A Blackbird In Silver (Book 1) by Freda Warrington Page B

and became racked with despair. And as he fully realised the hopelessness of war, the Egg-Stone forced him like a puppet through battle after bloody battle, while he became ever more bitter and cynical.
    Several times he tried to destroy it, but failed. He needed it like a drug. He was becoming a skeleton, held together and motivated only by the Egg-Stone’s power. Yet somewhere inside, as though Miril had left a feather-barb in him, part of him was finding strength to rebel.
    Some four years had passed since the invasion of Tearn, a lifetime away from Shalekahh and his previous happy life, an eternity in the possession of the cursed Stone. He knew that if he spent any longer going through these appalling motions, the plaything of the Shana, insanity and self-destruction were imminent. Though the life he had enjoyed as a Gorethrian Prince was lost forever, he knew that unless he found the strength to resist the Egg-Stone, he and the rest of mankind were doomed.
    About this time, after the invasion of Drish, General Karadrek betrayed him, attempting to disgrace him because he had shown mercy to the Drishians. Karadrek was punished, but Ashurek, bitter and dispirited, left the encampment and made for his main headquarters further to the north. His mood was black; near madness.
    When he arrived at the small palace that the battalion had taken over, he found Orkesh and Meshurek waiting for him. He stared at them in amazement and said, ‘I did not expect you. No one sent a message.’
    ‘We have only just arrived,’ said Meshurek, sitting languidly back in his chair and smiling. Orkesh was tense, her eyes glittering. And she was again dressed in grey.
    ‘My brother,’ she said, standing up to kiss Ashurek formally on the cheek. ‘How good to see you again.’ She seemed utterly unlike herself. Her gestures were slow and plastic, and there was an awful look in her eyes, as though she had fallen in love with something that had previously revolted her, and was ashamed of her dark surrender.
    ‘Is not mother with you?’ Ashurek asked sharply. The room, suddenly small, dark and escapeless, began to spin slowly on its axis.
    ‘No,’ Meshurek answered with the bland look of a lizard. ‘This is what we have come to tell you. She attempted to thwart me, and had to be stopped. Tell him, Orkesh, what has happened.’
    The voice of his beloved sister was a jagged knife slicing the air. The heavy power of the Egg-Stone seemed to throb in sympathy with his painful surge of emotions as she said, ‘Mother told you not to fail, Ashurek, but you did. Did you think, knowing that she was a strong-willed and determined woman, that she would not take action on her own? She sought out those who supported you, and made them into an army to take the throne from Meshurek. I would have no part of it. She did not believe me when I said you were in the demon’s power as well. So, angry, I went to Meshurek and confronted him. But he calmed me down and made me see how foolish I had been, and that mother was wicked and must be punished. The rebellious supporters were crushed and I sought out mother, and slew her.’
    Dark and dangerous emotion filled Ashurek, growing larger than himself until it filled the whole room with black, swirling anger. Through it the figures of his brother and sister looked tiny and unreal.
    ‘Now we are free of those who seek to hold us back,’ Orkesh went on. ‘The three of us have become great, the most powerful beings the world has known, more than human–’
    ‘Orkesh!’ Ashurek cried, voice rough with torment, ‘I warned you not to confront Meshurek! You saw what happened to me – and still you did not take heed!’
    ‘It’s all right,’ she replied calmly. ‘I was willing. What Meheg-Ba offered, I found I wanted.’
    Then Ashurek’s anger and grief, magnified by the evil of-the Egg-Stone, focused in his arm. In one swift movement he drew his sword and plunged it up through his sister’s stomach into her