Diamond Warriors

by David Zindell

  'Is that power now yours, great King?'

  He sat gazing at me, then he drew out of his pocket a small, shining bowl that had been made in the image of the Lightstone. It was an ancient work of silver gelstei, tinted gold; through the power of this vessel Bemossed could sense the vastly greater power of the distant Lightstone and contend with Morjin over its mastery.

  'Every day,' he told me, 'I wake up and take this cup into my hands, and my battle with Morjin begins anew. At night, when I am able to sleep, I keep it close to my heart as I fight with him in my dreams. Every hour, every minute - every moment that I push against his will, he harms me.'

  I sat gripping the hilt of the work of silver gelstei that had been given to me. Liljana kept her blue gelstei safe, as did Master Juwain his varistei, and my other friends their stones. Only through Bemossed's struggle with Morjin, I knew, could we use our gelstei without Morjin wielding the Lightstone to pervert and control them. As only Bemossed's sacrifice kept Morjin from freeing the Dark One from Damoom.

  'You must be strong,' I said to him. I heard myself speaking as a king, and I hoped Bemossed would not hate me for that. 'As you truly are - as strong as steel.'

  'You do not understand,' he said, looking down at his cup.

  His long lashes were like dark curtains falling over his eyes. And I told him, 'In Senta, in the Singing Caves, I listened as the Morjin of old lamented his murdering of an angel: his best friend. And more than once, Liljana has touched minds with the Beast.'

  'You do not understand,' Bemossed said again, now looking up at me. 'It is not his mind that I must face. It is his soul. And the crack through it is so black and deep it could swallow up the stars. It goes on and on forever.'

  Something inside him seemed bruised, as if he had taken too many blows from a mace. I drew in a deep breath as I listened to swords clashing in practice rounds and men singing outside. And I said to him: 'It will not be forever that you must fight Morjin this way. I returned to Mesh just so that you would not have to fight him alone.'

  'Fifteen thousand warriors have acclaimed you, and that is a great thing. But Morjin, it is said, commands a million men.'

  I looked down at my sword, and I said, 'We will prevail over Morjin. There must be a way.'

  'Not that way,' Bemossed said, pointing at Alkaladur.

  'You have only to be strong a little longer,' I told him, not really wanting to hear his words. 'We must.'

  'Yes, friend, we must.'

  I drew my sword a few inches from its scabbard so that I might see its gleaming blade.

  'You would still kill him,' he said to me. 'Kill him and cut the Lightstone from his hands.'

  'And you would still heal him,' I said, looking up at him.

  'And why not? He is a man like any other.'

  'No, not like any other.'

  'His deepest desire is to be made whole.'

  'No - not his deepest desire.'

  'He is a man,' he told me, 'even as you are.'

  'No, he is a beast.'

  Bemossed rubbed his tired face as he stared off toward the roof of the tent. Then he said to me: 'Somewhere on Ea, there is a man who has been faithful, dutiful and kind all his life. A good man, Valashu. And for no reason that anyone else can see, his soul will sicken and then one day something within him will break. He might strangle his wife in a jealous rage or even slay his best friend arguing over the rights to a stream dividing their lands. And ever after, set out on a life of murder and outlawry. That man, I tell you, is more dangerous than Morjin would be if only he turned back to the light.'

  Now I had to consider what Bemossed had told me. Finally I said to him: 'But he won't turn back, and that is what is so terrible about Morjin. He likes doing evil.'

  Bemossed said nothing to this as he looked at me. His hands tightened around the silver gelstei called the False Lightstone.

  'I think,' I said to him, pointing at the cup, 'that you have already begun trying to heal him through that.’

  He nodded his head to me. 'As this touches upon the Lightstone, it opens upon Morjin's soul.'

  'And so the reverse must be.'

  His eyes grew sad and anguished as he said, 'Yes, I know that is how Morjin found me and the Brothers' school.'

  For a while he descended into that dark, watery part of himself from which he took too great a comfort. Then he looked over at Estrella, sitting quietly as she fairly drank in each of his words. She smiled at him, as if his essential goodness couldn't help but make her happy. Her warm, lively face seemed to remind him of the incredible brightness of his own being and draw out of him something even warmer.

  'Don't be afraid for me,' he finally told me. He seemed to brighten like a sunrise, for that, too, was his power and delight. 'As you said, there is always a way.'

  Now he, too, smiled, and I wondered that I had ever worried that Morjin might find a way to destroy him. He sat up taller and straighter as a new strength poured into him from some secret source. His radiant face made me recall the three signs by which a Maitreya might be recognized: steady abidance in the One; looking upon all with an equal eye; unshakable courage at all times.

  I felt my heart beating out great bursts of my life as I looked at him, and he looked at me - and looked deep inside me. At last, he asked me: 'What ails you, Valashu?'

  I glanced around the tent for any sign of the dark thing that had hounded me since my return to Mesh. Although I could not see it, a black cloud seemed to hang over my head no matter which direction I turned to look toward the future. I had not wanted to speak so soon of my deepest affliction and add yet another stone to the great weight pulling Bemossed down. But the time had come, I saw, when I must tell of the Ahrim.

  'It is like a great nothing,' I said to Bemossed and the Masters of the Brotherhood, 'that holds more power than everything-, all the suns and stars across the universe.'

  Bemossed listened as I described my battle with the Ahrim in the wood near Lord Harsha's farm, and then my struggle to speak out the truth of things not an hour ago. He turned the whole of his awareness upon my words, the dread breaking from my eyes, the anguish in my heart. Who could not love a man who put aside his own sufferings in order to uplift another? As Bemossed's whole being seemed to grow brighter and brighter, I realized the essential thing about him: that he must find a way to heal those he cared about - either that; or die. And that he could bring the most splendid of lights to others, but not to himself.

  'I am sorry that I said you did not understand what it is like with Morjin,' he told me. 'In the end, I think, we face the same evil.'

  Abrasax nodded his head at this. Then he said to me, 'This thing you have told of remains unknown to us. But it is clear that you must fight it even as you did Morjin in Hesperu.'

  'I will fight Morjin with this,' I said, unsheathing Alkaladur and holding it shining up toward the apex of the tent.

  Abrasax smiled at this in his mysterious way. Then he asked me, 'Can you tell me in truth that the sword you hold in your hand and the one you carry inside are not the same?'

  'Of course they are not the same,' I said, looking at Alkaladur's luminous silustria.

  'Perhaps not the same, then. But not entirely two, either.'

  I thought about this as I gazed at the blade that had been named the Sword of Fate. I knew that in some strange way, Abrasax must be right.

  'I have said many times,' he told me, 'that Morjin will never be defeated through force of arms alone. But there must be a way to defeat him - even as you did Lord Tomavar.'

  At the sound of his voice, my sword grew brighter.

  'Can that be?' I whispered. 'Can that truly be?'

  'It must be,' Abrasax told me. 'I can see no other hope for victory.'

  My hands tightened around the diamonds set into my sword's hilt. And I shook my head. 'But Morjin is not Lord Tomavar.'

  'No, he is not. But you will not fight him alone.'

  He turned to look at Bemossed, and so did I. Then he continued, 'Yo
u and Bemossed have seemed at odds today. But you must remember that you are as brothers, and do fight the same battle. He will help you, if you let him, Valashu. As we will help him.'

  I met his gaze and thought of the seven Great Gelstei that he and the other Masters of the Brotherhood kept. I wanted to believe what he told me.

  'The time is coming,' he said, 'when everything and all of us will be put to the test.'

  Here he nodded at Alphanderry, who occupied one of the table's chairs, not as a man of flesh and blood pressing against wood, but rather as a gleaming substance contained by it.

  'Your messenger's warning to you concurs with what we know,' he went on. 'Master Matai?'

  He turned to the Brotherhood's Master Diviner. Despite his years. Master Matai seemed possessed of an innocence and a great gratitude for the wisdom his discipline had brought him. He said to us: 'I have been plotting the movements of the heavens all my life. The planets and stars all gather toward a great moment. If my calculations are correct, then the alignment that your friend told of will occur on the eighth day of Valte.'

  On that day, he said, Ea and Damoom would perfectly come into conjunction with Agathad where the greatest of the Galadin dwelled by the silver lake known as Skol. Then out of Ninsun, at the center of the universe, the Ieldra's radiance would pour out in a golden light upon these three fated planets, whether in creation or destruction not even the angels could say.

  'There is nearly infinite power in the Golden Band,' Master Matai told us. 'And if Morjin can use the Lightstone to seize upon it and free Angra Mainyu, then . . .'

  He did not finish his sentence. He did not have to state, one more time, the danger hanging over Ea and all of Eluru: that if Angra Mainyu were loosed upon the universe, a dark age lasting forever would descend upon all the stars, and the Ieldra would be forced to put an end to their glorious creation.

  'I cannot believe that will ever be,' Abrasax said, looking at me. 'I must believe Ayondela Kirriland's prophecy: "The seven brothers and sisters of the earth with the seven stones will set forth into the darkness. The Lightstone will be found, the Maitreya will come forth, and a new age will begin.'"

  He nodded his head as if in agreement with one side in an ongoing argument that he held with himself. Then he said, 'The first half of the prophecy has already come to pass, for who can doubt that a new age will soon begin, whether for good or ill? I do not doubt the final part of the prophecy: "A seventh son with the mark of Valoreth will slay the dragon. The old world will be destroyed and a new world created."'

  'But, Grandfather,' Maram said, 'a scryer's words are like a cat's eyes: they can change colors, depending on how one looks at them. Val has already slain the dragon. A real dragon, of flesh and blood and fire. In Argattha, he put his sword into Angraboda's heart, and killed that monster.'

  'But is that the dragon of which the prophecy speaks?' Abrasax asked him.

  'You tell me!'

  'I shall tell you this,' Abrasax said, pointing at the bandage that Master Juwain had plastered above my eye. 'Val has been cut on his forehead; in the same place, yet a third time in his life. The mark of Valoreth, indeed! We should all take great hope from this miracle. As we should pay close attention to the ordering of the lines of Ayondela's prophecy: 'The Lightstone will be found, the Maitreya will come forth" - and only then will the dragon be slain. But slain how, I ask you? Not, I hope, by a sword through Morjin's heart. Not by that sword, which Val holds in his hands. I pray it will be as Bemossed has said: that Morjin can be aided to turn back to the light. And if he can be, then the Dragon will truly be slain, for Morjin's evil self will perish, and the Great Red Dragon will be no more. And Morjin will stand radiant and good, as he was born to be.'

  For a while we all sat quiet and unmoving at my council table. The sun's fierce rays pierced through the thin, woven fibers of my tent. Outside, men were singing out the verses of the old epic that told of Aramesh's defeat of Morjin.

  Then Kane stood up and began pacing back and forth like a tiger locked in a cage. Beneath his taut, sunburnt skin, his muscles bunched and relaxed in rhythm with the pounding of his savage heart. At last, he paused by Abrasax's chair, and fixed him with his black, blazing eyes.

  'So,' he said. His voice rumbled up out of him like molten rock from a crack in the earth. 'You reopen the old argument. The old, old argument.'

  Only a day before, Master Juwain had pulled an arrow from his lung; the immense vitality pouring out of him suggested that he had forgotten this insult to his flesh. But I sensed him reliving grievances as ancient as the stars - and much else, too. His eyes grew clear and bright, and sad, and I saw looking out through them a strange and ancient being.

  'There was a man,' he said. His voice flowed out rich, deep, fiery and pained. 'Ha - a man who had once been a man. A warrior of the spirit, for he lived in obedience with the One's law that the Elijin are not permitted to slay. He, too, believed that a great soul could be turned back toward the light.'

  As the afternoon lengthened and it grew warmer inside the tent, my friend who was now very much a warrior of the sword spoke of the ancient ages long before the Star People had come to earth. He told us of Asangal's fall as the damned angel called Angra Mainyu - and the great War of the Stone that had resulted when Angra Mainyu stole the Lightstone to challenge the will of the Ieldra. Half of Eluru's Elijin and Galadin, known as the Daevas or Betrayers, had followed Angra Mainyu into exile, while the others called themselves the Amshahs: they who would preserve the Law of the One. They remained with Ashtoreth and Valoreth on Agathad, which some called Skol. There, led by the immortal Kalkin, they worked to drive the poison from Angra Mainyu's heart. Some of what he told us the Galadin's messenger, two years before, had confided to my companions and me in a stone amphitheater outside of Tria. And now, as Kane paused to look at Alphanderry and asked him to sing for us, a very different messenger recited lines from the ancient verse:

  When first the Dragon ruled the land,

  The ancient warrior came to Skol.

  He sought for healing with his hand,

  And healing fire burned his soul.

  The sacred spark of hope he held,

  It glowed like leaves an emerald green;

  In heart and hand it brightly dwelled:

  The fire of the Galadin.

  He brought this flame into a world

  Where flowers blazed like stellulars,

  Where secret colors flowed and swirled

  And angels walked beneath the stars.

  To Star-Home thus the warrior came,

  Beside the ancient silver lake,

  By hope of heart by fire and flame,

  A sacred sword he vowed to make.

  Alkaladur! Alkaladur!

  The Sword of Love, the Sword of Light,

  Which men have named Awakener

  From darkest dreams and fear-filled night.

  No noble metal, gem or stone –

  Itsblade of finer substance wrought.

  Of essence pure as love alone,

  As strong as hope, as quick as thought.

  Valarda, like molten steel,

  Like tears, like waves of singing light,

  Which angel fire has set its seal

  And breath of angels polished bright.

  Ten thousand years it took to make

  Beneath their planet's shining sun;

  Ten thousand angels by the lake:

  The souls poured forth their fire as one.

  In strength surpassing adamant,

  Its perfect beauty diamond-bright,

  No gelstei shone more radiant:

  The sacred sword was purest light.

  Alkaladur! Alkaladur!

  The Sword of Ruth, the Healing Blade,

  Which men have named the

  Messenger Of hope of angels' star-blessed aid.

  In ruth the warrior went to war,

  A host of angels in his train:

  Ten thousand Amshahs, all who swore

 
; To heal the Dark One's bitter pain,

  With Kalkin, splendid Solajin

  And Varkoth, Set and Ashtoreth –

  The greatest of the Galadin

  Went forth to vanquish fear of death.

  And Urukin and Baradin,

  In all their pity, pomp and pride:

  The brightest of the Elijin

  In many thousands fought and died.

  Their gift, valarda, opened them:

  Into their hearts a fell hate poured;

  This turned the warrior's stratagem

  For none could wield the sacred sword.

  'None could wield it!' Kane suddenly called out, interrupting Alphanderry. 'The Dark One waited for the Amshahs to open their hearts, in ruth - even in love. But he was ruthless, eh? And so he drove all the vileness of his spirit into them, and slew those who could be slain.'

  I felt the blood pounding in his face as his eyes filled with a black and bitter thing. I had a hard time believing that my furious friend could once have been Kalkin: the Elijin lord and mighty warrior told of in the verse.

  He saw me looking at him, and moved over to my chair. Without any care that I now might be king, he reached out to lay his hand upon my chest. And to Abrasax, he said, 'We call that within Val's heart a sword. Of light, of love. But it has other names, eh? The soul force, the valarda, the fire of the stars. So, Alkaladur. The Elijin possess it, too, and to greater measure, for they are greater beings; in the Galadin it truly blazes as brightly as the stars. If they, in their thousands, could not turn back Angra Mainyu, why should you demand of Val that he must strike his sword of light into Angra Mainyu's creature?'

  Abrasax considered his response only a moment before he answered him: 'Because it is wrong, even for men, to kill. And because in harming others, we harm ourselves.'

  According to his ideals, he had elucidated the highest of principles. But for me, the valarda was no theory on how to live, but the very agony and heartbeat of life itself. And death. Atara had once told me that on the day I killed Morjin, I would kill myself. I feared that she might be right.