There is nothing wrong with your mind, he told himself. It is merely being bombarded by the reckless energy of youth. In order to clear his thoughts he decided to expend some of that energy.
Finding a flat area of solid ground he began a taxing series of exercises, some motionless to establish balance, others involving leaps and twirls. Finally, his face glistening with sweat, he drew the Swords of Night and Day, and flowed through a series of moves, cutting and thrusting, as if fighting an invisible enemy. The sword-master Malanek had taught him scores of fighting manoeuvres, and through his long life he had acquired others. The blades flashed in the moonlight. Lastly he flipped the swords into the air.
As they spun above him he dived forward, rolled on his shoulder and came up on his knees, hands held high, fingers outstretched. The ivory hilt of the Sword of Day dropped into his left hand. The hilt of the Sword of Night brushed the fingertips of his right, the blade lancing towards his throat. His hand snapped out, catching the hilt at the second attempt. Even so the sharp blade sliced through the collar of his long topcoat. ‘You still have a little way to go,’ he told himself aloud. Sheathing the blades he wandered to the brow of a wooded hill. His mind was clearer, but the nagging doubt remained.
What are you missing?
Landis Kan had brought him back in secret. Apparently many people had sought his tomb through the centuries. Somehow — perhaps — the Eternal had found out, and the raid on Petar was retribution. Yet that did not explain the attack on Askari’s village. Why would the Eternal care that the bones of a long dead queen had been given new life?
He sat very still, the cold of winter settling on his soul. What was it Gamal had said?
‘ She is, like you and me, Skilgannon, a Reborn. I would imagine she has lost count of the number of bodies she has worn and discarded. . Landis and I went on to refine and improve the power of the artefacts, giving her immortality. We created the Eternal.’
And then he knew. Landis Kan had discovered the bones of Jianna, the Witch Queen, and had brought her back. She too had been wandering the Void. Jianna, the love of his life, was the dread Eternal. The shock to his system was immense. He started to shiver, then felt the rise of nausea in the pit of his stomach.
‘ I would imagine she has lost count of the number of bodies she has worn and discarded.’
Somehow her immortality was maintained by taking control of new versions of herself, just as Druss had briefly taken over Harad that night in the ruins of Dros Delnoch. Druss, being the man he was, would not steal Harad’s life. The Witch Queen would not hesitate for a heartbeat. And that was why they were hunting Askari. A new, young body for the Eternal.
Skilgannon felt torn, his emotions shredded. Jianna was alive! He could find her, be with her, change the fate that had driven them apart.
‘Are you insane?’ he said aloud. The woman he had loved was fierce and courageous, and filled with idealism. The Eternal was a vampire who had plunged the world into chaos and horror.
He glanced at the night sky. ‘Why do you torment me still?’ he raged. ‘Cethelin said you were a god of forgiveness and love. But you delight in malice and revenge.’
Anger coursed through him, blind and unreasoning. Had he not tried to atone for his sins? Had he not joined a monastery, and sought to learn the way of the Source? So who had sent those killers to bay at the gates and threaten death to the gentle souls inside? None other but the Source. ‘AH my life you have haunted me, sending violence and death to those I loved.’ The gentle actor Greavas, the gardener Sperian and his loving wife Molaire, had been tortured to death by Boranius. Killers had come after Jianna. His entire past life had been plagued by violence and war. Now he had been dragged back into another conflict, where innocents would suffer.
His first life had seen him battling to save a princess from a dark power that sought to destroy her.
Now that same princess was the dark power, and the victim was the physical embodiment of the princess he had loved.
The savage irony of the situation was sickening. Staring malevolently up at the stars he shouted: ‘I curse you with every fibre of my being!’ Then the anger passed. He felt drained and terribly weary.
He was about to make his way back to where Harad was sleeping when he heard a sound from within the woods to his right. Instantly the Swords of Night and Day were in his hands. The undergrowth parted and the huntress Askari stepped from the shadows. She was carrying her recurve bow and wearing leggings of soft leather, with a hooded green shirt under a fringed doeskin jerkin. Her dark hair was held back from her face by a thin silver headband.
‘Are you calmer now,’ she asked him, ‘or do you intend to behead me?’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Going with you to seek Landis Kan. Or going without you. I don’t much care which.’
‘Is Stavut with you?’
‘No. He is taking his wagon back to the north. The villagers are going with him. I hope it will prove safer for them there.’
‘Nowhere is safe,’ he said.
‘Kinyon often says, “The journey of life has only one destination,” ’ she replied, with a shrug.
‘Everything dies.’
‘Not everything,’ he said sadly.
Stavut had offered to travel with Askari, and had been both disappointed and delighted when she had refused him. It was an odd feeling. A part of him felt a sense of loss, but he consoled himself with the thought that his own chances of survival had been increased dramatically. Oh, Stavut, he told himself, you are a shallow man!
The sun was shining as he and some twenty-two villagers set off over the mountain pass. Stavut had been amazed and relieved to discover that the Jiamads had not killed his horses, nor ripped apart the contents of his wagon. Longshanks and Brightstar had been in a paddock behind Kinyon’s kitchen.
Stavut had climbed the fence and called them to him. Longshanks came trotting over. The grey had pretended not to notice him, until he began to stroke Longshanks’s neck and rub his knuckles across the chestnut’s long nose. Then Brightstar had moved across, dropping his head and nudging Stavut in the chest. ‘Yes, yes, I am pleased to see both of you,’ he said. ‘But let’s not make a fuss. It is unseemly.’
As he sat upon his wagon in the morning sunlight it seemed that all was better with the world. The goods he carried for trade in Petar would be worth less in Siccus, the city in which he had purchased them, but he could — just — afford the drop in profits. The most important fact was that he had escaped death and dismemberment and was still able to breathe the fresh mountain air. He felt like singing, and would have, had there not been a column of villagers strolling behind his wagon. The only audience ever to appreciate Stavut’s voice was Longshanks and Brightstar — although appreciation might be too strong a word. Brightstar had a habit of breaking wind loudly whenever Stavut sang, but that might have been an attempt to harmonize. Stavut chuckled at the thought.