'So,' Kane said, 'King Yulmar might not welcome us, since we left a slaughter on the caverns' doorstep the last time we came this way.'
Liljana nodded her head and added, 'We must do all that we can to slip past Senta without alerting the Kallimun's priests or their spies.'
'But we defeated the Kallimun — again!' Maram said. 'And killed the greatest monster that Morjin ever sent after us! We vanquished the Tar Harath, to say nothing of Jezi Yaga or the Skadarak. And we found the Lord of Light! We should go into the caverns to sing of our deeds!'
'Didn't you tell me,' I said to him, 'that you never wanted to go down into the earth again?'
'Ah, well, I suppose I did,' he said. He looked at Bemossed. 'But that was then.'
In the end, however, Maram saw the reason of our arguments, and he grudgingly accepted the need for prudence. It was, as he said, the greatest disappointments of his life. It consoled him somewhat that he had Alphanderry the greatest minstrel of the age, to sing for him in the caverns' stead.
'I'll come back,' he promised himself, looking up at Mount Miru.
'Someday, Morjin will be finally and utterly defeated and I'll come back and make a true pilgrimage here.'
We spent most of that day crossing the tiny kingdom of Senta, or rather, skirting it, for we rode in a great circle around Senta's farmland and forests, keeping close to the mountains. We encoun-tered only a woodcutter and a few farmers, who gave us leave to cross their fields. At the end of the day, we made camp m a wood northeast of the city, just below the pyramid mountain that had pointed our way toward Senta. We spent the next morning working our way up through the pass around this icy peak, and so we left the civilized realms of Ea's far west behind us.
We came down into the thick forest of that wild upland where no people lived. For the rest of that day and part of the next, we picked our way with great care ever downward, searching through the trees and huge rocks for the road by which we had approached Senta. Kane had an excellent memory for terrain, and so did I. and so we had no trouble finding this road, in its broken segments, or the long valley through which it led. The Valley of Death, Maram called it, for it disquieted him to wonder what had happened to the people who had once lived here. But as before, on our journey toward Hesperu, this broad, green swath through the earth proved to be just the opposite, for we took from it ripe apples and wild, golden wheat, as well as antelopes and boar and other game that sustained our lives.
It was here, during the warm, sunny days of early Ioj, that Bemossed finally learned to ride. Here, too, he began putting to the test whether we had truly dealt Morjin a significant defeat. Day after day. as we rode down the grass-filled valley, he would gaze out at the rocks and the golden-leaved aspen trees as if looking for the Lightstone's radiance in all things. Twice, as during the battle with Morjins droghul. I saw the Lightstone appear and Bemossed reach out to grasp it. He seemed still to lack the power to make it his own and wield it as he had been born to do. We all however, felt a change in our gelstei: Maram's firestone cooled to the temperature of warm bread while Atara found her kristei to be suddenly lighter and almost free of taint — and so with our other crystals. We all dared to hope that Morjin might be losing his power over them.
After twelve days of easy travel the valley grew drier as we approached the canyon that gave out onto the Red Desert. None of us wanted to recross this wasteland. Maram, especially, sought for arguments to put oft this passage or avoid it altogether.
'But Bemossed is making such excellent progress here!' Maram said to us. 'If we go into the desert, he'll have to light the dreadful heat, and so he won't have the wherewithal to fight Morjin.'
'But we can't just remain in this valley forever,' Liljana told him.
'Why not? There is enough game to feed us forever — and wild wheat that could be brewed into a good beer.'
Liljana, I thought, almost smiled at this. Then she said to him. 'But I haven't seen any grapes from which we could make wine, and so brandy. And courtesans there are none.'
Maram considered this. 'But we could at least wait until Ashvar, couldn't we? Or even Valte, when the desert grows a little cooler?'
'The desert must be cooler now than it was in Marud,' I told him. 'We must cross it as soon as we can, and you know why.'
At this, Maram raised up his hands in surrender, and said, 'All right, my friend, but if I die of heatstroke in the Tar Harath, you'll never forgive yourself.'
The next afternoon, we came down into the Dead City, half buried in the desert's swirling, reddish sands. Hundreds of miles of emptiness opened before us, to the north and east. Here grew a little ursage, rock grass and other tough plants. It was said to rain here in Segadar and the other months of winter, but we would be unlikely to see any moisture fall from the sky unless Estrella worked her magic again.
For three days, we rode east, taking water from the Yieshi wells that we came to. We saw no men or women of this tribe, not even at the easternmost well where Manoj and his family had dwelt with their little black tents and stinking goats. We speculated that he might have gone off to make war with the Zuri, but we didn't really know. We filled our waterskins almost to bursting from his well, still nearly full from the storm that Estrella had summoned. We left no coins to pay for it. As Atara reminded us, we had given the Yieshi a great deal of water, which in the desert was a hundred times more valuable than gold.
After that, we went into the Tar Harath. This immense country of sun-scorched rocks and blazing dunes proved to be not so hellishly hot as Maram had feared — which is to say that the torrid air did not quite sear our lungs or steam the flesh from our bones. But the days waxed more than hot enough to make us sweat and swear and suffer. Somehow, we bore it. Maram, who had ventured this journey in the opposite direction alone, found the grace to remark that our companionship made the miles and the days pass more easily. Then, too, as he put it with his wounds healed, he had only to endure a more or less human measure of pain.
This grew greater and greater the deeper that we pushed into the Tar Harath. Miracles we had found in abundance all along our way, but we had no magic to keep the sun from sucking the moisture from our bodies and emptying our waterskins a little more with every passing mile. Finally, our water ran out altogether. Then Estrella took out the blue bowl that Oni had given her, and she tried to call the clouds to her from out of nowhere. She failed. We were never able to determine exactly why. Some things, it seemed, especially the ways of the wind and the human heart, would always remain a mystery.
We might have despaired then, but we did not. I reminded Maram, and myself, that on our outward passage Estrella had led us to the Vild, and she would again. So it proved to be. Our course across the drifting desert sands had held straight and true, and less than a day later we came upon the giant oak trees and olindas that grew by the greatest of magics in the middle of a wasteland. And so we entered the Loikalii's wood, parched and dust-worn but still gloriously alive.
When Maira, with Anneli and others of her small people, came to greet us, she called out in delight: 'The seekers return! With the bright one they sought! We must make a feast!'
It took two days of eating and drinking for us to consume all the succulent fruits, nuts, wines and other things that the Loikalii brought to us from their fecund woods. We rested as much as we wished, and then arose to eat, drink and sing some more. I unpacked a bottle of old brandy, bought in Hesperu, that I had been saving for many miles. As I had promised Maram, I filled our cups with this marvelous liquid, and made a toast to love. Toward the end of bringing more love into the world, Maram renewed his acquaintance with Anneli, who wanted again and again to hear the story of how Bemossed had healed his unhealable wound. At last, on the third day of our sojourn, we all gathered around Oni's magic pool that she called the Water. Bemossed had a hard time believing that I had fallen into it, only to emerge onto the banks of another much like it on another world. As we stood over it looking down into its still, silvery waters, I
said to him, 'Why don't we put it to the test? Why don't you dive in and see what you can see?'
Just then the amethyst towers and golden buildings of the city called Iveram appeared from out of the pool's shimmering water. Bemossed gasped at the wonder of it, and he said, 'No, thank you — I am a man of this world.'
He planted his feet on the bank of the pool and grabbed hold of my arm to steady himself, and he stared in amazement as the faces and forms of the Star People came into view. I recognized the noble Ramadar, Eva, Varjan and others of the true Valari whom I had met on their world of Givene. No words did they speak, nor could any common language pass through the water that connected our two worlds, or so I thought. I knew, however, that the Star People recognized Bemossed for who he was. Their black, brilliant eyes blazed with great rejoicing.
And then the pool shimmered like silustria, and the Star People disappeared from our sight. Through the clear water other things took shape: the great, golden astor tree, Irdrasil, and the two perfect white mountains, Telshar and Vayu that framed it in the distance. Although the Galadin of Agathad did not make themselves visible to us, I had a sense that Ashtoreth and Valoreth — and others of their order — were aware of much that occurred on Ea, and elsewhere. If they had faces like other men and women, they surely smiled to behold Bemossed and know that all of Eluru had a new Lord of light.
After a while, the pool's radiance dimmed and its surface quieted to a sheeny silver, like that of any other still water. The Loikalii, in awe of what they had seen, turned toward Bemossed and began clapping their hands as they chanted: 'A song! A song — give us a song!'
At this, Bemossed seemed genuinely embarrassed. He said, 'I never learned many, and none worthy of such a wonder.'
Then Alphanderry came forth out of nothingness, and walked up to him. He smiled at him and said, 'Hoy, I have songs! Thousands upon thousands! If you'll give me a few notes, I shall give one to you.'
As Estrella and I took out our flutes and Kane his mandolet — and the Loikalii sucked on ripe apples or plums to prepare their throats for a songfest — Alphanderry stood by the pool looking at Bemossed strangely. And then he began singing out old verses beloved of Master Juwain and the rest of us:
When earth alights the Golden Band,
The darkest age will pass away:
When angel fire illumes the land,
The stars will show the brightest day.
The deathless day, the Age of Light;
Ieldra's blaze befalls the earth;
The end of war, the end of night
Awaits the last Maitreya 's birth.
The Cup of Heaven in his hands,
The One's clear light in heart and eye,
He brings the healing of the land,
And opens colors in the sky.
And there, the stars, the ageless lights
For which we ache and dream and burn,
Upon the deep and dazzling heights -
Our ancient home we shall return.
The Loikalii learned most of these words, the music too, with a single recitation, for such was their gift. They insisted on singing the verses again — and again — thrice more, until they had them perfect. Then Maira arose from the grass and said to Alphanderry, 'You bring words that echo our dreams.'
'How not?' Alphanderry said. 'I am of the Forest, am I not?' Maira smiled at this and turned to Bemossed. 'And you — we hope, we hope! — will bring the fire that heals.'
For a moment, Bemossed's eyes grew troubled as if he stared down into a dark place. Then this mood melted away before the blaze of his design. Although I sensed in him little vanity or arrogance, he also had little patience for pretended humility. Now that he knew with a surety who and what he was, he seemed to accept this with all the naturalness of a flower opening its petals to the sky.
'What I bring already is,' he said to Maira. 'The fire you speak of is spread upon the earth, but people do not see it.' 'Then you will help them to see,' Maira told him. At this, Bemossed smiled sadly as he looked at Atara. 'You will, you will,' Maira said. 'And when everyone sees the world as it really is, the world will never be the same.'
Later that morning we said goodbye to Maira and the Loikalii. Oni promised to send cooling winds from out of the northwest, and so it proved to be. After we had left the woods to make our way across the drifts of red-tinged sand, we followed this steady wind, or rather it followed us. Although the days never grew really cool, as with a bright Valte afternoon in the mountains of Mesh, we found ourselves able to travel straight through from dawn to dusk. Even the heat of high noon seemed sweetly hot, as if the sun's rays penetrated our garments and flesh to fill our bodies with an ease of being and a love of light.
The sheer brilliance of the deep desert dazzled all of us. During the long hours of the days, the sand scattered the sunlight up into a perfectly blue sky. And at night, the stars came out in all their shimmering millions. Bemossed seemed almost wholly ignorant of astrology, and so I pointed out to him constellations such as the Swan and the Great Bear and others that my grandfather had once taught me. One evening, after dinner, as we sat together on the crest of a great dune, Bemossed reached up toward an array of lights named the Angels' Tears, and he said, 'I don't think those stars shine down upon Hesperu.'
'Of course they do,' I told him. 'We haven't come so far to the north that they wouldn't. It is just that these stars are faint, and the air in your land contains too much moisture, and so blocks their radiance.'
He nodded his head at this, then told me, 'It is strange: water is life, and here there is so little of it. And yet everything here is so alive.'
I said nothing as I gazed off at Solaru, Icesse and bright Arras, and other lights that were as old friends to me. And Bemossed continued: 'The sky here is so black — and yet the stars are so bright.'
I said nothing to this either as I found the splendid pair of lights that I had named Shavashar and Elianora.
'I don't think he can see us here,' Bemossed said to me. 'Morjin can't — and that is strange because the air in this emptiness is clearer and the light is more brilliant than I had ever imagined.'
I drew my sword and watched the starlight play upon its silvery surface. I said, 'Once, I was sure that Morjin would find his way to claim this for himself. Now, I think, it is almost free of his foulness. The others say that of their gelstei, too.'
Bemossed smiled at this. 'And you think that is because of me.'
'I know it is. With every passing mile, you seem ever clearer. Ever brighter, too.'
His heavy eyebrows pulled together as he said, 'But we still have so many miles to go.'
'Do you doubt that we can defeat Morjin now?'
He thought about this as the wind whipped wisps of dark sand across the gleaming dunes, and blew steadily out of the northwest, almost as from another world. The words he spoke then would remain with me for many many miles, and all the rest of my life: 'But that is just it, Valashu. I do not wish to defeat Morjin as you do.'
During the days that followed, as we held a straight and steady course across the Tar Harath, I tried better to understand this wise, gentle and yet powerful man who had been born a slave. He seemed always willing to be open with me, even as I sensed that he always kept the worst of his sufferings and his deepest dreams to himself. Something in his essential being seemed flow like quick-silver, difficult to look upon for all its shifting brilliance, and impos-sible to grasp. In the end, I thought, he would remain to me a more profound mystery than life and death.
In the coming days we journeyed on past the ides of Vane into the later part of that month. As we drew farther and farther from the Loikalii's wood, the north wind gradually weakened and then died altogether. It didn't matter, for finally the desert began to cool of its own. Our long ride across it became almost pleasant.
And then we came out of the Tar Harath into the country of the Avari. On the 24th of Valte we found that break in the mountains sheltering the Hadr Halona. As we rode past
the many tents and houses of this place of water, the Avari came out into the streets to greet us. Warriors drew their curving swords and saluted us, and they shouted out their surprise that we had returned from out of the Tar Harath. Many of them, I saw to my dismay, seemed to have been recently wounded, as evidenced by arms hanging in slings or bandaged faces. I knew without being told that the Avari had finally been driven to war, even as Sunji had feared.
We met with him later that day in his father's house by the lake when King Jovayl invited guests for a great victory feast. Some of these were elders of the tribe with whom we had sat before: Laisar, Jaidray, Barsayr and old Sarald. Maidro arrived wearing a white bandage wrapped around his head, and we cried out in gladness to greet our former companion. Arthayn accompanied him, but we waited in vain for Nuradayn to appear. And then Sunji informed us that the impulsive Nuradayn had fallen in battle.
'He survived the Tar Harath.' Sunji told us. 'only to die leading a charge against the Zuri's swords.'
'He was a brave man. and we honor him,' King Jovayl announced as he bade us sit down to the many platters of food laid out on his great white carpet, 'When he went into the Tar Harath, he was still much of a youth, and too reckless, its we all knew. But when he came out, he was a man, bold and yet balanced, and worthy of all our respect. And so we gave him a command.'
He went on to say that the deep desert was like a forge, either shaping and tempering the steel inside a man or destroying it.
'The Tar Harath has changed you, Valaysu,' he said, staring at me. 'There is something about you now, something. It is as rare as skystone, and ten times more striking. It cannot be denied.'
He nodded at Liljana, Daj, Master Juwain and paused for a long time as he looked at Maram. 'All of you. You have done a great thing, and this greatness shines for all to see.'
He lifted up a bottle of wine, and he filled each of our glasses with his own hand. Then he bowed his head toward Bemossed.
'It seems that you have found the one you sought,' he told us. 'Well, we shall see.'
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