own.'
He smiled at me, then shrugged his shoulders as to cast off a great weight pressing upon him. Then he said, 'All right, I will try.'
He took a sip of tea, and his eyes grew sad and bright.
'I learned in the desert that water is the source and substance of all life,' he told us. 'As the One is the source of all things. It flows through us and all around us, like a river leading down to the ocean. And that bright infinite sea is what we all long for most deeply, isn't it? We have only to plunge into the river and let it take us there. But what man or woman has the courage to do that? It seems simpler, in our thirst for water, to wade out and try to empty the river bucket by bucket. But our thirst is infinite, is it not? Who has not known merchants who have amassed gold a thousand times in excess of their needs while their slaves starve to death, or kings who slaughter tens of thousands as they press on ever to conquer new lands? Or even once-great Elijin lords such as Morjin who seek unbounded power to fill the emptiness inside them? The ways of bringing hideous wrongs into this world are themselves nearly infinite. And so the ages go on, as the river goes on, and we continue to try to stand against it or to direct its currents for our own need. Why should we be surprised when it pulls us down into the mud and muck, and drowns us? Why can't we be content to discover how the river will flow? If we could do that we wouldn't have to speak of good and evil.'
In the quiet of the conservatory, we all looked at Bemossed. The candles' light brought the soft features of his face aglow. At times he seemed a plain and simple man, and at other times, something much more.
Abrasax, still standing by the symbol-carved wall, said to him, 'Why not, indeed? Might I ask, then, where this great river will carry the Maitreya?'
'That is no easier for me to determine than for anyone else,' Bemossed said. 'But for now, I will remain here, Grandfather.'
'And you, Valashu Elahad? Will you and your companions stay with us, too?'
I took hold of my sword, and stood up to work off some of the restlessness building inside me. I paced around the room, looking at the various glyphs and the crystals set into the walls. I came to where Abrasax stood by the yanyin, with its gleaming curves of black and white. I drew my sword, and for a long few moments I watched the silver blade flare with a deep glorre. Then I thrust it straight into the heart of the yanyin. Its point, almost infinitely sharp, came to a rest in the fine crack between the yanyin's white quartz and black obsidian without chipping off the slightest sliver of stone or marring the yanyin in any way.
And I said to Abrasax, and to the other masters still sitting at the table, 'No, I will return to Mesh.'
'To Mesh?' Abrasax said. 'But your own warriors turned away from you and cast you out.'
'I cast myself out. But now the river that Bemossed has spoken of is carrying me back home.'
'Are you sure?'
I looked at my bright sword, and nodded my head. 'As sure as I am of anything.'
'But to what end?'
'To the end … of ending Morjin's terror,' I told him. 'There are those of my people who would still follow me.'
'To war, then?'
I drew in a long breath, and I remembered the lessons that my father had once taught me. I said, 'I must strike now, while Morjin is compromised, where he is the weakest.'
'To strike with that sword?'
I lifted up Alkaladur, and pointed it toward the starlight streaming in through one of the windows. 'This sword he fears like death. But there is another sword that is not so easy to see. He fears that one even more. It remains half-forged, and I still do not know how to wield it.'
Abrasax sighed and regarded me with his deep, perceptive eyes. 'It is a dangerous path that you've chosen.'
'Have I chosen it, Grandfather?'
He looked at the thing of silustria and light that I held in my hand, and he said, 'When you first came here. Master Storr accused you of being of the sword. That is still true, isn't it?'
'Yes,' I told him. 'I bear two swords now, and I will use either one, or both, against Morjin.'
'Will you not content yourself to see if Bemossed can prevail against him?'
I bowed my head to my new friend. 'Bemossed will do what he can do, and I will do what I must.'
'What is it then that you hope to accomplish?'
I looked at Estrella sitting beside Daj as she calmly ate a piece of lemon cake; I looked at Maram steeling himself for yet another journey, and at Atara abiding with a deep and lightless silence. Then I looked at Kane. I smiled and said, 'Nothing less than Morjin's utter defeat. I believe in a victory so final and complete that even the stones buried miles down in the muck of the earth will sing with joy and light.'
'Ha!' Kane suddenly shouted. His deep voice set the walls of the conservatory to ringing. 'Ha! — the stars will dance and the earth itself will sing!'
He sprang to his feet and crossed the room almost in one blinding motion. He knelt before me as he laid his calloused hand on the flat of my sword's blade.
'So — I've waited too long to hear you say that,' he told me. 'To Mesh we'll go, and then if we must, to the gates of heaven or hell!'
Abrasax sighed at this. Then he, too, dared to touch my sword. He called out into the room, 'The river might flow to the sea, but it seems that it takes many turnings to reach it.'
He asked Kane and me to go back to the tables and sit back down. Then he stepped over to the door. He opened it to ask something of a Brother Hannold who waited outside. After taking his place again next to Master Storr, he folded his hands beneath his chin as he patiently waited.
After some time. Brother Hannold entered the room bearing a dark, dust-stained bottle- Another Brother followed after him carrying a tray of tinkling glasses. Brother Hannold set one of these deep-bodied glasses in front of each of us, even as he gripped the bottle in his other hand. I guessed that it must contain one of those sweet-bitter infusions of herbs that the Brothers favored in place of more convivial drink.
Then Brother Hannold uncorked the bottle.
'Ah, brandy!' Maram said as pushed out his fat nose to sniff across the table. 'Excellent! Excellent!'
'Brandy!' Master Storr cried out. 'It cannot be!'
His liver-spotted face grew red with outrage, and Masters Matai, Okuth and Yasul also seemed disturbed by this turn of events, while Master Virang rubbed his chin in confusion.
'Brandy it is, truly,' Abrasax said. He motioned for Brother Hannold to pour a bit of this dark, fiery liquid in our glasses. 'We will drink to the success of our guests' last journey, and their future ones, as well.'
'But, Grandfather,' Master Storr said, 'we do not drink to such things! It is not our way!'
'I believe that a new age is coming, and so there will be new ways. And so tonight, just this one time, we will drink.'
'Even the children?'
Abrasax smiled at Daj and Estrella, and said, 'Yes, even the children.'
Daj's eyes gleamed as Brother Hannold poured a little brandy into his glass. It was only a fourth the amount that Maram convinced Brother Hannold to pour for him, but Daj didn't seem to mind. After Abrasax had raised his glass and proposed the toast, bidding us to follow the sacred rivers that ran through each of our hearts, Daj downed his brandy in two great gulps. Miraculously, he did not cough or choke on it, but only sat triumphantly as if he had done a great thing.
And then he called out: 'I have an ending for my story. Does anyone want to hear it?'
At that moment Alphanderry appeared in a swirl of sparkling lights, and stood over the table.
'Of course we want to hear it,' Master Storr said. He drained his glass, and then held out for Brother Hannold to refill it. 'We might as well have a songfest to go along with our drink, since we're breaking the peace of this chamber, to say nothing of our school.'
'Ha — peace be damned!' Kane said, smiling at Daj. 'Tell us how your story ends!'
Daj smiled back at him, and said, 'Well, for a long time, I didn't think it co
uld have an ending. At least not a happy one, Eleikar must kill the wicked king to gain his vengeance and keep his honor. And he must not do anything that would wound Ayeshtan's heart, so how can he even think of killing her father?'
To the little sounds of brandy being sipped and glasses tinkling, we all sat contemplating this conundrum. None of us, not even Bemossed could find an answer for Daj.
'So — tell us, then,' Kane finally said to him.
'Well,' Daj said, smiling back at him, 'it is Eleikar, after all, who finds his way out of his dilemma. It seems that he goes off on a quest of his own. He returns to Khalind with a kind of black gelstei, more powerful even than the Black Jade. He uses it to kill the wicked king and then take him down into the land of death. There, the king meets Eleikar's family — and all the people he has murdered. They all tell him what it was like to be stolen from life. And the king understands because now he has been stolen from life. By Eleikar. But Eleikar uses the gelstei to bring the wicked king back to Khalind. Only he is not wicked anymore because all he can think about is how good it is to be reborn and live again. And so he becomes a good king, and gives Ayeshtan to Eleikar in marriage, and everyone lives happily ever after.'
Daj finished speaking and looked at Kane proudly. He seemed utterly swept away by the words that he had spoken to us.
Then, in a kindly way, Master Storr said to him, 'You do know, lad, that the black gelstei has no power to do such things. Not even the Lightstone can be used to bring the dead back to life.'
'This is my story,' Daj said, staring across the table at him. 'And in Khalind, people can live again.'
Abrasax met eyes with me for a moment, then turned to Daj to say, 'Perhaps they can indeed. Well, I for one would like to hear the whole of this gest. Will you sing it for us?'
Daj nodded his head proudly and said, 'If Master Nolashar will accompany me.'
Master Nolashar smiled at this, and brought out his flute. He played a haunting melody, while Daj stood up and sang out verse after verse of the Gest of Eleikar and Ayeshtan. When he had finished, we all clapped our hands, even Alphanderry, who did so without making the slightest sound. Then he said to Daj, 'Hoy, a minstrel you are! Why don't you and I sing together — Master Nolashar, too? There are so many songs!'
Abrasax called for a little more brandy, but Maram — along with Master Storr — drank much more than a little. Master Storr finally got up from his cushion and wobbled over to Liljana. He kissed the back of her head and told her, 'I'm sorry I ever called you a witch.' Then he wobbled back to his cushion.
After that, we sat for a long time in that beautiful place, in the best of company. As the evening deepened into night. Master Nolashar played his flute, while Daj and Alphanderry stood together in the starlight, and seemed to sing the whole universe into creation. It was one of those rare times when I sensed that all things might be possible, even the impossibilities of Daj's story.
Bright days followed that night, and grew longer and longer as winter passed into spring. In Gliss, the month of the new leaves, the snow began melting from most of the lower reaches of the Valley of the Sun. My friends and I would still have to wait until Ashte before daring the passes of the eastern Nagarshath, and so we had little to do except to study and prepare ourselves for another journey — and to wait and hope.
Late one morning, on a perfectly clear day, I met with Atara, and we walked together along the path by the river just below the school's ash grove. The trees showed a greenish fuzz of new leaves. while the first dandelions and fairies' eyes pushed up through the grass in sprays of yellow and white. We found a beautiful place, I and laid down two blankets on the sloping ground that looked out over the partially frozen river. Water rushed in a gleaming black torrent down the channel cut through the river's ice. The petals of the flowers all around us caught the sun's brilliant light and reflected it up into the bluest of skies.
It was warm enough that we sat comfortably with only our tunics and cloaks to cover us. After a while the sun reached its zenith, and it grew warmer still, and we cast off the gray, woolen coverings that had seen so many miles. Atara smelled like her mare, Fire, for she had spent part of the morning trimming her hooves and combing her down. We picnicked on some cheese and bread, and apple cider that the Brothers had made last fall. For a while we spoke of little things such as the fine spring weather and the health of the horses. And then we moved on to other matters.
'Will you not consider remaining here with the Brothers?' I asked her.
'No, I don't think so,' she said. 'I've promised Fire a ride across the Wendrush again. But I promise you that I won't slow us down.'
I looked at the clean cloth that she had wrapped around her face. I said, 'I know you won't. But has there been nothing at all? Even a hint of your second sight returning?'
'No, nothing,' she murmured, shaking her head.
'Perhaps if you remained here all summer, and sat in the conservatory with Bemossed, he might — '
'I would rather ride beneath the open sky with you.'
'But he is doing such great things,' I told her. 'One day.. '
I let my voice fade off into the soft roar of the river. I had nearly spoken of that which Atara did not wish me to speak of.
She grasped my hand in her warm fingers and said, 'It's all right — all right for you to wish that he might restore me.'
'But do you never think of this now, yourself?'
'Of course I do. But of course I mustn't. What will be will be. What is, now, is just as it should be. In so many ways, even after this last terrible, terrible journey, I have been restored already.'
I smiled at this, and said, 'I remember that you once told me how suffering carves hollows in the soul — only to leave room for it to hold more joy.'
She pressed her palm to her blindfold, which covered hollows as deep as the caverns beneath Argattha. And she said, 'These past days, with the children safe and Bemossed so happy in becoming this shining light for everyone. I have been so happy, too.'
My smile deepened as I squeezed her hand in mine. I gazed at her face, wishing with a hot pain in my eyes that she could gaze back at me.
'Bemossed makes people happy,' I said.
'The Maitreya, we call him, the Lord of Light,' she said to me. 'But what does that mean? What light can any man summon to bring help for this terrible world? This above all, I think: that everything that is, is so beautiful. It all shines, here and now.'
I looked out across the river at the acres of star lilies and white fairies' eyes gleaming in the strong sunlight. In the sky, an eagle soared, a little streak of gold against icy mountains and bright blue rock. The whole valley, with its brilliant green fields and forests powdered with snow, seemed on fire.
'What you say is true,' I told her. 'And yet, somewhere in the world, right now, a bird of prey is tearing out the insides of a vole or a hare. And somewhere, a man or a woman is dying upon a cross.'
'That, too, is true,' she said, and her voice grew thick with sadness. 'But even dying, they look out upon the same sky and the same earth that we do.'
I pressed her hand to my face, and I said softly, 'But you do not see at all now, not even with your second sight.'
'Don't pity me,' she said, pulling her hand away from me. The old coldness seemed to fall over her face like a cloud covering the sun.
'I don't pity you. But I will not believe there is no hope.'
She smiled coldly, even as her sadness deepened. Her fingers reached into the spray of blond hairs falling over her shoulders. She managed to pluck one of them out, and she held up this gleaming, golden filament for me to see. 'One chance only, Val. One slender, slender chance exists, finer even than this, of what you hope will be. And for all our gladness at finding Bemossed and what he has accomplished, it is exactly the same chance we have of defeating Morjin, in the end.'
'I know that,' I told her. 'But even if there is only one chance in ten thousand, I will think of how we might bring his defeat, and nothing
else.'
I reached out and prised the hair from her fingers. I coiled it around one of mine, then folded it into a handkerchief, which I put in my tunic's pocket. And I said, 'Almost nothing else. If there is only one chance in all the universe of you being made whole and marrying me, I will make it be.'
She sat next to me, with the sun beating down upon her, and the essence of horse and her musky skin steamed off her garments. I listened to her deep, quick breaths. Then she said, 'You sound so sure of yourself. The tone in your words — I have never heard you speak this way.'
I felt my own breath building in my throat like a storm. I no longer doubted that I could give voice to what whispered in my heart.
'My grandfather,' I told her, 'believed that a man can make his own fate. What can a man and a woman together make? Everything, Atara.'
She stood up and stepped carefully down to the river's bank, where she scooped up a handful of old snow. After shaping it into a ball, she returned to the blanket. She sat holding it before her face as if it might reveal the shape of the future. At last she said, 'King Jovayl was right about you. This journey has changed you.'
I felt a bright, warm thing filling up my blood with an unbearable heat. I no longer feared letting it loose into Atara like lightning.
'Tell me that you believe in the future,' I said to her.
She squeezed her snowy ball and replied, 'Of course I do.'
I took the snow from her and cast it into the river, where the dark, churning water swept it away. I took her cold, wet hands in mine. I held them, tightly, until they warmed, and then grew hot.
'Say that you will be my wife.'
'You want my promise?'
'No — I want you say that it must be. That no other future can be.'
She sat breathing quickly, and she said, 'I almost believe that.'
I stared at the blindfold binding her face. My eyes felt like fire-stones, and I wanted to burn it away.
'Don't look at me like that!' she told me.
'How do you know how I look at you? You are blind.'
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