"Oh dear sweet G.o.ds of creation," Zenith whispered. "It is WolfStar! What have they done to him!"
StarDrifter"s eyes jerked momentarily to Zenith"s face. What was that emotion in her voice? Horror? Or sympathy? Then he looked back to the scene before him.
The Demons advanced from treeline to water"s edge with more than usual circ.u.mspection. There was something odd, something different, in this place, but they could not smell it or taste it or see it or hear it, and that made them very, very cautious.
Was there another trap of the Enemy"s here? Another bridge to s.n.a.t.c.h at one of them? 589- Their jewel-bright eyes glowed, searching the landscape. The Demons studied the terrain carefully, slowly, but their eyes did not linger when they pa.s.sed over the line of trees that Drago had created to screen the Icarii evacuation.
Slightly to one side of them, and closer to the hidden entrance to Sanctuary, StarLaughter stood with WolfStar still collared and chained to her hand. The Enchanter crouched, as motionless as StarLaughter"s still occasionally cruel hand would allow, for every movement ripped agony through him. He knew he"d been cruelly injured by Raspu"s rape; not only the rape itself, but whatever essence the Demon had spurted into his body felt like it was eating away at his entrails, and corroding his lungs.
Even breathing was torment.
WolfStar wondered if he would survive whatever Mot or Barzula chose to do to him, but he wondered more whether Tencendor would survive what the Demons did with Niah. Was there a chance he could yet get her away from them?
Just behind StarLaughter and WolfStar, completely motionless and vacant, stood the boy and girl. Both were naked, their pale, gleaming p.u.b.escent bodies empty vessels for whatever would fill them here, and StarLaughter, in either cruel jest or hopeful antic.i.p.ation, had put them hand in hand.
"Your son and your lover," she said to WolfStar when she"d done it. "Will you allow your son the pleasure of your lover? Will you smile indulgently when you watch them couple?"
WolfStar had turned away, refusing to respond to her taunts.
Now Zenith dragged her eyes away from WolfStar"s battered body to the girl beyond him. "G.o.ds! It"s Niah!" she cried. "Oh dear G.o.ds, it"s Niah!"
Her hands were to her cheeks, her eyes huge. Everything about the scene before her filled her with horror.
Whether the sight of the Demons, or the bloodied and fouled WolfStar, or the horrible, horrible sight of Niah resurrected when Zenith had been sure that she had disposed of her once and for all, 590.
Zenith could not cope with it all at once, and she turned away, leaning on a tree for support.
As it was with Zenith, so with StarDrifter and Isfrael, although they did not have the same depth of revulsion at the sight of Niah as she"d had.
"That must be WolfStar"s son," Isfrael eventually said quietly, inclining his head towards the boy.
"Qeteb half-reborn," said StarDrifter, also taking pains to keep his voice low, although it was apparent the enchantment shielded them from the Demon"s eyes and ears. He glanced behind him. The lines of the Icarii were thinning now. In the past few days most had managed to find their way down to Sanctuary, and it was only the few who"d had to come from outlying areas that were now scurrying down the stairwell as fast as they could go.
He turned back to watch the Demons.
"How do we go down?" StarLaughter asked. She was impatient to see her son gain a little more of Qeteb"s life. The sooner he could wreak his own revenge on his father the better. And the merrier! StarLaughter spared a glance in WolfStar"s direction. She hoped the Enchanter would survive to endure his full-grown son"s hatred.
Sheol cut back on her temper. "We have told you before we do not go down again. From this point what we need comes up."
The Demons had grown in power feasting on the souls of the living creatures of Tencendor. They were nowhere near their full power, but they"d glutted enough to pull what they needed to them, rather than the other way around.
Movement. Movement lay below, waiting l.u.s.tfully.
Sheol moved forward to the very edge of the Lake, the waters lapping her toes, then seized the neckline of her robe in her hands, and ripped the cloth apart.
She threw the discarded halves to one size, and stood naked before the Lake the Avar called the Mother.
591 .
StarLaughter stared amazed. Sheol had the form of a female dog. Only her head and arms were vaguely human.
Sheol dropped to all fours, her arms in the water to the elbows, her hind legs resting on the sand. Her body was thin and covered with a brindle pelt. A short tail stood erect, and between her hind legs hung pendulous dugs, as if she"d only recently nursed a litter of puppies.
StarLaughter"s mouth curled in distaste. Couldn"t Sheol have thought of a more appropriate form?
Sheol growled, and hung her head down. Saliva dripped from her jaws in a grey foam, reminiscent of the haze that issued forth from the Demons" mouths during their hours of feeding.
There was a rasping to one side, and StarLaughter tore her eyes away from Sheol.
Raspu. Panting, his eyes on Sheol"s hindquarters, and StarLaughter"s mouth curled even further in distaste.
Surely not!
In the next instant Raspu had torn away his own clothing, revealing a body also shaped liked a dog"s - a great muscled mastiff - but with the flexibility of a serpent, and then he was down on all fours by Sheol"s side, quivering and whining and drooling.
Another movement, and Mot and Barzula had also torn away their clothes, revealing dog-like forms, and were prancing about in the shallows of the water, tipping their heads back to howl at the new moon just risen above the trees.
Their heads lengthened and sharpened into serpent heads, their tongues forking in and out, tasting the air.
"Tis not me who should be collared and chained," WolfStar said behind StarLaughter, and she turned and pulled viciously at the chain until he cried out and wept with agony.
"They are more faithful than you," she spat. "And dog-like yourself, with the morals of a snake, it is no wonder you appeal to their l.u.s.ts!"
592 .
She pulled and twisted the chain again, and was rewarded with a howl of pain.
"Grovel, WolfStar!" she whispered. "Grovel before me and I may yet grant you a speedy death!"
Only StarDrifter and Isfrael were now left to watch from the trees, their horror increasing with every moment that pa.s.sed. As Sheol had revealed her b.i.t.c.h-form, Zenith had stumbled away, her hand to her mouth. WingRidge, who had been watching the three of them from the entrance to the stairwell, came forward, put his arm about her, and guided her down to Sanctuary. As they"d gone down, he had pa.s.sed a quiet word to one of the Lake Guard, ordering him to stop the trail of Icarii and Avar through the trees towards. Fernbrake Lake for the time being .. . until the Demons had got what they wanted and had gone.
Only StarDrifter and Isfrael - and the unseen woman on the top of the eastern ridge - were left to witness the pa.s.sing of Fernbrake Lake.
The four creatures howled and cavorted in the shallows of the Lake, pausing only briefly to urinate and defecate into the waters. StarLaughter watched fascinated, WolfStar appalled, although he treasured the time it drew the Demons" attentions from him. He sat carefully on the ground, bent protectively over the arm wrapped about his belly, leaning heavily on the other. Every so often he glanced at the boy - he could not think of this creature as his son, even though his colouring and features were so much like his - as also at Niah.
Niah! If WolfStar had not believed it would call unwanted attention to him, he would have bent his head and wept at his own stupidity.
Now the Demons had ceased their prancing and defecating and stood still in water deep enough to lap against their bellies.
One by one the Demons began to tremble. They stared into the Lake, their noses almost touching the water, completely rigid save for the curious quivering that wracked their bodies. The trembling increased by the moment until it 593.
seemed as though they were in the final moments of some ma.s.sive, hysteric convulsion . . . and yet still they stared down into the depths of the Lake.
The water changed.
It happened so subtly, and yet so swiftly, that WolfStar was not sure at what point the Lake ceased being a liquid and turned, instead, to gla.s.s. Emerald gla.s.s that trapped the Demons" legs and, in Sheol"s case, her pendulous udders.
Still the Demons convulsed, the bodies a blur as their muscles spasmed faster than should have been possible, and the convulsions quickly transferred themselves to the gla.s.s.
It cracked, and then the entire surface of the Lake shattered into millions of tiny pieces. A great wind arose from beyond the ridge of the crater, and swept down over the Lake"s surface.
The gla.s.s pieces turned to dust, whipped up into a maelstrom against which WolfStar had to screw his eyes closed and hide his face under an arm. He wanted to reach out for Niah, to shelter her against this murderous whirlwind of millions of razor-edged gla.s.s pieces, but he was not able to fight its force, and could only concentrate all his strength on protecting his own body against its fury.
StarDrifter and Isfrael, protected by Drago"s enchantment, watched silently. Tears streamed down their faces, and Isfrael reached out and leaned a hand on his grandfather"s shoulder.
Who comforted who, neither knew, but both drew strength from the physical contact. A piercing scream rose on the shoulders of the wind, growing in intensity and density until it seemed as if it filled the entire world.
It was the Lake, dying, and weeping in its death.
On the ridge, the woman wailed with it, and sank to her knees, tearing at her hair with her hands.
Almost as suddenly as it had arrived, the whirling maelstrom vanished, and WolfStar blinked, cleared away the gla.s.s shards that had embedded themselves in his eyelashes and hair, and stared out at what had once been the Lake.
594.
All traces of water and gla.s.s had gone, and the Demons - now back to their humanoid forms and attired again in innocent pastel robes - pointed and exclaimed excitedly.
What had once been a Lake was now a garden, but a garden such as WolfStar had never seen previously.
It was a garden s.n.a.t.c.hed from the darkest pits of the AfterLife, a wasteland, an abomination. The ground, gradually rising to a small hillock in what had once been the centre of the Lake, was cracked and scarred, bare- baked earth with no gra.s.s, no life, and no hope of life. Trees stood bare-branched and blackened, as if consumed in some ancient conflagration that they"d never recovered from. Rambling roses hung from trees and rusted trellises, their leaves and blossoms only a distant memory, flowering instead with needled thorns that reached out like traps.
The centre hillock was barren, save for a windstorm that spun around and around on its crest, thick with dust and the thick, th.o.r.n.y tendrils of a rose bush.
"Movement," Sheol said with immense satisfaction. "Come."
StarLaughter tugged at WolfStar"s chain, but he"d been ready for her, and rose and stumbled forward before she cut off his breathing. Mot and Barzula seized the boy and girl, throwing them over their shoulders, and striding into the wasteland with no mind for the thorns that reached out to scratch and mar.
WolfStar could not be so disdainful. He cried out each time a thorn hooked into his flesh, sometimes becoming so entangled in thorns that StarLaughter - the thorns appeared to completely ignore her - had to tug with all her strength to pull him free. By the time they approached the hillock he was covered in b.l.o.o.d.y scratches, and his wings had suffered so badly they were almost completely de-feathered.
"Movement!" Sheol cried again. "Quick, Barzula! The boy!"
* S95.
Barzula stepped forth, strode up the hillock until he was just outside the confines of the whirling wind.
Then, in an abrupt movement, he hurled the boy inside.
Instantly, blood and flesh whipped out of the whirlwind as the boy"s body was torn apart by the thorns inside. A piece of the ghastly meat struck WolfStar in the face and he gagged, reminded forcibly of the moment Zenith had flung Niah"s poor dead body at him.
No-one else minded. The Demons and StarLaughter were leaning forward in their eagerness, their eyes bright, their b.r.e.a.s.t.s heaving with excitement.
"When?" StarLaughter cried.
"Now!" Mot screamed, dancing from foot to foot in an obscene gig, and as he screamed, so a man stepped forth from the bloodied rose wind.
WolfStar"s mouth slowly dropped open.
What now stood on the hillock was a nightmarish parody of an Icarii male. He was over-tall, and his naked body was obscenely roped with thick muscles which bulged so thick at chest and arm and thigh that WolfStar could not see how the man could possibly walk. From his back sprouted fully developed golden wings - too fully developed, for they were half as large again as a normal Icarii male"s, and feathers sprouted unevenly from flight muscles that bulged as thick as they did on the man"s body. The hands that dangled at the end of each arm were like spades; the fingers were as long and as thick as every other appendage, but flexible nevertheless.
They would miss no crevice that could be exploited.
The man"s face was curiously flattened, with a broad and thick nose and forehead under dense, dull copper curls, and light violet eyes that were narrow and cunning - almost piggy - rather than bright and clear.
WolfStar looked closely. They remained lifeless, for Qeteb still had to be animated with soul, but they were chilling for all that they lacked spirit. The mouth was wide, its lips thick, 596 .
red and moist, a pink flicker of tongue appearing between large, crowded white teeth.
Sheol turned slightly so she could see WolfStar. "The girl," she whispered.
"No!" WolfStar cried. "No!"
"Why?" Sheol said. "Is this not what you wanted? Mot! The girl!"
Mot stepped forward, the girl slung over his shoulder, but instead of hurling her into the rose wind as Barzula had done the boy, he handed her to the Qeteb-man. "Take her," he said, and the Qeteb-man held out his arms and took her weight from Mot.
"The wind," Sheol commanded, and the Qeteb-man turned, but not before WolfStar had seen him run his spade-hands over the girl"s b.r.e.a.s.t.s and belly ... exploring, his body instinctively reacting to the feel of the female flesh under his hands.
No! WolfStar screamed in his mind, but at that instant the Qeteb-man flung his Niah into the rose wind, and particles of flesh and blood again streamed out across the wasteland. When Niah finally emerged, completed in body, if not in spirit, WolfStar had to turn his face aside.
She was flawless, beautiful. Her alabaster body was female physical perfection, and glossy black hair streamed down her back to her b.u.t.tocks.
Her face was stunning in its loveliness, fragile and yet strong at the same moment.
WolfStar knew in that instant that he"d lost. The Demons would use Niah, and her potential power, to their own ends. WolfStar felt nauseous: sick with self-disgust, sick with horror at how his plan to save Tencendor would now likely condemn it.
What had he done?
"There are many kinds of death," Sheol again informed WolfStar, her voice almost kindly, "and you shall now experience another one. She is female," she said to the Qeteb-man. "Take her."
597 .
The Qeteb-man seized the woman, his all-encompa.s.sing hands groping and kneading her unresisting flesh as he pushed her to the ground. The Qeteb-man dropped his weight upon her, forcing her to his requirements without any thought to the damage he might thereby do to her body. Coldly, his vacant eyes fixed on some distant point, the Qeteb-man drove himself roughly inside the Niah-woman and began to grunt and thrust, and each grunt and thrust ate into WolfStar"s soul, tore into his being, and he lowered his head and wept as Niah lay on her bed of thorns, her hips and b.r.e.a.s.t.s jerking and jiggling with every movement of the Demon"s frantically plunging body.
There, in that desiccated rose garden, Qeteb took his bride as WolfStar raved, StarDrifter and Isfrael watched in morbid fascination, and the Goodwife Renkin, still atop the ridge, climbed to her feet, her face hard, and descended into the forest below.
598.
62.A Song of Innocence Deep in the earth beneath Carlon, a writhing, twisting ma.s.s of voles, rats, and sundry burrowing insects and rodents continued to sc.r.a.pe their way through the earth. Among them moved the patchy-bald rat, biting and nipping, driving them on, on, on, for the day was coming, the day when the Lord would rise, and preparations must be made and souls must be in place for that moment.
The Day of Resurrection.
Above, the night was deep and moonless.
Drago stood at the open doorway by which he had entered Carlon, his sack tied securely to his belt. Drago had begun to think of it as his weapons sack; his father may have once slung axe and sword from his belt, now his reviled youngest son slung a hessian bag.
The Wolven was slung over Drago"s left shoulder, the quiver of arrows hung down his back. In his right hand Drago held his staff, and in the other he held Katie.
By his feet crouched the feathered lizard. Its growth had stopped, and it had now stabilised into a form slightly larger than a mastiff hound, but still retaining the shape of a lizard.