Pilgrim. Sara Douglass

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       3 The Feathered Lizard

      Faraday kept her arm tight about the man as they walked towards where she’d left Zenith and the donkeys. He’d grown tired in the past hour, as if the effort of surviving the Star Gate and then watching the effects of the Demons flow over the land, had finally exhausted him both physically and mentally.

      Faraday did not feel much better. This past day had drained her: fighting to repel the horror of the Demons’ passage through the Star Gate and fighting to save Drago from the collapsing chamber, then emerging from the tunnel to find Tencendor wrapped in such horrific despair, had left its mark on her soul. For hours she’d had to fight off the bleak certainty that there was nothing anyone could do against the TimeKeepers.

      “Drago,” she murmured. “Just a little further. See? There is Zenith!”

      Zenith, who had been waiting with growing anxiety, ran forward from where she’d been pacing by the cart. A corner of her cloak caught in the exposed root of a tree, and she ripped it free in her haste.

      “Faraday! Drago! Drago?” Zenith wrapped her arms about her brother, taking the load from Faraday. “Is he all right, Faraday? And you … you look dreadful!”

      The staff Drago had been clutching now fell from his fingers and rolled a few paces away.

      “He needs some rest,” Faraday said. She tried to smile, and failed. “We both do.”

      Zenith looked between both of them. Her relief that Faraday was well, and had managed to ensure Drago’s safe return, was overwhelmed by her concern at how debilitated both were. Drago was a heavy weight in her arms, his eyes closed, his breathing shallow, while the only colour in Faraday’s ashen face were the rings of exhaustion under her eyes. She had clasped her arms about herself in an effort to stop them shaking.

      What happened? Zenith longed to ask.

      “The cart,” she said, and half-dragged, half-lifted Drago towards it.

      “Let me help,” Faraday said, and took the weight of his legs.

      Between them they managed to lift Drago into the tray of the cart, then Zenith helped Faraday in.

      “Sleep,” she said, pulling a blanket over them. “Sleep.”

      Drago and Faraday shared the bed of the cart, and shared the sleep of the exhausted; and they shared a dream, although neither would remember it when they woke.

      But over the next few days, as they wandered the forest, the scent of a flowering bush occasionally made one or the other lift a head and pause, and fight for the memory the scent evoked.

      Zenith watched them for a long time. She was torn between relief at their return — thank the Stars Drago was alive! — and concern for both Faraday and Drago’s state. What both had endured, either with the Demons, or within the Star Gate Chamber itself, must have been close to unbearable. Even though she had been protected by the trees of Minstrelsea, Zenith had felt a trickle of the despair that had overwhelmed Tencendor when the Demons had broken through, and she could only imagine what Faraday had gone through so close to the Star Gate.

      But Faraday and Drago were not Zenith’s only concerns. She wished she knew what had happened to StarDrifter. He’d been at the Star Gate towards the end, trying to help her parents to ward it against the Demons.

      Would she see him again?

      It didn’t occur to Zenith that she hardly thought about her parents. Now that she knew Faraday and Drago were safe, she needed to know that StarDrifter was as well. To think that he was dead … or somehow under the Demons’ thrall …

      Zenith shivered and pulled her cloak closer about her. She could feel how deeply disturbed the forest was … were the Demons secreted within its trees? Were they even now creeping closer to where Zenith stood watch over Faraday and Drago?

      Zenith’s head jerked at a movement in the shadows. Something was there … something … There was another movement, more distinct this time, and Zenith felt her chest constrict in horror. There! Something lurking behind the ghost oak.

      She stumbled toward the donkeys’ heads, thinking to try and pull them forward, get herself and her sleeping companions away from whatever it was … escape … but when she tugged at the nearest donkey’s halter it refused to budge.

      “Damn you!” Zenith hissed, and leaned all her weight into the effort. Why in the world did Faraday travel with these obstinate creatures when she could have chosen a well-trained and obliging horse?

      Zenith tugged again, and wondered if she should take a stick to the damned creatures.

      The donkey snorted irritably and yanked her head out of Zenith’s grasp.

      Just as Zenith again reached for the halter, something emerged from the gloom behind the nearest tree.

      Zenith’s heart lurched. She dropped her hand, stared about for a stick that she could defend Faraday and Drago with … and then breathed a sigh of relief, wiping trembling hands down her robe.

      It was just one of the fey creatures of the forest, no doubt so disturbed by the presence of the Demons that it cared not that it wandered so close to Zenith and the donkeys.

      It was a strange mixture of lizard and bird. About the size of a small dog, it had the body of a large iguana, covered with bright blue body feathers, and with a vivid emerald and scarlet crest. It had impossibly deep black eyes that absorbed the light about it. What it used the light for Zenith could not say, perhaps as food, but once absorbed, the lizard apparently channelled the light through some furnace within its body, for it re-emerged from its diamond-like talons in glinting shafts that shimmered about the forest.

      Zenith smiled, for the feathered lizard was a thing of great beauty.

      Watching Zenith carefully, the lizard crawled the distance between the tree and the cart, giving both donkeys and Zenith a wide berth. It sniffed briefly about the wheels of the cart, then, in an abrupt movement, jumped into the tray.

      Zenith moved very slowly so she could see what the lizard was doing — and then stopped, stunned.

      The lizard was sitting close to Drago’s head, gently running its talons through his loose hair, almost … almost as if it were combing it, or weaving a cradle of light about his head.

      Zenith was vividly reminded of the way the courtyard cats in Sigholt had taken every opportunity they could to snuggle up to Drago.

      Zenith’s eyes widened, and suddenly the lizard decided to take exception to her presence. It narrowed its eyes and hissed at her, then leaped to the ground and scuttled away into the trees.

      Zenith stared at the place where it had disappeared, then looked back to Drago. She smoothed the loose strands of his coppery hair (was it brighter now than it had been previously?) away from his face, studying him carefully. СКАЧАТЬ