Gemmell, David – Lion of Macedon 01

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.

‘He is born!’ someone cried, and a great cheer went up from the army of men outside the palace.

A dark cloud swept up towards her, opening like a colossal mouth. She saw fangs the length of a tall man, and a purple tongue, forked and swollen. She was powerless to resist.

A spear of lightning slashed into the mouth – just as it loomed beneath her.

‘Take my hand!’ cried Tamis.

But Derae lost consciousness.

She awoke in her own room at the temple, sensing Tamis beside her. ‘What was it?’ she asked.

‘You were lost in the future. You saw the Dark Birth.’

‘I am tired, Tamis. So … tired.’

‘Then sleep, my child. I will protect you for a little while yet.’

*

Cleo returned with enough provisions for three frugal days and, combined with the food Parmenion had stored, there was sufficient for a week.

The days dragged by. Argonas no longer called and Parmenion learned from a collector of the dead that the fat man had suffered the fate of thousands – his body consumed by the plague. Mothac grew stronger, the red swirls disappearing, the swellings abating; but he was weak, needing to sleep often. Cleo worked tirelessly, bathing her mistress, changing soiled sheets, cooking and cleaning. Parmenion scoured the city for food, but even the horses and dogs had long since been slaughtered.

Then, like a spent storm, the plague began to wither away. Fewer and fewer bodies were left for the collectors, and the gates were opened to allow a convoy of food wagons to enter the blighted city. Parmenion fought his way through the mob that surrounded the convoy, and emerged with a haunch of beef and a sack of dried cereal.

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