Diamond Warriors

Chapter 26

Historians would record that on the tenth day of Ashvar in the year 2815 of the Age of the Dragon, the victorious army of King Valamesh entered the City of Light. It should have been a radiant moment of bells ringing and people rejoicing in the streets. But it was not.

The Red Dragon had visited all his fire and wrath upon Ea's oldest human habitation. His soldiers had almost completely razed three quarters of the city, putting to the torch anything constructed of wood. They had used a stonecrusher to shatter granite houses to rubble and great buildings, too: the Tur-Tisander; the Tower of the Morning Star; the Old Sanctuary of the Maitriche Tern; the Hastar Palace; the Sarojin and Eluli Bridges — and many many other structures. The wall surrounding the city, they had smashed in several places. From the Poru River west, past the once-great Varkoth Gate and then north toward the Manwe Gate, the whole wall lay in ruins. The docks along the river, both its east and west banks, had been reduced to a broken black char. Miraculously, however, one of the greatest works of architecture ever cast up on Ea remained unharmed. The Star Bridge — also called the Golden Band — still spanned the Poru in a single, glorious arch made of living stone. Perhaps Morjin's stonecrusher had no power to pierce to the heart of this marvelous substance, fabricated during the great Age of Law. Or perhaps Morjin, with time pressing at him, had felt himself forced to march from the city before he could wreak his full vengeance upon her.

On the day we entered the city, the foul weather of late autumn moved in over Tria from the Northern Ocean in a mass of gray rain clouds that would block out sight of the sun for days on end. Then too, the Trians would not easily come to welcome a Valari as their High King. King Kiritan had once told me that I might marry Atara when I brought the Lightstone into his hall. This I had once done but too late for Alonia's great king to give me his daughter's hand, as one of Morjin's creatures had murdered him. Even if King Kiritan had lived, however, he could not have presided over any such union within his hall for Morjin had reduced the huge Narmada Palace — and all the buildings on its grounds — to broken bits of stone. With some regret and much reluctance, I ordered my army to encamp there, at the top of the highest of Tria's seven hills. The Trians, I reasoned, had become used to casting their gazes in that direction to behold the seat of Alonia's power and glory. It might comfort them to see that Ea's High King, although an outlander from Mesh, had at least restored law and order.

With winter soon coming on, both were badly needed in a place that had fallen nearly into lawlessness. And even more, the Trians — those who hadn't fled the ruins of their city — required food, shelter, clean water and the other necessities of life. Too many of them shivered beneath crude coverings of animal hides draped over blackened poles as their only protection against Ashvar's icy rains. The cries of babies wailed out day and night from these acres of squalid half-tents as their mothers' milk dried up. Long before spring, I feared, many men, women and children would begin starving to death.

'So it must have been in Surrapam after the Hesperuks devastated it,' Maram said to me late in Ashvar as we stood on the scorched grass of the palace grounds looking out over the city. 'I've always regretted having to flee that poor land and leaving the Surrapamers to such a fate.'

I had, too, and so before King Thaddeu had marched away from the Detheshaloon, I had made him promise to send aid to Surrapam to repair a part of the damage wrought by his father's murderous ambition. All Ea's people, now, I told Maram, would have to help each other.

Toward that end, I asked Lord Harsha to oversee the rebuilding of Ea's docks. This practical farmer and proud warrior had a great talent for dealing with almost anything of the material world. He sent his quartermasters galloping across the countryside outside the city to locate supplies of lumber. Soon, along both the Poru's muddy banks, the sound of saws tearing through wood ripped out into the cold, wet air. The new quays and docks, smelling of sap and tar, took form and pushed out into the river. Then bilanders and barks and other sailing ships made their way in from the sea and past the rocky island of Damoom to tie up in Tria's new harbor. They came from Delu, the Elyssu, Nedu and even faraway Thalu, and brought with them grain, oil, salt, furs, iron, wood — and a thousand other needful things. King Kurshan, still encamped with his warriors and the other Valari at the heart of the city, nevertheless managed to get word to his kingdom's people that the Lagashuns should send out a small fleet of ships to Tria. That did not prove so grand or impossible a venture as sailing through the waters of the Northern Passage and up to the stars. But the sacks of barley in the holds of the Lagashun ships kept many from starving — and that seemed a miracle enough.

On the darkest day of the year, Atara informed me that she was carrying our child. I wanted to rejoice and call for a thousand bottles of brandy to be emptied in celebration. I wanted to set a date for our wedding, too. But Atara, her voice heavy with sorrow, said to me, 'Let us wait, Val, for winter to end, and then we shall see.'

When Triolet came and spring beckoned, we began to build Tria anew. On a cool, blustery day, Kalkin stood with me on top of the rabble that had once been King Kiritan's palace. He stamped his boot against the pulverized stone and said to me, 'The new city will rise up out of the old. Just as your ancestors built Tria on top of an even more ancient city.'

'But I thought that the Star People founded Tria,' I said to him.

Kalkin's gaze seemed to tear open the ground. 'When Elahad led the Valari here to what he supposed was a virgin world, Ea was already old beyond old, as I've told you. Erathe, we once called it. And if we dug down deeply enough through this, we would find the ruins of Trialune.'

He went on to say that it was in Trialune that a great king had ruled the world before he had become the first of the Elijin.

'Build well,' he said, looking up at me. 'Make yourself a city that will be a glory to the earth and stars.'

And build we did. True to his admonition, I called to Tria architects, stonecutters, masons and sculptors from across Alonia, and indeed, the whole world. Once we had the roads repaired, teams of oxen drew forth carts of white and silver granite cut from the quarries to the southwest of the city. As well, ships brought into port cargoes of fine Delian marble, dragonstone from faraway Nedu and the very best Galdan glass, in dozens of colors. Such materials would have sufficed to restore Tria to its former splendor. But I wished for something more, and toward that end, I asked Ymiru for the help of his people. Late in Triolet, from out of the fastness of the White Mountains, Ymiru summoned forth a host of Ymaniri, who journeyed across the Wendrush bearing iron mallets and chisels and a great knowledge of the art of shaping stone. And making it, as well. For the Frost Giants, as the incredulous Trians thought of these massive, white-furred men, had used purple gelstei to grow the huge crystals that gone into the building of the beautiful Alundil, the City of the Stars. Or rather, the Ymaniri's ancestors had, for they now possessed only a single lilastei, kept in trust by Ymiru. They would need dozens of such to accomplish the great work that I, and Ymiru himself, envisioned.

And so once again, Kalkin shared with Ymiru the ancient lore of the Star People, and Ymiru used his violet stone to create out of dragon ore another, and then fifty of these powerful gelstei. They made as well new firestones. Then the Ymaniri went to work, molding hard stone as they might clay, cutting flame through granite and raising up houses, inns, temples and other buildings. They fabricated sheets and blocks of living stone, in all its shimmering iridescence, and they crystalized out of water pure shatar, as clear and hard as quartz. One of the Ymaniri — the Elder named Hramjir — even succeeded in making glisse: a crystal nearly as adamantine as diamond and invisible to the eye. It would be many years before the Ymaniri, along with the Alonians and others who had come to this ruined place, set the last stone and called Tria complete. But by the first day of Ashte, with the fields outside the walls greening, flashes of ruby fire filled the air over the city from the Arwe Gate in the east to the Urwe Gate in the northwest, and its light spilled over the beginnings of new spires, towers and great bridges arching across the Poru River.

All this construction would take a great deal of time, and treasure. Many people paid for Tria's splendor with their sweat, blood and life fire freely given. But I sent gold to Galda in payment for their glass, and so to other kingdoms for other materials. Much of this coin — good, solid Alonian archers, as the shining round disks were called — came from King Kiritan's hoard, divided up by the Narmadas after he had been murdered. That hall of the clan led by Javas Narmada surrendered this wealth gladly, while Belur Narmada, who had supported neither Morjin nor myself in the war, made great complaint. But I proclaimed that the Narmadas' treasure belonged to the true Narmada heir, and that was Atara. Furthermore. I told Alonia's great lords that they must all contribute to Trias rebuilding, and indeed, that of the entire world. I summoned them to the city late in Ashte. We met on the lawn outside of the new palace rising up from the Hill of Gold, as the Trians called this residence of their most powerful families. I commanded my army to draw up in all their thousands; my warriors' suits of diamond armor glittered beneath the sun in an eye-burning brilliance. Before them, in their finest tunics, embroidered with jewels and gold, stood Count Muar of Iviunn and Duke Malatam of Tarlan, who had both marched with Morjin's Dragon army. And Harkin Kirriland, scion of one of the ancient Five Families, which had ruled Alonia since time immemorial, and Duke Parran of Jerolin. All those who had answered my call to battle gathered there, too: Young Baron Narcavage, Baron Monteer, Javaris Narmada and the Eriades brothers, Julun and Breyonan. They looked uneasily upon their countrymen who had done nothing either to help or hinder Morjin, but preferred to stand back and hope that Morjin's army and mine might destroy each other. The most powerful of these were Belur Narmada and Baron Maruth of the Aquantir. Bringing Alonia's great lords together, I thoughtpwas something like herding tigers, for it had taken a strong sovereign such as King Kiritan to keep them from falling with swords on each other and tearing Alonia apart.

I stood before them, with Atara at my side and my warriors behind us, and I told the lords that the time of war among the Five Families and the various dukedoms and baronies had come to an end. They would spend their wealth rebuilding their kingdom, and not on spears, shields and swords.

'You ask too much!' Count Muar shouted out. He was a thin man with angry green eyes and deadly-looking, like a cobra. 'I must be responsible for Iviunn: many estates were destroyed when the Aquantir fell against us during the war.'

Here he glared at Baron Maruth, whom I thought he would gladly have murdered, if given the chance.

'You do ask too much,' Belur Narmada said to me. 'You know nothing of the realm that you would rule.'

'No Alonian king,' Old Duke Parran said, tapping his finger against his cleft nose, 'has ever taxed us so!'

For a while I let him, and others, speak out as they would. Then I held up my hand for silence. And I told them: 'It will not be a king who taxes you. I shall rule Ea from Tria, but the ordering of Alonia I shall leave to her rightful sovereign. I have called you here today that you might acclaim Atara Ars Narmada.'

Atara stood quietly next to me, wearing her lion-skin cloak over a long, formal tunic that did little to hide the great swell of her belly. Although her white blindfold bound her blond hair instead of a crown, I thought that no woman could have looked more of a queen.

'A woman, and a blind one at that, to rule Alonia!' Duke Parran called out. 'Never!'

'She is with child,' Belur Narmada said, 'and will be too busy suckling him to bring succor to the realm.'

'And she is half Sarni!' Davinan Hastar observed.

And Count Muar added, looking at me, 'I knelt to you on the battlefield, as High King, but I will not kneel to her as Alonia's ruler. Choose another!'

Although Atara had spent her first sixteen years at her father's court, none of these lords really knew her. They each thought of themselves as rich, powerful and noble. But Atara, through many battles that they could not imagine, had gained a grace and fire far beyond them.

She stepped forward, and her words rang out strong and clear: 'I will not become your queen for my sake, nor will you kneel to me for your own. But you will kneel. Only in this way can we bring peace to Alonia.'

Where Morjin had compelled obedience through a voice that seized the sinews of one's will and filled the soul with terror, Atara evoked a much deeper force, as if she had beheld the shape of the future a million times and none could deny what she had willed with all her flesh and dreams to be. Alkaladur blazed within her, too. So did all her goodness, beauty and devotion to the truth. It was her covenant with life in all- its onstreaming inevitability, I thought, that finally took hold of the nobles' hearts and swept them away.

It didn't hurt, of course, that she stood in front of the entire host of the Diamond Warriors. Or that Estrella came out to walk among the nobles, letting them gaze upon the Lightstone. They must have experienced something of Estrella's dazzling hope for the future. And my own. The sword I would always keep bright and shining within myself could tear them open to all the agony of battle, yes, but also to the joy of feeling within themselves a bright flame that could never go out.

And so, in the end, they did kneel to Atara. And then, with a cold clarity of will, but with compassion, too, she told them: 'You are Alonia's greatest lords and enjoy great wealth and repute, and so upon you the burden of bringing justice to our land will be the greatest.'

She turned in the direction of Duke Parran, and to him, she said, 'It is hard being taxed, is it not? As you have taxed the peasants who work your lands. They give you a three-quarters share of the crops they cultivate for the privilege of living in the hovels that you provide them.'

She told him, and the other lords, that henceforth they would be entitled to only a quarter share as rent and that they must build for their peasants houses of good, clean stone. Furthermore, over a span of years, they must allow these poor people to buy the lands that they worked for their own.

'All Alonians shall be free,' she said to them. 'As you shall be free from the burden of oppressing men and women whom you have made almost slaves. But free for what? Only to create. It stands written in the Valkariad: "They shall make themselves wings of light and fly across the stars." '

Here she paused to lay her hand over her belly, and she said to them: 'My son will never be what he should be until you become what you were born to be.'

She went on to tell them that on the site of the destroyed Tur-Tisander she would order a great granite stone to be set into the earth. And on this Victory Spire, as it would be called, the names of those who worked the hardest to remake Alonia would be inscribed.

I could not tell if the assembled lords would strive to attain such an honor with the same zeal they had devoted toward the acquisition of wealth, power and glory. They gazed at their new queen as many now looked toward the future which had come upon the world so suddenly: in fear of the unknown, but with a new hope, too.

Later, after the nobles had gone off and my warriors had stood down, I walked with Atara arm in arm along the edge of what had been the Elu Gardens. Morjin had burned these acres of flowers and trees down to char; now gardeners and others whom Atara could not see worked planting seeds and tending new shoots of gold and green.

Finally, she stopped and said to me, 'It is strange. Our struggles these past years nearly killed us, so many times. And did kill you! It has all been so terribly, terribly hard. Battles, though, even the worst, all have an ending. But this battle, to create this impossible world we both have dreamed of, will go on for the rest of our lives. And that, in its own way, will be infinitely harder than suffering wounds and risking death.'

'But it will also be a joy,' I said, resting my hand upon her belly. 'And haven't we proved that nothing is impossible?'

She clasped my hand, and pressed it more firmly against her. 'I wish I could believe that, Val. I know only that now I must be a queen, as I was born to be.'

She did not speak of either her blindness or the child growing inside her as a burden, but I felt a great heaviness pulling her down. And I said to her, 'My queen — and that you were born to be as well.'

'Yes, I suppose I was. And I suppose that I shall have to marry you now. I won't have such as Count Muar calling our son a bastard.'

At last, we set a date for our wedding: the seventh of Soldru. in my happiness, I swept up Atara in my arms and kissed her deeply. But I, who had struck pure angel fire into the worst of men, could not find the way to drive back the darkness afflicting the woman I loved.

The following afternoon on that same lawn, Lord Avijan — with Lord Tomavar, Lord Harsha, Lord Jessu, Lord Noldashan and all the surviving captains of Mesh — came to me and asked to return to their home.

'Can we not persuade you, Sire,' Lord Avijan asked me, 'to reopen the Elahad castle and rule Ea from your own kingdom?'

I would as soon live inside a dungeon as my family's ancient castle, but I did not admit this to Lord Avijan. Instead, I told him, 'Elahad made his residence in Tria, and long before the Star People came to Ea, so did a very great king. And so I shall, too.'

I added that it made good sense to set my throne here in Tria, as ships could come and go through her harbor and Ea's seas, more easily connecting all lands with each other. And now that Ea's sovereigns had made me High King, I belonged to Ea.

'But, Sire,' Lord Harsha said to me with much sadness, 'we belong to Mesh. Most of us left wives and children there. I, myself, miss my land and must return to tend my crops.'

'So you must,' I said to him, grasping his arm. 'Go back then, old friend, and plant your barley.'

I told my lords that they could return home after my coronation. 'But what of the other Valari kings and their armies?' Lord Tomavar asked me. 'Will you let them go, too?'

'I will. But from the best of their warriors, as from our own, I will choose knights, a thousand altogether, who wish to remain here as Guardians of the Lightstone.'

'A small enough force,' Lord Avijan said, 'to protect the golden cup — and yourself.'

'I will not need more. And if I do, the Valari will stand ready to march, to the end of the earth.'

'To the end of the stars!' Lord Avijan said.

'Faithful Lord Avijan!' I said, clapping my hand to his shoulder. 'You shall be Regent of Mesh, and your sons after you. Care for our land. I shall return there, when I can.'

Lord Avijan beamed as he bowed to me, for I did not think that he had anticipated such an honor. Lord Tomavar, watching him, might have burned with envy, for he had nearly become Mesh's king and now must defer to his rival. But I had honors to bestow upon him, too.

'Lord Tomavar!' I called to him. 'Of all Mesh's warriors, none fought so fiercely or well at the Detheshaloon as you. If not for you, I think, the battle would have been lost.'

I brought forth my brother's diamond-dusted sharpening stone, which I had passed on to Kane, and Kalkin had given back to me.

'Take this,' I said, handing it to him, 'that you will always keep your sword sharp and bright.'

Then I told everyone gathered there that the soul of Lord Gorvan Tomavar shone more brightly than any steel and that he was the truest of Valari warriors.

'Tomavar the True!' I called out to him.

His long, horsey face broke into a great smile as he bowed to me. 'Thank you, Sire,' he told me. Then he turned to gaze at his wife.

Vareva Tomavar stood beside my lords and captains with a proud sureness, as if she had earned her place among them — as indeed she had. Her raven hair spilled down across the diamond armor that still seemed so strange to see encasing the body of a woman. No spear, arrow or sword, during the battle, had touched her flawless, ivory skin. Her large eyes fixed on Lord Tomavar, with great love, as if she had at last forgiven him for abandoning her to Morjin and challenging me for Mesh's kingship.

'Vareva,' I said to her, 'if not for you and the women you led into battle, our enemy surely would have broken our lines beyond repair. Accept this, in honor of your service to Mesh.'

Then I presented her with a silver ring set with four large, brilliant diamonds; the ring of a Valari lord. She pushed it down onto her finger, in place of the warrior's ring that she had worn into battle.

'Thank you, Sire!' she told me. 'But you have already given me more than I dreamed.'

'Yes?'

'Yes, indeed: Morjin's death and peace for Mesh.'

'That was no more my doing than yours. You fought as hard as anyone.'

'Perhaps,' she said, gazing down at her ring. 'But I am glad that I shall never have to fight another battle.'

She went on to say that now she desired nothing so much as to return home and live happily with her husband.

Lord Tomavar inclined his head in agreement with this. 'I, too, am done with war. I would like to spend the years left to me siring sons worthy of becoming the Lightstone's Guardians. And teaching them to keep sharp not only their swords but their souls.'

He moved up to Vareva, and kissed her full on the lips. It was a shocking thing for a Valari lord to do in sight of his peers, but then Lord Tomavar had always been the most recklessly bold of warriors.

Then Vareva walked over to Behira, standing with my other captains and wearing her diamond armor molded to her rounded belly and full breasts. Most of my men, I thought, would have a hard time perceiving this plump, pretty woman as a warrior. But during the battle she had slain a Hesperuk lord, and now Vareva brought her to me to be acknowledged, too.

'Without Behira,' Vareva said to me, 'I never could have formed our women into a battalion, and brought them here. She is as worthy as anyone of being honored.'

I grasped Behira's hand and said, 'Then you shall wear a knight's ring.'

Before I could motion to my ring bearer, however, she shook her head and said to me, 'It is not a knight's ring I wish for, Sire.'

She told me that she had only one boon to ask of me: that I would speak to Maram in favor of him marrying her.

'As I recall,' I said to her, 'before we left Mesh, you weren't sure that it was Maram whom you wanted to marry.'

I noticed Joshu Kadar, standing with my Guardians, looking on with an intense interest I wondered if he still desired to make a wife of Behira, as Lord Harsha had once felt compelled to promise him.

'In truth,' I added, smiling at her, 'you weren't sure that you wanted to marry anyone. You said that you wanted to serve me, instead.'

'And I did serve you, Sire. And we did win the war. And if war is good for anything at all, it is to clear away all our foolishnesses and remind us of what we really desire. And I desire nothing more than to marry Maram.'

Lord Harsha came over to his daughter and wrapped his arm around her back as if to protect her. And his single eye fixed on me. 'You said, Sire, that we should put off the question of Behira's marriage until greater matters were settled. And now they are.'

'Very well,' I told Lord Harsha and Behira, 'then I shall speak to Maram.'

Lord Harsha might have simply thanked me and left this matter to my discretion, for I was his king, whom most lords would never have presumed to importune. But Lord Harsha was something like a hound that would not let go a bone once he had taken hold of it. And Maram had evaded him — and Behira — once too often.

'When will you speak with him, Sire?' he asked me. 'You have many duties, and Maram has buried himself in that tavern down by the river.'

In truth, I had hardly seen Maram for most of two months. But I knew well enough that he had taken to spending his days — and nights — near the docks at a little stone tavern near the Inn of the Seven Delights.

With the Lords of Mesh looking on to see how I would respond, I said to Lord Harsha: 'We are finished here, and I have no duties now. Why don't we go and pay a visit to Maram?'

I decided to use this as an opportunity for Estrella to take the Lightstone into one of the city's poorest districts, as she already had gone among the refugees in the eastern half of the city. And so I asked Estrella to accompany Lord Harsha, Behira and me — and Vareva and Lord Tomavar, as well — and I commanded the Guardians to saddle their horses. Then I led the way down from the Hill of Gold past Eluli Square and the Battle Arch toward the river. We found Maram's tavern among blocks of old, crumbling buildings that Morjin must have thought too shabby to bother destroying. It would take some time, I thought, before my architects destroyed them themselves and rebuilt new houses here. Most of the Guardians rode or walked with Estrella down the streets as she showed the lightstone to the poor Trians who came out of their tenements and shelters to marvel at it. But Joshu Kadar and Sar Shivalad went into the tavern ahead of Lord Harsha, Behira and me.

'Val!' Maram cried out as I pushed my way into a room that was all smoke and noise. 'Look! — Morjin left the finest part of Tria untouched! But what are you doing here?'

He sat at a wooden table with Ymiru and two of Sajagax's captains, Tringax and Braggod. A couple of hard-looking sailors and a merchant from Galda had joined them.

'It is the King!' a man at one of the other tables cried out. 'It is King Valamesh!'

Every head in the room, almost, inclined toward me. But Maram, looking upon Lord Harsha as he advanced on his table, called out, 'Oh, Lord! Whatever it is you think I've done, I haven't!' Then he turned to take a long pull from the mug of frothy beer sitting on the table before him.

We drew up to the table, and Lord Harsha's hand, by habit, fell upon the hilt of his sword. There was a time when Lord Harsha would have slaughtered Maram in a duel. But that time had passed, for Maram had become one of Ea's greatest warriors. So, in truth, had the time passed even for fighting duels.

'It is just what you haven't done that concerns us, Sar Maram,' Lord Harsha said. He let go his sword and waved his hand at the air to shoo away a cloud of smoke, then set his single, dark eye upon Maram. 'When do you intend to marry my daughter?'

'Ah, soon,' Maram said, looking at Behira, 'very soon.'

'Yes, but how soon?'

Maram glanced at me and then back at Behira, and he coughed out, 'Ah, let us say when Val marries Atara.'

He smiled and took another pull of his beer. And I told him, 'That date has been set: the seventh of Soldru.'

'It has?' he cried out. He banged his mug down upon the table with such force that a good deal of the amber liquid sloshed out of it. Then he stood up and embraced me, pounding his hand against my back as he cried out, 'At last! At last! Congratulations!'

I smiled as I pulled back from him. 'Shall we say that I will stand with you at your ceremony, and you shall stand with me at mine?'

'Ah, shall we say that?' he said, looking at Behira.

And she told him, 'You promised you'd marry me after the war — if any of us survived it.',

'And you swore to me,' I said, looking at him, 'the same thing.' He fell silent as he gazed down at his beer. 'It is time, Maram.'

'Ah, I suppose it is,' he muttered. Then he turned to Behira again and said, 'But I didn't know if you would still have me.'

'Still have you?' she asked him. 'Would a flower have the sun?'

Maram grew quiet again. He looked from Behira to Lord Harsha and then at me. He nodded at Lord Tomavar and Vareva, standing behind us. Then he turned to Braggod, whose long, yellow mustaches gleamed with beer foam, and he sighed out, 'A man can't win all battles, can he?'

He did not, I thought, refer to Braggod's and his ongoing contest to see who could hold the most beer, for Maram always prevailed in this. In truth, I had only seen one man who could outdrink Maram, and that was Ymiru.

'Most women,' Behira said with the heat of anger shading her voice, 'would wish for their beloved to fight battles to win them!'

'And so I have,' Maram said. He stood up, and clasped hold of Behira's hand. 'I can see that you don't understand. Ah, I'm not really sure that I do myself. But here it is: all my life, almost, I fought hard to take as much pleasure as I could, wherever I could. So that I could know that I was alive. And I succeeded — too well, really. I lived, such as few men have, but I did not really live. And that is because I have been afraid of the greatest pleasure of all. There came a moment, just after the Dragon had burned away my shield, when I knew that I had to marry you, if by some impossible chance I lived to tell you how much I love you.'

'But why didn't you just tell me then?'

'Because,' he said, 'love burns infinitely hotter than dragon fire. It's beautiful, yes, but terrible, too. And so I was afraid.'

Behira bowed down her head to kiss Maram's fingers, and she told him, 'You are a prince of Delu who became a Valari knight. And the only man on earth who could have slain that dragon. Don't tell me that such a warrior can't win at love!'

They suddenly pulled closer together to kiss each other — and so with the fire of their lips and hearts, they finally sealed their troth to marry. When Maram leaned back to gaze at her, I had never seen him smile with such happiness.

'Let us drink to marriage, then!' he shouted. 'Ours — and Val's and everyone's!'

As the men at the other tables all looked on, Maram called out for mugs of beer to be set before everyone. I made the first toast, and Lord Harsha the second, and Ymiru the third. It did not take very long for everyone's mug to be emptied.

'Ah, but it's brandy we need!' Maram said, licking his newly-grown mustache. He thumped his hand against his chest. 'Now there's a fire that lingers here!'

He went on to lament the shortage of brandy in the city. Then he presented the man sitting next to him: Demarion Arriara, the merchant from Galda. Maram, it seemed, had arranged to buy wine from Demarion's vineyards and have it shipped to Tria.

'I shall build a distillery,' he announced, 'and make the best brandy in the world. Too many times these last years I've gone without it — but never again.'

'And I'll gladly help you drink it!' Ymiru said to him. 'But does that mean that you plan to make Tria your hrome?'

At the look of concern that befell both Behira and Lord Harsha, Maram again thumped his chest and assured them, 'Don't worry: there's more than enough room here for brandy and for love! And as for home, we'll have those five hundred acres in Mesh that Val has given us — and other places, too. With the Red Dragon defeated, the whole damn world will be our home!'

Later, that evening, after everyone had returned to the palace grounds, I stood on the new grass alone with Maram looking out at the city's lights.

'I am glad,' I said to him, 'that you and Behira will remain here for at least a part of the year. And the city is short of brandy. But I hadn't envisioned you suffering through two quests and twenty battles just to wind up a happily married merchant.'

'What have you envisioned, my friend?'

'Your father,' I said, 'will not rule Delu forever. Truly, he will not rule at all if I ask him to abdicate. You could help me there, Maram.'

'I would rather help you here.'

'But you could become a king!'

He looked at me and smiled hugely. 'I already am — and have been since the day that you called me your friend.'

My eyes burned into his as I smiled back at him. Then I said, 'But Delu is weak and needs a firmer hand than your father can provide.'

'That is true — but one of my brothers can certainly do better than I.' He pulled at his beard, and added, 'I have no liking to rule anyone, and even less to be ruled.'

'And yet, you would remain with me, who must be everyone's king.',

'You never ruled me, Val. You never told me what I must do.'

'But what will you do, then, aside from putting brandy in bottles where once you emptied them?'

Again, Maram smiled, and he waved his hand in a great circle out toward the city and the dark world that lay beyond. 'What won't I do! I will write poems that will bum in women's and men's hearts for ten thousand years! I will take up the mandolet and play duets with Alphanderry. I will father a dozen sons, and as many daughters — as many children as Behira wishes. I will make journeys: to talk to the Sea People by the great ocean and to walk through Galda's vineyards. And into the Vilds to eat the sacred timana again and marvel at the Timpum. I would look once more upon Jezi Yaga's eyes and even the sky of the Tar Harath. Somewhere, the Librarians who fled Khaisham will build the world's greatest library, and I will spend ten years there reading every book that I can lay my hands upon. I will climb mountains. Perhaps even Alumit, when the Morning Star rises and the whole mountain turns to glorre. And I will go down into Senta's caves to behold the music crystals buried in the earth and to listen to the angels sing. I will take ship and sail again to the Island of the Swans, and beyond, where the heavens light up like. .'

He spoke on in a similar manner for quite a while. Then he looked deep into my eyes. 'I have lived as no man has ever lived, and now I will love as no man has ever loved — almost no other.'

He clasped my hand in his, and we both smiled. Then I told him: 'Behira will be happy to help you.'

'Yes — even as oil helps fire to burn more brightly,' he said. And then he added, 'But the flame must burn straight and true, like a fire arrow, and for that I will ask the help of Master Juwain and Abrasax.'

'And they will be glad to give it, though they might ask difficult things of you.'

'Well, I must make my peace with the Brotherhood. I must finish what I began, when I joined their order.'

'To walk the way of the serpent?'

'To walk to the stars, Val. As Kalkin once did. And as some day I will, too, when it comes time for you to lead the way.'

He squeezed my hand so hard that I thought my bones might break. Then he laughed and told me, 'I have written another poem, a bit of doggerel, really, but I thought you might like to hear it.'

'I would like to hear it, Maram,' I told him.

'All right, then. This is the logical completion to the other verses I wrote when we we looking for the Brotherhood's school. Listen:

The highest man rules all below:

The wheels of light that spin and glow.

The heart and head, ketheric crown:

The mighty snake goes up or down.

It's love that turns the world each day.

Sets stars to shine, makes men of clay.

But in light's aim, desire of dust,

All things do blaze with blessed lust.

And so I praise the thrust of life

To rise beyond the body's strife,

But also women, war, and wine,

For all that is, is all divine.

I am a seventh chakra man

Living out the angels' plan,

My pleasure 'turns where it began;

I am a seventh chakra man.

It was not to be, however, that Maram found his way back to the Brotherhood, for the Great White Brotherhood had ceased to exist. As Abrasax said to me on a cool, cloudy day in early Soldru: 'Over the course of too many years, too many of our schools have been destroyed, and we will not rebuild them. That is, we won't rebuild as before. Our Order had grown old, Valashu. Our ways set, as if in stone. But we have entered a new age — the Age of Light! — and so we will need new ways.'

Toward that end, he told me, the Brotherhood would join with the Sisterhood, and what once had been sundered into two far back in the Age of the Mother would again become one. Their new order would be called the Preservers of the Ineffable Flame. As in the ancient times, they would build Temples of life and Gardens of the Earth. And the Lokilani of Ea's seven Viids would help them. Together they would take the emerald varistei crystals into all lands, and turn even the deserts green. All the world would be made more fertile and fruitful, and the joining of man and woman would be exalted. People would speak once again with the animals, and sing the grasses and flowers into ever greater life. But in each garden there would grow a great tree toward the sky. reminding women and men that they must reach ever higher, even while keeping themselves rooted in the earth. And on top of each temple, the Brothers and Sisters would build a great spire pointing at the heart of the heavens. As Abrasax also told me: 'We must never forget that it is our destiny to return home to the stars, where we have always been.'

Beneath a low sky showing only a few patches of blue between huge white clouds, Maram, Ymiru and I walked with Abrasax across the grounds of the new temple being built in the eastern city on the ruins of the ancient one. Master Matai and Master Juwain and the others who had called themselves the Seven accom-panied us. But now Liljana, and several other Sisters of what had been the Maitriche Telu joined us, too, and these wise men and women as yet had taken no special name for themselves.

We moved slowly among workmen chiseling away at blocks of white granite and sending stone chips and dust out into the air. Others cut stained glass and glisse for the windows, while ten huge Ymaniri worked with their lilastei shaping and growing the huge crystals that would form the substance of the temple. Much of this immense structure had already been set into place, with its six glittering walls made of living stone and its golden domes sweeping up into the sky. I called that a miracle, too. For even in the Great Age of Law, such buildings had taken fifty or a hundred years to complete. But they had not had the Ymaniri to build them.

At the center of the grounds lay an immense ruby crystal, more than two hundred feet in length. It was the greatest red gelstei ever fabricated on Ea, exceeding in every dimension even the powerful crystal that had once surmounted the Star Tower. I did not know by what art the Ymaniri could possibly raise it up and set it in place on top the temple's highest spire.

'Now this is a firestone!' Maram said as he paused before it to run his hand along its cool, gleaming surface. 'What flames it will gather inside!'

'What flames will you gather inside?' Liljana asked, moving up to him. 'If you come to us to do this work that you say you wish to do?'

'Only the hottest!' Maram said with a smile and waggle of his hips.

'Do not joke about that!' Liljana said, her face as stern as stone. But I could feel her fighting back a smile. 'Abrasax and Master Juwain can help you open what they call the body's chakras, as they offered to once before. But as I told you once before, when a woman awakens the Volcano, as Behira will, under my guidance, it will take a true man coming alive to his whole being in order to bear such a heat.'

'Ah, a true man, you say? Taking to himself a true woman in this blaze of passion that you speak of? Are you trying to discourage me?'

Now Liljana did smile, with great kindness and warmth. And she told Maram: 'I'm only trying to prepare you for the sort of marriage that hasn't been seen on Ea since the Age of the Mother, and perhaps not even then.'

'Well, can anyone really prepare for marriage?' He smiled again at her, then turned to bow his head to Master Juwain. 'It will be enough that both of you help me as you can. And I can't tell you how grateful I am for that. Over these past years, I've given you a thousand reasons not to help me.'

'But ten thousand more,' Master Juwain said, 'that we want to see you happy.'

'Of course we do!' Liljana told him. 'How should you think that we wouldn't do all that we can for one who is like our own son?'

With Abrasax, Yrniru and the others looking on, she leaned forward to kiss Maram, which caused his red face to grow even redder. Then he said to her and Master Juwain: 'And you are like parents to me. My mother is dead and my father would not come to my wedding, even if I wished him to. Will you stand in their place when Behira and I make our vows?'

Liljana looked at Master Juwain as if she could see into his mind without really looking. With one motion, almost, they reached out and took hold of each other's hand. Then they looked at Maram, and almost with a single voice, they said: 'We would be happy to.'

Then they both offered to stand at my wedding, too. As Master Juwain put it to me: 'Now that Tria is on the mend, you deserve to put your own life in order and to be happy, Val.'

As I gazed out at the city in which Atara would soon reign as my queen, I could not find any reason to dispute him. Soon, at last, I would take up my flute and make music again — and for the rest of my life. I would play to the star that Atara and I called our own. I only hoped that, somehow, I could find a way to make Atara happy, too.