Diamond Warriors

Chapter 24

I was not, however, left alone to complete this task. The Seven, assembled near me, held their colored crystals out toward me. Alphanderry had never ceased his marvelous singing, and now the seven great gelstei sang back as if with the voices of the Ieldra themselves. Kane, his face shining like a star, gazed at me with a will toward utter triumph, and I sensed Ashtoreth and Valoreth and the greatest of the Galadin looking out through his brilliant eyes. Liljana and Daj, too, seemed to know what must be done. Atara sat on top of her red mare as if staring straight into my heart. Her heart beat in perfect rhythm with mine, fast and hard and full of sweet hurt. She could not contain her ardor for me, and for life itself. So it was with Maram, standing on top of a hill a mile away, as he desperately battled a dragon. I knew that he would let loose every bit of fire within him and do even the most loathsome of things in order to save me. As for Estrella, she smiled at me with all the warmth of the sun. She moved closer to me, cupping the Lightstone in her hands. Within its golden hollows gathered the flames passed on by all my friends and many beings, in colors of crimson and orange, yellow and green, blue and indigo and the deepest and brightest of violet.

'You will die, Valari!' Morjin shouted out to me. 'Now you will die!'

Once, outside of a tumbledown cottage in Hesperu, I had held within my grasp the greatest weapon in the universe. Why had I been so afraid to use it?

Because, I told myself, you fear the same thing Morjin fears.

I remembered the Elijin queen, Ondin, advising me that I must wish for Morjin's healing and all good things for him — he, who was the worst man I had ever known! Such a desire, I knew, if it could be summoned at all, must come from my heart. It must take life not only as a force, conscious and willed, but as a feeling as poignant as breath and as urgent as the blood burning through my brain and every part of my body. But I could not feel such a thing for anyone unless I opened myself to feeling my way into him. But he is all foulness and filth! I thought. He is vomit and pus and poison!

'Be strong!' Kane called out to me. 'Strong as silustria, I say!'

He grasped hold of my arm, and I felt ten million years of his will to triumph against the most terrible of foes streaming into me. He is a torturer! I thought, staring at Morjin. A crucifier, a blood-drinker, a murderer!

I could not open myself to the valarda without, in some way, finding myself alive and aware within another. And worse, letting him live and draw breath within me. But how could I ever do such a thing?

Because, I told myself, I am a murderer, too.

Inside myself, like everyone, I had always held a dragon's egg waiting to hatch. And I fought with all the fierceness of my breath to keep it from eating the best part of me alive.

With his eye of compassion He saw his enemy. .

In looking at Morjin across a few dozen yards of the battlefield's bloodstained grass, what did I see? That long ago before the Dragon had consumed him, this hateful and hideous man had been born a gentle soul — the gentlest and sweetest. And that, with all his heart, he wanted this bright, self-murdered being to be reborn.

But he cannot bear it! That which he most desires, he most abhors.

Then Estrella, with Bemossed's torn body still hanging from the cross above us, held out the Lightstone to me. The little cup seemed to draw down the sun's golden radiance and the blueness of the sky with an ingathering of colors. Stars shone there, too, in all their dazzling millions. Their radiance built, hotter and ever brighter, like unto the very splendor of creation itself. It was said that the Lightstone could hold the whole universe inside, but I did not know how much longer it could contain this brilliant angel fire.

'Strike, Val!' Kane called out to me. 'Only you know the way!'

What is it to love a man? Surely this: that your blood interfuses with his blood, in fire. That despite his terrible crimes, you want with all your heart and the force of your spirit for him to live as he should have lived, and all should live: bright, joyous and whole.

'Valari!'

Then Estrella, through the Lightstone, poured into me a resplendent and indestructible force. To call it love was to say everything about it, and yet too little. It was the shining hope of countless Galadin, Elijin and Star People watching and waiting on their spin-ning worlds throughout the universe; it was Atara's dream of bearing our child, and the very breath of the Ieldra, too. Within its overflowing radiance there gathered the primeval impulse of the stars to shine upon each other and call all of creation to a vaster and deeper life. It held a promise that no man or woman lived in vain and that all would be remembered and redeemed. And that no one, not even the most vile and estranged, could ever be alone.

'Valari!' Morjin cried out to me again.

I could not keep within myself this terrible and beautiful force. The sound of spears clashing against shields and men screaming out their death throes made it burn ever brighter; the agony in Morjin's voice ripped it out of my heart. Straight through my blood it blazed and into my hand. As with other swords, I knew I must wield it truly, cutting apart Morjin's shield, beating back his sword, driving it through armor. Alkaladur, the bright length of silustria that Kane had forged so long ago, shimmered with a perfect and clear light beyond glorre. Then the true Alkaladur, forged by the angels in the heart of the stars, streaked out like lightning and struck deep into Morjin.

The great Red Dragon fell silent as he twisted about with a bone-jerking violence on top of his horse. He coughed and gasped and let go of his sword. He let go of others' minds then, too, for Zahur Tey and many Red Knights near him cried out in dismay as Morjin lost the power of illusion over them. Horrible he was to behold, with his blood-red eyes and dead gray skin, and Zahur Tey's face screwed up in disgust. And yet something beautiful dwelled within Morjin, too, like a candle lit up inside a dark cave.

'Valashu,' he said to me. With the angel fire still streaming from my sword and the clangor of battle splitting the air, I heard his voice like a whisper upon the wind. It held all the pain in the world and a plea that I might somehow take it from him. Years fell away from him then. His hideous face relaxed and softened, and flashes of gold brightened his eyes. I could almost see him as the beautiful being that he had once been: a man who would wish that hate should leave him and Atara be healed and deserts made green again. I felt within him a longing to call me his brother, as brothers we truly were. He seemed to want to hold out his hand to me.

There is a way, I wanted to tell him. There is always a way.

Then he looked deep into my eyes, and he cringed, as if looking into the sun. He gnashed his teeth together as he shook his head at me.

Why, I asked the wind, can he not bear it?

Fear, like a drink of poison, seized hold of him. His face tightened and began burning with his old malice, toward me and everything that might forge a bond with others and weaken him. No man, I thought, could resist the sword that I pushed through his heart. But the Red Dragon, through the force of his will, twisted it and transmuted this healing light into the most terrible of flames.

'No!' he shouted out to me. 'I will not let you make me your ghul!'

Then one of his knights handed him back his sword, and Morjin pointed it at me — or perhaps Estrella — as his head lifted backward and he screamed out into the air:

VALARI! AIYIYARIII!

He kicked his spurs into his horse's flank, and blood reddened the beast's white hide. His horse leaped forward with a terrible scream; so did Zahur Tey's mount next to Morjin, and so with Salmelu, and hundreds of other Red Knights. On the east side of the hill. Count Ulanu led a charge against the warriors I had deployed in a circle protecting Bemossed.

I pushed at Estrella's horse, urging her closer to the cross from where Liljana was calling to her and Daj. There, too, Master Juwain and the Seven, with Alphanderry, took shelter behind my knights.

Our forces came together in a clash of lances against shields, swords clanging against swords and horses whinnying in terror as they kicked against the earth and drove themselves against other horses in a great collision of flesh against flesh. To the west, below the hill Lord Sharad led our rear guard in a hopeless battle against the Red Knights trying to cut off our route back to the hole that Ymiru and Lord Tomavar's men had torn in the Dragon Army's lines. But our way back no longer existed, for the Yarkonan phalanx had marched straight into it like a great steel plug. Soon the Red Knights and Count Ulanu's cavalry would complete their encirclement of my knights. There could be no escape for us so long as Morjin lived and kept shouting out his command that his men should destroy us.

I turned to meet the attack of the Red Knights riding ahead of Morjin. The foremost of these — a big man with a great scar seaming his black beard — I killed with a quick thrust, driving my sword through the rings of red steel protecting his chest. Alkaladur might be the Sword of Light, but it still had terrible uses, too, and the needs of battle drove me to wield it in order to protect Estrella and those I loved. Two more times my bright sword flashed out, and two more of my enemy plunged to the ground. And then others, many others, pressed forward in a rage to kill me.

Kane, slightly ahead to my right, drove his horse forward to put himself before the Red Knights coming at me. I did not know what had happened to his sword. He had hold of a broken pike, which he used like a staff to protect me. It was a poor weapon to wield against heavily armored knights. Kane, in fighting to kill, had often fallen into a fury so terrible that his enemies had bitten off their own tongues in fear of him. And now, in fighting not to kill, as I realized he did, he had to call upon an even wilder and fiercer force. His speed and strength stunned me; I had never seen him move with such certainty, fire and grace. The end of his pike became a blur of wood as he whirled it past his enemies' lances and swords. He drove it straight into their chests, unhorsing them, and with savage blows he broke arms and elbows and even men's faces. But he would not slay them. The killing angel had at last become a true Elijin lord, and of all the great feats of arms I had witnessed upon any battlefield, I had never beheld such a marvel.

Joshu Kadar, Sar Jonavar and Sar Shivalad tried to come up on my left and push ahead to protect me. They hated it when I led the way straight into the lances and swords of our enemy, but expected it, too, for I was a Valari king. Sar Shivalad cast the last of his throwing lances at a Red Knight trying to stab a spearpoint into me, while Joshu fell into a vicious combat with Zahur Tey.

Then Atara pressed foward. I had commanded her to remain close to the cross with Estrella and the others, but she would not wait out the last of the battle helplessly. With Karimah guiding her horse, Atara was sighting the last of her arrows at a large Red Knight who was calling out curses and preparing to hurl a mace at me. He died clutching his hand to the shaft buried in his throat, and I heard Atara cry out: 'Ninety-nine!' At that moment, Salmelu bore down on both women swinging a bloodstained kalama. He killed Karimah with a quick slash that nearly cut off her head. And then hemmed on Atara.

I did not see how she could withstand his attack. He had the longer sword and good steel armor against her Sarni saber and leather corselet; he cried out his rage to cut her to pieces so that he could get to me. As I chopped through the lance of yet another knight trying to impale me, I drank in the terrible sight of the bare-armed and blind Atara slashing out with her saber in a desperate struggle to keep Salmelu's sword from cutting her open.

'Atara!' Daj cried out. He, too, had disobeyed my command to wait with the others. Wielding a long lance that he could barely hold, the youth drove his horse almost straight into Salmelu, all the while stabbing with his lance. 'Val! I'll save you!'

It was upon me, I thought, to save him — and Atara. But I could not move to my left just then to engage Salmelu. For Morjin, still kicking his horse's flanks bloody and screaming out his hate, fell upon me from straight ahead.

'Die, Valari!'

Altaru whinnied out a challenge and reared up to strike his hooves into Morjin's white stallion, his teeth gnashed the air as he tried to bite Morjin or his stallion — I cuold not be sure which. It took a moment to steady him and position him next to Morjin's huge mount, side by side. Then Morjin's sword smashed down against mine. A shock of pain ran up through my arm bones; I did not know how Morjin called upon such a terrible strength. Again and again, we swung our swords against each other, slashing and parrying, thrusting and trying to cut our way through. My sword's silustria rang from the quick, powerful blows that he rained down upon me.

'Elahad!' I heard Salmelu shout out from my left. Steel clashed against wood as Daj furiously parried Salmelu's sword with his lance, 'I will cut off your woman's head and hand it to you! The boy's, too!'

I had no time to take in the battle raging next to me. I gasped and sweated and grunted with the great effort of keeping Morjin from splitting my flesh. Our horses screamed and pushed at each other, and our swords burned the air. I should, I thought, have been able to vanquish him. I had the better blade; I had youth and fire and recent practice in such deadly duels from all the combats that my war with Morjin had forced upon me. Above all, I had Kane as my teacher, and every lesson that this matchless old warrior had ever drilled into my nerves and bones lived on with every lightning stroke and thrust of my sword. But Morjin, some legends told, was the greatest swordsman ever to walk upon Ea. He had killed thousands of his enemy, sword to sword. He had a fount of power that only the Elijin could call upon. And he had his hate.

'Valari!' he shouted to me. Our swords slammed together and then sprang back. 'I will kill you and everything else on this world before I will ever become your ghul!'

We battled on with hundreds of other knights cutting and cursing at each other in a great circle at the lop of the hill. The muscles in my arm burned from the great effort of swinging my sword; the sun's rays stabbed like daggers into my eyes. Morjin threw himself at me with an almost reckless rage, as if he did not care that I might slash him open so long as he could slaughter me. And Estrella. He kept looking over toward her, standing beneath the cross. I felt his furious will to tear her apart. With a ringing of steel, he managed to slide his sword away from mine and slice it down against my shield arm, nearly breaking it. Then he stabbed it at my face. I jerked back my head in time to keep him from piercing my brains — but his sword's point drove into my cheek and scored the bone beneath. I gasped at the jolt of pain that shot through my head, and I blinked against the blood that worked its way into my eye. I counterattacked with all the fury that I could find, but it was not enough. Why, I wanted to shout to the wind, could I not kill this man?

And the wind whispered back: Because you do not want to see something beautiful perish from the earth.

Love, I knew then, could destroy as easily as it could create. if I let it, my regard for Morjin would slow my sword and steal the blood from my heart. Then he would slay me. His men would overwhelm the nearly defenseless Kane, and cut down Atara, Joshu Kadar, Lord Avijan and all my other knights fighting so heroically upon this hill. They would slaughter Abrasax and Master Juwain and all the Seven. And Alphanderry and Liljana. too. After Morjin had clawed the Lightstone from Estrella's fingers, would he then put her on a cross next to Bemossed?

'No!' I called out him. 'It is you who must die!'

I knew that he must. He seemed to know it, too. I saw it in his red anguished eyes and felt it in his blood as an unbearable burning that had grieved him for too many thousands of years. His whole being trembled as if haunted with his life and all the dreadful deeds that he had done. He fell at me slashing his sword in a frenzy and a fearful will to seize his fate.

'One hundred!' Atara cried out to the sky. Her duel with Salmelu had carried her ahead of me, and I caught sight of her jerking her bloody saber from Salmelu's throat. It seemed that somehow Daj had directed her precisely where to cut him. Then she called to me: 'Val! If you kill him. '

I did not hear the rest of her words, for her vision of what would befall me had long since found its home inside my heart: If you kill him, you kill yourself!

I knew that I would. It did not matter. My grandfather had once told me that some men are marked out to make their own fate.

And so I called upon all the radiance still pouring from the cup in Estrella's hand and the light coursing through my sword. A vast will, as fiery as Kane's, blazed through me. I swung Alkaladur at Morjin, once, twice, ten times, seeking for advantage with a controlled fury that Kane had burned deep into my soul. I finally beat aside Morjin's sword in a ringing of silustria against steel. His eyes opened wide, drinking in the light in mine. Love, I knew, might be the most beautiful force in the universe, but it was also the most terrible.

'Strike!' Kane shouted as from a million miles away.

And then a closer and deeper voice as Atara called to me in despair: 'Val!'

I rose up, standing in my stirrups as I lifted the Bright Sword toward the heavens. Then, before Morjin could move his sword back to cover himself, I swung Alkaladur's blade down against Morjin's shoulder with a tremendous force. The silustria split his armor and sliced through his body at a slant, cracking bones and tearing his lungs. With a shock of agony, I felt it cleave his heart. Then it drove down through his belly toward his opposite hip, nearly cutting him in two.

No Elijin, not even Kane, could survive such a wound. Morjin died in a torrent of blood, staring at me. Then his torn body plummeted from his horse to the ground with a great crash.

I gasped as I waited for the agony to sweep me away. Strangely, however, I felt no pain. I gazed down at the ground, and there, hovering over Morjin's still form, a dark cloud took shape as a man. It had a head the size and shape of Morjin's, and so with its legs, torso and arms. I could not make out any feature of its face, lost within a black nothingness. The Ahrim — for such I knew it was — suddenly reached out its hand to me and grasped hold of my hand. I could not let go, and neither could I resist it. I felt Morjin calling to me from wherever he had gone, and Bemossed, and my father and my mother, my brothers, too, and all the thou-sands of men dead or dying upon this field. Down, I fell, down and down through a dark hole that opened through the ground. It seemed to have no bottom.

And as I fell through a terrible cold, faces appeared, glowing out of the gloom. I stared into the eyes of Raldu, the assassin, and at a shaggy hill-man of Alonia and at one of the hideous Grays. There must have been hundreds of these men: all those I had ever put to the sword. I had not realized that I had slain so many. And then, as I fell and fell, I saw that there were really millions of them. For the One had brought me forth — some flaming part of my soul — as a warrior countless times on countless worlds. And I had killed uncountable multitudes since the beginning of time. When I looked at the dead more closely, it astonished me to see that each of their faces was really my own.

And then I looked no more. There was nothing to see, nor did anything exist by which it might be seen. I heard nothing and I felt nothing, for I was nothing. The darkness deepened down into an even more utter blackness that went on and on forever. Valashu.

And then there was light. As hate contains the seed of love and the black gelstei holds a firestone's flames, the neverness that had devoured me gave birth to a dazzling darkness. Faint, at first, it slowly grew brighter. And then quickly brighter and still brighter until it swelled outward and blazed like a sun. And then ten thousand suns, ten million of millions and all the stars in the universe pouring out an impossibly perfect splendor. I could not perceive it, as the eye takes hold of a flower's beauty. I could only be it, utterly interfused, for as it opened out and out into an infinite glory, the light and I were one.

'Valashu.'

I heard Estrella calling to me, but I thought that I must be dreaming, for Estrella could not speak. I felt a hand pressing down upon my chest, and my heart beating against it. My breath burned past my lips like a fiery wind. Then a fierce light filled my eyes. The sun — Ea's sun, warm and bright — sent its golden rays streaming down upon me. I blinked my eyes and squinted and gasped. Bemossed's blood-streaked body hung upon the cross just above me. I tried to sit up, but several hands pushed me back to the earth. Breaking metal and a terrible screaming filled the air.

'Val!' Atara called to me. She knelt by my side, while Estrella crouched down next to her.

'You live!' Master Juwain cried out from above rne. 'You were dead, but now you live!'

He explained that after I had fallen from my horse, the Seven and Liljana had dragged my body to the foot of the cross. My heart had stopped, and so had my breath. No skill of Master Juwain nor even the life-strengthening powers of the Seven's gelstei had been able to revive me. But Estrella had.

'She called you back!' he said to me. 'She put her hand upon you, and your heart started beating again!'

As I looked up Estrella, smiling at me, Master Juwain went on to declaim that this was a miracle and irrefutable proof that she was the Maitreya. I could hardly hear him, for the sound of clashing steel and men screaming drowned out his words. I forced myself to sit up. All around us, at the top of the hill, the Red Knights and the Yarkonans had finally encircled my warriors and pressed them inward into an even tighter ring. With Morjin hacked to pieces, his Red Knights worked even more ferociously to exact revenge. So did Count Ulanu. He led his Yarkonans against my knights. His ugly face contorted in wrath as he tried to cut his way through in order to kill all of us, and his old enemy Liljana first and foremost. But just then, Liljana brought her blue gelstei up to her head. She must have put something into his mind that maddened him, for he suddenly looked at her and screamed and fell from his horse. His own men trampled him under, crushing him to death with another hideous scream. But it was not enough to keep his men from pressing on.

Nor could Kane turn back the tide of battle. Now fighting on foot, the better to protect Estrella, he whirled his broken pike about like a magician's staff, felling many, but he could not beat back an entire army. Neither could the bloody kalamas wielded by Lord Avijan, Joshu Kadar — and many others — as they sliced into the masses of men pressing them. Soon, I knew, the Red Knights would close in upon the cross and annihilate me and mine.

'My sword!' I heard my voice croak out. 'Where is my sword?'

Atara pressed Alkaladur's hilt into my hand, and my fingers closed around it. A surging of blood through my veins, like the Poru in flood, gave me the strength to stand up. Then Atara swept up her saber and turned to face our enemy.

'No,' I told her, laying my hand on her arm, all bloody from the arrow that had pierced her and her butchery of Salmelu. 'You have slain your hundredth man.' I looked out across the war-torn steppe below the Detheshaloon, and I saw many thousands of men still slaying each other, pushing spears and swords past shields. And women, too. At the center of the field, where the enemy poured through the broken Alonian lines, I saw a battalion of Valari knights appear as if from nowhere and ride forward into the gap. The diamond armor of these hundreds of knights sparkled in the sun. I caught sight of a great blue rose against a white surcoat and other emblems that I did not recognize; I suddenly realized that somehow Vareva Tomavar and the woman warriors she had trained had found their way to the battle. Their kalamas gleamed like shards of silver. The tremendous tumult nearly deafened me; the sun's red flash off bronze and steel nearly burned out my eyes. I could not tell who was winning the battle.

'Estrella!' I called turning to this lovely young woman who had shown me so much. 'Will you help me again?'

Her smile was like a warm ocean washing through me. She nodded her head as if she had been waiting all her life for me to ask her this question. He hands grew bright from the radiance pouring out of the cup that she held.

I raised my sword up to the sky, aligning it with stars that I could not see but only sense. I pointed it toward the Seven Sisters and Agathad, where the Galadin dwelled, and Ninsun, source of the Golden Band at the center of all things. Then I brought Alkaladur down and swept it out across the battlefield, from our lines of knights and warriors in the west to the trampled grass in the east, where Sajagax's Sarni had now nearly routed the enemy's tribes. It was strange to think that Morjin's death had done nothing to dismay the men whom he had led here but had only caused them to fall against my men with an even greater savagery.

But I will give them dismay, I thought. That — and much, much more. For I had brought back from the land of the dead a great gift. 'Val!' Atara cried out from next to me. 'Your sword!' Once again, the Lightstone poured out an impossibly bright radiance. So did my sword. All the fire of life that blazed within me flashed out of it. The valarda was that force which opened one man or women to another, heart to heart. At the heart of all things, I knew, there shimmered but one light. It was this splendor that interconnected all beings together as one.

There is nothing to fear.

Truly, there was not. But so long as flesh burned with life, there would always be much to suffer. Now, as men battling in both the Dragon army and mine thrust steel through flesh, they suffered themselves the terrible agonies that they inflicted on each other. The screams of the wounded and dying, in thousands, were joined by the shrieks of those who would cleave or slay them. No man could strike another without feeling the white-hot pain of a spear or axe or arrow or sword ripping through him. So it has always been with me. And so now I gladly — but with great grieving — shared my gift with them.

They cannot bear it!

Who, I wondered, could? For I, who had called upon my sword to help me endure the torments of those I had slain, had in the end driven myself down into death. Perhaps only Kane, I thought, of any man on earth or the stars, had the strength to drink in the anguish of those he struck down and keep on fighting.

But our enemy — and my warriors — could not keep on doing battle themselves. Sar Shivalad, after slashing open a Red Knight's neck, grabbed his own neck and fell gurgling from his horse. So it was with Lord Manthanu after he had swung his mace to brain a man, and with Lord Avijan, Joshu Kadar and many others. And so with our enemy. Zahur Tey, after he had stabbed Sar Zenshar, shook his head and cast down his lance. He did not mean it as an act of surrender — only that he would not, and could not, fight anymore. A dozen of his men followed his lead. And then thirty more, and then three hundred and a thousand. My knights began throwing down their weapons, too. And suddenly, like a wave spreading down and outward from the top of the hill where Bemossed hung crucified, the ringing of steel against steel slowly faded and died as all of the tens of thousands of men on the battlefield ceased fighting.

'Val!' Atara cried out again. Her face radiated a deep joy. 'I never saw!'

Truly, I did not think that she had ever looked upon this moment. But she had willed it to be, with all the force of her soul and the sacrifice of her flesh and the power of her white gelstei.

Then Estrella held the Lightstone high above her head. Its splendor, like unto that of creation itself, neither dazzled the eye nor burned but seemed to illuminate all things as from within. The golden cup grew even brighter, and its radiance fell across the miles of warriors spread across the plains; it fell across the whole world in a clear, numinous flower of light that blossomed outward and connected earth to the heavens.

There came a moment when no one moved. It seemed that it was no longer possible for anyone to move again, if their motions should be the stabbing of spears and the swinging of swords. All the men gathered beneath the Detheshaloon, almost turned to look up at the Lightstone. Awe shone upon the faces of my Valari warriors and those of our former enemies, too. I felt them burning with a new will toward life. In the Lightstone's onstreaming glory, even the blood-soaked earth and the bodies of the dead and dying seemed transformed with a luminous and terrible purpose. Men and women gazed at the shimmering Lightstone as if wondering why they had been called into life and called into battle. I saw great warriors such as Lord Avijan, Sar Shivalad and Zahur Tey break down weeping, for the men whom they had killed and for each other — and for themselves.

Then the kings and chieftains who had fought that day, as if called to the top of the Owl's Hill rode out away from their armies to the foot of Bemossed's cross, where I stood with Estrella and my friends. King Angand of Sunguru, his bloody blue surcoat showing a reddened white heart with wings, kept pace next to King Thaddeu. Hesperu's new sovereign had succeeded King Arsu, killed when the elephant he had been riding fell upon him. No king came forth from the nearby Yarkonans, for none would claim Count Ulanu's illicit crown. But King Orunjan, one of the greatest of the Dragon Kings, approached the cross to speak for Uskudar. He had reddish-brown skin and a nose as straight as a ruler; he stood tall, straight and proud. The chieftains of the Sarni tribes who had fought for Morjin made their way up the hill too, but not Gorgorak, for Sajagax had sought him out during the battle, and had put an arrow through his heart.

It gladdened my heart to see that the great Sajagax, by a miracle, had survived the battle. He rode up to the cross with five broken arrows sticking out of various parts of him: two through his shoulder and one through each thigh while a fifth had embedded itself in his neck. I did not know how he managed to climb down off his horse and to stand next to Vishakan and Bajorak and the other Sarni chieftains who had followed him here. I did not know — then — that during the battle the warriors of the Janjii tribe in the east and the Siofok in the west had gone over to Sajagax, and that all the Sarni would soon be persuaded to make him their Great Chief, as Tulamar had been before him long ago.

Of the Valari kings, all came forth save for King Sandarkan and King Hadaru, who had died trying save one of his knights from the axes of the Blues. Prince Issur had immediately taken command of the Ishkans as their new lord. A pike had pierced King Mohan's arm and a saber added yet another wound to King Kurshan's fearsome face, but the two of them stood side by side on the hill looking up at me in anticipation. So it was with King Viromar, King Waray and King Danashu.

Others mounted the hill as well: King Hanniban and King Tal and King Aryaman of Thalu, who would be known hereafter as Aryaman Bloodaxe for the terrible deeds that he had done at the Detheshaloon that day. Great warriors who were not sovereigns stood with them: Thaman of Surrapam and Vareva Tomavar and Ymiru, whose white fur the ferocious combat with the Hesperuks and Yarkonan phalanxes had soaked almost completely red. And perhaps the greatest of warriors, and of all those who had fought upon the battlefield: Sar Maram Marshayk. For he had slain a dragon.

I watched my best friend slowly make his way through the parting Kaashan and Sakayan lines from the Hill of Fire. There, the great body of Yormungand lay where it had fallen, broken and burned. Maram himself had been burned, and badly, for Yormungand's flames had singed off his eyebrows and incinerated his beard and blistered much of his face a bright red. His left arm hung encased in charred leather and diamonds, and he could not use his blackened left hand. But in his right hand, he still clutched his bright red gelstei. As he drew closer to me, he held the great firestone high above his head as if showing me the sun itself.

'We're alive!' he cried out to me. 'O Lord! blessedly and beautifully alive! And dragonslayers, now, the both of us!'

He looked down at Morjin's hacked body, near the cross. So did Zahur Tey and King Angand, and many others. All seemed disgusted to perceive Morjin's true face: old and withered and ugly beyond anything they had ever imagined. And yet I thought that perhaps they could see in him, too, a terrible beauty for having finally found peace in death. The sight of the great Red Dragon lying so still I sensed, shocked everyone gathered at the top of the hill into waking up, as from a bad dream.

'I was a fool,' Zahur Tey called out, 'for thinking that Morjin could have been the Maitreya.'

He turned his gaze from Morjin's body to look up at Estrella, standing beneath the cross, and so did thousands of others.

'We were all fools,' King Orunjan said.

Then King Angand, like a hawk alert to the shifting of the wind, called out: 'We followed Morjin because we thought he could unite Ea. But we were wrong.'

King Angand, a cunning and calculating man did not speak the whole truth, for men had mostly gathered to the Red Dragon's standard because Morjin had terrorized them. But it didn't matter. King Angand, and others, seemed finally freed from Morjin's spell, and that was a very great thing.

'Many of us were wrong about many matters,' King Mohan called out. This fierce warrior had matched swords with King Angand's Sunguruns that day, and he gazed at King Angand in a silent understanding. Then he spoke of his hope for Ea, and his new dream shone forth in words that astonished me: 'I have fought in battles nearly every year since I was seventeen. I am tired of war. I long for peace. Once, in the time of Godavanni the Glorious in the Age of Law, Ea had a High King — and peace reigned across the world.'

Kane, standing next to him, drew his sword and raised it up toward me. In his rich, powerful voice, he called out: 'King of Ea! Let us recognize Valashu Elahad as Ea's rightful High King!'

Then he stepped foward to lay his sword at my feet, for he would never wield steel in war again.

'King of Ea!' King Mohan shouted, drawing his sword. 'King Valamesh! King of Kings!'

'King Valamesh!' King Viromar called out, also raising up his kalama to me. Then all the remaining Valari kings drew their swords, and added their voices to his:

'King Valamesh shall be our king!'

'Valamesh, High King!' King Angand acclaimed me. 'Let all who stand here now make it so!'

His will to see Ea united under one banner persuaded King Orunjan and King Thaddeu of Hesperu and others who had followed the Red Dragon. King Hanniban and the Free Kings likewise seemed swept away by the magic of that moment. They knelt before me, and set their swords on the ground at my feet. And they cried out with one voice:

'King Valamesh! King of Ea!'

Bajorak, however, although my friend, would not call me his king, for no Sarni chieftain would ever call any man king. But he, like Vishakan and most of the other Sarni chiefs — even Gorgorak's son, Artamax, the new leader of the Marituk — clearly saw that no Sarni tribe could now stand alone. Even as no alliance of tribes could stand against Sajagax and the High King of more than twenty kingdoms. And so, then and there, at the top of the Owl's Hill, the Sarni chieftains made Sajagax their Great Chief. And then Sajagax, with arrows sticking out of him like a porcupine's quills, came up to me.

'There will be a High King for Ea!' he called out in a voice that shook the earth like thunder. 'And a new law for Ea, that is just the Law of the One! Let none oppose it, or else be prepared to oppose all the Sarni! And let all the Sarni, who kneel to no man, even a king, honor one who must be a lord to even the greatest of kings!'

So saying, with a great struggle and will to overcome pain, he dropped down to one knee on the slope beneath me. Then he looked up and cried out, 'Lord of Light!'

At first I thought that he must have forgotten that I could not be the Maitreya; then I realized that he was looking past me, up at Estrella, who stood behind me holding high the Lightstone. Her face shone with a lovely radiance as the voices of kings and Sarni chieftains — and many others — rang out into the air: 'Lord of Light!'

Then I, too, turned and knelt before Estrella: a twelve-year-old girl holding a plain golden cup in her hands. I pressed my sword to the bloodstained grass beneath her feet as I added my voice to the multitudes crying out: 'Lord of Light! Lord of Light! Lord of Light!'

At last, when Estrella could bear this acclaim no longer, she motioned for me, and everyone else, to stand back up. She set her hand upon my hand and gently urged me to slide my sword back into its sheath. Her face lit up with the brightest of smiles. Then she fell against me weeping, hugging my hard armor close to her, kissing my palms and fingers and then standing up on tiptoes to press her lips against my lips, my face and my hot, hurting eyes.

The war, I thought, weeping too, was finally over.