the ceiling and out into the night, gazing up at the stars. Through spirit eyes they no longer twinkled, but sat perfect and round in the vast bowl of the night. The city was peaceful, and even the camp-fires of the enemy seemed merely a glowing necklace around Resha.
She had never fully discovered the secrets of her past. It seemed she was a prophet of some kind, and had belonged to a merchant named Kabuchek, but he had fled the city long before the siege began. Pahtai remembered walking to his house, hoping that the sight of it would stir her lost memories. Instead she had seen a powerful man, dressed in black and carrying a double-headed axe. He was talking to a servant. Instinctively she had ducked back into an alley, her heart hammering. He looked like Michanek but harder, more deadly. Unable to take her eyes from him, she found the oddest sensations stirring within her.
Swiftly she turned and ran back the way she had come.
And had never since sought to find out her background.
But sometimes as she and Michanek were making love, usually in the garden beneath the flowering trees, she would find herself suddenly thinking of the man with the axe, and then fear would come and with it a sense of betrayal. Michanek loved her, and it seemed disloyal that another man - a man she didn’t even know - could intrude into her thoughts at such a time.
Pahtai soared higher, her spirit drawn across the war-torn land, above gutted houses, ruined villages and ghostly, deserted towns. She wondered if this was the route to Paradise? Coming to a range of mountains, she saw an ugly fortress of grey stone. She was thinking of the man with the axe, and found herself drawn into the citadel. There was a hall and within it sat a huge man, his face scarred, his eyes malevolent. Beside him was the axe she had seen carried by the man in black.
Down she journeyed, to a dungeon deep and dark, cold and filthy, the haunt of rats and lice. The axeman lay there, his skin covered in sores. He was asleep and his spirit was gone from the body. Reaching out she tried to touch his face, but her spectral hand flowed beneath the skin. In that moment she saw a slender line of pulsing light radiating around the body. Her hand stroked the light and instantly she found him.
He was alone and in terrible despair. She spoke with him, trying to give him strength, but he reached for her and his words were shocking and filled her with fear. He disappeared then, and she guessed that he had been woken from sleep.
Back in the citadel she floated through the corridors and rooms, the antechambers and halls. An old man was sitting in a deserted kitchen. He too was dreaming, and it was the dream that drew her to him. He was in the same dungeon; he had lived there for years. Pahtai entered his mind and spoke with his dream spirit. Then she returned to the night sky. “I am not dying,” she thought. “I am merely free.”
In an instant she returned to Resha and her body. Pain flooded through her, and the weight of flesh sank down like a prison around her spirit. She felt the touch of Michanek’s hand, and all thoughts of the axeman dispersed like mist under the sun. She was suddenly happy, despite the pain. He had been so good to her, and yet…
“Are you awake?” he asked, his voice low. She opened her eyes.
“Yes. I love you.”
“And I you. More than life.”
“Why did we never wed?” she said, her throat dry, the words rasping clear. She saw him pale.
“Is that what you wish for? Would it make you well?”
“It would… make me… happy,” she told him.
“I will send for a priest,” he promised.
She found him on a grim mountainside where winter winds were howling through the peaks. He was frozen and weak, his limbs trembling, his eyes dull. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Waiting to die,” he told her.
“That is no way for you to behave. You are a warrior, and a warrior never gives up.”
“I have no strength left.”
Rowena sat beside him and he felt the warmth of her arms around his shoulders, smelt the sweetness of her breath. “Be strong,” she said, stroking his hair. “In despair there is only defeat.”
“I cannot overcome cold stone. I cannot shine a light through the darkness. My limbs are rotting, my teeth shake in their sockets.”
“Is there nothing you would live for?”
“Yes,” he said, reaching for her. I live for you! I always have. But I can’t find you.”
He awoke in the darkness amidst the stench of the dungeon and crawled to the door-stone grille, finding it by touch. Cool air drifted down the corridor and he breathed deeply. Torchlight flickered, burning his eyes. He squinted against it and watched as the jailer tramped down the corridor. Then the darkness returned. Druss’s stomach cramped and he groaned. Dizziness swamped him, and nausea rose in his throat.
A faint light showed and, rolling painfully to his knees, he pushed his face against the narrow opening. An old man with a wispy white beard knelt outside the dungeon stone. The light from the tiny clay oil lamp was torturously bright, and Druss’s eyes stung.
“Ah, you are alive! Good,” whispered the old man. “I have brought you this lamp and an old tinder-box. Use it carefully. It will help accustom your eyes to light. Also I have some food.” He thrust a linen package through the door-stone and Druss took it, his mouth too dry for speech. “I’ll come back when I can,” said the old man. “Remember, only use the light once the jailer has gone.”
Druss listened to the man slowly make his way down the corridor. He thought he heard a door shut, but could not be sure. With unsteady hands he drew the lamp into the dungeon, placing it on the floor beside him. Then he hauled in the package and the small iron tinder-box.
Eyes streaming from the light, he opened the package to find there were two apples, a hunk of cheese and some dried meat. When he bit into one of the apples it was unbearably delicious, the juices stinging his bleeding gums. Swallowing was almost painful, but the minor irritation was swamped by the coolness. He almost vomited, but held it down, and slowly finished the fruit. His shrunken stomach rebelled after the second apple, and he sat
