Gilden came alongside. Reaching out he touched his finger to one of the wounds in Shakul’s chest.
Then he lifted it to his mouth. ‘Carry with us,’ said Gilden. Shakul’s golden eyes stared at the man. Then they closed. Others of Stavut’s pack gathered round. One by one they each took blood from the wound.
Alahir rose.
‘Goodbye, tinker,’ he said. ‘I shall miss you.’ A stoop-shouldered Jiamad approached Alahir. It spoke, and Alahir struggled to understand it. Slowly the beast repeated the words.
‘Go now. Hunt deer.’
With that he led the fifteen surviving members of the pack away. As they left Alahir saw Druss waving to him from the narrow point in the road. Alahir walked down to him. The axeman pointed down to the Guards’ camp. Their Jiamads had fled, and there was no indication of another attack.
‘I think we won, laddie,’ said Druss.
‘Aye, we did, but what a cost. I feel a great sense of shame, Druss. All our lives we have been taught Drenai legends. Nobility, bravery, truth. Part of that truth was that Jiamads were soulless beasts, devils in flesh. Yet they came back and died for us.’ He looked at Druss and asked: ‘Were there animals in the Void?’
‘No. Just human souls.’
‘Then they have nowhere to go when they die.’
‘I didn’t say that,’ Druss told him. ‘I don’t know the answer, but my heart tells me that there is a place for them. A place for all living things. Nothing truly dies, Alahir.’
Gilden called out from above them, and pointed down into the valley below.
Alahir and Druss walked to the edge.
Where the crater had been now stood a mountain. Shining bright upon its peak was a dazzling shield of gold.
Jianna walked out of the room, leaving Skilgannon dying on the floor. The stabbing of him had been instinctive rather than planned, and as she walked on the full horror of it seeped through the centuries of emotional barriers she had constructed in her mind.
She felt a tightness in her stomach, and a lump in her throat. Tears welled. In truth Jianna had known she would have to kill him. Olek would never have compromised. This realization clashed with her promise to bring him back. Another twenty years in the Void, while a new Reborn was cast from his bones, would do nothing to change who he was, what he believed in.
You just killed the man you loved.
The thought was sickening. One by one the barriers crumbled. The first to fall was Justification. She had always told herself that she never set out to become the Eternal. Her first actions had been to save the temple. Everything after that had become self-perpetuating. She saw now that that was untrue. She had gloried in her new life, building armies and conquering cities. She had adored the near worship she inspired in her followers. In the beginning she had convinced herself she would build a new world, perfect and peaceful, and she would one day bring Skilgannon back to rule by her side. They would be happy.
They would have the life she always believed she had dreamt of.
Another lie.
Jianna stood, head bowed, at the foot of a high circular stairwell.
Back in Naashan, in those early days, when she first met Olek, she had also been full of dreams. She remembered talking to him in the gardens of his house, about the need for hospitals and schools, the provision of clean water to the centre of the city, where disease was rife. About building a better Naashan, where the people would be happy and content, secure in the knowledge that their leader cared for them. The naive dreams of the young, she had told herself later. Dreams that were crushed by the harsh reality of betrayal, and the unbridled ambition of those who sought to usurp her. A ruler needed to be cool and detached, ever alert to treachery. The people needed to respect that ruler, and respect was bought by fear.
Now, in the aftermath of the killing, she knew that this was also largely a lie.
Alahir and his men had ridden into peril for Skilgannon, not because they feared him, but because they were inspired by him. The beasts had followed Stavut not because he would kill them if they didn’t, but because he loved them.
Jianna let out a long breath and wiped away the tears. The crowning achievement of her five hundred years of power was the murder of the one man she had truly loved.
Her thoughts sombre, she climbed the stairwell, the rusting metal steps groaning under her tread. At the top she came to another doorway. This was unlocked, and she stepped into the Crystal Shrine.
The room was vast and circular, the walls decorated with bright metal, full of flickering lights, displaying arcane symbols in reds and greens. At the centre, on a raised dais circled with a silver railing, was a golden column, rising up through the vaulted ceiling. As she walked in Jianna became aware of a tingling in her skin, and a faint vibration from the floor beneath her. Drawn to the dais, she climbed the ten steps that led to it and gazed at the base of the golden column. Brightly coloured swirls of smoke writhed within a three foot high transparent tube. At the centre of the tube a massive white crystal was slowly spinning, light reflecting from its facets and casting rainbow colours across the high, vaulted ceiling.
The Eagle’s Egg! The source of all magic. It was beautiful, and as she came close to it Jianna felt all weariness leave her body.
The voice of Memnon whispered into her mind.
‘ We are close, Highness. Is Skilgannon with you?’
‘I killed him,’ she said aloud. Again her stomach knotted.
‘ Excellent.’
A door opened on the far side of the chamber, and she saw Decado step through, the Swords of Blood and Fire in his hands. Blood dripped from the blades.
He looked up and saw her, but did not smile. Behind him came Memnon. He was not wearing his familiar robes, but dressed in riding clothes: a dark blue tunic and purple leggings, and exquisitely designed boots of lizard skin. He advanced into the room, and did not bow.
For all her grief and self-absorption Jianna had not lost her intellect, or her blade-sharp sense of danger.
‘Do I catch the scent of treachery here, my dears?’ she asked, moving to the silver railing and gazing down on the two men.
‘Treachery, Highness?’ responded Memnon. ‘Let us pause for a moment and examine the question.
Would you say that I have served you loyally, and with devotion? Can you offer a single shred of evidence that I have ever conspired to cause you harm?’
‘Not until now,’ she said.
‘Ah, but I did not know then what I know now. All these years you have been murdering my children, preventing me from acquiring the benefits of true longevity. In these last moments of your immortal life perhaps you would tell me why?’
Jianna laughed. ‘You already know why. As a mortal you served me. As an immortal you would have been a threat to me. As with so much else, Memnon, it all comes down to self-preservation. I take it you have already killed my other Reborns?’
‘The last one died an hour ago. Your reign ends here, Highness. An apt place, don’t you think?’
Transferring her gaze to Decado, she smiled. ‘And it will be you, sweet lover, who delivers the death blow?’
‘Is it a difficult choice for me?’ asked Decado. ‘On the one hand there is the treacherous bitch who ordered me murdered. On the other. . oh wait. . it’s still the treacherous bitch who sanctioned my death. No, I can honestly say I am quite looking forward to it.’
Jianna drew her sabre. Decado laughed aloud. ‘We have fenced before, you and I. In happier times.
Fighting me will buy you no more than a few heartbeats of life. However, I am in a charitable mood today. So let us even the odds a little.’ Sliding the Sword of Fire back into its scabbard he raised the Sword of Blood. ‘I shall fight you left-handed. I am marginally less skilled with my left.’