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He yawned and said, ‘I’m afraid I would have a fresher mind if we waited until tomorrow.’
‘Tonight is nearly tomorrow,’ I told him. ‘Haven’t we waited long enough?’
Master Juwain’s eyes flared with a new light. He loved nothing in life so much as delving into the mysteries of the mind.
And so we both went up upon the dais. The Guardians there made room for us. Master Juwain stepped straight up to the Lightstone, holding the little gelstei in the open bowl of his hands. I stood by his side as he closed his eyes. He fell so still that it seemed he was sleeping, too.
And so I waited to see if Master Juwain might discover some proof of my fate. What a great mystery the gelstei were! The secret of their making had been almost completely lost. But why, since there were still many ancient books describing how naked matter – the base elements of the earth – might be transmuted into these glorious crystals?
I remembered Master Juwain once explaining the answer to this puzzle: ‘Because the gelstei are living crystals, and the knowledge that goes into their forging is individual and spiritual and alive.’
They could not, he had told me, be forged as if by recipe. And they could not be used that way, either.
And as it was with the lesser gelstei, so it was even more with the greater gelstei: the silustria of my sword, the healing varistei, the blazing firestones. And most of all, the Lightstone itself. It was said that the golden cup gleaming on its stand three feet away from me had been forged by the Galadin around a distant star many ages ago – but no one really knew. Certainly no one on Ea, for twice ten thousand years, had succeeded in creating another like it, for almost everything about the gold gelstei remained a mystery. All through the Age of Law, the Brotherhoods had tried to unlock its secrets, with only partial success. As Master Juwain had said to me, it was one thing to hold the Lightstone in one’s hands, but quite another to wield it.
It was near the first hour of the new day – Moonday, I thought – when Master Juwain finally opened his eyes. He sighed as he squeezed the little gelstei in his hand. ‘I’m afraid I’ve failed, Val. The conundrum remains: this crystal might contain knowledge about the Lightstone. But it seems we still need the Lightstone to open it.’
I gazed at the golden cup that we had fought through hell to bring to this place. It quickened the powers of each of our gelstei – and so quickened our individual gifts that enabled us to use them.
Master Juwain went on, ‘I’ve tried all the formulae and incantations, in ancient Ardik, in Lorranda and Uskul, even the Songlines, but nothing has availed.’
My father’s words rang in my head: that we must believe, for believing in a thing, we make it be. Then an old verse flashed in my mind:
The deeper dance of head and heart, The angels’ grace, mysterious art, To weave light’s thread so lucidly:True mind’s resplendent tapestry.The sacred fire of heart and headWhere sense and thought are sweetly wed, Through ancient alchemy is wroughtA higher sense, a deeper thought.
After I had recited these lines, Master Juwain looked at me and asked, ‘Where did you learn that?’
‘From a book in your library, years ago,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you might find these thoughts that are deeper than words, since as you say, none of your words has availed.’
‘But, Val, thoughts are words. Language is.’ He held up his little crystal. ‘And this is called a thought stone – not a heart stone.’
I gazed off at our family’s table, where my mother sat with Estrella tending her bruised and bloodied feet. Something about this mute girl, so wild and free, called forth the grace of an animal. An animal, I was sure, had thoughts and mind, ordered not with words, but with the deeper logic of life. Estrella, not being able to talk to others, had somehow learned to communicate a blazing intelligence as if unfolding a fireflower from out of the depths of her being. The smile on her face as my mother finished her work and kissed her spoke more clearly and purely than words ever could.
‘But, sir,’ I said to Master Juwain, ‘doesn’t thought arise from the deeper intelligence of the heart? Doesn’t mind merely translate this intelligence into words, and then manipulate it and permute it?’
Master Juwain remained silent as he looked at me.
‘And didn’t you once teach me,’ I went on, ‘that the head and heart are two horses that draw the same chariot? And that the ancients made no such war between mind and body as do we?’
Master Juwain sighed as he nodded his head. ‘Yes, yes, I know very well what you say is true. But, you see, sometimes I don’t know … what I know.’
I pointed at the pocket of his robes and said, ‘The varistei is a healing stone, yes? What if it could heal this rent in the soul? Why don’t you try using it on yourself?’
He looked appalled as if what I had suggested to him was more painful than taking a knife to his own chest to perform a surgery. But he slowly nodded his head as he removed the emerald crystal from his pocket. He stood holding it in his hand in front of him.
The deeper dance of head and heart …
The healing stones, the green gelstei were called. And yet their powers ran much deeper than merely mending flesh together. Used in harmony with the natural forces of the earth, the varistei could awaken and strengthen the very fires of life itself.
The sacred fire of heart and head
Where sense and thought are sweetly wed …
Again, Master Juwain closed his eyes. I felt my heart beating in a quick but steady rhythm with his. The sounds of the room – jangling steel and creaking chairs and low voices – faded into a distant hum. I seemed to wait forever, all the while expecting Master Juwain to look at me and tell me that he had failed yet again. And then suddenly, the varistei came alive with a deep viridian light. The hall fell eerily silent as this lovely radiance enveloped Master Juwain’s hand, his arm and then his entire body; it seemed to course through his body and illumine it as from within. I gasped, then, to see his heart pulsing inside his chest like a great, living jewel. It sent shoots of emerald light through his arms and his legs, and up in a great shimmering fountain through his head.
When at last he opened his eyes, I had never seen these twin gray orbs so luminous and clear. He smiled as he tucked his varistei back into his pocket. Then he looked upon the Lightstone. The golden cup overflowed with a clear light, which he seemed to drink in through his eyes. He stood thusly for a long time. At last he turned his attention to the thought stone that he still held in his other hand. He stood gazing at it, nearly lost in rapture, even as the first rays of the morning sun fell upon the great hall’s windows and carried colors of crimson, gold and blue into the silent room.
‘I see, I see,’ he whispered to himself.
Now some of the sleeping Guardians began stirring and opening their eyes, bewildered. My father led Asaru and my brothers up upon the dais. Lansar Raasharu and Lord Tanu followed, and my mother, her arm covering Estrella’s shoulders, slowly climbed the steps to hear what Master Juwain might say.
‘You were right, Val,’ he said, holding up the thought stone for all to see. ‘Words were not the key to open this, though its contents were recorded in words. In High East Ardik, no less, which, then as now, was a language that only the Brotherhoods used.’
A fleeting look of triumph swept over Master Juwain’s face as he continued,
‘And I was also right. There is knowledge of the Lightstone in this gelstei. And knowledge of the Maitreya, too.’
‘Go on,’ I said as my eyes burned into his.
‘I’m afraid it won’t be as much as you hoped for.’
‘Go on,’ I said again.
Master Juwain sighed as he held his hand out toward the Lightstone. ‘It seems that the Cup of Heaven may be used by anyone, each according to his virtue and understanding. But if a man is flawed in any way, the light leaks out from his deeds like water from a cracked cup.’
‘Are you saying, then, that a man needs to be perfect in order to use the Lightstone?’
‘No – only to use it perfectly.’
‘And the Maitreya?’
‘The words concerning him, at least, are clear enough,’ Master Juwain said. ‘The Lightstone is meant for the Maitreya.’
‘But how is he to use it?’
‘Only he will ever know.’
I turned toward the Lightstone, now pouring out a golden radiance as if it had caught the rays of the morning sun and was giving them back a thousandfold. Around the dais the last of the stricken Guardians were waking.
‘But who is the Maitreya, then?’ I asked Master Juwain. ‘What does your stone say about that?’
‘Very little, I’m afraid.’ Master Juwain sighed again as he looked at me with all the kindness that he could find. ‘This is the relevant passage, listen: “Just as the Lightstone is the source of the radiance that holds all things together, so the Maitreya is the light that draws all peoples and all kingdoms together toward a single source and fate.”’
I looked at Master Juwain and said, ‘Is there no more?’
‘I’m certain that there is more recorded in the other thought stones in Nar.’
I drew Alkaladur and held it before the Lightstone. The Sword of Truth, it was called, the Sword of Fate. Its silver gelstei, gleaming as bright as a mirror, gave me to see a frightful thing: that I stood at the center of the whirlwind of forces that drew all the people of Ea toward a singular fate.
Lansar Raasharu suddenly cried out, ‘Claim the Lightstone, Lord Valashu!’
‘Claim it, Val!’ Baltasar, his faithful son, repeated.
I looked around at my father and my mother, at my brothers and friends and all these people who were so close to my heart. Only hours before, Kasandra had warned of a ghul who would undo my dreams. I was sure that none of those present could be this evil being. And yet, in the deepest sense, I could be sure only of myself. Shouldn’t I then claim the Lightstone, here and now, if for no other reason than to keep it safe within my grasp and guarded by my sword?
‘Claim it, Val!’ my fierce brother, Mandru, said to me.
The golden cup gleamed before me. If I were a false Maitreya and yet claimed it for my own, I would crack apart like a cup of clay and bring great evil to the world. But if I were the true Maitreya and failed to claim it, another would – and then the evil that he wrought with the gold gelstei would be just as great.
‘Come, Val,’ my brother Jonathay laughed out. His face, both playful and calm, was lit up with his faith in me. ‘If you’re not the Lord of Light, then who is?’
At last I turned toward Estrella. She stood in the shelter of my mother’s bosom silently sipping from the cup of warm milk and nutmeg that my mother had given her. Kasandra had said that this girl would show me the Maitreya. Without words to mar the way she saw the world and interpreted it to others, her whole being was a beautiful mirror like the silustria of my sword. This, I thought, was her gift. She smiled at me with her innocent and beautiful face, and in the quick, clear brightness there, it seemed that she was showing me myself just as I was.
Then I remembered the words of Morjin’s letter: You cannot be this Maitreya, either. But Morjin was the Lord of Lies. I suddenly knew that he truly did fear that I was the Maitreya. And so, it seemed, I must truly be.
‘All right,’ I finally said, holding up my sword. I smiled at my good friends, at Sunjay Naviru, and at Skyshan of Ki and at others. ‘All right. In eleven days, the tournament in Nar will begin. All the kings of the Valari or their seneschals will be there. Let this be the test of things, then: if I can persuade them to journey to Tria, there to meet in conclave with the kings of the Free Kingdoms and make alliance against Morjin, I will claim the Lightstone.’
At this news, Baltasar and Sunjay – Jonathay, too, and others – let loose a cheer. Asaru smiled at me and told me that he was glad that I would be accompanying Yarashan and him to Nar. But Lord Tanu remained skeptical. He pulled at his sour face and asked, ‘And just how will you accomplish this miracle?’
‘With all the force of my heart, sir.’ I went on to explain that I would compete at sword and at bow, and at all the tournament’s other competitions. ‘If I do well enough, or am even declared champion, then the kings will have to listen to me.’
‘If you’re declared champion,’ Asaru said with a smile, ‘you’ll have to defeat me first, little brother.’
‘And me,’ Yarashan put in as pride stiffened his handsome face.
I smiled at both of them as I bowed my head. Then I turned to Master Juwain. ‘The tournament’s champion, whoever he is, may ask of King Waray a boon. If fortune should favor me, I would ask that the Brotherhood school might be reopened.’
Master Juwain squeezed the thought stone in his hand. He was nearly as eager as I to enter the Brotherhood school and discover what knowledge its companion stones might hold.
‘Very well,’ Lord Tanu said to me. ‘You young knights always want to go to tournaments. But is it fitting that the Knight of the Swan and the Guardian of the Lightstone himself should abandon his charge to go off seeking glory?’
‘No, it is not,’ I said to him. I held my hand out toward the Lightstone. ‘And that is why we will have to take it with us.’
As I now explained to Lord Tanu, no less my father and Lansar Raasharu and everyone else, there were good reasons for risking the Lightstone by taking it on the road. First, I had vowed that all the Valari kingdoms would share in its radiance. Second, if King Waray should grant me or another Meshian knight the boon of entering the Brotherhood’s school, the Lightstone would be needed to open any thought stones. Third, although there was obvious danger in taking the Lightstone out of the Elahad castle, there was perhaps an equal danger in keeping it here, as the night’s events had proved. And fourth, if it should be proven that I was the Maitreya, the Lightstone must be close at hand for me to claim.
When I had completed my argument, everyone remained silent and looked at my father to see what he might say. He gazed at me for many moments before he finally spoke: ‘It is hard to imagine losing this great light that has come into our castle so soon after gaining it.’
‘We have each of us given our word, sir. Shouldn’t we honor this?’
‘Are you asking my permission to remove from my hall the greatest treasure in the world? And to take from my kingdom a hundred of its finest knights?’
He nodded at Baltasar as his radiant eyes looked past the Lightstone at the Guardians who stood around it. And then he turned back toward me.
‘Yes, your permission, sir,’ I said to him.
‘Is that truly mine to give?’
‘Should not a king command his own son?’
‘His son, yes,’ he said as he regarded me strangely. He bowed his head to me, slightly, then continued, ‘A king is charged with the safeguarding of his kingdom and ordering its affairs – and so commanding those who follow him. But he has a greater charge as well, and that is to the kingdom of the earth and all of life. This realm, however, he does not rule. If he should lose his son to this higher realm, how then should he presume to command him?’
A sharp pain filled my throat as I looked at my father. The great passages of life were always sad. I could find no words to say to him.
‘Very well, then, Valashu,’ he finally forced out. ‘Take the Lightstone with you to Nar, if you must. But be careful, my son.’
He leaned forward to embrace me and then kissed my forehead.
‘Will you come, too, sir?’ I asked him.
He glanced at the Lightstone and shook his head. ‘No, that’s impossible, now. The Red Dragon has spoken of marching armies into Mesh. There’s much to be done if these armies are to be kept away.’
I bowed to him deeply and then met his bright gaze.
‘And now,’ my father said to everyone, ‘it is more than late. Let us retire to our rooms or take breakfast, as we will. Later there will be much to do.’
And with that, he put his arm around my mother to escort her and Estrella from the hall. Everyone else except the Guardians who would stand near the Lightstone through the morning prepared to leave as well. I remained for a few moments staring at this sacred cup that had caused so many to sully themselves and make murder. Then I went off to take a few hours of rest.
7 (#ulink_c1089642-ffc4-5393-9018-b170c7ef6b64)
That afternoon the bodies of the scryers and the slave girls were laid to earth on a grassy knoll on the slopes of Telshar above the castle. There I buried as well the box that Salmelu had given me. I stood with my family and friends beneath a cloudy sky and listened to my father vow vengeance toward the one who had so defiled his kingdom. Never again, I thought, would he extend hospitality toward the emissaries of Morjin.
Late the next day, a messenger brought word of the Red Priests. It seemed that they had managed to keep ahead of the knights that my father had sent in pursuit of them; they had ridden straight across Mesh and into Waas before the kel keep that guarded the frontier could be alerted. Thus they made their escape. For the Waashians would allow no knight of Mesh into their realm, nor even suffer them to tell of Salmelu’s infamy. This was according to King Sandarkan’s command. Only a few years before, at the Battle of Red Mountain, we of the Swan and Stars had badly defeated the Waashians, and King Sandarkan still held great bitterness toward Mesh.
Neither did the search of the castle uncover the ghul. But then, that is a ghul’s nature, to remain hidden inside another’s mind or dwell deep within the flesh of a faithful nurse or a groom or even a friend. Now that it had come time to prepare for the Nar tournament, I was relieved to be putting behind me the castle’s many residents and the many more town-dwellers who journeyed back and forth from Silvassu every day. It gave me some small comfort that I could choose my companions from those I was certain could not be a ghul. Baltasar and the hundred Guardians I trusted with my life – and more importantly, with the Lightstone. Lansar Raasharu, of course, was beyond reproach, as were my brothers, Asaru and Yarashan. Master Juwain would be riding at my side, as he had on the great Quest. And it turned out that Maram would be coming with us, too.
‘Well, Val,’ he said to me after a long day of laying in supplies and attending to the many details of organizing an expedition, ‘you didn’t really think I’d let you go off alone on another adventure, did you?’
‘You’re the most faithful of friends,’ I said, clasping his hand. ‘But your decision wouldn’t have anything to do with another wedding postponement, would it?’
He smiled at me knowingly and said, ‘Well, perhaps just a little. Let’s just say that a journey to Nar will give me a little more time to make sure that Behira is truly the one meant for me.’
‘But what did she say when you told her you were going away?’
‘Ah, well, she wept, of course, too bad. But I believe that I was able to make her understand that duty called me to your side in your time of need. I promised her that if I were to win any of the competitions, I would bring back the gold medal and give it to her.’
I nearly coughed in astonishment. ‘Are you really thinking of entering the tournament?’
‘I? I? Go galloping about trying to cross lances with Valari knights? Do you think I’m mad? The point is, Behira believes I will be competing. This will soothe her. If I’m kept busy, you see, I’ll have less time for dalliances. But when we actually reach Nar, I can always, ah, be incapacitated with a bad back or the flux, do you understand?’
I did understand, and I promised Maram that I would keep secret this little dishonesty. He seemed very happy with his plan, and gave thanks that fate always seemed to rescue him from Lord Harsha’s wrath just when things looked darkest for him. But this one time, fate betrayed him. At the evening feast, when it came time for the rounds of toasting, Lord Harsha stood upon his game, old leg and called out, ‘Tomorrow Lord Valashu and Mesh’s finest knights will leave for the tournament in Nar. My daughter has just told me that Sar Maram Marshayk will be joining them and competing as an honorary Valari knight! We should all honor his courage! Let us all drink his health!’
Maram, sitting at Lord Harsha’s table beneath Lord Harsha’s upraised goblet, cast me a quick, sharp look from across the room as if to ask me if I had divulged his plan after all. I shook my head at him. And he shook his head at me in silent resignation and drank his beer even as two hundred lords and knights cheered him and wished him well.
Lord Harsha had yet another surprise for him. He was not an especially clever or imaginative man – except perhaps when it came to protecting his daughter. So it vexed Maram greatly when Lord Harsha clapped him on the back and announced, ‘As many of you know, Sar Maram is to be my son-in-law. Since it is distressful for my daughter and me to see him ride off at this time, we’ve decided to journey to the tournament as well. We’ll see to it that no harm befalls this brave knight!’
At this, Maram choked on his beer. His fat face reddened as he groaned and looked across the room at me for help. But it was all I could do to keep from laughing at this much-deserved plight that he had brought upon himself.
And so it seemed that all preparations for the expedition to Nar and our roster were complete. Yet one more addition remained to be made. Later that night, I met with my father and my family in his rooms. Estrella, whom my mother had practically adopted, took warm milk while the rest of us had brandy. When I told her that I would not be returning to Mesh for perhaps several months, she threw her arms around my legs and would not let go. She wept and seemed disconsolate, even when my mother promised to teach her the art of weaving and my grandmother sang her a comforting song. I knew then that I must take her with me, for our fates were somehow joined together. If I left her here in Mesh, I was afraid that the beautiful thing that had come alive inside her upon our meeting would wither and die.
