Echoes of the Great Song by David Gemmell

hardened.
    “Indeed it is, stranger,” said Karesh Var, dropping his voice and stepping in closer to the warrior. “However, you seem to be a man of some wisdom, so answer me this: if a war leader brings his men on a raid, and then leaves with nothing to show for it, how then can he remain a leader? It might be better for such a man to risk death in order to save face. Is this not so?”
    “It is a sad truth,” admitted the man. “You killed a mammoth yesterday. How long were its tusks?”
    “Seven feet.”
    “My people also use ivory for ornaments. I will offer thirty silver pieces for the tusks. By my reckoning that is twice what you and your people would receive from trade merchants for your trinkets and brooches.”
    Karesh Var relaxed and gave a broad smile. Sharing out the silver would placate his men. “Agreed,” he said, “on one condition.”
    “That being?”
    “Though we have heard of them, neither myself norany of my men have seen weapons like the one you are carrying. Perhaps you would give us a demonstration.”
    The warrior smiled and Karesh Var knew he understood. His men would need some sign of the power they were facing, in order for the silver to fully placate them. The warrior took a step backward, spun to his right and lifted the bow. The fingers of his right hand stroked the first string. A bolt of white light flashed from the bow, striking a rock some thirty paces to the east. The rock exploded, sending a shower of dust and fragments into the air.
    “Most impressive,” said Karesh Var. “I will send two of my men back for the tusks.”
    Questor Ro saw the nomads arrive, and watched as Talaban and Touchstone strode out to greet them. Then he transferred his attention to the pyramids. He had more important matters to consider. Nomads came under Talaban’s area of expertise, and Questor Ro wasted no energy considering them. Instead his mind returned to the problem of Communion. The second chest was almost full, the humming subsiding now. But it had taken almost seven hours. This was more than worrying, since the first chest had taken only three. Even allowing for the fact that some residual energy was left in the first chest—since it was the power source for the
Serpent
—such a time discrepancy was cause for alarm.
    The White Pyramid had been buried below the ice for more than seventy years. Could its powers be fading already? That was a possibility rich with terrible implications, and Ro was not yet ready to consider such a calamity. Perhaps, he thought, the second chest, having been empty for so long, had developed a fault. He did not know. And this galled him.
    He glanced back to see the silver longboat returning, carrying the third chest. It was also empty of power andcould be handled without fear of harm. When the six Vagars carried it to the site he handed the box to the first then, placing the wooden thimbles over his fingers and thumbs, removed the gold wires from the second chest, applying them to the third. As before he carefully slid the poles through the golden rings and stood back as the Vagars lifted the second chest, carrying it to the longboat.
    Questor Ro climbed into the silver boat and returned to the ship with the Vagars. Ropes were lowered and tied to each end of the poles. Then sailors began to hoist the chest to the center deck. Questor Ro scrambled up a rope ladder to stand alongside the sailors. “Careful now,” he warned them. “Keep well back.”
    The chest cleared the deck rail and a black-clad sailor tugged on the pulley arm. The chest swung over the deck. One of the poles slipped and the chest lurched. Instinctively a sailor stepped forward and threw up his arms to stop the chest sliding clear. As his hands touched the black wood there came a tremendous flash of light and heat. Blue flames flickered over the man and fire exploded from within his body, bursts of flame erupting through his eye sockets. The sailors holding the ropes leapt back as the heat