The Lightstone

Chapter 34

Soon after that a messenger arrived to give Lord Grayam news that made his face blanch and set his hand to trembling: The enemy had been thrown back from the Sun Gate, but in its defense Captain Nicolam had been killed and Captain Donalam and several knights captured. The gate itself was ruined beyond repair; Kane and a hundred knights stood in a line behind it in case Count Ulanu should order a night assault of the city.

'They've taken my son,' Lord Grayam said. In his quavering voice, there was sadness, outrage and great fear. 'And if we try to hold as we did today, tomorrow they'll take the city.'

He issued orders then to abandon the outer wall – and with it most of Khaisham. So many Librarians had fallen that day, he said, that there were just too few left to hold this extended perimeter. It was an agonizing decision to have to make, but a good one, or so I judged.

And so all the citizens of Khaisham not killed or captured by Count Ulanu's men retreated behind the city's inner wall. In its height and defenses, it was much like the outer wall; it surrounded the Library on all sides, its easternmost sections being almost flush with the outer wall where it turned along the contours of Mount Redruth. To the north, west and south of the inner wall, between its blocks of red sandstone and the houses of the city, an expanse of ground five hundred yards wide had been left barren of any buildings or structures. This provided a clear field of fire for Lord Grayam's archers, who quickly took up their stations behind the wall's battlements. It also kept any enemy from mounting an assault upon the wall from any convenient window or rooftop. That there had never been an assault of any kind upon the inner wall in all the thousands of years since the Library had been built cheered no one.

We took Maram to the infirmary to have his wounds tended. Atara and I half-carried him there, with his thick arms thrown across our shoulders. Master Juwain drew the arrows as he had with Atara. But when he brought forth his green gelstei to heal him further, he had only a partial success. The varistei glowed with only with a dull light as did Master Juwain himself. With the infirmary's beds filled with moaning warriors who had been hacked and maimed, it had been a very long day for him. Although he staunched the bleeding of Maram s wounds, they still required bandages But at least Maram could still walk, if not sit very easily, ft was more than most of the wounded could manage.

'Ah, thank you, sir, It's not so bad,' Maram said with surprising fortitude. He reached back his hand to pat himself where the arrows had pierced him. 'It's still very sore, but at least I won't be laid up here.'

I looked about this place of carnage and anguish that the infirmary had become. Its smells of medicinal teas and ointments assaulted my senses. I built up my inner walls even higher Although I couldn't wait to get back to the open air of the battlements, it surprised me that Maram felt the same. Courage, once found, does not very quickly melt away.

We said goodbye to Master Juwain and liljana and left them to a sleepless night of tending the wounded. Then we walked back through the Library. Almost everyone in Khaisham not dead or stationed along the walls had crowded into it. It was a vast place indeed, but it had been built to house millions of books, not thousands of people. It pained me to see aisle upon aisle of old men, women and children camped out there, trying to rest upon little straw mats that they had put down to cover the cold stone floor. It seemed that no yard of floor space in the Library's center hall or any of its wings was unoccupied. Even the walkways circling the great islands of books, at least at the lower levels, had been taken over by brave souls who didn't mind trying to sleep on a narrow bed of stone suspended thirty or fifty feet in space.

It was good to exit the Library through the great arched doorways of its west wing and breathe fresh air again. We crossed a courtyard crammed with food carts, piles of planking, barrels of water, oil, nails and other things. Sheaves of arrows were stacked like wheat And everywhere masons and carpenters hurried to and fro beneath the orange blaze of torches to prepare the inner walls for the next day's assault.

We took our places behind the battlements of the west wall. There we found one of Lord Grayam't knights speaking in low tones to Kane. It was very dark there, the only illumination being the fire of the torches in the courtyard below and the far-off glimmer of the stars. It would't do to give the enemy's archers targets to shoot at if Count Ulanu should move them into range during the night.

'So,' Kane said, pointing out at the strip of dark, barren ground that separated the walls from the rest of the city. 'They'll at least try to move their siege engines in as close as they can before morning.'

I looked across the barren ground down toward the houses of the city. With no one left to light their hearths they were strangely dark. Beyond them, in the thicker dark, farther to the west, I could just make out the lines of the outer wall. While we had been in the infirmary with Maram, Count Ulanu's engineers had breached its gates.

The sounds of him bringing up his army lent a chill to the air. There came a squeaking of the axles of many carts and wagons, and iron-shod wheels rolling over the paving atones of the empty streets. Thousands of boots striking stone, jangling steel, whinnying horses, hateful shouts and the incessant howling of the Blues – this was the cacophony we had to endure those long houis after dusk in place of the nightingale's song or other music.

After a while, Lord Grayam walked down the battlements toward us and approached Kane. He told him. 'Thank you for your work at the gate. It's said that but for your sword, the enemy would have broken through.'

'So, my sword, yes,' Kane said, nodding his head. 'And those of a hundred others, Captain Donalam's foremost among them.'

In the dim torchlight I thought I caught a gleam of water in both Grayam's eyes. 'I've been told that my son was stunned by an axe-blow and thus taken before he could regain his wits.'

Kane, who didn't like to lie, lied to Lord Crayam now. I sensed both untruth and a terrible sadness in him as his dark eyes filled with a rare compassion.

'I'm sure he never regained his wits,' he said. 'I'm sure he sleeps with the dead.'

'Let us hope so,' Lord Grayam said, swallowing against the lump in his throat.

'There's little enough hope left for us now.'

To cheer him, and myself, I finally told him of what we had found in the Library earlier that day. I brought forth the False Gelstei and pressed the little bowl into his hands. As the night deepened, Kane and Maram recounted the story of Master Juwain finding Master Aluino's journal. And then Atara, whose memory was like a glittering net that seemed to gather in all things, quoted from it almost word for word.

'Is it possible that Master Aluino told true?' lord Grayam exclaimed. 'That the Lightstone is still in Argattha?'

He turned the False Gelstet about in his hands as if it might provide an answer to his question. And then he said to us, 'This is why we fight. And this is why we must prevail tomorrow at any cost. Do you see what treasures we have here? How can we let them be lost?'

He thanked me for telling him of our find and delivering the cup to him, according to our promise. And then he told us, 'You're truly noble all of you. With such virtue on our side, we might yet win this battle.'

Time is strange. That night near the ides of Soal, as measured by the sands of an hourglass, was rather short as summer nights are. But as measured by the sufferings of the soul, it seemed to drag on forever. Count Ulanu's men were determined that none of us should sleep. The half-moon rose to the Blues' relentless howls, which grew louder and more ferocious as the world turned past midnight. From the darkness beyond the wall came a clamor of axes being struck together and the pommels of swords banging against shields. Iron hammers beat against nails as terrible screams split the night.

We were closer to the Tearam here, and I listened for the river's cleansing sound beneath all this noise. Beyond it, to the north, Mount Salmas was humped in shadows as was Mount Redruth to the east. More than once I turned away from the wall facing this dark peak. In that direction lay Argattha and my home; from the east, in only a few hours or less, would come the rising of the sun and the hope of a new day.

But when the morning finally broke free from the gray of twilight and the forms of the dark earth began to sharpen, a terrible sight greeted all who stood behind the battlements. For there, set into the ground along the barren strip in front of the walls, were forty wooden crosses. The naked bodies of men and three women were nailed to them. The rising wind carried their moans and cries up to us.

'Oh, my Lord!' Maram said to me. 'Oh, too bad!'

Atara, pressing close to my side as she looked out the crenel before us, let loose a soft cry of her own, saying, 'Oh, no – look Val! It's Alphanderry!'

I stared along the line of her pointed finger, peering out into the dawn. My eyes were not as keen as hers; at first all I could make out was the torment of men writhing on their bloodstained wooden towers. And then as the light grew stronger, I saw that the middlemost of the crosses bore the body of our friend. Cords running across his brow bound his head to the cross so that it wouldn't fall forward and we could get a good look at his face. His eyes were open and gazed out at the sky as if he were still hoping to catch sight of the Morning Star before the sun rose and devoured the dreams of night in its fiery wrath.

'Is he alive?' Maram asked me.

For a moment, I closed my eyes, remembering. Then I looked at the remains of Alphanderry as I felt for the beating of his heart, 'No, he's dead. And five days dead at that.'

'Then why crucify him? He's beyond all pain now.'

'He is, but we're not, eh?' Kane said, clenching his fist in fury. If his fingernails had been claws, they would have torn open his palms. 'Count Ulanu desecrates the dead in order to kill the hope of the living.'

It was why he had crucified the others, too. These, however, were all still alive and all too keenly aware of the agonies that they suffered It took at least two days to die upon the cross and sometimes much longer.

'Look!' one of the Librarians said, pointing at the cross next to Alphanderry's. 'It's Captain Donalam!'

Captain Donalam, hanging there helplessly, his anguished face caked with black blood, looked up toward the wall in silent supplication. I saw him meet eyes with his father. What passed between them was terrible to behold. I felt Lord Grayam's heart break open, and then there was nothing left inside him except defeat and a desire to die in his son's place.

'Look!' another Librarian said. 'There's Josam Sharod!'

And so it went, the knights on the wall calling out the names of their friends and companions – and of those few shepherds and farmers that Count Ulanu's men had captured outside the walls during his march upon the city.

A little while later, someone called out our names. We turned to see Liljana climbing the stairs to the wall, bearing a big pot of soup that she had made us for breakfast.

She set it down and joined us in looking out at the crosses.

'Alphanderry!' she cried out as if he were her own child. 'Why did they do this to you?'

'So,' Kane growled, 'the Dragon's priests make every abomination, seek every opportunity to degrade the human spirit.'

Just then, four of Count Ulanu's knights rode out from behind the line of crosses.

Atara fit an arrow to her bow to greet them, but she didn't fire it because one the knights bore a white flag. She listened, as we all did, when the knights stopped their horses beneath the walls and one of them called up to Lord Grayam requesting a parley.

'Count Ulanu would speak with you as to making a peace,' this proud-faced knight said.

'We spoke with him yesterday,' Lord Grayam called down. 'What has changed?'

In answer, the knight looked back at the crosses behind him and the broken outer wall of the city. 'Count Ulanu bids you to come down and listen to his terms.'

'Bids me, does he?' Lord Grayam snapped. Then, looking at his helpless son, his voice softened, and he said, 'All right then, bid Count Ulanu to come forward as you have, and we shall speak with him '

'From behind your little wall?' the knight sneered. 'Why should the Count trust that you will honor the parley and not order your archers to fire at him?' 'Because,' Lord Grayam said, 'we are to be trusted.'

The knight, seeing that he would gain no more concessions from Lord Grayam, nodded his head curtly. He signaled to his three companions; they turned to ride back through the crosses and return to their lines, which were drawn up across the barren ground with the city's houses just beyond them. After a few moments, Count Ulanu and five more knights rode back toward the wall, their dragon standard flapping in the early morning wind.

As soon as he had halted beneath the battlements, his eyes leaped out at us like fire arrows. He reserved the greatest part of his hate for Liljana. He stared at her with a pitilessness that promised no quarter. And she stared right back at him, at the wound her sword had gouged out of his face. What was left of his nose was a black, cauterized sore and looked as if the bitterest of acids had eaten it off.

'Hmmph,' Atara said, glancing at Liljana, 'I suppose he'll have to be called Ulanu the Not-So-Handsome now.'

For a few moments, Liljana and Count Ulanu locked eyes and contended with each other mind to mind. But Liljana had grown ever stronger and more attuned to her blue gelstei. It seemed that Count Ulanu couldn't bear her gaze, for he suddenly broke off looking at her. Then he spurred his horse forward a few paces and called out his terms to Lord Grayam: 'Surrender the Library to us and your people will be spared. Give us Sar Valashu Elahad and his companions and there will be no more crucifixions.'

'Supposing we believed you,' Lord Grayam said, 'what would befall my people upon surrender?'

'Only that they should do homage to me and swear to obey the wishes of Lord Morjin.'

'You'd make us slaves,' Lord Grayam said.

The terms that you've been offered are the same we extended to Inyam. And they now crossed swords with us or murdered us with their cowardly fire.' Here he looked up at Maram, who tied to hold his gaze but could not.

'You're very generous,' Lord Grayam called down sarcastically.

Count Ulanu pointed at the crosses and said, 'How many more of the children of your city are you prepared to see mounted thusly?’

'We cannot surrender the books to you,' Lord Grayam said. At this, many of the Librarians along the wall grimly nodded their heads.

'Books!' Count Ulanu spat out. Then he reached into the pocket of his cloak and pulled out a large book bound with leather as dark as the skin of a sun-baked corpse. He held it up and said, 'This is the only book of any value. Either other books are in accord with what it tells, and so are superfluous, or else they mock its truth and so are abominations.'

I knew of this single volume of lies that he showed us: it was the Darakul Elu, the Black Book, which had been written by Morjin. It told of his dreams of uniting the world under the Dragon banner; it told of a new order in which men must serve the priests of the Kallimun, as they served Morjin – and that all must serve his lord, Angra Mainyu. It was the only book I knew that the Librarians refused to allow through the doors of the Library.

'We cannot surrender the books,' Lord Grayam said again, looking at Count Ulanu's book with loathing. 'We've vowed to give our lives to protect them.'

'Are books more precious to you than the lives of your people?'

Lord Grayam squared back his tired shoulders and spoke with all the dignity that he could command. It was then that I learned what hard men and women the Librarians truly were. His words stunned me and rang in my mind: 'The lives of men come and go like leaves budding on a tree in the spring and torn off in the fall. But knowledge is eternal – as the tree is sacred. We shall never surrender.'

'We shall see,' Count Ulanu snarled.

Lord Grayam pointed at the crosses and said, 'If you have any mercy, take these people down from there and bind their wounds.'

'Mercy, is it?' Count Ulanu shouted. 'If it's mercy you want, that you shall have.

We'll leave their fate in your hands – or should I say, those of your archers?'

And with that, he smiled wickedly and turned his horse to gallop with his knights back toward his lines.

'Ah,' Maram said to me, 'I'm afraid to want to know what he meant by that.'

But the implication of his words soon became terribly clear. The Librarians along the wall began to call out to Lord Grayam to mount a sally outside the walls to rescue those who had been crucified. Lord Grayam listened for a few moments and then raised his hand to stay their voices. And then he said, 'Count Ulanu would like us to do just as you suggest. So that he could slaughter our knights while we attempted to rescue those for whom there can be no rescue other than death.'

'Then what are we to do?' a sad-faced knight named Jonatham asked. 'Watch them bake before our eyes beneath the sun?'

'We know what we must do,' Lord Grayam said. The bitterness in his voice hurt me worse than the poison that Morjin's man had put into my blood. 'No, no, please,' I said. 'Let's make a sally, while we can.'

A hundred knights called out to ride their war horses into the face of the enemy and free the crucified women and men. But again Lord Grayam held up his hand and said, 'You might kill many of the enemy, but there would be no time to pull our people down from their crosses. In the end, all of you would be killed or captured yourselves. And so we would lose what little hope of victory that remains to us.'

The Librarians, steeped in the wisdom of the books they guarded, bowed before this logic.

'Archers!' Lord Grayam called out. Take up your bows!'

I stood stunned in silence as I watched the archers along the walls fit arrows to their bowstrings and the crossbowmen set their bolts.

'Every abomination,' Kane said. 'Every degradation of the spirit.'

Atara, alone of the archers there, refused to lift her bow. Her brilliant blue eyes filled with tears and partially blinded her to sight of what must be.

'Ulanu the Merciful,' Liljana said bitterly. 'Ulanu the Cruel.'

'No, no,' I whispered, 'they mustn't do this!'

'No, Val, they must,' Kane said. 'What if it were your brothers crucified out there?'

Every perversion, I thought, listening to the moans of the dying. What could be more perverse than to twist a man's love for his son into the necessity of slaying him?

'Fire!'

And so it was done. The Khaisham archers fired their arrows into their countrymen and friends. Set upon their crosses only seventy yards from the walls, they were easy targets, as Count Ulanu had intended them to be.

'Damn him!' Kane snarled. 'Damn his eyes! Damn his soul!'

Lord Grayam slumped against the battlements as if he had fired burning arrows into his own heart. I listened for the cries of his son and the other crucified Librarians, but now there was only the moaning of the wind.

Kane stood staring at Alphanderry's body, whose arms were opened wide as if to ask the mercy of the heavens. After a while, his fury poured into me, as did his dark thoughts.

'We should at least ride out and recover the body of our friend' I said. 'He shouldn't be left hanging for the vultures.'

'So,' Kane said, his eyes blazing into mine. 'So.'

I walked up to Lord Grayam and said, 'It was impossible to rescue your people, truly. But it may be that we could bring back our friend's body and a couple others for burial.'

'No, Sar Valashu,' Lord Grayam said, 'I couldn't allow that.'

'The enemy won't be expecting a sally now,' I said. 'We could ride like lightning and return before Count Ulanu could mount an attack.'

The knight named Jonatham called out to ride with us, and so did a dozen others.

And then a hundred more along the wall turned toward Lord Grayam with a fire in their hearts and a steel in their voices that could not be gainsaid. And so Lord Grayam, not wanting their spirits to be broken like his own, finally agreed to our wild plan.

'All right,' he said to me. 'You and Kane may go and take ten others but no more.

But go quickly before the enemy begins the day's assault.'

Already, Count Ulanu's war drums were booming out their terror as bugles blared out and called men to form up their battalions.

I pulled on my helmet, as did Kane his. Maram, due to his wounds, could not ride, and so would not be sallying forth with us. But Atara grabbed up some more arrows for her quiver, and the long, lean Jonatham came over to us, and we had two of our ten. He and Lord Grayam helped me in choosing the other eight knights for our sortie.

We climbed down from the wall and gathered in the courtyard below. Grooms brought up our horses from the stables. Lord Grayam had ordered his own family's armor fastened upon our horses. Altaru, who had taken me into battle against Waas, was used to the long, jointed criniere that protected the curve of his neck and the champfrein over his head and the other pieces of armor that protected him. And so was Kane's bay. But Fire was not; Atara chose to ride her fierce mare unencumbered, as the Sarni ride their steppe ponies into battle. Thus she could race her horse and turn her about with greater agility, the better to find her targets and fire off her arrows.

When we were all ready, we lined up behind the sally port set into the inner wall's main gate. Its iron-studded doors were thrown open, and we rode out, the twelve of us, across the rocky, barren ground. The cool morning wind found our faces and worked through the steel links of our armor. But it chilled us not at all because our hearts were now on fire. We galloped forward in a thunder of pounding hooves. It took only seconds to cover the ground between the wall and the line of crosses, but this was enough time for Count Ulanu's archers to begin firing at us and for him to order a whole company of cavalry to meet our unexpected charge.

An arrow pinged off my helmet and another struck my mail over my shoulder but failed to penetrate its tough steel. Another arrow deflected off the poitrel protecting Altaru's chest. But some of the knights behind me weren't lucky. One of them, a powerful Librarian named Braham, cried out as a whining shaft suddenly transfixed his forearm. And one of the knighte horses on my left a stout chestnut gelding, whinnied in pains as another buried itself in his hind leg beneath the croupiere. Even so, we reached the crosses in good order. We would have a few moments, but no more, before. Count Ulanu's knights fell upon us.

I steadied Alaru beneath Alphanderry's cross. Even desecrated and left to hang uncovered in shame, he retained a beauty and nobility that defied death. Cords bound his arms to the beam while iron spikes bent over against the palms like clamps, pierced either hand. Another spike had been driven through his feet. I saw immediately that had he been still alive, it would have been impossible to pull him down in the seconds that remained to us. But he was dead, and so, standing up in my stirrups, I drew my sword and touched it to the cords binding his head and arms; they parted like strands of grass. Then I swung Alkaladur three times, against Alphanderry's ankles and wrists. His body fell down toward me; Kane, who had brought his horse up dose against mine, helped me catch it. We draped him across Altaru's back, between his steel-shod neck and my belly. His hands and feet we had to leave nailed to the cross.

Jonatham and Braham likewise managed to recover the body of Captain Donalam, even as a rain of arrows poured down upon us. Two more of Lord Grayam's Librarians cut down one of their companions as an arrow struck into his lifeless body and added insult to death And then the arrow storm suddenly ceased. For Count Ulanu's knights rode upon us then, and his archers did not wish to kill them in trying to annihilate us.

Although we were outnumbered seven to one, we had that which overcame mere numbers. Atara, her blonde hair streaming back behind her irt the wind, rode about wildly firing off death with every bend of her great bow. Jonatham charged the enemy knights once, twice, three times, and his lance became an instrument of vengeance, piercing throat or eye or heart with a lethal accuracy. Kane's sword flashed out with the fury of lightning and thunder, while I wielded the Bright Sword with all the terrible art he had taught me. Irode Altaru straight into the enemy knights where they gathered like a knot of shields and horses, and no matter the armor protecting them, their limbs and heads flew from their bodies like blood sausages encased in steel. The sun rising over Mount Redruth cast its rays upon Alkaladur, which blazed with a blinding light. The sight of it struck terror into even those knights who had yet to come near it As if they were of one mind, like a flock of birds, they suddenly turned about toward their lines and put their horses to flight.

We managed to cut down five more crucified Librarians before the arrow storm began again. Behind the enemy's lines, Count Ulanu had finally gathered an entire battalion of cavalry to charge us. This force, which he must have intended to defeat any sortie, impelled us to regain the safety of the wall. We were all glad to pass back through the sally port bearing the bodies of friends and companions across our horses. Some of the librarians, I saw, had taken arrows in payment of their valor.

These went off to the infirmary to submit to the ministrations of Master luwain and the other healers. The sortie had left Kane, Atara and me unwounded. We climbed down from our horses to the cheers of hundreds of Librarians along the walls.

Lord Grayam came down to meet us. He thanked Jonatham and Braham for rescuing his son's body, which had been laid upon a bier in the shadows beneath the wall.

Lord Grayam knelt down and touched the bloody wound in his son's chest which Lord Grayam's archers had made. He kissed his son upon the eyes and lips, then stood up and said, 'There's little time for a proper burial, but it will be a while yet before the enemy begins their attack. Let's do for the slain what we can.'

He asked us if the Librarians could take care of Alphanderry's body, and we all agreed that this would be best. And so, forming a procession, Lord Grayam and twenty of his knights – along with Kane, Maram, Atara, Liljana and me – entered the Library through its great southern gate. There we were joined by Master Juwain and the families of the fallen knights. We made our way through long corridors turning right and left until we finally came to a monumental stairway leading down into the vast crypt beneath the library. It took us a long time to descend these broad, shallow steps. We came down into a dim, musty space of many thick columns and arches holding up the floor of the Library above us. There we laid the dead in their tombs and covered them with slabs of stone. We prayed for their souls and wept. It would have been fitting, I thought, for us to give a favorite song into the silences of that cold vast space, but this was not the librarians' way. And so my companions and I sang our praises of Alphanderry inside our hearts.

A messenger came to tell Lord Grayam that the enemy was advanc-ing and his presence was requested on the walls. Those of us who would fight with him there that day followed him to the battlements. Kane, Maram, Atara and I said goodbye to Master Juwain and Liljana, who returned to the infirmary to prepare for the terrible day that awaited us all.

We walked back through the Library as we had come. We crossed the courtyard along the southern wall until we came to the western wall where Lord Grayam had his post. He climbed up to the tower guarding the wall's gate, and Atara and Maram joined him there Kane and I stood with the grim-faced knights beneath them along the wall where the fighting would be the fiercest.

As on the preceding day, the enemy's drums pounded out their promise of death, and Count Ulanu's steel-clad battalions marched in their gleaming lines toward the walls. The siege towers and battering rams rolled forward; the catapults hurled great stones crashing against the walls and the smooth marble of the Library itself. Arrows fell like rain, though not so many as before when the archers had more of them to shoot. The screams rang out as men began dying.

I was still safe behind the walls that I built for myself; Alkaladur, flashing brilliantly in the morning sun, gave me the strength to endure the deaths of those whom I would soon kill and those whom I had so recently sent on to the stars. Kane stood next to me with his sword held ready to drink the enemy's blood. He drew part of his strength from his hate. He stared down at the empty cross where Count Ulanu had put Alphanderry. I saw him scowling at the hands and feet that remained nailed to it.

Lightning flashed in his eyes then. Thunder tore open his heart. A dark and terrible storm built inexorably inside him, awaiting only the advance of Count Ulanu and his men for its fury to be unleashed.

During the first assault, Count Ulanu sent a battalion of Blues against our part of the wall. Kane and I, no less Maram and Atara, had become familiar figures to the enemy. Many of them shrank back from facing us. But the bravest of them vied for the honor of slaying us, and none were so brave as the Blues. Atara killed them with her arrows and Maram with his fire, but it was not enough. Too many of them hurled themselves howling over the battlements to meet Kane's sword and mine with their murderous axes. Their rage seemed bottomless; they attacked us without fear.

Alkaladur made a carnage of their frenzied, naked bodies, as did Kane's bloody blade. Even so, they came at us in twos and tens, and worked their way behind us.

Twice I saved Kane from an axe splitting open his back, and three times he saved me. Thus our flashing swords forged deep bonds of brotherhood between us. For a few golden moments we fought back to back as if we were one: a single, black-eyed Valari warrior with four arms and two swords guarding both front and back.

The Blues could not overcome us. I killed many of them. And each time my sword opened up one of them, I myself was opened. Although they did not feel pain as did other men, their death agonies were strangely even more unbearable. For the very numbness of these half-dead men was itself a deeper and more terrible kind of suffering. The Soulless Ones, people called them, but I knew well enough they had souls, as all men do. It was just that the essence of what made them human seemed lost, damned in life to wander that gray and misty realm that lies between life and death. To feel no pain is to be robbed of joy as well. And so I found that I must not envy their invulnerability to that to which I was most vulnerable. I found, too, that I could not hate them. It was not the One but only Morjin who had originally called their kind into life.

At last Count Ulanu's buglers sounded the retreat, and the Blues and the rest of the enemy pulled back from the walls. Teams of pallbearers worked all up and down the battlements to dispose of the many enemy who had fallen there – and the bodies of the slain Librarians, too. Others came up to us with mops and buckets of water to dean the ramparts so that the remaining defenders wouldn't slip on all the blood spilled there or become disheartened at the sight of it. But it seemed that nothing could now lift the spirits of the Librarians. There were simply too many of the enemy and too few of them. Even the fire from Maram's crystal brought them little warmth of hope.

'It is difficult to use this in batlle,' he said to me, holding up his gelstei and coming down from his tower to pay Kane and me a visit before the next assault. 'Difficult to aim. And the more fire I bring forth from it, the longer it takes to gather in the sun's rays for the next burst.'

'It's an old crystal,' Kane muttered. 'It's said that firestones of ages past were more powerful.'

I looked out to the left at the smoking ruins of the second siege tower that Maram had managed to set aflame. His firestone seemed fearsome enough. But fire was only fire, and the enemy was growing used to it. Death was only death, too, and what did it matter whether a warrior was killed by shooting flames or by boiling oil and red-hot sand poured down upon him from the hoardings above the gates?

Maram turned his red crystal about in his hands and said, 'I don't believe this will be enough to win the battle.'

'No, perhaps not,' Kane said. 'But it's kept us from losing it so far.'

'Do you think so?' 'I think that if any survive to sing of the deeds that were done here, your name will be mentioned first.'

Such praise, coming from Kane, surprised Maram and pleased him greatly. After a few moments of thought however, he looked down at the lines of the enemy gathering at the edge of the barren ground, and he said, 'But there will be another assault, won't there? They have so many men.'

It was not yet noon when the day's second assault began. This time Count Ulanu sent his finest knights against our part of the wall. They were almost harder to beat back than were the Blues, for they fought with greater skill, and their armor gave good protection against arrow and sword 1 all swords except Kane's kalama and Alkaladur.

There came a moment during the fiercest part of the attack when a dozen of these knights of Aigul fought their way over the battlements and won a bridgehead on the wall. Kane and I found ourselves separated, with the knights between us. They killed two Librarians standing near me, and a few more fighting near Kane. They had beards as black as Count Ulanu's and looked enough like him to have been his cousins; I thought they were some of the same knights that had pursued us into the Kul Moroth. They taunted Kane, telling him that soon they would capture him and have the pleasure of nailing him to a cross as they had Alphanderry.

It was the wrong thing to do. For Kane fell mad then. And so did I. Working along the wall toward the south, I wielded my sword with all the fury of the blazing Soal sun that poured down upon us. And Kane fought like a demon from hell, slashing and thrusting and rending his way north. Together, our flashing swords were like the teeth of a terrible beast closing upon our enemy. They died one by one, and then suddenly, the three knights still alive lost heart before our terrible onslaught Two of them hurled themselves over the battlements, taking their chances with broken legs or backs in their plummet to the hard ground below. The remaining knight, seized with terror, threw down his sword. He knelt before Kane, placed his hands together over his chest and cried out, 'Quarter! I beg quarter of you!'

Kane raised his sword high to finish this hated enemy knight.

'Mercy, please!' the knight begged.

'So, I'll give you the same mercy your Count showed those he crucified!'

The madness suddenly left me. I called out, 'Kane! A warriors code!'

'Damn the code!' he thundered. 'Damn him!'

'Kane!'

'Damn his eyes! Damn his soul!'

Kane's sword lifted higher as the knight looked at me, his dark eyes pleading like a trapped fawn's. There was a great pain inside him, the same bitter anguish I felt gnawing at my own heart. He burned for Me; all of us do. In such circumstances, how could I allow it to be taken away from him?

I raised high my sword then so that its silustria caught the sun's rays and threw them back into Kane's eyes. For a moment he stood there dazzled by this golden light. His sword wavered. Then he looked at me, and I looked at him. There was a calling of our eyes Valari eyes: black, brilliant and bottomless as the stellar deeps. There the stare shone, and there, too, Alpha nderry's last song reverberated and sailed out toward infinity. I heard the haunting sound of it inside me, and in that moment, so did Kane. And in the opening of his heart, he began to remember who he really was and who he was meant to be. This was a bright, blessed being, joyful and compassionate – not a murderer of terrified men who had thrown down their weapons and asked for mercy. But he feared this shining one more than any other enemy. It was upon me to remind him that he was great enough of heart and soul that he need fear nothing in this world – nor that which dwelled beyond it.

'So,' he said, suddenly sheathing his sword as tears filled his eyes. He stepped past the kneeling knight and came up to me. He touched my sword, touched my hand, and then clamped his hand fiercely about my forearm. A bright, blazing thing, secret until now, passed between us. And he whispered, 'So, Val – so.'

He turned his back on the knight, not wanting to look at him. It seemed, as well, that he couldn't bear the sight of me just then. The Librarians came to take the knight away to that part of the library where captives were being held. And all the while, Kane stared up at the sky as if looking for himself in the light that kept pouring from the bright, midday sun.

Three more times that long afternoon, Count Ulanu's armies made assaults upon the wall. And thrice we threw them back, each time with greater difficulty and desperation. Kane's newfound compassion did not keep him from fighting like an angel of death, nor did my own stay the terror of the sword Lady Nimaiu had given me. But all our efforts – and those of Maram, Atara and the Librarians – were not enough to defeat the much greater forces flung against us. Near the end of the third assault with most of Count Ulanu's army in retreat from the walls, we suffered our greatest loss thus far. For one of the Blues, who had fought his way up to a section of wall where Lord Grayam stood with his sword trying to meet a sudden crisis, felled Lord Grayam with a blow of his axe. He himself was slain s moment later, but the deed was done. The Librarians set Lord Grayam down behind the wall's battlements. There he called for me and the rest of our company to come to him.

While a messenger ran to summon Master Juwain and Liljana, I knelt with Kane, Atara and Maram by his side.

'I'm dying,' he gasped out as he leaned back against the bloodstained battlements.

I tried not to look at the bloody opening that the Blue had chopped through his mail into his belly. I knew it was a wound that not even Master Juwain could heal.

Jonatham and Braham called for a litter to carry the Lord Librarian to the infirmary.

But he shook his head violently, telling them, 'There's no time! Never enough time!

Now please leave me alone with Sar Valashu and his companions. I must speak with them before it's truly too late.'

This command displeased both Jonatham and Braham. But since they were unused to disobeying their lord, they did as he had asked, walking off down the wall and leaving us with him.

'The next attack will be the last,' he told us. They'll wait until the sun goes down so that Prince Maram can't use his firestone, and then… the end.'

'No,' I said, listening to the blood bubble from his belly. 'There's always hope.'

'Brave Valari,' he said, shaking his head.

In truth, unless a miracle befell us, the next assault would be the last. It was a matter of the numbers of Librarians still standing and the severity of their wounds; the promise of defeat was in the dullness of Librarians' eyes and in the exhaustion with which they held their notched and bloodstained weapons – no less the gaps the enemy's missiles had broken in the walls. A knowledge comes to men in battle when the battle is nearly lost. And now the enemy began reforming themselves in their companies and battalions in front of the houses of the glowing dry; and now the Librarians peered out at this gathering doom as courageously as they could: without much fear but also without hope.

And then, from the tower to our left, one of the Librarians there pointed toward the west and shouted down, 'They're coming! I see the standards of Sarad! We're saved!'

It seemed that we had our miracle after all. I stood to look out the crenel, beyond Count Ulanu's armies and the houses of the city, beyond even the broken outer wall to the west. And there, perhaps a mile out on the pasture, cresting a hill and limned against the setting sun, was a great host of men marching toward Khaisham. The red sun glinted off their armor, their standards, in a direct line with this fiery orb, were hard to see. I told myself that I could make out the golden lions of Sarad against a flapping blue banner. But then one of the Librarians, from the tower to our right, peered through his looking glass and announced, 'No, the standards are black! And it is the golden dragons of Brahamdur!'

He then swept his glass from north to south and shouted. 'The armies of Sagaram and Hansh march with them! We are lost!'

A pall of doom descended upon all who stood there, worse than before. Count Ulanu had sent for reinforcements to complete his conquest, and with all the inevitability of death, they had come.

'Sar Valashu!' Lord Grayam called to me. 'Come closer – don't make me shout.'

I knelt beside him with my friends to hear what he had to say. Just then he smiled as he saw Liljana and Master Juwain mount the steps to the wall. He beckoned them closer, too, and they joined us.

'You must save yourselves, if you can,' he told us. 'You must flee the city while you can.'

I shook my head sadly; Khaisham was now surrounded by a ring of steel too thick for even Alkaladur to cut through.

'Listen to me!' Lord Grayam called out. 'This is not your battle; even so you have fought valiantly and have done all you can do.'

I looked from Atara to Kane, and then at Maram, who bit his lip as he tried desperately not to fall back into fear. Master Juwain and Liljana were so tired that they could hardly hold up their heads. They had seen enough of death during the past day to know that soon, like the coming of night, it would fall uporf them as well.

'I should have bid you to leave Khaisham before this,' Lord Grayam told us, as if in apology. 'But I thought the battle could be won. With your swords, with the firestone that I suspected Prince Maram possessed…'

His voice trailed off as a spasm of agony ripped through his body and contorted his face. And then he gasped, 'But now you must go.'

'Go where?' Maram muttered.

'Into the White Mountains,' he said. 'To Argattha.'

The name of this dreadful city was as welcome to our ears as the thunder of Count Ulanu's war drums booming out beyond the walls.

'You must,' he told us, 'try to recover the Lightstone.'

'But, sir,' I said, 'even if we could break out, to simply forsake those who have stood by us in battle -'

'Faithful Valari,' he said, cutting me off. His eyes stared up and through me, up at the twilight sky. 'Listen to me. The Red Dragon is too strong. The finding of the Lightstone is the only hope for Ea. I see this now. I see… so many things. If you forsake your quest, you truly do forsake those who have fought with you here, For why have we fought? For the books? Yes, yes, of course, but what do books hold inside them? A dream. Don t let the dream die. Go to Argattha. For my sake, for the sake of my son and all who have fallen here, go. Will you promise me this, Sar Valashu?'

Because a dying man had made a request of me with almost his last breath – and because I thought there was no way we could ever escape the city – I took his hand in mine and told him, 'Yes, you have my promise.'

'Good.' With all the strength that he could manage, he reached inside the pocket of his cloak and pulled out the False Gelstei that we had found in the Library the day before. He gave the gold-colored cup to me and told me, 'Take this. Don't let it fall into the enemy's hands.' I took the cup from him and put it in my pocket. Then he closed his eyes against another spasm of pain and cried out, 'Jonatham! Braham!

Captain Varkam!'

Jonatham and Braham, accompanied by a grim, gray-haired knight named Varkam, came running along the wall. They joined us, kneeling at Lord Grayan's feet.

'Jonatham, Braham,' Lord Grayam said. 'What I must tell you now, you mustn't dispute. There is no time. Everyone has noted your valor in rescuing my son's body.

Now I must call upon a deeper courage.'

'What is it, Lord Librarian?' Jonatham asked, laying his hand on Lord Grayam's feet.

'You are to leave the city tonight. You will -'

'Leave the city? But how? No, no, I couldn't -'

'Don't argue with me!' Lord Grayam interrupted him. He coughed, once, very hard, and more blood flowed out of him. 'You and Braham will go into the Library. With horses, at least two of them. Take the Great Index. We can't rescue the books, but at least we should have a record of them so that copies might someday be found and saved. Then go with Sar Valashu and his companions into the hills. From there, they will go… where they must go. And you will go to Sarad. For a time: soon Count Ulanu will fall against it and take it as well. He'll take all of Yarkona. And so you must flee to some corner of Ea where the Dragon hasn't yet come. I don't know where. Flee, my knights, and gather books to you that you might start a new Library.'

He placed his hands over his belly and moaned bitterly as he shuddered. Then he sighed, 'Too late – much too late.'

Beyond the wall, the beating of the drums thundered louder.

Lord Grayam drew in a deep breath and said, 'Captain Varkam! You will hold the walls as long as you can. Do you understand?'

'Yes, Lord Librarian,' he said.

'All of you, I must tell you how sorry I am that I misjudged, that there just wasn't enough time, and that I, in my pride, didn't see -'

'Ah, Lord Grayam?' Maram said, interrupting him. He alone, of all of us, felt compelled to put need before decorum. 'You spoke of fleeing into the hills. But how are we to leave the city?'

Lord Grayam closed his eyes then, and I felt him slipping off into the great emptiness. But then he suddenly looked at me and said, 'Long ago, my predecessors built an escape tunnel from the Library to the slopes of Mount Redruth. Only the Lord Librarians have kept this secret. Only the Lord Librarian has the key.'

Here he weakly tapped his chest. We loosened the gorget covering his throat and pulled back his mail. There, fixed to a chain around his neck, was a large steel key.

'Take it,' he said, pressing it into my hand. After I had lifted the chain over his head, he continued, 'In the crypt, there is a door. It's plastered over, but…'

Another spasm ripped through him. His whole body shivered and convulsed, and his eyes leaped out like a siege tower's hooks and fastened onto the great wall surrounding the city of night So Lord Grayam died. Like many men, he went over to the other side before he was really ready, before he thought it was his time to die.

'Oh, too bad, too bad!' Maram said, touching his throat. Then he looked at Atara as his thoughts turned away from Lord Grayam to the problem at hand. 'We'll never find the door now. Can you help us?'

Atara shook her head even as Master Juwain closed Lord Grayam's onstaring eyes.

Doom, doom, doom, doom…

'Well, Lord Grayam said to go into the crypt, so I suppose we should go,' Maram said.

'Yes, but which crypt?' Jonatham asked. 'There is the one where we buried your friends. And one beneath each of the Library's wings.'

Now the sun had set, and the sentinels cried out that the armies of Brahamdur, Sagaram and Hansh were approaching the city's outer wall.

It would have been hopeless, of course, to search each of the crypts, tapping along their subterranean walls for the sound of a hidden door. And so Liljana, seized with inspiration, took out her blue gelstei and laid her hand on Lord Grayam's head. Her touch lasted only a few moments. But that was enough for her to reach into that land of ice and utter cold -enough, as her grip closed upon the last gleam of Lord Grayam's mind, to freeze her soul. Her eyes suddenly rolled back in her head, showing nothing but white, and I was afraid that she would join Lord Grayam in eternity. Then she shuddered violently as she ripped her hand away and looked at me.

'Oh, Val – I never knew!' she whispered to me.

'Brave woman,' I said, taking her cold hand in mine. I smiled and said softly,

'Foolish woman.'

Maram licked his lips as the drums kept up their relentless tattoo. He looked at Liljana and asked, 'Could you see anything?'

'I saw where the door is,' Liljana suddenly breathed out. 'It's in the main crypt. I can find it, I think.'

I stood up then, and so did my companions. To Captain Varkam, who was looking at us strangely, I said, 'It seems that there may be a way out for us, after all. And yet

– '

'Go!' he said to me with great urgency. 'This was the Lord Librarian's last command, and it must be obeyed.'

He motioned for Lord Grayam's body to be placed on a bier. And then he told me,

'Farewell, Sar Valashu. May you walk always in the light of the One.'

Then he quickly clasped my hand and turned to look to the Library's last defense.

We sent for our horses and took them into the Library. The men and women of Khaisham looked at us incredulously as we led them clopping their iron-shod hooves down the long halls. The word soon spread that we had found a means of escaping this vast building – and the city itself. At first many clamored to go with us. But when it became known that we were going into the mountains to the east, their panic to flee the city gave way to even greater fears. For that was the land of the man-eating Frost Giants from which none had ever returned.

'What will happen to them?' Maram asked as we began our descent down the broad steps leading to the crypt. Although no one had wanted to go with us, we all felt guilty at leaving them behind. 'Likely they'll be enslaved,' Kane said. 'So, likely they'll live longer than we will.'

We met Jonatham and graham in the gloom of the crypt. They had four horses between them, each of whose saddlebags was packed with their portion of the eighty-four huge volumes of the Great Index. It made a heavy load for the horses, but not nearly so great as the burden that they themselves must bear.

Liljana located a place on the crypt's eastern wall, where the light of the torches through the arches showed most brightly. We brought forth the sledgehammers the Librarians had given us and broke through the veneer of plaster hiding the door. This was a huge slab of steel untouched by rust and still gleaming dully despite the march of the centuries since it had been hung there. With the help of a little oil in its lock, the Lord Librarian's key opened it. Before us was a tunnel wide enough to drive a cart through – and dark enough to send shudders of doubt through all our hearts.

Our passage through it was like a nightmare. Once the door had closed behind us – this cold piece of steel that would take Count Ulanu's men half the night to break from its jamb – it seemed that the earth itself had devoured us. The torches we carried sent an oily smoke into the stale air and choked us; the red sandstone through which the tunnel had been carved seemed stained with the blood of all who had died along the Library's walls. The horses hated going down into that dank, foul-smelling place. Twice, Altaru whinnied and balked, setting his hooves against the stone like a mule which no threat will move. I had to whisper to him that we were going to a better place and would soon breathe fresh air again. Only his love for me, I thought, impelled him to move on and lead the other horses forward.

We walked down and down for a long time. The tunnel twisted like a worm in the earth, right and left. In its dark hollows sounded the echoes of our footfalls and the deeper murmurs of our despair. I thought I could feel the souls of all those who had been placed in the crypt, Alphanderry most of all, wandering about in this endless tunnel, forever lost. It was only Lord Grayam's dying wish, like a beckoning hand, that led me on.

At last the tunnel began to rise. After what seemed hours but must have been much less time, we came to another door, like the first. It opened onto a much larger space that had once been the shaft of a mine. Now, as we could tell from the strong animal scent clinging to the rocks here, it had been taken over as the lair of a bear. The sudden knowledge that we were so close to one of Maram's furry friends set him to singing nervously, so that any bear here would be warned of our passage and perhaps flee instead of attacking us. But it seemed that whatever beast lived in this ancient mine was not at home. We passed unmolested out of the mine's opening, which was overgrown with bushes and trees.

And so at last we stood on the slope of Mount Redruth beneath the night's first stars. In the air was a sharp coolness as well as a howling coming from the city below us. We could see all of Khaisham quite clearly in the starlight and in the sheen of the bright half moon. The Library, rising like a vast salt crystal from Khaisham's highest hill was ringed by thousands of little lights that must have been torches.

Many of these flickered from atop the inner wall; from this sign I knew that it had fallen. The Librarians, no doubt, were making their final defense from behind the Library's immense wooden doors. I wondered how much longer they would stand before Count Ulanu's fire arrows and battering rams.

'You should go now,' I said to Jonatham. He stood with Braham by their horses, looking down at his conquered city. I pointed along the curve of the mountain, south toward Sarad. 'It won't be long before our escape is discovered. Count Ulanu will surely send pursuit.'

'If he does, then they will be slain,' Jonatham said with a black certainty. 'As we will, all of us. We've entered the Frost Giants' country here, and they'll likely find us before Count Ulanu's men do.'

'They may,' I said. 'But there is always hope.'

'No, not always,' Jonatham said, taking my hand in his. 'But it gladdens my heart that you say that. I shall miss you, Sar Valashu.'

'Farewell, Jonatham,' I told him. 'May you walk in the light of the One.'

Then I clasped Braham's hand, as did my friends, one by one, quickly making their farewells. We watched as they led their horses across the trackless slope of the mountain until they vanished behind its contours into the dark.

I stood on the rocky, slanting earth with my hand on Altaru's neck, trying to ease his strained nerves for the journey that we still must make. Maram stood by Iolo near me, as did Atara and Liljana with their horses, and Master Juwain and Kane.

'Oh, what are we to do!' Maram said, gazing down at the city.

'There's only one thing to do,' I said.

Maram looked at me with horror filling up his face. 'But, Val, you can't really be thinking that -'

'I gave my promise to Lord Grayam,' I told him.

'But surely that's not a promise you can think to keep!'

Could I keep this promise, I wondered? I, too, stared down at Khaisham. The thousands of torches had now closed in around the Library like a ring of fire. 'My promise,' I said to Maram and the others, 'was given from me to Lord Grayam. It doesn't bind any of you.'

'But surely it doesn't bind you, either,' Master Juwain told me. 'You can't promise to do the impossible.'

Atara was quiet for a few moments as she looked off at Khaisham – and far beyond.

And then she spoke with the clear, cool logic that was one of her gifts. 'If we don't go east, then what direction should we choose?'

As she pointed out, we could not return west through Yarkona as we had come To the south lay Sarad, which would soon fall as Khaisham had and beyond that, the deathly hot Red Desert. And north, across the White Mountains, infested in those parts with the tribes of the Blues, we would come to the thickest part of the Vardaloon, which might hold monsters even worse than Meliadus.

'Then we must go east,' I said. 'To Argattha, to find the Lightstone.'

'But we don't know that it's even there!' Maram said. 'What if Master Aluino's journal was a hoax? What if he was mad, as he thought of the man claiming to be Sartan Odinan?'

I stared at the blazing torches as I relived Lord Grayam's urging that I should enter Argattha. I tried to imagine an invisible cup guarded by dragons and hidden in the darkest of places – the last place on earth that I would ever wish to go. Then I drew Alkaladur and pointed it toward the east. Its blade flared with a silvery light, the brightest I had yet seen.

'It's there,' I said, knowing that it must be. 'It's still there.'

Master Juwain came forward and set his hand on my arm. He said, 'Val, there is a great danger here. Danger for us, if we covet the Lightstone as Sartan did and fall maddened by it. Perhaps it would be best to leave the Lightstone wherever it was that he set it down. It might never be found.'

'No,' I said, 'it will be found – by someone. And soon. This is the time, sir. You said so yourself.'

Master Juwain fell silent as he stared up at the stars. There, it was told, the Ieldra poured forth their essence upon the earth in the ethereal radiance of the Golden Band.

'The seven brothers and sisters of the earth,' I said, citing Ayondela's prophecy,

'with the seven stones will set forth into the darkness and -'

'And that's just it!' Maram broke in. 'With Alphanderry gone, we're only six. And we've only six gelstei. How are we to find the seventh in the wastes that lie between here and Argattha?'

I pressed my hand over my heart. I said, 'You're wrong, Maram. Alphanderry is still with us, here, in each of us. And as to the seventh gelstei, who knows what we'll find in the mountains?'

'You have a strange way of interpreting prophecies, my friend.'

I smiled grimly and told him, 'Of this part of the prophecy, we both must agree: that if we go into Argattha, we'll surely be setting forth into the very heart of darkness.'

The quiet desperation that fell upon Maram told me that he agreed with every fear-quivered fiber of his being.

Of all my friends, only Kane seemed pleased by the prospects of this desperate venture. The wind off his dark face and rippling white hair carried the scents of hate and madness. A wild look came into his eyes, and he said, 'Once Kalkamesh entered Argattha, and so might we.'

'But that's madness!' Maram said. 'Surely you can see that!'

'Ha -I see that the plan's seeming madness is its very strength. Morjin will continue to seek the Lightstone in every other land but Sakai. He'll seek us there, too, eh? He'd never dream we'd be witless enough to try to enter Argattha.'

'Are we that witless?' Maram asked.

Liljana patted his hand consolingly and said, 'It would be foolish to attempt the impossible. But is it truly that?'

We all looked at Atara, who stared out at Khaisham as from the vantage of the world's highest mountain. And then, in a soft voice that struck terror into me, she said, 'No, not impossible – but almost.'

From high up on the Library's south wing came a flicker of light, as of a flame brightening a window. I thought of all the Librarians who had died in its defense and the thousands of men, women and children taking refuge inside. I thought of my father and mother, of my brothers and all my countrymen in far-off Mesh – and of the Lokilani and Lady Nimaiu and even the greedy but sometimes noble Captain Kharald. And, of course, of Alphanderry. I knew then that even if there was only one chance in ten thousand of rescuing the Lightstone out of Argattha, it must be taken.

My heart beat out its thundering affirmation of this dreadful decision. There comes a time when a life not willingly risked for the love of others is no longer worth living. 'I will go to Argattha,' I said. 'Who will come with me?' Now more flames appeared in the other windows of the south wing, and then in those of the other wings, as well.

When it became clear that Count Ulanu's men had fired the Library, Maram called out, 'The books! Everyone trapped inside! How can he do this? How, Val, how?'

He fell against me, weeping and clutching at the rings of my mail to keep from falling down in despair. I forced myself to stand like a wall, or else I would have fallen, too

– and never to arise again.

'Oh no!' Liljana said, looking down at the burning Library, 'it can't be!'

Her arms found their way around Atara, who was now sobbing bitterly and silently as she pressed her face against Liljana's chest.

'I should never have used my firestone,' Maram gasped out. ' All the burning led only to this. I swear I'll never turn fire against men again.' Master Juwain had both hands held against the sides of his head as he stared down at the horror before us. He seemed unable to move, unable to speak.

'So,' Kane said, with death leaping like dark lights in his eyes. As the fire found the millions of books that the Librarians had collected over the centuries, a great column of flame shot high into the air. It seemed to carry the cries of the damned and the dying up toward the heavens. I smelled the sweet-bitter boil of death ill the sudden burning that swept through me like an ocean of bubbling kirax. Fire ravished me. It blazed like starlight in my heart and hands and eyes.

'So,' Kane said as I turned to look at him, 'I will go with you to Argattha.'

I bowed my head to him, once, fiercely, as our hands locked together. Then I looked at Master Juwain, who said, 'I will go, too.'

'So will I,' Liljana said, gazing at me in awe of what we must do.

'And I,' Atara said softly. Her eyes found mine; in their depths was a blazing certainty that she would not leave my side.

Maram finally pulled away from me and forced himself to stop sobbing. I saw the flames from the Library reflected in the water of his dark eyes – and something else.

'And I,' he said, 'would want to go with you, too, if only I -'

He suddenly stopped speaking as he drew in a long breath. For a long few moments, he stood looking at me. He blinked at the bitter smoke as if remembering a promise that he had made to himself. He pulled himself up straight, shook out his brown curls, and stood for a moment like a king.

'I will go with you,' he told me with steel in his voice. 'I'd follow you into hell itself, Val, which is certainly where we are going.'

I clasped his hand in mine to seal this troth as our hearts beat as one.

After that, we all turned to behold the destruction of the Library. There was no desire to utter another word, no need to speak the prayers that would burn forever in our hearts. The fire, fed by many books and bodies, raged high into the sky and seemed to fill all the world, and that was hell enough.