'Philip!' she called. The room was spinning, the drugs in her system approaching the height of their powers. She had danced at the fire, felt the touch and caress of a score of acolytes, their lips soft and sweet with wine. The secrets of the Third Mystery had come to her with the music of the night, the breeze from the distant, holy peak of Korifi Fengari. She would give birth to a god-king, a man of awesome talents. His name would echo throughout history, his deeds remaining unequalled as long as the stars hung in the sky. 'Philip!'
Even in her drugged state she could feel the passing of time — sense that the mystical hour was almost spent. She rolled to her side.
The curtains parted.
There he stood, naked but for his cloak and the ram-horned helm of Kadmilos. He strode towards her and she opened her arms. For a moment he stood and gazed at her body, then harshly he entered her.
She screamed, her hands pulling at his back, the metal mask of the helm cold against her face.
Her fingers moved up to touch the metal, stroking the black horns.
His head lifted and she found herself gazing into the eyes within the helm. Then the drugs overwhelmed her and she slid into darkness, her last thought a strange one.
In the lantern light Philip's green eyes seemed — impossibly — to have changed to blue.
The Temple, Summer, 357 BC
Derae awoke just before noon. Throwing back the sheet, she moved to the window, her heart light.
She had seen Parmenion and she had destroyed the plans of Aida. Today she would leave the temple and journey to Macedonia, there to await Parmenion's return.
She knew now that he still loved her, and they would at least have many years to enjoy together.
She felt young again, full of life and laughter.
It had been so easy to drug Philip's wine. All the years of fear had been so unnecessary.
The sun was warm on her face — but at her back she felt the blast of cold air and turned swiftly.
A shadow was growing on the wall by the door, swelling like a winged demon. Derae prepared herself for the attack, but it did not come, the shadows swirling into a cloak around the spirit form of Aida.
'What do you want here?' Derae asked.
'I wanted to thank you,' said Aida. 'Without your help, and that of your miserable predecessor, my dreams could not have been fulfilled.' The hooded woman laughed, the sound chilling. 'You can walk the paths of the past and the future. Walk them now — and weep, my dove!'
In an instant she was gone.
Derae sat back on the bed and closed her eyes, flying once more to the palace on Samothrace, feeling her way back through the hours. She saw herself bringing the wine to Philip, pouring him a drink, watching him drain it. She saw her flight, and her battle with Aida.
Then with a sense of dread she returned to the palace, watching Parmenion's attempts to rouse the King. She cried out when she saw the Spartan stand up and remove his clothes, donning the helm and cloak of the Chaos Spirit.
'Oh, sweet Heaven!' she whispered as he embraced the naked girl.
Derae fled the scene, opening her eyes back at the temple.
'Without your help. . my dreams could not have been fulfilled.'
She saw it all now, the arrogance and the stupidity.
Tamis had seen the vision of the Dark Birth and then the face of Parmenion. Believing him to be a human sword she could wield against the forces of darkness, Tamis had entered his life — moulding his future, forcing him along a path of bitterness and hatred. She had created in him the perfect warrior, the perfect killer of men. .
The perfect human father for the Dark God.
Anger flared in Derae. The years of dedication, of healing; the years of hopes and dreams. All for nothing!
Now there would be no life with Parmenion, no journey to love in Macedonia.
She gazed out of the window, over the rolling hills and meadows and the cloud-shrouded mountains, seeing again the visions of bloodshed and horror that had haunted her for decades. Annies marching across bloody battlefields, widows and orphans, ruined cities, fallen empires. Sometimes the Dark God had been Greek, at other times Persian — a chief from Parthia, a young prince from the tribes to the far north. Once he had even been black, leading his troops from the lush jungles far to the south of Egypt. These myriad futures no longer existed in the same form. Derae allowed the Oceans of Time to lift and carry her into distant tomorrows, and there she saw a young man with golden hair, his face beautiful, his armour bright with the glow of gold.
In every future the armies of Macedon were marching, their long spears stained with blood.
She studied the golden figure through hundreds of possible — even probable — futures. All were the same — the Dark God triumphant, becoming immortal, a creature of blood and fire, the human flesh burning away, the full evil of the Horned One sitting on the thrones of the world. Despite her despair Derae searched on, finding at last a glimmer of hope like the fading spark of a winter fire.
The child had been conceived at the last stroke of the Unholy Hour, giving him at least a spark of humanity. The Dark God would be powerful within him, but at that moment Derae decided to spend her life fanning that spark, seeking to feed the human spirit within the devil who was to be.
'At the last you were right, Tamis,' she said sadly. 'We cannot fight them with their own weapons.
There can never be victory there.' And like the old priestess before her, Derae prayed for guidance.
And she saw, as Tamis had seen, one man standing beside the Dark God, a strong man — a good man.
Parmenion — the Lion of Macedon.
Lake Prespa, Midwinter, 356 BC
Phaedra closed her eyes, seeking to locate the source of the danger. Around her the sounds were all reassuring — the steady, slow, almost rhythmic hoofbeats of the royal guard, the rolling of the brass-rimmed wagon wheels over the shifting shale and scree, conversation and laughter from the soldiers on either side of the heavily-curtained carriage.
But somewhere deep within her Phaedra could hear the screams of the dying, while scenes of blood and violence flashed across her mind. Yet she could not pin them down. She opened her pale blue eyes and gazed across the carriage cabin to where Olympias lay on pillows of down-filled silk. The princess was asleep. Phaedra longed to reach over to her. Anger flared briefly, but the seeress swiftly quelled it. Olympias was beautiful, but that beauty was now marred by her marriage to the barbarian from Pella, ruined by the babe swelling her belly to twice its size. She tore her gaze from the sleeping face.
'I don't love you any more,' she whispered, hoping that by speaking the lie she could make it true. It was a vain hope.
We are sisters again, no more than that, thought Phaedra. Their love was now as dead as the blooms of summer. The seeress sighed, remembering their first meeting three years ago. Two fourteen-year-old girls in the
King's palace; Phaedra shy and yet blessed — cursed? — with the gift of Seeing, and Olympias, gregarious and joy-filled, her body already sleek, her skin glowing with health, her face beautiful beyond imagining.
Phaedra felt comfortable with the princess, for she had never been able to see her life, nor read the secrets hidden in the dark corridors of her mind. Olympias made her feel ordinary, and that was a gift beyond price.
No one understood the loneliness of Seeing. Every touch brought visions. A kind, handsome man stoops to kiss your hand, but you see the lecher, the dominator, the possessor. A woman smiles, pats your arm, and you feel her hatred at your youth. All the cobwebs of the human soul laid bare to your all-seeing eyes. Phaedra shivered.