ECHOES OF THE GREAT SONG by David A. Gemmell

At first there was nothing, then a terrible pain swept over him. His body was shattering like glass. Ro fought down panic and instinctively concentrated on the reality of flesh, the softness of the wet tissue that bonded into strong muscle, the flowing of rich, warm blood.

The Music in his mind expanded, a magnificent sym­phony, a song as large as the universe. It flowed over them both.

Sofarita’s head lowered to his shoulder, her arms dropping. Ro could feel her flesh beneath his hands, soft and warm. He laid her down on the ledge and knelt beside her. ‘Speak to me,’ he said. ‘Show me you are alive.’

Her eyes opened. ‘The power is gone from me,’ she said. ‘I am a woman again. How did you make the Music?’

‘It was not mine.’

She sighed and struggled to sit. ‘I am no longer a goddess, Ro. I am just a Vagar woman.’

‘You are the woman I love,’ he said, surprised as the words rushed out. He waited for her rejection, knowing it would be kind and burn him like fire.

‘I love you too,’ she said. ‘I’ve known it since the night you saved me from Almeia, when you lay beside me and warmed me with your body.’

A fierce wind swept across the ledge. Ro clung to a rock. Sofarita was thrown against him.

A brilliant light blazed in the sky. Ro looked up, to see a second sun shining brightly through swirling clouds. A terrible groan came from the wall across the world. Boulders began to rain down from it. Then, with an awesome wrench the wall, and the land beyond it, broke away and lifted into the sky, tipping as it rose. A huge earthquake rippled across the floating land mass and it split into two. Both parts continued to rise towards the second sun. Something glittered in the air like a golden bird. Ro saw that it was a ship, spinning through the air to crash into the airborne land. More ships appeared, as if being drawn up by an invisible whirlwind.

A ring of fire hundreds of miles in diameter flared in the sky. The broken land floated towards it, entering the circle of flames. As Ro watched, the land of the Almecs disappeared. The fire ring began to close, shrinking smaller and smaller.

Then it was gone.

There was no wall now, no dark and threatening land. A vast and ruined plain lay before their eyes.

‘The grass and trees will grow again,’ said Sofarita, ‘and streams will flow. Life will flourish again.’

Ro stood and, holding Sofarita by the hand, walked back along the ledge.

Further down the trail they met the One-Eyed-Fox and Touchstone and Suryet. Four other Anajo tribesmen were still alive.

At the mouth of the trail Ro saw a mound of bodies. Just back from them Touchstone was kneeling beside the fallen Talaban. Ro ran forward, thinking the Avatar merely injured. But as he came close he saw the terrible wounds and the cold, still face. He sighed and felt deep shame at the surging joy he had experienced when Sofarita told him she loved him. Talaban had given his life so that he could hear those words.

Moving to the fallen Avatar he knelt by the body.

‘He and the others killed more than twenty,’ said Touchstone in Anajo. ‘They did not give way. Talaban was the last to die. I tried to reach him, to help him. I wanted to save his life as he saved mine. He saw me running forward. They were all around him. He died just as the sun rose.’ Drawing his dagger Touchstone cut a lock from Talaban’s hair. ‘I shall make a prayer song for him. It will reach all Anajo spirits. They will make him welcome.’

‘I am glad you survived,’ said Ro. ‘That would have pleased him.’

‘I thought I would die. But when the second sun rose the Almecs fled. What will you do now, Questor Ro? Will you try to go back to your place of stone?’

‘No. I will stay here if you will have me. I will teach and I will learn. I will find a way to make a history of these events.’