David Gemmell - Lion of Macedon

The following morning, as he slept in a chair beside the bed, he heard a rattling at his gate.

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Parmenion stumbled to the courtyard to see the servant girl, Cleo.

'It is my mistress,' cried Cleo. 'She is dying.'

Parmenion took the girl to Mothac and ordered her to sit by him, instructing Cleo on how to bathe the sleeping man. Then he took his cloak, armed himself with sword and dagger, and carefully made his way to the house of Thetis. Corpses lay everywhere and the market-place was deserted.

Thetis was lying on her bed, lost in a fever sleep. Pulling back the sheets, Parmenion examined the woman's naked body. There were swellings under both armpits and in the groin. Wrapping her in a blanket, he lifted her into his arms and began the slow walk back to his own house.

On the way two men who were pulling a cart piled high with bodies called out to him: 'We'll take her.' He shook his head and staggered on. His muscles were burning with fatigue as he carried her into his courtyard and through to the andron, where he laid her on a couch. Together he and Cleo manhandled his bed down the stairs and into the room alongside Mothac. 'It will be easier to look after them both in the same room,' Parmenion told Cleo. 'Now go back to the house and gather what food there is, and bring it here.'

With the girl gone Parmenion bathed Thetis, applying honey to a seeping sore under her right arm.

He felt her pulse, which was fluttering and weak, then sat beside her holding her hand. After a while her eyes opened.

'Damon?' she whispered through dry lips.

'No, it is Parmenion.'

'Why did you leave me, Damon? Why did you die?'

'It was my time,' he told her, his voice gentle and his hand squeezing hers. 'Rest now. Gather your strength — and live.'

'Why?' came the question, and it cut into him like a jagged blade.

'Because I ask you to,' he told her. 'Because… I want you to be happy. I want to hear you laugh again.'

But she was asleep once more. Soon she began to shiver and Parmenion wrapped her in a warm blanket and hugged her frail body, rubbing her arms and shoulders, willing heat into her.

'I love you, Damon,' she said, her voice suddenly clear. Parmenion wanted to lie, as once she had lied for him. But he could not.

'If you love me, then live,' he said. 'You hear me? Live!'

Time passed swiftly for Derae. Every day she learned new skills, healing the sick of the surrounding villages who were carried into the temple on makeshift stretchers. She mended the broken leg of a fanner, stroked away the weeping, cancerous sore on a child's neck, and gave sight to a blind adolescent girl who had travelled with her father from the city of Tyre. Word spread throughout the Greek cities of Asia that a new healer had come among them, and day by day the queues lengthened outside the temple.

Tamis had been gone for several months, but she returned late one evening to find Derae sitting in the garden, enjoying the cool of the night air. Already there were people sleeping in the fields beyond, waiting for their chance to see the Healer.

'Welcome home,' greeted the younger woman.

'They will be a never-ending source of exhaustion for you,' said Tamis, gesturing to the fields.

'They will come from all over the empire, from Babylon and India, from Egypt and Cappadocia. You will never heal them all.'

'A blind child asked me why I did not heal myself.'

'And what did you tell her?' asked Tamis.

'I told her that I did not need healing. It was true; it surprised me. You look weary, Tamis.'

'I am old,' snapped Tamis. 'One expects to feel weary. But there is something I must do before I leave again. Have you seen Parmenion while I have been away?'

Derae blushed. 'I like to watch him. Is that wrong?'

'Not at all. But as yet you have seen no futures. However, now is the time to walk the many paths.

Take my hand.'

Their souls linked, the two women sped to the city of Thebes and the house of Parmenion. It was shrouded in darkness, and the sound of wailing came from the streets around the dwelling.

'What is happening?' Derae asked.

'The plague has come to the city,' answered Tamis. 'Now watch!'

Time froze, the air shimmered. Derae saw Parmenion staggering out into the courtyard, his face mottled and red, his throat swollen. He collapsed and she tried to go to him, but Tamis held her.

'You cannot interfere here,' she said, 'for this is the future. It has not yet occurred. Just as we cannot change the past, neither can we work in the days yet to be. Keep watching!' The scene blurred, re-forming to show Parmenion dying in his bed, dying in the street, dying at the home of Calepios, dying on a hillside. Finally Tamis returned them both to the temple, groaning as she re-entered her body to find her neck stiff and aching.

'What can we do?' asked Derae.

'I can do nothing at the moment. I am too tired,' said Tamis. 'But tell me, do you feel strong enough to use your power at such a distance?'

'Yes.'

'Good. But first let me ask you this: How would you react to Parmenion taking a wife?'

'A wife? I… I don't know. It hurts me to think of it, but then why should he not? He thinks me dead — as indeed I am. Why do you ask?'

'It is not important. Go to him. Save him if you can. If you cannot deal with the plague, return for me. I will rest now and gather my strength.'

Derae lay back and loosed her soul.

Thebes glistened below her. She flew to Parmenion's home, but he was not there. Mothac lay sick, a young girl beside his bed wiping the sweat from his face with a damp cloth. Derae rose high above the house, her eyes scanning the deserted streets. Then she saw him, staggering under the weight of the woman he carried.

She recognized the whore, Thetis, and watched as Parmenion brought her home and tended her, listened as the woman spoke of her love in a fever sleep. Derae floated close to Parmenion, laying

— her hands within his head, his thoughts flowing into her mind. He was willing the woman to live.

Derae relaxed her mind, merging with Parmenion, flowing with his blood through veins and arteries.

The plague was within him, tiny and weak, but growing even as she observed it. Focusing her concentration, she hunted the pockets of corruption, destroying them until, at last satisfied, she pulled back from him. The woman was dying, huge swellings under her jaws, in her armpits and her groin.

But Parmenion was safe. Derae soared into the night sky — and hovered there, confused and uncertain. Parmenion wanted the woman to live. Did he love her? No, his thoughts were not of love, but of debts unrepaid. Yet if Derae saved her he might grow to love her, and she would lose him a second time.

It is not as if I am killing her, Derae rationalized. She is dying anyway. I am not to blame. She wanted to fly back to the temple — but could not. Instead she returned to the bedroom and merged with Thetis.

The hunt was monumentally more difficult. The plague was everywhere, rampant and deadly. Three times Thetis' heart shuddered and almost failed. Derae revitalized exhausted glands, feeding energy to the woman, then continued her work, battling the disease. For a long time the plague had the better of her, multiplying faster than she could destroy it. She drew back to the heart, cleaning the blood as it pumped through, filling it with power. The danger area, she realized, was in the groin, where the swellings had burst and were oozing poison-filled pus. Here she accelerated the healing powers of the tissue. Hours fled past. Derae was faint with exhaustion as she finally rose from the body.

She began her journey back to the temple, but her mind was groggy and she found herself floating over an unknown palace in which a woman was screaming. Derae tried to concentrate.