The Lightstone

Chapter 16

With Atara, Maram and Master Juwain still weak and trembling from what the gray men had done to us, Kane immediately took command. He ordered Master Juwain to tend to me while he walked around our camp counting the bodies of the slain. He numbered them at twelve, including the one that I had killed. Maram had managed to send two on to the other world, while Atara had added three more enemies toward her hundred. That meant Kane had accounted for six. As I lay with my head in Master Juwain's lap, I blinked my eyes in disbelief. I had never seen anyone fight with such quickness, skill and sheer ferocity.

After Kane had completed his tally, he knelt by the gray men's leader on the bloody earth. He used his sword to cut the black stone from his forehead. He studied this flat oval a long time before tightening his fist around it. Then he turned toward us and said, 'This is no place to remain, eh? The sun will be up soon. Let's get Val into the shade of the trees before it boils his brains.'

With Kane's help, my friends carried me into the trees. They found a nice dry spot beneath an old oak, and there they reestablished our camp. Atara laid out our sleeping skins while Maram got a fire going and Master Juwain went to work on making some tea. Kane brought over the packs from the dead horses. And then he went off into the woods to look for Altaru and the two sorrels. We heard his sharp whistles through the trees.

Sometime later he returned holding the reins of a big bay, which I took to be his horse. Altaru, Tanar and the sorrels followed them. I was as glad to see Altaru as he was me. He walked over to where I lay and bent his great head down to nuzzle me.

Then Kane tethered him and the three other horses to a nearby tree.

'So, Valashu Elahad,' he said, looking down at me. 'I've wandered the wilds of Alonia looking for you. And now that I've found you, you're nearly dead.'

He spoke the truth. The coldness cutting through me was worse than that with which the gray men had touched me. I lay against the earth without the strength to rise.

Having killed again, I wanted to die. But seeing the concern on Maram's face and the love on Atara's as they gathered around me, I wanted to live even more.

Maram laid his big hand on my head and said, 'Once before he recovered from something as bad as this.'

'Yes, after he killed Morjin's assassin,'Kane said. He seemed to know all about me – and much else besides. 'But that was before the Grays went to work on him.'

'Do you mean the Stonefaces?' Maram said. He pointed toward the meadow where the bodies of the gray men lay in the dawn's half-light.

'No – I mean the Grays,' Kane said. ‘That is their name.'

'Who are they, men?'

'Servants of the Great Beast,' he growled out. 'They have the gift of speaking to themselves and others without using their tongues.'

Maram looked at Atara and Master Juwain as if they had never heard of such men before. Neither had I.

'They can see without using their eyes and smell the scent of others' minds,' Kane went on. 'That's how they tracked you all the way from Anjo.'

As the wind rose and the night began to fade, he told us that no one knew the Grays' true origins. 'It's said that the Great Beast bred them during the Age of Swords as one might breed horses. So, he looked for those with the gift of touching others' minds. Then he culled the weakest of them that the strongest might breed true.'

'But their faces, so gray,' Atara said, shuddering as she looked out into the field.

'Their eyes, too. No men on Ea have such eyes.'

'They don't, eh?' Kane said. Then he pointed up at the setting moon. 'It's also said that Morjin summoned the Grays from other worlds ages ago. From worlds even darker than this one.'

I stared out at the dim meadow as I lay looking at the Grays. Nothing could be darker, I thought, than the lightless world pulling me down into the cold earth.

'The Grays' favored method of killing,' Kane said, 'is to weaken their victims over many days. To drain them even as they drained you. Then, when they're too weak to move, they come for them with their knives.'

Master Juwain had finally finished preparing his tea, which he man-aged to make me drink with Maram's and Atara's help. Then, to Kane, he said, 'But we weren't so weak that we couldn't have fought them off. There was something else, wasn't there?'

Kane looked down at his fist for a while before opening it to reveal the black stone.

He said, 'So, there was something else. The baalstei.' 'What's that?' Maram asked.

'The black gelstei,' Master Juwain said, staring at Kane's open hand. 'Can that truly be one of the great stones?'

Kane gazed at the stone, which seemed a crystal like the darkest obsidian. 'It is a gelstei,' he said. 'It's known that Morjin keeps at least three of the black stones.'

He told us that the black gelstei were very rare and very powerful. Originally created to control the terrible fire of the red gelstei, they had a much darker side. For the Grays and some of the priests of the Kallimun used them to dampen the life fires of their victims and weaken their wills. Thus they could be used to enslave others by mastering their very minds. Used ruthlessly, as by the Grays, they could blow out the ineffable flame, causing disease, degeneration and ultimately death.

'It may be,' Kane said, 'that at first the Grays were trying only to weaken Val.'

'For what reason?' Maram asked.

'Why, to make him into a ghul,' Kane said. He spoke of the darkest things as casually as Maram might the weather. 'Morjin would relish a slave such as Val, eh?

But certainly after you fought off the Grays for so long and vanished into the Lokilani's wood, they intended to kill him – and all of you. They had no more time to do otherwise.'

He told us that the Grays had most likely attacked us physically in desperation before they were really ready. We had entered the parts of Alonia where it was dangerous for the Grays to ride openly. Certainly they would never seek to work their evil against us once we had reached Tria. For there the noise of thousands of minds would drown out the whispers of the Gray's poisonous voices. The Grays, he said, almost never sought their victims in large cities or during the day when people were awake.

'You seem to know a great deal about these Grays,' Maram said as he eyed Kane suspiciously.

'That I do,' Kane said, his black eyes burning. 'I know that your friend might very well die if we don't help him.'

His words seemed to blunt Maram's curiosity for the moment. I, too, had a hundred questions for Kane, but I was too weak to move my lips to ask them.

Master Juwain bent over me then, feeling my forehead and testing the pulses in my wrists and other places along my body. Then he said, 'I've given him a tisane of karch and bloodroot. Perhaps I should have added some angel leaf as well.'

'That's unlikely to do much good,' kane muttered. 'It may warm him a little, but his real problem is the valarda eh?'

Now Master Juwain and Maram – Atara. too – looked at Kane in surprise. No one hade said anything to him of my gift.

'Val has had the life nearly sucked out of him,' Kane said. 'We must help him light the sacred fire again, eh?'

'Yes, but how?' Master Juwain asked. 'I'm afraid I've had no exrperience with this.'

'Neither have I,' Kane admitted. 'At least not for a long time. But just as Val has nearly died in touching the dead, he can be made well in feeling the fire of the living.'

So saying, he bade Master Juwain and Maram to remove my armor. As the sun rose over the meadow and the birds brightened the morning with their songs, they laid my body bare. I felt the sun's warm rays touching the skin of my chest. And then I felt my friends' hands there too, as well as Kane's large, blunt hand. Together, the four of them made a circle of their hands over my heart. I heard Kane telling me that I must partake of the life they had to give me. This I tried to do. But I was too weak to open very far the door that I usually kept closed. Only the faintest of flames passed from them into me to warm my icy blood.

'It's not enough,' Kane said. 'He's still as cold as death.'

Just then, Flick appeared from behind the oak tree and streaked straight toward Master Juwain. He spun about just above the pocket of his robes. The swirls of his little form lit up as of a smiling face.

'Eh, what's this?' Kane said, looking at Fick.' It's one of the Timpimpiri!'

'You can see him?' Maram said.

'As clearly as I can see your fat nose. But I never hoped to find one in woods such as these.'

Master Juwain, touched by Flick's numinous light, seemed suddenly to remember something. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the sparkling green jewel that Pualani had given him. He said, 'The queen of the Lokilani told me that this emerald was to be used for healing.'

Kane said nothing as he looked very closely at the emerald. His black eyes, like mirrors., fairly danced with the emerald's green fire.

'She said that I was to use my heart to touch the stone,' Master Juwain said.

'She did, eh? Well, use it then.'

Master Juwain held the emerald against his chest for many moments as if meditating.

Then he opened his eyes and took out his copy of the Saganom Elu. His knotty fingers began dancing through the pages.

'I thought you were supposed to use your heart,' Maram said, pointing at the book.

'Won't all these words cloud your head?'

'Some of us,' Master Juwain said with a smile, 'must use our heads to reach our hearts. Now be quiet. Brother Maram, while I'm reading.'

Maram watched his eyes flicking back and forth across the page and said, 'Excuse me, sir, but if you wish the words to reach your heart, shouldn't you read them out loud? Didn't you teach me that the verses of the Elu were meant to be recited and were for hundreds of years before they were written down?'

'Oh, all right!' Master Juwain muttered. 'You've paid more attention to my lessons than I'd thought. This passage is from the Songs.'

He cleared his throat and began speaking in his most musical voice. He fairly sang out the words of A Warrior's Heart:

A warrior's heart is like the sun.

She shines with golden light,

Her golden sinews brightly spun

With angel-given might.

A warrior's heart is like the sea,

Her love is very deep,

She streams and swells with bravery

That makes the waters weep.

When he had finished, he again closed his eyes and held the emerald to his chest. He sat beside me as the sun rose and cast its rays into the woods. Atara sat beside me, too. She cupped her warm hand around mine. She remained silent, saying nothing with her lips. But her bright eyes said more than all the words in the Saganom Elu.

After most of an hour, Master Juwain opened his eyes and his hand. We were well-shaded by the leaves of the oak tree; even so, some fragment of sunlight fell upon the emerald and set it shimmering a brilliant green. Or perhaps I only imagined this: when I looked more closely, it seemed that the emerald shone with a deeper light. Master Juwain touched this beautiful stone to my chest then. He touched his hand there, and so did Atara, Maram and Kane, making a circle as before.

Something warm and bright passed into me. It made me want to open myself to the touch of the whole world. I gasped suddenly, breathing in the sweetness of the air. I breathed in as well the essence of the oak trees streaming with hot spring sap and the very fire of the sun. For one blazing moment, I felt myself overflowing with the life of the forest -and with that of my three friends and the strange man named Kane.

'So,' Kane said to Master Juwain as he touched my face, 'this emerald of yours has great power, eh?'

As quickly as it had overcome me, the death-cold suddenly left me. Although I was still very weak, I managed to sit up and press my back against the oak tree.

'Thank you,' I told Master Juwain. Then I smiled at Maram, Kane and Atara. 'You saved my life.'

I pressed my hand to my side where Salmelu's sword had cut me. I remembered Pualani holding a green crystal there and my awakening the next day to find myself miraculously healed.

'I see,' Master Juwain finally said. He gazed at the green stone that he held in his hand. 'This can't be an ordinary emerald, can it?'

'No – you know it can't be,' Kane said. 'It's now proven: this is a varistei. A green gelstei.'

Master Juwain gripped the green stone as if he were afraid he might drop it and lose it among the leaves on the forest floor.

'I thought the green gelstei had all perished in the War of the Stones,' he said. 'This is a treasure beyond price. How did the Lokilani come by it?'

'That's a long story,' Kane said. 'Before I tell it, why don't we make a little breakfast so you can regain your strength.'

He stepped over to his horse's saddlebags, from which he removed a large round of bacon and a dozen chicken eggs. How he had found such fare in the middle of a wilderness I couldn't guess. He handed the supplies to Maram, who quickly set to work slicing strips of meat and frying it up in his pan. In little time, the delicious smell of sizzling bacon wafted out into the woods. It took only a little longer for Maram to fry up the eggs in the hot grease and serve us our meal.

'We should celebrate,' Maram said. 'It can't be every day that the Red Dragon's men are defeated and my best friend is saved. Why don't we have a little brandy?'

So saying, he broke out our last cask and filled our cups with the golden brandy. He made a toast to our freedom from the Grays' attacks. Then raised his cup and took a sip. I did too. I gasped as the fiery liquor burned sweetly down my throat. And Master Juwain gasped to see Kane throw back his head and guzzle his brandy like water before holding out his cup to be refilled by Maram. It was the strangest meal of my life, that breakfast of bacon, eggs and brandy in the woods beneath the rising sun.

'Excellent,' Kane said, licking his lips. 'Now I'll tell you what I know of the Lokii.'

'You mean, the Lokilani, don't you?' Maram said.

'No ~ that's not their true name,' Kane said. 'You see, the Lokii were one of the original tribes of Star People sent to Ea with the Lightstone ages ago.'

He went on to explain that there had been twelve of these tribes: the Danya, Weryin, Nisu, Kesari, Asadu, Ajani, Tuwari, Talasi, Sakuru, Helkiin and Lokii. And, of course, the Valari, headed by Elahad and entrusted with guarding the Lightstone.

Each of the tribes had brought with them a single varistei meant to bring the new world to flower. For the green crystals had power over all living things and the fires of life itself. The Gaiadin and Elijin who had sent the twelve tribes to Ea had intended for them to create a paradise. But instead, Aryu of the Valari had risen up in envy to slay his brother, Elahad. He had stolen the Lightstone and broken the peace and hope of Ea..

'This much is known everywhere, if not always believed,' Kane said. 'But what is not known is that Aryu also stole the varistei from Elahad.'

He told us that Aryu, and many of the Valari who followed him, had set sail from Tria on three ships, fleeing into the Northern Sea. Near the Island of Nedu, a storm had driven two of the ships onto rocks, killing everyone aboard them save Aryu. But Aryu had been mortally wounded; at last, realizing his folly, he crawled ashore on a small island and hid the Lightstone in a cave. The Valari on the remaining ship, under his son, Jolonu, found Aryu's body but not the Lightstone. Jolonu then took the varistei from Aryu's dead hand and set sail for the most distant land he could find.

And so the renegade Valari came at last to the Island of Thalu in the uttermost west.

There they used the green gelstei to slowly change their form to adapt to the cold mists of that harsh and rugged land. The followers of Aryu, or the Aryans, as they came to be called, became a tall, big-boned people, fair of face, with flaxen hair and blue eyes as bright as the sea.

Here Kane paused in his story to look at Atara. She sat on old leaves beneath the oak tree, and her bright, blue eyes were fixed on Kane's face. 'Have you never wondered at the origins of your people?' he asked her.

'No more than I have the origins of the antelope or the grass,' Atara told him. 'But it's said that the Sarni are the descendants of Sarngin Marshan.'

Prince Sarngin, she said, had fought with his brothers, Vashrad and Nawar, over the throne of Alonia late in the Age of the Mother. Vashrad had finally prevailed, killing Nawar. But he had spared Sarngin, whom he had loved. He had banished him and many of his followers, forbidding them ever to return to the lands of Alonia. And so Sarngin had come to the prairies of the Wendrush, where he and his followers had prospered and multiplied to become the ferocious Sarni. 'Sarngin and Vashrad were sons of Bohimir, eh?' Kane said. 'Yes,' Atara said. 'Bohimir the Great. He was Alonia's first king.'

'Ha, a king!' Kane said to her. 'He was an adventurer and a warlord. In three hundred ships, he sailed from Thalu with the Aryan sea rovers – descendants all of them of Aryu and Jolonu. That was in the year 2,177 of the Age of the Mother. The Dark Year, as it's now called. The Aryans entered the Dolphin Channel and sacked Tria.

Bohimir crowned himself king. And that is the origin of your people.'

Kane paused to drink yet another cup of brandy. The potent liquor seemed to have little effect on him. While bees buzzed in the blossoms of a nearby dogwood and the day grew warmer, he sat looking back and forth between Atara and me. 'It's strange,' he muttered. Very, very strange.' 'What is?' I asked him.

He pointed at my hair and then held his hand toward my face as his black eyes burned into mine. 'It's said that all the Star People who came to Ea looked like you.

Like the Valari. The Valari who settled the Morning Mountains were the only people to have had their varistei stolen. And so they were the only people of Ea to remain true to the Star People's original form.'

I looked down at the black hair spilling over my chest and at the ivory tones of my hands. I rubbed my long, hawk's nose and the prominent bones of my cheeks. Then I looked at Atara, whose coloring and cast of face couldn't have been more different.

'The Valari and the Aryans,' Kane said, 'were once of one tribe. Thus they're the closest of all peoples – and yet, ever since Aryu killed Elahad, they've always been the bitterest of enemies. The Sarni are ultimately the descendants of Aryu himself, and who has warred with the Valari more?'

Only the Valari, I thought, biting back a bitter smile. 'It's strange,' Kane said, bowing his head first at Atara and then at me, 'that you two should have made a peace between yourselves at a time when it's foretold the Lightstone will be found.'

In truth, it was more than strange; I couldn't remember hearing of any Valari ever making friends with a Sarni warrior. As the sun rose over the meadow where Atara and I had stood against our enemies together, I couldn't help wondering if the Age of the Dragon – and war itself – was finally coming to an end.

'Ah, this is all very interesting,' Maram said to Kane. 'But what does this have to do with the Lokii?'

'Just this,' Kane said. 'After Aryu stole the Lightstone and the Valari were broken into their two kindred, the remaining tribes scattered to every land of Ea. Each tribe carried its own varistei; they used the stones to adapt their forms to the various climes of Ea. The Lokii, being lovers of trees, disappeared into the Great Northern Forest. Over the ages, they came to look even as you've seen them.'

'Have you seen them, then?' Maram asked.

Kane ignored this question, regarding Maram as he might a fly that had a loud buzz but no bite. Then he told us more about the Lokii.

'Of all the tribes,' he said, 'they were the only one to fully understand the power of the green gelstei.'

The Lokii, he explained, became masters of growing great trees and things out of the earth, and of awakening the living earth fires called the telluric currents. After thousands of years, they learned how to grow more of the green gelstei crystals from the earth. They used these magic stones, as they thought of them, to deepen the power of their wood. So changed and concentrated did these telluric currents become that their wood separated from Ea in some strange way and became invisible to the rest of it. The Lokii called these pockets of deepened life fires 'vilds,' for they believed that there the earth was connected to the wild fires of the stars.

Since the Lokii could not return to the stars, they hoped to awaken the earth itself so that all of Ea became as alive and magical as the other worlds that circled other suns.

'So, the vilds are invisible to almost all people except the Lokii,' Kane said. 'Even they have trouble finding their vild once they have left it. Which is why they never go far from their trees.'

'You say "vilds," Maram said. 'Are there more than one?'

Kane nodded his head and told us, 'During the Lost Ages, the Lokii tribe split into at least ten septs and bore varistei to other parts of Ea. There, they created vilds of their own. At least five of them remain.'

'Remain where?'

'Somewhere,' Kane said. 'They are somewhere.'

As he took another drink of brandy, Flick soared over to him and began spinning in front of his bright eyes. I could almost see the sparks passing back and forth between them. It was the longest I had ever seen Flick remain in one place.

'How is it,' Maram wondered, 'that Flick can live outside the vild?'

'That I would like to know, too,' Kane said.

'There can only be one answer,' Master Juwain said. 'If it's truly the tellluric currents of the vilds that feed the Timpum, then here Flick must take his life from something else. And that can only be the Golden Ban. Twenty years it's been since the earth entered its radiance. It must be the light of the Ieldra themselves that sustains him.'

'Perhaps,' Kane said. 'Perhaps we're coming into the time when the Galadin will walk the earth again.'

He knelt next to me by the tree, studying the scar on my forehead. Then he told me,

'This is why the Lokii spared your life. The mark of the lightning bolt – the Lokii believe that it's sacred to the archangel they call the Ellama. But others know this being as Valorem. It's strange that you should bear his mark, eh?'

Maram, apparently not liking the look on Kane's face just then, turned to him and said, 'What's strange is that you should know so much that no one else knows.'

'It's a strange world,' Kane growled out.

'How did you know that the Red Dragon had sent assassins to kill Val?' Maram asked. 'And how did learn to fight as you do? Are you of the Black Brotherhood?'

As Maram tapped his empty cup against a stone, we all looked at Kane, who said, 'If I were of the Black Brotherhood, whatever you think that is, do you suppose I'd be permitted to tell you?'

Maram pointed at Flick, who now hovered over some flowers like a cloud of flashing butterflies. He said, 'If you can see the Timpum – ah, the Timpimpiri, as you called them – then you must have spent time in one of the vilds.'

'Must I have?'

Master Juwain sat holding his book and said, 'We of the Brotherhood spend our lives in search of knowledge. But even our Grandmaster would have much to learn from you.'

Kane smiled at this but said nothing.

'But how,' I asked him, 'did you find the vild and enter it?'

'Much the same as you did.'

He told us that he had spent much of his life crossing and recrossing Ea in search of knowledge – and something else.

'So, I seek the Lightstone,' he told us. 'Even as you do.'

'Toward what end?' I asked him.

'Toward the end of bringing about the end,' he growled out again. 'The end of Morjin and all his works.'

I remembered touching upon his bottomless hatred for Morjin at our first meeting in Duke Rezu's castle; I remembered the anguish in his eyes, and I shuddered.

'But what grievance do you have against him?' I asked.

'Does a man need a grievance against the Crucifier to oppose him?'

'Perhaps not,' I said. 'But to hate him as you do, yes.'

'Then let's just say he took from me that which was dearer than life itself.' I remembered wondering if the Red Dragon had murdered his family, and I bowed my head in silence. Then I looked up and said, 'Your accent is strange – what is your homeland?'

'I have no home,' Kane said. 'No homeland that Morjin hasn't despoiled.'

'who are your people, then?'

'I have no people whom Morjin hasn't killed or enslaved.'

'You almost look Valari.'

'I almost am. As with your people, I'm Morjin's enemy.'

As I sat staring into his dark, wild eyes, I couldn't help remembering the story of the Hundred Year March. After Aryu had killed Elahad and fled into the Northern Sea, Elahad's son, Arahad, had assembled a fleet of ten ships and set sail with the remaining Valari in pursuit. For ten years, they searched in vain from island to island and place to place. They faced many storms and adventures. Finally, having circumnavigated the whole of Ea, they had returned to Tria with only five remaining ships.

Arahad then decided – wrongly – that Aryu and the renegade Valari must have come to land and established themselves somewhere in the interior of the continent. And so again, Arahad and his followers set out in pursuit, this time on foot. Thus began the Hundred Year March. Arahad's Valari wandered almost every land of Ea looking for Aryu's descendants and the Lightstone. Finally, after Arahad's death, his son, Shavashar, led the remnants of the Valari tribe into the Morning Mountains, where they gave up their quest and remained. But it was said that some of the Valari lost heart long before this, and broke off from the rest of the tribe before they reached the Morning Mountains. In what land these lost Valari might have established themselves, not even the legends told. But I wondered if Kane might have been one of their descendants.

'You make a mystery of yourself,' I said to him.

'No more than the One has made a mystery of life,' he told me. 'So, it's not important who I am – only what I do.'

I turned toward the sunlit meadow to look upon the work that Kane had done. I still couldn't quite believe that he had killed the six Grays at close quarters without taking a scratch. I pointed at their bodies and said, 'Is this what you do, then?'

'As I told you at the Duke's castle, I oppose Morjin in any way I can.'

'Yes, by slaughtering his servants. How is it that you found them here? Were you following them – or us?'

Kane hesitated while he drew in a breath and looked at me deeply. Then he said, 'I've been looking for you- Valashu Elahad, for a year. When I heard that Morjin's assassin had found you first, I set out for Mesh as soon at I could.'

'But why should you have been looking for me at at al? l And how did you hear about the assassins?'

'My people in Mesh sent me the news by carrier pigeon,' he said.

'Your people? I asked, now quite alarmed.

'So, there are brave men and women in everv land who have joined to fight the Crucifier.'

'Are they of the Black Brotherhood, then.'

As he had with Maram, he ignored this question. And then he went on to say, 'When I heard that you had fought a duel with Prince Salmelu and were being pursued by the Ishkans along the North Road. I hurried through Anjo to Duke Rezu's castle to intercept yon.'

'But how could you know that we'd come there? We certainly didn't know this until we escaped from the Black Bog.'

Now Kane's eyes began glowing as of coals heated in a furnace, He smiled savagely at me and said, 'So, I guessed. Duke Barwan eats from the Ishkans' hands like a dog and so how much sense would it have made for you to cross the Aru-Adar Bridge into his domain? But where else could you cross into Anjo? Where could you hope to lose the Ishkans if not in the Bog? It was a good guess, eh?'

I nodded my head as Maram and Master Juwain looked at me in silent remembrance of the terrors of this nighttime passage. And then Kane continued, 'I knew that if you were who I thought you to be, you'd find your way out of the Bog – even as you found your way into the Lokii's vild.'

'But what is the Black Bog?' Maram asked, shuddering. 'It's like no place on earth I ever wanted to see.'

'That it's not,' Kane said. 'So, the Bog isn't wholly of the earth.'

He went on to tell us that there were certain power places in the earth – usually in the mountains – where the telluric currents gathered like great knots of fire. If they were disturbed, as the ancient Ishkans had done in leveling a whole mountain with firestones to create the Bog, then strange things could happen.

'Other worlds around other suns stream with their own telluric currents,' Kane said.

'The currents everywhere in the universe are inter-connected. And so are the lands of the various worlds; in places such as the Bog, it's possible to pass from one world to another.'

'Do you mean to say that we were walking on other worlds like earth?' Maram asked.

'No, not like the earth, I hope,' Kane said. 'The Bog is known to connect Ea only with the Dark Worlds.'

I looked up at the sun pouring its light on the green leaves and the many-colored flowers of our woods; I didn't want to imagine what a Dark World might be. And neither, it seemed, did Maram or Atara. They looked utterly mystified by what Kane had said. But Master Juwain slowly nodded his head as he squeezed his black book in his little hands.

'The Dark Worlds are told of in the Tragedies,' he explained. 'They are worlds that have turned away from the Law of the One. ''There the sun doesn't shine nor do men smile or birds sing." Shaitar was one such world. Damoom is another. Angra Mairryu is imprisoned there.'

Of course, even I had heard of Angra Mainyu, the Baaloch, the Dark Angel – the Lord of Darkness, himself. It was said that he had been the greatest of the Galadin before falling and making war against the One. But Valoreth and Ashtoreth, along with a great angelic host, had finally defeated him and bound him to the world of Damoom. That this world had somehow been darkened by his presence, however, I hadn't known.

'You should read the Saganom Elu more closely,' Master Juwain chided Maram and me. 'Then you might learn the true nature of darkness.'

I fought back a shudder as I smiled grimly; I didn't need a book to help me recall the hopelessness I had felt in the Black Bog.

To Kane, I said, 'If we passed from Ea to other worlds through the Bog, is it then possible for other peoples to pass from them to earth?'

'Not in any way that anyone could use,' Kane said, following my thoughts. 'There are no maps from the Bog to other such places. Openings to other worlds appear by chance and then vanish without warning like smoke. Anyone caught there quickly becomes maddened, exhausted, lost. The mind can't see its way out and wanders within itself even as you wandered with your bodies. But sometimes things escape from one world and find their way to another. Like the Grays: it's possible they originally came from one of the Dark Worlds. Perhaps even Damoom itself.'

My breakfast having put new strength in my limbs, I suddenly found myself standing up and stretching beneath the tree. It was good to feel the earth beneath my feet; it was good to be alive on a world such as Ea where the sun rose every day and the birds sang their sweet songs.

'The Grays,' I said to Kane, 'picked up our scent before we'd left Anjo.'

'Yes, I know,' Kane said. 'When Morjin's assassins failed to kill you, he must have decided to send his most powerful retainers against you.'

'You followed us from the Duke's castle, didn't you? Did you find the Grays following us, too?'

Kane slowly nodded his head, then stood up beside me, 'You were in great danger, though you couldn't have known the source. But I knew. So, I knew that they'd open you with their minds and then with their knives if I didn't follow them and kill them first.'

'If you truly wanted to help us,' I said, looking out into the meadow, 'you waited a long time.'

'That I did. There was no other way. It's impossible to steal upon the Grays and attack them unless their minds are completely occupied in immobilizing their victims,'

'So you used us as bait to spring your trap.'

'Would it have been better if I had walked into their trap and died with you?'

I nodded my head because what he had said made sense. Then I told him, 'We should thank you for taking such great risks to save our lives.' 'It's not your thanks I want,' he told me.

'What is it you want, then? You said you've spent a year looking for me – why?'

Now Master Juwain, Maram and Atara rose up and stood beside me facing Kane.

We all waited to hear what he would say.

As the sun rose higher and the woods grew even warmer, Kane began pacing back and forth beneath the oak tree. His grim, bold face was set into a scowl; the large tendons along his neck popped out beneath his sun-burnt skin as his jaw muscles worked and he clamped his teeth together. Kane, I thought was a man who fought terrible battles – the worst ones with himself. I felt in him a great doubt, and even more, a seething anger at himself for doubting at all. Finally, he turned toward me, and his eyes were pools of fire catching me up in their dark flames.

'So, I'll tell you of the prophecy of Ayondela Kirriland,' he said. The sounds issuing from his throat just then were more like an animal's growls than a human voice,

'listen, listen well: "The seven brothers and sisters of the earth with the seven stones will set forth into the darkness. The Lightstone will be found, the Maitreya will come forth -'"

"And a new age will begin," Maram said, interrupting him.'Ah we already know the words to the prophecy. King Kiritan's messenger delivered it in Mesh before we set out.'

'Did he?' Kane said, fixing his blazing eyes on Maram.

'Yes, we already know that the seven stones must be -'

'Be quiet!' Kane suddenly commanded him. 'Be quiet, now – you know nothing!'

Maram's mouth snapped shut like a turtle's. He looked at Kane in surprise, and not a little fear, as well.

'There's more to the prophecy than you'll have heard,' he told us. He turned to stare at me. 'These are the last lines of it: "A seventh son with the mark of Valoreth will slay the dragon, The old world will be destroyed and a new world created."'

As his voice died into the deepness of the woods, I stood there rubbing the scar on my forehead. I thought of Asaru, Karshur, Yarashan, Jonathay, Ravar and Mandru – my six brothers who were the sons of Shavashar Elahad. Then Maram turned toward me as if seeing me for the first time, and so did Atara and Master fuwain.

'If this is truly the whole prophecy,' I said to Kane, 'then why didn't King Kiritan's messenger deliver it?'

'Because he almost certainly didn't know it.'

He stared at my face as he told us of the tragedy of Ayondela Kirriland. It was well known, he said, that Ayondela was struck down by an assassin's knife just as she recited the first two lines of the prophecy. But what was not known was that the great oracle in Tria had been infiltrated by Morjin's priests who helped murder Ayondela. Just before she died, she whispered the second two lines of the prophecy to two of these Kallimun priests – Tulann Hastar and Seshu Jonku – who kept them secret from King Kiritan and almost everyone else.

'If the lines were kept secret, then how did you learn of them?' I asked.

'Tulann and Seshu informed Morjin, of course,' Kane said. His dark eyes gleamed with hate. 'And before Tulann died, he whispered the whole of the prophecy to me.'

I looked at the knife that Kane wore sheathed at his side; I didn't want to know how Kane had persuaded Tulann to reveal such secrets.

'Tulann was an assassin,' Kane said to me. 'And I'm an assassin of assassins. Some day I may kill the Great Beast himself – unless you do first.'

The scar above my eye was now burning as if a bolt of lightning had put its fire into me. I squeezed the hilt of my sword, hardly able to look at Kane.

'You bear the mark of Valoreth that Ayondela told of,' he said to me. 'And unless I've forgotten how to count you're Shavashar Elahad's seventh son. That's why Morjin sent his assassins to kill you.'

Atara came up to me and put her hand on my shoulder, I felt within her a terrible excitement and her great fear tor me as well. Master Juwain smiled happily as if he had just found a piece to a puzzle that he had thought lost.

Maram bowed his head to me as a swell of pride flushed his face-To Kane, I said

'Why didn't you tell me all this at the Duke's castle?'

'Because you didn't trust me – why should I have trusted you?'

'Why should you trust me now?' Kane's breath fairly steamed from his lips as he stared deep into my eyes. 'Why should I indeed, Valashu Elahad? Why, why? So I trust your valor and the fire of your heart – and your sword. I trust the truth of your words. I trust that if you set out to seek the Lightstone, you won't turn back. Ha – I suppose I trust you because I must.'

So saying, he opened his hand to show me the black stone that he had torn from the Grays' leaders head. 'This, I believe, is one of the stones told of in Ayondela's prophecy.'

He nodded at Master Juwain and said, 'And I believe that the varistei that the Lokii queen gave you is another.'

Master Juwain took the green gelstei fern his pocket and held the sparkling crystal up to the sun.

'The first two of the seven stones have been found,' Kane said. 'And here we stand, five of the seven brothers and sisters of the earth.' 'No, it's not possible,' I murmured. 'It can't be me that the prophecy told of. It can't be us.'

But even as I spoke these words, I knew that it was. I heard something calling me as from far away and yet very near. It was both terrible and beautiful to hear, and it whispered to me along the wind in a keening voice that I could not ignore. I felt it burning into my forehead and tingling along my spine and booming out like thunder with every beat of my heart.

'You can't choose your fate,' Kane said to me. 'You can decide only whether or not you'll try to hide from it.'

I stared into the centers of his black eyes; I sensed in him a whole sea of emotions: wrath, hope, hate, love – and passion for life in all its colors and shades of light and dark. There was a terrible darkness about him that I feared almost more than death itself.

He suddenly drew his sword which had sent on so many of the Grays. Its long blade gleamed in the sunlight filtering down through the trees. He said to me, 'You have the gift of the valarda. If you choose to, you can hear the truth in another's heart. Hear the truth of mine, then: I pledge this sword to your service so long as you seek the Lightstone. Your enemies will be my enemies. And I'll die before I see you killed.'

There was a darkness about Kane as black as space, and yet there was something incredibly bright about him, too. The same black eyes that had fallen upon his enemies with a hellish hate now shone like stars. It was this light that dazzled me; it was this bright being whom I looked upon with awe.

'Take me with you,' he said, 'and I'll fight by your side to the gates of Damoom itself.'

'All right,' I finally said, bowing my head. 'Come with us, then.'

And with that, I touched my hand to his sword. A moment later, he sheathed this fearsome weapon, and we grasped hands like brothers, smiling as we tested each other's strength.

It was rash for me to have spoken without the other's consent. But I knew that Master Juwain would welcome Kane's wisdom as would Maram the safety of his sword. As for Atara, she had nothing but respect for this matchless old warrior. She came up to him and clasped hands with him, too. And then she told him, 'If fate has brought us together, as it seems it has, then we should go forth as brothers and sisters. Truly we should. I'd be glad if you came with us – though let's hope we won't have to go quite so far as these Dark Worlds that you've told of.'

Master Juwain and Maram both welcomed Kane to our company, and we stood there in the shade of the oak tree smiling and taking each other's measure. Then Atara turned to Kane and said, 'There's one thing in your story that you glossed over.'

'Eh, what's that?'

Atara, who was as sharp as the point of one of her arrows, smiled at him and said,

'In your account of how Aryu stole the Lightstone, you claimed that he had hidden it in a cave before he died. If that's true, then how was it ever found?'

Kane let out a low, harsh laugh and said, 'That's a story that will certainly be told at the gathering in Tria. Can you wait until then?'

'Oh, if I really must,' she said.

I looked up at the sun and said, 'If we're to be at the gathering at all, we'd better saddle the horses and ride on. We've only two full days until King Kiritan calls the quest.'

And with that, we smiled at each other and turned to break camp.