ECHOES OF THE GREAT SONG by David A. Gemmell

Sofarita’s spirit eyes looked deep into Almeia’s green crystal orbs. ‘How would you do this?’ she asked.

‘All you need to do is relax. You will be free to live your life as you choose.”

She lies, came another voice. She means for you to die!

Sofarita lay back in the chair, her mind sleepy, her limbs relaxed.

She is already doing it! Push her out, woman. Your life is at risk!

Sofarita blinked and tried to sit up. She felt weak and nauseous. The floating face before her was all eyes now, huge, and green and luminous. Anger flared within her, roaring up like a tidal wave. The image of Almeia flickered – and was gone.

Sofarita shivered. You must beware, said the voice. She will attack again. You are her mortal enemy. She will not rest until you are slain.

‘Who are you?’

Another face flickered into her mind. A middle-aged man with leathery skin and deep-set dark eyes. He wore a beaded headband over his black and grey braided hair. Two eagle’s feathers were embedded in the band.

‘lam the One-Eyed-Fox,’ he said, ‘shaman to the Anajo, the First People. I tried to reach you when you flew over my village.’

‘I remember. Did you hear all that she said to me?’

‘Most of her words.’

‘Was it true? Am I doomed to become like her, a block of crystal?’

When he spoke there was sadness in his voice. 7 am not strong enough to fight her, only to hide from her. Yet I sense the truth in those words. What she spoke of did indeed happen to her hundreds of years ago. I have walked the Grey Road and have seen this. Once she was gentle and caring, and used her power to heal. Now she demands thousands of sacrifices. Her need for blood and death is insatiable.’

‘Then I shall destroy her before I die.’

‘Someone must destroy her before we all die,’ he said. ‘Where is Talaban?’

‘I do not know the name. Is he an Avatar?’

‘He is the captain of the black ship. He will know where the last battle must be fought.’

‘And where is that?’ asked Sofarita.

7 do not know yet. But Talaban will when the time comes. He and Touch-the-Moon will stand upon the mountain, like lanterns against the dark.’

His voice faded away – and Sofarita was alone.

Alone and dying! There had been so many small plans in her young life. To find love and to raise a family. To build a home in the mountains, near a waterfall, and to have a flower garden. Tiny dreams that had comforted her in the first year of widowhood. She had, after a fashion, loved her husband. Veris was a good man, but twenty years older than Sofarita. Her father had made the match because Veris owned land abutting his. The bridal price was two meadows. Sofarita had made no objection. She had known Veris all her life. He was a kind man, given to laughter. His lovemaking had been gentle and Sofarita knew she could be content with this man. On the last morning of his life, eleven weeks after the wedding, he had kissed her cheek and left for the fields. As he reached the doorway he paused, then turned back and hugged her.

‘You have made me happy for the first time in my life,’ he said.

They were the last words he ever spoke to her.

A month after he died she developed a chill, which deepened into a painful hacking cough. The weight dropped from her and her strength was failing. She was, at that time, almost resigned to death.

Not so now.

The Avatar’s magic stone had rekindled all her hopes and dreams, and it felt so cruel to have them dashed in this terrible way. Village life was generally too pragmatic for the subtleties of irony. But she understood it now. Possessed of remarkable powers, and an ability to heal any wound or disease, she could not save her own life. Viruk, it seemed, had not saved her at all, merely set her on another road to extinction.

She had told the shaman she would help destroy Almeia before death could snatch her soul. But the words had been spoken in sudden anger and now she felt the weight of despair descend upon her.