'Val! Val!'
And yet there was something about the girl that was not a grief but a grace. Her breath, quick and sweet, was like a whisper of warm wind in my ear. In it was all the hope and immense goodness of life. It poured out of her depths like a fountain of fire that connected both of us to the luminous exhalations of the stars. In the face of such a strong and beautiful will to live, how could I ever lose my own strength and let us fall? And so there, beneath the black vault of the heavens, for many moments that seemed to have no end, we hung suspended in space like two tiny particles of light.
As promised, when we reached the window Maram grabbed onto us, and he and the others helped us back into the room. The girl stood facing me as we regarded each other in triumph. Then she cast a long look at her murdered friends in the corner of the room. She burst into tears, and buried her face against my chest. I wrapped one arm around her back as I covered her eyes with my other hand, and I began weeping, too.
Master Juwain touched my shoulder and said, 'Val, this is no place to linger.'
I nodded my head. I was now trembling as badly as the girl. I looked down at her and asked, 'What is your name?'
But she didn't answer me. She just stood there looking at me with her sad, beautiful eyes. One of the guards came up to me as I was buckling on my sword.
He said, 'It seems that the Red Priests' servants were all mute Lord Valashu.'
'No doubt so that they couldn't tell of their masters' filthy crimes' Maram added.
I bit my lip, then asked the girl, 'Was it Salmelu — Igasho — who did all this?'
The sudden dread that seized her heart told me that it was.
'Do you know if Salmelu kept company with a ghul? Might he have secreted such a man in the castle to steal the Lightstone?' But in answer, she only shrugged her shoulders.
'Come, Val,' Master Juwain said to me again.
I started moving the girl toward the door, but then stopped suddenly. I said to her, 'Your name is Estrella, isn't it?'
She smiled brightly at me, and nodded her head.
'I must ask you something.' I bent over and whispered in her ear, 'Do you know who the Maitreya is? Is it I?'
It seemed a senseless thing to ask a nine-year-old slave girl who could not even speak. And she looked at me with her dark, almond eyes as if my words indeed made no sense.
Master Juwain cast me a sharp look as if to ask me why I still doubted what was almost certainly proven. And I said to him, 'I must know, sir.'
'Very well, but do you have to know it right now?'
The sight of the murdered girls was like a poisoned knife cutting open my belly. Around my neck I felt an invisible noose, fashioned by Morjin, inexorably tightening. My whole being burned with the desire to have answered a single question.
'There's so little time,' I said to him. Will you come with me, now, sir, to see what wisdom your gelstei might hold?'
Master Juwain nodded his assent, and so I went out into the hall. The guards remained behind to wait for those who would prepare the dead girls for burial. I did not know what to do with Estrella. When I mentioned giving her over to the care of a nurse, she threw her arms around my waist and would not let go until I promised not to leave her.
'All right then,' i said to her. 'If you're to show me the Maitreya, perhaps you can show me other things as well.'
And so I took her hand in mine, and led her and my friends back down to the great hall to stand before the Lightstone.
Chapter 6
When we reached this room of feasts and councils, more people were gathered there. The sleeping Guardians had been moved off the dais and laid beneath it on the cold stone floor. Baltasar had deployed forty of the new Guardians to posts near the steps at either end of the dais. The remaining Guardians stood watch on the dais as usual, fifteen of them to either side of the Lightstone. Their hands gripped their swords, and they showed no sign of wanting to fall asleep.
My mother, hastily dressed in a simple tunic and shawl, stood over the sleeping Guardians talking with my father. Lord Tanu prowled about with his hand on his sword and looked very crabby from the loss of sleep. It seemed that the night's events had roused the entire castle.
I presented Estrella and gave a quick account of how she had escaped from Salmelu and his priests. My mother began weeping, whether from relief that I was still alive or from her sorrow for Estrella it was hard to tell. She came over to us and smiled at Estrella. She gently laid her hand on her shoulder.
But Lord Raasharu was not so kind. He came over to us and looked at Estrella, saying, 'Could this be the ghul, then?'
His question outraged me I held out my hand to warn him back as I said, 'She's just a girl!'
'Forgive me. Lord Valashu, but might not the Lord of Lies make use of one so young even more easily?'
'No!' I said. And then, 'Yes, perhaps he could — but not this one, Lord Raasharu. She's no more a ghul than you are.'
The fire in my eyes just then must have convinced him of what my heart knew to be true. He bowed and took a step back, even as the awe with which he had earlier regarded me returned to his face He seemed ashamed to have doubted me. 'Forgive me, Lord Valashu, but it was my duty as your father's seneschal to ask.'
'It's all right, Lord Raasharu,' I said, clapping him on the arm. 'This has been a long night, and we're all very tired.'
But this, it seemed, was not good enough for Lord Tanu. He marched straight up to us as his suspicious old eyes fixed on Estrella. 'If she's not a ghul, then perhaps she's a spy that Salmelu left behind. She came out of Argattha! How do we know that her true loyalties won't always lie with the Kallimun priests and the Red Dragon.'
My mother slipped her shawl around Estrella's bare shoulders. Then she gathered her closer, and stood holding her protectively. 'If this girl is a spy, then fair is foul and I'm as blind as a bat.'
Lord Tanu opened his mouth as if to gainsay her, but my father suddenly stepped forward and called out, 'Enough! The Red Dragon has set traps for us tonight, but it's not to be believed that this girl is one of them. Now, haven't we other concerns?'
We did haw. For it seemed that there was still a ghul hiding somewhere in the castle. The thirty Guardians continued their unnatural sleep. And I still struggled to solve the great mystery of my life. While the search continued, my father sent one of his fastest riders to the Brotherhood's sanctuary to retrieve a book about the lesser gelstei that Master Juwain requested. Master Juwain believed the sleeping men sprawled below the dais would awaken naturally in good time. But if they did not, he wanted to search in his book for mention of some tonic or tea that would rouse them.
'There must be some specific that will counteract the effects of the sleep stone,' he said. 'Just as there must be some specific sequence of thoughts that will open this.'
So saying, he drew out the opalescent little thought stone that he had brought from Nar. In the presence of the Lightstone, its colors seemed to swirl more vividly.
'Try, sir,' I said, urging him toward the dais.
He yawned and said, 'I'm afraid I would have a fresher mind if we waited until tomorrow.'
'Tonight is nearly tomorrow,' I told him. 'Haven't we waited long enough?'
Master Juwain's eyes flared with a new light. He loved nothing in life so much as delving into the mysteries of the mind.
And so we both went up upon the dais. The Guardians there made room for us. Master Juwain stepped straight up to the Lightstone, holding the little gelstei in the open bowl of his hands. I stood by his side as he closed his eyes. He fell so still that it seemed he was sleeping, too. And so I waited to see if Master Juwain might discover some proof of my fate. What a great mystery the gelstei were! The secret of their making had been almost completely lost. But why, since there were still many ancient books describing how naked matter — the base elements of the earth — might be transmuted into these glorious crystals?
I remembered Master Juwain once explaining the answer to this puz
zle: 'Because the gelstei are living crystals, and the knowledge that goes into their forging is individual and spiritual and alive.'
They could not, he had told me, be forged as if by recipe. And they could not be used that way, either.
And as it was with the lesser gelstei, so it was even more with the greater gelstei: the silustria of my sword, the healing varistei, the blazing firestones. And most of all, the Lightstone itself. It was said that the golden cup gleaming on its stand three feet away from me had been, forged by the Galadin around a distant star many ages ago — but no one really knew. Certainly no one on Ea, for twice ten thousand years, had succeeded in creating another like it, for almost everything about the gold gelstei remained a mystery. All through the Age of Law, the Brotherhoods had tried to unlock its secrets, with only partial success. As Master Juwain had said to me, it was one thing to hold the Lightstone in one's hands, but quite another to wield it.
It was near the first hour of the new day — Moonday, I thought — when Master Juwain finally opened his eyes. He sighed as he squeezed the little gelstei in his hand. 'I'm afraid I've failed, Val. The conundrum? remains: this crystal might contain knowledge about the Lightstone. But it seems we still need the Lightstone to open it.'
I gazed at the golden cup that we had fought through hell to bring to this place. It quickened the powers of each of our gelstei — and so quickened our individual gifts that enabled us to use them.
Master Juwain went on, 'I've tried all the formulae and incantations, in ancient Ardik, in Lorranda and Uskul, even the Songlines, but nothing has availed.'
My father's words rang in my head: that we must believe, for believing in a thing, we make it be. Then an old verse flashed in my mind:
The deeper dance of head and heart,
The angels' grace, mysterious art,
To weave lights thread so lucidly:
True mind's resplendent tapestry.
The sacred fire of heart and head
Where sense and thought are sweetly wed.
Through ancient alchemy is wrought
A higher sense, a deeper thought.
After I had recited these lines, Master Juwain looked at me and asked, 'Where did you learn that?'
'From a book in your library, years ago,' I said 'Perhaps you might find these thoughts that are deeper than words, since as you say, none of your words has availed.'
'But, Val thoughts are words. Language is.' He held up his little crystal. 'And this is called a thought stone — not a heart stone.'
I gazed off at our family's table, where my mother sat with Estrella tending her bruised and bloodied feet. Something about this mute girl, so wild and free, called forth the grace of an animal. An animal I was sure, had thoughts and mind, ordered not with words, but with the deeper logic of life. Estrella, not being able to talk to others, had somehow learned to communicate a blazing intelligence as if unfolding a fireflower from out of the depths of her being. The smile on her face as my mother finished her work and kissed her, spoke more clearly and purely than words ever could.
'But, sir,' I said to Master Juwain, 'doesn't thought arise from the deeper intelligence of the heart? Doesn't mind merely translate this intelligence into words, and then manipulate it and permute it?'
Master Juwain remained silent as he looked at me.
'And didn't you once teach me,' I went on, 'that the head and heart are two horses that draw the same chariot? And that the ancients made no such war between mind and body as do we?'
Master Juwain sighed as he nodded his head. 'Yes, yes, I know very well what you say is true. But, you see, sometimes I don't know. . what I know.'
I pointed at the pocket of his robes and said, 'The varistei is a healing stone, yes? What if it could heal this rent in the soul? Why don't you try using it on yourself?'
He looked appalled as if what I had suggested to him was more painful than taking a knife to his own chest to perform a surgery. But he slowly nodded his head as he removed the emerald crystal from his pocket. He stood fulling it in his hand in front of him.
The deeper dance of head and heart…
The healing stones, the green gelstei were called. And yet their powers ran much deeper than merely mending flesh together. Used in harmony with the natural forces of the earth, the varistei could awaken and strengthen the very fires of life itself.
The sacred fire of heart and head
Where sense and thought are sweetly wed. .
Again, Master Juwain closed his eyes. I felt my heart beating in a quick but steady rhythm with his. The sounds of the room — jangling steel and creaking chairs and low voices — faded into a distant hum. I seemed to wait forever, all the while expecting Master Juwain to look at me and tell me that he had failed yet again. And then suddenly, the varistei came alive with a deep viridian light. The hall fell eerily silent as this lovely radiance enveloped Master Juwain's hand, his arm and then his entire body; it seemed to course through his body and illumine it as from within. I gasped, then, to see his heart pulsing inside his chest like a great, living jewel. It sent shoots of emerald light through his arms and his legs, and up in a great shimmering fountain through his head.
When at last he opened his eyes, I had never seen these twin gray orbs so luminous and clear. He smiled as he tucked his varistei back into his pocket. Then he looked upon the Lightstone. The golden cup overflowed with a clear light, which he seemed to drink in through his eyes. He stood thusly for a long time. At last he turned his attention to the thought stone that he still held in his other hand. He stood gazing at it, nearly lost in rapture, even as the first rays of the morning sun fell upon the great hall's windows and carried colors of crimson, gold and blue into the silent room.
'I see, I see,' he whispered to himself.
Now some of the sleeping Guardians began stirring and opening their eyes, bewildered. My father led Asaru and my brothers up upon the dais. Lansar Raasharu and Lord Tanu followed, and my mother, her arm covering Estrella's shoulders, slowly climbed the steps to hear what Master Juwain might say.
'You were right, Val,' he said, holding up the thought stone for all to see. 'Words were not the key to open this, though its contents were recorded in words. In High East Ardik, no less, which, then as now, was a language that only the Brotherhoods used.'
A fleeting look of triumph swept over Master Juwain's face as he continued, 'And I was also right. There is knowledge of the Lightstone in this gelstei. And knowledge of the Maitreya, too.'
'Go on,' I said as my eyes burned into his. 'I'm afraid it won't be as much as you hoped for.'
'Go on,' I said again.
Master Juwain sighed as he held his hand out toward the Lightstone. 'It seems that the Cup of Heaven may-be used by anyone, each according to his virtue and understanding. But if a man is flawed in any way, the light leaks out from his deeds like water from a cracked cup.'
'Are you saying, then, that a man needs to be perfect in order to use the Lightstone?'
'No — only to use it perfectly.'
'And the Maitreya?'
'The words concerning him, at least, are clear enough,' Master Juwain said. 'The Lightstone is meant for the Maitreya.'
'But how is he to use it?'
'Only he will ever know'
I turned toward the Lightstone, now pouring out a golden radiance as if it had caught the rays of the morning sun and was giving them back a thousandfold. Around the dais the last of the stricken Guardians were waking.
'But who is the Maitreya, then?' I asked Master Juwain. 'What does your stone say about that?'
'Very little, I'm afraid.' Master Juwain sighed again as he looked at me with all the kindness that he could find. 'This is the relevant passage, listen: "Just as the Lightstone is the source of the radiance that holds all things together, so the Maitreya is the light that draws all peoples and all kingdoms together toward a single source and fate.'' '
I looked at Master Juwain and said, 'Is there no more?'
'I'm
certain that there is more recorded in the other thought stones in Nar.'
I drew Alkaladur and held it before the Lightstone. The Sword of Truth, it was called, the Sword of Fate. Its silver gelstei, gleaming as bright as a mirror, gave me to see a frightful thing: that I stood at the center of the whirlwind of forces that drew all the people of Ea toward a singular fate.
Lansar Raasharu suddenly cried out, 'Claim the Lightstone, Lord Valashu!'
'Claim it, Val!' Baitasar, his faithful son, repeated.
I looked around at my father and my mother, at my brothers and friends and all these people who were so close to my heart. Only hours before, Kasandra had warned of a ghul who would undo my dreams. I was sure that none of those present could be this evil being. And yet, in the deepest sense, I could be sure only of myself. Shouldn't I then claim the Lightstone, here and now, if for no other reason than to keep it safe within my grasp and guarded by my sword?
'Claim it, Val!' my fierce brother, Mandru, said to me.
The golden cup gleamed before me. If I were a false Maitreya and yet claimed it for my own, I would crack apart like a cup of clay and bring great evil to the world. But if I were the true Maitreya and failed to claim it, another would — and then the evil that he wrought with the gold gelstei would be just as great.
'Come Val,' my brother Jonathay laughed out. His face, both playful and calm, was lit up with his faith in me. 'If you're not the Lord of Light, then who is?'
At last I turned toward Estrella. She stood in the shelter of my mother's bosom silently sipping from the cup of warm milk and nutmeg that my mother had given her. Kasandra had said that this girl would show me the Maitreya. Without words to mar the way she saw the world and interpreted it to others, her whole being was a beautiful mirror like the silustria of my sword. This, I thought, was her gift. She smiled at me with her innocent and beautiful face, and in the quick, clear brightness there, it seemed that she was showing me myself just as I was.
Then I remembered the words of Morjin's letter: You cannot be this Maitreya, either. But Morjin was the Lord of Lies. I suddenly knew that he truly did fear that I was the Maitreya. And so, it seemed, I must truly be.
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