David Gemmell - The Last Guardian

Now Chreena blanked such thoughts from her mind and drew from her memories everything she had been taught concerning water: the essence of life. In the Between Days it had covered 70. 8

per cent of the earth's surface, but now the figure was 71. 3. Water made up two-thirds of total body weight. Man could survive months without food, but only days without water. Think!

Think! Two parts hydrogen to one part oxygen. She honed her concentration, adjusting her focus, shrinking, ever shrinking deeper into the Search-trance, analysing the trace elements at the bottom of the Pool. One by one she dismissed them — reactive silica, magnesium, sodium, potassium, iron, copper, zinc. There were minute traces of lead, but these could not have been harmful unless a person drank around sixty gallons a day for who knew what number of years.

She returned to her body and leaned back exhausted. The sun had moved past the Chaos Peak and her naked skin was burning. Moving several yards to her left, she looked around for Oshere. He was lying asleep in the shade; there was little of humanity left in him, and his voice was almost gone.

Not the water. What then? She glanced up at the sky and the awesome Sword of God pointing to the heavens. She shivered. Not that!

Her eyes flicked to the Peak. Was it something there? Chreena stood and stretched, then dressed swiftly and made her way to the base. There were many handholds in the heavily barnacled rock and she began to climb slowly. Her mind fled back to the last time she had clung to a rock face, almost three years before, when the Titanic had been breached and she had carried her son Luke from the doomed ghost ship and down the sheer face of the mountain above the ruins of Balacris.

Then she had been Amaziga Archer, widow of Samuel and a teacher to the children of the Guardians. Guardians? All the knowledge of the Betweeners had been held by them for future generations, yet the work had been ruined, corrupted by one man: Sarento. He had longed to see Rebirth, the world back as it was. His patience had worn thin and he had begun, through the Motherstone, to manipulate events. He had given Bloodstones to a growing nation that became the Hellborn; he had encouraged their warlike tendencies, giving them the secrets of automatic weapons. 'In war,' he said, 'man is at his most inventive. All great historical advances have come through the battlefield.'

With the power of the Motherstone he had reassembled the wreck of the Titanic as it lay broken upon the mountainside over Atlantis. He had made it Home Base for the Guardians. But his doom had been sealed when the Hellborn took Donna Taybard as a blood sacrifice, for that alone had led the Jerusalem Man to Balacris and the Titanic.

Amaziga remembered that awful night when Sarento used the Motherstone to duplicate the first voyage. Though the ship remained on the mountain, those on board — under its glittering lights and beautiful saloons — could gaze out on a star-filled sky over a black and shining ocean.

But Shannow had fought Sarento in the subterranean cavern of the Motherstone, killing him and sealing off the power of the Stone. The Titanic had once more struck the iceberg and a sorcerous sea filled the ship, destroying the Guardians and obliterating the knowledge of eons.

And Amaziga had climbed down from the wreck and walked away without a backward glance.

The Jerusalem Man had come to her.

'I am sorry,' he said. 'I do not know if my actions were right — but they were just. I will lead you to a safe place.'

They had parted at a small town hundreds of miles to the north, and Amaziga had journeyed with her son to the lands of the Wall.

She climbed higher and glanced down at the shimmering Pool below. Her fingers were tired and she hauled herself on to a ledge to rest. There was nothing harmful here that she could feel. 'You are getting old,' she told herself. She had lived more than a century, her youth guaranteed by the Sipstrassi carried by the Guardians. But that was gone now and silver flecks highlighted her tightly curled hair. How old are you in real terms, Amaziga? she asked herself. Thirty-five?

Forty?

Taking a deep breath, she rose and climbed on. It took her an hour to reach the ledge beneath the Peak and as she scrambled over it, her hand gripped a sharp stone which split the skin of her palm. She cursed and sat with her back to the rock-face, heart hammering. She could detect nothing baleful in the rock of the Peak. The climb had been a waste of time, and had served only to bring her bitter memories and a painful wound. Settling herself down, preparing her body for the return journey, she thought of jumping to the Pool far below, but dismissed the idea; she had never been comfortable in the water. The sun bathed her and she felt warm and curiously refreshed. Her pulse slowed. When she lifted her injured hand, ready to apply pressure to stop the bleeding, the cut had disappeared. She rubbed her fingers at the skin but there was no mark.

Reaching out, she picked up the stone with the serrated edge. Blood had stained it. Carefully she rose to her knees on the narrow ledge and turned to the rock-face. Above her the overhang jutted from the Peak, and above that the Sword of God and the tiny crosses that surrounded it. She closed her eyes, her spirit flowing into the barnacled stone. Deeper she moved, coming at last to shaped marble and beyond that to a network of golden wire and crystals. She followed the network up to a silver bowl, six feet in diameter. At the centre of this lay a huge Sipstrassi Stone with golden threads inches wide.

Her eyes snapped open. 'Oh God!' she whispered. 'Oh God!'

The Chaos Peak was not a natural formation. It had become encrusted as it lay beneath the ocean.

It was a tower, and the Sipstrassi Stone was still pulsing its power after 12, 000 years. Amaziga gazed down at the sleeping Oshere — and understood.

The healing powers of Sipstrassi!

There had been no intention of harming the Dianae. The almost mechanical magic of the Stone had bathed Shir-ran and the others — it had repaired them, eliminating the promoter genes and the carefully wrought genetic engineering. It had returned them to a state of perfection. 'Dear God!'

Amaziga rose and pushed her back to the face, then stared down at Oshere. Normally a wielder would need to touch a Stone to direct its powers… but with something of this size? Her concentration grew and far below Oshere stirred in his sleep. Pain lanced him and he roared, his great head snapping at unseen enemies. His body twisted and he sank back, his new fur shrinking, his limbs straightening. Amaziga pictured him as she remembered him, holding the vision before her eyes. Finally she relaxed and gazed down at the naked young man lying asleep in the sunshine.

Without a moment's hesitation she stepped forward and dived, her lithe ebony frame falling like a spear to cleave the water below. She surfaced and swam to the edge, heaving herself up on to the rocks beside Oshere. Removing her wet clothes, she let the sun dry her skin.

Oshere stirred and opened his golden eyes. 'Is this a dream?' he asked.

'No. This is the reality dreams are shaped of.'

'You look so… young and beautiful.'

'So do you,' she told him, smiling. He sat up and gazed in wonder at his bronzed body.

'Truly this is no dream? I am returned?'

'Yes.'

'Tell me. Tell me everything.'

'Not yet,' she whispered, stroking his face. 'Not now, Oshere. Not when I have just dived for you.'

Clutching her Bloodstone to her breast, Sharazad stepped through the gateway. Her mind swam, her vision blurred with colours more vivid dian any she had seen in life. She held herself steady until the whirling movement before her eyes ceased; she had moved from a star-filled night to a bright dawn and for a moment or two she felt disorientated. The King was sitting by a window, staring out at his armies engaged in their training manoeuvres on the far fields.