The Lightstone

Chapter 27

It was nearly noon by the time we had sailed close enough to the island to get a good look at it. This western part of the world was a realm of clouds and mists that lay low over the land and often obscured much of it. The rocks that the lookout had espied proved to be the highlands of four smaller islands just to the east of the Island of the Swans. The island itself, like a seahorse with its head pointed west and tail curling southeast, was a much greater prominence about fifty miles in length. Along its central spine, three conical mountains pushed their peaks toward the sky. From the centermost and tallest of these, it seemed that a great plume of smoke issued forth and fed the gray-black clouds above it. Captain Kharald's men feared that this must be dragon smoke; they called for the Snowy Owl to flee these accursed waters before the dragon descended upon us in a flurry of leathery wings and burned us with his fire.

'Dragons, hmmph,' Atara said as we all stood near the rail looking at the island.

'There hasn't been a dragon in Ea for two thousand years.'

'None but the Red Dragon,' Master Juwain agreed. 'And he has no power here.'

I clenched my teeth as I remembered the last night's dreams, but I said nothing.

'No men, I think, have power over the Island of the Swans,' Kane told us. 'It's said that men have never conquered it or made a king-dom here.'

If true, I thought that was very strange. The Island of the Swans lay scarcely sixty miles across the Dragon Channel from Surrapam, and even less distance from Thalu to the north. And while the Surrapamers had never been conquerors like the Thalunes, they weren't above grabbing bits of land to add to theirs like everyone else.

'If there are no dragons here,' Maram said, pointing at the smoking mountain, 'then what curse lies upon this land?'

None of us knew. Not even Captain Kharald could tell us why, for as long as anyone could remember, ships from Surrapam – as well as Eanna and Thalu – had avoided the Island of the Swans.

'Perhaps,' I heard one of his men grumble, 'it's because any ship that sails for this island never returns.'

His fear spread to his shipmates from tongue to nervous tongue, and even Jonald seemed reluctant to steer the Snowy Owl any closer to the island. Captain Kharald, his face set as sternly as the rocks toward which we sailed, walked among his crew and met them with his steely eyes to give them courage. If any decided that this was no voyage for them, he wanted to remind them of their duty before they began talking of mutiny.

We spent all that day sailing along the island's north shore looking for a place to land. But the forbidding walls of rock there warned us away; the currents were bad, too, and Captain Kharald kept a wary eye out for any reefs which might splinter his stout ship like kindling. We spent the night farther out at sea where we would be safe from running aground. And then the next morning, we rounded the island's westernmost point – the top of the seahorse's head – and made our way along its

'nose' for about five miles. When we reached its tip, we turned again, this time heading straight for the belly of the island, which bulged out to form a great deal of its southern shore. Here the waters grew calmer and the currents less swift. As we drew closer to this misty land arising out of the ocean, we saw beaches giving way to the green-shrouded heights beyond. Captain Kharald chose a likely looking expanse of sand, and steered the Snowy Owl toward it.

With one of his men sounding the water's depth with a length of a weighted and knotted rope, Captain Kharald finally ordered the Snowy Owl anchored about a quarter mile offshore. Along with Jonald and six other sailors, he joined us to the starboard and watched as Jonald directed the lowering of the skiff that would take us to the island. 'This far we've come against our better judgment,' Captain Kharald said to us. 'But I can't ask my men to accompany you onto the island.'

I stood armored in my mail, wearing my black and silver surcoat and my helmet with the silver swan wings projecting upward from the sides. I held the throwing lance that my brother Ravar had given me and my father's gleaming shield. Kane bore his long sword and Maram his shorter one; Atara had her saber and her deadly bow and arrows. Liljana and Alphanderry had strapped on their cutlasses, even though they had chipped them badly on Meliadus' rock-hard hide. And Master Juwain, of course, would carry no weapon. In his gnarly old hands, he clutched his copy of the Saganom Elu as if it contained whole armories within its leather-bound pages.

'Thank you for bringing us here,' I said to Captain Kharald. 'It will be enough if you'll wait until we return.'

From near the mast behind us, I heard one of his men mutter, 'If they do return.'

'Three days we'll wait, but no more,' Captain Kharald said. 'Then we'll have to sail for Artram. You must understand, my people are hungry.'

'Yes, they are,' I agreed. 'But hungry for more than bread.'

I stared off at the wall of green rising up beyond the beach. I was sure that somewhere on this lost island, we would finally behold the Lightstone that we had crossed the length of Ea to claim. And then we would find a way to end war and suffering, and people would never be hungry again.

We climbed down to the skiff on rope ladders hanging over the ship's side. It disquieted me that we would have to leave the horses behind, but there was no good way of getting them ashore. I sat in silence in the skiff with my companions as.

Jonald and the other sailors rowed the open boat toward the beach. The rhythmic sound of the oars dipping into the water seemed to measure out the remaining moments of our quest.

After Jonald and the others had put us ashore and set out to sea again, I stood with my friends on the beach's hard-packed sand. The island stretched out twenty-five miles to the west and as many to the east. We guessed that it must be at least ten.

Miles wide at its widest part In listening to the wind pour over this considerable length of land, I suddenly realized that I had no idea of where the Lightstone might be found.

And neither did any of my friends. Maram squinted against the squawking seagulls flying above us and said, 'Well, Val, what do we do now?'

I turned to Atara to ask her if she had seen anything in her crystal sphere. But in answer Atara only held out her hands helplessly and shook her head.

Four points there are to the world, and three of these were land while the fourth was ocean. I stood with my back to this gray water as I gazed at the smoking mountain to the north. When I looked in that direction, my heart beat more quickly. And so I began walking toward it.

The others followed close behind me across the beach. Soon its brownish sands gave out onto the wall of forest that had seemed so forbidding from the water. Up close, the tall trees and dense under-growth proved nearly impenetrable. Search though we did for a few hundred yards up and down the beach, we could find no path cuttine through them.

'Are you sure we should go this way?' Maram said, pointing into the forest. 'I don't like the look of it.'

'Come,' I said, taking a step forward. 'It won't be so bad '

'That's what you said of the Vardaloon,' he moaned. Upon remembering our passage of that dark wood, he shuddered as he pulled the hood of his cloak up over his head. 'If I see a single leech, I'm turning back, all right?'

'All right,' I agreed. 'You can camp here on the beach and wait for us to return with the Lightstone.'

The thought of us gaining what he so deeply desired while he sat here on the sand sobered him. He suddenly found his courage, and muttered to me, 'All right, but you go first. If there are leeches here, maybe they'll drop first on you.'

But the forest turned out to hold none of these loathsome worms. Neither were we troubled by ticks, even though the undergrowth near the beach was very thick and brushed continually against us. As for mosquitoes, in all that thick band of woods, we saw only one. This, as it happened, landed right on Maram's fat nose. In his panic to swat it, he forgot the delicacy of this fleshy protuberance. His huge hand nearly flattened it out, causing him to shout in pain. Although the cunning little mosquito escaped this blow, he did manage to bloody himself. It was the funniest thing I had seen since Flick had spun about on Alphanderry's nose.

'Stop laughing at me!' Maram called out as he pressed his hand to his bleeding nose.

'Where's your compassion? Can't you see I'm wounded?'

This 'wound' Master Juwain tended with a few swipes of a doth and a bit of a leaf tucked up into Maram's nostril. And then Kane came over and snapped at Maram,

'Save your valor for our real enemies. We don't know what we're going to find on this island.'

His rebuke reminded me that we knew almost nothing of the Island of the Swans.

Dragons we surely need not fear, but what awaited us deeper in the forest no one could say.

As we started off again, I used my shield to brush the ferns away from my face I gripped my lance in my sword hand. But I saw nothing more threatening than a red fox darting out of our way and a few bumble bees. In truth, I immediately liked the feel of this ancient woodland. Its giant trees, towering far above the carpets of bracken along the forest floor were hung with witch's hair and icicle moss as if arrayed in enchanted garments. Every living thing about us seemed soft and glowing with greenness; even the air smelled sweet and good.

I felt strangely at home here although there were many types of trees and plants that were strange to me Master Juwain put names to a few of them: he pointed out the great cedars with their long strips of red bark and the yew trees and big-leaf maples.

Others he had never seen either. But it turned out that Kane had. He showed us the sword ferns and the horsehair lichens, the lovely pink rhododendrons and the blue hemlocks shagged with old man's beard. Each name he spoke as if reciting that of an old friend. And each name Master luwain dutifully recorded. I thought that I was past of his own private quest to remember the name of each and every thing in the world.

We made slow progress, for there were many new plants to identity, and the ground before us was thick with ferns and rose steeply. There were quite a few downed trees, too, which made the footing treacherous. Kane called some of these moss-covered trunks nurse logs. He said that in rotting apart into bits of crumbling wood, they served as nursery beds for other trees that took seed there. They were also homes to the red-backed voles and other animals we saw scurrying about the forest floor.

'I've never seen a wood so lush,' Maram said as he puffed along behind me. 'If the Lightstone is here, it could be anywhere. How are we to find it? I can't even find my own feet beneath me.'

Liljana came up to him then and reassured him that Sartan Odinan, if he had truly come here, wouldn't have just dropped the Lightstone down into a clump of moss.

'Don't you give up hope just yet, young prince. Perhaps we'll find a cave in one of the mountains we saw.'

These three peaks were now obscured by the wall of vegetation before us. But if we kept a straight line through the giant trees, after perhaps another five miles, we should come upon the slopes of the smoking mountain.

And so we fought our way up across the densely wooded ground that led toward it.

It took us perhaps an hour to cover the first half mile. As there were few enough hours left in the day, and we had only three days until the Snowy Owl sailed again, it seemed that we would be able to explore only the tiniest corner of the island.

And then, after another half mile, the headland we were dtmbing came to a crest. The forest suddenly changed and thinned, and gave way to many more yews, maples and dogwoods. Through the gaps between them, we looked down into the most beautiful valley I had even seen.

'Oh, my lord!' Maram called out. 'There are people here!'

We saw signs of them everywhere. Between the crest on which we stood and the mountains some five miles away were many patches of green that could only be fields. Small stands of trees – they looked like cherry and plum – divided them from each other in darker green lines. Many pastures covered the long slope leading down to the valley's center. There a sparkling blue lake pooled at the base of the three mountains, which curved around its northern shore like a crescent moon. There, too, near the lake's southern shore, surrounded by what seemed to be many streets and colorfully painted houses, stood a great, square building whose white stone caught the sunlight streaming out of a break in the clouds. Liljana said that it reminded her of the ruins of the Temple of Life in Tria.

'We must go there then,' I said. Now my heart was beating very quickly.

'Whoever lives here,' Kane said, squinting as he looked about the valley, 'may not want us here at all. We should be careful, Val.'

I remembered how the Lokilani had stolen upon us and nearly killed us with arrows before rare chance had saved us.

'Careful we'll be, then,' I said. 'But when one walks into the lion's lair, there's only so much care that can be taken.'

And with that, I led off, walking warily through the woods. Atara kept pace with me just to my left; she held an arrow nocked in her bowstring as she looked off through the trees. Master Juwain came next, followed by Liljana and Alphanderry. Behind then, Maram trod carefully down the long slope, all the while fingering his firestone as he started at every squirrel or bird moving about in the branches above him. Kane, as usual, brought up the rear.

After about a half mile, the woods thinned even more and gave out onto a wide pasture on which only a few isolated trees grew. Here the grass was long and lush, and as green as grass could be. Many day's-eyes, with their sunlike yellow centers and long white petals, made a show of themselves, and thousands of dandelions brightened the grass as well. Bees buzzed from flower to flower in their slow but determined way, gathering up nectar peacefully. From somewhere ahead of us, across the lines of rolling and gradually descending ground, came the distant baahing of some sheep. If this walla lion's lair into which we were walking, I thought as I gripped my lance and shield, then surely we were the lions.

Another quarter mile brought us out onto a bowl-like pasture smelling of some sweet blue flowers and sheep droppings. We saw the flock ahead of us, fifty or sixty fat sheep spread out over the soft green grass, their white fleeces gleaming in the sun.

We saw their shepherd, too. And he saw us. The look on his face as we suddenly appeared over a low rise above him was one of utter astonishment. But strangely, his bright, black eyes showed no sign of fear.

' Di nisa palinaii,' he said to us, holding out his hand as if in greeting. ' Di nisa, nisa

– lililia waii? '

The words he spoke made no sense to me. Nor did any of the others seem to understand him, not even Alphanderry, who held the seeds of all languages upon his fertile tongue.

'My name is Valashu Elahad,' I said, pressing my hand to my chest 'What are you called, and who are your people?'

'Kilima nisti,'the man said, shaking his head. ' Kilima nastamii .'

The shepherd, who was about my age, wore a long kirtle that seemed woven of the same white wool that covered his sheep. He was tall, almost my height, with ivory skin and a long, high nose that gave great dignity to his noble face – and a hint of fierceness, too. But there seemed nothing fierce about him. His manner was gentle, curious, welcoming. He wore no weapon on his braided and brightly colored cloth belt and his hand held nothing more threatening than his shepherd's crook. This surprised me almost as much as did his appearance. For with his thick black hair and eyes like black jade, he might have been my brother.

'Oh, my lord!' Maram said as he came up beside me. 'He looks Valari!'

My friends, gathering around the shepherd, stared at him and remarked the resemblance as well. Master Juwain said, 'There's a mystery here: a lost island upon which stands a Valari warrior who seems no warrior at all. And who doesn't speak the language that all men do.'

If he was a mystery to us, we were an even greater one to him. He approached me as one might a wild animal; he slowly extended his hand and traced his finger along the swan and seven silver stars of my surcoat. He touched the steel links of my armor, too. Finally, he tapped his fingernail against my helmet as he slowly shook his head.

' Di nisa, verlo,' he murmured. ' Kananjii wa? '

It seemed pointless, and a little rude, to continue talking with him from behind my helmet's curving steel plates. And so I took it off. The shepherd stood staring at me as if looking into a mirror for the first time.

' Di nisa, nisa,' he said again, this time more doubtfully. ' Wansai paru di nisalu? '

He turned to go among Maram and the others. He smiled at Liljana respectfully, then narrowed his eyebrows as he seemed to look for his reflection in the gleaming surface of Master Juwain's bald head. He put his finger to Alphanderry's dark curls then paused a moment as he looked at Kane. But he spent the longest time examining Atara. Everything about her seemed a marvel to him. He examined her leather armor and ran his finger along her bowstring; he touched her long blonde hair with all the reverence that Captain Kharald might have reserved for handling gold.

' Di nisa athanu,' he whispered. ' Athanasii, verlo.'

'What language is this?' Maram asked, shaking his head. 'I can't understand anything of what he says.'

'I can almost understand,' Alphanderry said. 'Almost.'

'It sounds something like ancient Ardik,' Master Juwain told us. 'But, I'm afraid, no more than a pear is like an apple.'

Kane had now lost patience, perhaps with his own ignorance most of all. He nodded at Liljana and said, 'You spoke with the Sea People, eh? Can't you speak to this man?'

All this time Liljana had been clutching her little carved whale in her hand. Now she brought this figurine to her head. The blue gelstei, I suddenly recalled, were not only the stones of mindspeaking but also quickened the powers of truthsaying and apprehending languages and dreams.

' Nomja?' the shepherd said, looking at the figurine. ' Nomja, nisami?'

A quick smile suddenly split Liljana's round face as if she were very pleased with herself. And then she opened her mouth and surprised us all by saying, ' Janomi… io di gelstei. Di blestei, di gelstei… falu.'

After that, she began speaking the shepherd's language more rapidly. She paused only to allow him to return the discourse and ask her questions. And then, with a smile that lit up her whole being, she found her tongue again and managed to keep up a continual stream of conversation. The strange words poured out of her like a waterfall. The sheep baahed at each other and the sun dipped lower in the sky as she stood there talking with the shepherd.

After a while, she took the gelstei away from her head and told us, 'He says his name is Rhysu Araiu. And his people are called the Maii.'

'And this island?' Kane asked her. 'Does it have a name as well?'

'Of course it does,' Liljana said, smiling at him. 'The Maiians call it Landaii Asawanu.'

'And what does that mean, then?' Kane asked.

'It means,' she said, 'the Island of the Swans.'

Rhysu returned to his flock then, and we followed him across the pasture, which he had told Liljana he wanted us to do. Soon we came to rather large house, built of mostly of stone and wood that had been painted a bright yellow. Rhysu called out excitedly as we approached it. The door suddenly opened, and a tall woman with hair as straight and black as Rhysu's stepped out and greeted us. She had the high nose and exquisitely sculpted face bones of many Valari. Rhysu presented her as Piliri, and said she was his wife. Three more of his household soon joined us on the lawn: a young boy named Nilu and his older sister, Bria. Oldest of all, however, perhaps even older than Kane, was Piliri's grandmother, Yakira Araiu. Despite her years, despite an ailing hip and knee, which she painfully favored, she too was a tall woman; she stood proudly on the doorstep above her family as Rhysu presented us.

That Rhysu so obviously deferred to her surprised me a little. And it surprised me even more to learn that she, not he, was the head of the Araiu family.

'Strange, isn't it,' Maram muttered, 'that he should take the name of his wife's grandmother? But then everything about this island is a little strange.'

Liljana bowed to Yakira, and stood talking with her for quite a while. And then she told us that the Maiians passed their family names from mother to daughter – and from mother to son.

'As it was in the ancient days,' she said.

She went on to say that here men did not rule their wives and daughters. No one, in truth, ruled anyone-else: no king was there on the Island of the Swans, nor duke nor master nor lord. Their most prominent personage seemed to be a woman named Lady Nimaiu, who was also called the Lady of the Lake. Yakiru suggested that Piliri should present us to her.

'She says that she would take us down to the lake herself,' Liljana explained, 'but she can't walk so far anymore.'

It seemed that the Mali had no horses to ride nor even any oxen that might pull a cart. We might have managed to carry Yakiru the few miles down to the city by the lake, but this her dignity would not permit.

Here Yakiru spoke to Piliri for a few moments. Then Liljana trans-lated her words:

'She said that Miri must tell her everything that happens there.'

'Ah, I hope nothing happens,' Maram said. 'At least nothing more eventful than us finding that which we came to find.'

And with that, Piliri took her leave of her husband and family, and we set forth, with Piliri leading the way. Soon we came to a little road that led down the valley's center.

It was paved with smooth stones cut so precisely that they showed only the narrowest of seams. Flowers of various kinds lined the sides of the road, which wound through the meadows and fields. With the soft sun providing just enough heat to warm us nicely and the many birds singing in the orchards to either side of us, it was one of the most pleasant walks I had ever made.

We stopped more than once to greet other shepherds and farmers curious as to the strange sight that we must have presented. After they had eyed my gleaming armor and studied my friends with amazement more than one of them joined us. By the time we reached the edge of the city, we made a party perhaps thirty strong. And there, from the neat little houses painted yellow, red and blue, many more of the Maii stepped out to behold us. All of them had the look of my countrymen back in Mesh.

Cries of, ' Nisa, Nisa!' sang out as Maiians emptied out of the shops and houses and lined the streets before us. As we passed, they closed in behind us and formed up into a procession of hundreds of excited men, women and children.

Piliri walking now with great dignity, led the way straight toward the temple. From this massive structure, which appeared made of marble, bells began ringing and sent their silver peals out over the city. And now it seemed the whole of the city had been alerted to our coming, for thousands of people crowded the streets. In bright streams of kirtles and flowing garments dyed every color, they converged upon the temple from the south, west and east. There, in a tree-lined square beneath the temple's great, gleaming pillars, they gathered to greet us and witness what to them must have been an extraordinary event.

A tall woman, perhaps forty years of age, accompanied by six younger women, emerged from between the temple's two centermost pillars and slowly made her way down the steps toward us. She was as beautiful of face and form as my mother, and she wore a long white kirtle trimmed with green along the sleeves and hem. A filigree of tiny black pearls was sown into the kirtle's front while a fillet of much larger white ones had been set around her forehead and over her long, black hair. She stopped immediately in front of us. Then Piliri stepped forward, knelt and kissed the woman's hand. Upon straightening again, she said, ' Mi Lais Nimaiu-talanasii nisalu.'

She turned toward me and my companions and continued, ' Talanasii Sar Valashu Elahad. Eth Maramei Marshayk eth Liljana Ashvaran eth.. .'

And so it went until she had presented us all. Then she spoke to Liljana, who stepped closer with her blue gelstei to translate for her.

' Talanasii Lais Nimaiu,' Piliri said, presenting the tall woman to us. She spoke a few more words before nodding at Liljana.

Liljana pressed her little figurine to her head as she smiled at the tall woman. To us, she said, 'This is Lady Nimaiu. She is also called the Lady of the Lake.'

Lady Nimaiu, as Rhysu had, spent quite a few moments examining us. Atara's hair seemed to hold wonders for her as did Master Juwain's complete absence of it. But she reserved her greatest curiosity for me and my accoutrements. Her dark eyes took in the lineaments of my face, and then she rapped her fingernail against the steel of my helmet, which I held in the crook of my arm. With my leave, she touched this same elegant finger to the silver swan and stars embroidered on my surcoat. She gasped as if these shapes might be familiar to her. Her breathing quickened as she examined the hilt of my broken sword. She spent another few moments running her hand over the steel links of my mail and the swan and stars embossed on my father's shield. Finally, she wrapped her fingers lightly around my throwing lance before stepping back and regarding me warily.

With Liljana translating for us, she began conversing with me: 'You bring strange things to our land,' she said. 'Are suchlike common in yours?'

'Yes,' I admitted, 'most warriors, at least the knights, are accoutered thusly.'

Liljana hesitated a moment in her translation because she could find no words in Lady Nimaiu's language for knight or warrior. And so she simply spoke them as I did, leaving them untranslated.

'And what is warrior?' Lady Nimaiu asked me.

'A warrior,' I said, hesitating as well, 'is one who goes to war.'

'And what is war?'

Now the six women attending Lady Nimaiu pressed closer to hear my answer as did Piliri and many other of the Maii. I traded swift, incredulous looks with Master Juwain and Maram. And then I said, 'That might be hard to tell.'

I looked around at the gentle Maii, who stood regarding us with great curiosity but no fear. Could it be possible that they knew nothing of war? That the bloody history of the last ten thousand years had completely passed by their beautiful island?

As I stood there wondering what to say to Lady Nimaiu, she again touched the hilt of my sword. 'Is this an accouterment of war, then?'

'Yes,' I said, 'it is.'

'May I see it?'

I nodded my head as I drew what was left of my sword. Its broken hilt shard gleamed brightly in the light of the late afternoon sun.

'May I hold it, Sar Valashu?'

I did not want to let her hold my sword. Would I so readily give into her hands my soul? Nevertheless, upon remembering why we had come to her island, I fulfilled her request for the sake of a little good will.

'It's heavy,' she announced as her fingers closed-around the hilt. 'Heavier than I would have thought.'

I did not explain that if the blade had been whole, it would have been heavier still.

But Lady Nimaiu, whose bright eyes missed very little, seemed to understand this as she gazed at the ragged end of my sword where it had been broken.

'Of what metal is this made?' she asked me, tapping the blade.

'It's called steel, Lady Nimaiu.'

'What is this thing called, then?'

'It is a sword,' I said.

'And what is sword for?'

Before I could answer, she moved her finger from the flat of the blade and started to run it across its edge. 'Be careful!' I gasped. But it was too late: the kalama's razor-sharp steel sliced open her finger.

'Oh!' she exclaimed, instinctively clasping the wounded tip against her breast to stanch the bleeding. 'It's sharp – so very sharp!'

She gave me back my sword while one of the women dose to her tended her cut finger. To the murmurs of grave disapproval spreading outward among the crowds around us, she explained that although the Mail used their bronze knives to shape wood and shear their sheep, none were so keen of edge that they cut flesh at the faintest touch.

'Oh, I see,' she said sadly as she held up her finger. The white wool of her kittle was now stained with her blood. 'This is what sword is for.'

I felt my own blood burning my ears with shame. I tried to explain a little about warfare then; I tried to tell her that all the peoples of Ea stood ready to protect their lands by going to war.

She spoke her amazement to Liljana, who continued to make her words understandable: 'But what do your lands need protecting from?' she asked me. 'Are the wolves that fierce where you live?'

Behind me Maram muttered, 'No, but the Ishkans are.'

Liljana either didn't hear this or chose to ignore him. And then I took upon myself the task of trying to explain how we Valari had to protect ourselves from our enemies – and each other.

I spoke for quite a while. But what I said made no sense to Lady Nimaiu – and, in truth, little to me. After I had finished my account of the world's woes, she stood there shaking her head as she said, 'How strange that brothers feel they must protect themselves from each other! What strange lands you have seen where men take up swords because they are afraid their neighbors will as well.'

'It… is not as simple as that,' I said.

'But why would men go to war?' Lady Nimaiu said. 'For pride and plunder, so you say. But do your men have no pride in anything other than their swords? Are your men thieves that they would take from each other what is not theirs?'

The Red Dragon is much worse than a thief, I thought. And he would take from men their very souls.

'It is not so simple as that,' I repeated. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and continued, 'What would your people do if two neighbors disputed the border of their lands and one of them made a sword to claim his part?'

While Liljana translated this, Lady Nimaiu looked at me thoughtfully. And then she said, 'We Maiians do not claim land as your people do. All of our island belongs to all of us. And so there is always enough for all.'

'As it was in the ancient days,' Liljana said quietly, pausing a moment in her translating duties.

I took a breath and asked Lady Nimaiu, 'But what if one of your men coveted one of his neighbor's sheep and tried to claim it as his own?'

'If his need was that great, then likely his neighbor would give it to him.'

'But what if he didn't?' I pressed her. 'What if he slew his neighbor, and then threatened others as well?'

What I had suggested plainly horrified Lady Nimaiu – and the other Maiians, too. Her face fell white, and her jaw trembled slightly as she gasped out, 'But none of us could ever do such a thing!'

'But what if someone did?'

'Then we would take his sword from him and break it, as yours is broken.'

'Swords are not so easy to take,' I told her. 'You would have to forge swords of your own to take such a man's sword.'

'No, we would never do that,' she said. 'We would simply surround him until he couldn't move.'

'But then many of your people would die.'

'Yes, they would,' she admitted. 'But such a price would have to be paid if one of us fell shaida.'

Now it was my turn to be puzzled as Liljana mouthed this Maiian word that had no simple translation into our tongue. After some further discussion between Lady Nimaiu and Liljana, I was given to understand that shaida meant something like the madness of one who willfully disregards the natural harmonies of life.

'But what would you do with such a shaida man once you had disarmed him?' I asked. 'Slay him with his own sword then?'

'Oh, no – we would never do that!'

'But if you didn't, he might just make another sword and more of your people would die.'

I started to tell her that once war between peoples had begun, it was very hard to stop. And then Lady Nimaiu said, 'But it could never come to war, don't you see?

Such a man would be given to the Lady, and all would be restored.'

I stood there confused. I didn't know what she meant by 'given' to the Lady.'

Wasn't she Lady Nimaiu, the Lady of the Lake? And what would she do with such a murderous man?

After some rounds of Liljana passing our words back and forth to each other. Lady Nimaiu smiled sadly and said to me, 'I am the Lady of the Lake, as you've been told.

But I am not the Lady, of course. It is to Her that we would give your sword-making man.'

So saying, she pointed above the temple at the smoking mountain across the lake.

She said that anyone who fell shaida would be dropped into its fiery cone.

'The Lady takes back everyone into herself,' she explained. 'But some sooner than others.'

'Is this Lady the mountain, then?' I said, trying to understand.

My question seemed to amuse her, as it did many of the other Maii, who gathered around laughing softly. And then Lady Nimaiu smiled and told me, 'Oh, no, the mountain is only the Lady's mouth – and only her mouth of fire at that. She has many others.'

She went on to explain that the wind was the Lady's breath and the rain her tears; when the ground shook, she said, the Lady was laughing, and when it quaked so violently that mountains moved, that was the Lady's anger.

'The Maii,' she said, stretching out her wounded finger toward her people, 'are the Lady's eyes and hands. And that is why none of us would ever make a sword.'

I paused to look at the many men and women all around us, And then I asked, 'And does this Lady have a name?'

'Of course she does,' Lady Nimaiu said. 'Her name is Ea.'

At the utterance of this single word common to both our languages, the earth seemed to tremble slightly. Smoke continued pouring out of the cone of the mountain above us, but whether this signaled the Lady Ea's gladness at our arrival or displeasure, I couldn't tell.

We had a hundred questions for Lady Nimaiu and the Maiians, as they had for us.

They wanted to know everything about our peoples and the lands from which we came. They were fascinated with Liljana's blue figurine and her ability to shape the words of one language into that of another. But they saved their greatest wonder toward the answering of single question.

'Why,' Lady Nimaiu said to me, 'have you come to our island?

My first impulse was simply to blurt out that we had joined the great quest to find the Lightstone. But Maram, fearing my artlessness, moved up behind me and whispered in my ear, 'Be careful, Val. If the Lightstone is here, it's surely inside the temple. If we tell them that we're seeking what must be their greatest treasure, they'll likely give us to this bloodthirsty Lady of theirs.'

He advised telling Lady Nimaiu that we were on a mission to aid the besieged Surrapam and that we had stopped on the Island of the Swans to hunt for fresh meat to replace our dwindling stores. We should wait, he said, and contrive a way to enter the temple. Then we could determine if it really did house the Lightstone and devise a plan for its taking.

Maram was more cunning than I, yet not every situation called for this virtue. The Maiians, sensing something devious in Maram's quiet speech, which Liljana failed to translate, began murmuring among themselves and shifting about the square restlessly. I was reluctant to tell Maram's little lies and even more so to say anything that might get us pushed into a pool of fire. And so I looked at Lady Nimaiu and said, 'We're on a quest.. '

A low groan from Maram behind me made me pause in my answer. And then I continued, 'We're on a quest to find truth, beauty and goodness. And the love of the One that is said to find its perfect manifestation somewhere in the world.'

My words, after Liljana had rendered them into the Maiians' tongue, seemed to please them. Although I had spoken only vaguely of the Lightstone's essence, what I had said was true enough.

Lady Nimaiu, who was now smiling, slowly nodded her head. And then she asked,

'But why should you think that you would find these things on our island, where none but the Maii have walked since the Lady stepped out of the starry night at the beginning of time?'

Liljana needed no prompting from me to answer this question. With more than a little pride flushing her intelligent face, she recounted the finding of her blue gelstei and her conversation with the Sea People.

Again, Lady Nimaiu nodded her head slowly. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to her that a woman should speak with whales.

'Thank you,' she said to Liljana. 'You have told us much about yourselves, though much more needs to be told. And perhaps tomorrow it shall be. Until then, we invite you to remain here as our guests.'

When a king extended such an invitation, it was really a command. But as Liljana had told us, the Maii had no kings, nor even queens. I sensed that Lady Nimaiu was giving us the freedom to go or remain as we pleased. And so we decided to remain.

After that, Lady Nimaiu dismissed the crowds of her people with a few kind words.

We said goodbye to Piliri, who returned home to eat her evening meal with her family. Lady Nimaiu then took her leave of us, and went back into the temple with five of her attendants as she had come. The sixth attendant, a rather homely but voluptuous young woman named Lailaiu, was charged with the task of settling us in for the night.

She showed us to one of the out-buildings adjoining the west side of the temple but not really part of it. There we were given spacious rooms in the guest quarters. We were given food and drink as well: hot bread and white ewe's cheese, blackberries and plums and sweet salmon which the Maiians pulled from the rivers near the sea and smoked in juniper and honey. Our wine was rich, dark and red. After our feast, served by other temple attendants, Lailaiu returned to fill the sunken marble bath with hot water. She brought us herb-scented soaps and insisted on using them to lather up our worn flesh. All of us, even Kane, yielded to such an unexpected delight.

Everything about the Maiians' dwellings and handiworks seemed designed to delight the senses. No corner of our rooms was unadorned, from the marble moldings carved with bold traceries to the tapestries and carpets that lined the walls and floors. Even the blankets that covered us that cool night, woven from the marvelously soft underhair of the Maiians' goats, were embroidered with brightly colored threads showing roses and violets, the two flowers most beloved of the Lady Ea.

'Ah, this is a fine place,' Maram said, after he had collapsed onto his bed with his seventh glass of wine. 'I've never seen a fairer land. So rich, so sweet.'

'Even Alonia isn't as rich as this island,' Liljana agreed. 'At least not outside the nobles' palaces.'

'Yes,' I said bitterly, 'the Maiians have time for creating such beauty since it seems they spend none of it waging war.'

'Who would have war when he could have beauty and love instead?' Maram wondered. 'And love, mark my words, is at hand here. Did you see the fire in Lailaiu's eyes as she sponged the soap from me?'

'Be careful,' Master Juwain warned as he settled onto his bed with his book in his hand. 'Fire burns.'

'Ah, no, no, not this,' Maram said thickly. 'It's the sweetest of flames; it's the radiance of the sun on beautiful summer day; it's the fire of a young, red, full-bodied wine and finest and fruitiest blush; it's…'

He might have gone on in a like vein for quite a while. But then Kane, pacing the room like a caged tiger, scowled at him and said, 'Your Lailaiu looks a fruit that's never been picked. What do you think the Maiians do with men who take such from the vine before it's ripe? Likely they give them to the Lady. Now there's a fire you won't find so sweet.'

His words suddenly sobered Maram, who sat muttering into his wine. While Alphanderry took out his mandolet and Flick began spinning in anticipation of his music, Atara came over to Maram and laid her hand on his shoulder consolingly.

And then she asked the question that puzzled all of us: 'Who are these people? They certainly look Valari.'

'They are certainly Valari,' Master Juwain said, looking up from his book. 'The question is, of which tribe? That of Aryu? Or that of Elahad?'

He went on to say that the Maiian's ancestors must be some of the Lost Valari: either the followers of Aryu after he had stolen the Lightstone or the companions of Arahad who had set out on the Hundred Year March to search for it.

'The Lost Valari, yes, that seems possible,' I said to Master Juwain. 'But how could they be of the tribe of Aryu?'

Here Kane stopped his pacing and came over to me. 'Do you remem-ber what I told you after we killed the Grays? How Aryu had also stolen a varistei, which his people used to change their forms to suit Thalu's cold and mists? So, what if some of his tribe repented Aryu's crime? What if they fell out with their brethren before the varistei was used? If they fled Thalu to the south and came to land here, they would still look Valari, eh?'

'I'm afraid that seems the most likely explanation of the Maiians' origins,' Master Juwain agreed.

I sat on my bed staring at a tapestry showing a great oak tree in full leaf; I didn't quite want to admit that the Maiians were really Aryans who still retained the Valari form.

'But if what you say is true,' I said to Master Juwain, 'then how is it that the Aryans let the Maiians live here in peace so many thousands of years?'

'That we may never kno,' Master Juwain said. 'Perhaps fortune favored them.

Perhaps a curse was laid upon the Maiians and this island.'

'It would have to have been a mighty curse,' Liljana said, 'to have kept the Aryans from plundering it'

We gathered around debating the mystery of the Maiians as the night deepened and their city fell quiet around us. And then Atara, who could often see things quite clearly with the natural keenness of her mind no less than with her second sight, twined her golden hair about her finger as she said, 'If Sartan Odinan sought a safe land in which to hide the Lightstone, he couldn't have found better than this lost island.'

That brought us back to the temple, which stood towering above us in the starlight only fifty yards to the east. We were all sure that the Lightstone must be waiting for us within its gleaming marble walls.

'We must find our way inside,' Maram said again. 'We must see if the cup is there.'

'And then what?' I asked him. I didn't like the greedy light that brightened his eyes just then.

'And then? Ah, I suppose we'll have to trade the Maiians something for it. Your shield, perhaps. Or your sword. They seemed interested in anything made of steel.'

I didn't believe that the Maiians would simply trade the Cup of Heaven for a broken sword, and I told Maram this.

'Hmmm, perhaps not,' he murmured as he pulled at his beard. 'But what if they don't know the cup's true value? After all these centuries, they might have lost the knowledge of what it is.'

'But what if they do know what it is?'

'Ah, well, I suppose we'll have to find a way to claim it, won't we?'

'Are we to plunder the temple, then? As the Aryans did Tria?'

Maram now sat up very straight, all signs of drunkenness gone from his reddened face. In its place was shame and other painful emotions.

'Ah, no, no – you misunderstand me, my friend! I'm only pointing out that there might be more than one way to gain the Lightstone.'

I drew my sword and sat staring at the ugly break in it. I said, 'Not this way, Maram.'

'But what if the Maiians don't see the need of our returning the Lightstone to the world? What if they take offense at us and declare us, ah, shaida? What if we have to fight for it?'

Atara, who now sat oiling her bow, suddenly plucked its braided string. It twanged out a note of discord utterly unlike the music that Alphanderry made with his mandolet

'Fight, hmmph,' Atara said to Maram. 'And who is it that will lead in this fighting?

You? Didn't you hear what the Lady Nimaiu said about her people throwing themselves on swords? And throwing anyone so mad as to draw them into their fire mountain?'

'It's one thing to speak of throwing oneself onto a sword,' Maram said. 'It's quite another to find the corurage to do it. Why, Kane could fell a hundred of them before they knew what was happening. And you could shoot anyone who tried to pursue us. Surely we could cut our way through to the coast, if we had to.'

I suddenly stood up slmmed what was left of my sword back into its sheath. Then I moved over to Maram's bed. With a fury that astonished me, I grabbed the wine glass from Maram's hand and hurled it against the wall where it shattered into a thousand pieces.

'Tomorrow, we'll look through the temple,' I said. 'But tonight we'll sleep and put these careless words behind us.'

So saying, I stormed across the room and flung myself into my bed. My anger kept me from seeing that I would be wrong about both the assertions that I had just made.