Diamond Warriors

Chapter 8

After that, I swept up my sword and led the way back out into the square. When we reached its center, the various knights and lords gathered there had already formed themselves into a great circle. Lord Harsha stood there waiting for me, and Lord Sharad, Lord Manthanu and my other counselors. Sar Jonavar and Sar Shivalad took their places there, too, as with the rest of my guardians. They joined Lord Vishand and those who followed Lord Tomavar. At the edge of the circle, I bowed my head to Lord Eldru, Lord Ramjay, Sar Shagarth, and Lord Manamar, who had accompanied Lord Tanu. Lord Tanu himself had agreed to oversee the duel. He stood inside the ring of honor with Lord Tomavar, and his seconds: Sar Jalval and Lord Arajay Solval. Lord Avijan would act as my second, as would Maram, who bitterly regretted this honor, saying to me, 'I had to stand by once in this capacity as Salmelu nearly cut your head off. Don't make me watch Lord Tomavar put his sword into you!'

Despite his protests, he stayed close to me as Lord Sharad and Lord Noldashan stepped aside for us to enter the circle. My other companions — Kane and Atara excepted — had to stand outside it since they were not warriors. Although Daj objected to this, citing his deeds in battle, Lord Tanu directed him to wait farther out on the grass with Liljana, Master Juwain and Estrella. No child, he said, could be part of the ring of honor, and I breathed deeply in relief to see him walk over to Estrella and take her hand as they waited for the duel to begin. 'A challenge has been made!' Lord Tanu called out in his crabby high-pitched voice.

Maram and I, with Lord Avijan, stood facing him on his left, while beside us to his right gathered Lord Tomavar, Sar Jalval and Lord Arajay Solval. Lord Tomavar had already drawn his kalama, which he passed on to Maram. It took Mararn only a few moments to wipe down the long, shining blade with a brandy-soaked cloth. Then I unsheathed Alkaladur, whose shimmering length of silus-tria needed no cleansing. Even so, I handed it to Lord Avijan, who gave it to Lord Arajay so that the rituals could be completed.

When our swords had been returned to us, Lord Tanu directed us to close our eyes for a few moments of meditation. Then he called out to the ring of knights surrounding us: 'Are the witnesses ready?'

I watched as many grim-faced men nodded their heads,

'Are the combatants ready?'

Lord Tomavar's eyes grew as fold as balls of obsidian. 'I am ready to live or die.'

'And I, too,' I said, looking at him.

Lord Tanu now motioned for Maram and the other seconds to rejoin everyone else in the circle, and he did so as well. And then he called out: 'A challenge has been made and accepted. You must now fight to defend your honor. In the name of the One and all of our ancestors who have stood on this earth before us, you may begin.'

As Lord Tomavar drew back his sword and faced me across twenty feet of crushed grass, the thousands of warriors and others gathered around the square grew so quiet that I could almost hear their breathing. My breath came hard and heavy, forced through the painful chute of my throat. I drew back my bright blade behind my head, waiting. I felt my heart driving at my chest like a great, mailed fist. The kirax burning along my blood sent shoots of fire into every part of my body. I did not know which I feared more: Lord Tomavar killing me or me killing him.

For a while we circled each other, measuring distances and feeling each other out. Lord Tomavar moved with a practiced grace that chilled me. Though he might be a complicated man, with his willingness to sacrifice himself for his warriors in battle at odds with his overweening conceit, none of this conflict or any other showed in the easy, natural way that he stepped right or left, or shifted his sword about. Indeed, even his torment over his missing wife seemed to have melted from his mind. I had rarely seen anyone so relaxed, as if he didn't care if he lived or died. He flowed over and around the little bumps of the lawn almost like water.

Then something inside him suddenly tightened, as with the pull of a man's body on the rope of a grappling hook. He sprang at me in a whirl of bright and furious steel. I jumped back a few paces to avoid the slice of his sword. It was barely enough, for his long arms and legs gave him a great reach, and his sword's point streaked through the air only an inch from my face. Again, he cut at me, and again I moved out of the way, and then we met each other in a clash of his steel blade against Alkaladur's shimmering crystal. Middling old he might be, but the years hadn't robbed him of his strength. The shock of the blows that he struck against me ran through my sword with a terrible force and nearly shattered my arm bones. I struggled to turn my blade right or left and beat aside his ferocious attack. The sound our swords clanging against each other rang out into the morning air like bells.

'He is cut!' someone at the edge of the circle called out, pointing at me. 'The Elahad has been cut!'

'First blood to Lord Tomavar!'

As if a signal had been given, Lord Tomavar stood back from me, breathing hard. He stared at my face. I pressed my hand to my forehead, wet with blood. By wild chance, it seemed, his sword must have reopened the lightning bolt scar etched into my skin. So intent had I been on keeping myself from getting killed that I hadn't even felt the wound.

'Val!' Kane called out to me. 'Val!'

He didn't have to say anything other than my name for me to know what he meant: I could not go on fighting like this. In a way, I was not really fighting at all, but only fencing with Lord Tomavar. He certainly sensed this. He stared at the blood dripping down my forehead. And then, like a wolf incited to kill, he came at me again.

And again we cut and thrust and moved across the grass in a frenzy of whipping arms and straining legs. Once, twice, thrice, we came together in a clash of steel against silustria, sprang apart, then clashed again. My breath burst from my lungs and nearly caught in my throat. My arms ached with a smoldering flame. Ten times I avoided the edge of his blade by a hair; ten times its point burned past my neck, my chest, my eyes, by the whisper of a breath. Each time his muscles tightened and bunched to unleash his fury at me, I felt the pain of it in my own body a moment before he moved. But my gift of valarda would not save me forever. Sooner or later, as Kane had said. Lord Tomavar's sword would cut its way past the silvery arc of mine, and that would be that.

'Val!' Kane cried out again. I could feel Kane's savage soul calling for me to kill Lord Tomavar But even as Lord Tomavar's kalama nearly cleaved my head in two, I knew that I could not kill him. I could not even wound him and then break off fighting, as I had with Salmelu in King Hadaru's hall, for that unwanted mercy had only brought down upon me shame and King Hadaru's wrath. All duels were to the death — so said the ancient codes of the Valari. Only the life's blood could satisfy honor, unless of course the challenger had a change of heart and formally apologized to the challenged. But such miracles were as rare as the rising of the sun at midnight. 'Val!'

We battled on and on beneath the heat pouring down from the sky and the eyes of thousands of warriors. I could only hope to exhaust Lord Tomavar so that he collapsed and broke. But it seemed that I must break first. My sword, once so light, now grew as heavy as a mallet made of lead. Every muscle in my body burned with a terrible, deep fire. My belly knotted and spasmed as I fought for breath. I coughed, hard, against the dark thing choking my throat. Most duels lasted only seconds, but my desperate combat with Lord Tomavar had already gone on longer than any duel in living memory — so I heard someone cry out from afar.

'He is cut again! The Elahad is!' another knight shouted. 'Second blood as well to Lord Tomavar!'

I could barely feel the new wound where the edge of Lord Tomavar's blade, as we locked together face to face, pushing and sweating and straining, had bloodied me. Amazingly — unbeliev-ably — the steel had cut open my forehead again. Drops of blood flew out into the air as I twisted my head out of the way of one of Lord Tomavar's vicious thrusts; more blood found it way into my eye, stinging and half-blinding me. I knew that I could not go on this way much longer.

'Fight, Lord Elahad!' I head Joshu Kadar cry out, 'Kill Lord Tomavar, if you would be king!'

His words seemed to enrage Lord Tomavar. And shame him, too, for he would gain little honor in slaying an opponent who refused to slay him. And his shame touched upon some deep guilt, whether of his failure to prevent Morjin from ravaging my father's castle or his betrayal of my father in trying claim his throne, I could not say. But I felt building inside him a guilt and grief so terrible that he desired death — and wanted to kill me in order to drive it back. Up to this point, he had fought with a cool and fluid fury, as flawless in execution as any Valari warrior could hope for. But now hate broke through his blood and poisoned his eyes. He swung his sword at me, again and again, as might a madman, in I shocking burst of anger and steel; he attacked with such recklessness and rage to kill that there could be no defense — other than to attack him back.

'Valashu!'

Then, in the slash and burn of Lord Tomavar's sword, his immense anguish cut me to the heart, and his hate became my hate — and something more. Deep beneath my throat built an immense, black storm, as within a small room and wholly contained by it. At its center raged a whirlwind.

'Strike, now!'

At last, when I opened the door to hate's brilliant reflection and its ultimate source, lightning flashed and drove away the dark thing choking me. As Kane had called for, I struck Alkaladur straight into Lord Tomavar's heart: but not the gleaming length of silustria that I gripped in my sweating hands, only the blade made of a finer and brighter substance that men called the Sword of Truth. I found my voice again, and shouted out to him words that rang out like thunder: 'I did not usurp my father! I did not betray the castle to Morjin! And I am sorry about your wife! You have my promise that I will do all that I can to help get her back!'

Lord Tomavar stood ten feet away from me across the blood-dewed grass. He gasped for breath, and pressed his free hand to his chest as if he might drop of a blood stroke. His sword dipped down toward the ground. The madness, I saw, had gone out of his eyes. Then he called back to me in amazement: 'You speak truly, Lord Elahad! I know you do!'

In the ring around us, the knights and warriors stared at him, stunned.

'I was wrong to say what I did to you!' he shouted. 'I should not have challenged you! I give you my apology, freely, that all should hear and know: I, Gorvan Tomavar, have wronged you, and am in your debt!'

Now Lord Vishand, Lord Avijan and Lord Harsha — and many others — looked at Lord Tomavar as if struck dumb with shock. Hundreds of warriors gathered around the square closest to us, as they finally understood what was happening, let loose cheers of relief and wonderment. I saw Maram choking back tears and Atara smiling mysteriously. Kane simply stood like one of the shining mountains to the east. Above all of us, the hot morning sun blazed down. 'And I should not have challenged you for your father's throne!' Lord Tomavar continued. 'Please forgive me!'

And with that, he cast his sword upon the grass. He stepped up to me. Then he knelt down, and bowed his head as he broke out sobbing. All standing around him stared at this extraordinary sight as if they could not believe what they saw.

'A challenge has been made, and a challenge has been withdrawn,' Lord Tanu finally cried out, stepping inside the ring. 'Honor has been defended and satisfied. The duel is over.'

As the knights surrounding us broke apart and regrouped into twos and threes and Master Juwain came up to bandage my cut head. Lord Tomavar looked up at me through his dark, moist eyes. And he asked me, 'Will you really help me find my wife?'

Before I could answer him, even as the warriors picked up his words and passed them back through the ranks edging the square, a tall figure dressed in a hooded traveling cloak stepped onto the field. A glint and jangle of metal hinted at steel mail concealed beneath woven wool. I wondered at the audacity of this person. By the agreement of the truce, only Lord Tanu's or Lord Tomavar's counselors, or my own, were to be allowed into the square. At the quick approach of this intruder, who might have been a rogue knight, Sar Jalval drew his sword and stepped in front of Lord Tomavar as if to protect his lord.

'Your wife needs no finding!' a high-pitched and angry voice cried out. Then the knight pulled back the hood of the traveling cloak — and the helmet of mail beneath that. 'At last I have found you!'

Before us, shaking out her long, raven hair, stood one of the loveliest women in the Morning Mountains. She was tall, with flawless skin the color of dark ivory and large, dark eyes that shone like twin moons. In her, I thought, gathered all that was best and brightest of the Valari people.

'Vareva!' Lord Tomavar shouted, pushing himself up to his feet. 'You are alive!'

He made a move to cross the grass and embrace her, but Vareva clasped her hand to the sword belted to her side and cried out, 'Stay back, my lord! Stay back — please!'

Lord Tomavar halted his charge and stood staring at her, utterly stupefied as if someone had smashed a mace into his brains. Everyone on the field gathered around us and made a second ring of warriors acting as witnesses that day. Lord Manamar Tanu gazed at his daughter, clearly chagrined and confused as to what he should do.

'But how did you come to be here?' Lord Tomavar asked her. 'And how long have you been back in Mesh?'

'Long enough to hear that you had taken up arms against the son of the man you revered and called "Sire."'

'But, dear wife, there are things you don't understand,' he huffed out. 'Things have happened that you know nothing about!'

Her pained gaze fell upon him with a strong brew of emotions: ire, grief, resentment and adoration. Then she called out in a clear voice: 'I know this: that Valashu Elahad did not desert the castle as you, and others, have accused! I was there, you know. Before the castle fell and they killed almost everyone and took the rest of us away, I heard Lord Lansar Raasharu say that King Shamesh was dead, and that Asaru was now king and had sent Lord Raasharu to summon Val. Valashu Elahad speaks the truth! Lansar Raasharu was a ghul! I heard Morjin say this himself! To his filthy priests, in the Stone City, that foul, foul beast of a man boasted that he had suborned the noblest man in Mesh!'

Her words stunned the warriors, knights and lords standing around her. No one had ever dreamed that Vareva — or anyone else — would ever return out of Argattha to confirm the truth of what had happened in my father's castle on that most terrible of days.

'You were in the … presence of the Red Dragon?' Lord Tomavar finally stammered out to her.

'I served him in his throne room,' Vareva said, with loathing and shame burning up her face. 'Morjin took great pride in sporting his Valari slaves. As he did in boasting of how he had deceived everyone in Tria. Everyone in the world, almost, accuses Valashu Elahad of slaying an innocent man! But Ravik Kirriland was no innocent! He was a Kallimun priest, sent to murder Atara Ars Narmada!'

At the mention of this perfidy, of which Kane had told my friends and me many months ago, Atara bowed her blindfolded head toward Vareva.

'And so all the defamations people have made against Lord Valashu are false!' Vareva cried out. 'And everything that he has said is true!'

As she had spoken, I noticed Liljana holding her blue gelstei out toward Vareva with one hand while pressing her other hand to her temple. Then far out across the field, deep within the ranks of Lord Tomavar's men, an unseen warrior cried out: 'Valashu Elahad has told true! Lord Tomavar's wife confirms this! I can hear her words plain as a robin's song!'

Then others standing even farther back, out of easy reach of a spoken voice, made murmurs of amazement that they could understand Vareva as well. All at once it seemed as if all fifteen thousand warriors gathered around the square were affirming this and nodding their heads. Later, I would overhear men speaking of a miracle: of how they heard the voices of us at the center of the square clearly and distinctly, as if we stood right next to them. It would seem that Liljana had discovered a new power of her blue gelstei.

'Dear Vareva,' Lord Tomavar said, 'I am sorry. I give you my apology, as I did to Lord Valashu.'

I felt the hearts of more than ten thousand Valari warriors beating as one, and suddenly changing directions in their passion, as with the shift of a great flock of birds in flight. I wondered if Lord Tomavar could sense this as well.

'But why, dear wife,' Lord Tomavar continued, gazing at Vareva, 'did you not come forth sooner and speak of these things?'

'I was about to,' Vareva told him, 'when you drew on Lord Valashu. Then it was too late. I did not think that your pride would allow you to apologize, even if you knew the truth of things.'

At this, Lord Tomavar bowed his head in shame.

'Then, too,' Vareva continued, 'I knew that Lord Valashu would defeat you, as how could he not? I wanted him to, don't you see? Because how can I be your "dear" wife, or any wife at all, after all that has happened?'

It seemed that Lord Tomavar could not bear to look at her, and so he stared at my sword instead. His black eyes grew brighter and sadder as he studied his reflection as if finally seeing himself as he really was. Then he looked at me, and I felt his heart opening to the vast sea of suffering that Vareva held inside herself. I had a strange sense that he had come alive, in some small part, to my gift of valarda.

'I am sorry,' Lord Tomavar said again, finally turning back to Vareva.

'And I am sorry, too,' she said to him.

'I am sorry — but tell me that you no longer love me, then!'

'I cannot tell you that!' she cried out. 'But what is love against the dark thing that eats at all of us? That waits inside like a beast?'

Lord Tomavar's eyes brimmed with tears as he gazed at her with a rare tenderness. Then she broke down sobbing. After she had regained control of her spasming belly, she gasped out to him, 'I always said that you had the soul of an angel! But I hated you for losing it and going against Lord Elahad. It was as if you were already dead! And why did you leave me to Morjin? You should have come after me! You should have! Valashu Elahad went into Argattha once, and he would have come after the woman he loved!'

At this, Lord Tomavar turned back to gaze at my sword again. So great was the grief ripping through him that I knew he wanted to die. But his pride would not let him take his own life or cast it away. Earlier he had spoken of a debt to me, and debts must be repaid. And he owed Vareva more than his life.

'I cannot undo what has been done,' he called out in a deep yet quavering voice. 'But I can do, now, what should be done — it is all that anyone can do.'

So saying, this very flawed man, whose essential nobility and faithfulness my father had always counted on, drew himself up tall and straight, and moved over to me. He set his hand upon the flat of my sword and cried out for everyone to hear: 'I stand for Valashu Elahad as king! I call for every warrior who has pledged to me to be free to stand as well!'

He turned toward Vareva yet again. His gaze burned with a promise that he would try to redeem himself in service to me. And more, with a plea to win her back as his wife.

'I stand for Valashu Elahad, too,' Vareva said, taking a step toward me.

'You cannot!' Sar Jalval called back from the ring of men around us. 'You are a woman, and no warrior!'

'I am a warrior!' Vareva shouted at him. She drew forth her sharp, shining sword. 'My father taught me how to use this! With it, I slew three of Morjin's guards and made my escape! Many there are standing upon this field who have not slain so many of our enemy!'

Everyone looked at Manamar Tanu then, and this fierce knight nodded his head as he admitted, 'It is true — I instructed my daughter in the sword. I should not have, but she was always a willful girl, and I could not refuse her.'

He paused a moment, then added, 'But she is right about who should be king of Mesh. I stand for Valashu Elahad, too!'

He drew his sword and moved over to me. Then Lord Tanu freed his bright kalama and called out to me, 'I was very wrong about you. And so I will stand for you as well. All who have pledged to me are free to stand for you, as they will!'

I stood waiting for someone, or anyone, to speak.

'Valashu Elahad!' a powerful voice brayed out. I turned toward Lord Ramjay, Lord Tanu's greatest captain. On the field of the Culhadosh Commons, after the battle, he had spoken against me the most strongly. 'In Tria, with this secret sword you carry inside, you slew a man who has proved to be not an innocent — so Vareva Tomavar has told us. If you become king, what will you do with this great power of yours?'

I looked at Alkaladur, shimmering in the sunlight. And then, as I held this beautiful blade in one hand and my handkerchief containing Atara's golden hair in my other, I heard my voice crack out like thunder: 'Only this: I will call upon every particle of my being to defeat Morjin! And I will call upon you. You are Valari, descended all from Elahad himself and his brethren from the stars. We are brothers and sisters, warriors of the sword and the spirit. If our spirits are one, then the very fire of the stars shall be ours. If we are one, even if there is only one chance in all the universe of what we most desire, we shall set our sight on that and nothing else, and make it be.'

I told them, too, that if fate called me, I would die for them, as all must die for their dream.

For a while it seemed that no one moved. Liljana's blue crystal carried my words out for all to take in, not just with their ears but with a deeper sense. My passion to fight Morjin became their passion, not because I struck it into them as I had the truth with Lord Tomavar, but because they opened their hearts to me. Did the valarda, I wondered, dwell within all women and men, waiting to be awakened?

'Very well!' Lord Ramjay suddenly shouted as he drew his sword. 'Then I, too, will stand for Valashu Elahad!'

'And I!' Sar Shagarth shouted back.

'And I stand for Valashu Elahad!' Sar Jalval and Lord Vishand called out, as with one voice.

For a while, Liljana's crystal gave me to hear hundreds of conversations that had broken out around the square like the rumbles of a storm. I listened as warriors recounted my victories where I had led in battle: over Baron Narcavage and his assassins in King Kiritan's garden; over Morjin and his guards in his throne room when my friends and I had claimed the Lightstone; over the rogue Akhand clan of the Adirii tribe on the Wendrush; over the treacherous Duke Malatam and his five hundred knights at Shurkar's Notch in Alonia; and, of course, over Morjin's three armies at the Culhadosh Commons, which many now claimed that we won only because of me. Then Lord Tanu, finally deeming that enough had been said, held up his hand and called for the warriors to make their way to the various edges of the square: north, if they would stand for either the Lords Ramanu, Bahram and Kharashan; south if they favored Lord Tanu; west for Lord Tomavar; and east if they wanted me to be king. The warriors, however, ignored him, As one, almost all of them, from every direction, broke ranks and rushed into the square, crying out, 'Valashu Elahad — Valashu Elahad for king!'

As they pressed in closer. Lord Tanu turned about estimating numbers. And then he shouted: 'It is done! The warriors acclaim Valashu Elahad as our king!'

'Valashu Elahad!' ten thousand men called out at once. 'The Elahad for king!'

'Elahad! Elahad! Elahad!'

Then Lord Arajay Solval looked down at my bare hand, still gripping my sword, and he said, 'But there is no ring!'

I, too, looked down at my hand. In Hesperu, Kane had broken apart my lord's ring for its four diamonds so that we might purchase a slave named Bemossed. Every king of Mesh, for ages, had worn on his finger a ring of five brilliant and perfect diamonds.

'Lord Elahad,' Lord Solval announced, 'cast down his father's ring upon the Culhadosh Commons, and so there is no ring!'

'No, you are wrong!' Lord Harsha's gruff voice blared out. He stepped closer to me, and reached out his fist. When he opened his hand, everyone could see sparkling at its center my father's old ring. 'I kept this on that terrible day against this great day, which I always hoped would come.'

So saying, after I gave Kane to hold my sword, Lord Harsha grasped my hand and slid the ring down upon my finger. It fit perfectly. I held up my hand for everyone to see the five bright diamonds, once worn by my father and my grandfather's grandfathers.

'With this ring,' Lord Harsha intoned, repeating the ancient formula, 'go forth in the name of the Shining One as King of Mesh and never forget from where you came.'

'Valashu Elahad!' Lord Avgan shouted. 'King of Mesh — King Valamesh!'

'Valamesh! Valamesh!' thousands of warriors cried out. 'King Valamesh!'

Kane gave me back my sword, which I held blazing up to the sun. Then the warriors and knights all drew their swords and pressed in closer to me, not as a mob, but arrayed as ring around ring around sparkling rings, like those that circle the great planet Shahar. They pointed their swords up toward mine, and the reflection of bright steel off of silustria cast a cone of silver and light up into the sky.

And the acclaim continued with shouts that seemed to shake the very earth: 'Valamesh! Valamesh! Valamesh!'

After what seemed a long time, the warriors quieted and broke their circles to allow my friends to pass. Estrella danced up to me with great delight filling her lively face, while Liljana came closer and kissed my hand. Straight across from me, Atara stood as proud as a queen, smiling and weeping, without tears. Kane beamed like the very sun. As for Maram, he shouted for a whole barrel of brandy to be opened so that we might celebrate the moment.

'But what shall I call you now?' he said to me. '"Sire" is how I addressed my father, and "Valamesh" has a strange ring to it.'

'Call me "friend," I said to him, smiling and clasping his hand.

Then Joshu Kadar, standing nearby, bowed his head to me and said, 'I shall call you the "King of Swords!" To fight as you did today — that was the most wondrous swordwork I have ever seen!'

Kane, hearing this, nodded his head at me. 'So it was.'

A king, my father once said, lived in order to fulfill his duties, and my first was a happy one. I motioned for Sar Vikan and Sar Jessu to come closer. I took out two silver rings that I had reserved for this moment; each shone with four diamonds, and were the rings of lords. After bidding Sar Vikan and Sar Jessu to take off their old rings, I slipped these new ones in turn down around their fingers. Then I called out, 'Only a king can make a master knight into a lord, and it is long since time that both of you received these rings. Stand and be recognized! Lord Vikan Arval! Lord Jessu the Lion-Heart!'

Many warriors struck their swords together and cried out, 'Vikan Arval, Jessu the Lion-Heart, Lords of Mesh!'

Now many women and children from Hardu, Lashku and Godhra, and other towns, began making their way through the circles of soldiers in order to honor me. A few of the outlanders who had set up camp here also pressed in for a better look, even though Sar Shivalad and Sar Kanshar and my other Guardians kept them at a good distance. One man, however, would not be discouraged by the fence of swords surrounding me. He pushed himself right up against the flat of Sar Shivalad's kalama, and called out to me in a strong, deep voice, 'King Valamesh, indeed. As you desired, Valashu Elahad, it has come to be.'

Then he threw back the hood of his traveling cloak to reveal a fine, weathered face as dark as chocolate and wreathed in wavy white hair and a great flowing beard. He had the wisest eyes I had even seen.

'Grandfather!' I cried out. 'You are safe!'

I motioned for Sar Shivalad and Sar Jurald to lower their swords. Then Abrasax, the Master Reader and the Grandmaster of the Great White Brotherhood whom his intimates called "Grandfather," stepped closer to me. Others of his ancient order accompanied him: Master Virang, with his deep almond eyes and whimsical old face; the stolid Master Storr, whose title was Master Galastei; Master Nolashar, the Music Master; Master Yasul and Master Matai. I did not see Master Okuth among them, and my first fear would soon be proved true: that on their perilous journey from the Valley of the Sun where Morjin's men had destroyed their school, the Seven had now become only six.

'Master Okuth,' Abrasax said by way of explanation, 'died so that your friend might live.'

And with that he stepped aside so that Bemossed might come forward. The man I had befriended in Hesperu looked at me with the same large, luminous eyes that haunted my dreams. His face, soft yet handsome, had lost none of its gentleness, though deep lines creased his dark skin, especially across his forehead, tattooed with a black cross marking him as one of the despised Hajarim. But no man on Ea, I thought, could be more revered or more welcome in Mesh than he.

'Bemossed!' I called out, rushing up to embrace him. 'You are alive!'

'And you are a king!' he said, bowing his head to me. The smile that broke upon his face seemed as natural and bright as the sun.

Then Vareva stepped over to us, and she said to Bemossed, with relief and familiarity, 'We came just in time.'

'Thank you for leading us here,' he told her, turning his smile upon her.

Master Juwain, edging closer, looked from Abrasax to Vareva and then at Bemossed. 'I can see that there are stories that must be told — why don't we go somewhere we can tell them?'

It was a good suggestion, but the fifteen thousand warriors surrounding us would not allow it. When it became known who Bemossed was, Lord Noldashan cried out: 'It is the Maitreya! He has come to honor King Valamesh!'

Then many, many voices, those of warriors and those of women, children, too, shouted out: 'The Maitreya! The Maitreya! The Maitreya has come!'

Once again, the warriors raised up their swords and sent a dazzling radiance out into the square. Bemossed, however, standing next to me, fairly shone with a deeper and finer light that seemed to fill up the whole world. Then his smile grew even brighter as his clear, sweet voice called out along with thousands of others':

'Valamesh! Valamesh! Long live King Valamesh!'