'Why would anyone want a statue of a Daroth guarding their grave?' asked Tarantio.
Easing past the statue, they pushed their way into the main burial chamber. The sunlight was weaker here, but they could see a massive lidless coffin set by the far wall. The answer to Tarantio's question lay within. The coffin contained a massive skeleton, taller even than the statue guarding the tomb.
Shocked, Tarantio gazed down on the colossal bones of the chest and back. The body had been laid on its side and the immense ridge of the spine could clearly be seen extending up the neck and over the cranium. Reaching inside, Tarantio lifted clear the immense skull. Dust and grit trickled from it. More than ever, the ridge of bone above the mouth looked like the beak of a hunting bird. 'Incredible,'
whispered Tarantio. 'He must have been awesome in life.'
'He's pretty awesome dead,' muttered Forin, reaching out and taking the skull. 'And this is a rare find.
The Daroth were virtually immortal, reborn through the eggs. At the time of rebirth the body of the dying adult would shrivel away, bones and all, then the same Daroth would emerge from the pod.'
'Well, this one didn't shrivel away,' said Tarantio.
'Indeed he didn't. I wonder why. Perhaps he chose not to mate, and there was no pod for him to return to.'
'I can feel the evil here,' said Dace. 'Like a cold flame waiting for life.'
Symbols had been carved into the walls, but Tarantio could not decipher them. There were no paintings, no boxes, no possessions of any kind - with the exception of three bizarre pieces of furniture set against the wall. They resembled chairs, save that the seating area was in fact two curved, horsehair-padded slats set six inches apart and crafted at a rising angle from just above the floor. The back of the chair was low; this was also padded, but only along the top of the back-rest.
Brune tried to sit down on one and he looked ludicrous - too low to the ground, his legs splayed, his back bent. 'No, no,' said Forin. 'Let me show you.' Striding to the chair, he pulled Brune upright and then knelt on the slats, leaning forward to rest his massive forearms on the top of the back-rest. 'The Daroth spine was not suited to conventional chairs.' Rising, he tucked the skull under his arm.
'In times of peace,' he said, his voice echoing eerily inside the enclosed chamber, 'the bones here would have been worth a sack of gold, and the statue outside would have fetched a fortune. Now we'll be lucky to get the price of a meal for the skull.'
'You keep it,' said Tarantio. 'I'm sure there will still be people interested in acquiring it.'
He swung on his heel and walked from the chamber, clambering up over the mud and out into the sunlight.
Forin and Brune followed him. In the bright light of earthly reality the skull looked somehow even more eerie, out of place, out of time.
'The Eldarin must have possessed great magic indeed to wipe out a people so formidable,' said Tarantio.
Forin nodded. 'According to legend they annihilated them in the space of a single hour. Perhaps that is what the Eldarin were trying to do to our army, and their magic betrayed them.'
'Perhaps,' Tarantio agreed.
'I wonder what they ate,' said Brune.
Forin chuckled and lifted the skull. 'Beneath this beak there are sharp teeth, the front canines pointed like spikes. At the rear . . . here, look . . .' he said to Brune, beckoning the young man forward, 'are the molars . . . the grinding teeth. They were like us, meat and plant eaters.'
Once more the ground beneath their feet trembled. Forin swore, but the tremor died away swiftly. The three men stood nervously for a few seconds. Then a second quake hit, hurling them from their feet.
The skull flew from Forin's hand and struck a boulder, shattering into a hundred pieces.
Tarantio lay hugging the earth, nausea swamping him. For several minutes the rumbling continued, then silence settled on the land and he rose shakily. Forin rolled to his knees and looked down at the shattered skull. 'Who'd have my luck?' he said, then pushed himself to his feet.
By mid-morning the following day they sighted the spires of Corduin. Tarantio found that he knew the guard on the main gate, and there was no problem entering the city. At the first cross-roads within, he bade farewell to Forin. They clasped hands. 'Good luck to you, big man.'
'I hope fortune favours you, Tarantio,' answered Forin with a wide smile. 'Look after the simpleton. If you cut him loose, he'll starve to death within a week.'
As he rode away Brune, who was holding onto Tarantio's stirrup, looked up and asked: 'Where are we going now?'
'To a merchant who will give us money.'
'Why would he do that?'
'It is my money,' said Tarantio.
'What will we do then?'
Tarantio sighed. 'I will teach you how to use a bow and a sword. When I have done that, you will join a mercenary unit.'
Brune thought about this for a moment. 'I'm not a fast learner,' he said, with a wide grin.
'That isn't a surprise, Brune.'
Chapter Four
Sirano, the fifth Duke of Romark, was the image of the man who had sired him - tall, athletic, handsome, his hair black and his eyes a deep ocean blue. It was for this reason that his father, a short, burly, blond-haired man, hated him. The fourth Duke of Romark was a bitter man, who had married for love only to find that his feelings were one-sided. His wife betrayed him with the captain of his Guards, and fell pregnant by him in the third year of their unhappy marriage.
The captain died in mysterious circumstances, stabbed to death in what appeared to be a drunken brawl.
The wife was said to have fainted and drowned in her bath three days after giving birth to Sirano. Everyone agreed it was a tragedy, and there was great sympathy for the fourth Duke.
The child was raised by a series of nurses. Quick and alert, he was always desperate for his father's affection, which was never forthcoming. He never knew why. At school Sirano was the best in his year, and swiftly grew to understand the intricacies of language and the arts. By the age of twelve he could lead discussions on the merits of the great sculptors, debate the philosophical attitudes of the Three Teachers, and had written a thesis on the life and work of the soldier-king, Pardark.
Those who knew him as a young man claimed his father's coldness finally turned the boy's heart to ice on his fifteenth birthday. On the night of the celebrations he was heard to have a terrible row with the fourth Duke, who was heavily drunk.
It was after this that Sirano became fascinated by the wonders of sorcery. He studied day and night, forsaking the normal noble pursuits of hunting and whoring, and gathered to himself books and scrolls. His first spell, involving the sacrifice of a pet rabbit, went awry, the headless creature running down the long corridor of the east wing, spraying blood onto the hanging velvet drapes. His second spell was more successful and ultimately damning.
In a bid to discover why his father loathed him, the sixteen-year-old Sirano wrought the ancient spell of summoning, and called upon the spirit of his dead mother. He conducted this rite in the marble bathroom in which she had died. No spirit came, but what did occur changed the young man's life.
Somewhere during the spell he made a small mistake and instead of summoning a spirit, his spell became one of revelation. In an instant the room grew cold, and Sirano felt a curious sensation of dizziness and weightlessness. Bright colours shone in his eyes, and his body fell to the floor. His spirit, however, floated free and he found himself staring down at a beautiful woman taking her bath. Her eyes were sad, her cheeks tear-stained, and Sirano noted that her belly was still stretched and slack, evidence of a recent birth. The door opened and his father stepped inside. He was slimmer and younger, his hair thicker, and his face was white and angry.