Bloodstone

* * *

Shannow rode towards the high country, angling north. The horse was a bay gelding and strong, but it was tired after the exertions of the night and breathing heavily. Shannow dismounted and led the horse into the trees, seeking a cave or a sheltered spot in the lee of the wind. He was cold, and his spirits were low.

The loss of memory was an irritation, but this he could bear. Something else was nagging at him from deep within the now shuttered recesses of his mind. He had killed men tonight, but that was nothing new for the Jerusalem Man. I did not seek the battle, he told himself. They rode out in search of blood, and they found it. And it was their own. Such is the price of violence. Yet the killings hung heavily upon him.

Shannow stumbled, his strength deserting him. His wounds were too recent for this kind of climb, he knew, but he pushed on. The trees were thicker now and he saw a cleft in the rock-face to his left. It will have to do, he thought. Taking a deep breath, he walked on. As he neared the cleft he saw the flickering reflection of a fire on the rock-face, just inside the cleft.

'Hello, the camp!' he called. It was not wise in the wilderness to walk uninvited into a campsite. With the fear of brigands everywhere, a sudden appearance could lead to a volley of shots from frightened travellers.

'Come on in,' came a voice, which echoed eerily up through the cleft. Shannow pushed his coat back over the butt of his right-hand pistol and, leading the horse with his left hand, approached the cleft. It was narrow only at the entrance, and widened into a pear-shaped cave within. An old man with a waist-length white beard was sitting before the fire, above which a hunk of meat had been spitted. At the back of the cave a mule had been hobbled. Shannow led his horse to the rear and looped the reins over the beast's head, trailing them to the ground. Then he joined the white-bearded man.

'Welcome to my fire,' said the man, his voice deep. He extended his hand. 'You can call me Jake.'

'Jon Shannow.'

'You're welcome, Mr Shannow. I kept looking at this meat and thinking, there's too much here for you, Jake. Now the Lord has supplied me with a dinner guest. Come far?'

Shannow shook his head. A great weariness settled on him and he leaned back against a rock and stretched out his legs. Jake filled a mug with a steaming brew and passed it to him. 'Here, drink this, boy.

It's a great reviver and there's a ton of sugar in it.'

Shannow sipped the brew. It was rich and bitter-sweet. 'My thanks, Jake. This is good. Tell me, do I know you?'

'Could be, son, the world's a mighty small place. I've been here and there: Allion, Rivervale, Pilgrim's Valley, the Plague Lands. You name it, I've seen it.'

'Rivervale. . yes, I seem to remember. .' He saw a beautiful woman and a young boy. The memory faded like a dream upon wakening, but a name slipped through the shutters. 'Donna!' he said.

'You all right, boy?'

'Do you know me, Jake?'

'I've seen you. It's a fearsome name you carry. You sure it's yours?'

'I'm sure.'

'You seem a mite young — if you don't mind me saying so. What are you. . thirty-five. . six?'

'I think I'll sleep now,' said Shannow, stretching himself out beside the fire.

His dreams were fractured and anxious. He was wounded and the Lion-man Shir-ran was tending to him. A creature with scaled skin ran into the cave, a jagged knife held in its hand. Shannow's guns thundered and the creature fell back, becoming a child with open, horrified eyes. 'Oh God, no! Not again!' cried Shannow.

His eyes opened and he saw Jake was kneeling beside him. 'Wake up, boy. It's just a dream.' Shannow groaned and pushed himself to a sitting position. The fire had died dawn, and the old man handed him a plate on which strips of cold roast meat had been carved. 'Eat a little. You'll feel better.'

Shannow took the plate and began to eat. Jake took a pot from the dying fire and filled a tin mug. Then he added sticks to the coals. New flames flickered as Shannow shivered.

'It will soon warm up.' Jake rose and walked to the rear of the cave, returning with a blanket which he wrapped around Shannow's shoulders.

'You were in that gun-battle last night,' he said. ‘I can smell the powder on your coat. Was it a good fight?'

'Are there any good fights?' responded Shannow.

'It's a good fight when evil perishes,' said Jake.

'Evil does not usually die alone,' said Shannow. 'They killed a young woman and her daughter.'

'Sad times,' agreed Jake.

The meat was good and Shannow felt his strength returning. Unbuckling his gun-belt he laid it alongside him, then stretched his tired muscles. Jake was right. The heat from the fire was beginning to reflect back from the walls.

'What are you doing in the wilderness, Jake?'

'I like the solitude — generally speaking. And it is a good place to talk to God, don't you think? It's clean and open, and the wind carries your words to the Heavens. I take it you were with the Movers.'

'Yes. Good people.'

That's as maybe, son, but they don't plant and. they don't build,' said Jake.

'Neither does the sparrow,' responded Shannow.

'A nice Biblical reference, Mr Shannow, and I do enjoy a debate. But you are wrong. The sparrow eats many seeds, then he flies away. Not all the seeds are digested and he drops them in other places. All the great forests of the world were probably started by birds' droppings.'

Shannow smiled. 'Perhaps the Wanderers are like the birds. Perhaps they spread the seeds of knowledge.'

‘That would make them really dangerous,' said Jake, his eyes glinting in the firelight. There's all kinds of knowledge, Mr Shannow. Knew a man once who could identify every poisonous plant there was.

Wanted to write a book on it. That's dangerous knowledge — you agree?'

'People reading the book would be able to tell what plants not to eat,' said Shannow.

'Aye, and people wishing to learn of poisons would know what plants to feed their enemies.'

'Did he write the book?'

'No. He died in the Unity War. Left a widow and five children. Did you fight in the War?'

'No. At least I don't think so.'

Jake looked at him closely.

'You having trouble remembering things?'

'Some things,' said Shannow.

'Like what?'

'Like the last twenty years.'

'I saw the head wound. Happens sometimes. So, what will you do?'

‘I’ll wait. The Lord will show me my past when he's good and ready.'

'Anything I can do?'

‘Tell me about the Deacon, and his War.'

The old man chuckled. That's a tall order, boy, for one night around the fire.' Leaning back, he stretched out his legs. 'Getting too old to enjoy sleeping on rock,' he said. 'Well then, where do we start? The Deacon.' He sniffed loudly and thought for a moment. 'If you are who you claim to be, Mr Shannow, then it was you who brought the Deacon into this world. He and his brethren were in a plane that took to the skies on the Day of Armageddon. It was then trapped, held by the power that also snared the Sword of God. You released them when you sent the Sword into the past to destroy Atlantis.'

** As told in The Last Guardian.

Shannow closed his eyes. The memory was hazy, but he could see the Sword hovering in the sky, the Gateway of Time opening. And something else. . the face of a beautiful black woman. No name would come to him, but he heard her voice: "It is a missile, Shannow. A terrible weapon of death and destruction.' Try as he would, Shannow could not pluck any more from his past. 'Go on,' he told Jake.