'Elivagar might be the last place on Ea to fall,' he said to us. 'But fall it finally will.
And so the Star People will never come.'
'No, don't speak so,' I told him. 'There's always hope.'
'Hrope,' he said bitterly. 'I have had none since the Beast took my children from me.
And now -'
I gripped his massive forearm, wondering if he could feel the incred ible strength there that I did.
'And now, tomorrow,' he said, 'the seven of us will leave for Argattha. Be there really any hrope in this quest? I suppose we must at least act as if there be.'
Ymiru's sudden melancholy, which fell upon him like an ice-fog, seemed to evaporate the following morning when the Elders and many of the Ymanir again gathered in the great square to wish us farewell. He had girded himself for our journey, strapping onto his back a huge pack and taking into his hand the great borkor that had felled many of his enemies. As well, he had taken on the task of leading the thirty Ymanir guards who would escort us from Alundil; now he was all business and bluff good cheer, checking the guards' loads, calling out commands in his thundering voice. He moved about with an almost frenetic activity, with the air of a captain who is certain of victory. His new mood, that sunny morning, was that of his people. They swarmed around us, cheering and calling out encouragements.
When it came time for us to set out, they formed up on either side of us like living mountains of fur. Down one of Alundil's broad avenues, as through a valley, we passed between them as they cast sprigs of laurel at us and sang out their prayers.
We left Alundil by way of a great road leading through the valley to the south of the city. Here, along the banks of the blue Ostrand, were many fields planted with barley, rye, potatoes and other hardy crops. 1 rode on top of Altaru, leading the line of my friends on their mounts. And the Ymanir led us. With Ymiru at their head, our guard marched along with huge strides, matching the pace of our horses. For a moment, I wished that these thirty giants might accompany us all the way to Argattha where they might simply batter down its gates with their huge clubs.
Some miles outside of the city, where the farms gave way to forests and wilder country, we turned onto a side road leading east toward what seemed a break in the mountains. As Altaru carried me forward, I searched the undulations of the sharp white peaks very carefully, measuring angles and distances with my eye, trying to see with my mind's eye how the terrain into which we were journeying would unfold.
And then it came time for me to look no more. Ymiru halted our company and asked us to dismount. He brought out the same blindfolds that had covered our eyes on our passage into Alundil. Now we must wear them again, so that if by ill fete we were captured, we might tell of Alundil's existence but not the way into it.
Thus we walked blind as bats for the rest of the day. As on our approach to Alundil we each had one of the Ymanir to guide us. I had worried that the presence and the smoky smell of so many men who stood almost as high as great white bears might spook the horses. But men are men, not beasts, and the horses knew this well enough. They accepted the Ymanir as they might any people. But the Ymanir did not easily accept them. They were unused to horses, and the idea of riding an animal disturbed them deeply. As Ymiru put it, ‘The hrorse was made with four legs to flee from lions and wolves, not to bear a man's weight when his two legs have grown too tired.' It was, I thought, a strange and compassionate way to look at the world.
I worried that the horses would have a hard time crossing the mountains ahead of us.
There might be places there, on steep slopes of scree or sheer rock, where two legs
- and two hands - would be much better than four. But if Ymiru shared my concern, he showed no sign of it. Neither did he discuss the route that he intended to take out of Elivagar and into Sakai. I wondered if he might be reluctant to tell of this in front his countrymen, who didn't really need to know it. I wondered, too, if he simply wished to spare us the imagining of its terrors.
It was disquieting and uncomfortable walking along with a piece of cloth wrapped around my eyes. It would be terrible, I thought, to be truly blind. And yet, with the negation of this most vital of the senses, I became more aware of my others. The road led up a winding way through a forest into the mountains. I felt this steep gradient through the angle of my feet as I felt the air growing colder and colder with every yard higher we climbed. The wind on my face carried scents of spruce, feather fir and new- flowers that I had never smelled before. I listened to the sweet cheer-lee churr of what sounded like a bluebird and to the bellows and whistles of the elk from deeper in the woods. And then my senses drove deeper, and I dwelled on the pull of Ymiru's hand against mine and the rushing of the breath from his lips. My heart told me that he was hiding something in his great, booming heart, keeping from us some dark secret that he didn't want us to know.
We made camp that night by a little river, where it pooled just beneath a waterfall. It seemed a lovely place, with the smell of spray off the rocks and some nearby yarrow perfuming the air. All of us, I knew, longed to take off our blindfolds and look upon it. But this Ymiru would not permit. Neither would he let us gather wood for a fire or cook our meal. He assigned his countrymen these chores and others. He left only the care of the horses to us. Even a blind man, I thoughts as I patted Altaru's neck, could comb down a horse or hold a bag of oats to his eager lips.
The next day we set out early and spent most of the morn-ing climbing over a snow-steeped pass. There were turnings and twistings to our route - and risings and fallings, too. But mostly risings: we climbed beneath a bright sun into cold air that grew thinner and thinner as the mountain beneath us thrust itself up into the sky. We plowed through snowdrifts up to our thighs; in places, we slipped upon ice-glazed rocks. But Ymiru's guidance, and that of the Ymanir who had my other companions'
hands, proved steady and true. That night we found shelter in yet another of the stone huts that the Ymanir had built through the high country of their land On our third day out from Alundil, we wound our way down into a; deep valley before climbing I fagged ridgeline that led to yet another pass. We crested this cleft between two mountains late in the afternoon. After making our way down through the snow past a field of scree. Ymiru found a shelf on the mountain's east slope where he called for a halt and a rest. He also called for our blindfolds to be removed.
As on our approach to Alundil, the sudden touch of the sun dazzled our eyes. It was quite a few moments before our sight returned to us. When I again managed to make out the world's forms, I saw that that a high valley lay below us. All around us were the sculpted white peaks of mountains as far as the eye could see.
We said goodbye to our escort, there on that cold mountain. Maram. who had come to appreciate the comfort of these thirty giants, did not want to see them leave. Two of them especially, Lodur and a young man named Asklin, he had befriended on our journey through Elivagar. After clasping hands with them and watching them march off with the others, he sighed and said, 'I don't understand why they can't accompany us to Argattha. They would be a great strength.'
Ymiru stood with his furry feet splayed out upon the snow. He nodded at the line of his retreating countrymen and said, 'Their numbers might prove a weakness rather than a strength. Above all else, on our way through Sakai, we must avoid being detected. If we are, it won't matter if we are thirty times thirty.'
'Besides,' Atara reminded him, 'the prophecy spoke of the seven brothers and sisters of the earth - not their thirty brothers as well.'
With the hour fallen so late, we hastened our descent down the mountain. Even so, we were forced to make camp fairly high up, barely within the shelter of the trees that blanketed the mountain's lower slopes. But at least there was no snow beneath the swaying spruces, and we found some level ground where we laid out our sleeping furs. When the wind rose later that night and it grew cold, we had a good crackling fire to warm us - as well as the thick coats that Hrothmar's daughters had made
for us.
'Ah. this isn't so bad,' Maram whispered to me, drawing his white coat around himself. He fingered its collar and added, 'It's as though the best part of the world is keeping me warm. Such softness - I wonder if the Ymanir women are so soft. Now that is something I would like to live to discover.'
He must have thought that Ymiru, lying on the bare ground between Kane and Liljana with only his own fur to cover him. was asleep. But it seemed that he was only deep in thought. And hearing, as Maram discovered to his embarrassment, was very keen.
He turned about, facing the fire - and Maram. And then he laughed and said, 'And just what would you do with one of our women, little man?'
'Little?' Maram said. 'Ah, I confess that there aren't any yet who have found me so.'
'No? Are you considering the size of your mouth? Or perhaps you speak of your head, which seems swollen with unattainable dreams?'
'Ah, well, my head,' Maram muttered. He shot me a quick, knowing look as if giving thanks that Lord Harsha hadn't cut it off. 'Let's just say I'm speaking of the size of my, ah, soul.'
'Your soul is it?' Ymiru said.'Now that be a great and glorious thing, I'm sure. Even a little man can have a great soul.'
'Just so, just so.'
'It must be your plan, then, to find a willing woman and fill her with this magnificent, questing soul of yours?'
'Ah, you do understand.'
'I do indeed,' Ymiru said, letting loose a laugh that shook the side of the mountain.
'Now that would be something I would like to live to see.'
We all laughed with Ymiru and Maram, and felt the better for it. Since Alphanderry's death, we'd had little enough opportunity for laughter and even less inclination. In truth, making jokes again around a campfire made us miss his mirthful ways terribly and seemed almost to mock his memory. But it would have been worse, I thought, if we had kept to our mournful mood forever. Alphanderry, of all people, would not have wanted it so. He would have wished upon us music and song, dancing and friendship and laughter. I knew that the only way we could ever really honor his death was to live our lives more deeply and take his spirit into us.
The coming of Ymiru into our company made this easier in some ways and more difficult in others. He had a wit to match Alphanderry's and a song in his heart - but the melodies that sounded there were less often light and sweet than complex, dark and deep. His quiet glooms and occasional enthusiasms reminded us that he could never simply replace Alphanderry as the seventh of our company. He was his own person, as brooding and mysterious as Alphanderry was cheerful and open.
Although we already appreciated his thoughtfulness and courage, no less his steadiness and strength, he would have to find his way toward us, and we toward him.
At least, I thought, we would have many miles in our coming together toward out common cause. From Alundil to Argattha, Burri had told us, was a distance of a good two hundred and fifty miles. Perhaps thirty of these me had already covered..
How long would the remaining miles take us to cross? A month? Already, it was near the end of Soal, and loj was nearly upon us. If Valte, with its snows, found us still in the mountains. it might be very bad for us indeed.
After breakfast the following morning we crossed a high valley peopled with only a few dozen Ymanir families. One of these served us a big lunch of vegetable and barley soup, cream cheese sandwiches and applesauce. They shared a little kalvaas with us too, before wishing us well on our journey.
That afternoon we crossed over a rather low ridgelinc into a wild country broken with many tors. We snaked our way around these rocky prominences, working our way through mostly barren furrows toward the east. The air grew cold as we gradually gained elevation. The horses, driving their newly shod hooves against the icy rocks and patches of snow, moved steadily forward, bearing the six of us on their backs as Ymiru walked a few paces ahead of them. Of all of horses, I thought, only Altaru knew how much I worried over the finding of grass for them in the even more forbidding land into which we were headed.
We made camp well before sunset by a stream that flowed out from between two good-sized hills. The faces of these rocky heaps were jacketed with slabs of sandstone, growing out of the earth at a sleep angle like huge flatirons. After the work of gathering water, making a fire and preparing dinner had been done - and after we had eaten the thick cheese and potato soup that liljana made - Ymiru sat by the fire playing with some chips of sandstone that he had found. Then, from a pouch on the great black belt that he wore, he took out the gelstei Hrothmar had given him.
He held the flat purple crystal over the sandstone chips in various positions, turning it this way and that. His ice-blue eyes were afire with the intensity of his concentration.
'Ah, may I ask what you're doing?' Maram said as he held a mug of kalvaas in his hand and sat nearby looking on.
When Ymiru didn't answer him, Atara came close and said, 'That should be obvious.'
'Well, it's not obvious to me.'
now Liljana moved closer, and so did Kane. And Atara said, 'You might say he's trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.' Ymirus faint, curving smile suggested that he had heard Atara's words as from far away.
' Trying?' Maram said. 'But he's a Frost Giant! Don't they all know how to use these stones?'
He then began a long speech - made much longer by the quantity of kalavas that he drank - about the wonders of Alundil. After he were on and on extolling the great crystalline sculptures of the Garden of the Gods, which could only have been formed through the power of the purple gelstei, Ymiru had finally had enough. He held up his great hand for silence. Then he said to Maram, 'The Garden of the Gods was made long ago, with knowledge that has been lost to us. And with much greater galastei than this one.'
As he looked at the gleaming stone in his hand, Master Juwain came over and said,
'It's told that the purple crystals sing with the deeper vibrations of the earth. And thus, in many ways, they are the hardest to use.'
'And who tells this?' Ymiru asked him.
'My Brotherhood's alchemists.'
'Have they worked with many of the lilastei, then?'
Master Juwain shook his head. 'Not for three thousand years. The purple stones have been lost to us, too. The alchemists' knowledge comes from books.'
'So does mine,' Ymiru said, fingering his crystal. 'And from the teachings of the elders. Many of my people are instructed in the ways of the lilastei should the Ymanir ever find the secret of making more of them.'
And with that, he bent over to direct his attention to the task at hand, trying to unlock the secrets of his violet-colored crystal.
After a while, Liljana and Atara went to work on cleaning the pots and dishes while Ma ram slipped off into a drunken doze. I stood up to cover the horses with the white blankets that the Ymanir women had woven for them, Kane stood because he hated sitting; he walked about the perimeter of our camp, staring off into the darkness to look for enemies that he was unlikely to find within the safety of the Ymanir's land.
And then, just as I was feeding Altaru a chunk of carrot that I had saved from my soup, I heard Master Juwain cry out with delight: 'Do you see? He's done it after all!
Val, Kane, Liljana - come here and look!'
As Mararn awoke with a loud, breaking snore, we all gathered around Ymiru. I looked down at the ground beneath his purple gelstei. Where only a few moments before a pile of sandstone chips had been, now three long, dear, quartz crystals grew out of a fused mass of stone.
'What is it?' Maram asked. He struggled to sit up as he peered at Ymiru's work through his bleary eyes. 'What is this - sleight of hand?'
He looked at Ymiru suspiciously, as he might a street magician who has been given a bauble to play with. I did not think that he would ever be willing to lend Ymiru a gold coin for fear that Ymiru would return to him only a lump of lead.
'There's your silk purse,' Atara said, pointed at the newly-formed quartz crystals.
'It's good work - they're lovely, Ymiru.'
'So small,' he said, holding the crystals up to the light of the fire. 'And stived with flaws. But it be a beginning.'
Master Juwain had his own crystal in his hand as he looked at Ymiru approvingly.
He couldn't have helped noticing, I thought, that just as Ymiru's knowledge and will had brought out the power of the purple stone, the stone had also brought out his power and exalted him.
'It is a beginning,' Master Juwain said, to Ymiru and to all of us. 'Or, I should say, a completion. Now, for perhaps the first time since the Age of Law, seven of the greater gelstei have been brought together.'
He explained that the seven greater gelstei were each emanations of the gold gelstei and held something of its virtue. Used together, they were much more powerful than all of the stones used separately. They were like the fingers of a hand gripping the cup of fate that is also called the Lightstone.
'And as with the gelstei, so with us,' he said, looking at Ymiru. 'For we are only emanations of the One. Each of us - all have some seeds of the great gifts. It's the gelstei's purpose to quicken these gifts.'
Maram let loose a loud belch and said, 'You seem happy, sir.'
'I am happy, Brother Maram. Do you see? It's as I've always said -there is only one pattern to everything, a single tapestry. And we are its threads.'
Maram, still trying to wake up, rubbed his eyes and said, 'Ah, I don't quite understand.'
'One pattern,' Master Juwain said to him again. 'And the Lightstone holds the secret of its making. Its making. And I've sought just the opposite. All my life, looking for the knowledge to cut through and understand, the way to unravel the tapestry - all my life. And now, when perhaps there is not much left of it, I see that I was mis guided.'
He turned to look at Liljana and Atara, and then at Kane and me. He said, 'We've been seeking to quicken our gifts and use the gelstei in order to find the Lightstone.
The Lightstone Page 87