Crusader (15 page)

The lizard growled, and backed away a few paces.

DragonStar whipped about, raising his hand as if to strike the creature—
what had that lizard ever done but enjoy a free ride? He’d spent aeons as an unfettered spirit in the Sacred Grove, and then the Minstrelsea forest, and had then simply attached himself to DragonStar’s cause with no hard
work involved at all—
and then halted the instant before his hand flashed down in a cruel blow.

What was happening?

DragonStar struggled to control the envy, and the other emotions envy bred—hate and cruelty and a cloying, horrid self-justification—but he couldn’t…he couldn’t…

The old man capered about him in circles, clapping his hands. “Enjoy it!” he cried. “Give in to it! Why bother with such inconveniences as regard for others? Enjoy it! It’s the easiest way!”

And DragonStar could
feel
how easy it would be. All he’d have to do was give in and let the envy consume him, and all would be well, all would be well, and he could finally relax and bathe in the emotions that he’d nurtured for so many years as a resentful man locked inside the hate of Sigholt and the SunSoar family.

A small hand slipped into one of his, and DragonStar jerked. It was Katie, her eyes frightened, her mouth trembling.

DragonStar saw that she was terrified.

Envy howled with rage.

“The cats!” Katie whispered. “The cats!”

The cats? DragonStar stared at her. Why was
she
helping him…or was she helping him at all? Why, Faraday cherished this little girl in a way that she did not cherish him, DragonStar could see that now. Faraday gave this weak little girl all the love and attention that she never gave him.

DragonStar growled again, and jerked his hand from Katie’s.

Envy laughed.

And something small and furry wound its way about DragonStar’s legs.

He jerked his eyes down. It was a white and marmalade cat, and its body shook with the strength of its purrs.

DragonStar lifted his hand to strike the thing—

—and remembered. He remembered that the cats had given him nothing but unconditional love when he’d been rejected by
everyone and everything else in Sigholt. He remembered that they’d left their food to comfort him; they’d been content in his company, and they had revelled in his friendship.

They had asked for nothing in return.

They had not envied him his strength, or his speech, or even his name.

They had just loved him.

DragonStar lifted his eyes to Envy. “I pity you,” he said, and Envy screamed.

“Let me offer you my friendship,” DragonStar said, and extended his hand, palm upwards.

Envy stared, whimpered, and suddenly disappeared.

DragonStar shuddered, and leaned down, hands on knees, trying to regain his equilibrium.

The lizard had scuttled across the room, and now was hunched down on the floor with his claws firmly tucked underneath his body. He wanted nothing more to do with enchantments from that Book.

The white and marmalade cat was curled up behind him, watching DragonStar carefully.

“I cannot use this Book,” DragonStar eventually whispered.

“Use it you must,” Katie said, “or all who have sacrificed themselves before you, and who will sacrifice themselves in the future for you, will have done so in vain.”

DragonStar straightened and stared at the girl. “The Book contains nothing but foulness.”

Katie stared at him.

“Dammit! What is its secret? How do I use it!”

She continued to stare silently at him.

“You have most to lose, damn you—so
tell me its secret!
”

“I cannot,” Katie said, her voice sad. “You must learn it for yourself.”

DragonStar fought an overwhelming urge to throw the Book across the room, then he forced himself to relax,
slowly rotating his neck and shoulders, and finally offered Katie his hand.

“I am sorry.”

She smiled and slipped her hand into his. “You should already have learned one lesson,” she said. “What was it?”

DragonStar almost grated his teeth, then chose to think it carefully through. “Envy consumed me,” he finally said, “and I could not control it.”

“And what broke the spell that Envy had thrown over you?”

“The cat,” Drago whispered. “Unconditional love.”

Katie nodded, and kissed his hand.

Faraday found them sitting on a pillowed bench seat in a window. The view beyond the glass panes was breathtaking: gardens and ponds stretched over several leagues to where the enclosing blue-cliff walls of Sanctuary rose.

“It’s so beautiful,” Faraday said as she sat on the other side of Katie.

DragonStar turned his head from the window and smiled at her over the girl’s head. It is cloying, he wanted to say, but he could not explain his emotions, so he merely nodded.

“What have you two been doing?” Faraday said, sensing the remaining tension.

DragonStar sighed, and indicated the Enchanted Song Book lying on the end of the seat. “I have been playing about with that.”

“And does it tell you what you need to know?”

“Yes,” said Katie, and DragonStar shot her a mildly irritated glance.

“It tells me many things,” DragonStar said, “and all of them uncomfortable.”

Faraday looked between DragonStar and Katie, her face growing more puzzled. She slid her arms about the girl and drew her back into her body, an instinctively protective gesture.

“Can you…we…fight against the Demons with what the Book tells you?” Faraday said.

DragonStar shifted even more uncomfortably. “The Book is filled with the Demons’ hatred and horror,” he said. “I know I should use it…mirror it back to destroy the Demons—”

Faraday felt Katie tremble in her arms, and she glanced down, worried.

“—but it feels so repulsive…so…”

“Whatever it takes to destroy the Demons will surely be taxing,” Faraday said.

DragonStar finally raised his face and looked her full in the eyes. “I am very much afraid,” he said, “that if I use that Book I will turn into a Demon myself. I do not think I will be able to stop myself.”

D
ragonStar tucked the Book under one arm and considered the lizard carefully.

“You stay here for the moment,” he said. “I will be back for you.”

The lizard dropped its head, its emerald and scarlet crest deflating mournfully, and turned away.

Faraday’s mouth quirked. “It is just as well he does not speak.”

“He does not have to.”

“Will you take the hounds, and the horse?”

DragonStar hesitated.

“DragonStar, please, take them.”

He nodded.

“And be careful in Spiredore.”

“I will be
more
than careful. I will use only its power to transfer myself into the Field of Flowers. I will not enter the tower itself.”

Faraday stared at him, knowing his words were useless bravado. Even if they only used the power of Spiredore to transfer from one location to the next, DragonStar, as any of them, would be vulnerable in that instant they stepped through the doorway.

For in that instant, if they were unwary, or unlucky, or damned by Fate itself, Qeteb could snatch at them.
They could only hope that he didn’t spend his entire time wandering the stairwells of Spiredore.

“Not he,” DragonStar said softly. “But he might have any one of his Demons patrolling. Faraday…I
will
be careful.”

She leaned forward and hugged him, longing for that time when their fight against the Demons was truly over and she and he could find the time to indulge, and relax into, their love. “I hope Caelum can help.”

“And if not he, then there is one other I can turn to,” DragonStar said, but he was gone before Faraday could ask who this “other” was.

She sighed, and sat back on the window bench with Katie. “I am so glad you are safe here,” she said, stroking the girl’s head. “I could not bear it if you were exposed to danger again.”

Katie smiled, and looked away.

DareWing felt a savage glee as he wheeled his Strike Force through the skies above the Field of Flowers.

They were superb.

Death had altered them, but only to give them a greater purpose, and a more lethal desire.

DareWing flew among them, almost lost in the swirl of jewel-bright wings and eyes and the haunting shadows and shapes of their silvery liquid bodies. The members of the Strike Force had lost none of their ability, or their tight discipline.

They wanted to hunt, to fight back, to
strike
.

And why not? thought DareWing. Stay here, DragonStar had said, until I need you, but DareWing was impatient with the waiting.
When
was DragonStar returning? In the wasteland there was corruption to be cleared, and DareWing and the Strike Force were doing no good sweeping colourfully through the skies here.

He alighted within the Field, letting his wings relax and trail luxuriously through the poppies and lilies, and looked up to the molten colour swirling above him.

“Come with me,” he whispered, and then DareWing closed his eyes, and thought of the icy drifts of the northern Icebear Coast, the feel of the cold-edged wind sliding through his feathers, the cry of the seagull, the roar of the icebear…

…and they were there, the Strike Force wheeling above him, and crying with wordless voices.

DareWing smiled, and lifted into the air.

DragonStar passed through into the Field of Flowers without incident, and with a considerable amount of relief. Even Belaguez relaxed beneath him as he felt the spring of the flowered field beneath his hooves, and the Alaunt bayed with joy, and bounded among the flowers, snapping at butterflies.

And with every snap of jaw, the butterflies soared drifting into the air a handspan above the hounds, and DragonStar smiled.

He kneed Belaguez forward, letting his body fully relax for the first time in hours, and drank in the beauty about him. The scent, the gently waving flower heads…

…the crash and roar of surf in the distance.

DragonStar halted Belaguez for a moment. He could vaguely discern the smell of salt underlying the scent of the flowers. He let his eyes scan the horizon, stopping at a spot that was hazier than the rest. A coastline.

DragonStar urged Belaguez forward.

He found Caelum sitting at the very edge of a cliff that plunged down hundreds of paces into a foam of rocks and sea spray.

RiverStar sat with him, her arm linked into his, their heads close together as they murmured to each other.

“Caelum? RiverStar?” DragonStar lifted a leg over Belaguez’s withers and slid to the ground. The Star Stallion snorted, then wandered away a few paces to nose among the flowers.

Caelum and RiverStar turned slightly, and smiled at DragonStar.

DragonStar stared, taken not only with their beauty, but at the peacefulness that they radiated.

Neither had been particularly peaceful in life.

Caelum’s smile broadened a little, almost as if he could read DragonStar’s thoughts. “Welcome, brother,” he said. “Will you join us?”

RiverStar said no words, but she stood in one graceful, fluid movement, and took DragonStar’s hand. She pulled slightly, encouraging him to sit with Caelum and herself, but DragonStar baulked.

In life RiverStar had loathed him, goaded him, and taken every opportunity to make his life miserable.

Who was this caring, lovely-spirited woman now standing before him?

RiverStar lifted her free hand and laid it against DragonStar’s cheek.

“In life,” she said, “I was hateful, jealous, and spiteful. But once I passed the gate into the Field of Flowers I entered a state of…of…”

Her brow creased slightly, as if her mind could not quite find the word to describe her state of existence.

“We entered,” Caelum said, “a state of contentedness. Contentedness not only with our environment, but with ourselves.”

DragonStar nodded slowly, realising the difference in his brother and sister. They were deeply at peace with themselves, because they were contented—a spiritual state rather than an emotional one.

And suddenly
he
was content as a huge weight lifted off his shoulders. DragonStar’s mind had been worrying at the fact that so many people appeared bored and irritated with the peace of Sanctuary, and he’d worried about how they’d cope with the eternal peace of the Field of Flowers.

Now he understood. When people passed into the Field of Flowers they underwent a spiritual transformation.

And they became content.

Caelum nodded as he understood DragonStar’s realisation. “There are only a few who do not undergo this transformation,” he said. “Those who know that they must return to Tencendor, and those who know they have work unfinished remain impervious to the contentedness of the Field.”

“The Strike Force,” DragonStar said. “They remain vengeful.”

“Aye,” Caelum said. “But come, sit down. We are gladdened to see you again.”

DragonStar smiled, and sat down beside Caelum. RiverStar let go his hand, and stepped back, saying that she would leave them to talk.

“There are flowers I have not yet seen,” she said, her smile so sweet and gentle it made DragonStar’s breath catch in his throat, “and walks yet to be explored. I will see you again, DragonStar, in the days when we will
all
live in peace in the Field.”

She bent quickly, kissed DragonStar’s cheek, and then she was gone, fading into the weaving, waving lilies.

For a long while Caelum and DragonStar said nothing, relaxing in each other’s company and the scent of the flowers. Behind them, the Alaunt settled down in haphazard groups, stretching out in the sun or grooming each other with long, liquid tongues and gentle nips.

“You have the Enchanted Song Book,” Caelum said finally, glancing at what DragonStar had under his arm.

DragonStar looked down the cliff, fighting a wave of dizziness. He missed so much of his Icarii heritage: the ability to fly, to dance, to sing, and, at the moment, the easy ability to withstand the lure of appalling heights.