‘Even Alonia isn’t as rich as this island,’ Liljana agreed. ‘At least not outside the nobles’ palaces.’
‘Yes,’ I said bitterly, ‘the Maii have time for creating such beauty since it seems they spend none of it waging war.’
‘Who would have war when he could have beauty and love instead?’ Maram wondered. ‘And love, mark my words, is at hand here. Did you see the fire in Lailaiu’s eyes as she sponged the soap from me?’
‘Be careful,’ Master Juwain warned as he settled onto his bed with his book in his hand. ‘Fire burns.’
‘Ah, no, no, not this,’ Maram said thickly. ‘It’s the sweetest of flames; it’s the radiance of the sun on a beautiful summer day; it’s the fire of a young, red, full-bodied wine in its finest and fruitiest blush; it’s …’
He might have gone on in a like vein for quite a while. But then Kane, pacing the room like a caged tiger, scowled at him and said, ‘Your Lailaiu looks a fruit that’s never been picked. What do you think the Maii do with men who take such from the vine before it’s ripe? Likely they give them to the Lady. Now there’s a fire you won’t find so sweet.’
His words suddenly sobered Maram, who sat muttering into his wine. While Alphanderry took out his mandolet and Flick began spinning in anticipation of his music, Atara came over to Maram and laid her hand on his shoulder consolingly. And then she asked the question that puzzled all of us: ‘Who are these people? They certainly look Valari.’
‘They are certainly Valari,’ Master Juwain said, looking up from his book. ‘The question is, of which tribe? That of Aryu? Or that of Elahad?’
He went on to say that the Maii’s ancestors must be some of the Lost Valari: either the followers of Aryu after he had stolen the Lightstone or the companions of Arahad who had set out on the Hundred Year March to search for it.
‘The Lost Valari, yes, that seems possible,’ I said to Master Juwain. ‘But how could they be of the tribe of Aryu?’
Here Kane stopped his pacing and came over to me. ‘Do you remember what I told you after we killed the Grays? How Aryu had also stolen a varistei, which his people used to change their forms to suit Thalu’s cold and mists? So, what if some of his tribe repented Aryu’s crime? What if they fell out with their brethren before the varistei was used? If they fled Thalu to the south and came to land here, they would still look Valari, eh?’
‘I’m afraid that seems the most likely explanation of the Maii’s origins,’ Master Juwain agreed.
I sat on my bed staring at a tapestry showing a great oak tree in full leaf; I didn’t quite want to admit that the Maii were really Aryans who still retained the Valari form.
‘But if what you say is true,’ I said to Master Juwain, ‘then how is it that the Aryans let the Maii live here in peace so many thousands of years?’
‘That we may never know,’ Master Juwain said. ‘Perhaps fortune favored them. Perhaps a curse was laid upon the Maii and this island.’
‘It would have to have been a mighty curse,’ Liljana said, ‘to have kept the Aryans from plundering it.’
We gathered around debating the mystery of the Maii as the night deepened and their city fell quiet around us. And then Atara, who could often see things quite clearly with the natural keenness of her mind no less than with her second sight, twined her golden hair about her finger as she said, ‘If Sartan Odinan sought a safe land in which to hide the Lightstone, he couldn’t have found better than this lost island.’
That brought us back to the temple, which stood towering above us in the starlight only fifty yards to the east. We were all sure that the Lightstone must be waiting for us within its gleaming marble walls.
‘We must find our way inside,’ Maram said again. We must see if the cup is there.’
‘And then what?’ I asked him. I didn’t like the greedy light that brightened his eyes just then.
‘And then? Ah, I suppose we’ll have to trade the Maii something for it. Your shield, perhaps. Or your sword. They seemed interested in anything made of steel.’
I didn’t believe that the Maii would simply trade the Cup of Heaven for a broken sword, and I told Maram this.
‘Hmmm, perhaps not,’ he murmured as he pulled at his beard. ‘But what if they don’t know the cup’s true value? After all these centuries, they might have lost the knowledge of what it is.’
‘But what if they do know what it is?’
‘Ah, well, I suppose we’ll have to find a way to claim it, won’t we?’
‘Are we to plunder the temple, then? As the Aryans did Tria?’
Maram now sat up very straight, all signs of drunkenness gone from his reddened face. In its place was shame and other painful emotions.
‘Ah, no, no – you misunderstand me, my friend! I’m only pointing out that there might be more than one way to gain the Lightstone.’
I drew my sword and sat staring at the ugly break in it. I said, ‘Not this way, Maram.’
‘But what if the Maii don’t see the need of our returning the Lightstone to the world? What if they take offense at us and declare us, ah, shaida? What if we have to fight for it?’
Atara, who now sat oiling her bow, suddenly plucked its braided string. It twanged out a note of discord utterly unlike the music that Alphanderry made with his mandolet.
‘Fight, hmmph,’ Atara said to Maram. ‘And who is it that will lead in this fighting? You? Didn’t you hear what the Lady Nimaiu said about her people throwing themselves on swords? And throwing anyone so mad as to draw them into their fire mountain?’
‘It’s one thing to speak of throwing oneself onto a sword,’ Maram said. ‘It’s quite another to find the courage to do it. Why, Kane could fell a hundred of them before they knew what was happening. And you could shoot anyone who tried to pursue us. Surely we could cut our way through to the coast, if we had to.’
I suddenly stood up and slammed what was left of my sword back into its sheath. Then I moved over to Maram’s bed. With a fury that astonished me, I grabbed the wine glass from Maram’s hand and hurled it against the wall where it shattered into a thousand pieces.
‘Tomorrow, we’ll look through the temple,’ I said. ‘But tonight we’ll sleep and put these careless words behind us.’
So saying, I stormed across the room and flung myself into my bed. My anger kept me from seeing that I would be wrong about both the assertions that I had just made.
28
As the chasm of disaffection between me and Maram seemed to widen with each passing hour, neither of us got much sleep that night – nor did any of the others. And the next morning, after a breakfast of fruit and cream which I hardly touched, we knocked at the great temple doors only to be turned away. The women who guarded them informed us that we could not pass within until we had been purified.
‘And how does one become purified?’ I asked her testily.
‘Oh, by the Lady, of course,’ she told us.
‘But which Lady, then? Lady Nimaiu or Lady Ea?’
The guards – if that was the right word for them – giggled at this question as if it had been a child who asked it. Then the first of the women said, ‘Only Lady Ea can purify, with her tears. But the Lady Nimaiu is her hands, and it is to her that you must go if you truly wish for purification.’
‘We truly wish it,’ I said, speaking through Liljana for all of us. ‘May we see Lady Nimaiu that we may discuss this?’
As it happened, Lady Nimaiu would not see us that morning. She was busy attending to matters of great importance, the guard told us, and so we would have to wait.
‘Ah, wait,’ Maram muttered after the guards had closed the doors on us. ‘How long can we wait? Two more days, and then the ship sails whether we’re aboard her or not.’
‘Then we’ll wait two days, if we must,’ I said. ‘In the meantime, why don’t we explore the island? The Lightstone might be anywhere.’
It was the Island of the Swans and the Maii themselves that healed the wound opened by the shards of
the glass I had broken. Maram and I went our own ways then, as did the others, each of us choosing a separate path through the city streets or among the fields and woods surrounding the lake. It surprised me that the Maii allowed us to go about their land bearing our shaida weapons. But it was not their way to disallow anyone simple freedoms that even their children enjoyed. That they trusted us not to use our weapons touched me deeply. They had no fear of us, only a sweet and natural compassion for our urge to seek that which it seemed they already possessed. For the Maii were a contented people. They found their happiness neither in remembrance of the glories of ages past nor in dreams of future redemption, but rather in rock and leaf, wind and flower. The glint of the sun off the marble of their beautiful temple pleased them more than gold; the laughter of their children playing in pasture or field was to them a finer music than even Alphanderry could make. They were wholly wedded to the earth, and took great delight in that marriage.
I spent the morning wandering about the great gardens to the west of the temple. There, among the oak trees and cherry, where little streams ran through stone-lined channels into the lake, I found a few moments of peace. The gentle wind of that clime, in which summer seemed more like spring, cooled my anger. Many of the Maii worked unobtrusively around me, if efforts eagerly and joyfully undertaken could be called work. I understood that they counted it as a privilege to be chosen for the weeding, seed planting and building of the low stone walls that seemed perfectly to fit the well-tended earth. I watched them dirtying their hands in muck and manure, but they appeared to take no taint or displeasure from such substances. Indeed, the garden was so beautiful that it seemed impossible any ugliness could mar its perfection. It wasn’t so much that it wouldn’t abide evil; rather that which engendered evil – fear, wrath, hate – was out of place here and best left outside its flowering borders. With the birds piping out their songs of praise to the world, I found myself wanting to put aside my ill feeling for Maram (and for myself), much as I would remove a pair of muddy boots before entering a clean house or divest myself of my armor before sitting down to a family meal.
Although I didn’t really expect to find the Lightstone set down into a bed of marigolds or filling with water in one of numerous stone fountains sculpted out of the earth, I kept an eye out for it all the same. But as the sun climbed toward its zenith and poured its honey-light over leaf and lake, I began to forget why I had come to the Maii’s island. For longings and lust, desires and dreams, also had a hard time taking root in that enchanted soil. For hours I sat drinking in the sight of the many flowers there: the redmaids and buttercups, the lilies and yarrow and roses. Their incredible fragrance devoured the day. The voluptuousness of the land in this lost valley was so full and sweet that it left little room for otherworldly hungers.
It was late afternoon when I came upon a stone bench perfectly sited for viewing two special trees growing atop a low rise near the garden’s northern edge. To my astonishment, I saw that they were astors, with their silver bark and golden leaves. Though not so magnificent as those that grew in the Lokilani’s wood, their long, lovely limbs spread out beneath the blue sky as if to embrace it and catch its light. The fire mountain, just beyond the quiet lake, perfectly framed their shimmering crowns. It came to me then that the transformation of the island into a paradise was not an altering of nature but rather its finest and fullest expression: for what could be more natural than the Maii, the Mother’s eyes and hands, happily working their art upon the earth? I realized suddenly that I did not wish to leave them. It was as if I had journeyed across the whole length of Ea only to find my real home.
Just as the day’s last light was fading from the astors’ shield-like leaves, Maram came ambling down the path behind me and hailed me. He walked up to the bench and said, ‘I heard you were here.’
I motioned for him to sit down beside me, then nodded toward the astors. ‘Do you see them, Maram?’
‘Yes, I see them,’ he said. Then he sighed and continued, ‘I’m sorry for what I said last night. I was a fool.’
‘And I was worse than a fool,’ I said. ‘Will you forgive me?’
‘Forgive you? Will you forgive me?’
We embraced then, and the chasm between us suddenly closed as if the earth had knitted itself whole again.
‘Have you come across any sign of the Lightstone?’ I asked him.
‘The Lightstone? Ah, no, no, there’s been nothing like that. But I have found love.’
He went on to tell me that he had spent most of the morning trying his wiles upon Lailaiu. But his efforts had seemed only to amuse her. Finally, she had held a finger to his clever lips and then offered herself to him as readily as a grover sharing some of the delicious red cherries that grew so abundantly in the many orchards of the valley.
‘I was a fool to think of war when love was so close at hand,’ he said. Why was I such a fool?’
‘Perhaps because you wanted the Lightstone even more.’
‘Ah, the Lightstone,’ he said. ‘Well, there’s news as to that. Lady Nimaiu has agreed to our purification, whatever that may be. We’re to meet by the lake tomorrow morning. After that, I suppose, we can enter the temple and see what is there.’
I returned with Maram to our rooms to join our friends in eating another delicious dinner. The mood at the table was one of quiet exaltation, as if the foods that passed our lips had been imbued with a rare, life-giving quality to be found here and nowhere else. Liljana waxed eloquent as she extolled the island’s virtues and reminded us that during the Age of the Mother, nearly every part of Ea was like this. Alphanderry told of how he had spent the day teaching some of the Maiian children to play his mandolet. And they had taught him many things, not only their songs but the simplicity of their untutored voices, which had brought Alphanderry closer to the one Song that he truly wished to sing. Master Juwain, with Liljana acting as his interpreter, had gone about the city collecting stories of the Maii’s past toward the end of piecing together the puzzle of their origins. He had begun learning their language as well, and after another month, hoped to have it all written down. Atara told us that earlier she had walked halfway up the slopes of the fire mountain in order to get a better look at the island. Now, gazing out the window at the lake with dreamy eyes, she admitted that she never wanted to leave it.
Only Kane seemed untouched by the island’s magic. After quaffing down the last of his wine, he paced about the room and paused only to growl out, ‘So, it’s a pretty paradise the Maii have made for themselves. But if the Red Dragon ever sends a warship here, it will all be ashes.’
His grim words reminded us of why we had cajoled Captain Kharald into bringing us here. After that, we went to our beds in more somber spirits to get some rest and ready ourselves for the coming day.
The next morning before the sun had quite found its strength, we gathered by the lake’s eastern shore. It was a fine, clear day with only a few clouds in the sky. Its almost perfect blueness was reflected in the calm, mirrorlike waters of the lake. Farther out upon it floated hundreds of swans, their folded wings snowy-white, their long, arched necks as lovely as the curve of the heavens themselves.
Maii from all over the island had already arrived to witness whatever was to occur there that day. They wore plain white kirtles, and sat about the low shelves of lawn sculpted into the earth along the shore. I had a practiced eye, tutored in battle for taking in large numbers of men, and I counted at least five thousand of them. We stood on the lowest shelf of lawn with this multitude behind us and the lake almost directly in front of us. Only a series of white marble steps, following the contours of the lake’s edge and actually leading down into it so that they were half-submerged, stood between us and the lapping waters of the lake itself.
Scarcely ten yards in the direction towards which these steps led, three pillars arose out of the lake’s shallows. They seemed the remains of a much greater structure that must have once stood there. Liljana, after speaking in hushed to
nes to one of the temple attendants standing with us, told us that once the lake had been lower but over the ages had risen as it had filled with the Lady’s tears. I understood then that we, too, were to be submerged in the water, and this I dreaded because it looked icy cold.
Soon Lady Nimaiu arrived with her six attendants following closely. The kirtle covering her long, graceful body was as white as the swans and embroidered with red roses. She stood with her back to the lake facing us and the thousands of her people behind us on the lawn. Her strong, clear voice carried out as she addressed us and told us that since we had freely requested to be purified, purification would be freely given.
For this occasion, we had all donned the flowing white kirtles of the Maii. They were spun of the same downy goat fur as our blankets, and were wonderfully soft. I had stripped myself of my armor, of course, as had Kane. But both of us still wore our swords: he because it was his will to do so, and I because I couldn’t leave my soul aside even if it was broken.
What followed then was the simplest of ceremonies. Lady Nimaiu spoke of the sorrows which all must suffer, and which only the Mother’s even greater sorrows could wash clean. For many ages, she said, since nearly the beginning of time, the Mother’s tears had gathered into this lake that the Maii might taste the bitter pain of the world and rejoice in its splendor upon re-emerging from it.
‘For this is why,’ she told us, ‘we were born in pain from the Mother’s womb: we are that we might know joy.’
And with no further words, she led us down the steps in turns into the lake. One by one, she held us beneath its rippling surface. As I had feared, the water was very cold. In truth, it was bitter. But a short while later, as we stood yet again on the lawn above the steps, the sun warmed us and poured its golden radiance upon our soaked garments and dripping hair. Its light was incredibly sweet, and as we looked out into the long, green valley, we saw that the world was incredibly beautiful and good.
The Lightstone: The Ninth Kingdom Page 64
