David Gemmell - Dark Prince

To the pit with duty, he thought! Have I no right to happiness?

But then he thought of Alexander and the beast within him. Another Philippos waiting to wreak his evil on the world.

'I cannot stay,' he whispered.

And a deep sorrow flowed through him.

Alexander sat alone at the edge of a small tree-lined lake, gazing up at the hilltop to his left. Upon it, silhouetted in the moonlight, stood the twin pillars of the Giant's Gateway, and upon them was a marble lintel stone deeply etched with writings of a form and language Alexander had never seen.

Three times that day the boy had been drawn to the stones, walking around and between the pillars trying to make sense of their hidden messages. The columns themselves were ornately carved and, save for the most subtle differences, identical. There was a sunburst surrounded by eighteen spheres on the left column; on the right there were nineteen spheres. At the base of each was a curious carving of what appeared to be the footprint of a beast with four talons, and higher above it the outline of a crab, or spider, or even a three-headed monster. It was hard to tell what had been intended by the sculptor.

Alexander picked up a stone and skimmed it across the surface of the lake. The Gateway haunted his thinking and he lay back on the soft grass seeking the clue he needed. On each pillar, facing inward, was a jutting stone — like fingers pointing at one another. According to legend the giant who created the Gateway had reached out from between the pillars, taking hold of both stones. Then he had vanished.

But Alexander could not copy such an action. As he held the first stone and stretched out his arm, he was still some six feet from touching the second stone.

Doubt crept into his mind. Are you truly Iskander? He had believed he would need only to see the Gateway in order for its secrets to be revealed.

'What am I to do?' he asked the night.

'Whatever you can,' came a familiar voice, and Alexander swung to see Chiron walking down the hillside.

'You are alive!' shouted Alexander, pushing himself to his feet and running to meet the magus . Chiron knelt to greet him, taking the boy in his arms.

'Yes, I am alive. And glad to be human once more.'

'But you — Camiron — fell overboard during the storm. I could not locate you. I feared you dead.'

'Camiron managed to reach the shore-line and from there, lost and confused, headed south, coming at last to the woods. Here there were those who knew him — me — and had the power to reverse the Change. I shall never again be tempted into shape-changing.'

'Why did you risk it at all so near to Gorgon's Forest?'

The magus looked away, then smiled ruefully. 'I had not intended the Change. But I was frightened, Alexander.

Simply that. The Makedones were coming. Parmenion had decided to walk into the demon-haunted depths of the most evil place in Achaea.' He shrugged. 'I fell asleep, but my dreams were all born of terror. Camiron at least could outrun his enemies — but what I could not have guessed was that the centaur would discard the stone of power. .

leaving me trapped. I think in some way he knew that this was his only chance of true life.'

'Poor Camiron. He was so happy to wake every morning with his memories intact.'

Chiron smiled and sat down beside the boy. 'He could not have lived, Alexander. Centaurs cannot absorb food while their bodies are merged. He did not know it, but he was starving to death when at last he came here. He had no real hope of independent life.'

'I shall miss him,' said Alexander.

'And I shall not,' the magus told him. 'But let us return to your problem. What have you discovered about the Gateway?'

'Little or nothing. The carvings upon the pillars are not quite identical, but that could be considered human error -

though somehow I doubt it. The jutting stones are handles of some kind but, as with the myth, it would take a giant to grip them together.'

'Yet that is the secret,' said Chiron. 'The writings inscribed on the lintel are Akkadian, derived from an ancient Atlantean alphabet of forty-two characters. The Akkadians reduced the alphabet to twenty-nine.'

'You can read it?'

'Of course.'

'What does it say?'

'Nothing now of interest. It tells how the pillars were first brought here, lists the names of the Senior Magus , and the current King in whose name it was erected, and says that the Gateway was built in the thousandth year of the Akkadian Empire. That is all.'

'I had expected more,' said Alexander, disappointed.

Chiron laughed. 'Like a list of instructions? I don't believe that instructions were needed in those days. The Gateway was always open.'

'Then how did it radiate Enchantment?'

'I do not believe it ever did.'

'What? You mean I cannot restore the magic to this realm?'

'I fear not.'

'Then what can I do?'

'The Gateways- and there are many of them- allowed travel between nations, worlds, times. In the far east they are called lung mei, the Dragon Paths. In the west they are known as the Dream Gates, and in the cold, bitter north they are named the Paths of the Gods.'

'How does that help me, if I cannot use them to return the Enchantment?'

'If a horse is too weak to travel to water, then what does the rider do?'

'He brings water to the horse,' Alexander replied.

'Exactly. You cannot bring the Enchantment to Achaea. You must then allow the people of the woods to pass through the Gateway to a world where Enchantment is still strong.'

'Then I must open the Gate?'

'I believe that is your destiny.'

'How will I know where to send them?'

Chiron shrugged. 'I cannot answer that.'

Alexander rose and began the slow walk up the hillside. Chiron followed him and together they examined the pillars anew.

'This section here, what is it?' asked Alexander, running his fingers over the curving lines that made up the bestial footprint.

'That is a map of Achaea. See, here is Sparta and here the Gulf of Korinthos.'

'I do see! The crab then is the Chalcidice, what you call the lands of the Trident.' Moving to the right-hand pillar, he traced the second map. 'And this is the same — except that the Gulf is more narrow. And look, here the lands of the Trident are changed also, the prongs linked.'

Returning to the first pillar, he looked in amazement at the map. 'Wait! Now there is no Gulf of Korinthos. What is happening here, Chiron?'

'As you touch them they change,' whispered the magus . 'Now the one on the right is not Achaea at all. All the islands have linked to the mainland.'

As they watched the maps began to writhe and change faster and faster, in a bewildering series, as if an invisible hand was drawing charcoal lines across the stone.

Alexander moved closer to the left-hand pillar, reaching out and touching his finger to a small indentation at the centre of the lower map. The movement of lines stopped immediately. Slowly the shifting maps on the right-hand pillar also slowed and froze.

Chiron leaned back, hands on hips. 'That is at least an answer in part,' he said. 'This was how they set up the Gateway. One map must be of this world, the second sets up the destination point. I do not believe it is a time portal.

I have seen those and they are much larger, full circles of stone. Yet it is more complex than other Akkadian Gateways used to travel the length of the empire. This must be one of the legendary Six Gateways to alternate worlds.'

'Where are the others?'

'One you have already travelled: Philippos drew you through it. There is another I know of in the east, but the pillars were smashed by superstitious tribesmen. The others? I don't know. Below the sea, perhaps, with lost Atlantis. Or under the new ice at the far edges of the world?'