The Last Guardian by David Gemmell Page A

never known war. They were gentle and conciliatory, kind and understanding. Now, like a perverse cosmic jest, they were beginning a reversion to savagery.
    The Bear people had long since lost their humanity. Chreena had journeyed with Shir-ran to one of their settlements close to the Pool of the Sword, and what she had seen there had been terrifying. Only one human had been left among them, and he had begun to revert.
    “Go away from us,” he had said. “We are cursed.”
    Now their settlement was deserted, the tribe moving to the high timberlands away from prying eyes, far from pity or loathing.
    A hunting roar sounded in the distance from the pride that roamed the plain before the city, and Chreena shivered. Some thirty lions were living there, preying on the deer and antelope. Yet once they had been men and women who had talked and laughed and sang.
    Her eyes scanned the ancient buildings. Just four hundred of the Dianae remained—not enough to survive and grow.
    “Why do you see the lions as gods?” Chreena had asked the old priest, Men-chor. “They lose the power of speech and become mindless.”
    “The tale of Elder days,” he replied, smiling as he closed his eyes and began to recite the opening of the book. “First there was the goddess Marik-sen, who walked under the sun and knew no words, nor ancient stories, nor even the name of her father, nor even that her father had a name. The Law of the One touched her, and her name was born. And she knew. Yet in knowing she also realized that she had lost a great gift—something wonderful—and it grieved her. Her son was born but was no god. He was a man. He spoke like a man and walked like a man. He knew his name and the name of his mother and many more names. But he, too, sensed a loss: an empty place in the depths of his soul. And he was the father of the Dianae, and the people grew. And they lived in the Great Garden with the walls of crystal. But one day the Law of the One was assailed by many enemies. The land was in turmoil, the walls split asunder, and great waters destroyed the garden. The Dianae themselves were almost destroyed. Then the waters subsided, and the people gazed upon a different world. The Law of the One visited his presence upon Pen-ran, and he became the prophet. He told us what was lost and what was gained. We had lost the road to heaven; we had gained the path to knowing. He was the first to lead us here and the first to leave the path and find the road.”
    The old man opened his eyes. “There is far more, Chreena, but only the Dianae could understand.”
    “You believe that knowledge prevents you from seeing heaven?”
    “It is the great barrier. The soul can exist only in purity. Knowledge corrupts, fills us with dreams anddesires. Such ambition keeps our eyes from the Law of the One.”
    “Yet a savage lion knows only hunger and lust.”
    “Perhaps. But he does not slay wantonly, and if his belly is full, a young antelope can walk to a pool beside him and drink in safety.”
    “You will forgive me for not sharing your … faith?”
    “Even as you have forgiven me for not sharing yours. Perhaps we are both correct,” said Men-chor. “For do we not have similar origins? Did you not also originate in a garden, and were you not also cast from it? And did you not also, with the sin of Adam and the crime of Cain, lose the road to heaven?”
    Chreena had laughed then and politely conceded the argument. She liked the old man. But she had one last question.
    “What happens when, like the Bears, all the Dianae are lions?”
    “We will all be close to God,” he told her simply.
    “But there will be no more songs.”
    “Who knows what songs are heard in the heart of a lion? But can they be more discordant than the songs of death we hear from beyond the wall?”

11
    S HANNOW LEFT THE stallion at the stock paddocks, paid the hostler to grain feed and groom the beast, then hitched his saddlebags over his left shoulder and made his