‘What?’ Tarra gave a snort of disbelief. ‘You know, for a wizard you’re not too bright. Haven’t you learned anything? The stars are immortal, maybe, and also space and time, which go inward and outward forever – but men come and go, they’re born and they die, and that’s the way it was meant. Would you live to see the mountains crumble, the oceans dry up, the sun itself expire? Not me.’
Arm in arm, he and Orbiquita walked out of the firelight, made for the wharves. ‘Where are you off, Tarra?’ the bearded Northman called after them.
‘We’ll find ourselves a boat for the night,’ Tarra answered. ‘If we’re still here in the morning we’ll see you then. But if the wind’s favourable and the water calm…good luck, anyway, to all of you.’
In Tarra’s mind, Amyr’s fond farewell: Long life, bronze one. Come visit me some day, in the jewel isles of the Suhm-yi.
I will, Tarra promised, also silently.
‘Hrossak!’ Teh Atht had got to his feet. ‘About that sword …’
‘Forget it,’ Tarra told him, and he touched the gem-studded hilt where it protruded over his shoulder, just to be sure it was still there. ‘The sword’s mine. Men have died for it, and probably will again.’ Then the city’s shadows took him and Orbiquita into their embrace.
‘Then if you’ll not give it to me,’ it was the wizard’s last throw, ‘perhaps I could borrow it for a while?’
But the steppeman and his love had already walked into the night, and into the dawn of a new life. The Primal Land was waiting, and for all that the world was old, still it was very young, too. The last Teh Atht saw of the pair was their single dark outline merging with the greater darkness, and then they were gone.
And never a backward glance from Tarra Khash …
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Also by Brian Lumley
The Necroscope® Series
1. Necroscope!
2. Necroscope II: Wamphyri!
3. Necroscope III: The Source
4. Necroscope IV: Deadspeak
5. Necroscope V: Deadspawn
7. Necroscope: Defilers
8. Necroscope: Avengers
9. Necroscope: The Touch
10. Necroscope: The Lost Years Vol I
11. Necroscope: The Lost Years Vol 2 (aka Resurgence)
Titus Crow
12. The Burrowers Beneath
13. The Transition Of Titus Crow
14. The Clock Of Dreams
15. Spawn Of The Winds
16. In The Moons Of Borea
17. Elysia
Psychomech
18. Psychomech
19. Psychosphere
20. Psychamok
The Dreamlands
21. Hero Of Dreams
22. Ship Of Dreams
23. Mad Moon Of Dreams
24. Iced On Aran
25. The House Of Doors
26. Second Visit
Vampire World
27. Blood Brothers
28. The Last Aerie
29. Bloodwars
Other Novels
Demogorgon
Khai Of Khem
Sorcery in Shad
Tarra Khash: Hrossak!
The House Of Cthulhu
Dedication
For
anyone who
ever wished he
or she had a flying
carpet, and also
for the heck
of it!
Brian Lumley (1937 – )
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Brian Lumley 1991
All rights reserved.
The right of Brian Lumley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2013 by Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 08927 3
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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