David Gemmell: The Swords of Night and Day

The sun was warm in a blue sky as the priestess Ustarte stood at the graveside, watching her aides disguising the tomb. Carefully they placed rocks upon the small, island site, and transferred plants to cover the recently turned soil. Ustarte pushed back the hood of her scarlet and gold gown, revealing a hairless head, and a face of startling, ageless beauty.

A great sadness settled upon her. Ustarte had witnessed many deaths in the hundreds of years of her life, but few had touched her as strongly as the passing of this hero. She gazed down at the dry river bed.

In spring the melt water would rush down from the mountains, and flow around the island on both sides before becoming a single waterway to the south. Now, in the height of summer, the island was merely a small hill, dusty and un-memorable. Not a good resting place for a great man.

An elderly priest in yellow robes approached her, his back bent, his gaunt, malformed features and huge brown eyes showing clearly to the initiated his status as a Joining, a meld of man and beast. Happily there were few in this benighted world of swords and spears who would recognize his origins. To most he would merely be an ugly little man, with friendly eyes.

‘He deserved better than this, Holy One,’ said the priest.

‘Aye, he did, Weldi, my friend.’

Ustarte turned away from the graveside and, leaning on her staff, moved down the hillside into the shadows. Weldi hobbled after her.

‘Why have we done this? The people would have built a great tomb for him, and erected statues. He saved them, after all. Now none will know where he lies.’

She sighed. ‘He will be found, Weldi. I have seen it. It may be fifty years from now, or a hundred. But he will be found.’

‘And what then, Holy One?’

‘I wish I could say. You remember the Resurrection priest who visited us several years ago?’

‘A tall man. He wanted your help with an artefact.’

‘Yes,’ she said, reaching into a deep pocket in her gown. From it she drew a section of shining metal, indented, and set with polished gems. Weldi gazed at it.

‘It is very pretty. What is it?’

‘It is part of a larger artefact used to produce creatures like us, my dear. To meld and to change matter. To extract the essence of life and cause it to be reproduced, or reshaped. Beasts to walk like men, or men to act like beasts.’

‘Magical, then?’

‘In a way, Weldi. This is an old world we find ourselves in. It has been through many births and rebirths. Once there were cities, where buildings were so tall that clouds gathered around their summits.

In that time magic was commonplace — though it was not called magic. I have seen it in the Mirror. It was a time of evil so colossal, so all-consuming, that men no longer recognized it. They built weapons so horrifying that they could devour whole cities, and turn entire continents to ash. They poisoned the air, and poisoned the seas, and tore down the trees that kept the earth alive.’

Weldi shivered. ‘What happened to them?’

‘Mercifully they destroyed themselves before they could kill the whole planet.’

‘And what has this to do with our friend, and his death?’

Ustarte glanced back at the work party. The hilltop was bare once more. Within a few weeks there would be no sign of the tomb. The wind would blow dust over the site, grass would grow, and he would lie beneath the earth, silently waiting. She shivered.

‘These ancients left many artefacts, Weldi. In the Resurrection temple there are objects like these, used for manipulating life itself. In other places there are more sites, dedicated not to life but to death and destruction. The more the priests delve into the secrets of these artefacts, the closer they will come to recreating the horror of those ancient days.’

‘Can we stop them, Holy One?’

She shook her head, an angry glint in her blue eyes. ‘I cannot. I do not have the power, and my time is running out. I have looked in the Mirror and seen many desolate futures. It tore my heart to watch them.

Armies of Joinings rampaging across the nations, corrupted priests wielding arcane powers, the skies dark with deadly rain. Fear, desolation and evil rampant. I saw the end of the world, Weldi.’ She shuddered. ‘But in one future I did see our friend, born again to fulfil a prophecy that might end the terror.’

‘A prophecy? Whose prophecy?’

‘Mine.’

‘Yours? What is this prophecy?’

Ustarte smiled. ‘I do not know yet, Weldi.’

‘How can that be, Holy One? It is your prophecy.’

‘Indeed it will be. But such are the frustrations of seeing time fragments out of place. All that I truly know now is that our friend will live again. I know the Swords of Night and Day will aid him. I know that the dead will walk beside him. More than that I cannot say.’

‘And he will save the world?’

Ustarte stared back at the hilltop. ‘I don’t know, Weldi. But if I was looking for a man to achieve the impossible, that man would be Skilgannon the Damned.’

First there was darkness, complete and absolute. No sounds to disconcert him, no conscious thoughts to concern him. Then came awareness of darkness and everything changed. He felt a pressure against his back and legs, and a gentle thudding in his chest. Fear touched him.

Why am I in the dark? In that instant a bright, powerful image filled his mind.

A man snarling with hatred, leaping at him, spear raised. The face disappearing in a spray of crimson as a sword blade half severed the skull. More warriors attacking him. There was no escape.

His body jerked spasmodically, his eyes flaring open. There were no painted warriors, no screaming enemies yearning for his death. Instead he found himself lying in a soft bed and staring up at an ornate ceiling, high and domed. He blinked and took a deep breath, his lungs filling with air. The sensation was exquisite — and somehow unnatural.

Confused, the man sat up and rubbed at his eyes. Sunshine was streaming through a high, arched opening to his right. It was so bright and painful that he raised his arm to shield his eyes from the brilliance. Then he saw the dark blue tattoo upon his forearm. It was of a spider, and both ugly and threatening. His eyes adjusting to the brightness, he stood and padded naked across the room. A cool breeze rippled against his skin, causing him to shiver. This too, in its own way, was confusing. The feeling of cold was almost alien.

The opening led to a semicircular balcony high above a walled garden. Beyond the garden lay a town, nestling in a mountain valley, the buildings white, with red-tiled roofs. He gazed at the snow-capped peaks beyond the town, and the brilliant blue sky above them. Slowly he scanned the rugged landscape.

There was nothing here that tugged at his memory. It was all new.

He shivered again, and walked back into the domed room. There were rugs upon the floor, some embroidered with flowers, others with angular emblems he did not recognize. The room itself was also unfamiliar. On a table nearby he saw a water jug and a long-stemmed crystal goblet. He reached for the jug. As he did so he caught sight of his reflection in a curved mirror on the wall behind the table. Cold, sapphire blue eyes stared back at him, from a face both stern and forbidding. There was something about the reflected man that was unrelentingly savage. His gaze travelled down to the tattoo of a snarling panther upon the chest.

He knew then that a third tattoo was upon his back, an eagle with flaring wings. Though why these violent images were etched upon his body he had no idea at all.

Becoming aware of a gnawing emptiness in his stomach, he recognized — as if from ancient memory -