David Gemmell - The Winter Warriors

Anharat gave a derisive laugh. 'And we knew no pleasures, save those of the intellect. We knew no joys, Emsharas.'

'I disagree. We saw the birthing of stars, we raced upon the cosmic storm winds. There was joy there. Can you not see that we are alien to this planet? It conspires against us. The waters burn our skin, the sunlight saps our strength. We cannot feed here, unless it be from the emotions of humans. We are parasites on this world. Nothing more.'

Emsharas stepped further into the tent, and looked closely at the frozen officers. 'Their dreams are different from ours. We will never live among them. And one day they will destroy us all.'

They are weak and pitiful,' said Anharat, his hand slowly moving towards the dagger at his belt. It would need no magick to plunge a dagger into his brother's heart. Then he too would be cast into Nowhere.

'I offer a new world for our people,' said Emsharas.

'Tell me the source of your power,' whispered Anharat, his fingers curling around the dagger hilt.

Emsharas swung to face him. 'Why have you not already guessed it?' he countered. 'All the clues are there, in the failure of your search spells, and the nature of the Great Spell itself.'

'You found a place to hide. That is all I know.'

'No, Anharat. I am not hiding.'

'You liar! I see you standing before me, drawing breath.'

'Indeed you can. Tonight I opened a gateway, Anharat, to bring me through to you. But where is tonight? It is four thousand years in the past and I am with the army of the Three Kings, and tomorrow you and I will fight above the battlefield. You will lose. Then I will prepare myself for the Great Spell. You can help me complete it. Our people can have a world of their own!'

'This is the world I want!' snarled Anharat, drawing the dagger. Leaping forward he slashed the blade at his brother. Emsharas swayed aside. His form shimmered.

And he was gone.

Bakilas sat quietly in the dark. The Illohir had no need of sleep. There was no necessity to regenerate tissue. All was held in place by magick fuelled by feeding. The Lord of the Krayakin needed no rest. He was waiting in this place only because his horse was weary.

Truth to tell he had not been surprised when his brothers had been defeated. This quest was flawed from the beginning. The priestess was right. It was no coincidence that a descendant of Emsharas should be guarding the baby. There was some grand strategy here, whose significance was lost on Bakilas.

What do I do now, he wondered? Where do I go?

He stood and walked to the brow of the hill and gazed down on the ruins of Lem. He could remember when this city had been like a jewel, shimmering in the night with a hundred thousand lights.

He gazed up at the stars, naming them in his mind, recalling the times when, formless, he had visited them. In that moment he wished he had never been offered the gift of flesh.

Anharat and Emsharas had brought it to the Illohir. The Twins, the gods of glory. Their power combined had created the link between wind and earth. They had been the first. Emsharas had taken human form, while Anharat had chosen wings. The Krayakin had followed.

Who could have guessed then that the gift was also,a curse?

True the sunlight had caused great pain, and the water of the rivers had been deadly, but there were so many other pleasures to be enjoyed, and an eternity in which to enjoy them.

Until Emsharas betrayed them all.

Even now, after 4,000 years of contemplation, Bakilas could not begin to understand his reasons. Nor what had become of him. Where could an Illohir hide? Even now Bakilas could sense all his brothers in the void of Nowhere. Emsharas had shone like the largest star. It was impossible not to know his whereabouts. Bakilas could feel the powerful, pulsing presence of Anharat at his camp a few miles away. Equally, had Anharat been Windborn, he could have felt his spirit across the universe. Where then did Emsharas dwell?

One day the answer will become clear, he thought. One day, when the universe ends and the Illohir die with it.

Bakilas shivered. Death. To cease to be. It was a terrifying thought. Humans could not begin to comprehend the true fear of mortality. They lived always with the prospect of death. They understood its inevitability. A few short seasons and they were gone. Worse yet they tasted death throughout their few heartbeats of existence. Every passing year brought them fresh lines and wrinkles, and the slow erosion of their strength. Their skin sagged, their bones dried out, until toothless and senile they flopped into their graves. What could they know of immortal fear?

Not one of the Illohir had ever known death.

Bakilas recalled the Great Birthing in the Coming of Light, when the first chords of the Song of the Universe rang out across the dark. It was a time of discovery and harmony, a time of comradeship. It was life. Sentient and curious. Everything was born at that time, the stars and then the planets, the oceans of lava, and finally the great seas.

There had been joys then of a different kind; the increase of knowledge and awareness. But there had been no pain, no disappointments, no tragedies. Absolute serenity had been enjoyed — endured? — by all the Illohir. Only with the coming of the flesh did the contrasts begin. How could one know true joy until one had tasted true despair? Contrast was everything. Which was why the Illohir lusted after the life of form .

Bakilas moved back from the hilltop and drew his sword. Moving silently alongside the sleeping horse he beheaded it with one terrible sweep of his blade. As the beast fell Bakilas tore out its heart and held it up to the night sky, calling upon Anharat.

The heart burst into flame.

'I am glad that you called upon me, brother,' said the voice of Anharat. 'Emsharas has returned.'

'I do not sense him.'

'His powers are great. But he is here. He seeks to prevent our destiny.'

'But why?' asked Bakilas. 'You and he are the Twins. Since time began you were One in all things.'

'We are One no longer,' snapped Anharat. 'I will defeat him. I will hold his spirit in the palm of my hand and I will torment it until the end of time.'

Bakilas said nothing. He sensed a joy in Anharat that had been missing since the betrayal. He was pleased that Emsharas had returned! How curious! Bakilas had felt Anharat's pain, and his sense of loss. His hatred of Emsharas had become all consuming. Throughout the centuries he had never given up the hunt for his brother, sending search spell after search spell. His hatred was almost as strong as his love had been. A thought came to Bakilas then. Perhaps hatred and love were, in some ways, the same. Both echoed an intense need in Anharat. His existence without Emsharas had been hollow and empty. Even now the Demon Lord dreamed only of holding his brother's spirit in his hand. Hatred and love. Indistinguishable.

'You must go into Lem,' said Anharat. 'Hide there until the time to strike! When the babe dies, and my power swells, I will find Emsharas and there will be a reckoning.'

Nayim Pallines had always disliked Antikas Karios, though he had wisely kept this information to himself for several years. He had known Kara since childhood, and was one of the guests at her wedding. He had seen her radiant joy, and had envied the look of love she gave her husband as the vows were made, and the ceremonial cord had been looped about their wrists.

Two days later both were dead, the husband slain by the killer Antikas Karios, Kara dead by her own hand. Love, Nayim knew, was far too precious to be so casually destroyed. When the tragedies occurred his dislike of Antikas Karios turned to hatred.

And yet, as a colonel in the Royal Lancers he had been obliged to serve this man, to take his orders, and to bow before him. It had been hard.