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I spoke the name of the maidservant who had volunteered to help my grandmother negotiate the castle’s numerous corridors and treacherous stone stairs. For during the half year of my journey, my grandmother had lost her sight almost overnight: now the white frost of cataracts iced over both her eyes. But strangely, although the cataracts kept out the light of the world, they could not quite keep within a deeper and sweeter light. Her essential goodness set my heart to hurting with the sweetest of pains, as it always did. I had often thought of her as the source of love in my family – as the sun is the source of life on earth.
While Maram and I sat at the table on either side of her, Master Juwain made her tea, peppermint with honey, as she requested. He set a new pot and cup before her and made sure that she could reach it easily. I knew that he lamented being unable to heal her of her affliction.
My grandmother held herself with great dignity as she carefully moved her hand from the edge of the table toward her cup. Then she said to me, ‘I sent Chaya away. There is no reason to burden her, and I must learn to get about by myself. Sixty-two years I’ve lived here, ever since your grandfather captured my heart and asked me to marry him. I think I know this castle as well as anyone. Now if you please, may we speak of more important things?’
She slowly turned her head as if looking for Master Juwain. Then, to Maram and me, Master Juwain said, ‘I’ve asked the Queen Mother to come here so that she might tell of Val’s birth.’
As far as I knew, three woman had attended my entrance to the world: my grandmother and the midwife, Amorah – and, of course, my mother, who had nearly died giving me life.
My grandmother breathed on the hot tea before taking a long sip of it. Then she said, ‘Six sons Queen Elianora had already borne for my son, the king. Val was the last, and so he should have been the easiest, but he was the hardest. The biggest, too. Amorah, may she abide with the One, said that he’d baked too long in the oven. She finally had to use the tongs to pull Val out. They cut his forehead, as you can see.’
Although she could no longer see, she tilted her head as if listening for the sound of my breath. Then, with only slight hesitation, she leaned forward, and her hand found the top of my head. Her palm moved slowly down my forehead as she found the scar there, then she traced the cold zags with her warm and trembling finger.
‘But what can you tell us,’ Master Juwain said, ‘about the hour of Val’s birth?’
My grandmother hesitated a little longer this time before touching my cheek, then withdrawing her hand to pull at the soft folds of skin around her neck. ‘He was born with the sun high in the sky, at the noon hour, as was recorded.’
Both Master Juwain and I turned to glance at the parchment still spread across the nearby desk. Then the heat of Master Juwain’s gaze fell upon my grandmother as he asked her, ‘Then it was at this hour that Val drew his first breath?’
Master Juwain’s eyes gleamed as if he were about to solve an ancient puzzle. He watched my grandmother, who sat in silence as my heart beat ten times. Finally, she said, ‘No, Val drew his first breath an hour before that. You see, the birth was so hard, he had trouble breathing at all. He was so cold and blue it made me weep. For an hour, Amorah and I thought that he would go over to the other world. At last, though, at noon, his little life quickened. When we knew the fire wouldn’t go out, we announced his birth.’
In the sudden quiet of Master Juwain’s chamber, twenty-one years after the day that my grandmother had told of, my breathing had stopped yet again. Master Juwain and Maram were staring at me. My grandmother seemed to be staring at me, too.
‘The Morning Star burned brightly that day,’ she continued. ‘It shone almost like a second sun from before dawn all through the morning, as it does once every hundred years. And so my grandson was named Valashu, after that beautiful star.’
Master Juwain stood up and marched over to the desk. He gathered up the parchment and a similar one that had lain concealed beneath it. After tucking a large, musty book beneath his arm, he marched back toward us.
‘Maram,’ he called, ‘please clear the table for me.’
I helped Maram clear the pots and cups from the tea table. Then Master Juwain spread both parchments on top of it, side by side. He stepped back over to the desk and returned with a few more books to hold them down.
‘Look,’ he said, pointing at the first horoscope that we had already studied. Then he traced his finger around the circle and symbols of the second parchment. As we could see, the array was nearly the same. ‘I confess that I guessed what the Queen Mother has just disclosed today. And so before I left for Nar, I asked Master Sebastian to work up this second horoscope.’
Now his finger trembled with excitement as he touched two small symbols written at the edge of the circle described upon the second parchment. ‘Here, of course, is the Morning Star, as on the first horoscope. But here, too – look closely – the stars of the Swan are rising in the east at Val’s earlier and true hour of birth.’
Master Juwain straightened and stood like a warrior who has vanquished a foe. He said, ‘There are other changes to the horoscope, but this is the critical one. Master Sebastian has advised me that the effect of the Swan rising would be to exalt and raise the purity of Val’s entire horoscope. He has said that these are certainly the stars of a Maitreya.’
I couldn’t help staring at the two parchments. The late sun through the windows glared off their whitish surface and stabbed into my eyes.
‘It’s possible, isn’t it,’ I said, ‘that many men, at many times, would have a similar horoscope?’
‘No, not many men, Val.’
Master Juwain now brought forth the book from beneath his arm. As he opened it and began turning its yellow pages with great care, I noticed the title, written in ancient Ardik: The Coming Of The Shining One. At last, he reached the page he had been seeking. He smiled as he set down the book next to the second parchment.
‘I found this in the library of the Brotherhood’s sanctuary at Nar. It was always a rare book, and with the burning of Khaisham’s Library, it might be the last copy remaining in the world.’ He tapped his finger against the symbol-written circle inscribed on the book’s open page. ‘This is the horoscope of Godavanni the Glorious. Look, Val, look!’
Godavanni had been the greatest of Ea’s Maitreyas, born at the end of the great Age of Law three thousand years before. He had also been, as I remembered, a great King of Kings. I gasped in wonder because the two horoscopes, Godavanni’s and mine, were exactly the same.
‘No,’ I murmured, ‘it cannot be.’
For my grandmother’s sake, Master Juwain explained again the features of my horoscope – and Godavanni’s. Then he turned to Maram and said, ‘You see, our quest to find the new Maitreya might already be completed.’
‘Ah, Val,’ Maram said as he pulled at his beard and gazed at me. ‘Ah, Val, Val.’
My grandmother reached out her hand and squeezed mine. Then she set it on top of the parchments, fumbling to feel the lines of the symbols written on them.
‘Here,’ I said, gently pressing her fingertip against the rays denoting the Morning Star. ‘Is this what you wanted?’
There was both joy and sadness in her smile as she turned to face me. Her ivory skin was so worn and old that it seemed almost transparent. The smell of lilacs emanated from her wispy white hair. The cataracts over her eyes clouded their deep sable color, but could not conceal the bright thing inside her, almost too bright to bear. Her breath poured like a warm wind from her lips, and I could feel the way that she had breathed it into me at my birth, pressing her lips over mine. I could feel the beating of her heart. There was a sharp pain there. It hurt me to feel her hurting so, with sorrow because she was blind and could not look upon me in what seemed my hour of glory. My eyes filled with water and burning salt a moment before hers did, too. And then, as if she knew well enough what had passed between us, she reached out her hand to touch away the tears on my cheek that she could not see.
‘It was this way with your grandfather, too,’ she said. ‘You have his gift.’
She gave voice to a thing that we had never spoken of before. For many years it had remained our secret. During the quest, however, Master Juwain and Maram – and my other companions – had discovered what my grandmother called my gift: that what others feel, I feel as well. If I let myself, their joy became my joy, their love flowed into me like the warm, onstreaming rays of the sun. But I was open to darker passions as well: hatred, pain, fury, fear. For my gift was also a curse. How many times on the journey to Argattha, I wondered, had Master Juwain and Maram watched me nearly die with every enemy I had sent on to the otherworld in the screaming agony of death?
My grandmother, as if explaining to Master Juwain and Maram something that she thought it was time for them to know, smiled sadly and said, ‘It was this way with Valashu from his first breath: it was as if he were breathing in all the pain in the world. It was why, at first, he failed to quicken and almost died.’
For what seemed an hour, I sat next to her in silence holding her hand in mine. And then, to Master Juwain and Maram, to me – to the whole world – she cried out: ‘He’s my grandson and has the heart of an angel – shouldn’t this be enough?’
My gift, this mysterious soul force within me, had a name, an ancient name, and that was valarda. I remembered that this meant ‘the heart of the stars’.
As Master Juwain looked down at the two parchments, and Maram’s soft, brown eyes searched in mine, I kissed my grandmother’s forehead, then excused myself. I stood up and moved over to the open window. The warm wind brought the smell of pine trees and earth into the room. It called me to remember who I really was. And that could not be, I thought, the Maitreya. Was I a great healer? No, I was a knight of the sword, a great slayer of men. Who knew as well as I did the realm of death where I had sent so many? In the last moment of life, each of my enemies had grasped at me and pulled me down toward that lightless land. I remembered lines of the poem that had tormented me since the day I had killed Morjin’s assassin in the woods below the castle:
The stealing of the gold, The evil knife, the cold – The cold that freezes breath, The nothingness of death.And down into the dark, No eyes, no lips, no spark.The dying of the light, The neverness of night.
Even now, in the warmth of a fine spring day, I felt this everlasting cold chilling my limbs and filling me with dread. The night that knows no end called to me, even as the voices of the dead carried along the wind. They spoke to me in grave tones, telling me that I waited to be one of them – and that I could not be the Shining One, for he was of the sun and earth and all the things of life. A deeper voice, like the fire of the far-off stars, whispered this inside me, too. I did not listen. For just then, with my quick breath burning my lips and Telshar’s diamond peak so beautiful against the sky, I recalled the words to another poem, about the Maitreya:
To mortal men on planets boundWho dream and die on darkened ground, To bold and bright Valari knightsWho cross the starry heavens’ heights, To all: immortal ElijinAs well the quenchless Galadin, He brings the light that slays the Lie:The light of love makes death to die.
‘“It is said that the Maitreya shall have eternal life”,’ I whispered, quoting from the Book of Ages of the Saganom Elu.
It was also said that he would show this way to others. How else, I wondered, did men gain the long lives of the Star People and learn to sail the glittering heavens? And how did the Star People advance to the order of the immortal Elijin, and the Elijin become the great Galadin, they who could not be killed or harmed in any way? Men called these beings angels, but they were of flesh and blood – and perhaps something more. Once, in the depths of the black mountain called Skartaru, I had seen a great Elijin lord unveiled in all his glory. Had the hand of a Maitreya once touched him and passed on the inextinguishable flame?
Master Juwain stood up and came over to me, laying his hand on my arm. I turned to him and asked, ‘If I were the Maitreya, wouldn’t I know this?’
He smiled as he hefted his copy of the Saganom Elu and began thumbing through its pages. Whether by chance or intuition, he came upon words that were close to the questioning of my heart:
The Shining OneIn innocence sleepsInside his heartAngel fire sleepsAnd when he wakesThe fire leapsAbout the MaitreyaOne thing is known:That to himselfHe always is knownWhen the moment comesTo claim the Lightstone.
‘But that’s just it, sir,’ I said to him. ‘I don’t know this.’
He closed his book and looked deep into my eyes. He said, ‘In you, Val, there is such a fire. And such an innocence that you’ve never seen it.’
‘But, sir, I –’
‘I think we do know,’ he told me. ‘The evidence is overwhelming. First, there is your horoscope, the Swan rising, which purifies – wasn’t it only by purifying yourself that you were able to find the Lightstone? And you are the seventh son of a king of the most noble and ancient line. And there is the mark.’ He paused to touch the lightning bolt scar above my eye. ‘The mark of Valoreth – the mark of the Galadin.’
Just then a swirl of little, twinkling lights fell out of the air as of a storm of shooting stars. In its spiraling patterns were colors of silver, cerulean and scarlet. It hovered near my forehead as if studying the scar there. Joy and faith and other fiery emotions seemed to pour from its center in bursts of radiance. This strange being was one of the Timpum, and Maram had named him Flick. He had attached himself to me in a magical wood deep in the wild forest of Alonia. It was said that once, many ages ago, the bright Galadin had walked there, perhaps looking for the greatest and last of Ea’s Maitreyas: the Cosmic Maitreya who might lead all the worlds across the stars into the Age of Light. It was also said that the Galadin had left part of their essence shimmering among the wood’s flowers and great trees. Whatever the origins of the Timpum truly were, they did indeed seem to possess the fire of the angels.
‘And of course,’ Master Juwain said, pointing at the space above my forehead, ‘there is Flick. Of all the Timpum, only he has ever made such friends with a man. And only he left the Lokilani’s wood – to follow you.’
I looked over toward the tea table, where Maram sat squeezing my grandmother’s hand. Then I turned back to Master Juwain and said, ‘There is evidence, yes, but it’s not known … how the Maitreya will be known.’
‘I believe,’ Master Juwain said, ‘that the Maitreya, alone of all those on earth, will have a true resonance with the Lightstone.’
‘But how is this resonance to be accomplished?’
‘That is one mystery I am trying to solve. As you must, too.’
‘But when will I solve it?’
In answer, he pointed out the window at the clouds glowing with colors in the slanting rays of the sun. ‘Soon, you will. This is the time, Valashu. The Golden Band grows stronger.’
As men such as he and I lived out our lives on far-flung worlds like Ea, the Star People built their great, glittering cities on other worlds closer to the center of the universe. And the Elijin walked on worlds closer still, while the Galadin – Ashtoreth and Valoreth and others – dwelled nearest the stellar heart, on Agathad, which they called Star Home. It was said that they made their abode by an ancient lake, the source of the great river, Ar. The lake was a perfect silver, like liquid silustria, and it reflected the image of the ageless astor tree, Irdrasil, that grew above it. Irdrasil’s golden leaves never fell, and they shone even through the night.
For beyond Agathad, at the center of all things, lay Ninsun, a black and utter emptiness out of which eternally poured a brilliant and beautiful light. It was the light of the Ieldra, beings of pure light who dwelled there. This numinous radiance streamed out like the rays of the sun toward all of creation. The Golden Band, it was called, and it fell most strongly on Agathad, there to touch all living things with a glory that never failed.
But other worlds around other stars, on their slow turn through the universe, moved into its splendor more rarely: with Ea, only once every three thousand years, at the end of old ages or the beginning of new ones. The Brotherhood’s astrologers had divined that, some twenty years before, Ea had entered the Golden Band. And it was waxing ever stronger, like the wind before a storm, like a river in late spring gathering waters to nourish the land. Now men and women, if they listened, might hear the voices of the Ieldra calling them closer to their source, even as they called to the Star People on their worlds and to the Elijin on theirs – and called eternally to the angels on Agathad to free the light of their beings and return home as newly created Ieldra themselves.
‘The Golden Band,’ Master Juwain explained, ‘is like a river of light that men do not usually see. It shimmers, the scryers say. There are eddies and currents, and a place where it swells and flows most deeply.’
He gazed out the window for a moment, then shook his head as if all that he could see was the blazing sun and the drifting clouds – and two golden eagles that soared among them.
‘The constellations,’ he said to me, ‘somehow affect the Band’s strength – and direct it, too. It’s known that the Band flared with great intensity on the ninth of Triolet, at the time of your birth.’
I, too, looked out the window for this angel fire that remained invisible to me.
‘I believe,’ Master Juwain said, ‘that a Maitreya is chosen. By the One’s grace, through the light of the Ieldra where it falls most brightly.’
I looked back to the tea table to see that Maram and my grandmother were attending his every word.
‘The Maitreya is made, Val. Made to come forth and take his place in the world. And he must come soon, don’t you see?’
Soon, he said, the Golden Band would begin to weaken, and a great chance might be lost. For men’s hearts, now open to the light that the Maitreya would bring, would soon close and harden their wills yet again toward evil and war.
‘You see,’ he said, ‘all the other Maitreyas failed. Of those of the Lost Ages, of course, we know almost nothing. But at the end of the Age of the Mother, it’s said that Alesar Tal entered the Brotherhood and grew old and died without ever setting eyes upon the Lightstone. And at the end of the Age of Swords, Issayu was enslaved by Morjin and the Lightstone kept from him. Godavanni was murdered at the moment that the Lightstone was placed into his hands. Now we are in the last years of the Age of the Dragon. This terrible time, the darkest of ages. How will it end, Val? In even greater darkness or in light?’
Out of the window I saw cloud shadows dappling the courtyard below and darkening the white stone walls of the castle. The foothills rising above them were marked with indentations and undulations, their northern slopes invisible to the eye, lost in shadow and perhaps concealing eagles’ aeries and bears’ caves and the secret powers of the earth. I marveled at the way the sunlight caught the rocky faces of these hills: half standing out clearly in the strong Soldru light, half darkened into the deeper shades of green and gray and black. I saw that there was always a vivid line between the dark and the light, but strangely this line shifted and moved across the naked rock even as the sun moved slowly on its arc across the sky from east to west.
‘Val? Are you all right?’
Master Juwain’s voice brought me back to his comfortable room high in the Adami tower. I bowed my head to him, then asked if I could borrow his copy of the Saganom Elu. It took me only a moment to flip through its pages and find the passage I was seeking. I read it aloud word by word, even though I knew it by heart:
‘“If men look upon the stars and see only cinders, if the sun should be seen to set in the east – if a man comes forth in falseness as the Shining One concealing darkness in his heart, if he claims the Lightstone for his own, then he shall become a new Red Dragon, only mightier and more terrible. Then red will burn black and all colors die; the heavens’ lights will be veiled as if by smoke, and the sun will rise no more.”’
I closed the book and gave it back to him. I said, ‘I must know, sir. If I am truly this one who shines, I must know.’
We returned to the table to rejoin Maram and my grandmother. Master Juwain made us more tea, which we sat drinking as the sun fell behind the mountains and twilight stole across the world. Master Juwain reasserted his wish that I might come forth as Maitreya in sight of the emissaries who had assembled in my father’s castle; it was why, he said, he had hurried home to Mesh. As much as I might need to know if I were really the Lord of Light foreseen in the prophecies, the world needed to be told of this miracle even more.
At last, as it grew dark and the hour deepened into full night, I went over to the window one last time. The sky was now almost clear. The dying of the sun had revealed the stars that always blazed there, against the immense black vault of the heavens. The constellations that my grandfather had first named for me many years before shimmered like ancient signposts: the Great Bear, the Archer, the Dragon, with its sinuous form and two great, red stars for eyes. I searched a long time in these glittering arrays for any certainty that I was the one whom Master Juwain hoped me to be. I did not find it. There was only light and stars, infinite in number and nearly as old as time.
Then Maram came up to me and clapped me on the shoulder. ‘It’s time for the feast, my friend. You might very well be this Maitreya, but you’re a man first, and you have to eat.’
We walked back across the room, where I helped my grandmother out of her chair and took her arm in mine. Then we all went down to the great hall to take food and wine with many others and view the wonder of the Lightstone.
2 (#ulink_3117adf6-b5c4-5316-8551-a95c585452e9)
The great hall adjoined the castle’s keep where my father and most of his guests resided. By the time we had gone outside and made our way through the dark middle ward, past the Tower of the Moon and the Tower of the Earth, and entered the hall through its great southern doors, it was almost full of people. Brothers from the sanctuary near Silvassu stood wearing their brown robes and drinking apple cider in place of wine or beer; nobles from Alonia gathered in a group next to their table. I immediately recognized Count Dario Narmada, King Kiritan’s cousin and the chief of his emissaries. With his flaming red hair and bright blue tunic emblazoned with the gold caduceus of the House Narmada, he was hard to miss. In this large room, opening out beneath its vaulted ceiling of stone, were many Valari: simple warriors and knights as well as great princes and even kings. Lord Issur, son of King Hadaru of Ishka, seemed to be discussing something of great importance with a tall man who displayed many battle ribbons in his long, gray hair and great longing on his much-scarred face. This was King Kurshan of Lagash, whose ferocious countenance hid a kind and faithful heart. I knew that he had journeyed to Mesh to make a marriage for his daughter, Chandria – and to stand before the Lightstone like everyone else.
On a long dais at the north end of the room, beneath a wall hung with a black banner showing the swan and stars of the House of Elahad, was an ancient white granite pedestal. On top of it sat a plain, golden cup. It was small enough to fit the palm of a man’s hand; indeed, it had been my hand that had placed it there some months before. At first glance, it did not seem an impressive thing. No gem adorned it. No handles were welded onto its sides, nor did it rest upon a long and gracefully shaped base, as with a chalice. It did not, except at rare moments, even radiate much light. But its beauty stole away the breath, and in its golden shimmer was something lovely that drew the eye and called to the soul. Not a few of those gathered in the hall were staring at it with tears streaming down their cheeks. Even the oldest and hardest of warriors seemed to melt in its presence, like winter’s ice beneath the warm spring sun.
Standing to either side of the pedestal were fifteen knights, each of whom wore a long sword at his side, even as did I. They wore as well suits of mail like my own; to the various blazons on their surcoats had been added a unique mark of cadence: a small, golden cup. For these were thirty of the Guardians of the Lightstone who had sworn to die in its defense. I had chosen them – and seventy others not presently on duty – from among the finest knights of Mesh. They, too, seemed in awe of that which they protected. Their noble faces, I thought, had been touched by the Lightstone’s splendor, and their bright, black eyes remained ever watchful, ever awake, ever aware.
Before we had crossed ten paces into the hall, a stout, handsome woman wearing a black gown came up to us, with her dark eyes fixed on Maram. He presented her as Dasha Ambar, Lord Ambar’s widow. After bowing to my grandmother, she smiled at Maram and asked, ‘Will we go riding tomorrow, Sar Maram?’
‘Tomorrow?’ Maram said, glancing about the hall as he began to sweat. ‘Ah, tomorrow is Moonday, my lady. Why don’t we wait until Eaday, when we’ve recovered from the feast?’
‘Very well,’ Dasha said. ‘In the morning or the afternoon?’
‘Ah, I must tell you that the morning, for me, quite often begins in the afternoon.’
Dasha smiled at this, as did my grandmother and I. Then Dasha excused herself and moved off toward the throng of knights who had gathered around Lord Tomavar’s table.
‘You’re playing a dangerous game,’ I told Maram as his eyes drank in Dasha’s voluptuous form.
‘What am I to do?’ Maram said, turning toward me. ‘Your Valari women are so beautiful, so bold. The widows especially. And there are so many of them.’
‘Just be careful that Lord Harsha doesn’t make Behira a widow before you even have the chance to marry her.’
‘All right, all right,’ Maram muttered. He gazed across the hall toward the Lightstone as if hoping its radiance might bestow upon him fidelity and other virtues. Then he seemed to forget his resolve as he looked away and said, ‘But someone must console these poor women!’
Again, my grandmother smiled, and she told Maram, ‘When the Ishkans made me a widow, it was not possible for me to marry again. But had it been, it would have been my wish to marry for love, not just for my husband’s renown.’
‘Then you are different from your countrywomen, my lady.’
‘No, not so different, Sar Maram.’ My grandmother turned her sightless eyes toward his face. Her smile radiated warmth. ‘Perhaps in you they hope to find both.’
‘Do you see?’ Maram said to me as he held his hands toward the ceiling. ‘Even in your own grandmother, this damn Valari boldness!’
We all had a good laugh at this, my grandmother especially. She let go of my arm and took Maram’s as if grateful for his strength. And strong he truly was, growing more so by the day. Now that he wore in his silver ring the two diamonds of a Valari knight, he was obliged to practise with his sword at least once each day. His body, I thought, was a sort of compromise between this fierce discipline and self-indulgence: the layers of fat, which fooled the undiscerning, covered great mounds of muscle and battle-tempered bone. There was about him a growing certainty of his prowess and physical splendor, and this attracted women like flowers to the sun.
Just then Jasmina Ashur, who had lost her husband in the war against Waas, espied Maram and hurried over to him. She was graceful and slender as a stem, barely eighteen, and her adoring eyes fell upon Maram with an almost smothering desire. After greeting us, she began discussing with Maram the poetry-writing session he had promised her.
‘Someone,’ she told Maram, ‘must put the account of your quest to verse. Since you are too modest to hoist your own banner.’
‘Ah,’ Maram said, the blood rushing to his face, ‘I am too modest, aren’t I?’
‘Yes, you are. Even so, the world needs to be told of your feats, before others make free with your story.’
