Diamond Warriors

Chapter 27

I was a season of weddings and talk of such even for those who weren't quite ready to make such a union. Joshu Kadar told me that he wished to journey back to Mesh and ask Sarai Garvar to be his wife. With Lord Tanu fallen in battle, he could see no impediment to marrying the woman whom he had never stopped loving, and neither could I. The war had made many widows who would desire new husbands and widowers who mourned their wives, not just in Alonia or the Nine Kingdoms, but all across Ea. If spring could bring new life to the world, then why shouldn't men and women bring a little happiness to each other?

On a bright day in Soldru, in sight of thousands, I married Atara, even as Maram did Behira. Alonia's great nobles gathered to witness the ceremony and bring us gifts. So did Sajagax, who gave Atara and me a great weight of gold and a lesser amount to Maram and Behira. Lord Harsha looked on proudly as his only daughter finally gained her heart's desire. I wished, of course, that my father and mother, and all my family, had lived to share such a triumph with me. But Master Juwain and Liljana stood with me, as they had promised, as did Ymiru, Daj, Estrella and Alphanderry and Kalkin. No man, I thought, could ever have a more devoted or beloved family. They watched with great gladness as I slipped a silver ring around Atara's finger, and so at last made peace between the lines of Aryu and Elahad and rejoined them as one.

Just before midnight on the ides of Marud, Atara gave birth to our son. We named him Elkasar, after my grandfather. Liljana said that he was long and a little too lean, but he seemed possessed of a great health and zest for life, and he grew quickly. His eyes, as Liljana described them to Atara, soon took on a bright, black sheen like those of his father, and his hair grew out almost pure sable. But he had Atara's square, open face and her long hands and her sportive temperament. She took to calling him her 'little lion,' for he roared fiercely when he grew hungry and seemed to eat with a ferocious appetite. And Atara nursed him with great gladness, holding him against her breast and pouring her milk into him. She sang to him in her clear, beautiful voice, and used her fingers to comb back his dark hair, and I thought that I had never seen a mother love a child with such sweetness and fire.

And yet, as the days passed, a deep sadness seized hold of Atara and would not let go. Liljana spoke of the mothers' melancholy which often befell a woman after she had given birth, but this was something different. Atara, warrior that she would always remain, tried to be brave and so she stopped lamenting that she would never lay eyes upon our son, for there seemed no help for her fate. She did all that she could to raise up her spirits: going riding with Sajagax through the Narmada Green in the morning; singing with Alphanderry in the afternoon; lying with me on the grass of the Elu Gardens at night as I called out the names of the stars. She even took the first taste of the first batch of Maram's brandy, though drink of any sort no longer pleased her and she put tooth to food only because she needed to keep up her milk and her strength. I did not know what could done for her. Neither did Liljana or Master Juwain, who had no potions or magic to cure such a malady. Estrella often held the Lightstone near Atara's heart, and seemed sad herself that its radiance failed to touch her.

Toward the end of summer, as Atara grew thinner and ever quieter, I went to Ymiru to speak with him about her, for I thought that he was a man who might understand her, suffering as he did from sudden and deep glooms. His white-furred face knotted in concentration as I described how Atara wanted to stop eating. And then he told me: 'My moods come and go like the storms of the earth herself, and sometimes dark clouds and snow blacken the world, but afterwards, there always be blue skies and the sun shining brightly. But it be something else with Atara. I think her soul be sick. And that be a hrorrible thing, like being sucked down a dark hrole. I want to believe that the Maitreya will find a way to heal her. I suppose we can only wait and hrope.'

Kalkin's advice to me was more succinct, for he told me: 'Give it time.'

Time, as Atara knew, was strange, for sometimes it streaked toward the future like an arrow while too often creeping along more slowly than a tortoise. At certain rare moments, it seemed to stop altogether. The Maitreya, I thought, possessed the gift to make it do so and to touch men and women with eternity, and for that reason laid claim to the Lightstone. But I, as a king, must live in the world and attend to a hundred duties each day, and I could no more hold back events and the seasons' turning than I could the tides of the sea. And so there came a time in early autumn when I had to prepare formally to be acclaimed as Ea's High King.

We held the coronation on the lawn outside of my half-completed palace on the eighth of Valte — exactly a year from the date of the Battle of the Detheshaloon. Kings, nobles and chieftains from every land came to honor me and bear witness to my vows to rule Ha according to the Law of the One and renew their own vows to me. King Thaddeu of Hesperu and King Angand brought me jewels to set in silver: rubies and black opals, sapphires and topaz and sardonyx. The new kings of Galda and Karabuk also presented me with rich gifts, as did King Hanniban and even King Santoval Marshayk, who had miraculously recovered from one of his convenient illnesses to make the journey to Tria. Sajagax gave me even more gold, and great beads of lapis and a magnificently illuminated copy of the Saganom Elu. Bajorak bestowed upon me a great bow, worked all in gold and lapis, and a golden arrow tipped with a brilliant sunstone. So it went with King Aryaman of Thalu and King Orunjan of Uskudar and the others. The Valari kings, of course, showered me with diamonds while my friends gave me more personal things.

The greatest gift of all, however, came from Kalkin. I had entrusted him with the great diamond that the Star People had given to me as proof that I had really journeyed from one of Ea's vilds to another world. Once, this perfect jewel had been the centerstone in the crown of Adar, first of the Lightstone's Guardians- And now Kalkin had set it into a new crown: made of silver gelstei which he had newly forged. With the entire Valari host drawn up in their thousands for the last time, their armor sparkling brilliantly in the sua as the kings of Ea's lands and the Sarni chieftains and my friends all looked on, I stood before Kalkin and he placed the crown upon my head. 'So,' he called out in his rich, deep voice, 'the Age of the Dragon has ended and the Age of Light has begun!'

And upon these words, from the Temple of Life across the lives; the great firestone surmounting its highest spire let loose a bolt of lightning that streaked straight up in a blinding incandescence that split open the sky. On and on this beacon would blaze, I thought until its radiance reached the end of the universe.

'Let all acclaim King Valamesh, High King of Erathe!'

Katura Hastar, long ago, had prophesied that the death of Morjin would be the death of Ea. And so it had been, truly, for after the Detheshaloon, the old world had perished and given birth to the new. Kalkin, by right, had chosen a new name for the world that was really quite old. Erathe, the ground beneath our feet would always remain for him. But many others would come to call it simply 'Earth.'

After that we held a great feast on the palace grounds. A dozen kinds of roasted meats and a hundred good foods were served to the thousands gathered there. Maram supplied the guests with whole rivers of brandy, while Sajagax had ordered barrels of black Sarni beer brought up from the Wendrush. Alphanderry played his mandolet and sang songs of glory, and nearly everyone seemed happy.

Toward dusk, I finally managed to break away from the many people who wished to honor me. 1 sought out Kalkin, who stood alone by the edge of the Elu Gardens gazing out across the river. The immense gelstei on top of the Temple continued pouring out a fountain of light. Kalkin's bright, black eyes seemed to drink it in as if he would never fear any radiance ever again.

He nodded his head to me, and his beautiful face grew both sad and triumphant, all at once. I sensed some great new thing come alive within him. And he said to me, 'I will leave Erathe soon. In another year, or perhaps ten. But first, I will walk the world, and look upon her mountains and rivers so that I never forget.'

'I know you must go,' I told him, 'though I don't want you to.'

I looked across the lawn where Atara stood holding our son and talking with Master Juwain, Maram, Behira and our other friends. If anyone could assure me that Atara might be brought back to herself, it was Kalkin: the man whose soul had finally been made whole again after ages and ages of time.

'I will miss you/ he said to me. But at least I will know that my world and her peoples are safe in your hands.'

I looked at my hand for a moment, then held it out toward Atara. And I said, 'Safe, I can only hope, from the wars that might have been, though not from the atrocities that we failed to help. But I have to believe that there is hope for Atara. Can you help me, Kalkin?'

He looked at the diamond set into the front point of my crown, and then down into my eyes. And he said, 'Only the Maitreya can heal her.'

I gazed at Estrella, holding high the Lightstone, and said, 'But she has failed.'

Now Kalkin's voice fell deep and strange as he asked me: 'Has she failed, Valashu? Or have you?'

'I? I don't know what you mean.'

'Yes, you do — and you have known it since the Detheshaloon.'

I wanted to shake my head violently at this, but I was afraid my new crown would go flying off my head.

'Don't tell me,' he said to me, 'that since then you haven't thought long and deep of the verses that you first heard in the amphitheater from the Urudjin. Recite them for me now!'

I knew exactly which verses he meant; they told of the Amshahs' failure to heal Angra Mainyu and the hope that yet someday they might. Because I could no more refuse Kalkin than I would wish for Joshu Kadar to disregard me, I spoke the verses out into the cool twilight air:

And though the dark was not undone

A light within the darkness hides;

While Star-Home turns around its sun

The Sword of Light, and Love, abides.

Alkaladur! Alkaladur!

The Sword of Fate, the Sword of Sight,

Which men have named Deliverer.

Awaits the promised Lord of Light.

'And that,' I told him, 'is Estrella!'

'But it was you who wielded Alkaladur!' He reached out to touch the hilt of the sword strapped to my side. 'Why do think that Morjin failed to seize control of this?'

'Because the Lightstone has no power over the silver gelstei.'

'The Lightstone has power over everything!' He lifted his hand off my sword, then pressed it to my chest. 'And here it abides.'

I couldn't help remembering the famous words from the Beginnings: The Lightstone is the perfect jewel inside the lotus found inside the human heart.

'And you,' he told me, 'are King Valamesh, the King of Swords — and the Lord of Light!'

I shook my head aphis. 'No, I am a Valari, and we are never Lords of Light! The Urudjin confirmed that, too. You told me so yourself, and berated me for ever supposing that I might be the Maitreya!'

He fell silent as he stared at me; he seemed to be looking through the centers of my eyes to the end of the universe.

'Kane told you that,' he finally said to me. 'But he did not know. Not even Kalkin knew, not really, until this night.'

Again, I shook my head. 'But Kane could not have been so wrong! Neither could the Urudjin!'

'No, they could not have been so wrong. And they weren't: as regards the ages that have passed. But in the Age of Light, all will become as Maitreyas.'

'No,' I said, turning my head back and forth, 'it cannot be!'

Kalkin nodded at Estrella. 'She tried, a hundred times, to show you yourself. But you would not look.'

'Because there is nothing to see!'

'No, that is not why. There is something that you dread more than once you did death.'

Beneath his fierce gaze, I stood up as straight as I could, until I imagined the points of my crown pushed up against the very heavens. And so I tried to pretend that there was nothing I still feared.

'During the battle,' he said to me, 'you saw just how like Morjin you truly are. And so you think that the Maitreya could not be touched with such evil.'

'She could not!' I said, motioning toward Estrella.

Kalkin's large, hard hand reached out to seize hold of mine. And he told me: 'We are all born of the same mother. And for all of us, acting in the world, it is not possible to be wholly good. You know this, in your heart. And it is there that you must fight your last battle.'

Then he told me, not in words, but in the fire of his eyes, what my heart knew to be true: that I feared in being less than perfect I would become sullied and broken and wholly evil, and thus lose all restraint and fall as far as Morjin and Angra Mainyu had. And so I would kill my soul.

His hand pressed against mine, and his eyes caught up the shimmer of the evening's first stars as he said to me: 'But at the heart of everything there is only one Light, and it can never die.'

'No, perhaps not,' I said to him. 'But men and women can. And men can do such terrible deeds … so easily.'

'So they can,' he said to me. 'But so they also can find the strength to do such marvelous things.'

I felt an infinite and indestructible force coursing deep within his hand. It seemed unstoppable, too, like the bright rising of the sun after a long, dark night.

I looked at him and said, 'Why couldn't you have put your sword into Morjin? Why couldn't Kane? He was a thousand times stronger than I.'

'Because,' he said to me, 'slaying Morjin was your fate.' 'Yes,' I said, glancing at Estrella, 'I slew an angel to save the Maitreya. I did evil in a good cause like any tyrant.'

'No — you slew a beast to save a little girl. You did what you had to do, like any true man.'

We stood there on the lawn in sight of many thousands, gripping each other's hand and searching out the truth in each other's eyes. And then, in a low, deep voice, he said to me: 'A true man, Valashu. A king of kings. A greathearted being who, in the end, came to have the highest regard for his enemy. How could such a man deny who he really is?'

And then he added:

With his heart of compassion He knew himself Like unto a star. .

No, I thought, it could not be possible!

How could I accept the truth of what he had told me? What if he was mistaken? The Elijin, after all, made errors just the same as other men.

Then he looked up along the fiery beacon still shooting up through the sky. And he said to me, 'The Galadin are waiting to welcome you, Valashu. As they are all of Erathe's peoples.'

I looked at him deeply. Who, I wondered, was my fierce and flawed friend to speak for the Galadin?

He smiled as he let go of me, then held out his hand before me. I looked down at his open palm. There, one moment, it held nothing more substantial than air. And in the next, I saw a small golden object gleaming next to his skin. It was a timana, and I did not know how Kalkin had come by one of these sacred fruits. But I felt certain that his summoning of it had not been a trick of legerdemain but a much deeper magic. 'Take this,' he told me. Maram, looking on from across the grass, called out, 'Do I see what I think I see?'

He led my other friends over to us with an easy assurance that I would always welcome his company. Then he touched his finger to the golden fruit and said, 'It is a timana!'

And Ymiru said. 'That be a pretty thing — almost too pretty to eat.'

'How did you obtain it?' Master Juwain asked Kalkin. 'I did not think the trees that the Lokilani planted could bear fruit so soon.'

But my mysterious friend did not answer him. He produced another timana, and then another and yet others, and gave one to each of my friends, even to Daj and Estrella who had now come of age to eat the flesh of the angels.

'Thank you, Lord Elijin,' Lord Harsha said, holding up his timana before his gleaming eye.

Alphanderry, cupping his timana lightly in his fingers, looked at Kalkin as if seeing him for the first time. Then he spoke out in his beautiful minstrel's voice, which also rang with the much deeper tones of those who had sent this strange being to earth: 'You are mistaken, Lord Harsha. This one is no longer of the Elijik Order.'

Lord Harsha gazed at Kalkin in wonderment, as did we all. I did not know what my friends saw then. But I suddenly perceived Kalkin as I imagined that Abrasax could: a great angel whose substance and soul poured forth bright flames of purest glorre. They encompassed him like a robe of fire, yes, but even more like a luminous cloak billowed out by the wind. Valari kings wore diamonds, as I did in the great gleaming stone set into the circle of silustria that Kalkin had given me. But he stood crowned in starlight and bearing bright jewels of grace and goodness shining upon his soul. A vast wisdom blazed within his eyes.

'Three times,' Alphanderry said to him, 'you surrendered the Lightstone to an heir of Adar where you might have tried to keep it for yourself. And now the Elahad guards it for the Shining One, and we have come to the ending of the ages, when all shall be restored. And so it has finally come time for the last to become the first.'

Kalkin bowed his head to Alphanderry, and the splendor of Aras, Varshara, Solaru and all the heavens' brightest stars seemed to gather in his countenance. Then he looked at Estrella. and told me, 'The Lightstone is to be kept by her. But its light belongs to everyone.'

Estrella smiled at me as if I could no longer refuse to see the bright being that she had tried for so long to show me. A soft radiance streamed out of the golden cup in her hand and warmed my heart. I felt it all sweet and good inside me, and I knew that I held the power to say yes or no to the terrible beauty of life — and to myself And so I held within myself another power as well.

'Atara,' I said, stepping over to her. She stood cradling our young son in her arms and turning her head left and right as if seeking for the source of my voice. 'Atara, Atara.'

I moved up close enough that I could feel her breath upon my face. Then I laid my hands over the white cloth binding her. All that was within me came pouring out in a bright blaze that warmed my hands. I felt it filling up the hollows where her eyes had once been. Then suddenly, with a murmur of astonishment, Atara gave me our son to hold. Her fingers, always so sure and steady even in the most desperate of battles, trembled as she worked to pull off her blindfold. Now it came my turn to cry out in wonder — and in delight. For Atara gazed straight at me through a pair of perfect eyes, all beautiful and blue and sparkling like diamonds, just as I had remembered them to be.

'Val!' she cried out to me. She worked her fingers across her eyelids, pressing almost frantically, as if only by touch could she confirm the impossible thing that had happened to her. 'I can see. . so much!'

She laughed as she clapped her hands to the sides of my face, then looked deep into my eyes. She kissed me. She turned to smile at Estrella, and at Kalkin, and our other friends, and then laughed again as she saw Maram gripping Behira's hand. Her gaze drank in the thousands of people gathered on the lawn and its many bubbling fountains. She stared out, across the river where the ruby beacon continued streaking out from the firestone that Kalkin and Ymiru had made. Buildings constructed of living stone and stained glass cast their colors at each other in a brilliance that lit up the whole city. Tria's many new towers and spires, pointing up toward the heavens, caught the radiance of the stars, now coming out in all their millions from within the depths of the blue-black sky. But the greatest of all glories resided here, on the lawn in front of the new palace where Atara stood shaking her head in awe.

'He does have your eyes!' she called out to me.

She took back our son from me, and laid his head in the crook of her arm, and stood smiling down at him.

'Oh, Val!' she cried out. 'He is so beautiful!'

She kept looking at him as if she couldn't quite believe in such a miracle, looking and looking and laughing with a happiness that almost hurt to hear. And the new bit of life that was Elkasar Elahad looked up at her. And in the meeting of their eyes, mother and child, life reached out to life in all its glory, anguish, hope and love.

'Elkasar,' she sang out to him, running her fingers through his dark soft hair. Her joy was boundless. 'Elkasar, my little lion, my bright, beautiful star.'

She began weeping then, weeping and laughing and singing to our son, all at once. Her tears fell down and moistened his face. I watched as the corners of his mouth twitched and then pulled up into his first smile. Then tears welled up from his eyes, too, for he could no more withstand the force of Atara's love than I could — or Estrella, Daj, Maram or any of my friends. Even the man I had once called Kane blinked against the water filling his dark eyes, and that astonished me, for I had thought that his kind could not be touched by such things.

After that we all ate the fruits that Kalkin had given us. And I took Atara's hand and told her, 'There is something I must show you.'

I led the way down from the lawn and into the Elu Gardens. We walked among its many flowers and new trees, which had taken ten years of growth in a single season. A small, brown-skinned man named Danali, whom we had met in the first of the Vilds, appeared as if by magic from behind the oaks and elms. He held a bright emerald crystal in his hand; Elan, Iolana and other Lokilani who came forth to greet Atara also each kept one of the green gelstei. Atara seemed amazed at their presence here, for although she and I had rested among the garden's flowers nearly every night since the spring, the Lokilani had remained hidden from her, as indeed they had from most people.

After I had told Danali why we had come here, he called out: 'Come, come, Queen Atara! Let us go deeper into the trees!'

We all walked down the stone-lined path that wound around a patch of lilies and a small hill sparkling with starflowers. And there, at the center of the garden, grew a single tree. It was a new astor, with silver bark and leaves of gold: the first that the Lokilani had planted outside of their magic wood. Although still too young to bear fruit, the whole of it — bark, branches and leaves — shone with a soft light that spilled out into the garden.

'Val!' Atara cried out, hurrying over to it. 'Why didn't you tell me the Lokilani had come to Tria and had managed to grow an astor here?'

I moved over to her side, and said to her, 'I wanted you to see. . for yourself.'

She stood beneath this beautiful tree, holding up our son to show him all the wonder of the world. The astor's radiance filled his bright, black eyes.

'But how is this possible?' Atara asked Danali. 'I thought astors only grew in the Forest and other enchanted places.'

Danali proudly swept his hand around the garden and said, 'But the Forest is here! Finally, finally here, as it will now come to all the earth! There is only one Forest, as we once told you.'

We all gazed at the growing trees and plants around us. Bursts of blue-eyed daisies, goldenrod, trillium and sunflowers brightened the evening. The sweet smell of life filled the air. Then Ymiru, standing nearly as tall as the trees, suddenly laughed out in a voice as deep as thunder: 'This be a hroly place! The Timpum have come here, too! I know you told me that they lived in such woods, but I almost thought that they must be a hroax!'

But the bright beings that everywhere lit up the garden were neither hoax nor hallucination but only the realest and loveliest of luminosities. They seemed to have faces, of a sort, playful or compassionate, as Flick had once had, and to speak in quick flashes the language of the angels. They touched the trees with white and silver sparks and filaments of fire. The whole garden glimmered with a living light. Alphanderry, too, stood staring out past the astor in wonder. In looking upon the Timpum in all their shimmering millions, he seemed for a single moment almost transparent to the deeper radiance that formed him.

'And now the Ellama will come here, too,' Danali said to me, 'just as Pualani once told you. And the Galad a'Din will walk the earth again!'

He paused to gaze at Kalkin, who gazed right back at him. And then he added, 'Soon, soon, they will come — go out on the grasses and see!'

And Alphanderry said to him, 'Will you come with us?'

'No — we will wait here, with the Timpum.'

I smiled at this, for the Lokilani had been waiting thousands of years for the beings they called the Bright Ones to return to their woods.

Because Atara wanted to find Sajagax and look upon his face, too, we said goodbye to Danali and went back up to the lawn. There we rejoined Joshu Kadar and Sar Shivalad and other Guardians of the Lightstone, who always fell a little anxious when Estrella and I walked away from the protection of their swords for too long. Word of what had happened with Atara spread quickly across the palace grounds. Sajagax came limping up to us, accompanied by Tringax, Braggod and Bajorak, and Sonjah and Aieela and a few other women who had once called themselves the Manslayers. King Mohan and King Waray — and the other Valari sovereigns — pressed up to us as well. So did Abrasax and Master Matai and many others.

'Look!' Sonjah called out, smiling at Atara. 'The imakla one has been healed!'

From farther out in the throngs surrounding us, a blond-haired giant from Thalu added, 'The Maitreya has healed the blind Queen!'

A thousand men and women, it seemed, turned toward Estrella to look upon her and the Lightstone. Neither I, nor any of my friends, corrected this man, for in truth I could have done nothing to help Atara if Estrella hadn't helped me.

It was Sonjah who asked Atara the question that many must have wondered at: 'But, my dear one, can you still see the faraway things as you once did?'

Atara hesitated only a moment as a darkness clouded her eyes, and I wondered if she thought of Angra Mainyu, still bound on Damoom. But then she hugged Elkasar against her breasts and smiled brightly, and she said, 'I don't have to be a scryer to see what everyone can now see: that the future will be such a happy one. So beautifully, beautifully happy.'

After that, almost everyone seemed to want come up close in order to speak with Atara. And to celebrate the miracle of the restoration of her eyes. Maram saw to the distribution of hundreds of glasses of brandy and the speaking of toasts. Alphanderry played his mandolet, making a lovely music. He seemed to direct his words at Atara and Elkasar as he called out into the night: We are songs that sing the world into life.

And as he sang, his voice built higher and deeper and ever brighter. No bell could have sounded out with a purer or more perfect tone. It pealed like struck silver, and moved the air with its power. Then, as from far away, a ringing filled the sky. It seemed that the wind was singing back to him with a much vaster sound. It held something of the low, mournful melodies of the great whales and of the eagle's cry as well. Louder and louder it grew until it set the stones of the palace to vibrating and shook the very earth. 'It be Alumit!' Ymiru cried out. 'It be the hroly mountain!' I did not know how he could have known such a thing. Or how the great crystal mountain, the highest on earth, could have come suddenly alive with a ringing that carried hundreds of miles across the world to our land, and perhaps into others. Did the fishermen in Galda, I wondered, turn their heads to look for the source of this sound? Did the Lost Valari on the Island of Swans, who did not know war, hear this deep calling? Did the Avari, who knew too much? All the men and women around me stood listening as if struck to their core. Many of them, later, would speak of a rising wind that rang with sacred songs and the voices of grandmothers and great-grandfathers who had long since passed on.

And then, even as Estrella held the Lightstone above her head, thousands of points of light began piercing the inky blueness along the eastern horizon. All at once, the whole of the sky from east to west lit up with a vivid glorre.

'The Star People are coming!' Daj cried out, pointing upward.

'They do come!' Ymiru said, looking up, too. 'At last, they come hrome!'

We of the earth had been waiting eighteen thousand years for the Bright Ones to return, but we had not been able to open the door in order to welcome them.

'So,' Kalkin said, smiling up at the sky. 'So.' We all watched as the points of light grew bigger and brighter; each one opened out like a luminous flower falling down to earth. They drew closer and closer until they floated down toward the bridges and buildings of the city. Now each dazzling sphere seemed more like a dolphin cutting the surf along the crest of a wave, only instead of gleaming with water, they blazed with a flame that opened the sky and moved back the air. I thought I could perceive, at the centers of these thousands of bursts of angel fire, radiant beings who looked much like Valari: men and women of the Star People, and Elijin led by the beautiful Ondin, and even the Galadin themselves.

'Look, Val!' Atara said to me, pointing her finger like an arrow up toward the deepest part of the sky. 'Do you see the star?'

I saw the star. I did not know how that could be possible. Against a shimmer of pure glorre, it flared more brilliantly than any other light in all the heavens, even Aras and Solaru. I knew that Atara must have descried it in the same moment that she had Estrella on the battlefield, but only now could be certain that what she had beheld then would actually come to be.

I listened as Atara told our son that someday he would journey out into the stars. He would bear a great sword, and guard Estrella and the Lightstone. He would fight the same battle that his father had and so the Dark Angel, Angra Mainyu, would at last be defeated. And healed. And then Asangal, whole once again, would gladly find his ending as the greatest of the Galadin. The ending that was only a beginning: for out of the incandescence of his being would blaze a whole new universe, the light of which Atara and I now perceived as the brightest of stars.

'Oh, Val!' Atara said, pressing closer to me. 'My love, my life, my beautiful, beautiful king! — we really did win!'

I did not know how Atara and I — and Kalkin and Maram and Estrella and everyone else who had fought along with us — had brought into being this impossible world illumed by such a perfect light. And yet we had. Some would call it a miracle, and others fate. My grandfather would have said that a few valorous warriors had made their own fate, and that of the earth and the stars that shone down upon it. Through our blood and tears, we had done this great thing, through the risk of our lives and our hopes and our songs and our deepest dreams.

And so on a perfect autumn evening I stood on a lawn on top of the highest hill of the earth's greatest city, looking up at the sky and dreaming, along with the woman I loved and my son and my friends — and the many thousands of warriors who had fought to make me a king. Millions of lights brightened the heavens. I found my grandfather's star among them and whispered to him, in fire and in love, that the promise of life had been fulfilled. And one day I told him, when his great-grandson had grown to be a man, we would venture out past the Great Bear and the Dragon and the other constellations to the bright heart of creation. Always as warriors, yes, but as angels, too, born of fire, burning for life and forever blazing like beautiful stars.