Pilgrim. Sara Douglass

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.

       15 Hidden Conversations

      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.

      Walking along the banks of the waterway were WingRidge CurlClaw, Captain of the Lake Guard, and the unmistakable red plumage of SpikeFeather TrueSong behind him.

       Where had they come from?

      “What are you doing here?” Drago said, taking a step back.

      WingRidge stopped a pace away, SpikeFeather just behind. Both birdmen studied Drago carefully, and both glanced curiously at the blue lizard under his arm.

      “You know why we are here,” WingRidge said softly. His face was a mixture of awe, determination, and sheer unadulterated relief. He lifted a hand and placed it on Drago’s chest.

      “You are here as I am here,” Drago said, a hard edge to his voice. “We must do all we can to aid the StarSon.”

      WingRidge’s mouth curled. “And what do you mean by that, Drago?”

      Drago stared at him. “Caelum needs our help.”

      WingRidge inclined his head. “Caelum will need aid, assuredly.”

      Drago looked at WingRidge, then at SpikeFeather standing obviously confused behind the Captain of the Lake Guard’s shoulder, then turned to look back the way he’d come.

      “Noah told me … he told me …”

      “I do hope you had the grace to listen, and the courage to accept,” WingRidge said, and now his voice was hard, and his eyes flinty.

      Drago looked back at him. “Why are you here, WingRidge?”

      “I am here to aid the StarSon.”

      “Then why are you here?”

      WingRidge remained silent, his eyes unblinking as they regarded Drago.

      A muscle flickered in Drago’s cheek. “I came back through the Star Gate to aid Tencendor.”

      “Good,” WingRidge said quietly.

      “In whatever way I can.”

      “Even better.”

      “I did not come back to disinherit my brother!”

      “There is no question of that.”

      “Then we understand each other?”

      WingRidge startled the others by bursting into laughter. “Yes, Drago, I think that we do. Now, in what direction did Noah set your wandering feet?”

      “I must go north. To Gorkenfort.”

      For the first time WingRidge looked mildly disconcerted, but with a languid shrug of his shoulders said, “North is good. You will meet with Caelum in the north, eventually.”

      “Noah … Noah told me that Tencendor must die. We must allow Qeteb’s resurrection.”

      “Surely we can stop the Demons before —” SpikeFeather began, his face horrified, but WingRidge turned about and placed a hand on the birdman’s shoulder.

      “Trust,” he said. “Please. Did you not see this in the Maze Gate?”

      SpikeFeather nodded unhappily.

      “The Maze Gate?” Drago asked.

      “Under Grail Lake lies a Maze,” WingRidge said. “Each of the craft have grown into different forms over the millennia. Here, the crystal forest cradled Qeteb’s warmth. The Maze cradles Qeteb’s soul. At the entrance to the Maze lies a Gate, and it is the script about the Maze Gate that the craft used to speak to … well, to whomever, over the aeons. The Maze Gate tells of many things. It, too, awaits the StarSon.”

      Drago ignored the last remark. “And this Maze Gate speaks of Tencendor’s destruction?”

      “It has been written,” WingRidge said, “and thus it must be. Do not dread it too much, Drago. Does not the