ECHOES OF THE GREAT SONG by David A. Gemmell

The blade swept down. Sadau squeezed shut his eyes. The cleaver flashed through the air, but the headsman halted the blade at the last moment, allowing the cold metal to lightly touch the back of Sadau’s neck. The potter fainted and fell forward.

‘Carry him back to his home,’ said the young king, ‘and when he wakes tell him to beware of secrets in the future. Secrets are like grain seeds. You can bury them deep, but they always seek the light.’

The first of the guards bowed low. ‘As you command, lord. But might I ask a question?’

The king nodded. The guard cleared his throat. ‘Why do you let him live?’

‘Because I have the power,’ said the king. ‘You have other questions?’

‘No, lord.’

‘Good. When you have returned the potter to his home fetch Anwar. Bring him to my apartments.’

The soldier bowed. Then he and his comrade lifted the unconscious Sadau and carried him from the palace.

Chapter Eight

Anwar was teaching when the soldiers came. His six senior students were engaged in a complex building problem concerning weight and stress. Anwar had shown them designs for a building and they were working together to decide whether it was structurally sound. He knew they would decide it was not. It was at this point he would tell them it was a copy of the Museum building in Egaru. They would then have to recalculate their findings.

He enjoyed teaching and loved to see the minds of his students expand. The young were a constant wonder to him, with a seemingly limitless ability to make instinctive leaps of imagination. Their minds were not yet enclosed by the walls of tradition.

When the soldiers came Anwar felt a moment of irritation. Instructing the students to continue in his absence and write their conclusions upon their slates, he left the class. Throwing a cloak of red felt about his scrawny shoulders he walked ahead of the two soldiers and out into the sunlight beyond. The bright light made his old eyes weep. Squinting against the sunshine he moved on, away from the new university building. A chariot and driver awaited him. He clambered onto the platform. ‘Not too fast,’ he warned the driver. The man grinned, and flicked his whip above the heads of the two ponies.

The ride was mercifully short, and Anwar felt enormous relief as he stepped down before the mud-brick palace. He glanced up at it feeing, as always, a sense of distaste. It was clumsily constructed, ugly and square. The architects had shown little imagination.

A royal guard took him through to Ammon’s apart­ments. The king was lying face down on a table, his naked body being massaged by a young slave. Anwar stood silently in the doorway. Ammon raised himself on one elbow and grinned boyishly.

‘Good to see you, my teacher,’ he said.

‘Always a privilege to be invited to your home, lord,’ replied Anwar. Ammon dismissed the slave boy, draped a cloak of heavy blue silk about his slender shoulders and walked out into the gardens beyond. Flowering trees filled the air with a heady scent. The king stretched himself out on the grass, beckoning Anwar to join him.

‘How is life at the university?’ asked Ammon.

‘It will be better next year,’ answered Anwar. ‘And the year after. Some of my pupils are now more expert than the teachers. I shall appoint some of them to the university staff.’

‘Good. Knowledge is the key to the future,’ said Ammon. ‘I remember you taught me that.’

‘You were a fine student, lord. Perhaps the best I ever knew.’

‘Perhaps?’ queried Ammon with a wide smile. ‘One never uses the word perhaps to a king. You are not a diplomat, Anwar.’

‘I fear not, lord.’

Ammon glanced round, caught the eye of a waiting servant and summoned him. ‘Fetch cool drinks for myself and my guest,’ he said. The man bowed low and ran back into the palace. The king lay back on the grass, the sunlight bringing a gleam to his oiled skin. ‘One raiding party was wiped out by the Avatars,’ he said.

‘As you predicted, sire. I take it your brother is no longer a thorn in the flesh.’