'As you order it, so shall it be,' said Bodasen.
*
Michanek lifted Rowena from the carriage. Her head lolled against his shoulder, and he smelt the sweetness of her breath. Tying the reins to the brake bar, Pudri scrambled down and gazed apprehensively at the sleeping woman.
'She is all right,' said Michanek. 'I will take her to her room. You fetch the servants to unload the chests.' The tall warrior carried Rowena towards the house. A slave girl held open the door and he moved inside, climbing the stairs to a sunlit room in the eastern wing. Gently he laid her down, covering her frail body with a satin sheet and a thin blanket of lamb's wool. Sitting beside her, he lifted her hand. The skin was hot and feverish; she moaned, but did not stir.
Another slave girl appeared and curtsied to the warrior. He rose. 'Stay by her,' he ordered.
He found Pudri standing in the main doorway of the house. The little man looked disconsolate and lost, his dark eyes fearful. Michanek summoned him to the huge oval library, and bade him sit on a couch. Pudri slumped down, wringing his hands.
'Now, from the beginning,' said Michanek. 'Everything.'
The eunuch looked up at the powerful soldier. 'I don't know, Lord. At first she seemed merely withdrawn, but the more the Lord Kabuchek made her tell fortunes the more strange she became. I sat with her and she told me the Talent was growing within her. At first she needed to concentrate her mind upon the subject, and then visions would follow - short, disjointed images. Though after a while no concentration was needed. But the visions did not stop when she released the hands of Lord Kabuchek's. . . guests. Then the dreams began. She would talk as if she was old, and then in different voices. She stopped eating, and moved as if in a trance. Then, three days ago, she collapsed. Surgeons were called and she was bled, but to no avail.' His lip trembled and tears flowed to his thin cheeks. 'Is she dying, Lord?'
Michanek sighed. 'I don't know, Pudri. There is a doctor here whose opinions I value. He is said to be a mystic healer; he will be here within the hour.' He sat down opposite the little man. He thought he could read the fear in the eunuch's eyes. 'No matter what happens, Pudri, you will have a place here in my household. I did not purchase you from Kabuchek merely because you are close to Rowena. If she . . . does not recover I will not discard you.'
Pudri nodded, but his expression did not change. Michanek was surprised. 'Ah,' he said softly, 'you love her, even as I do.'
'Not as you, Lord. She is like a daughter to me. She is sweet, without a feather's weight of malice in her whole body. But such Talent as she has should not have been used so carelessly. She was not ready, not prepared.' He stood. 'May I sit with her, Lord?'
'Of course.'
The eunuch hurried from the room and Michanek rose and opened the doors to the gardens, stepping through into the sunlight. Flowering trees lined the paths and the air was full of the scent of jasmine, lavender and rose. Three gardeners were working, watering the earth and clearing the flower-beds of weeds. As he appeared they stopped their work and fell to their knees, their foreheads pressed into the earth. 'Carry on,' he said, walking past them and entering the maze, moving swiftly through it to the marble bench at the centre where the statue of the Goddess was set in the circular pool. Of white marble, it showed a beautiful young woman, naked, her arms held aloft, her head tilted back to stare at the sky. In her hands was an eagle with wings spread, about to fly.
Michanek sat and stretched out his long legs. Soon the story would spread all over the city. The Emperor's champion had paid two thousand silver pieces for a dying seeress. Such folly! Yet, since the day he had first seen her, he had not been able to push her from his mind. Even on the campaign, while fighting against Gorben's troops, she had been with him. He had known more beautiful women, but at twenty-five had found none with whom he wished to share his life.
Until now. At the thought that she might be dying, he found himself trembling. Recalling the first meeting, he remembered her prophecy that he would die in this city, in a last stand against black-cloaked troops.
Gorben's Immortals. The Ventrian Emperor had re-formed the famous regiment, manning it with the finest of his fighters. Seven cities had been retaken by them, two of them after single combat between Gorben's new champion, a Drenai axeman they called Deathwalker, and two Naashanite warriors, both known to Michanek. Good men, strong and brave, skilful beyond the dreams of most soldiers. Yet they had died.
Michanek had asked for the right to join the army and challenge this axeman. But his Emperor had refused. 'I value you too highly,' said the Emperor.
'But, Lord, is this not my role? Am I not your champion?'
'My seers tell me that the man cannot be slain by you, Michanek. They say his axe is demon-blessed. There will be no more single-combat settlements; we will crush Gorben by the might of our armies.'
But the man was not being crushed. The last battle had been no more than a bloody draw, with thousands slain on both sides. Michanek had led the charge which almost turned the tide, but Gorben had withdrawn into the mountains, two of his general officers having been slain by Michanek.
Nebuchad and Jasua. The first had little skill; he had charged his white horse at the Naashanite champion, and had died with Michanek's lance in his throat. The second was a canny fighter, fast and fearless - but not fast enough, and too fearless to accept that he had met a better swordsman. He had died with a curse on his lips.
'The war is not being won,' Michanek told the marble goddess. 'It is being lost - slowly, day by day.' Three of the renegade Ventrian Satraps had been slain by Gorben; Shabag at Capalis; Berish, the fat and greedy sycophant, hanged at Ectanis; and Ashac, Satrap of the south-west, impaled after the defeat at Gurunur. Only Darishan, the silver-haired fox of the north, survived. Michanek liked the man. The others he had treated with barely concealed contempt, but Darishan was a warrior born. Unprincipled, amoral, but gifted with courage.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a man moving through the maze. 'Where in Hades are you, lad?' came a deep voice.
'I thought you were a mystic, Shalatar,' he called. The response was both an obscenity and an instruction. 'If I could do that,' replied Michanek, chuckling, 'I could make a fortune with public performances.'
A bald, portly man in a long white tunic appeared and sat beside Michanek. His face was round and red and his ears protruded like those of a bat. 'I hate mazes,' he said. 'What on earth is the point of them? A man walks three times as far to reach a destination, and when he arrives there's nothing there. Futile!'
'Have you seen her?' asked Michanek. Shalatar's expression changed, and he turned his eyes from the warrior's gaze. 'Yes. Interesting. Why ever did you buy her?'
'That is beside the point. What is your prognosis?'
'She is the most talented seer I have ever known - but that Talent overwhelmed her. Can you imagine what it must be like to know everything about everyone you meet? Their pasts and their futures. Every hand you touch flashes an entire life and death into your mind. The influx of such knowledge - at such speed - has had a catastrophic effect on her. She doesn't just see the lives, she experiences them, lives them. She became not Rowena but a hundred different people - including you, I might add.'
'Me?'
'Yes. I only touched her mind fleetingly, but your image was there.'
'Will she live?'
Shalatar shook his head. 'I am a mystic, my friend, but not a prophet. I would say she has only one chance: we must close the doors of her talent.'
'Can you do this?'
'Not alone, but I will gather those of my colleagues with experience of such matters. It is not unlike the casting-out of demons. We must close off the corridors of her mind that lead to the source of her power. It will be expensive, Michanek.'
'I am a rich man.'
'You will need to be. One of the men I need is a former Source priest and he will ask for at least ten thousand in silver for his services.'
'He will have it.'<
br />
Shalatar laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. 'You love her so dearly?'
'More than life.'
'Did she share your feelings?'
'No.'
'Then you will have a chance to start anew. For after we have finished she will have no memory. What will you tell her?'
'I don't know. But I will give her love.'
'You intend to marry her?'
Michanek thought back to her prophecy. 'No, my friend. I have decided never to marry.'
*
Druss wandered along the dark streets.of the newly captured city, his head aching, his mood restless. The battle had been bloody and all too brief, and he was filled with a curious sense of anti-climax. He sensed a change in himself, unwelcome and yet demanding; a need for combat, to feel the axe crushing bone and flesh, to watch the light of life disappear from an enemy's eyes.
The mountains of his homeland seemed an eternity from him, lost in some other time.
How many men had he slain since setting off in search of Rowena? He no longer knew, nor cared. The axe felt light in his hand, warm and companionable. His mouth was dry and he longed for a cool drink of water. Glancing up, he saw a sign proclaiming 'Spice Street'. Here in more peaceful times traders had delivered their herbs and spices to be packed into bales for export to the west. Even now there was a scent of pepper in the air. At the far end of the street, where it intersected with the market square, was a fountain and beside it a brass pump with a long curved handle and a copper cup attached by a slender chain to an iron ring. Druss filled the cup, then resting the axe against the side of the fountain wall he sat quietly drinking. Every so often, though, his hand would drop to touch Snaga's black haft.
When Gorben had ordered the last attack on the doomed Naashanites, Druss had longed to hurl himself into the fray, had felt the call of blood and the need to kill. It had taken all of his strength to resist the demands of his turbulent spirit. For the enemy in the keep had begged to surrender and Druss had known with certainty that such a slaughter was wrong. The words of Shadak came back to him:
'The true warrior lives by a code. He has to. For each man there are different perspectives, but at the core they are the same. Never violate a woman, nor harm a child. Do not lie, cheat or steal. These things are for lesser men. Protect the weak against the evil strong. And never allow thoughts of gain to lead you into pursuit of evil.'
Numbering only a few hundred, the Naashanites had had no chance. But Druss still felt somehow cheated, especially when, as now, he recalled the warm, satisfying, triumphant surging of spirit during the fight in the camp of Harib Ka, or the blood-letting following his leap to the deck of the corsair trireme. Pulling clear his helm, he dipped his head into the water of the fountain pool and then stood, removed his jerkin and washed his upper body. Movement from his left caught his eye as a tall, bald man in robes of grey wool came into sight. 'Good evening, my son,' said the priest from the temple back in Capalis. Druss nodded curtly, then donned his jerkin and sat down. The priest made no move to walk on but stood gazing down at the axeman. 'I have been looking for you these past months.'
'You have found me,' said Druss, his voice even.
'May I join you for a few moments?'
'Why not?' responded Druss, making room on the seat where the priest sat alongside the black-garbed warrior.
'Our last meeting troubled me, my son. I have spent many an evening in prayer and meditation since then; finally I walked the Paths of Mist to seek out the soul of your loved one, Rowena. This proved fruitless. I journeyed through the Void on roads too dark to speak of. But she was not there, nor did I find any souls who knew of her death. Then I met a spirit, a grossly evil creature, who in this life bore the name Earin Shad. A corsair captain also called Bojeeba, the Shark, he knew of your wife, for this was the ship that plundered the vessel on which she was sailing. He told me that when his corsairs boarded the ship a merchant named Kabuchek, another man and a young woman leapt over the side. There were sharks everywhere, and much blood in the water once the slaughter started on the deck.'
'I don't need to know how she died!' snapped Druss.
'Ah, but that is my point,' said the priest. 'Earin Shad believes that she and Kabuchek were slain. But they were not.'
'What?'
'Kabuchek is in Resha, building more fortunes. He has a seeress with him whom they call Pahtai, the little dove. I have seen her, in spirit. I read her thoughts; she is Rowena, your Rowena.'
'She is alive?'
'Yes,' said the priest softly.
'Sweet Heaven!' Druss laughed and threw his arms around the priest's scrawny shoulders. 'By the gods, you have done me a great service. I'll not forget it. If ever there is anything you need from me, you have only to ask.'
'Thank you, my son. I wish you well in your quest. But there is one more matter to discuss: the axe.'
'What about it?' asked Druss, suddenly wary, his hands reaching down to curl around the haft.
'It is an ancient weapon, and I believe that spells were cast upon the blades. Someone of great power, in the distant past, used sorcery to enhance the weapon.'
'So?'
'There were many methods. Sometimes the spell would merely involve the armourer's blood being splashed upon the blades. At other times a binding spell would be used. This served to keep the edge keen, giving it greater cutting power. Small spells, Druss. Occasionally a master of the arcane arts would bring his skills to bear on a weapon, usually one borne by a king or lord. Some blades could heal wounds, others could cut through the finest armour.'
'As indeed can Snaga,' said Druss, hefting the axe. The blades glittered in the moonlight and the priest drew back. 'Do not be frightened,' said Druss. 'I'll not harm you, man.'
'I do not fear you, my son,' the priest told him. 'I fear what lives within those blades.'
Druss laughed. 'So someone cast a spell a thousand years ago? It is still an axe.'
'Yes, an axe. But the greatest of spells was woven around these blades, Druss. An enchantment of colossal skill was used. Your friend Sieben told me that when you were attacking the corsairs a sorcerer cast a spell at you, a spell of fire. When you lifted your axe Sieben saw a demon appear, scaled and horned; he it was who turned back the fire.'
'Nonsense,' said Druss, 'it bounced from the blades. You know, Father, you shouldn't take a great deal of notice when Sieben speaks. The man is a poet. He builds his tales well, but he embroiders them, adds little touches. A demon indeed!'
'He needed to add no touches, Druss. I know of Snaga the Sender. For in finding your wife I also learned something of you, and the weapon you bear: Bardan's weapon. Bardan the Slayer, the butcher of babes, the rapist, the slaughterer. Once he was a hero, yes? But he was corrupted. Evil wormed into his soul, and the evil came from that!' he said, pointing to the axe.
'I don't believe it. I am not evil, and I have carried this axe for almost a year now.'
'And you have noticed no change in yourself? No lusting after blood and death? You do not feel a need to hold the axe, even when battle is not near? Do you sleep with it beside you?'
'It is not possessed!' roared Druss. 'It is a fine weapon. It is my. . . .' he stumbled to silence.
'My friend"? Is that what you were going to say?'
'What if I was? I am a warrior, and in war only this axe will keep me alive. Better than any friend, eh?' As he spoke he lifted the axe . . . and it slipped from his grip. The priest threw up his hands as Snaga plunged down towards his throat, but in that instant Druss's left hand slammed into the haft, just as the priest pushed at the shining blades. The axe crashed to the stones, sending up a shower of sparks from the flints embedded in the paving slabs.
'God, I'm sorry. It just slipped!' said Druss. 'Are you hurt?'
The priest rose. 'No, it did not cut me. And you are wrong, young man. It did not slip; it wanted me dead, and had it not been for your swift response, so would I have been.'
'It was an accident, Father
, I assure you.'
The priest gave a sad smile. 'You saw me push away the blades with my hand?'
'Aye?' responded Druss, mystified.
'Then look,' said the priest, lifting his hand with the palm outward. The flesh was seared and blackened, the skin burned black, blood and water streaming from the wound. 'Beware, Druss, the beast within will seek to kill any who threaten it.'
Druss gathered the axe and backed from the priest. 'Look after that wound,' he said. Then he turned and strode away.
He was shocked by what he had seen. He knew little of demons and spells, save what the storytellers sang of when they had visited the village. But he did know the value of a weapon like Snaga - especially in an alien, war-torn land. Druss came to a halt and, lifting the axe, he gazed into his own reflection in the blades.
'I need you,' he said softly, 'If I am to find Rowena and get her home.' The haft was warm, the weapon light in his hand. He sighed. 'I'll not give you up. I can't. And anyway, damn it all, you are mine!'
You are mine! came an echo deep inside his mind. You are mine!
BOOK THREE: The Chaos Warrior
Chapter One
Varsava was enjoying the first sip of his second goblet of wine when the body hit the table. It arrived head-first, splintering the central board of the trestle table, striking a platter of meat and sliding towards Varsava. With great presence of mind the bladesman lifted his goblet high and leaned back as the body hurtled past to slam head-first into the wall. Such was the impact that a jagged crack appeared in the white plaster, but there was no sound from the man who caused it as he toppled from the table and hit the floor with a dull thud.
Glancing to his right, Varsava saw that the inn was crowded, but the revellers had moved back to form a circle around a small group struggling to overcome a black-bearded giant. One fighter - a petty thief and pickpocket Varsava recognised - hung from the giant's shoulders, his arms encircling the man's throat. Another was slamming punches into the giant's midriff, while a third pulled a dagger and ran in. Varsava sipped his wine. It was a good vintage - at least ten years old, dry and yet full-bodied.