arm. “It is a long story, my friend, but he speaks truly. Now do your best.”
“My best may not be good enough,” muttered Shalitar.
Three days passed. Druss ate little and slept by the bedside. There was no change in Rowena’s condition, and Shalitar grew ever more despondent. The priest of Pashtar Sen returned on the morning of the fourth day.
“The poison is gone from her body,” said Shalitar, “yet she does not wake.”
The priest nodded sagely. “When first I came, as she was sinking into the coma, I touched her spirit. It was fleeing from life; she had no will to live.”
“Why?” asked Druss. “Why would she want to die?”
The man shrugged. “She is a gentle soul. She first loved you, back in your own lands, and carried that love within as something pure in a tarnished world. Knowing you were coming for her, she was ready to wait. Her Talents grew astonishingly swiftly and they overwhelmed her.
“Shalitar, and some others, saved her life by closing the pathways of that Talent, but in doing so they also took her memory. So here she woke, in the house of Michanek. He was a good man, Druss, and he loved her - as much as you love her. He nursed her to health, and he won her heart. But he did not tell her his greatest secret - that she had, as a seeress, predicted his death… one year to the day after he was wed.
“For several years they lived together, and she succumbed to the plague. During her illness and, as I have said, with no knowledge of her life as a seeress, she asked Michanek why he had never married her. In his fear at her condition, he believed that a marriage would save her. Perhaps he was right. Now we come to the taking of Resha. Michanek left her a gift - this gift,” he said, passing the brooch to Druss.
Druss took the delicate brooch in his huge hand and closed his fingers around it. “I made this,” he said. “It seems like a lifetime ago.”
“This was the key which Michanek knew would unlock her memory. He thought, as I fear men will, that a return of memory would help her assuage her grief at his passing. He believed that if she remembered you, and that if you still loved her, she would have a safe future. His reasoning was flawed, for when she touched the brooch what struck her most was a terrible guilt. She had asked Michanek to marry her, thus assuring - as she saw it - his death. She had seen you, Druss, at the house of Kabuchek, and had run away, frightened to find out her past, terrified it would destroy her new-found happiness. In that one moment she saw herself as a betrayer, and as a harlot and, I fear, as a killer.”
“None of it was her fault,” said Druss. “How could she think it was?”
The priest smiled, but it was Shalitar who spoke. “Any death produces guilt, Druss. A son dies of plague, and the mother will berate herself for not taking the child away to somewhere safe before the disease struck. A man falls to his death, and his wife will think, “If only I had asked him to stay home today.” It is the nature of good people to draw burdens to themselves. All tragedy could be avoided, if only we knew it; therefore when it strikes we blame ourselves. But for Rowena, the weight of guilt was overpowering.”
“What can I do?” the axeman asked.
“Nothing. We must just hope she returns.”
The priest of Pashtar Sen seemed about to speak, but instead stood and walked to the window. Druss saw the change in the man. “Speak,” he said. “What were you about to say?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said softly.
“Let me be the judge of that, if it concerns Rowena.”
The priest sat down and rubbed his tired eyes. “She hovers,” he said at last, “between death and life, her spirit wandering in the Valley of the Dead. Perhaps, if we could find a sorcerer, we could send his spirit after her to bring her home.” He spread his hands. “But I do not know where to find such a man - or woman. And I don’t think we have the time to search.”
“What about your Talent?” asked Druss. “You seem to know of this place.”
The man’s eyes swung away from Druss’s gaze. “I… I do have the Talent, but not the courage. It is a terrible place.” He forced a smile. “I am a coward, Druss. I would die there. It is no place for men of little spirit.”
“Then send me. I’ll find her.”
“You would have no chance. We are talking of a… a realm of dark magic and demons. You would be defenceless against them, Druss; they would overwhelm you.”
“But you could send me there?”
“There is no point. It would be madness.”
Druss turned to Shalitar. “What will happen to her if we do nothing?”
“She has maybe a day… perhaps two. Already she is fading.”
“Then there are no choices, priest,” said Druss, rising and moving to stand before the man. “Tell me how I reach this Valley.”
“You must die,” the priest whispered.
A grey mist swirled, though there was no discernible breeze, and strange sounds echoed eerily from all around him.
The priest was gone now, and Druss was alone.
Alone?
Around him shapes moved in the mist, some huge, some low and slithering. “Keep to the path,” the priest had said. “Follow the road through the mist. Under no circumstances allow yourself to be led from the road.”
Druss glanced down. The road was seamless and grey, as if it had been created from molten stone. It was smooth and flat and the mist held to it, floating and swaying in cold tendrils that swirled around his legs and lower body.
