Diamond Warriors

Chapter 9

For the next three hours, I put my lips to many cups of brandy raised up to acknowledge the many men who insisted on toasting their new king. I walked among my warriors, looking into their eyes and asking their names. Too, I gathered Joshu Kadar, Sar Shivalad, Sar Kanshar and the other knights whom I had come to call my 'Guardians.' Now that they had made me king, in honor of their greatest aspirations, I formally declared them to be the 'Guardians of the Lightstone.' Then it came time to adjourn to my pavilion. My companions all followed me inside, along with Abrasax and the Masters of the Brotherhood. Bemossed, of course, came with them, and I invited Vareva to speak with us as well. I sat at the head of the long council table, with my companions on one side facing the Seven and Vareva on the other. Bemossed took his place at the end of the table opposite from me.

'I still can't quite believe that you are alive and safe here,' I said to him. I gazed at his bright, restless face, and it seemed that I could not get enough of looking at him.

'But I can believe that you are now king,' he said with a smile. 'Even when you first came to me in your guise as a poor flutist, it seemed that you must be something more. We've come a long way from Hesperu, haven't we?'

'We have,' I agreed, glancing at the ring that sparkled around my finger. 'And you have come a long way from the Valley of the Sun. What happened, friend?'

As Bemossed rubbed at his tired eyes, his gaze seemed to turn inward. I sensed in him many troublesome things: shame, grief, dread and an overwhelming sense of failure. He finally looked at Abrasax to speak for him.

'We had hoped,' Abrasax said in his clear, forceful voice, 'that we had more time. But in the end, the Red Dragon proved too clever. And too powerful.'

He told us, simply, that Morjin had at last discovered the location of the Brotherhood's school that he had been seeking for so long. Then one of Morjin's Kallimun priests had led a whole battalion of soldiers and a company of the terrible Grays into the lower reaches of the White Mountains. This priest — whose name was Arch Igasho — had managed to unlock the secrets of the tunnel that gave into the Valley of the Sun. Then Morjin's men had fallen upon the school with fire and steel and all the evil power of the black gelstei wielded by the leader of the Grays.

'They cut down everyone who tried to reason with them,' Abrasax told us in a heavy voice. 'And they burned everything that could be burned. They found the library, and put torches to the books.'

Master Juwain, nearly stricken by this terrible news, asked him, 'But they can't have burned the vedastei!'

At the mention of these magical books, made of some sort of gelstei that could call ancient knowledge to its crystal pages as of light out of thin air, Abrasax sadly shook his head. And he told us, 'The fire grew so hot it melted the vedastei's crystal. There is nothing left but ashes.'

I stared down at the floor of my tent. With the burning of the millions of books of the Library at Khaisham and now this even greater desecration, it seemed that la had suffered a burning away of wisdom that might plunge the whole world into a Dark Age without end.

'But how could you have verified this?' Master Juwain said to Abrasax. 'Surely you did not remain to see the books destroyed?'

Abrasax's thick beard and hair seemed like a corona of white as he nodded his head for Master Storr to speak. Master Storr sat staring down at his liver-spotted hands. His old, fair face, burned red from his recent travels, grew tighter and tighter as if he could not bring himself to answer Abrasax's silent request.

Then finally he looked up and told us: 'We did see the books destroyed. With this.'

So saying, Master Storr, the Brotherhood's Master Galastei, drew forth a sphere of white gelstei no different than Atara's. And he said to us in his tight, fussy voice: 'We managed to rescue many of the gelstei. I haven't a scryer's ability to see into the future. But sometimes I have seen things far away in space — or not so very far away. This crystal gave sight of what the Red Dragon's men did to our school.'

He held up the clear ball to the light streaming through the pavilion's black silk. I was afraid that if I looked into it too deeply, I would see writhing flames and men screaming in agony.

'You must have taken a blue gelstei, as well,' Liljana said to him. She held up her little whale figurine, 'I know I touched minds with you through this.'

Master Storr nodded his head slowly. 'That was a stroke of good fortune, I think. I wanted you to know that Bemossed was safe.'

Master Juwain sat looking at the clear crystal in Master Storr's hands. 'But what of the Great Gelstei then? Are they safe?'

In answer, Master Matai, an Old Galdan whose white curls fell over a browned, noble face, drew out of his pocket a small, translucent sphere, ruby in color. Master Virang kept a similar stone, tinted golden-orange, while Master Nolashar, the Music Master, had a yellow sun stone, which he raised up gleaming above the council table. I feared that with Master Okuth's death his green heart stone had been lost, but it was not so. Master Storr held it in keeping for the Brotherhood's new Master Healer, whoever that might be; he also still guarded his own purple stone. Master Yasul's mahogany skin cracked into dozens of lines as he smiled and showed us a round, azure gelstei. Abrasax, of course, kept the last and most powerful of these seven stones: a clear bit of crystal no bigger than a marble. In his hand, it seemed insignificant, as did the crystals of the others. But I couldn't help thinking that with great gelstei similar in kind, if not size, at the beginning of time, the Ieldra had summoned a beautiful music that sang the very stars into creation.

'At least, then, Grandfather,' Master Juwain said to Abrasax, 'you have preserved your greatest treasures.'

Abrasax's wise, worn face grew sad beyond bearing as if he had lived not just a hundred and forty-seven years but a million. 'No, our greatest treasures lie dead in the Valley of the Sun. Most of our Brothers fell beneath the soldiers' swords. And those who were captured, Arch Igasho ordered crucified.'

Now Master Juwain bowed his head in shame and grief. It seemed that he had almost forgotten his quest to escape the ideals and abstractions of his head in order to feel with his heart.

Abrasax closed his hand around the Seventh, as his gelstei was called, and he put it away. Then he said, 'We had hope the moment would never come, but we had prepared for it a long time. Our Brothers all died believing their sacrifice was to the good. And we should believe it, too.'

Here he looked at Bemossed, and smiled sadly. Kind, the Brotherhood's Grandmaster might be, and compassionate, too, but I felt a will as hard as diamond buried deep inside him. It seemed that he could accept the sacrifice of others — and even encourage it — if that served his highest purpose. It was a lesson, I thought, that a king must take to heart.

'But how,' Maram asked, 'did you escape, since only one tunnel leads in and out of the valley? Surely the soldiers would have guarded it.'

'Indeed, they did,' Abrasax said. 'But we slipped past them, so to speak.'

He looked at Master Virang, the Meditation Master, who showed us one of his mysterious smiles. I remembered how, when my companions and I had first come into the Valley of the Sun, this small and lively man had somehow concealed the school's buildings from our sight. It seemed just possible that through his great control over his mind, and that of his enemies, he had somehow cast a cloak of invisibility over the Seven and Bemossed, and caused the soldiers not to see them.

'Let us say,' he told us by way of explanation, 'that most men cannot keep their attention where they should. And so they do not see what they should see. And so we were able to hide in plain view of the soldiers — so to speak.'

'As you hid today, out beyond the square?' I asked him.

Master Virang shrugged his shoulders as he touched the wool of the cloak enfolding him. 'For that we needed little more than this.'

His words caused Kane to scowl, and my savage friend said, 'All right — keep your secrets, then. But tell us this: how did igasho get through the tunnel? Did Morjin give him a gelstei that unlocked it?'

'He must have,' Master Storr said. 'As he must have given him another gelstei that gave him sight of our school.'

'Ha — I wouldn't have thought that the damned Igasho, as he calls himself now, could have such skill with such stones.'

Arch Igasho had been born Prince Salmelu Aradar of Ishka into one of the most ancient and noble of Valari lines. All through his youth, he had trained at the sword like any other Valari warrior. But somehow his soul had sickened, and he had surrendered both sword and soul to Morjin. My blood still burned with the kirax that Salmelu had fired into me with his assassin's arrow. In reward for his service, Morjin had made Salmelu a full priest of the Kallimun, and then elevated him again and again.

'You mustn't underestimate this man,' Abrasax said to Kane and me. 'He nearly destroyed you in Hesperu. As he nearly killed all of us — as he did our Brothers.'

'Ha!' Kane said again. 'Igasho is a traitor and a worm, for he lives on Morjin's droppings when he could have been a king in his own right. He failed to kill Val with his damned arrow, as he did in Hesperu — even as he did with you.'

'He did,' Abrasax agreed, 'but each time he came very close. The Red Dragon must hope that the next time he will succeed.'

'In a way, he did succeed,' Master Storr said. 'Our school is destroyed, and some of the brightest souls of our generation. Our books are ashes. Morjin would count this as a victory.'

Abrasax made a fist as he fought for words that must have been hard for him to say: 'Books can always be rewritten and new generations will arise to replace the old. No treasure is beyond being restored. Except one, I fear. This age is almost over, and if it comes to an end without the Maitreya taking the Lightstone in his hands, then all will come to end, forever. For Bemossed, it has been so close — as close as that hair you keep folded in your pocket, Valashlu Elahad.'

I looked at Atara, sitting straight and motionless to my right. I did not know how Abrasax had learned of this great treasure I kept close to my heart, Master Reader of the Brotherhood though he might be. Then this very perceptive man let out a pained breath as he told us of how Bemossed had almost died.

'Our young friend,' Abrasax said, 'was already weak from fighting Morjin for too long. Our struggle to escape the valley weakened him further, and our flight through the mountains even more. And that was not the worst of things.'

'What could be worse than that?' Maram asked. Then his face seemed to drain of blood as he answered his own question: 'The Grays, then — the damn Grays!'

'The Grays indeed,' Abrasax told us.

He went on to say that these soulless men, whose eyes were as hard and dead as pieces of stone, had listened for the murmur-ings of Bemossed's mind and had followed him for many days through the mountains and then out onto the grasslands of the Wendrush. And all the while their leader had used a black gelstei to suck away the very fires of Bemossed's life so that he had sickened nearly to his death.

'It was that way when the Grays pursued us across Alonia,' Maram said with a shudder. 'At the end of things, they put their cold claws into our minds so that we couldn't move. And then came to suck out our souls!'

Maram, I thought, remembering, spoke dramatically but not inaccurately.

'Only Kane's coming saved us then,' Maram told Abrasax. 'But I should think that the powers of the Seven would have saved you.'

'We do have our skills,' Abrasax said with a note of mystery shading his voice. 'Which is why we are even here to tell you how Master Okuth saved Bemossed's life at the sacrifice of his own.'

I remembered very well old Master Okuth's iron-gray hair and heavy head resembling that of an ox. But it seemed that he had possessed the soul of an angel. For as the Seven had fled with Bemossed barely beyond the knives of the Grays and swords of Igasho's men, Master Okuth had employed all his powers to keep Bemossed from failing and falling off his horse. And at the end, when Bemossed could go no further. Master Okuth had used his green heart stone to pour his own life fires into Bemossed as if giving him his own blood. This greatest of all kindnesses had killed Master Okuth — even as it gave Bemossed the strength to go on.

'We buried Master Okuth in the Sarni way,' Abrasax said, 'on a knoll above the Astu River. And then we rode on.'

'But how did you escape then?' Maram asked. 'From the Grays!'

Abrasax pulled at his white beard as if deciding how much he should tell us. Then he nodded his head for Master Nolashar to speak.

In answer, Master Nolashar took out a flute little different than the one I had once given to Estrella. Although he wore his hair cut short, like Kane's, and he now practiced with this instrument rather than the sword, he had been born a Valari many years ago — into which land he had never said. His large eyes gazed with great intensity out of a stark and stem face. Yet deep down he seemed a happy man, as why shouldn't he be? For he had spent most of his life in the study of music which had been my first and greatest dream.

'The Grays,' he said, 'listen for the sounds of the soul in the minds of those they hunt. Other sounds can overwhelm these and confuse them. In particular, music.'

Maram gazed at him with doubt coloring his face. 'Are you telling us that you threw the Grays off your trail by playing your flute?'

'No, Sar Maram, I am not telling you that. There are many ways of making music.'

The tones of his smooth voice hinted at much more than he would say. Had he, with his bright sun stone, led the Seven to call up enchanting melodies out of their gelstei and cast this unearthly music across the steppe to madden the Grays? Or a vastly deeper sound that might have utterly deafened them? It seemed that Master Nolashar, too. liked to keep his secrets.

'Let us just say,' he told us, 'that in the end the Grays and soldiers rode in one direction, while we rode in another.'

I nodded my head at this, then looked down the long table at Bemossed. He sat as within a cloud of melancholy, and seemed to hold on to this dark mood as he might an old friend. I felt torment and self-doubt eating at his insides, and I thought I knew why.

'Master Okuth,' I said to him, 'was a very good man.'

'He was like my father!' Bemossed said with tears filling his eyes. 'As I think my father must have been. He died trying to protect me, too.'

'And that was surely the best thing he ever did. As he would have wanted to tell you. And so with Master Okuth.'

Bemossed looked down at his long hands, which had performed so many loathsome tasks during his years as a despised Hajarim slave. Then he said, 'In Hesperu, they flavor wine with oranges, cloves, pepper and honey. Fire wine, they call it. It is like an elixir of the angels — I was allowed to taste it once, and I got drunk on it. That is how it was with Master Okuth. He gave me his life! Even as it emptied from him, I felt it filling me up, like fire, so hot, so sweet. And now his bones lie cold and picked white on the grass of the Wendrush while here I sit with my blood still beating sweetly through me.'

'Fathers,' I told him, remembering, 'die for their sons. That is life.'

'No, that is death,' he murmured to me.

'Master Okuth would not have wanted to hear you say that.'

'No, Valashu — I know you are right. And I know I must honor Master Okuth in living, as best I can, as I was born to do. It is just that. .'

His voice vanished into the quiet of the tent: from outside came the muffled cries of many men drinking and celebrating.

'What is it, friend?' I asked him.

He seemed to fight back some deep dread inside him, and a warmer thing, too. Then he said, 'It is just that one shouldn't pour wine into a cracked vessel.'

At this, Abrasax and the other masters looked at him with deep concern. So did my companions, and so did I.

'Once,' I said to him, 'I thought wrongly that I was the Maitreya. And people therefore thought wrongly of me that I would be without flaws. But, like any other man, I was only — '

'No, I am not speaking of common faults. Jealousy, stubbornness, uncertainty — these I know as well as anyone.' He paused to draw in a long breath as he looked at me. 'But there is something else. Something that I can't even tell you because I can't quite see it myself. A wrongness. The Maitreya, you call me, the Shining One. But I can't always hold this light that I should be able to hold. I can't always be it, even though it is always there and in some strange way I can't ever not be it. And when I can't there is a kind of darkness, inside the light. It goes on and on, forever. It… is hard to describe. But Master Okuth knew, I think. And Morjin.'

'Morjin!' I called out, nearly shouting.

'I have fought with him for what seems forever,' he said. 'It is killing me, Valashu!'

I sensed something dark and dreadful pulling at him inside, and he seemed immensely tired and older than the twenty-three years he supposed himself to be. Then I remembered lines from an old verse:

The Shining One

In innocence sleeps

Inside his heart

Angel fire sleeps

And when he wakes

The fire leaps.

About the Maitreya

One thing is known:

That to himself

He always is known

When the moment comes

To claim the Lightstone.

The Maitreya he must be, I thought. He must be. But I wondered if circumstances — and my own desperate purpose — had forced him to take on this mantle before he had fully awakened. The verse hinted at a kind of quickening and self-knowing that would occur only when the Maitreya set hands upon the Lightstone. It tormented me that in losing the Lightstone to Morjin, I might have kept Bemossed from his fate.

'You are safe here,' I told him, not quite knowing what to say. I looked down at my new ring, and then pointed in the direction of the square outside the tent. 'As safe, now, as anywhere on Ea. Fifteen thousand warriors stand ready to fight to the death to protect you.'

'King Valamesh,' he said to me with a forced smile, 'I do not want a single warrior to fight and die for me.'

'Nor I,' I told him. 'But I will never let Morjin harm you.'

'Is that power now yours, great King?'

He sat gazing at me, then he drew out of his pocket a small, shining bowl that had been made in the image of the Lightstone. It was an ancient work of silver gelstei, tinted gold; through the power of this vessel Bemossed could sense the vastly greater power of the distant Lightstone and contend with Morjin over its mastery.

'Every day,' he told me, 'I wake up and take this cup into my hands, and my battle with Morjin begins anew. At night, when I am able to sleep, I keep it close to my heart as I fight with him in my dreams. Every hour, every minute — every moment that I push against his will, he harms me.'

I sat gripping the hilt of the work of silver gelstei that had been given to me. Liljana kept her blue gelstei safe, as did Master Juwain his varistei, and my other friends their stones. Only through Bemossed's struggle with Morjin, I knew, could we use our gelstei without Morjin wielding the Lightstone to pervert and control them. As only Bemossed's sacrifice kept Morjin from freeing the Dark One from Damoom.

'You must be strong,' I said to him. I heard myself speaking as a king, and I hoped Bemossed would not hate me for that. 'As you truly are — as strong as steel.'

'You do not understand,' he said, looking down at his cup.

His long lashes were like dark curtains falling over his eyes. And I told him, 'In Senta, in the Singing Caves, I listened as the Morjin of old lamented his murdering of an angel: his best friend. And more than once, Liljana has touched minds with the Beast.'

'You do not understand,' Bemossed said again, now looking up at me. 'It is not his mind that I must face. It is his soul. And the crack through it is so black and deep it could swallow up the stars. It goes on and on forever.'

Something inside him seemed bruised, as if he had taken too many blows from a mace. I drew in a deep breath as I listened to swords clashing in practice rounds and men singing outside. And I said to him: 'It will not be forever that you must fight Morjin this way. I returned to Mesh just so that you would not have to fight him alone.'

'Fifteen thousand warriors have acclaimed you, and that is a great thing. But Morjin, it is said, commands a million men.'

I looked down at my sword, and I said, 'We will prevail over Morjin. There must be a way.'

'Not that way,' Bemossed said, pointing at Alkaladur.

'You have only to be strong a little longer,' I told him, not really wanting to hear his words. 'We must.'

'Yes, friend, we must.'

I drew my sword a few inches from its scabbard so that I might see its gleaming blade.

'You would still kill him,' he said to me. 'Kill him and cut the Lightstone from his hands.'

'And you would still heal him,' I said, looking up at him.

'And why not? He is a man like any other.'

'No, not like any other.'

'His deepest desire is to be made whole.'

'No — not his deepest desire.'

'He is a man,' he told me, 'even as you are.'

'No, he is a beast.'

Bemossed rubbed his tired face as he stared off toward the roof of the tent. Then he said to me: 'Somewhere on Ea, there is a man who has been faithful, dutiful and kind all his life. A good man, Valashu. And for no reason that anyone else can see, his soul will sicken and then one day something within him will break. He might strangle his wife in a jealous rage or even slay his best friend arguing over the rights to a stream dividing their lands. And ever after, set out on a life of murder and outlawry. That man, I tell you, is more dangerous than Morjin would be if only he turned back to the light.'

Now I had to consider what Bemossed had told me. Finally I said to him: 'But he won't turn back, and that is what is so terrible about Morjin. He likes doing evil.'

Bemossed said nothing to this as he looked at me. His hands tightened around the silver gelstei called the False Lightstone.

'I think,' I said to him, pointing at the cup, 'that you have already begun trying to heal him through that.’

He nodded his head to me. 'As this touches upon the Lightstone, it opens upon Morjin's soul.'

'And so the reverse must be.'

His eyes grew sad and anguished as he said, 'Yes, I know that is how Morjin found me and the Brothers' school.'

For a while he descended into that dark, watery part of himself from which he took too great a comfort. Then he looked over at Estrella, sitting quietly as she fairly drank in each of his words. She smiled at him, as if his essential goodness couldn't help but make her happy. Her warm, lively face seemed to remind him of the incredible brightness of his own being and draw out of him something even warmer.

'Don't be afraid for me,' he finally told me. He seemed to brighten like a sunrise, for that, too, was his power and delight. 'As you said, there is always a way.'

Now he, too, smiled, and I wondered that I had ever worried that Morjin might find a way to destroy him. He sat up taller and straighter as a new strength poured into him from some secret source. His radiant face made me recall the three signs by which a Maitreya might be recognized: steady abidance in the One; looking upon all with an equal eye; unshakable courage at all times.

I felt my heart beating out great bursts of my life as I looked at him, and he looked at me — and looked deep inside me. At last, he asked me: 'What ails you, Valashu?'

I glanced around the tent for any sign of the dark thing that had hounded me since my return to Mesh. Although I could not see it, a black cloud seemed to hang over my head no matter which direction I turned to look toward the future. I had not wanted to speak so soon of my deepest affliction and add yet another stone to the great weight pulling Bemossed down. But the time had come, I saw, when I must tell of the Ahrim.

'It is like a great nothing,' I said to Bemossed and the Masters of the Brotherhood, 'that holds more power than everything-, all the suns and stars across the universe.'

Bemossed listened as I described my battle with the Ahrim in the wood near Lord Harsha's farm, and then my struggle to speak out the truth of things not an hour ago. He turned the whole of his awareness upon my words, the dread breaking from my eyes, the anguish in my heart. Who could not love a man who put aside his own sufferings in order to uplift another? As Bemossed's whole being seemed to grow brighter and brighter, I realized the essential thing about him: that he must find a way to heal those he cared about — either that; or die. And that he could bring the most splendid of lights to others, but not to himself.

'I am sorry that I said you did not understand what it is like with Morjin,' he told me. 'In the end, I think, we face the same evil.'

Abrasax nodded his head at this. Then he said to me, 'This thing you have told of remains unknown to us. But it is clear that you must fight it even as you did Morjin in Hesperu.'

'I will fight Morjin with this,' I said, unsheathing Alkaladur and holding it shining up toward the apex of the tent.

Abrasax smiled at this in his mysterious way. Then he asked me, 'Can you tell me in truth that the sword you hold in your hand and the one you carry inside are not the same?'

'Of course they are not the same,' I said, looking at Alkaladur's luminous silustria.

'Perhaps not the same, then. But not entirely two, either.'

I thought about this as I gazed at the blade that had been named the Sword of Fate. I knew that in some strange way, Abrasax must be right.

'I have said many times,' he told me, 'that Morjin will never be defeated through force of arms alone. But there must be a way to defeat him — even as you did Lord Tomavar.'

At the sound of his voice, my sword grew brighter.

'Can that be?' I whispered. 'Can that truly be?'

'It must be,' Abrasax told me. 'I can see no other hope for victory.'

My hands tightened around the diamonds set into my sword's hilt. And I shook my head. 'But Morjin is not Lord Tomavar.'

'No, he is not. But you will not fight him alone.'

He turned to look at Bemossed, and so did I. Then he continued, 'You and Bemossed have seemed at odds today. But you must remember that you are as brothers, and do fight the same battle. He will help you, if you let him, Valashu. As we will help him.'

I met his gaze and thought of the seven Great Gelstei that he and the other Masters of the Brotherhood kept. I wanted to believe what he told me.

'The time is coming,' he said, 'when everything and all of us will be put to the test.'

Here he nodded at Alphanderry, who occupied one of the table's chairs, not as a man of flesh and blood pressing against wood, but rather as a gleaming substance contained by it.

'Your messenger's warning to you concurs with what we know,' he went on. 'Master Matai?'

He turned to the Brotherhood's Master Diviner. Despite his years. Master Matai seemed possessed of an innocence and a great gratitude for the wisdom his discipline had brought him. He said to us: 'I have been plotting the movements of the heavens all my life. The planets and stars all gather toward a great moment. If my calculations are correct, then the alignment that your friend told of will occur on the eighth day of Valte.'

On that day, he said, Ea and Damoom would perfectly come into conjunction with Agathad where the greatest of the Galadin dwelled by the silver lake known as Skol. Then out of Ninsun, at the center of the universe, the Ieldra's radiance would pour out in a golden light upon these three fated planets, whether in creation or destruction not even the angels could say.

'There is nearly infinite power in the Golden Band,' Master Matai told us. 'And if Morjin can use the Lightstone to seize upon it and free Angra Mainyu, then. .'

He did not finish his sentence. He did not have to state, one more time, the danger hanging over Ea and all of Eluru: that if Angra Mainyu were loosed upon the universe, a dark age lasting forever would descend upon all the stars, and the Ieldra would be forced to put an end to their glorious creation.

'I cannot believe that will ever be,' Abrasax said, looking at me. 'I must believe Ayondela Kirriland's prophecy: "The seven brothers and sisters of the earth with the seven stones will set forth into the darkness. The Lightstone will be found, the Maitreya will come forth, and a new age will begin.'"

He nodded his head as if in agreement with one side in an ongoing argument that he held with himself. Then he said, 'The first half of the prophecy has already come to pass, for who can doubt that a new age will soon begin, whether for good or ill? I do not doubt the final part of the prophecy: "A seventh son with the mark of Valoreth will slay the dragon. The old world will be destroyed and a new world created."'

'But, Grandfather,' Maram said, 'a scryer's words are like a cat's eyes: they can change colors, depending on how one looks at them. Val has already slain the dragon. A real dragon, of flesh and blood and fire. In Argattha, he put his sword into Angraboda's heart, and killed that monster.'

'But is that the dragon of which the prophecy speaks?' Abrasax asked him.

'You tell me!'

'I shall tell you this,' Abrasax said, pointing at the bandage that Master Juwain had plastered above my eye. 'Val has been cut on his forehead; in the same place, yet a third time in his life. The mark of Valoreth, indeed! We should all take great hope from this miracle. As we should pay close attention to the ordering of the lines of Ayondela's prophecy: 'The Lightstone will be found, the Maitreya will come forth" — and only then will the dragon be slain. But slain how, I ask you? Not, I hope, by a sword through Morjin's heart. Not by that sword, which Val holds in his hands. I pray it will be as Bemossed has said: that Morjin can be aided to turn back to the light. And if he can be, then the Dragon will truly be slain, for Morjin's evil self will perish, and the Great Red Dragon will be no more. And Morjin will stand radiant and good, as he was born to be.'

For a while we all sat quiet and unmoving at my council table. The sun's fierce rays pierced through the thin, woven fibers of my tent. Outside, men were singing out the verses of the old epic that told of Aramesh's defeat of Morjin.

Then Kane stood up and began pacing back and forth like a tiger locked in a cage. Beneath his taut, sunburnt skin, his muscles bunched and relaxed in rhythm with the pounding of his savage heart. At last, he paused by Abrasax's chair, and fixed him with his black, blazing eyes.

'So,' he said. His voice rumbled up out of him like molten rock from a crack in the earth. 'You reopen the old argument. The old, old argument.'

Only a day before, Master Juwain had pulled an arrow from his lung; the immense vitality pouring out of him suggested that he had forgotten this insult to his flesh. But I sensed him reliving grievances as ancient as the stars — and much else, too. His eyes grew clear and bright, and sad, and I saw looking out through them a strange and ancient being.

'There was a man,' he said. His voice flowed out rich, deep, fiery and pained. 'Ha — a man who had once been a man. A warrior of the spirit, for he lived in obedience with the One's law that the Elijin are not permitted to slay. He, too, believed that a great soul could be turned back toward the light.'

As the afternoon lengthened and it grew warmer inside the tent, my friend who was now very much a warrior of the sword spoke of the ancient ages long before the Star People had come to earth. He told us of Asangal's fall as the damned angel called Angra Mainyu — and the great War of the Stone that had resulted when Angra Mainyu stole the Lightstone to challenge the will of the Ieldra. Half of Eluru's Elijin and Galadin, known as the Daevas or Betrayers, had followed Angra Mainyu into exile, while the others called themselves the Amshahs: they who would preserve the Law of the One. They remained with Ashtoreth and Valoreth on Agathad, which some called Skol. There, led by the immortal Kalkin, they worked to drive the poison from Angra Mainyu's heart. Some of what he told us the Galadin's messenger, two years before, had confided to my companions and me in a stone amphitheater outside of Tria. And now, as Kane paused to look at Alphanderry and asked him to sing for us, a very different messenger recited lines from the ancient verse:

When first the Dragon ruled the land,

The ancient warrior came to Skol.

He sought for healing with his hand,

And healing fire burned his soul.

The sacred spark of hope he held,

It glowed like leaves an emerald green;

In heart and hand it brightly dwelled:

The fire of the Galadin.

He brought this flame into a world

Where flowers blazed like stellulars,

Where secret colors flowed and swirled

And angels walked beneath the stars.

To Star-Home thus the warrior came,

Beside the ancient silver lake,

By hope of heart by fire and flame,

A sacred sword he vowed to make.

Alkaladur! Alkaladur!

The Sword of Love, the Sword of Light,

Which men have named Awakener

From darkest dreams and fear-filled night.

No noble metal, gem or stone -

Itsblade of finer substance wrought.

Of essence pure as love alone,

As strong as hope, as quick as thought.

Valarda, like molten steel,

Like tears, like waves of singing light,

Which angel fire has set its seal

And breath of angels polished bright.

Ten thousand years it took to make

Beneath their planet's shining sun;

Ten thousand angels by the lake:

The souls poured forth their fire as one.

In strength surpassing adamant,

Its perfect beauty diamond-bright,

No gelstei shone more radiant:

The sacred sword was purest light.

Alkaladur! Alkaladur!

The Sword of Ruth, the Healing Blade,

Which men have named the

Messenger Of hope of angels' star-blessed aid.

In ruth the warrior went to war,

A host of angels in his train:

Ten thousand Amshahs, all who swore

To heal the Dark One's bitter pain,

With Kalkin, splendid Solajin

And Varkoth, Set and Ashtoreth -

The greatest of the Galadin

Went forth to vanquish fear of death.

And Urukin and Baradin,

In all their pity, pomp and pride:

The brightest of the Elijin

In many thousands fought and died.

Their gift, valarda, opened them:

Into their hearts a fell hate poured;

This turned the warrior's stratagem

For none could wield the sacred sword.

'None could wield it!' Kane suddenly called out, interrupting Alphanderry. 'The Dark One waited for the Amshahs to open their hearts, in ruth — even in love. But he was ruthless, eh? And so he drove all the vileness of his spirit into them, and slew those who could be slain.'

I felt the blood pounding in his face as his eyes filled with a black and bitter thing. I had a hard time believing that my furious friend could once have been Kalkin: the Elijin lord and mighty warrior told of in the verse.

He saw me looking at him, and moved over to my chair. Without any care that I now might be king, he reached out to lay his hand upon my chest. And to Abrasax, he said, 'We call that within Val's heart a sword. Of light, of love. But it has other names, eh? The soul force, the valarda, the fire of the stars. So, Alkaladur. The Elijin possess it, too, and to greater measure, for they are greater beings; in the Galadin it truly blazes as brightly as the stars. If they, in their thousands, could not turn back Angra Mainyu, why should you demand of Val that he must strike his sword of light into Angra Mainyu's creature?'

Abrasax considered his response only a moment before he answered him: 'Because it is wrong, even for men, to kill. And because in harming others, we harm ourselves.'

According to his ideals, he had elucidated the highest of principles. But for me, the valarda was no theory on how to live, but the very agony and heartbeat of life itself. And death. Atara had once told me that on the day I killed Morjin, I would kill myself. I feared that she might be right.

'Your way,' Abrasax said to Kane, 'has always been the sword — whether of silustria or steel.'

'Not always,' Kane reminded him.

At this, Abrasax bowed bis head as if to honor Kane. Then he told him: 'But you can never defeat Angra Mainyu this way. He was the greatest of the Galadin, and so you cannot even harm him.'

'No, I cannot — not that way,' Then quick as a breath, Kane drew his kalama from its sheath. 'But I can destroy Morjin this way. Or Val can. And so the Lightstone might be regained and given to the Maitreya.'

He looked at Bemossed sitting quietly at the end of the table, and so did everyone else.

'I will not,' Bemossed told him. 'have men go marching out to war on my account.'

'On your account,' Kane growled out, 'men will come here marching to war, whether you will it or not.'

He went on to tell us what he had learned in Galda: that armies gathered and everywhere men spoke of Morjin and the coming great crusade.

'I am almost sure that Morjin went to Galda,' he told us. 'To put down the rebellion, yes, but even more to drive the Galdans to war. Now that Bemossed has come here, which he will certainly learn, he will send soldiers to hunt him down. He cannot allow the Valari to unite around such a great light. But he won't strike straight at Mesh, with a small force, as before. He will march with all his armies, and surround the Nine Kingdoms. And then he will annihilate the Valari, once and for all.'

His words clearly distressed Abrasax, who pressed his fingers against the snowy hair covering his temple. He seemed to be fighting a battle within himself — I guessed between discretion and the telling of the truth. In the end, truth prevailed.

'After we eluded the Grays,' he told us, 'we fled across the Wendrush into the Niuriu's lands. There we learned evil tidings.'

He pressed his fingers into his neck below his ear. Those of the Brotherhood, I knew, were masters of revitalizing the body through touching upon critical points where the body's deep flames whirled.

'The Red Dragon,' he told us, 'has conquered Eanna. He sent a great fleet up through the Dragon Channel. It defeated the Eannan navy. His Hesperuk and Sungurun armies then landed outside of Ivalo in the west, while King Ulanu and his soldiers attacked up from Yarkona in the southeast. They split the kingdom in two, and finally brought King Hanniban to battle — and nearly destroyed him. On the eighth of Ashte, this was. King Hanniban has fled with a thousand of his men to Alonia. It is thought that the Red Dragon might next send his armies there.'

'So, that is the way of things, then,' Kane said. 'With Eanna gone, there's nothing to stop the Hesperuk fleet from sailing straight through the Dolphin Channel into Tria.'

'But that is exactly the Beast's plan!' Vareva called out. For all the time we had sat together, this strong, lovely woman had remained quiet, listening politely to all that transpired. Now, however, she told us of things that she had too long held inside. 'In Argattha, one of Morjin's priests said this! They called him Arch Yadom — sometimes Lord Yadom. It was said that Morjin trusted no man more.'

My jaws clenched as I looked at Vareva. I remembered too well the filthy torturer of whom she spoke: a man with a long skull and hooked nose that made him seem like a vulture.

Kane, always alert for subterfuge, caught Vareva in his dark gaze. 'Morjin trusted no man more, and this I believe. But then why should we trust what Arch Yadom told you? Perhaps this is exactly what he wanted you to believe — and to tell us.'

'Are you saying that the Beast allowed me to escape?'

'How else do you think you found your way out? Of Argattha?'

Vareva shook her head so violently that her long, black hair whipped into the face of Master Matai, sitting beside her. And she called out, 'No, no, no — I know Lord Yadom would not let me escape. He was in love with me! A vile priest of the Kallimun, it is true, and it was a vile and twisted love, if I can even call it that. But when he was drunk, he used to whisper things to me. And at other times. He told me that if I didn't do exactly as he said, he would split me in two — as Morjin planned to split the Nine Kingdoms in two! After Morjin conquered Alonia, the Dragon Armies would march south to — '

'All right,' Kane growled, cutting her off, 'then Yadom must have let you go at Morjin's command.'

'No, you don't know how it was!' Vareva slammed the flat of her hand against the table with such force the wood rang out. 'After Arch Yadom was done with me, I was to have been given to Morjin. He had prepared a torture for me — he would not say what and so ruin the surprise. It was some new kind of crucifixion, I think. He had promised to show all his priests what he planned for the Valari.'

Kane stared at her hard, without compassion, or so it seemed. I sensed Vareva holding back her tears as she stared right back at him. Finally I stood up and grasped Kane's arm.

'Enough!' I said to him. 'What Vareva has told us agrees with the Grandmaster's tidings and your own guess as to Morjin's strategy.'

'So it does. But what if Morjin has a deeper strategy, eh?'

Again, he turned to look at Vareva. Then I gripped his arm even more tightly and called out: 'Enough, Kane! She has suffered enough!'

It turned out that after Vareva's escape from Argattha, she had walked straight across the burning grasslands of the Wendrush for more than four hundred miles. She had eaten insects or carrion, when she could find it, and when she couldn't, nothing at all. Miraculously, she had neither drowned crossing rivers nor been devoured by lions or bitten by poisonous snakes. But even as she had drawn within sight of the Morning Mountains, her tide of fortune had turned the other way, for she had been captured by warriors of the Yarkut clan of the eastern Urtuk — the very same clan which had once cut off my uncle, Ramashan's, head and sent it back to Mesh in a basket to show their contempt for all Valari emissaries. The Yarkut had held a fierce debate over what to do with Vareva. Some of their warriors called for her to be held for ransom, while others fought for the right to take her as a concu-bine; a few warriors wanted nothing more than to burn her at the stake and make wagers as to how long it would take her to scream. It was even as she faced these dire circumstances that Abrasax and the other masters, with Bemossed, had also approached Mesh's mountains.

'Thank you, Sire,' Vareva said as she bowed her head to me. She cast Kane a long, angry look. 'I have suffered enough at the hands of men, but no more. I do not know what would have happened to me if the Brothers, and Bemossed, had not come along.'

It turned out, too — this is the story as Vareva told it — that Bemossed and the others had walked right into the Yarkut's encampment as if out of a mirage. Bemossed had stunned the Yarkut's headman, Barukurk, by simply asking for Vareva to accompany him and the Seven on their journey. The fierce Yarkut warriors whispered that Bemossed had somehow laid an enchantment on Barukurk. A few of them told of how Barukurk couldn't help staring at Bemossed; he was like a captive, they said, who had been staked out with his eyelids cut off beneath a blazing sun. Barukurk had then stunned everyone by giving Bemossed a ring of gold, and escorting Varveva, the Brothers and Bemossed to the very foot of the mountains.

'It is a time for miracles,' Vareva said. Then she clasped the hilt of her sword as she turned to bow her head to Kane. 'But I agree with my King's old companion. They will never come to pass unless we can keep the Shining One safe.'

Abrasax's great head nodded, too. But he did not so much bow in agreement with this as he did look down in defeat. At last he turned to gaze at me. 'I think, then, that you have decided on war, King Valamesh.'

'War, yes,' I said to him. I looked at the deadly weapon I still held in my hands. I looked down the length of the table at Bemossed, so trusting, so bright and utterly vulnerable. 'But a war of the sword or a war of the spirit, I do not know.'

After that, we concluded our council. Soon I would have to go back outside with the others to rejoin the festivities. It should have been the greatest day of my life, full of song and celebration. For the first time, however, I felt the great weight of kingship fall upon me. I gazed at the five bright diamonds set into the ring my father had once worn, and I heard a voice whispering to me that I would yet kill many more men with my sword on the long and seemingly endless road to war.