David Gemmell - The Swords of Night and Day

Desire was not a stranger to Askari. She had desired Stavut, and before him a tall young woodsman who used to travel to the settlement for supplies. Her feelings for Skilgannon, however, were vastly different. A glance from him would set her heart beating faster. She sensed in him a similar desire, and yet, for some reason, he fought it. Askari could not understand such reticence.

As they settled down by the fire she saw him staring out over the mountains, his face expressionless, his eyes distant.

‘What are you thinking?’ she asked. For a moment she thought he had not heard her. Then he sighed.

‘I was thinking of a temple that no longer exists,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘It holds the key to everything.’

‘You are a strange man.’

‘Yes,’ he admitted, ‘strange indeed. You spoke of Reborns earlier. You said I should beware Decado, because he is soulless.’

‘I remember. You gave an odd answer.’

‘Not so odd, Askari. I am Skilgannon. Once I was called the Damned. I led armies, destroyed cities.

Cities that are now dust, and forgotten by history.’

‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘How could that be?’

He gave a rueful smile. ‘Because I am a Reborn. I died a thousand years ago. Landis Kan brought me back. . from Hell,’ he added.

She looked at him closely, hoping he was lying for some reason. She saw in his face that he was not.

‘Why are you telling me this?’ she asked.

‘I was brought back for a purpose — one that even Landis did not fully understand. One that I certainly do not yet understand. I need to find that temple. The answers are there.’

‘You did not answer my question.’

‘It is not easy to answer.’ He glanced back to where Harad and Charis were sitting together in the rear of the cave, holding hands and leaning close. ‘Harad is also a Reborn.’

‘No!’

‘I am afraid so. You think he has no soul?’

‘Landis Kan brought him back?’ she asked.

‘Landis Kan could not bring back the man he was. He tried. He went to Harad when he was a child and asked about his dreams, hoping, I think, to gain some insight to who he might have been in that previous life.’

Askari looked into those sapphire eyes, and this time did not redden. ‘He asked me about my dreams also,’ she pointed out.

He nodded. ‘Then do you need your question answered?’

A cold knot appeared in the pit of her stomach. The ramifications of his words were too ghastly to contemplate. Anger flared.

‘You are suggesting that I am a soulless Reborn?’

‘I said nothing about souls. And I am suggesting nothing. I know you are a Reborn. That is why they are hunting you. That is why Decado called you Jianna.’

‘I don’t believe it! I know who I am. I am Askari.’

‘Yes, you are,’ he said softly. Then, as best he could, he told her of the process Landis Kan had described to him, the placing of shards of bone in an arcane machine, and the impregnation of a willing surrogate. ‘You were born, as any child is. You were nursed and raised. But the essence of your physical being comes from Jianna the Eternal. Everything about you is identical to her. It is why she has become the Eternal. Young women are bred from her essence and born. As the years pass the Eternal casts off each ageing body, and takes. . steals. . a new form.’

‘She casts out their souls from their bodies?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where do they go?’

‘To the horror of the Void, and, perhaps, through it. I do not know.’

‘And this is her plan for me?’

‘I don’t think so. I think Landis Kan wanted you for himself. It is my belief that he loved the Eternal, and that she discarded him. You were his future. That is why he wanted to take you to distant lands.’

Askari looked at him closely. Anger was still strong in her, but she could no longer deny the obvious.

He had called her Jianna when first they met. Decado had also been convinced of her identity. Inner turmoil raged and she felt the need to strike out. ‘So,’ she said, at last, ‘when Landis Kan created you, he did it the same way?’

‘I would imagine so.’

‘Your body would have been born and then grown to manhood. Then the soul was cast out and you were brought back to. . how did you put it. . steal the body?’ She saw the shock register. The sapphire eyes closed and a look of pain crossed his features.

‘How stupid of me,’ he said. ‘It did not cross my mind. I have been too self-absorbed. Of course. A young man was bred to be slaughtered so that I could return.’ She saw his pain and felt a stab of guilt that she had caused it, and her anger passed.

‘Why did he bring you back?’

‘He thought I could end the reign of the Eternal. He tried to tell me his actions were to protect his people. They were not. It was all so that he could find a place to be with you, without fear that Jianna would find him.’

‘Did he think you would kill her?’

‘I don’t know what he thought. He was relying on an old prophecy. It referred to my swords, and some magical silver eagle. That was why he sought my tomb.’

‘I know of the Silver Eagle,’ she said. ‘It flies among the stars, granting wishes to righteous wizards.

An old hunter told me the tale, on the night he gave me my first longbow. The ancient gods crafted it from silver, and blessed it with life. Then they hurled it into the sky and it flies around the world, for ever, chasing the moon, and feeding on the sun.’

He smiled. ‘Ah well, then perhaps that is my destiny. To be cast into the sky to seek its nest.’ Then the smile faded. ‘The truth is I do not yet know my destiny. What I do know is that I must fight her, and do everything in my power to end her reign.’

‘Can you?’ asked Askari.

‘Once there was a time when I believed there was no deed beyond me. I was younger then. Now I am a fifty-four-year-old man in a young body, striding through a world that is alien to me. I cannot undo the evil that Jianna has wrought. But I knew the woman who made the prophecy, and I trust her.

Therefore there must be some way I can win.’

‘And you believe this. . this lost temple is the answer?’

‘Yes. All the magic seems to have flowed from it. I went there once. I saw the ancient artefacts, and the glittering lights in the walls, with no flame in them. I stayed there for a month. It seemed to me that all the priests there were wizards, in one form or another.’

‘You say it is no longer there?’

‘Gamal told me the entire mountain, in which the temple was carved, has disappeared. All that remains is open land, where metal twists out of shape, and natural laws hold no sway.’

‘Mountains cannot disappear,’ she said.

‘My thoughts exactly.’ He laughed then, the sound rich and full of humour. ‘But then I am a thousand-year-old dead man in a world full of monsters. Who am I to deny the power of magic?’

Just then huge flocks of birds took off from the trees below the cave, soaring into the sky like a black cloud. The wind died down and an eerie silence settled over the land. Askari pushed herself to her feet.

‘That is not natural,’ she said.

A low rumble came from the ground beneath them. Skilgannon surged to his feet. ‘Earthquake!’ he shouted. ‘Get out of the cave! Harad! Get out into the open!’ Hauling Askari to her feet he held tightly to her hand and they began to run. The earth twisted beneath their feet. Skilgannon staggered. Askari fell against him. From above them came a great crashing. Rocks and boulders began to tumble down the cliff

— then a huge section of stone sheared away. Harad and Charis came running from the cave. A massive rock crashed down mere feet from where they stood. Charis fell. The black-bearded axeman picked her up and began to sprint for open ground. More boulders tumbled, then an avalanche began. Skilgannon ran down the slope, seeking out a place of safety. There was none to be found. He ran on for a while.