enemy? Or will this puzzling “mother” awaiting in Gorkenfort tell me?

“We must find it,” he said aloud to the lizard, “if Caelum is to defeat the —”

“Did you listen to nothing Noah told you?” a soft voice said, and Drago spun about.