Sara Douglass - Pilgrim

SARA DOUGLASS

Pilgrim

Book Two of the Wayfarer Redemption

Cover

Title Page SARA DOUGLASS Pilgrim Book Two of the Wayfarer Redemption

Map Map

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

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Author’s Note

Also by Sara Douglass

Copyright

About the Publisher

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.

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.