The Lightstone

Chapter 46

The passageway took us straight toward the southeast for a distance of a few hundred yards. It gave onto a much larger corridor running east and west. Just at the juncture, however, we found our way blocked by lines of iron bars running from the ceiling down into the floor. An iron door, like one leading from a jail cell, was set into the middle of the bars.

'Locked!' Maram cried out as he rushed forward to try it. 'Then we're Still trapped in this forsaken place!'

None of us knew how long it would be before Morjin's men burst into the throne room behind us and found their way to this secret passage.

'Hrold your noise!' Ymiru said softly, stepping up to the bars.

Then he brought forth his purple gelstei and worked its magic upon them. Its violet light transformed the crystal within the iron into a softer substance – soft enough so that Ymiru's great strength, with Maram, Kane and me helping, sufficed to bend them. Daj danced through this opening, and as for the rest of us, only Ymiru had much trouble squeezing through.

'There!' he huffed out after leaving shreds of white fur upon the rough iron bars.

'We're not trapped! I'll never allow myself to be trapped and taken again.'

'But how did Morjin take you?' Maram asked him.

'It was bad chance,' he said. 'After Val killed the dragon, we made it back past the old throne room and up to the seventh level without much trouble. Then we ran into that company of Grays.'

The Grays, as he explained, had scented out the secrets of their minds, and had used their frightful minds to freeze them with fear until Morjn's guards – and Morjin himself – could be summoned to bind them in chains.

'It was hrorrible,' Ymiru said, nodding at Atara and Master Juwain. 'We fought them as hard as we could, with the light meditations, but how long can one hrold against such creatures? And then Morjin suggested taking us into the throne room; he said that the torture of our bodies might help the Grays break into our minds.' 'Are you sure they didn't?' Kane asked him.

'I think not,' Master Juwain said, stepping up to Ymiru. 'When Morjin discovered that you and Val had broken into the throne room, he was very keen to have the Grays turn their minds toward you.'

'So, then it's possible that the enemy doesn't know how we entered Argattha?'

'It's likely,' Master Juwain said. 'I heard Morjin give orders to double the guard at the city's gates. He berated the captain of his guards for allowing a giant such as Ymiru to pass through un challenged.'

'Then they will likely look for us at these gates,' Maram said. 'If we can find our way back as we came, we may yet have time to make our escape.'

'A little time, perhaps,' Kane said. 'But we must hurry.' And so hurry we did, out onto the larger corridor, which was lit with numerous glowstones set at intervals into the black, basalt walls. To the west as Kane told us, the corridor led back toward Morjin's palace. And to the east, this bore through solid rock would take us straight through the mountain to the window carved into its side known as Morjin's Porch.

'But how did you know that?' Daj asked him. 'If this is the way toward Morjin's Porch, only Lord Morjin is ever allowed to use it.'

'Not ever, lad,' Kane said grimly as he stared down the corridor. 'Once, a long time ago, one named Kalkamesh was taken this way and crucified to the face of the mountain.' Daj, who apparently hadn't heard this story, stared at Kane in awe. 'If I remember aright,' Kane said, 'it also leads to Morjin's Stairs.'

As Daj had told us, Morjin's Stairs would lake us down to Argattha's lower levels, perhaps as far down as the abandoned first level – though not even Daj or Ymiru could say where it might give out. 'Can you see where?' Kane asked Atara.

Atara, who could 'see' well enough to keep from stumbling along this dim corridor, shook her head and told us, 'It's too far.'

'Let's find out, then,' Kane said.

We had no trouble in finding Morjin's Stairs about a quarter mile to our left. They spiraled deep into the dark mountain, turning around and around, and down and down for hundreds of feet. After a while, we came to a landing giving out onto a tunnel, which we supposed led to the secret tunnel system and sanctuaries on the sixth level. It was quiet in that direction. This gave us good hope as we turned the other way and resumed our journey down the endlessly winding stairs Thus we passed openings to the fifth, fourth, third and second levels There, as we had prayed, the stairs didn't end; they led us another five hundred feet down to the first level of Argattha.

'What is this?' Maram said, pointing ahead of us. The stairs let us out onto a very short corridor that seemed to end abruptly in a wall. 'Another trap?'

'Ha, another secret door, most likely!' Kane said, clapping him on the shoulder. Then he stepped forward and called out, 'Memoriar Damoom !'

Remember Damoom, I thought as Kane pushed open the carefully concealed door. I looked back at Atara and the one-armed Ymiru, and I knew that all of us, live though we might another thousand years, would always remember Argattha.

By great, good fortune, we discovered that the door opened upon Morjin's old throne room. We stepped out into the great hall where we had fought our first battle with the dragon. Here, with its great, cracked columns of basalt and the pyramid of skulls, the floor was still caked with the blood from Ymiru's severed arm. And across from the great portal leading out to the first level, the doorway to the stairs by which we had first entered the hall still stood open.

It was strange and disquieting to cross this vast open space where once had thundered a dragon. We were glad to gain the shelter of the stairwell. And glad, too, to climb down a little way to the corridor leading back toward the labyrinth. Daj, who had explored many of the tunnels of Argattha's first level, had never dared to enter this dark, twisting place. As I held high Alkaladur, now blazing brilliantly in the Lightstone's presence, he and the others followed closely behind me around and through its turnings. At last we came out of it as we had entered it. And so we stepped into the close, foul-smelling, rat-infested tunnel system leading to the cave hidden behind Skartaru's north face.

We found the cave as we had left it: piled with the bodies of the knights we had slain, as well as the saddles of their driven-off horses and other accouterments. Here, despite our fear of pursuit, despite the awful fetor of the rotting bodies, we had to pause to search through the knights' gear. We took away as many saddlebags of food as we could carry, and the smallest saddle that we could find. Atara was very happy to lay her hands on a full quiver of arrows; although they were not so well-made as those that the Sarni carefully shaped and fletched, she said that they would likely fly straight enough if only she could aim them at our enemies.

When we were finally ready, we rolled aside the great rocks with which we had sealed the cave. We stepped outside into a brilliant night. In all my life, the air that I breathed had never smelled so clean and sweet -even though that air was still of Sakai. A cold wind blew down from the Nagarshath through the valley to the north of the mountain. It set all of us except Ymiru to shivering, even so we were glad for the scent of ice and pines that it carried along in its frigid gusts. 'What time is it?'

Maram asked softly as he gazed at the shadowed rockscape of the valley.

I looked up at the sky; to the east of us, above the dark, rolling plains of the Wendrush, the Morning Star stood like a beacon among the Night constellations.

'It's nearly dawn,' I told him. 'What day is it?'

None of us seemed to know. In the lightless hell of Argattha, we might have journeyed and fought for two days – or two years.

'I would guess it's the 24th,' Master Juwain said 'Or perhaps the 25th.'

'The 25th of Ioj?' Maram asked.

Kane came up to him and rumpled his curly hair, 'Ioj it still is, my friend. We've still time to make it home before the snows come.'

We started walking down through the valley then. First light found us working our way across the ridge that hid the little canyon to the north of Skartaru. With nerves laid bare by what we had endured, we listened and looked for any sign of pursuit But the slowly brightening foothills rang with the cries of wolves and bluebirds rather than the hoofbeats of Morjin's cavalry. We knew that it would be only a matter of time before he or one of his priests sent out riders to patrol the approaches to Skartaru. How much time we had, however, not even Atara could say. And so we came down into the grassy bowl where we had left the horses; there my heart cried out with what it took to be the greatest stroke of fortune of all our journey. For there in the center of the bowl, his black coat burning in the light of the rising sun, Altaru stood sniffing the air as for enemies. Atara's roan mare. Fire, was feeding on the lush grass nearby him, while twelve other horses – all of them mares as well -took their breakfast with her. I was sure that these were the mounts of the knights in the cave.

Altaru had obviously gathered a harem about him. But he seemed to have driven off the magnificent Iolo, for what stallion will endure another sniffing about his new brides? When Maram discovered this, he wanted to weep bitter tears that he would have to find another horse to carry him homeward. Kane, Liljana and Master Juwain had better luck their geldings stood off about a quarter mile from the herd as if awaiting our return. We walked down into the bowl, where I whistled for Altaru. His ears pricked up, and he let loose a great whinny in return; it was like the music of the earth carried along with the day's first wind. I waited to see if he would come to me.

It seemed a shame to take him from his newly-found freedom, to say nothing of his harem. But he and I had a covenant between us. So long as we had breath in our lungs and blood in our veins, we were fated to face, and fight, our enemies together.

At last he came trotting over to greet me. He nuzzled my face; I breathed into his nostrils and told him that a dragon had been killed – although the Great Red Dragon remained alive. We still had very far to ride together, I said, if he was willing to bear my weight. In answer, he nickered softly and licked my ear. His great heart beat like a war drum. He pawed the ground impatiently as I brought forth the saddle that I had hidden with the others and put it on his back.

The others saddled their horses, too. Maram chose out of the herd a big mare to ride; the smallest we gave to Daj, who had surprised us all by declaring that he could ride. 'My father,' he told us, 'was a knight.'

'In what land, lad?' Kane asked him.

Finally Daj consented to naming his homeland. He looked at Kane in the deepest of trust and said, 'Hesperu. My father, all the knights of the north – there was a rebellion, you see. But we were defeated. Killed and enslaved.'

'Hesperu is very far away,' Kane told him. 'I'm afraid there's no way we can take you home.'

'I know,' he said. And then a moment later, he admitted, 'I have no home.'

He said no more as he buckled around his horse the small saddle that we had taken from Morjin's men. It was still too big for him. But he rode well enough, I thought, patting his mare on the neck and being gentle with her flanks, which were scarred from the spurs of its previous owner.

Most of the day, however, we spent in walking, rather than riding, along the foothills of the White Mountains. The sun was high in the sky by the time we reached the canyon by which we had come down out of the Nagarshath. There we said goodbye to Ymiru. He would be traveling west, while we must journey east.

'But it's too dangerous for you to cross the mountains alone!' Maram said to him. He looked at the remains of his arm and shook his head. 'And surely you're still too weak from what the dragon did to you.'

Ymiru bowed his huge head to Master Juwain, and then said, 'I've had the help of Ea's greatest healer – I feel as strong as a bear.' At the mention of Maram's least favorite animal, he cast his eyes about the tree-shrouded hills to look for one of the great, white bears that were said to haunt the Nagarshath. Then he studied Ymiru.

Master Juwain had healed his pierced side, and his green gelstei seemed to have restored him to his great vitality.

'Still,' Maram said, 'those mountains, two hundred and fifty miles of them, and you alone. And with winter coming on, it's a journey that-'

'Only I can make,' Ymiru said, dapping him on the arm. 'Don't worry, little man, I shall be all right. But I must go hrome.'

He went on to say that he must tell his people the great news that the Lightstone had been found. Such a miracle, he said, surely heralded the return of the Star People, and so Alundil must be prepared for this great event.

'And the Ymanir must prepare for war,' he said. 'The Great Beast told me that my people would be the next to feel his wrath.'

Liljana came forward and laid her hand on his white fur. 'I saw this in his mind. His hatred of your land, and the desire to destroy it.'

'He has the strength, I think,' Ymiru admitted. His sad smile made me recall the hosts of men and the preparations for war that we had seen in Argattha. 'But we can still fight a while longer.'

'You won't fight alone,' I promised him.

Ymiru's face brightened as he asked me, 'Will the Valari take up the sword against him, then?'

'We'll have to,' I assured him. 'With what we've seen on this journey, what other choice will we have?'

He smiled again as he put down his club; then we clasped hands like brothers.

'I shall miss you, Valashu Elahad,' he said to me.

'And I, you,' I told him.

Liljana brought up one of the mares, which she and Master Juwain had heaped with most of the saddlebags of food. Ymiru would need every last biscuit of it on his long journey.

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

The others, too, said their goodbyes. And then, one last time, I took out the Lightstone and placed it in Ymiru's hand. Its radiance spilled over him like the gold of the sun.

'Someday,' he told me, 'I'll have to journey to Mesh to learn this cup's secrets.'

'You'll always be welcome,' I said to him.

'Or perhaps someday,' he said, handing the Lightstone back to me, 'you'll bring this to Alundil.'

'Perhaps I will,' I said.

Gone from his fearsome face was any hint of gloom; I saw there instead only bright, shining hope. He bowed his head to me, and then turned to tie the mare's reins around his mutilated arm. And he called out, 'A hrorse! Who would ever have thought that a Ymanir would make company of a hrorse!'

And then, leading his horse with one hand, his great war club in the other, he turned to the west and began his long, lonely walk up into the great white mountains of the Nagarshath.

After he had disappeared around the curve of the canyon, we made our final preparations for our journey. Since we had sixteen horses among the seven of us, we had remounts to tie behind us. And Master Juwain had a bandage to tie around Atara. Because she could not bear us to endure the sight of her missing eyes, she begged Master Juwain to cover them. In his wooden chest, he found a bolt of clean white cloth, which he pulled over her eye hollows and temples. I thought it looked less like a bandage than a blindfold.

At last we were ready to leave Sakai. And so we mounted our horses and turned them toward the east. Just below the foothills, the golden plains of the Wendrush gleamed in the sunlight as far as the eye could see. We rode straight down into them; there was nothing else to do. Now, as we found ourselves in the middle of a sea of grass or crested a rise, we would be visible from miles away: clear targets for Morjin's cavalry or any of the Sarni who might decide to divest us of our horses, our lives or more precious treasure.

In truth, on all of Ea there is no other place more perilous to travelers than the Wendrush. Here, between the Morning Mountains and the White, prides of lions hunted antelope and the great, shaggy sagosk; sometimes a darkness fell upon their fierce, red hearts, and then they hunted men. Of all the Sarni tribes, in their plundering for sport or gold, perhaps only the Kurmak or Niuriu tempered their ferocity with mercy – and even they had no love of strangers. The worst of the tribes, it was said, was the Zayak, whose country we now had to cross. Somehow, Morjin had made allies of them – if it was possible to enlist the aid of warriors so proudly independent that they were said to demand tribute even of Morjin's men should they wish to ride across their lands.

For all that first day of our flight from Argattha, we saw no sign of Sarni or of pursuit from Sakai. We rode as fast as we dared, over the swaying grasses of the soft, black earth. The sky was an immense blue dome resting upon the fundament of the far-off horizon; all about us was grass made golden by autumn's last heat. When night came, still we didn't pause in our rush across the plains. With the rising of the wind, we rode long past the twilight hour into the falling darkness.

The stars came out like a million candles lighting the black ocean of the heavens.

They called us ever onward; their splendor lifted up our spirits and reminded us how good it was to be free.

The next day, however, as we looked back toward the Black Mountain still looming over the plain, we found ourselves pursued by riders. They crested a knoll behind us; there were twenty of them, bearing neither the shining mail nor lances of Morjin's knights but rather the leather armor and great curved bows of the Sarni. 'So,' Kane said to Atara, 'it's your people.'

He turned his horse about and made ready for one last battle. We all knew that it was hopeless to try to outdistance the Zayaks' lithe steppe ponies with our larger mounts

– especially with so great and stolid a war horse as Altaru.

'Please don't call them my people,' Atara said to Kane. 'Anyone sent by Morjin is as much my enemy as yours.'

As we soon discovered, these twenty warriors with their blue-painted faces and wildly streaming yellow hair had been sent by Morjin – or rather by the captains of his cavalry that his priests had sent after us. They charged straight at us, firing arrows as they rode. And we charged them. Two of the warriors underestimated Altaru's speed over short distances; these died quickly beneath my long lance, which had the weight of Altaru's driving body behind it. A third warrior got in the way of Kane's falling sword, and so surrendered his spirit to the sky. A fourth cried out,

'Give us the treasure that you stole from Lord Morjin!' even as Maram ducked beneath an arrow that he loosed and managed to race forward and duel with him to his death. Still, the battle would have gone badly for us if Atara hadn't countered the Zayaks' arrows with a murderous stream of her own. She shot off five of them with astonishing accuracy before most of the enemy came close enough to use their bows. And five warriors fell from their ponies with feathered shafts sticking out of their chests. It was the finest archery I had ever seen – and the Zayaks must have thought that, too. The sight of the blinded Atara, whipping her red horse about and firing off death with every crack of her bowstring, utterly unnerved these hold but superstitious warriors. Their leader, a fierce man with a huge, drooping, yellow mustache, cast her an awe-stricken look and cried out: 'Imakla! The Manslayer is imakla! '

And with that, he pointed his pony toward the rolling land to the north and led the survivors of his company. In a wild, galloping retreat over the plains.

We did not escape this brief but deadly encounter unscathed. An arrow killed Liljana's horse beneath her; she barely managed to avoid being crushed in its fall, and had to choose out mother from our remounts. One of the Zayaks' arrows had buried itself in Altaru's flank. It was a bad wound, and Master Juwain drew it only with difficulty. If not for the radiance of the green gelstei, now blazing like emerald fire in its nearness to the Lightstone, it might have been many days before Altaru would have been able to walk without limping. Likewise Master Juwain helped heal Kane of the wound caused by an arrow that had pierced his mail and transfixed his shoulder.

After we had made ready to set out again, I turned to Atara and asked, 'What does imakla mean?'

She seemed reluctant to answer me. But finally, she turned her blindfolded head toward me and said, 'The imakil are the immortal dead warriors of ages past, heroes who have done some great deed. Some warriors are said to ride with them and draw upon their strength. They are imakla, and may not be touched.'

And with that, this brave woman who rode with the dead, pointed her horse toward the rising sun and led us through the Zayaks' country. As we trotted along, Maram offered his opinion that we had surely outdistanced Morjin's cavalry, for why else would they have sent the Zayaks after us?

'They spoke of the cup, ' he said to her. 'Do you think they know it's the Lightstone?'

'Hmmph!' Atara said to him. 'If they knew that, they'd have called down the entire Zayak host upon us. And then Morjin would have lost all hope of regaining it.'

We discovered the next day that the Zayaks almost certainly knew nothing of the treasure that we bore through their land. About seventy miles out onto the plain, we ran into a much larger band of warriors. At the sight of Atara leading us toward them, they turned their horses and fled from us. It seemed that word of a blind, imakla warrior of the Manslayers had spread ahead of us like fire through dry grass.

Still, we took no assurance from this seeming miracle. We resolved to leave the Zayaks' county as quickly as we could. Our straightest path across the Wendrush would have taken us across most of their land, which was bordered by the White Mountains in the west, by the Blood River in the north, and by the Jade in the south.

It was toward this river that we now turned. We didn't mind adding a few extra miles to our journey. In any case, soon we must cross the Astu River, and it would be much easier first to cross the Jade and then the Astu to the south of where the Jade emptied into it.

And so the following day, with the fording of the cold waters that flowed down from the White Mountains, we passed into the country of the Danladi tribe. Their warriors, too, seemed to have been warned of Atara, for they let us ride through their lands unmolested. They were no friends of Morjin; but neither did they extend amity to a warrior of the Kurmak – and most especially not to Maram or Kane or any of the rest of us. It didn't matter. The weather held fine, with warm days of abundant sunshine and cold, clear nights. Thus we had no need of shelter, for we made our bed on the soft prairie grass and covered ourselves in our cloaks. When our food ran out, Atara shot an antelope, which gave us the sweetest of meats. Maram washed this feast down with the last of the kalvaas that we had brought from Alundil. Then he turned his eyes eastward in anticipation of some good, thick Meshian beer.

It took us most of three days to cover the hundred and twenty miles between the Jade and the Astu. This great river, here, to the south of where the Jade and the Blood flowed into it, was not nearly so wide as it grew on its course toward the Poru

– which eventually wound its way across the plains and forests of Alonia, all the way to Tria. Still, it was wide enough. We had to swim the horses across it. By the time we reached the other side, Maram vowed that he would never swim a river again. 'At least not until we cross the Poru,' Atara reminded him. 'Oh, the Poru!' Maram cried out. 'I'd forgotten the Poru!' But this queen of all rivers still lay a hundred and fifty miles to the east. The country to the west of it, here at this latitude, was that of the Niuriu tribe – who were friendly with the Kurmak. When an outrider of one of their clans trotted our way and discovered that Atara was the granddaughter of the great Sajagax, he offered us shelter, meat and fire. We spent that night in the great felt tent of his war chief. As with the other Sarni whom we encountered, Atara remained untouchable: any warrior approaching her to offer food or drink was careful to avert his eyes and very careful not to lay his hands on her or even brush against her garments. This restraint, however, did not in any way diminish the Niuriu's hospitality. As we discovered, the Sarni's enmity toward strangers was overmatched only by the generosity they showed to their friends. The chieftain's warriors and wives brought forth platters heaped with roasted antelope, sagosk steaks and coneys grilled over sweetgrass fire. As well, we had rounds of hot, yellow bread dripping with butter and honey and bowls of mare's milk. To Maram's delight, the chieftain himself, who was named Vishakan, brought- forth a bottle of brandy and poured it into our cups with his own hand. And before we fell off to a contented sleep, he presented each of us with a braided leather quirt, with handles trimmed out in beaten silver. On the next day – it proved to be the first of Valte – we made fifty miles over the flat, short-grass steppe. And on the two days following that, we did as well, riding past the great herds of sagosk long past sunset. Although the air grew slightly cooler here in the middle of the Wendrush, the sky deepened to an even more beautiful blue, and the red-orange paintbush and the golden leaves of the cottonwood trees along the watercourses made a great show of color. It would have been the finest leg of our journey homeward if Atara hadn't thrice lost her way for a few hours before regaining her sense of the terrain.

On the morning of the fourth of Valte, we came to the mighty Poru River. Atara assured Maram that the waters were not nearly so deep as in the spring or summer, when they raged brown down from the mountains. Even so, Maram dreaded this immersion. His unease must have communicated to his horse, because they floated downstream much too far, and so came out upon the Pom's eastern bank a hundred yards from the rest of us. This precipitated the only real crisis of this part of our journey. A great, black-maned lion, lying in wait by the grasses along the river, decided to chase Maram and his horse across the steppe. He almost certainly would have sunk his claws into the flanks of Maram's mare and dragged them down if Atara hadn't killed him with a single arrow shot into his heart.

'Ah,' Maram said to Atara as we all gathered around the dead lion, 'I suppose I should thank you for saving my life.'

'I suppose you should,' Atara said to him with a broad smile. 'But I think we're all long past saying thanks for saving each other's lives.'

Atara's feat of shooting down a charging lion was heralded not only by us. As it happened, two warriors of the Manslayer Society, with long hair even yellower than Atara's and wearing leather armor decorated much the same as hers, were out hunting along the Pom that morning. They immediately thundered our way to greet one of their bloodsisters. It didn't matter that Atara was of the Kurmak while they counted themselves as Urtuk – and eastern Urtuk at that. And they only honored Atara, as imakla, for gracing their country with her presence. When they studied the dead lion, killed so cleanly, they insisted that Atara return to their camp and share wine with them. They produced knives and quickly skinned the lion. It was their intention to dress the fur and make for Atara a lion-skin cloak so that all might appreciate her prowess.

They were reluctant however, for the rest of us to accompany them. Liljana they might have taken into their confidence, but they looked at Kane, Maram, Master Juwain, Daj and me with the challenge that they reserved for all males. They fired their arrows of suspicion especially at me for I was a knight of Mesh and therefore the Urtuks' ancient enemy.

It cooled their bellicosity not at all thai 1 assured them that our peoples were not at war and that I was only returning homeward. Only Atara's claim that we were great warriors who had killed many of Morjin's men softened these two warriors. Atara also insisted that we remain together, and more, that the Manslayers of the Urtuk provide us escort as far as the Morning Mountains. So great had Atara's reputation now grown -to say nothing of her will – that the two Manslayers took a long look at the blindfold wrapped around her face and agreed to her demand.

Later that day, when we returned with them to their camp, their other sisters met in counsel and decided to honor their decision. They made only a single demand of their own: that Atara remain with them and teach three of the younger sisters her skill with the bow while the older sisters were preparing her lion skin.

And so there, along a stream sheltered by great cottonwoods, we waited for five long days. I felt the passing of time most keenly; an overwhelming sense that I must return home as soon as possible beat like a drum though my blood. Still, I was glad to make friends with these fierce women. At night, we sat around the fire sharing food with them and stories. It amazed them – and us – when one night Flick appeared and entertained them with his dance of silver sparks. We offered them no explanations as to this little miracle. We, ourselves, could only believe that the Lightstone's power had somehow quickened Flick's being and brought forth his colors for all to see.

At last, when the sisters had finished tanning the lion's skin and sewing into it a lining of purest, Galadan satin, they brought it to Atara to put on. With the black fur of the lion's mane framing her blond hair and her white blindfold circling her striking face, she did indeed look like one of the imakil heroes of past ages come to life.

The next morning, we set out to cross the Urtuks' country. Twelve of the Manslayers, acting as escort, rode out before us. After cutting across a little triangle of the steppe for thirty miles, we came to the Diamond River and followed it east.

This band of clear water, flowing down from the Morning Mountains, reminded me how close I was to my home. I prayed that I would reach it without further incident 1 needn't have worried. Although a company of fifty Urtuk warriors rode north from their winter camp father down along the Pom to witness the strange sight of the Manslayers leading seven outlanders toward Mesh, they did not challenge us or offer battle. Indeed, they offered us cheers in the from of their terrible war cries, for they had heard that we had entered Sakai and had slain many of the Red Dragon's men.

A hundred miles, as the raven flies, it is from the confluence of the Poru and Diamond Rivers to Mesh, and we rode nearly as straight. It took us only a day to cover half this distance. By the morning of the eleventh, when we awoke to a few puffy white clouds floating along the sky, the mountains of Mesh were a purplish haze along the horizon. As we urged the horses toward them during that long, long, day, the mountains grew ever greater and more distinct. By noon, I was able to make out the lines of Mount Tarkel's soaring white summit. Although I had never seen it from this vantage, there was only one mountain that stood just south of the Diamond River and overlooking the golden grasses of the Wendrush.

That evening we made camp scarcely three miles from the foothills beneath its western face. The pounding of my heart demanded that we ride up into Mesh even through the falling darkness; but my head told me that it would be foolhardy to brave the wild, rocky approaches to Tarkel at night. And more, such a course would be ungracious and sad beyond thinking because Maram, Master Juwain and I would have little time to say goodbye to the rest of our friends.

It was only during the five hundred miles of our flight from Argattha that I had gradually come to accept the rightness of the breaking of our company, though I hadn't yet made peace with this difficult decision. After we had thanked the Manslayers for their kindness and they had ridden off back toward their camp, the seven of us gathered around the fire that Maram had made for a last council.

It was a cold, clear night of many stars and a moon just past full. Flick spun about against the backdrop of the sky, and his swirling form seemed to match the twinkling lights of the constellations. The wind carried down the scents of my homeland and set my heart to beating more quickly. Before us was a little fire of burning sagosk bricks mat smelled surprisingly sweet.

We spoke of many things; for a while, we told stories of Alphanderry, whose voice we now listened for in the wind and in the music of the stars. We had decided that Kane should inherit his mandolet, which was all we had left of him – except that we had our memories and a song in our hearts, and that was everything. Kane sat plucking at the mandolet's strings and singing to us. When he wished, he, too, had a fine, clear voice, as strong and beautiful as an eagle soaring across the sky. I thought that he was trying to recapture the words of Alphanderry's last song; I knew that someday he would.

'That's a music that should be heard in Mesh,' I said to him. 'Are you sure you won't reconsider your plans?'

Kane put down his mandolet and looked at me; I wondered if he would waver in his decision.

'It would be an honor if you could meet my father,' I said to him. Then I laid my hand on top of the diamond pommel of the sword that he had forged in Godhra so long ago. 'And my brothers, certainly my mother and grandmother. All my countrymen. Your name is still rembered in Mesh.'

'That name you have promised not to speak, eh?' He bowed his head to me in trust that I would keep this promise. And then he said, 'No, I'm sorry but I must return to Tria – I've business there.'

Master Juwain, holding his gnarled hands out to the fire, looked up at him and asked,

'The business of the Black Brotherhood?'

In all our miles together, Kane had said very little about this secret brotherhood of men whom we supposed he led. And he told us only a little more now, saying, 'The Great Beast must be opposed with any weapons we can find.'

'Even assassination?' Master Juwain said to him. 'Even poison, terror deceit?'

Kane looked far off into the star-spangled heavens. Somewhere, unseen, golden bands of light streamed out from their center, touching many of the universe's earths.

'No, perhaps not those things,' Kane finally said. He looked over at me and stared at Alkaladur. 'Perhaps it's time we found other means of fighting.'

'I've said before,' Master Juwain told him, 'that evil cannot be defeated with the sword.'

'No, perhaps not,' Kane admitted. 'But evil people can.'

He cast me a long, sad look, and my hand tightened around Alkaladur's hilt. I feared that fate would once more call me to draw it before the world was rid of such as Morjin. And yet I knew that Master Juwain was right, that even the greatest of swords could never put an end to war.

'There are still battles to be fought,' I said. I drew forth the Lightstone and sat gazing at it. 'Different kinds of battles.'

As I remembered why I had fought so hard for this little cup and why the Galadin had sent it to Ea, it suddenly began pouring out an intense, golden radiance. For a moment, I held in my hands a little sun whose light could perhaps been seen from the mountains to the east of us, if any were looking.

'There will be battles, and soon,' Kane assured us. He nodded his head at the Lightstone and added, 'Now that we've taken this from the Beast, he'll bend all his will toward getting it back.'

'Then you believe he'll recover from his wound?' Maram asked.

'Yes, his kind cannot be killed so easily,' Kane said. 'A sword through the heart, or the severing of the head – that's almost the only way to kill one of the Elijin.'

He went on to say that Morjin would now be forced to accelerate his plans for his conquest.

'So, he's always looked to Alonia and to the Nine Kingdoms, Delu too, for he knows that if they fall, all of Ea falls, too.' He nodded at Atara, Liljana and me. 'But with the Sarni divided and much of the Wendrush held against him, to say nothing of the Long Wall, he can't attack your lands directly, eh? So, first he'll surround you – that's been his strategy all along.'

'Do you think he'll invade Delu from Galda?' Mararn asked nervously.

'Not yet, he hasn't the strength,' Kane said. 'No, he'll move first against Eanna.'

'But if Surrapam holds,' Maram said, 'then he'll have to -'

'Surrapam won't hold,' Kane said. 'We all saw that.'

'Perhaps not,' I said. 'But the Hesperuks can't consolidate their conquest of Surrapam and attack Eanna.'

Kane nodded his head savagely and said, 'Not by themselves. That's why Morjin needs a backdoor into Eanna. And now he has that, with Yarkona.'

The Lightstone's radiance had now faded, and I gave the cup to Maram to hold. I sat staring at the fire. In its flames I saw the conflagration of the great Library; I saw the hateful eyes of Count Ulanu, as well.

'Count Ulanu,' I said to Kane, 'still isn't strong enough to attack Eanna.'

'He will be soon,' Kane said. 'Morjin will reinforce him.'

'Through Elivagar?'

'Just so – that's the key to his conquest, eh? Once the Ymanir's land is taken, he'll have a road through the mountains to march his armies into Yarkona and so into Eanna. And when Eanna falls, so will Thalu and the whole northwest.' Kane paused to catch his breath, and continued, 'And then nothing will stop Morjin from assembling a fleet and sailing his armies past Nedu and through the Dolphin Channel to attack Alonia.' I watched the fire's flames gather in the Lightstone's bowl; in Maram there now gathered a different kind of fire.

'Then we must,' he said, 'stop Morjin first.'

Again, I gripped my sword as a great bitterness ate at my belly. And I said, 'Perhaps I should have killed him.'

Kane reached over and laid his hand on my shoulder. And then he said a strange thing, 'You did what you did out of compassion, and there's nothing to be sorry for in that. Would that we all had such compassion.'

Atara, who was now holding the Lightstone, faced me from next to Maram and said,

'Not even a scryer can see all ends, you know. If you had died in Argattha, we might never have escaped. And so one of Morjin's Red Priests might be holding this even now.'

It was one of those moments when the Lightstone's gold seemed to reveal a clear light within its depths – as did Atara. She nodded at me and asked, 'Will the Valari come to the Ymanir's aid and fight Morjin?'

'Yes,' I told her. 'If we don't fight each other.'

Maram looked at Kane and then said, 'I couldn't bear it if the Beast ever saw Alundil.

He would destroy it, I think. Is there no way that the Star People might return and send help?'

We all understood that Kane was forbidden to speak of other worlds around other stars, even as he forbade himself to speak of his past. And so he surprised us, saying, 'They did send help, once. But they'll never come again so long as Morjin is free to work his evil. You tell of the glory of Alundil. It's nothing against that of the cities of the Star People and the Elijin. And the Galadin, so, the Galadin. What if Morjin or another were to place the Lightstone in the Dark One's hands? So, they'll not risk the destruction of worlds and a splendor that you cannot imagine.'

Liljana, who had been passed the Lightstone, nodded at Kane and said, 'And that is why we must first and always look to this world. And that is why I must return to Tria. The Sisterhood must prepare for what is to come.'

She said as little about the Maitriche Telu as Kane did his Black Brotherhood. But it gladdened my heart when she looked at Master Juwain and said, 'Perhaps the time has come when our two orders can make our purposes known to each other.'

She gave the Lightstone to him, and his ugly face brightened with the most beautiful of smiles. 'The time has come, I see I would like nothing more than for us to call each other Sister and Brother.'

As Daj next took the Lightstone, his eyes wide with the wonder of it Liljana clasped Master Juwain's hand.

Now Master Juwain took out his varistei and sat gazing at it. Seized with inspiration, he held it in front of Daj's forehead. The Lightstone seemed to pour its radiance into the green stone. Then a green light leaped from the crystal, and its rays seared into the tattoo of the red dragon disfiguring Daj. After a few moments, the crystal grew quiet And we all stared at Daj through the fire's flames to see that the tattoo was gone.

'Is it really?' Daj said, handing the Lightstone to Kane. He scurfed his fingers across his forehead as if feeling for the hated tattoo. 'I want to see! Val, will you show me, in your sword?'

I drew Alkaladur so that he could behold himself in its gleaming silver. But the sword, in the Lightstone's presence, suddenly flared so brightly that for a moment none of us could see. After it had returned to only a mirror-like brilliance, Daj sat looking at himself in wonder.

'It is gone,' he said. 'Now they won't stare at me in Tria.'

We had decided that he would go with Kane and Liljana to Tria, where Liljana would look after him. Atara would accompany them along the mountains facing the Wendrush; she must pay her respects to Sajagax and the Kurmak, she said, before continuing on with Kane and the others to Tria to conclude her business with her father.

'King Kiritan,' she said, 'must be told that the Lightstone has been found and the Quest fulfilled. And I must tell him.'

'That I would like to see,' Kane said, gazing at the cup that he held. His eyes, like the black stone he kept hidden away, seemed to touch upon the fiery light of creation itself. 'Almost as much as I'd like to see his face when Val shows him this.'

He passed the Lightstone on to me and asked, 'Are you sure you won't reconsider your plans?'

I squeezed the cup between my hands and said, 'The Lightstone must first be brought to the Valari. We are its guardians, and we can't guard it if I alone of my people take it into Tria.'

'But, Val,' Maram reminded me, 'King Kiritan is expecting its finder to bring it to him. Our vows -'

'We vowed to seek the Lightstone for all of Ea and not for ourselves,' I said. 'For Ea, Maram – not for King Kiritan.'

'But what about your vow, then?'

Now the gold of the Lightstone suddenly felt as cold as ice in my hands. I remembered too well standing in King Kiritan's hall before thousands of knights and nobles, and promising King Kiritan that I would bring the Lightstone to him and so claim Atara as my bride.

I looked over at Atara sitting rigidly as a statue, and I said, 'That vow is not mine to fulfill. Not mine alone.'

After that, our talk turned toward the remembrance of all that we suffered together, the glories as well as the sorrows. Kane recounted the story of Flick spinning on Alphanderry's nose; this made Daj break open with an easy, boyish laughter that was a delight to hear. We had thought that he would never laugh again. His sudden joy made us weep, especially Liljana, who seemed to have lost her own laughter, even as Atara had warned on the beach of the Bay of Whales. For she had looked too deep into Morjin's mind and seen there an evil so great that her own joy of life seemed forever dimmed. Even the Lightstone's gleaming presence was not enough to restore her peaceable temperament and her lovely smiles.

At last it came time to begin the long and painful rounds of making our goodbyes.

Master Juwain sat telling Daj of the Great White Brother hood and gave him his copy of the Saganom Elu; Daj promised to read it and someday make the journey to Mesh. I gave Kane the sharpening stone of pressed diamond dust that my brother, Mandru, had once given me. Alkaladur's edge never needed sharpening, but the kalama that Kane bore would. In return, he gave me one of the bloodstones that he had taken from Morjin's chambers, and instructed me in its use. Much past midnight, with the moon dropping lower in the sky, I spoke with Liljana about a few of the things she had seen in Morjin's mind.

Still later, I walked with Atara through the swishing grass at the edge of our camp.

Twice she almost stumbled as the long grasses snared her feet. It was one of those times when she was truly blind. I offered her my arm, but she wouldn't take it.

'I must learn to get on by myself,' she told me.

'No one was meant to get on alone,' I said to her. 'If this quest has taught me anything, it's that.'

'Still, you can't walk for me. You can't see for me.'

'No,' I said, touching the mail over my chest where I had returned the Lightstone.

'But now that this has been found, I can marry you.'

'I still have my vow,' she reminded me.

I stopped to look off across the steppe, west, toward Argattha. I asked her, 'How many men have you slain,, then? Sixty? Seventy?'

'Would you have me slay more?'

I listened to the beating of my heart, then said, 'Your vow isn't what keeps you from wanting to make vows with me.'

'No,' she said softly, touching the cloth around her face. 'I can't marry you like this.'

'But your sight will return,' I said, speaking of her powers of scrying, which seemed to be growing ever stronger. 'In Argattha, when Kane touched -'

'Kane will go his way, and I will go mine,' she told me. 'And Kane is still Kane, don't you see?'

I looked back toward the fire where Kane stood like a lonely sentinel surveying the steppe in all directions. Despite our nearness to Mesh, he hadn't ceased his eternal watch for enemies.

'Sometimes now,' she said to me, 'Kane walks with the One. But too often, he still walks with himself. He hasn't the power to make me see. In Argattha, for a moment, he helped me find my way back to the One. But I… can't always remain there. And so then I'm utterly blind.'

'I don't care,' I told her.

'But I do care,' she said to me. 'Someday, if I bear your son, as I have wished a thousand times and will, if only I could, my son… when I hold him to me and give him my milk, when I look down at him, if I can't see him, if I can't see him seeing me, then it would break my heart.'

I stood beneath the blazing stars that she could not perceive. In their brilliance, the patterns of life and death were stitched by the silver needle of fate. And fate, I thought, was forged in our hearts, whether with the fire of hate or love, it was our will to decide.

'I understand,' I told her. How could I love this woman if I didn't guard her heart as I would my own heart, as I would the Lightstone itself?

'I know it's vain of me,' she said, 'I know it's selfish, but I -'

'I understand,' I said again.

I moved to stroke her hair, gleaming like silver-gold in the starlight But she shook her head and pulled back from me. And she murmured, 'No, no – I'm imakla now, haven't you heard? I'm imakla, and may not be touched.'

'I don't care, Atara.'

I knew that she couldn't bear for me to touch her – and even more, that she couldn't bear not being touched. And so one last time, I kissed her. My lips burned with a pain worse than when the dragon had seared me with her fire.

After that, I sat with her on the cold grass holding hands as we waited for the sun to brighten the sky over the mountains to the east. When it came time to say goodbye, she squeezed my hand and said, 'I wish you well, Valashu Elahad.'

For a moment, my eyes burned and blurred, and I was almost as blind as she. Then I told her, 'May you always walk in the light of the One.' She got up to saddle her horse with the others while I sat staring at the last of the night's stars. After a while Maram came over to me. He some how knew what had occurred between us, and I loved him for that.

'Take courage, old friend, there may yet be hope,' he told me. 'If you've taught me anything, it's that.'

I slipped the Lightstone out from beneath my armor and held it before me. Its hollows suddenly filled with the first rays of the sun rising over Tarkel's slopes, and I knew what he said was true.

'Thank you, Maram,' I said as he grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. I pointed east at Tarkel. 'Now why don't we go get some of that beer I've promised you for at least the last thousand miles?'

The smile brightening his face reminded me that no matter how fiercely I might miss Atara and the rest of our company, others whom I loved were waiting for me beneath the shining mountains of my home.