Free Lion of Macedon by David Gemmell Page B

been pleasant to pass the day in the shade, thinking back to happier days in her long, long life. She sighed. “His destiny is of glory, but his name will not be remembered like yours, even though he will lead armies across the world. It is your duty to teach him, to give him that which you hold.”
    “I hold nothing!” snapped Xenophon. “I am not rich, nor do I have a command.”
    “You have everything he needs, Athenian, stored in yourmind. You know the hearts of men and the ways of battle. Give him these gifts. And watch him grow.”
    “He will take Sparta to glory?”
    “Sparta?” she laughed grimly. “Sparta’s days are done, Xenophon. We have the crippled king. They did not listen to the oracle. Lysander thought he knew best—as men are wont to do. But there will be no new glory for Sparta. No, the boy will go elsewhere. You will send him when the time comes.” Tamis stood.
    “Is that all?” asked Xenophon, rising. “You feed me riddles. Why can you tell me no more?”
    “Because that is all I know, Athenian. You think the gods allow their servants to share all their knowledge? I have done what I had to do. I know nothing more.”
    With that lie upon her lips, Tamis walked back into the sunlight and out into the street.
    Tamis made her slow way through the streets of Sparta and on past the lake and the small temple to Aphrodite. She followed a narrow track to the door of her house, a low, mean dwelling, one-roomed with a central fire pit and an open roof to allow the smoke to drift clear.
    There was a thin pallet bed in one corner but no other furniture. Tamis squatted down in front of the dead fire. Lifting her hand, she spoke three words and flames leapt from the cold ashes, burning brightly. For a while she stared into the dancing fire, until at last the weight of her loneliness bore her down. Her shoulders sagged.
    “Where are you, Cassandra?” she whispered. “Come to me.”
    The flames licked higher, curling as if seeking to encircle an invisible sphere. Slowly a face formed within the flames, a regal face, fine-boned with a long, aquiline nose. Not a beauty, to be sure, but a handsome strong-featured face framed with tightly curled blond hair.
    “Why do you call me from my sleep?” asked the fire woman.
    “I am lonely.”
    “You use your powers too recklessly, Tamis. And unwisely.”
    “Why should I not call upon you?” the old woman asked. “I, too, have need of friends—of company.”
    “The world teems with the living,” the fire woman told her. “That is where your friends should be. But if you must talk, then I must listen.”
    Tamis nodded and told Cassandra of the shadow in the future, of the coming of the Dark God.
    “What has this to do with you?” Cassandra asked. “It is part of the perennial battle between the source and the chaos spirit.”
    “I can stop the birth, I know that I can.”
    “Stop the … what are you saying? You have seen what is to be. How can you change it?”
    “How can you ask that question?” countered Tamis. “You know as well as I that there are a thousand thousand possible futures, all dependent on limitless decisions made by men and women and, aye, even children and beasts.”
    “That is precisely what I am saying, Tamis. You were not given your powers in order to manipulate events; that has never been the way of the source.”
    “Then perhaps it should have been,” snapped Tamis. “I have studied hundreds of possible futures. In four, at least, the Dark God can be thwarted. All I needed to do was trace the lines back to the one element that can change the course of history. And I have done that!”
    “You speak of the child Parmenion,” said the fire woman sadly. “You are wrong, Tamis. You should cease your meddling. This matter is beyond you; it is greater than worlds; it is a part of the cosmic struggle between chaos and harmony. You have no conception of the harm you can do.”
    “Harm?” queried Tamis. “I know the harm