The Diamond Warriors

by David Zindell

  His long, horsey face broke into a great smile as he bowed to me. ‘Thank you, Sire,’ he told me. Then he turned to gaze at his wife.

  Vareva Tomavar stood beside my lords and captains with a proud sureness, as if she had earned her place among them – as indeed she had. Her raven hair spilled down across the diamond armor that still seemed so strange to see encasing the body of a woman. No spear, arrow or sword, during the battle, had touched her flawless, ivory skin. Her large eyes fixed on Lord Tomavar, with great love, as if she had at last forgiven him for abandoning her to Morjin and challenging me for Mesh’s kingship.

  ‘Vareva,’ I said to her, ‘if not for you and the women you led into battle, our enemy surely would have broken our lines beyond repair. Accept this, in honor of your service to Mesh.’

  Then I presented her with a silver ring set with four large, brilliant diamonds: the ring of a Valari lord. She pushed it down onto her finger, in place of the warrior’s ring that she had worn into battle.

  ‘Thank you, Sire!’ she told me. ‘But you have already given me more than I dreamed.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Yes, indeed: Morjin’s death and peace for Mesh.’

  ‘That was no more my doing than yours. You fought as hard as anyone.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said, gazing down at her ring. ‘But I am glad that I shall never have to fight another battle.’

  She went on to say that now she desired nothing so much as to return home and live happily with her husband.

  Lord Tomavar inclined his head in agreement with this. ‘I, too, am done with war. I would like to spend the years left to me siring sons worthy of becoming the Lightstone’s Guardians. And teaching them to keep sharp not only their swords but their souls.’

  He moved up to Vareva, and kissed her full on the lips. It was a shocking thing for a Valari lord to do in sight of his peers, but then Lord Tomavar had always been the most recklessly bold of warriors.

  Then Vareva walked over to Behira, standing with my other captains and wearing her diamond armor molded to her rounded belly and full breasts. Most of my men, I thought, would have a hard time perceiving this plump, pretty woman as a warrior. But during the battle she had slain a Hesperuk lord, and now Vareva brought her to me to be acknowledged, too.

  ‘Without Behira,’ Vareva said to me, ‘I never could have formed our women into a battalion and brought them here. She is as worthy as anyone of being honored.’

  I grasped Behira’s hand and said, ‘Then you shall wear a knight’s ring.’

  Before I could motion to my ring bearer, however, she shook her head and said to me, ‘It is not a knight’s ring I wish for, Sire.’

  She told me that she had only one boon to ask of me: that I would speak to Maram in favor of him marrying her.

  ‘As I recall,’ I said to her, ‘before we left Mesh, you weren’t sure that it was Maram whom you wanted to marry.’

  I noticed Joshu Kadar, standing with my Guardians, looking on with an intense interest. I wondered if he still desired to make a wife of Behira, as Lord Harsha had once felt compelled to promise him.

  ‘In truth,’ I added, smiling at her, ‘you weren’t sure that you wanted to marry anyone. You said that you wanted to serve me, instead.’

  ‘And I did serve you, Sire. And we did win the war. And if war is good for anything at all, it is to clear away all our foolishnesses and remind us of what we really desire. And I desire nothing more than to marry Maram.’

  Lord Harsha came over to his daughter and wrapped his arm around her back as if to protect her. And his single eye fixed on me. ‘You said, Sire, that we should put off the question of Behira’s marriage until greater matters were settled. And now they are.’

  ‘Very well,’ I told Lord Harsha and Behira, ‘then I shall speak to Maram.’

  Lord Harsha might have simply thanked me and left this matter to my discretion, for I was his king, whom most lords would never have presumed to importune. But Lord Harsha was something like a hound that would not let go a bone once he had taken hold of it. And Maram had evaded him – and Behira – once too often.

  ‘When will you speak with him, Sire?’ he asked me. ‘You have many duties, and Maram has buried himself in that tavern down by the river.’

  In truth, I had hardly seen Maram for most of two months. But I knew well enough that he had taken to spending his days – and nights – near the docks at a little stone tavern near the Inn of the Seven Delights.

  With the Lords of Mesh looking on to see how I would respond, I said to Lord Harsha: ‘We are finished here, and I have no duties now. Why don’t we go and pay a visit to Maram?’

  I decided to use this as an opportunity for Estrella to take the Lightstone into one of the city’s poorest districts, as she already had gone among the refugees in the eastern half of the city. And so I asked Estrella to accompany Lord Harsha, Behira and me – and Vareva and Lord Tomavar, as well – and I commanded the Guardians to saddle their horses. Then I led the way down from the Hill of Gold past Eluli Square and the Battle Arch toward the river. We found Maram’s tavern among blocks of old, crumbling buildings that Morjin must have thought too shabby to bother destroying. It would take some time, I thought, before my architects destroyed them themselves and rebuilt new houses here. Most of the Guardians rode or walked with Estrella down the streets as she showed the Lightstone to the poor Trians who came out of their tenements and shelters to marvel at it. But Joshu Kadar and Sar Shivalad went into the tavern ahead of Lord Harsha, Behira and me.

  ‘Val!’ Maram cried out as I pushed my way into a room that was all smoke and noise. ‘Look! – Morjin left the finest part of Tria untouched! But what are you doing here?’

  He sat at a wooden table with Ymiru and two of Sajagax’s captains, Tringax and Braggod. A couple of hard-looking sailors and a merchant from Galda had joined them.

  ‘It is the King!’ a man at one of the other tables cried out. ‘It is King Valamesh!’

  Every head in the room, almost, inclined toward me. But Maram, looking upon Lord Harsha as he advanced on his table, called out, ‘Oh, Lord! Whatever it is you think I’ve done, I haven’t!’ Then he turned to take a long pull from the mug of frothy beer sitting on the table before him.

  We drew up to the table, and Lord Harsha’s hand, by habit, fell upon the hilt of his sword. There was a time when Lord Harsha would have slaughtered Maram in a duel. But that time had passed, for Maram had become one of Ea’s greatest warriors. So, in truth, had the time passed even for fighting duels.

  ‘It is just what you haven’t done that concerns us, Sar Maram,’ Lord Harsha said. He let go his sword and waved his hand at the air to shoo away a cloud of smoke, then set his single, dark eye upon Maram. ‘When do you intend to marry my daughter?’

  ‘Ah, soon,’ Maram said, looking at Behira, ‘very soon.’

  ‘Yes, but how soon?’

  Maram glanced at me and then back at Behira, and he coughed out, ‘Ah, let us say when Val marries Atara.’

  He smiled and took another pull of his beer. And I told him, ‘That date has been set: the seventh of Soldru.’

  ‘It has?’ he cried out. He banged his mug down upon the table with such force that a good deal of the amber liquid sloshed out of it. Then he stood up and embraced me, pounding his hand against my back as he cried out, ‘At last! At last! Congratulations!’

  I smiled as I pulled back from him. ‘Shall we say that I will stand with you at your ceremony, and you shall stand with me at mine?’

  ‘Ah, shall we say that?’ he said, looking at Behira.

  And she told him, ‘You promised you’d marry me after the war – if any of us survived it.’

  ‘And you swore to me,’ I said, looking at him, ‘the same thing.’

  He fell silent as he gazed down at his beer.

  ‘It is time, Maram.’

  ‘Ah, I suppose it is,’ he muttered. Then he turned to Behira again and said, ‘But I didn’t know if you would still ha
ve me.’

  ‘Still have you?’ she asked him. ‘Would a flower have the sun?’

  Maram grew quiet again. He looked from Behira to Lord Harsha and then at me. He nodded at Lord Tomavar and Vareva, standing behind us. Then he turned to Braggod, whose long, yellow mustaches gleamed with beer foam, and he sighed out, ‘A man can’t win all battles, can he?’

  He did not, I thought, refer to Braggod’s and his ongoing contest to see who could hold the most beer, for Maram always prevailed in this. In truth, I had only seen one man who could outdrink Maram, and that was Ymiru.

  ‘Most women,’ Behira said with the heat of anger shading her voice, ‘would wish for their beloved to fight battles to win them!’

  ‘And so I have,’ Maram said. He stood up, and clasped hold of Behira’s hand. ‘I can see that you don’t understand. Ah, I’m not really sure that I do myself. But here it is: all my life, almost, I fought hard to take as much pleasure as I could, wherever I could. So that I could know that I was alive. And I succeeded – too well, really. I lived, such as few men have, but I did not really live. And that is because I have been afraid of the greatest pleasure of all. There came a moment, just after the Dragon had burned away my shield, when I knew that I had to marry you, if by some impossible chance I lived to tell you how much I love you.’

  ‘But why didn’t you just tell me then?’

  ‘Because,’ he said, ‘love burns infinitely hotter than dragon fire. It’s beautiful, yes, but terrible, too. And so I was afraid.’

  Behira bowed down her head to kiss Maram’s fingers, and she told him, ‘You are a prince of Delu who became a Valari knight. And the only man on earth who could have slain that dragon. Don’t tell me that such a warrior can’t win at love!’

  They suddenly pulled closer together to kiss each other – and so with the fire of their lips and hearts, they finally sealed their troth to marry. When Maram leaned back to gaze at her, I had never seen him smile with such happiness.

  ‘Let us drink to marriage, then!’ he shouted. ‘Ours – and Val’s and everyone’s!’

  As the men at the other tables all looked on, Maram called out for mugs of beer to be set before everyone. I made the first toast, and Lord Harsha the second, and Ymiru the third. It did not take very long for everyone’s mug to be emptied.

  ‘Ah, but it’s brandy we need!’ Maram said, licking his newly-grown mustache. He thumped his hand against his chest. ‘Now there’s a fire that lingers here!’

  He went on to lament the shortage of brandy in the city. Then he presented the man sitting next to him: Demarion Arriara, the merchant from Galda. Maram, it seemed, had arranged to buy wine from Demarion’s vineyards and have it shipped to Tria.

  ‘I shall build a distillery,’ he announced, ‘and make the best brandy in the world. Too many times these last years I’ve gone without it – but never again.’

  ‘And I’ll gladly help you drink it!’ Ymiru said to him. ‘But does that mean that you plan to make Tria your hrome?’

  At the look of concern that befell both Behira and Lord Harsha, Maram again thumped his chest and assured them, ‘Don’t worry: there’s more than enough room here for brandy and for love! And as for home, we’ll have those five hundred acres in Mesh that Val has given us – and other places, too. With the Red Dragon defeated, the whole damn world will be our home!’

  Later, that evening, after everyone had returned to the palace grounds, I stood on the new grass alone with Maram looking out at the city’s lights.

  ‘I am glad,’ I said to him, ‘that you and Behira will remain here for at least a part of the year. And the city is short of brandy. But I hadn’t envisioned you suffering through two quests and twenty battles just to wind up a happily married merchant.’

  ‘What have you envisioned, my friend?’

  ‘Your father,’ I said, ‘will not rule Delu forever. Truly, he will not rule at all if I ask him to abdicate. You could help me there, Maram.’

  ‘I would rather help you here.’

  ‘But you could become a king!’

  He looked at me and smiled hugely. ‘I already am – and have been since the day that you called me your friend.’

  My eyes burned into his as I smiled back at him. Then I said, ‘But Delu is weak and needs a firmer hand than your father can provide.’

  ‘That is true – but one of my brothers can certainly do better than I.’ He pulled at his beard, and added, ‘I have no liking to rule anyone, and even less to be ruled.’

  ‘And yet, you would remain with me, who must be everyone’s king.’

  ‘You never ruled me, Val. You never told me what I must do.’

  ‘But what will you do, then, aside from putting brandy in bottles where once you emptied them?’

  Again, Maram smiled, and he waved his hand in a great circle out toward the city and the dark world that lay beyond. ‘What won’t I do! I will write poems that will burn in women’s and men’s hearts for ten thousand years! I will take up the mandolet and play duets with Alphanderry. I will father a dozen sons, and as many daughters – as many children as Behira wishes. I will make journeys: to talk to the Sea People by the great ocean and to walk through Galda’s vineyards. And into the Vilds to eat the sacred timana again and marvel at the Timpum. I would look once more upon Jezi Yaga’s eyes and even the sky of the Tar Harath. Somewhere, the Librarians who fled Khaisham will build the world’s greatest library, and I will spend ten years there reading every book that I can lay my hands upon. I will climb mountains. Perhaps even Alumit, when the Morning Star rises and the whole mountain turns to glorre. And I will go down into Senta’s caves to behold the music crystals buried in the earth and to listen to the angels sing. I will take ship and sail again to the Island of the Swans, and beyond, where the heavens light up like …’

  He spoke on in a similar manner for quite a while. Then he looked deep into my eyes. ‘I have lived as no man has ever lived, and now I will love as no man has ever loved – almost no other.’

  He clasped my hand in his, and we both smiled. Then I told him: ‘Behira will be happy to help you.’

  ‘Yes – even as oil helps fire to burn more brightly,’ he said. And then he added, ‘But the flame must burn straight and true, like a fire arrow, and for that I will ask the help of Master Juwain and Abrasax.’

  ‘And they will be glad to give it, though they might ask difficult things of you.’

  ‘Well, I must make my peace with the Brotherhood. I must finish what I began, when I joined their order.’

  ‘To walk the way of the serpent?’

  ‘To walk to the stars, Val. As Kalkin once did. And as some day I will, too, when it comes time for you to lead the way.’

  He squeezed my hand so hard that I thought my bones might break. Then he laughed and told me, ‘I have written another poem, a bit of doggerel, really, but I thought you might like to hear it.’

  ‘I would like to hear it, Maram,’ I told him.

  ‘All right, then. This is the logical completion to the other verses I wrote when we we looking for the Brotherhood’s school. Listen:

  The highest man rules all below:

  The wheels of light that spin and glow,

  The heart and head, ketheric crown:

  The mighty snake goes up or down.

  It’s love that turns the world each day,

  Sets stars to shine, makes men of clay,

  But in light’s aim, desire of dust,

  All things do blaze with blessed lust.

  And so I praise the thrust of life

  To rise beyond the body’s strife,

  But also women, war, and wine,

  For all that is, is all divine.

  I am a seventh chakra man

  Living out the angels’ plan,

  My pleasure ‘turns where it began;

  I am a seventh chakra man.

  It was not to be, however, that Maram found his way back to the Brotherhood, for the Great White Brotherhood had ceased to exis
t. As Abrasax said to me on a cool, cloudy day in early Soldru: ‘Over the course of too many years, too many of our schools have been destroyed, and we will not rebuild them. That is, we won’t rebuild as before. Our Order had grown old, Valashu. Our ways set, as if in stone. But we have entered a new age – the Age of Light! – and so we will need new ways.’

  Toward that end, he told me, the Brotherhood would join with the Sisterhood, and what once had been sundered into two far back in the Age of the Mother would again become one. Their new order would be called the Preservers of the Ineffable Flame. As in the ancient times, they would build Temples of Life and Gardens of the Earth. And the Lokilani of Ea’s seven Vilds would help them. Together they would take the emerald varistei crystals into all lands, and turn even the deserts green. All the world would be made more fertile and fruitful, and the joining of man and woman would be exalted. People would speak once again with the animals, and sing the grasses and flowers into ever greater life. But in each garden there would grow a great tree toward the sky, reminding women and men that they must reach ever higher, even while keeping themselves rooted in the earth. And on top of each temple, the Brothers and Sisters would build a great spire pointing at the heart of the heavens. As Abrasax also told me: ‘We must never forget that it is our destiny to return home to the stars, where we have always been.’

  Beneath a low sky showing only a few patches of blue between huge white clouds, Maram, Ymiru and I walked with Abrasax across the grounds of the new temple being built in the eastern city on the ruins of the ancient one. Master Matai and Master Juwain and the others who had called themselves the Seven accompanied us. But now Liljana, and several other Sisters of what had been the Maitriche Telu joined us, too, and these wise men and women as yet had taken no special name for themselves.

  We moved slowly among workmen chiseling away at blocks of white granite and sending stone chips and dust out into the air. Others cut stained glass and glisse for the windows, while ten huge Ymaniri worked with their lilastei shaping and growing the huge crystals that would form the substance of the temple. Much of this immense structure had already been set into place, with its six glittering walls made of living stone and its golden domes sweeping up into the sky. I called that a miracle, too. For even in the Great Age of Law, such buildings had taken fifty or a hundred years to complete. But they had not had the Ymaniri to build them.