Diamond Warriors

by David Zindell

  On a bright day in Soldru, in sight of thousands, I married Atara, even as Maram did Behira. Alonia's great nobles gathered to witness the ceremony and bring us gifts. So did Sajagax, who gave Atara and me a great weight of gold and a lesser amount to Maram and Behira. Lord Harsha looked on proudly as his only daughter finally gained her heart's desire. I wished, of course, that my father and mother, and all my family, had lived to share such a triumph with me. But Master Juwain and Liljana stood with me, as they had promised, as did Ymiru, Daj, Estrella and Alphanderry and Kalkin. No man, I thought, could ever have a more devoted or beloved family. They watched with great gladness as I slipped a silver ring around Atara's finger, and so at last made peace between the lines of Aryu and Elahad and rejoined them as one.

  Just before midnight on the ides of Marud, Atara gave birth to our son. We named him Elkasar, after my grandfather. Liljana said that he was long and a little too lean, but he seemed possessed of a great health and zest for life, and he grew quickly. His eyes, as Liljana described them to Atara, soon took on a bright, black sheen like those of his father, and his hair grew out almost pure sable. But he had Atara's square, open face and her long hands and her sportive temperament. She took to calling him her 'little lion,' for he roared fiercely when he grew hungry and seemed to eat with a ferocious appetite. And Atara nursed him with great gladness, holding him against her breast and pouring her milk into him. She sang to him in her clear, beautiful voice, and used her fingers to comb back his dark hair, and I thought that I had never seen a mother love a child with such sweetness and fire.

  And yet, as the days passed, a deep sadness seized hold of Atara and would not let go. Liljana spoke of the mothers' melancholy which often befell a woman after she had given birth, but this was something different. Atara, warrior that she would always remain, tried to be brave and so she stopped lamenting that she would never lay eyes upon our son, for there seemed no help for her fate. She did all that she could to raise up her spirits: going riding with Sajagax through the Narmada Green in the morning; singing with Alphanderry in the afternoon; lying with me on the grass of the Elu Gardens at night as I called out the names of the stars. She even took the first taste of the first batch of Maram's brandy, though drink of any sort no longer pleased her and she put tooth to food only because she needed to keep up her milk and her strength. I did not know what could done for her. Neither did Liljana or Master Juwain, who had no potions or magic to cure such a malady. Estrella often held the Lightstone near Atara's heart, and seemed sad herself that its radiance failed to touch her.

  Toward the end of summer, as Atara grew thinner and ever quieter, I went to Ymiru to speak with him about her, for I thought that he was a man who might understand her, suffering as he did from sudden and deep glooms. His white-furred face knotted in concentration as I described how Atara wanted to stop eating. And then he told me: 'My moods come and go like the storms of the earth herself, and sometimes dark clouds and snow blacken the world, but afterwards, there always be blue skies and the sun shining brightly. But it be something else with Atara. I think her soul be sick. And that be a hrorrible thing, like being sucked down a dark hrole. I want to believe that the Maitreya will find a way to heal her. I suppose we can only wait and hrope.'

  Kalkin's advice to me was more succinct, for he told me: 'Give it time.'

  Time, as Atara knew, was strange, for sometimes it streaked toward the future like an arrow while too often creeping along more slowly than a tortoise. At certain rare moments, it seemed to stop altogether. The Maitreya, I thought, possessed the gift to make it do so and to touch men and women with eternity, and for that reason laid claim to the Lightstone. But I, as a king, must live in the world and attend to a hundred duties each day, and I could no more hold back events and the seasons' turning than I could the tides of the sea. And so there came a time in early autumn when I had to prepare formally to be acclaimed as Ea's High King.

  We held the coronation on the lawn outside of my half-completed palace on the eighth of Valte - exactly a year from the date of the Battle of the Detheshaloon. Kings, nobles and chieftains from every land came to honor me and bear witness to my vows to rule Ha according to the Law of the One and renew their own vows to me. King Thaddeu of Hesperu and King Angand brought me jewels to set in silver: rubies and black opals, sapphires and topaz and sardonyx. The new kings of Galda and Karabuk also presented me with rich gifts, as did King Hanniban and even King Santoval Marshayk, who had miraculously recovered from one of his convenient illnesses to make the journey to Tria. Sajagax gave me even more gold, and great beads of lapis and a magnificently illuminated copy of the Saganom Elu. Bajorak bestowed upon me a great bow, worked all in gold and lapis, and a golden arrow tipped with a brilliant sunstone. So it went with King Aryaman of Thalu and King Orunjan of Uskudar and the others. The Valari kings, of course, showered me with diamonds while my friends gave me more personal things.

  The greatest gift of all, however, came from Kalkin. I had entrusted him with the great diamond that the Star People had given to me as proof that I had really journeyed from one of Ea's vilds to another world. Once, this perfect jewel had been the centerstone in the crown of Adar, first of the Lightstone's Guardians- And now Kalkin had set it into a new crown: made of silver gelstei which he had newly forged. With the entire Valari host drawn up in their thousands for the last time, their armor sparkling brilliantly in the sua as the kings of Ea's lands and the Sarni chieftains and my friends all looked on, I stood before Kalkin and he placed the crown upon my head. 'So,' he called out in his rich, deep voice, 'the Age of the Dragon has ended and the Age of Light has begun!'

  And upon these words, from the Temple of Life across the lives; the great firestone surmounting its highest spire let loose a bolt of lightning that streaked straight up in a blinding incandescence that split open the sky. On and on this beacon would blaze, I thought until its radiance reached the end of the universe.

  'Let all acclaim King Valamesh, High King of Erathe!'

  Katura Hastar, long ago, had prophesied that the death of Morjin would be the death of Ea. And so it had been, truly, for after the Detheshaloon, the old world had perished and given birth to the new. Kalkin, by right, had chosen a new name for the world that was really quite old. Erathe, the ground beneath our feet would always remain for him. But many others would come to call it simply 'Earth.'

  After that we held a great feast on the palace grounds. A dozen kinds of roasted meats and a hundred good foods were served to the thousands gathered there. Maram supplied the guests with whole rivers of brandy, while Sajagax had ordered barrels of black Sarni beer brought up from the Wendrush. Alphanderry played his mandolet and sang songs of glory, and nearly everyone seemed happy.

  Toward dusk, I finally managed to break away from the many people who wished to honor me. 1 sought out Kalkin, who stood alone by the edge of the Elu Gardens gazing out across the river. The immense gelstei on top of the Temple continued pouring out a fountain of light. Kalkin's bright, black eyes seemed to drink it in as if he would never fear any radiance ever again.

  He nodded his head to me, and his beautiful face grew both sad and triumphant, all at once. I sensed some great new thing come alive within him. And he said to me, 'I will leave Erathe soon. In another year, or perhaps ten. But first, I will walk the world, and look upon her mountains and rivers so that I never forget.'

  'I know you must go,' I told him, 'though I don't want you to.'

  I looked across the lawn where Atara stood holding our son and talking with Master Juwain, Maram, Behira and our other friends. If anyone could assure me that Atara might be brought back to herself, it was Kalkin: the man whose soul had finally been made whole again after ages and ages of time.

  'I will miss you/ he said to me. But at least I will know that my world and her peoples are safe in your hands.'

  I looked at my hand for a moment, then held it out toward Atara. And I said, 'Safe, I can only hope, from the wars that might have been
, though not from the atrocities that we failed to help. But I have to believe that there is hope for Atara. Can you help me, Kalkin?'

  He looked at the diamond set into the front point of my crown, and then down into my eyes. And he said, 'Only the Maitreya can heal her.'

  I gazed at Estrella, holding high the Lightstone, and said, 'But she has failed.'

  Now Kalkin's voice fell deep and strange as he asked me: 'Has she failed, Valashu? Or have you?'

  'I? I don't know what you mean.'

  'Yes, you do - and you have known it since the Detheshaloon.'

  I wanted to shake my head violently at this, but I was afraid my new crown would go flying off my head.

  'Don't tell me,' he said to me, 'that since then you haven't thought long and deep of the verses that you first heard in the amphitheater from the Urudjin. Recite them for me now!'

  I knew exactly which verses he meant; they told of the Amshahs' failure to heal Angra Mainyu and the hope that yet someday they might. Because I could no more refuse Kalkin than I would wish for Joshu Kadar to disregard me, I spoke the verses out into the cool twilight air:

  And though the dark was not undone

  A light within the darkness hides;

  While Star-Home turns around its sun

  The Sword of Light, and Love, abides.

  Alkaladur! Alkaladur!

  The Sword of Fate, the Sword of Sight,

  Which men have named Deliverer.

  Awaits the promised Lord of Light.

  'And that,' I told him, 'is Estrella!'

  'But it was you who wielded Alkaladur!' He reached out to touch the hilt of the sword strapped to my side. 'Why do think that Morjin failed to seize control of this?'

  'Because the Lightstone has no power over the silver gelstei.'

  'The Lightstone has power over everything!' He lifted his hand off my sword, then pressed it to my chest. 'And here it abides.'

  I couldn't help remembering the famous words from the Beginnings: The Lightstone is the perfect jewel inside the lotus found inside the human heart.

  'And you,' he told me, 'are King Valamesh, the King of Swords - and the Lord of Light!'

  I shook my head aphis. 'No, I am a Valari, and we are never Lords of Light! The Urudjin confirmed that, too. You told me so yourself, and berated me for ever supposing that I might be the Maitreya!'

  He fell silent as he stared at me; he seemed to be looking through the centers of my eyes to the end of the universe.

  'Kane told you that,' he finally said to me. 'But he did not know. Not even Kalkin knew, not really, until this night.'

  Again, I shook my head. 'But Kane could not have been so wrong! Neither could the Urudjin!'

  'No, they could not have been so wrong. And they weren't: as regards the ages that have passed. But in the Age of Light, all will become as Maitreyas.'

  'No,' I said, turning my head back and forth, 'it cannot be!'

  Kalkin nodded at Estrella. 'She tried, a hundred times, to show you yourself. But you would not look.'

  'Because there is nothing to see!'

  'No, that is not why. There is something that you dread more than once you did death.'

  Beneath his fierce gaze, I stood up as straight as I could, until I imagined the points of my crown pushed up against the very heavens. And so I tried to pretend that there was nothing I still feared.

  'During the battle,' he said to me, 'you saw just how like Morjin you truly are. And so you think that the Maitreya could not be touched with such evil.'

  'She could not!' I said, motioning toward Estrella.

  Kalkin's large, hard hand reached out to seize hold of mine. And he told me: 'We are all born of the same mother. And for all of us, acting in the world, it is not possible to be wholly good. You know this, in your heart. And it is there that you must fight your last battle.'

  Then he told me, not in words, but in the fire of his eyes, what my heart knew to be true: that I feared in being less than perfect I would become sullied and broken and wholly evil, and thus lose all restraint and fall as far as Morjin and Angra Mainyu had. And so I would kill my soul.

  His hand pressed against mine, and his eyes caught up the shimmer of the evening's first stars as he said to me: 'But at the heart of everything there is only one Light, and it can never die.'

  'No, perhaps not,' I said to him. 'But men and women can. And men can do such terrible deeds ... so easily.'

  'So they can,' he said to me. 'But so they also can find the strength to do such marvelous things.'

  I felt an infinite and indestructible force coursing deep within his hand. It seemed unstoppable, too, like the bright rising of the sun after a long, dark night.

  I looked at him and said, 'Why couldn't you have put your sword into Morjin? Why couldn't Kane? He was a thousand times stronger than I.'

  'Because,' he said to me, 'slaying Morjin was your fate.' 'Yes,' I said, glancing at Estrella, 'I slew an angel to save the Maitreya. I did evil in a good cause like any tyrant.'

  'No - you slew a beast to save a little girl. You did what you had to do, like any true man.'

  We stood there on the lawn in sight of many thousands, gripping each other's hand and searching out the truth in each other's eyes. And then, in a low, deep voice, he said to me: 'A true man, Valashu. A king of kings. A greathearted being who, in the end, came to have the highest regard for his enemy. How could such a man deny who he really is?'

  And then he added:

  With his heart of compassion He knew himself Like unto a star. . .

  No, I thought, it could not be possible!

  How could I accept the truth of what he had told me? What if he was mistaken? The Elijin, after all, made errors just the same as other men.

  Then he looked up along the fiery beacon still shooting up through the sky. And he said to me, 'The Galadin are waiting to welcome you, Valashu. As they are all of Erathe's peoples.'

  I looked at him deeply. Who, I wondered, was my fierce and flawed friend to speak for the Galadin?

  He smiled as he let go of me, then held out his hand before me. I looked down at his open palm. There, one moment, it held nothing more substantial than air. And in the next, I saw a small golden object gleaming next to his skin. It was a timana, and I did not know how Kalkin had come by one of these sacred fruits. But I felt certain that his summoning of it had not been a trick of legerdemain but a much deeper magic. 'Take this,' he told me. Maram, looking on from across the grass, called out, 'Do I see what I think I see?'

  He led my other friends over to us with an easy assurance that I would always welcome his company. Then he touched his finger to the golden fruit and said, 'It is a timana!'

  And Ymiru said. 'That be a pretty thing - almost too pretty to eat.'

  'How did you obtain it?' Master Juwain asked Kalkin. 'I did not think the trees that the Lokilani planted could bear fruit so soon.'

  But my mysterious friend did not answer him. He produced another timana, and then another and yet others, and gave one to each of my friends, even to Daj and Estrella who had now come of age to eat the flesh of the angels.

  'Thank you, Lord Elijin,' Lord Harsha said, holding up his timana before his gleaming eye.

  Alphanderry, cupping his timana lightly in his fingers, looked at Kalkin as if seeing him for the first time. Then he spoke out in his beautiful minstrel's voice, which also rang with the much deeper tones of those who had sent this strange being to earth: 'You are mistaken, Lord Harsha. This one is no longer of the Elijik Order.'

  Lord Harsha gazed at Kalkin in wonderment, as did we all. I did not know what my friends saw then. But I suddenly perceived Kalkin as I imagined that Abrasax could: a great angel whose substance and soul poured forth bright flames of purest glorre. They encompassed him like a robe of fire, yes, but even more like a luminous cloak billowed out by the wind. Valari kings wore diamonds, as I did in the great gleaming stone set into the circle of silustria that Kalkin had given me. But he stood crowned in starlight
and bearing bright jewels of grace and goodness shining upon his soul. A vast wisdom blazed within his eyes.

  'Three times,' Alphanderry said to him, 'you surrendered the Lightstone to an heir of Adar where you might have tried to keep it for yourself. And now the Elahad guards it for the Shining One, and we have come to the ending of the ages, when all shall be restored. And so it has finally come time for the last to become the first.'

  Kalkin bowed his head to Alphanderry, and the splendor of Aras, Varshara, Solaru and all the heavens' brightest stars seemed to gather in his countenance. Then he looked at Estrella. and told me, 'The Lightstone is to be kept by her. But its light belongs to everyone.'

  Estrella smiled at me as if I could no longer refuse to see the bright being that she had tried for so long to show me. A soft radiance streamed out of the golden cup in her hand and warmed my heart. I felt it all sweet and good inside me, and I knew that I held the power to say yes or no to the terrible beauty of life - and to myself And so I held within myself another power as well.

  'Atara,' I said, stepping over to her. She stood cradling our young son in her arms and turning her head left and right as if seeking for the source of my voice. 'Atara, Atara.'

  I moved up close enough that I could feel her breath upon my face. Then I laid my hands over the white cloth binding her. All that was within me came pouring out in a bright blaze that warmed my hands. I felt it filling up the hollows where her eyes had once been. Then suddenly, with a murmur of astonishment, Atara gave me our son to hold. Her fingers, always so sure and steady even in the most desperate of battles, trembled as she worked to pull off her blindfold. Now it came my turn to cry out in wonder -and in delight. For Atara gazed straight at me through a pair of perfect eyes, all beautiful and blue and sparkling like diamonds, just as I had remembered them to be.

  'Val!' she cried out to me. She worked her fingers across her eyelids, pressing almost frantically, as if only by touch could she confirm the impossible thing that had happened to her. 'I can see. . . so much!'