David Gemmell - Dark Prince

Sensing a presence close by she garbed her spirit in armour of white light, a blazing shield upon her arm. A figure hooded and robed in white appeared, the face in shadow.

'Who are you?' came a familiar voice.

'Tamis?' whispered Derae. 'Is it you?'

'Who else would it be to guard Sparta in this hour?' responded the woman. 'But I asked for your name.'

'I am called Thena. I am not an enemy.'

'I know that, child. Come to my home.'

The hooded figure became a glowing sphere that sank towards the city. Derae followed it to a small house nestling in a grove of cypress trees close to the sacred lake. There were only two rooms here, with little furniture and no rugs.

The floors were baked earth, the chairs simply made and unadorned. In the tiny bedroom upon a pallet bed lay an old woman, her blind eyes open, her wasted frame covered by a single thin blanket.

'I can feel your presence,' she said aloud, her voice faint like a breeze whispering through dead leaves. 'I have been waiting for you.'

Derae could find no words. This was not the Tamis she had known, the woman whose meddling had caused the birth of the Dark God, yet even so the sight of this twin caused a mixture of emotions Derae found hard to contain.

'Speak to me, child,' said Tamis. 'I have waited so long for you that I often wondered if the visions had been false.'

'Why have you waited? What can I do for you?'

The old woman smiled. 'Only the Source could answer that, and I am but the least of His followers. But I have seen the Chaos Spirit abroad in the land, listened to the screams of the dying, heard the cries of the dispossessed and widowed. These have been hard years, Thena. Hard, lonely years. Even now, with your coming, the darkness moves towards my city.'

'What would you have me do?'

'Is he with you?'

'Of whom do you speak?'

'The One who is to be. The strategos .'

'Yes, he is here.'

Tamis sighed and closed her opal eyes. 'The Spartan King is riding to his death. Nothing will change that. He is a noble man, a good man. I have helped him through these desperate years. But even now the Fates have worked against me. This is the time of the Festival of Apollo, when the priests say no Spartan army can march, so the King is leading the forces of Light with only his personal bodyguard. And he will die.'

Derae said nothing. Even in her own world Sparta had suffered through such stupidities. When the Persian King Xerxes led his army into Greece, the Spartans had refused to march against him because of a religious festival. And then, as now it seemed, the King had led his personal bodyguard of 300 men to block the pass of Thermopylae.

Three hundred against a quarter of a million! Their courage and valour had held against the Persian horde for several days, but at the last they were slain to a man.

'What was your vision?' Derae asked.

'I saw the strategos and the Golden Child, and a warrior with a face of bronze. And with that vision was a rainbow and the fleeing of a storm. I hoped it meant the Dark God was vanquished. But perhaps it did not. Perhaps my hopes have been in vain.'

'Did you try to prevent the birth of the Dark God?' asked Derae, remembering the dark deeds of Tamis in the world of Greece.

'I considered it, but it seemed folly. Was I wrong?'

'No,' said Derae. 'You were wise, very wise. I will bring the strategos here. But I do not know what he can achieve.'

'You will understand very soon, child. Very soon. May the Source bless you.'

'He has, in many ways,' said Derae, but there was no response from the blind seeress.

Parmenion awoke from an uneasy sleep, his mind whirling with the many problems he faced. His head ached as he sat up and he sucked in a deep breath. Alexander was alive, and that in itself was a victory; but the strategos knew that, in battle as in life, only the final victory counted. And all the odds favoured Philippos.

One step at a time, he cautioned himself. Brontes had not yet returned with Attalus and Gorgon was sitting nearby staring out over the Gulf. Parmenion leaned his back to the cliff-face, calming his thoughts.

Through most of his life he had been forced to battle against the odds. In Sparta, as a despised mix-blood, he had fought alone against the hatred of his fellows. In Thebes he had engineered a victory against the Spartan overlords, inflicting the first major defeat on a full Spartan army. In Persia he had led the forces of minor satraps and governors, always finding the path to conquest. And in Macedonia he had helped a young King, beset by enemies, to build a nation feared across the world.

But here, in this enchanted realm, he was not a strategos or a general. He was a weaponless stranger in a world he scarcely understood. There were some similarities. Philippos was King of Makedon and had built an army to crush all opposition. Sparta was still the city of heroes. But here magic ruled; creatures like Gorgon, Brontes and Camiron were accepted as a normal part of life. Winged beasts patrolled the skies and the Demon King could read the hearts and minds of his enemies.

How then can I defeat him, Parmenion wondered?

Chiron had said the King was invulnerable to all weapons of war, his body immune to poisons. 'I only ever saw him hurt once,' the magus had told him. 'He was a child and playing with a sharp dagger. It cut his finger and blood flowed. It healed very swiftly. His mother scolded him in my presence, then turned to me, offering me the blade.

"Cut him," she told me. At first I refused, but she insisted. So I took the dagger and gently ran the edge over the skin of his arm, but could make no impression.'

'Then why did it cut him?' Parmenion had asked.

'The sorcery protects him from his enemies, but he is within the spell. Should he choose, he could no doubt kill himself.'

Parmenion smiled at the memory. All he had to do was find a way to defeat the greatest army of this strange world, outthinking a King who could reach his mind and ultimately forcing that King to take his own life.

'Why do you smile?' asked Gorgon.

'Why should I not? The sun is shining.'

'You are a curious man, Parmenion,' observed the Forest King, turning his great head to stare out over the waves.

Parmenion sat quietly, watching the creature. The skin of Gorgon's huge shoulders seemed lighter here in the sunlight, the mottled colours of the forest, dark green and rust brown, giving way to the paler hues of summer grass and polished pine. The snakes hung lank and lifeless from his head and his eyes had lost their demonic glow.

'What are you looking for?' asked the Spartan.

'I am not looking. I am remembering. It is more than a century since I last gazed upon the sea. I had a house once, with Persephone, on the island of Andros. We often came to the beach, to swim and to laze. The memories have been buried too long. Ah, but she was a beauty, her skin pale as marble, even in summer, her eyes like turkis, yet not cold and blue but warm and enchanting as the midsummer sky.' Gorgon sighed, then a low growl rumbled from his misshapen mouth. 'Why do I talk like this? My mind is failing.'

'You have spent too long in the forest,' said Parmenion softly.

'Aye, that is true. Persephone used to sing. We would sit under an awning watching the sunset over the waves, and she would sing. Yet I can remember no words. All that fills me is the memory of peace and joy. But I was a man then, and arrogant in the ways of youth. I could not begin to imagine a time when she would not be beside me, sending the sun to sleep with a song.'

'No one can take that from you, my friend. Not ever.'

'I have no friends, Human,' snapped Gorgon, surging to his feet and walking away. Parmenion watched the giant for a few moments and then followed him to the shore-line.