‘What is this Ellama?’ I asked her, touching the scar on my forehead.
‘The Ellama is the Ellama,’ she said. ‘And the lightning bolt is sacred to him. And so it has been sacred to us for years beyond reckoning. This is the fire that connects the earth to the heavens, where the Ellama walks with the rest of his kind.’
‘With the Star People?’ I asked.
‘Some think of them as people,’ she said. ‘But just as people such as you and I are also animals, we are something more. And so it is with them who are more than human, the Bright Ones, the Galad a’Din.’
‘You mean, the Galadin?’
‘You say words strangely. But yes, I mean they who walk among the stars. When Danali saw the mark on you, he wondered if it was perhaps the Ellama who really sent you to us.’
Maram suddenly dug his elbow into me as if to impel me to claim such exalted origins. Atara and Master Juwain both looked at me to see what I would say. Surely, I thought, the truth was a sacred thing. But life was more sacred still. If claiming to be the Galadin’s emissary would keep the Lokilani from sending us back to them, shouldn’t I then lie just this one time?
‘We are emissaries,’ I told Pualani. I watched her eyes deepen like cups that drank in my every word. If truth was a clear stream that replenished the soul, then wasn’t a lie like poison? ‘We’re emissaries from Mesh and Delu, and from the Brotherhood and the Kurmak to the court of King Kiritan in Tria. He has called a quest to find the Lightstone, and we are journeying there to answer it and represent our peoples.’
While Danali poured more wine and the Lokilani at the other tables grew quiet, I told of how Count Dario had come to my father’s castle on the first day of Ashte to announce the great quest. Something in Pualani’s eyes made me want to relate as well the story of the assassin’s arrow and all that had occurred since that dark afternoon. And so I told them of my duel with Salmelu and the Black Bog; I told them of Kane and the Lord of Illusions and the stone-faced gray men who had nearly driven us mad.
When I had finished speaking, I took another long drink of wine and blamed it for loosening my tongue. But Pualani looked at me with the opposite of blame. She bowed her head and said, ‘Thank you for opening your heart to us, Sar Valashu. Now at least it’s clear how you entered our wood. You must be very wise to entrust your fate to your horse. And he must be blessed with much more than wisdom to be drawn by the Forest.’
She nodded toward a grove of apple trees nearby where the Lokilani had tethered our horses. Then she continued, ‘If you hadn’t been so forthcoming, we would have understood nothing about you. As it is, we can make sense of only a very little.’
She went on to say that the world of castles and quests and old books full of words were as unknown to the Lokilani as the stars must be to us. She had never heard of the Nine Kingdoms, nor even of Alonia, in whose great forests the Forest abided. In truth, she denied that any king could have a claim upon her woods or that it might be a part of any kingdom, unless that kingdom be the world itself. As she said, the Lokilani were the first people, the true people, and the Forest was the true world.
‘Once, before the Earthkiller came and men cut down the great trees, there was only the Forest,’ she told us. ‘Here the Lokilani have lived since the beginning of time. And here we will remain until the stars die.’
Atara, who had been silent until now, caught Pualani’s eye and said, ‘It may be that King Kiritan has no true claim upon your realm. But he would think he had. Your woods lie very close to the more cultivated parts of Alonia. Aren’t you afraid that the king’s men will some day come to cut them down?’
‘No, this we do not fear,’ Pualani said. ‘Your people build a world of stone cities and armies and swords. But this is not the world. Very little in your world can touch the Forest now.’
‘What about the Earthkiller?’ I asked her.
Again, a dark look fell over Pualani’s face; I was reminded of winter storm clouds smothering a bright blue sky.
‘The Earthkiller has great power,’ she admitted. ‘And great allies, too. These Stonefaces of yours have tried to enter the Forest in our dreams even as they entered yours.’
‘But they haven’t tried to broach it, in their bodies?’
‘No – they will never find their way into our woods. And if they do, they will never find their way out alive.’
‘Still,’ I said, ‘it must be a great temptation for them to try. There are things here that the Lord of Lies would give a great deal to know: how you grow trees to such great heights and grow gems from the very ground.’
‘It is the earth that grows these things, not we. No more than a midwife grows the children she helps deliver.’
‘Perhaps that’s true,’ I said. I touched my scar where the midwife’s tongs had once cut me. ‘But a midwife would be no more than a butcher without the skills taught her. It’s this knowledge that the Lord of Illusions seeks.’
‘You seem to know a great deal of what he would wish to know.’
Truly, I thought as I recalled my dream, I did know much more of Morjin’s mind than I wanted to. I certainly knew enough to perceive that if he could, he would crush the secrets from the Lokilani as readily as he would grapes beneath his boots.
‘There is one thing he seeks above all else,’ I said. The same thing that we seek.’
‘This is the Lightstone that you spoke of, yes? But what is this stone? Is it an emerald? A great ruby or a diamond?’
‘No, it is a cup – a plain golden cup.’
Here, Master Juwain broke in to tell of the gelstei and of how these great crystals had been made through many long ages of Ea’s history. And the greatest of all the gelstei, he said, was the gold, which most men believed had been created by the Star People and brought to earth at the beginning of the Lost Ages. But he admitted that many also thought that the Lightstone had been forged and cast into the shape of a cup in the Blue Mountains of Alonia sometime during the Age of Swords. Whatever the truth really was, the Lord of Lies sought not only the Lightstone itself but the secret of its making.
‘He would certainly create a Lightstone of his own, if he could,’ Master Juwain said. ‘And so he would certainly steal from you any knowledge of growing and shaping crystals that might help him.’
Pualani sat very straight pulling on the emeralds of her necklace. She looked at Master Juwain for a long moment, and then at Atara, Maram and me. She asked us why we sought the Lightstone. We each answered as best we could. When we had finished speaking, she said, The gold gelstei brings light, as you say. And yet this lord of darkness seeks it above all other things. Why, we want to know, why, why?’
‘Because,’ Master Juwain said, ‘the gold gives power over all the other gelstei except perhaps the silver. It gives immortality, too. And perhaps much else that we don’t know of.’
‘But it is light, you say, pure light bound into a cup of gold?’
‘Even light can be used to read good or evil words in a book,’ Master Juwain told her. ‘Just as too much light can burn or blind.’
I sat thinking about this for a moment, and then I added, ‘Even if this cup brought the Red Dragon no light at all, he would take joy in keeping others from it.’
‘Oh, that is bad, very, very bad,’ Pualani said. She bent forward to confer with Danali. After looking at Elan in silent understanding, she told us, ‘There is great danger here for the Lokilani. A danger we never saw.’
‘My apologies,’ I said, ‘for bringing such evil tidings.’
‘No, no, you mustn’t apologize,’ Pualani said. ‘And you’ve brought nothing evil into our woods, so we hope, so we pray. It may be that you’re an emissary of the Ellama after all, even if you didn’t know it.’
I looked down at the leaves on the ground because I didn’t know what to say.
‘The Ellama still watches over the Forest,’ she told us. ‘The Galad a’Din haven’t forgotten the Lokilani, they would never forget.’
I s
miled sadly at this because I supposed the Galadin had looked away from the ways and wars of Ea long ago.
‘And we haven’t forgotten them, we must never forget,’ Pualani said to us. ‘And so we celebrate this remembrance and their eternal presence among us. Will you help us celebrate, Sar Valashu Elahad?’
She looked straight at me then, and her eyes were twin emeralds, all green and blazing like life itself.
‘Yes, of course,’ I told her. ‘Even as you’ve helped us.’
‘And you, Prince Maram Marshayk – will you help us, too?’
Maram eyed his empty cup and the jug of wine that had found its way to the end of the table. He licked his lips and said, ‘Help you celebrate? Does a bear eat honey if you hold it to his face? Does a horse have to be kicked to eat sweet grass?’
‘Very good,’ Pualani said, nodding at him. Then she smiled at Atara and asked, ‘And what about you, Atara of the Manslayers? Will you celebrate the coming of the Galad a’Din?’
‘I will,’ Atara told her, nodding her head.
Pualani now turned to Master Juwain, and asked him this same question as if reciting the words to a ritual. And he replied, ‘I would like very much to celebrate with you, but I’m afraid my vows don’t permit me to drink wine.’
‘Then you may keep your vows,’ Pualani said, ‘for it’s not wine we drink in remembrance of the Shining Ones.’
At this news, Maram looked crestfallen, and he said, ‘What do you drink, then?’
‘Only fire,’ Pualani said, smiling at him. ‘But it might be more precise to say that we eat it.’
‘Eat?’ Maram said, groaning as he held his bulging belly. ‘Eat what? I don’t think I can eat another bite.’
‘Does a bear eat honey when it’s held to his face?’ Pualani asked him with a coy smile.
‘You have honey?’ Maram asked her. ‘I thought the Lokilani didn’t eat honey.’
‘We don’t,’ Pualani told him. ‘But we have something much sweeter.’
So saying, she pulled off a silvery cloth from a bowl at the end of the table. Inside were piled many small golden fruits about the size of plums. She took one in her hand, and then passed the bowl to Elan, who did the same. The bowl quickly made its way around the table. I noticed that although Danali’s five children all seemed quite interested in the bowl’s gleaming contents, none of them touched the fruit. I gathered that just as a child in Mesh would never participate in our rituals of toasting and drinking beer, so the Lokilani children were forbidden to participate in what was to come.
‘The fruit has probably fermented,’ I said to Maram as I took one in my hand and squeezed its smooth, soft skin. ‘You’ll probably find all the wine inside that you wish.’
‘Now that would be a miracle,’ he said as he picked up one of the little fruits and regarded it doubtfully. He looked at Pualani and asked, ‘What do you call this thing?’
‘It’s a timana,’ she said. She pointed up at the golden-leafed tree above our table. ‘You see, once every seven years, the astors bear the sacred fruit.’
Maram held the timana to his nose for a moment but said nothing.
‘Long ago,’ Pualani explained, ‘the Shining Ones walked the Forest and planted the first astors. The trees were their gift to the Lokilani.’
She sat looking at the timana in her hand as I might look at the stars. Then she told us that the Galadin were angels and this was their flesh.
‘We eat this fruit in remembrance of who the Shining Ones really are and who we were meant to be,’ she explained. ‘Please join us in our celebration today.’
Now the whole glade fell very quiet as the Lokilani at the other mats put down their cups of wine or water to watch us eat the timanas. I wondered why none of them had been given any fruit. I thought that it must be quite rare and used by only a few Lokilani at any one ritual.
Without any more words, Pualani bit into her timana, and all the men and women at our table did the same. As my teeth closed on the fruit, a waterfall of tastes exploded in my mouth. It was like honey and wine and sunlight all bound up into the most fragrant of juices. And yet there was something bittersweet about the fruit as well. Beneath its succulent sugars was a flavor I had never experienced; it recalled mighty trees streaming with spring sap and the fire of a greenness that no longer existed on earth.
Even so, I found the fruit to be very good. Its savor was exquisite, and lingered on my tongue. Along with Pualani and Maram and everyone else, I took a second bite. The timana’s flesh was reddish-orange and studded with a starlike array of tiny black seeds. It glistened in the waning light for an endless moment before I put the fruit in my mouth and ate the rest of it.
‘We’re so glad you’ve joined us,’ Pualani said as the others finished theirs as well. ‘Now you’ll see what you’ll see.’
‘What will we see?’ Maram asked, licking the juice from his teeth.
‘Perhaps nothing,’ Pualani said. ‘But perhaps you’ll see the Timpum.’
‘The Timpum?’ Maram asked in alarm. ‘What’s that?’
‘The Timpum are the Timpum,’ Pualani said softly. They are of the Galad a’Din.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Maram said, rubbing his belly.
‘The Galad a’Din,’ Pualani said, ‘are beings of pure fire. When they walked the earth in the ages before the Lost Ages, they left part of their being behind them. So, the fire, the beings that men do not usually see – the Timpum.’
‘I don’t think I want to understand,’ Maram said.
‘Few men do,’ Pualani told him. Then she looked from him to Master Juwain and Atara, and last at me. She said, ‘It’s strange that you seek your golden cup in other lands when so much is to be found so much closer. Love, life, light – why not look for these things in the leaves of the trees and beneath the rocks and along the wind?’
Why not, indeed? I wondered as I looked up at the soft lights dancing along the trees’ fluttering golden leaves.
‘Am I to understand,’ Maram said, breathing heavily, ‘that this fruit you’ve fed us provides visions of these Timpum?’
‘Yes,’ Pualani said gravely, ‘either that or death.’
We were all silent for as long as it took my heart to beat three times. Then Maram gasped out, ‘What? What did you say?’
‘You’ve eaten the flesh of the angels,’ Pualani calmly explained. ‘And so if it’s meant to be, you’ll see the angel fire. But not all can bear it. And so they die.’
At this news, Maram struggled to his feet, all the while puffing and groaning. He held his big belly as he cried out, ‘Poison, poison! Oh, my Lord – I’ve been poisoned!’
He turned to bend and stick his fingers down his throat to purge himself of the dangerous fruit. Pualani stopped him with a few soft words. She told him that it was already too late, that he would have to live or die according to the grace of the Ellama.
‘Why have you done this?’ Maram shouted at her. His face was now almost as red as a plum. And so, I feared, were Master Juwain’s, Atara’s and mine. What have we done to deserve this?’
‘Nothing that others haven’t done,’ Pualani told him. ‘All the Lokilani, when we become women and men – we eat the sacred fruit. Many die, sad to say. But it must be so. Life without sight of the Timpum would not be worth living.’
‘It would be to me!’ Maram cried out. ‘I’m not a Lokilani! Oh, my Lord – I don’t want to die!’
‘We’re sorry this had to be, so sorry,’ Pualani told us. She looked at Master Juwain, who sat frozen like a deer surrounded by wolves, and then she smiled at Atara and me. ‘There are only two courses open to you. You may remain with the Lokilani and become as one of us. Or you must return to your world.’
My breath came hard and fast now as the woods about us seemed to take on the tones of the waning sunlight. It was a yellow like nothing I had ever seen, a waiting-yellow over the trees and through them. A watching-yellow that was very close and yet somehow far away.
‘P
lease forgive us, please do,’ Pualani said. ‘But if you do return to your world, we must be utterly certain of who you are. The Earthkiller’s people could never bear the sight of the Timpum. And no one who has ever seen the Timpum could ever serve the Earthkiller.’
I noticed that the children at our table, and every table throughout the glade, were watching us with awe coloring their small, pale faces. It came to me that awe was nothing less than love and fear, and I felt both of these swelling inside me. Everyone was looking at us in fear for our lives, watching and waiting to see what we would see.
Suddenly, Maram threw his hands to the side of his face and let loose a wild whoop of laughter. He fell to his knees, all the while shaking his head and laughing and crying out that he was being killed but didn’t care.
‘I see them! I see them!’ he called to us. ‘Oh, my Lord – they’re everywhere!’
Master Juwain, who had been sitting as still as a statue, leapt to his feet and waved his hands about his bald head. ‘Astonishing! Astonishing!’ he shouted. ‘It’s not possible, it can’t be possible. Val – do you see them?’
I did not see them. For at that moment, Atara let out a terrible cry and fell backward to the ground as if her spine had been cut with an axe. She screamed for a moment or two before her eyes closed. Then she grew quiet. The movement beneath her doeskin shirt was so slight that I couldn’t tell if she was breathing. I fell over toward her and buried my face in this soft garment. Her whole body seemed as still as stone and colder than ice. I knew too well what it felt like for another to die; I would have died myself rather than feel this nothingness take away Atara. But the cold suddenly grew unbearable, and I knew with a dreadful certainty that she was leaving me. There was nothing but darkness inside her and all about me. I could see nothing because my eyes were tightly closed as I gripped the soft leather of her shirt and wept bitterly.
Then I, too, let out a terrible cry. My heart beat so hard I thought it would break open my chest. Everything poured out of me: my love for her, my tears, my whispers of hope that burned my lips like fire.
The Lightstone: The Ninth Kingdom Page 32
