Morningstar by David Gemmell Read Free Book Online Page A

mind. But someone with the courage to change this world, a man with a soul as bright as the last star of the morning.”
    “Dream on, bard. Morningstar, indeed! You know much of weapons?”
    “Very little. My older brothers were trained to be knights. Not I.”
    “A morningstar is a terrible weapon. It has a short handle of iron, and attached to it is a chain; on the end of the chain is a ball of spiked metal. It is a kind of mace. When a man is struck by it, he dies, his skull smashed to fragments.”
    “That is not the morning star I spoke of.”
    “I know, but you spoke of a dream. I am giving you the reality.”
    “Only your reality.”
    “What is it you are looking for? Glory? What?”
    I shrugged. “What do all men seek? I want to be happy. I would like a wife and sons one day. But I want them to grow in a land where there is hope for the future, where men do not take to the road. If that is a hopeless dream—and maybe it is—then I will sire no sons. I will wander, and play my harp, and weave my magick until the end.”
    I expected him to laugh or to say something scornful. But somehow what he did was worse. He stood and walked to a nearby water butt, lifting a copper gourd and drinking deeply.
    “You think the weather will break soon?” he asked me.
    I did not answer him. I felt a sudden need for music and took my harp outside, walking to the water’s edge and sitting beside a long, narrow boat. The wind was rippling the water, and small sections of ice came floating by on the gray surface. Snow began to fall, and I played for the snow, my fingers plucking daintily at the shorter strings, the higher notes, the music drifting out over the lake. Darker, deeper tones crept in as the storm clouds gathered.
    Several villagers came by as I played, but I ignored them. The first person I noticed was the whore, Ilka. She crept in close and sat hugging her knees, her huge blue eyes fixed to my face. The music changed as I saw her, becoming wistful and sad. She shook her head and rose, beginning a curious dance in the mud. I saw her then as a nymph, a magical eldritch creature trapped in a world that understood nothing. And the music changed again, lifting and swelling, still sorrowful but filled with a promise of new tomorrows.
    At last my fingers became tired, and the music died. Ilka stopped, too, and looked at me with those wide, haunted eyes. Her expression was hard to read. I smiled and said something—I don’t remember what it was—but fear came back to her then, and she scampered away into the gathering dusk.
    Toward evening I saw Wulf and his killers striding toward the village.
    For a moment only I was filled with stark terror, but then I saw the children running up to meet them. The hunchback lifted one small boy high into the air, perching him on his twisted shoulder, and the sound of laughter filled the village.
    Jarek was right, in part at least.
    This forest was a garden of evil.

3
    I SEE THAT you are quizzical, my ghostly friend. How, you wonder, does the laughter of children in such circumstances denote evil? Well, think on this … is it not comforting to believe that all acts of murder and malice are committed by brutes with no souls? Worshipers of unclean powers?
    But how dispiriting to see a group of men coming home from a day of toil, ready to play for an hour with their children, to hold their wives close, to sit at their hearth fires, when their work has been the foul slaughter of innocent travelers. You take my point? Evil is at its most vile when it is practiced by ordinary men.
    We can excuse a demon who stalks the night seeking blood. It is his nature; he was created for just such a purpose. But not a man who by day commits acts of murder and by night returns home to be a good, loving husband and father. For that is evil of a monstrous kind and casts doubts upon us all.
    But I am running ahead of myself. Where was I? Ah, yes, the village by the lake. I had watched the whore dance,