Black Jade

Chapter 43

The next few days were a time of rest and restoration. We took up residence in the two guest houses by the river, and we spent whole hours bathing our worn bodies in the great cedarwood tubs that the Brothers kept full of steaming hot water. We sat with the Brothers in the great hall to take our meals: simple, sustaining foods such as beef and barley soup, lamb stews, and hot bread drenched with sweet butter. We slept as much as we liked, in good beds, swaddled in crisp cotton sheets and thick quilts stuffed with goose down. At night, it grew bitterly cold in those high mountains, and it seemed impossible that we had ever suffered through the Red Desert's inexorable heat. As well, we had a hard time imagining that there were places and things in the world that were not bright and clean and good.

Abrasax's one hundred and forty-seventh birthday arrived on the third of Segadar, and the Brothers and my companions all gathered for a great feast to celebrate it. All that day Liljana had

labored in the kitchens baking chocolate and raspberry cakes, which were Abrasax's favorite. When it came time to eat them, he praised her artistry and declared that in all his long life, at this school and others, he had never tasted a confection so fine as the one Liljana baked for him. He commanded that the Brothers break out their reserve of rare teas to accompany the cakes; all present stirred into their cups an orange blossom honey from Galda that was rarer still. Its sweetness, Abrasax said, would always remind him of this evening with Iiljana and the rest of our company — and, of course, with Bemossed. We might have luxuriated thusly all winter, and fallen into indulgence or even sloth. But when Master Okuth deemed us sufficiently strong, Abrasax appointed each of us tasks: Master Juwain was to record a complete account of our journey, paying particular attention to what we had discovered in the Vild and in Senta's Singing Caves, Abrasax asked Liljana to begin imparting to the Brothers her great knowledge of herbs and poisons, as well as her many recipes for delicious foods that were unknown to them. He commanded that Daj and Estrella should receive instruction in ancient Ardik and other languages, as well as mathematics, music and the arts. When Daj complained that he would rather spend his time completing the Gest of Eleikar and Ayeshtan, Abrasax arranged with Master Nolashar for Daj to work this composition into his music lessons. Atara he set to caring tor the horses, sheep, cows and pigs that the Brothers kept in their stables. It was hard, often dirty work, unfit for a princess, much less a great warrior of the Manslayer Society, but Atara surprised us all by looking after these animals with a love that she often found difficult to tender to human beings. Strangely, Abrasax insisted that Kane and I should spend at least three hours each day practicing with swords. And stranger still, he asked Maram to sit at a desk composing a whole new set of verses for 'A Second Chakra Man'.

Bemossed did not escape the Grandmaster's demands. Indeed, he had the hardest work of all of us, for he had to face the most terrible of enemies in a relentless combat. Each morning just after dawn, Abrasax would go into the little stone conservatory to sit with Bemossed and Master Virang, who led Bemossed in endless hours of meditation. Their labor, as I understood it, was to clear each of Bemossed's chakras so that the deep light that lived within him might rise and blaze forth, unclouded by the dark moods and sense of doom that too often grieved him. And each afternoon, in the short sharp brightness of the winter days. Bemossed met with Master Storr to attune himself to the Cup of Ashurun. Whenever Bemossed dared to lay his hands upon it, this great work of silver gelstei glowed with a strong golden radiance and resonated with the Lightstone hundreds of miles away in Argattha. Master Storr soon determined that Bemossed could touch upon the True Gelstei from afar and reach with his luminous being deep into its heart. Someday, he might even master it this way, though Master Storr thought the danger to Bemossed would be very great.

Bemossed did not like to talk about this, nor would he say very much about his endless struggles with Morjin. One night, however, after a particularly brutal session of delving the Lightstone's mysteries, he took me aside and confided to me, 'Morjin will die before ever giving up the Cup of Heaven again. And he will slay. He hates … so hatefully, Valashu. Far more than you do. And it is so foul — fouler than a corpse rotting slowly in a slaughterhouse for a thousand years. You think that you have known darkness in the Skadarak, but what lies within Morjin is blacker than any Black Jade.'

He told me then that he did not know how he could bear it.

But bear it he did, and more, he gained a great victory over Morjin. There came a day in Yaradar, just past the darkest time of the year, when we all felt our gelstei free of Morjin's taint, as of wounds drained of poison. Master Juwain ventured to use his varistei to germinate and grow some barbark seeds that he had brought out of Acadu, while Liljana pressed her blue figurine to her head and managed to speak mind to mind with one of her sisters in faroff Alonia, or so she said. Maram broke off his versifying to go out into the Valley of the Sun with his red crystal and unleash bolts of fiery lightning, just for the sheer joy of it. Then Kane took out his gelstei to demonstrate how the black jade had been designed to be used. It frustrated Maram for Kane to steal his fire, so to speak, but more than once, Kane kept Maram from killing himself in a great blast of rock and heat, or at least badly burning his hands. As for Atara, she did not regain her second sight. Even so, she spent what seemed entire days gazing eyeless into her clear scryer's sphere. As she told me, she did not look for things faraway in space or time, but rather concentrated all her will upon imagining them to be.

Master Storr finally deemed it safe to begin exploring the properties of Estrella's blue bowl, which Estrella gladly lent to him. He thanked her for bearing it all across Ea, and told all of us: 'You do have a talent for discovering gelstei. It is a pity, though, that you could not also bring me the lilastei that you say the Yaga used to turn men to stone.'

In early Triolet, with the snows falling heavy and deep, we broke our usual rhythms and routines to receive a rare winter visitor to the valley. A Brother Vipul, at great risk, had forced his way through the mountains on snow shoes to bring Abrasax important news. After Abrasax had allowed Master Juwain to use his green crystal to heal Vipul's frozen feet and had sat drinking hot cider with Vipul for most of an afternoon, Abrasax called the Brotherhood's masters into a conclave to speak with my friends and me.

We met in the conservatory that evening. Bemossed entered the room looking tired and troubled, and yet strangely happier than he had ever been. In truth, his whole being seemed to glow. We all took our places around the three low tea tables. One of the brothers came in to fill our cups with steaming tea and serve us hot lemon cakes. The many candles set ablaze in their stands cast their warm radiance on the twelve pillars holding up the domed roof. Snow plastered over the round windows to the north and west, but the southern windows let in the light of the stars.

After asking each of us to tell of the progress in the tasks appointed to us, Abrasax moved on to his purpose in calling us together. He sat straight and stern on his colorful cushion, his curly hair and beard framing his striking face in a wreath of white. Then he said to us, 'Brother Vipul has been ordered to bed, and so we will discuss his tidings in his absence. It is time, in any case, that we discussed certain things.'

With what seemed infinite patience, he bit off a piece of his cake and chewed it thoroughly before taking a long sip of tea. He looked from Estrella to Bemossed. Then he looked at the table in front of me, where I had laid the diamond that Ramadar had given me by the pool on Givene: the great gem that had once been set into my ancestor, Adar's, crown. Abrasax had asked me to show it to the Brotherhood's masters as a proof of miracles.

'I have said many times,' he told me, and the rest of my friends, 'that each of our acts, as with a stone dropped into a pool, ripples outward forever. Together on this last quest of yours, you have cast entire mountains into the waters of this world. We all worried that the risk would be too great and the goal almost impossible to achieve. And yet you forced Morjin to take great risks of his own. He spent much time and will working his three droghuls from afar. And to what end? The tribes of the Red Desert now ally themselves against him. In Hesperu, brave spirits have made rebellion again. It is said that King Arsu has recalled part of his army from Surrapam to smash it, and so we do not need to fear the conquest of Eanna and the northwest, at least not yet. Something else is said, not just in Hesperu, but in Sunguru, Uskudar and all lands: that Morjin is dead. The rumor has spread like a wildfire. The Red Dragon will now have to spend even more will to quell it. Perhaps he will even be forced out of Argattha to show himself, in Sunguru, I think, and in Karabuk. Already, in Galda, it is too late.'

He ate another bit of cake and drank some more tea. I sensed that like a minstrel working up to the end of a great epic, he revelled in making us wait for his good news.

'In Galda,' he finally told us, 'there has been another revolt, greater than the last. The Red Priests and anyone connected to the Kallimun have been killed or driven out. A common knight named Gallagerry has claimed lordship of the land.'

He looked at me and added, 'I am told that the revolt was led by common captains of the army that you and yours so terribly defeated at the Culhadosh Commons. You count that battle as the worst moment of your life, and rightly so, but what you did there, Valashu, now engulfs the world with the force of a tidal wave, does it not?'

I noticed Bemossed smiling at me, and I remembered that false humility would not serve me. But neither would pride. 'On the day you speak of,' I reminded Abrasax, 'what I did caused the Lightstone to be lost.'

'Lost, yes, but not forsaken.' Abrasax looked across the table at Bemossed, and bowed his head to him, as did Master Storr, Master Matai and the other masters of the Brotherhood. 'Bemossed now keeps Morjin from wielding it.'

'But Bemossed cannot wield it himself.'

'No, he cannot, and that bright eventuality must likely await the day when he sets his hands upon it.'

Across the room, the Cup of Ashurun gleamed upon its stand. I found myself wishing that this work of silver gelstei was the real Lightstone. I found myself wanting to promise Bemossed that the day would surely come when he would lay his hands upon the true Cup of Heaven.

'We have had reports out of Argattha,' Abrasax told me. 'Morjin has broken off the excavations there. He cannot, we believe, free the Dark One without full command of the Lightstone. And so, as of this day, he turns his attention to more pressing matters.'

'I have had reports of that,' Liljana announced. 'I am told that Morjin has prepared the Kallimun to make ready assassinations all across Alonia. My sisters believe that Morjin has gained a hold over Baron Maruth of the Aquantir. They fear that he will ally himself with the Marituk tribe and let the Sarni cross the Long Wall. Such a force could conquer Iviunn and Tarlan, and then all of Alonia could be lost.'

'So it could,' Kane added. 'As for Galda, do you think that Morjin will let the revolt prevail? Ha! — he will surely send an army from Karabuk to destroy this Gallagerry and restore the Kallimun.'

'And let us not forget that the Dragon has a new weapon,' Master Juwain said. 'If he himself, as his droghuls did, commands a voice of death, then woe to anyone who tries to stand before him.'

'Not anyone,' Master Okuth said. His gray hair gleamed on his round, heavy head likellron. 'All of you did stand before him. I should think that this death voice has something to do with Morjin's fifth chakra — and your ability, all of you, to withstand it must come from the soundness of each of your chakras. As Grandfather has said, your auras have been strengthened, like an armor woven of light. We should not be surprised at this: each of you, except Bemossed, once held the Lightstone. And Bemossed is Bemossed.'

'What you say might be true,' Master Juwain told him. 'But I still would not want to face the real Red Dragon, in the flesh.'

Abrasax allowed us, as well as Master Yasul and Master Matai, to speak on in a like way for some time. Then he finally held up his hand and told us: 'We cannot delude ourselves that Morjin has been defeated, or that what you did along the way to Hesperu will bring his certain defeat. But neither should we deny that we have gained a great victory.'

Now he looked at us across the table, and bowed his head.

'You, all of you,' he said, 'have done this great thing. And the marvel of it is that you did it without paying back evil for evil.'

I felt a burning inside my chest, and I said, 'Almost, we did such terrible things. Too many times, it was so close.'

'And in that,' Abrasax said, 'you gained the greatest victory of all.'

'Perhaps,' I told him.

'You vanquished your murderous hate of Morjin. And more, transmuted it, like an alchemist, into a thing of the truest gold. I know of no greater feat.'

I felt my mouth pulling into a grim smile. I looked at Bemossed; Estrella sat next to him, and she seemed like a great, shining mirror perfectly reflecting the brightness of his being. This last journey, I thought, had transformed all of us.

Then I said to Abrasax, 'With the help of my friends, I did — for a moment only. A man such as Morjin might be killed, once and forever, but not my hate for him. That is one battle that must be fought again and again.'

'And now you will fight it successfully,' Abrasax told me. 'You will use your gift to bring a great light into the world. Just as, in the end, I believe that the good will triumph over all that is dark and wrong.'

I found myself tracing my finger over the diamonds set into the black jade of the hilt of my sword, which I had laid at my side by the table. And I said, 'What you call the good must triumph. But it is no simple matter. The valarda, I know, must never be used to slay. It is a beautiful thing, like life itself. It connects heart to living heart, as light passes from star to star. It is pure light, in a way, and so love, for it brings into creation all that is bright and good. And yet, and yet. .'

I paused to take a sip of tea, and I looked at Abrasax. Then I said, 'Morjin crucified my mother and grandmother, and that was the most evil thing that I have ever suffered. And yet it led to the beginning of my understanding of him, which is a good thing, yes? This burning sense of the soul that sometimes I love, and sometimes I hate above all else. With it, I saw how I might strike a kind of light into Morjin. He could not bear it, for he sees in the compassionate and the beautiful all that is weak. And so it drove him to make a mortal error. I did. You could say that I used a good thing to kill the droghul, which is an evil act in itself. And yet only through this evil and the slaughter of many men were we able to make our escape from Hesperu and bring Bemossed here — which you count as the greatest of good.'

Abrasax considered this as he ran his finger around the rim of his tea cup. Then he stood, and walked over to the conservatory's western wall. Into its smooth stone had been carved a yanyin: a simple circle, bisected by a sigmoid line, like the curve of a snake. Its right side was set with quartz, as white as snow. A piece of black obsidians made up the other half. I couldn't help noticing how the black part of this ancient symbol swelled like a wave into the white as if to push against it, as the white did into the black.

Abrasax touched his hand to it, and said, 'This reminds us that light and dark are inextricably interwoven in the creation of the world. So it is with good and evil.'

'Yet you speak of good's inevitable triumph,' I told him. 'As do I.'

'As you say, it is no simple matter. I believe that life will always entail suffering, even after this age is ended and the Age of Light begins. But the suffering that man makes out of pride, ignorance and hate, which we call evil, that must surely end.'

He looked across the room as if to ask Bemossed to help explicate the deepest mysteries of life. Bemossed could not help laughing at the Grandmaster's obvious expectation. After bowing his head to Master Virang and Master Matai, he looked at Abrasax and said, 'You are the scholars and philosophers, men of well-chosen and beautiful words. Who am I? A Hajarim whose only gift is to keep burning like a torch so that you don't forget to light a fire of your

own.'

He smiled at me, then shrugged his shoulders as to cast off a great weight pressing upon him. Then he said, 'All right, I will try.'

He took a sip of tea, and his eyes grew sad and bright.

'I learned in the desert that water is the source and substance of all life,' he told us. 'As the One is the source of all things. It flows through us and all around us, like a river leading down to the ocean. And that bright infinite sea is what we all long for most deeply, isn't it? We have only to plunge into the river and let it take us there. But what man or woman has the courage to do that? It seems simpler, in our thirst for water, to wade out and try to empty the river bucket by bucket. But our thirst is infinite, is it not? Who has not known merchants who have amassed gold a thousand times in excess of their needs while their slaves starve to death, or kings who slaughter tens of thousands as they press on ever to conquer new lands? Or even once-great Elijin lords such as Morjin who seek unbounded power to fill the emptiness inside them? The ways of bringing hideous wrongs into this world are themselves nearly infinite. And so the ages go on, as the river goes on, and we continue to try to stand against it or to direct its currents for our own need. Why should we be surprised when it pulls us down into the mud and muck, and drowns us? Why can't we be content to discover how the river will flow? If we could do that we wouldn't have to speak of good and evil.'

In the quiet of the conservatory, we all looked at Bemossed. The candles' light brought the soft features of his face aglow. At times he seemed a plain and simple man, and at other times, something much more.

Abrasax, still standing by the symbol-carved wall, said to him, 'Why not, indeed? Might I ask, then, where this great river will carry the Maitreya?'

'That is no easier for me to determine than for anyone else,' Bemossed said. 'But for now, I will remain here, Grandfather.'

'And you, Valashu Elahad? Will you and your companions stay with us, too?'

I took hold of my sword, and stood up to work off some of the restlessness building inside me. I paced around the room, looking at the various glyphs and the crystals set into the walls. I came to where Abrasax stood by the yanyin, with its gleaming curves of black and white. I drew my sword, and for a long few moments I watched the silver blade flare with a deep glorre. Then I thrust it straight into the heart of the yanyin. Its point, almost infinitely sharp, came to a rest in the fine crack between the yanyin's white quartz and black obsidian without chipping off the slightest sliver of stone or marring the yanyin in any way.

And I said to Abrasax, and to the other masters still sitting at the table, 'No, I will return to Mesh.'

'To Mesh?' Abrasax said. 'But your own warriors turned away from you and cast you out.'

'I cast myself out. But now the river that Bemossed has spoken of is carrying me back home.'

'Are you sure?'

I looked at my bright sword, and nodded my head. 'As sure as I am of anything.'

'But to what end?'

'To the end … of ending Morjin's terror,' I told him. 'There are those of my people who would still follow me.'

'To war, then?'

I drew in a long breath, and I remembered the lessons that my father had once taught me. I said, 'I must strike now, while Morjin is compromised, where he is the weakest.'

'To strike with that sword?'

I lifted up Alkaladur, and pointed it toward the starlight streaming in through one of the windows. 'This sword he fears like death. But there is another sword that is not so easy to see. He fears that one even more. It remains half-forged, and I still do not know how to wield it.'

Abrasax sighed and regarded me with his deep, perceptive eyes. 'It is a dangerous path that you've chosen.'

'Have I chosen it, Grandfather?'

He looked at the thing of silustria and light that I held in my hand, and he said, 'When you first came here. Master Storr accused you of being of the sword. That is still true, isn't it?'

'Yes,' I told him. 'I bear two swords now, and I will use either one, or both, against Morjin.'

'Will you not content yourself to see if Bemossed can prevail against him?'

I bowed my head to my new friend. 'Bemossed will do what he can do, and I will do what I must.'

'What is it then that you hope to accomplish?'

I looked at Estrella sitting beside Daj as she calmly ate a piece of lemon cake; I looked at Maram steeling himself for yet another journey, and at Atara abiding with a deep and lightless silence. Then I looked at Kane. I smiled and said, 'Nothing less than Morjin's utter defeat. I believe in a victory so final and complete that even the stones buried miles down in the muck of the earth will sing with joy and light.'

'Ha!' Kane suddenly shouted. His deep voice set the walls of the conservatory to ringing. 'Ha! — the stars will dance and the earth itself will sing!'

He sprang to his feet and crossed the room almost in one blinding motion. He knelt before me as he laid his calloused hand on the flat of my sword's blade.

'So — I've waited too long to hear you say that,' he told me. 'To Mesh we'll go, and then if we must, to the gates of heaven or hell!'

Abrasax sighed at this. Then he, too, dared to touch my sword. He called out into the room, 'The river might flow to the sea, but it seems that it takes many turnings to reach it.'

He asked Kane and me to go back to the tables and sit back down. Then he stepped over to the door. He opened it to ask something of a Brother Hannold who waited outside. After taking his place again next to Master Storr, he folded his hands beneath his chin as he patiently waited.

After some time. Brother Hannold entered the room bearing a dark, dust-stained bottle- Another Brother followed after him carrying a tray of tinkling glasses. Brother Hannold set one of these deep-bodied glasses in front of each of us, even as he gripped the bottle in his other hand. I guessed that it must contain one of those sweet-bitter infusions of herbs that the Brothers favored in place of more convivial drink.

Then Brother Hannold uncorked the bottle.

'Ah, brandy!' Maram said as pushed out his fat nose to sniff across the table. 'Excellent! Excellent!'

'Brandy!' Master Storr cried out. 'It cannot be!'

His liver-spotted face grew red with outrage, and Masters Matai, Okuth and Yasul also seemed disturbed by this turn of events, while Master Virang rubbed his chin in confusion.

'Brandy it is, truly,' Abrasax said. He motioned for Brother Hannold to pour a bit of this dark, fiery liquid in our glasses. 'We will drink to the success of our guests' last journey, and their future ones, as well.'

'But, Grandfather,' Master Storr said, 'we do not drink to such things! It is not our way!'

'I believe that a new age is coming, and so there will be new ways. And so tonight, just this one time, we will drink.'

'Even the children?'

Abrasax smiled at Daj and Estrella, and said, 'Yes, even the children.'

Daj's eyes gleamed as Brother Hannold poured a little brandy into his glass. It was only a fourth the amount that Maram convinced Brother Hannold to pour for him, but Daj didn't seem to mind. After Abrasax had raised his glass and proposed the toast, bidding us to follow the sacred rivers that ran through each of our hearts, Daj downed his brandy in two great gulps. Miraculously, he did not cough or choke on it, but only sat triumphantly as if he had done a great thing.

And then he called out: 'I have an ending for my story. Does anyone want to hear it?'

At that moment Alphanderry appeared in a swirl of sparkling lights, and stood over the table.

'Of course we want to hear it,' Master Storr said. He drained his glass, and then held out for Brother Hannold to refill it. 'We might as well have a songfest to go along with our drink, since we're breaking the peace of this chamber, to say nothing of our school.'

'Ha — peace be damned!' Kane said, smiling at Daj. 'Tell us how your story ends!'

Daj smiled back at him, and said, 'Well, for a long time, I didn't think it could have an ending. At least not a happy one, Eleikar must kill the wicked king to gain his vengeance and keep his honor. And he must not do anything that would wound Ayeshtan's heart, so how can he even think of killing her father?'

To the little sounds of brandy being sipped and glasses tinkling, we all sat contemplating this conundrum. None of us, not even Bemossed could find an answer for Daj.

'So — tell us, then,' Kane finally said to him.

'Well,' Daj said, smiling back at him, 'it is Eleikar, after all, who finds his way out of his dilemma. It seems that he goes off on a quest of his own. He returns to Khalind with a kind of black gelstei, more powerful even than the Black Jade. He uses it to kill the wicked king and then take him down into the land of death. There, the king meets Eleikar's family — and all the people he has murdered. They all tell him what it was like to be stolen from life. And the king understands because now he has been stolen from life. By Eleikar. But Eleikar uses the gelstei to bring the wicked king back to Khalind. Only he is not wicked anymore because all he can think about is how good it is to be reborn and live again. And so he becomes a good king, and gives Ayeshtan to Eleikar in marriage, and everyone lives happily ever after.'

Daj finished speaking and looked at Kane proudly. He seemed utterly swept away by the words that he had spoken to us.

Then, in a kindly way, Master Storr said to him, 'You do know, lad, that the black gelstei has no power to do such things. Not even the Lightstone can be used to bring the dead back to life.'

'This is my story,' Daj said, staring across the table at him. 'And in Khalind, people can live again.'

Abrasax met eyes with me for a moment, then turned to Daj to say, 'Perhaps they can indeed. Well, I for one would like to hear the whole of this gest. Will you sing it for us?'

Daj nodded his head proudly and said, 'If Master Nolashar will accompany me.'

Master Nolashar smiled at this, and brought out his flute. He played a haunting melody, while Daj stood up and sang out verse after verse of the Gest of Eleikar and Ayeshtan. When he had finished, we all clapped our hands, even Alphanderry, who did so without making the slightest sound. Then he said to Daj, 'Hoy, a minstrel you are! Why don't you and I sing together — Master Nolashar, too? There are so many songs!'

Abrasax called for a little more brandy, but Maram — along with Master Storr — drank much more than a little. Master Storr finally got up from his cushion and wobbled over to Liljana. He kissed the back of her head and told her, 'I'm sorry I ever called you a witch.' Then he wobbled back to his cushion.

After that, we sat for a long time in that beautiful place, in the best of company. As the evening deepened into night. Master Nolashar played his flute, while Daj and Alphanderry stood together in the starlight, and seemed to sing the whole universe into creation. It was one of those rare times when I sensed that all things might be possible, even the impossibilities of Daj's story.

Bright days followed that night, and grew longer and longer as winter passed into spring. In Gliss, the month of the new leaves, the snow began melting from most of the lower reaches of the Valley of the Sun. My friends and I would still have to wait until Ashte before daring the passes of the eastern Nagarshath, and so we had little to do except to study and prepare ourselves for another journey — and to wait and hope.

Late one morning, on a perfectly clear day, I met with Atara, and we walked together along the path by the river just below the school's ash grove. The trees showed a greenish fuzz of new leaves. while the first dandelions and fairies' eyes pushed up through the grass in sprays of yellow and white. We found a beautiful place, I and laid down two blankets on the sloping ground that looked out over the partially frozen river. Water rushed in a gleaming black torrent down the channel cut through the river's ice. The petals of the flowers all around us caught the sun's brilliant light and reflected it up into the bluest of skies.

It was warm enough that we sat comfortably with only our tunics and cloaks to cover us. After a while the sun reached its zenith, and it grew warmer still, and we cast off the gray, woolen coverings that had seen so many miles. Atara smelled like her mare, Fire, for she had spent part of the morning trimming her hooves and combing her down. We picnicked on some cheese and bread, and apple cider that the Brothers had made last fall. For a while we spoke of little things such as the fine spring weather and the health of the horses. And then we moved on to other matters.

'Will you not consider remaining here with the Brothers?' I asked her.

'No, I don't think so,' she said. 'I've promised Fire a ride across the Wendrush again. But I promise you that I won't slow us down.'

I looked at the clean cloth that she had wrapped around her face. I said, 'I know you won't. But has there been nothing at all? Even a hint of your second sight returning?'

'No, nothing,' she murmured, shaking her head.

'Perhaps if you remained here all summer, and sat in the conservatory with Bemossed, he might — '

'I would rather ride beneath the open sky with you.'

'But he is doing such great things,' I told her. 'One day.. '

I let my voice fade off into the soft roar of the river. I had nearly spoken of that which Atara did not wish me to speak of.

She grasped my hand in her warm fingers and said, 'It's all right — all right for you to wish that he might restore me.'

'But do you never think of this now, yourself?'

'Of course I do. But of course I mustn't. What will be will be. What is, now, is just as it should be. In so many ways, even after this last terrible, terrible journey, I have been restored already.'

I smiled at this, and said, 'I remember that you once told me how suffering carves hollows in the soul — only to leave room for it to hold more joy.'

She pressed her palm to her blindfold, which covered hollows as deep as the caverns beneath Argattha. And she said, 'These past days, with the children safe and Bemossed so happy in becoming this shining light for everyone. I have been so happy, too.'

My smile deepened as I squeezed her hand in mine. I gazed at her face, wishing with a hot pain in my eyes that she could gaze back at me.

'Bemossed makes people happy,' I said.

'The Maitreya, we call him, the Lord of Light,' she said to me. 'But what does that mean? What light can any man summon to bring help for this terrible world? This above all, I think: that everything that is, is so beautiful. It all shines, here and now.'

I looked out across the river at the acres of star lilies and white fairies' eyes gleaming in the strong sunlight. In the sky, an eagle soared, a little streak of gold against icy mountains and bright blue rock. The whole valley, with its brilliant green fields and forests powdered with snow, seemed on fire.

'What you say is true,' I told her. 'And yet, somewhere in the world, right now, a bird of prey is tearing out the insides of a vole or a hare. And somewhere, a man or a woman is dying upon a cross.'

'That, too, is true,' she said, and her voice grew thick with sadness. 'But even dying, they look out upon the same sky and the same earth that we do.'

I pressed her hand to my face, and I said softly, 'But you do not see at all now, not even with your second sight.'

'Don't pity me,' she said, pulling her hand away from me. The old coldness seemed to fall over her face like a cloud covering the sun.

'I don't pity you. But I will not believe there is no hope.'

She smiled coldly, even as her sadness deepened. Her fingers reached into the spray of blond hairs falling over her shoulders. She managed to pluck one of them out, and she held up this gleaming, golden filament for me to see. 'One chance only, Val. One slender, slender chance exists, finer even than this, of what you hope will be. And for all our gladness at finding Bemossed and what he has accomplished, it is exactly the same chance we have of defeating Morjin, in the end.'

'I know that,' I told her. 'But even if there is only one chance in ten thousand, I will think of how we might bring his defeat, and nothing else.'

I reached out and prised the hair from her fingers. I coiled it around one of mine, then folded it into a handkerchief, which I put in my tunic's pocket. And I said, 'Almost nothing else. If there is only one chance in all the universe of you being made whole and marrying me, I will make it be.'

She sat next to me, with the sun beating down upon her, and the essence of horse and her musky skin steamed off her garments. I listened to her deep, quick breaths. Then she said, 'You sound so sure of yourself. The tone in your words — I have never heard you speak this way.'

I felt my own breath building in my throat like a storm. I no longer doubted that I could give voice to what whispered in my heart.

'My grandfather,' I told her, 'believed that a man can make his own fate. What can a man and a woman together make? Everything, Atara.'

She stood up and stepped carefully down to the river's bank, where she scooped up a handful of old snow. After shaping it into a ball, she returned to the blanket. She sat holding it before her face as if it might reveal the shape of the future. At last she said, 'King Jovayl was right about you. This journey has changed you.'

I felt a bright, warm thing filling up my blood with an unbearable heat. I no longer feared letting it loose into Atara like lightning.

'Tell me that you believe in the future,' I said to her.

She squeezed her snowy ball and replied, 'Of course I do.'

I took the snow from her and cast it into the river, where the dark, churning water swept it away. I took her cold, wet hands in mine. I held them, tightly, until they warmed, and then grew hot.

'Say that you will be my wife.'

'You want my promise?'

'No — I want you say that it must be. That no other future can be.'

She sat breathing quickly, and she said, 'I almost believe that.'

I stared at the blindfold binding her face. My eyes felt like fire-stones, and I wanted to burn it away.

'Don't look at me like that!' she told me.

'How do you know how I look at you? You are blind.'

'I have never been that blind. I can feel you looking and looking.. and loving, the way that you do, with all the fire of your sweet, sweet heart, which I want to — '

I kissed her then. I felt something inside her melt, utterly, and flow like a sweet liquor, and so I cupped my hand around the back of her neck to pull us together. Her lips crushed against mine as she threw her arms around my back and pulled on me, fiercely, as if she wanted to take every part of me inside her. From within her throat, and mine, came a deep murmur almost like a growl, and we must have sounded like animals. But we were angels, too, for we kept passing the bright, warm thing to each other in our lips and our breath and our pounding blood, back and forth, until the fire grew so brilliant and hot that we could not bear it.

At last, she pushed away from me, and sat sweating and gasping. Her breath steamed out into the cool air as she told me, 'What I won't make with you is a child, not here and now — not with men still dying on crosses, as you say.'

'No — that would not be right,' I agreed. 'But someday, you will bear me a child. The most beautiful, beautiful child.'

She smiled, then laughed as she took hold of my hand and squeezed it. She said, 'Oh, Val, I do believe you — what else can I do?'

I kissed her again, and for a longer time. Then I told her, 'When the baby comes, you will look upon him with new eyes, I promise you.'

'But what if we have a girl?'

'Then you will look upon her even more gladly, as will I — especially if she is as beautiful as you.'

She sat quietly for a moment as she oriented her face toward me. Then she asked, 'Do you still think I'm beautiful?'

'More beautiful than any woman I've ever seen,' I told her. 'Even Asha and Varda, all the Star People, would envy you.'

She tapped her fingers to her blindfold and said, 'They would not envy me this, I think.'

I reached out to untie her blindfold and pull it away from her. I traced my fingers beneath her brows and across the bridge of her nose, even as my eyes grew warmer and I couldn't help looking and looking. Finally I said, 'A day will come when you will take this off for good. You will see again, Atara.'

She grasped my hand, and pressed it over the front of her face. She said, 'But I see so much now. I see you.'

I listened as the eagle above us let loose its harsh, haunting cry. I said, 'Tell me what you see, then.'

'I see a man,' she said, 'who had lost everything in the world, only to gain the whole world, and more. You are larger now, somehow, inside. Like that impossible stallion you ride. Like the sun. I don't know how your skin can contain you. You are wilder — so willful and wild. And even angrier than before, and you hate Morjin no less. But it is a different force now. It does not rule you. You rule, now. The man I have wanted to be with every hour and with every breath since I first laid eyes upon him: he, who almost died. I see that one, who somehow found a moment of compassion for the vilest of beasts, even though that beast had slaughtered all that he loved.'

'Not all,' I said, squeezing her hand.

'But your mother and grandmother, your beautiful brothers, they — '

'They are here,' I said, pressing her hand to my chest. 'For so long, I kept thinking of them as murdered, dead. But truly, they live.'

I knew she wanted to weep, but at that moment I felt nothing except joy, and so I held her close to me. For a while, she did weep, but soon her soft sobbing gave way to a deeper heaving of her belly as she began laughing with a gladness for life that she could not contain. Finally, she sat back away from me and said, 'There is such a light in you — this beautiful, beautiful light! Kane says it is like a sword; I mould say like the sweetest fire. I've never known anyone to love like you, to live like you, not even Bemossed. The passion. It is what you were born for. Sometimes, I know, I am all ice inside, but when you touch me the way you do, I'm all water.'

She paused to draw in a deep breath, then added, 'And. that is why I love you. And why I will marry you.'

She kissed me, and then laughed for a long time, a delightful sound, like the ringing of the river. Then I could not contain myself. I leaped up, and pulled her up to her feet. I wanted to throw off my tunic and let the wind cool my burning skin. I wanted to fly like flame over the mountains. Why didn't their snow, I wondered, melt when I looked at it? Why didn't Atara gasp out at the fire in my hands when I took hold of her sides? I lifted her off the blanket then. She was a tall woman, large-boned with lithe muscles like a great, tawny cat, and yet I lifted her as if she were a child, and then whirled her through the air as I began dancing about.

After I had set her down, she turned toward me and said, 'I see a bird, Val. Bigger than that eagle that called to us. Bigger even than a dragon. He is a great swan, as silvery as that sword of yours, and he flies toward the stars. Once there, he becomes a star: so big, so bright. And that is my star, whose light I cannot live without.'

For a while, we stood together on the cool grass, arm in arm. We faced the mountains to the east, over which the sun had risen only a few hours before. Beyond the Nagarshath range stretched the bright, emerald grasses of the Wendrush and the beautiful mountains of my home. And beyond that, the sea. All of Ea, it seemed, lay before us. It would have been easy to think that the whole world was ours, existing only for our pleasure, as Morjin thought of things. And the world was ours — but only to love as we loved each other and to protect with our last breath. I did not need to speak of this to Atara. If our marriage was to mean anything at all, it could only be that we must live for something much greater than ourselves.

I reached down to pick the first flower that I could find, and I pressed into her hand.

'Here,' I told her, 'take this as my troth.'

'A dandelion, Val? It is the most common of flowers.'

'Today, no flower in the world is common to me. But what would you have me give you?'

'Only this,' she said, squeezing her hand around the flower. 'You're right — it is perfect.'

'But what would you give to me?'

She sniffed the air and said, 'A star lily, I think. Their fragrance is so sweet.'

I looked about the meadow at the many flowers, and I finally espied one of these lilies, with its long, slender white petals and bright yellow center like a bit of starfire. It grew among some buttercups and fairies' eyes twenty yards away. I moved to step over to it, but Atara laid her hand on my shoulder.

'No,' she told me. 'I must give it to you.'

And with that, she fairly danced across the meadow. Without the slightest hesitation or fumbling, she reached straight down to pick this one, bright flower. She came back over to me, and wrapped my fingers around it.

'This is my troth to you,' she told me.

Then she reached out with a perfect accuracy to wipe the tears running down my face.

'We have so little time,' she said to me. 'It is so peaceful here. Let's He together while we can. I want to feel your heart beating next to mine.'

We returned to our blankets, and threw our cloaks over our thinly clad bodies to cover us. As I held her close to me, I felt her breath upon my face. I knew that she was willing to give herself to me, utterly, as I was with her. But i knew, as well, that this glorious union must wait. I felt no bitterness in this, only an immense anticipation. She pulled me into the warmth of her breasts and her belly, and I could not tell that we were two separate beings, for our hearts beat as one.

Thus we lay for hours on that bright, perfect afternoon, and the whole world seemed to stand perfectly still. At last, however, the earth carried us into the future, as it always did. It grew cold and dark, and the stars came out like millions of tiny white flowers. For a long time, we soared among them. I listened for the voices of those who dwelled there. I did not know if the dead would ever speak to me again. The living, though, and the infinitude of beings waiting to be born, sang out only the most brilliant of songs. Atara and I sang with them, and so did our son, and our voices, like the exultations of angels, filled the night with a fiery and inextinguishable joy.