Pilgrim. Sara Douglass
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thought, hugging her child to her and casting her eyes about the shadowy spaces of the Woods, sometime we will catch up with you!
StarLaughter lowered her eyes, and looked about. They sat their mounts at the very edge of the Cauldron Lake, the five Demons staring silently at the strange, golden waters.
“Well?” StarLaughter asked.
There was a silence, and StarLaughter wondered if she ought to speak again, louder this time, but Rox finally answered her.
“Tens of thousands of years we have travelled,” he said in a voice not much above a whisper. “Aeons. And here … so close …”
Sheol raised her brilliant sapphire eyes and stared at StarLaughter. “We must proceed carefully, for the Enemy will have laid traps.”
“But surely they are so old they will have lost their potency?” StarLaughter said. Why were the Demons always rattling on about traps?
Mot shook his head, then slid off his horse. Bones poked helter-skelter through his pallid skin, but his face had a satisfied plumpness about it. Mot had fed well at dawn.
He squatted down by the Lake’s edge, and ran a hand through the water. It glowed, and filtered between his fingers, but it did not run as a liquid would, rather … as a mist.
“Ssss,” the Demon said, and jerked his wrist so that the remaining globules of mist scattered over the surface of the Lake. They were absorbed instantly. “The magic lives, more potent than ever!”
“But not too potent for us, my friend,” said Sheol, joining him. “We will go down at dusk, I think, for that will give us the power of Raspu and then Rox. An entire night to ravage through this craft and find what we need.”
“Nevertheless,” Barzula said slowly, casting his eyes about the Lake. “I feel the Enemy powerfully here. We must be careful.”
“We did not come this entire way to waste our chance on thoughtless rush,” Sheol said shortly.
She sat down on the damp earth and crossed her legs. “StarLaughter, my dear, come join me, and let me cuddle your child.”
Across the Lake, Faraday and Drago likewise sat, hidden in shadows.
Drago’s eyes hardly blinked, so intent was he on watching the Demons.
“Why do they wait?” Faraday asked.
“They wait for their time,” Drago said. “It is only just noon. They will wait for the sun to set.”
“And then?”
“And then they will leap.”
It grew dark earlier within the trees than elsewhere, but the Demons waited until the entire land was wrapped in dusk before they began.
First they stood in a perfect line on the shore, about a handspan back from the water’s edge.
Raspu, whose hour was at hand, stood in the centre of the line, his head tilted back slightly, his eyes closed, the veins in his neck taut and throbbing.
A grey haze enveloped his head, and tendrils lazily lifted off and floated into the night air.
“What is happening?” Faraday whispered.
“He is feeding,” Drago said. “As that grey mist spreads, so does pestilence sweep the land, gathering to itself all those who are not within some kind of shelter.”
“Why did they wait until now?”
“Now they have the longest time span in which to work — from dusk to dawn. Once Raspu’s time is done, then Rox will spread his terror over the land for the entire night. See, even now Rox prepares himself.”
Faraday grimaced. Rox was trembling — so violently she could see it even from this distance — and his mouth was working; every so often his lips would tighten into a silent snarl, showing slippery, yellowed teeth.
Something about him, not his actual appearance, but something else, reminded Faraday vividly of the Skraelings and she shuddered.
Now all the Demons were trembling violently, almost convulsing. Behind them StarLaughter paced back and forth. Her child, as always, was tight in her arms.
One of the Demons — Drago could not tell which — screamed, and StarLaughter cried out and jerked to a halt.
Behind her, the dark horses milled and tossed their heads, pawing at the ground, although whether in fear or ecstasy, Drago could not tell.
The Lake began to boil — to seethe.
“What is happening?” Faraday whispered, one of her hands clutching Drago’s arm in tight fingers.
“They are channelling the power Raspu and Rox have gathered into the water.”
“But they are —”
“Destroying it. Yes, I know. Faraday, I … I don’t think this Lake will ever be quite the same once the Demons have worked their will with it.”
Faraday remembered what she and Zenith had seen when they’d walked the shadowlands: Grail Lake burned so completely away that the waters had disappeared to reveal the Maze beneath. A Maze that had grown to envelop Carlon. A Maze that had held such horror Faraday could hardly bear to remember it.
She lowered her head and closed her eyes. This was a beloved Lake, and she could not bear to see it die.
The next instant her head jerked up and her eyes opened as a sharp crack sounded behind her. She twisted about, and gasped. The trees were writhing and moaning, their bark splintering, yellowish cracks appearing in trunks and branches alike.
“Drago!”
“I can do nothing, Faraday. What do you want me to do? What? Whatever I am supposed to be, or supposed to do, lies at the foot of this Lake — at the moment I can do nothing!”
Faraday linked her arm through his, and leaned against him. “I’m sorry, Drago. I … this Lake is special to me. It is hard watching it die.”
“They are all special,” Drago said, and somewhere in a corner of his mind came the unbidden thought, And they will all die.
No!
The scene before them had turned into a nightmare. The water was boiling, great bubbles breaking the surface to send gouts of golden mist spurting into the night air. Soon the trees nearest the water’s edge were laced with tendrils of gold.
The Demons were forcing the Lake to empty out its life over the Silent Woman Woods.
Beyond the seething water the Demons still stood in a line, but they were rocking and twisting violently, and screaming and shrieking unintelligibly. StarLaughter was crouched at one end of the line, by Sheol’s feet, staring at the water.
She was laughing.
Suddenly the entire Lake exploded.
Drago threw himself over Faraday, rolling her as far behind the nearest tree as he could get her. He felt something crawl over his back, and almost screamed before he realised it was the feathered lizard. It scrambled under one of his arms and thrust its head under the neckline of his tunic, its feet scrabbling, trying to drive itself completely inside.
“Cursed —” Drago began, catching at the lizard with one hand, trying to prevent it getting any further, when a frightful silence fell as suddenly over the Lake and forest as the explosion had erupted only moments before.
Drago slowly raised his head, Faraday beside him.
The lizard took the opportunity to scramble completely inside Drago’s tunic.
But even the frantic tickling of its feet could not tear Drago’s eyes from the sight before him.
The golden waters had vanished. Now the slope of the forest floor continued down, down, down …
Down