The blue-feathered lizard. Love and Light, together within the one form.
"Go," DragonStar whispered, and the lizard grinned happily and trotted off, back to the Field and the butterflies and his myriad of friends.
DragonStar looked back to where Qeteb had been. The Alaunt were sniffing about curiously, but there was nothing there. The bear cub had, in the course of consuming Qeteb, also consumed the lily sword.
Both evil, and the weapon needed to fight it, were gone.
The ploughed field faded, and once again DragonStar found himself standing within the bleak walls of the Maze.
Behind him came a vast roaring sound, as if a sea had gone mad.
DragonStar did not look.
Forty-two thousand trees ran riot through the Maze, using root and branch to tear it apart.
The darkness that had consumed the wasteland now began to invade the Maze, and, as each stone fell, its influence grew more profound.
As the last stone in the Maze crashed into dust, an eternal night fell, and the trees fell silent, and still.
They waited.
Chapter 70
The Witness
The Corolean fishing fleet was sailing west from the Barrow Islands, heading for its home port on the northern coastline of Coroleas, when the cataclysm occurred.
One moment the sea had been calm, if sullen, under an overcast sky, the next it was rolling so madly the crews of the five vessels all thought they were moments away from death.
And the next moment, it was calm again.
One of the seamen, a man called El'habain, was clinging to the railing about the prow of the leading vessel where he'd been standing watching for seals. He was soaked through, and frightened as he had never before been in his arrogant life.
He raised his head, shaking it from side to side to clear the salty water from his eyes and ears, and looked for someone to curse and blame for his fright and his soaking.
In the end El'habain said nothing. He merely stared into the distance, towards where the Tencendorian cliffs lined Widewall Bay.
They were crumbling. Great rocks toppled into the ocean and, as El'habain stared, the length of the cliffs as far as he could see fell beneath the ocean waves.
There was nothing left but the rolling waves.
Tencendor had gone.
Chapter 71
The Waiting
There was a blackness, and an unknowingness, during which all creation ceased to exist. There was simply nothing.
Save, as far as Axis was concerned, the harsh and fearful sound of his breathing.
"Is anyone else there?" he said, and a being shifted under him, and he realised that Pretty Brown Sal also existed.
"Yes," whispered a voice across the void, and Axis recognised it as Zared's, and then a hundred other whispers reached him, and Axis realised that somehow the convoy still stretched out behind him.
"Axis?"
A faint voice, unsure.
"Azhure!" Gods! He'd thought to have lost her forever.
There was an unseen movement at his side, and Axis felt a hand groping along Sal's shoulder.
"Azhure! Here!" He reached down a hand and grabbed hers, and at his touch and warmth Azhure burst into sobs.
He hauled her up into the saddle and hugged her tight. "SpikeFeather? Katie?" he eventually said.
"Katie has gone," said a voice somewhere to one side, and Axis recognised it as SpikeFeather's.
"But Urbeth's daughters are still with us —"
And somehow Axis had the distinct impression, although he could not see a thing, that the two women stood to either side of SpikeFeather, each holding one of his hands.
"— as is ..."
"As is ... I," said a chilling voice, and Axis jumped, knowing the voice instantly.
The GateKeeper laughed, a grating, dry sound. "We meet again, Axis."
