'No, Valashu is not the Shining One,' he said. 'But I believe their fates are interwoven, as threads in a tapestry. Surely it is upon the Prince of Elahad to lead the way to him. Do you agree. Master Matai?'
The Master Diviner, standing across from me, smiled at Abrasax. And then, in turn, as Abrasax queried the other masters, each of them gave his assent. Even Master Storr reluctantly nodded his head.
'I suppose we must trust Valashu and his friends,' he affirmed.
In the end, I thought, either one has faith in another or not.
'Yes, we must trust them with all our power to trust,' Abrasax said. 'And give them all our help. All the signs point one way.'
'Ah, but
which
way?' Maram asked as he fingered his beard. 'That is the question of the moment, is it not?'
Abrasax smiled at this, then called out, 'Master Matai - will you show us the parchment?'
The Seven moved back over to the empty table, and my friends and I gathered around them. Master Matai produced a large, yellowed parchment, which he unrolled and laid upon the table for all of us to examine. On its glossy surface were inscribed a great circle and various symbols marking the position of the planets and stars at the hour of my birth. It was, I saw, a copy of my horoscope, which Master Sebastian of the school in Mesh had prepared scarcely a year before.
Master Matai ran his finger over a hornlike glyph representing the sign of the Ram, and he said, 'As Master Sebastian and Master Juwain elucidated in Mesh, Valashu's horoscope is nearly identical with that of Godavanni. Valashu's stars, as they determined, are those of a Maitreya.'
'Then you should not blame him,' Maram half-shouted, 'for having believed that he might
be
the Maitreya!'
Master Matai shot him a sharp look and shook his head to silence him. And then he went on: 'As we say, the stars impel; they do not compel. There are always other signs. And there are other stars.'
'I'm afraid I still don't understand,' Master Juwain said, resting his elbows on the table to examine the horoscope, 'where Master Sebastian went wrong.'
'That is because he didn't,' Master Matai said. 'On all of Ea, there is hardly a better diviner, especially when it comes to astrology. No, Master Sebastian made no error, at least of
commission.
But it must be said that an
omission
has been made, and a critical one at that.'
So saying, he brought forth a second parchment and unrolled it on top of mine.
'Always, at the end of ages, the Maitreyas are born,' he told us. 'And at the end of
this
age, the last age that will give birth to the Age of Light, or so we hope, the stars are so strong. I have studied this for years, and for years I believed the Maitreya's star would rise over the Morning Mountains. But I have found a brighter one that rose in another land. Twenty-two years ago, now, at the same time that the Golden Band flared as it never had before and has done only once since.'
I glanced at the date that Master Matai had inked onto the parchment: the ninth of Triolet in the year 2792 - the same day as my birth.
Master Juwain studied the symbols inscribed in the great circle, and he asked, 'And for which land has this horoscope been prepared?'
'Hesperu. In the Haraland, in the north, somewhere below the mountains, to the east of Ghurlan but west of the Rhul River.'
'Hesperu!' I wanted to cry out. I could think of few lands of Ea so far away, and none so difficult to reach.
'But we
can't
journey there!' Maram bellowed. 'It's impossible!'
'So, it would be difficult, not impossible,' Kane said, his eyes gleaming.
He went on to tell us that we could complete our transit of the White Mountains and cross the vast forest of Acadu. And then choose between two routes: the southern one through the Dragon Kingdoms, or the northern route across the Red Desert
'Oh, excellent!' Maram said. 'Then we'll have our choice between being put up on crosses or dying of thirst in the desert.'
I turned to look at Maram. I didn't want him to frighten the children - and himself.
'But think, Val!' he said to me. 'Even if the Maitreya
was
born in Hesperu, he might long since have gone elsewhere. Or been taken as a slave or even killed. It's madness, I say, to set out to the end of the earth solely according to another astrological reckoning.'
I waited for the blood to leave his flushed face, and then I asked him, 'But what else can we do?'
'Ah, I don't really know,' he muttered. 'Why must we
do
anything? And if we
do
do something, wouldn't it be enough to work in concert with the Brotherhood? Surely the Grandmaster has alerted the schools in Hesperu to look for the Maitreya. Let
them
find him, I say.'
Master Juwain looked over his shoulder at Maram and asked him, 'Have you forgotten Kasandra's prophecy?'
'You mean, that Val would find the Maitreya in the darkest of places?'
Hesperu, I thought, under the terror of King Arsu and the Kallimun, no less Morjin, seemed just about the darkest place on Ea.
'There is more that you should know,' Master Matai said as he pressed his finger against one of the symbols linked onto the parchment. 'The Maitreya's star, I believe, will burn brightly but not long.'
I looked at Maram as he looked at me. Sometimes decisions are made not in the affirmation of one's lips but in the silence of the eyes.
'But we'll die reaching Hesperu!' he moaned. 'Oh, too bad, too bad!'
And with that he hammered his fist on the table behind him hard enough to rattle the teacups and to shake from them a few dark, amber drops. 'Why can't I have at least one glass of brandy before I'm reduced to worm's meat? Are there no spirits in this accursed place?'
'There are those that you carry inide your hearts,' Abrasax told him with a smile.
Maram waved his thick hand at Abrasax's attempt to encourage him, and he turned toward me. 'Can't you see it, Val? It's madness, this new quest of ours, damnable and utter madness!'
'Then you must be mad, too,' I told him, 'to be coming with us.'
'Am
I coming with you? Am I?'
'Aren't
you?'
'Ah, of course I am, damn it! And that's the hell of it, isn't it? How could I ever desert you?'
We returned to our original tables then. Abrasax began a long account of how one of the ancient Maitreyas, on another world during the age-old War of the Stone, had sung to a star called Ayasha to keep it from dying in a blaze of light. We drank many cups of tea. Finally, it grew late. Through one of the windows, I saw the stars of the Dragon descending toward the west. And yet Kane still sat spellbound as he listened to Abrasax's flowing voice, and so did Daj and Estrella. But whereas Kane could remain awake for nights on end, and perhaps longer, the children began yawning with their need for sleep.
'I think that is enough for one night,' Abrasax said. He closed the crystal-paged book from which he had been reading. I sheathed my sword, and my companions hid away their gelstei. 'Tomorrow you must begin preparing for a long journey, and we must help you.'
He turned to look at Atara, Daj and Estrella, and all the rest of us, one by one. At last he rested his gaze on me. 'I believe with all my heart that you will find the Maitreya, as has been prophesied. And I also believe that what will befall then will be ruled by
your
heart. Remember, Valashu, creation is everything. It is what we were born for.'
He stood up slowly, and stepped over to the pedestal holding up the cup of silver gelstei. After lifting it with great care, he brought it back to our table and set it down. And then he enjoined us: 'Escort the Shining One back to us, here, and we shall help him, too. We shall place this in his hands, if not the true gold. And then we shall see who is truly master of the Lightstone.'
After that we went back to our hostels to rest. For hours I lay awake with my hand on the hilt of Alkaladur, by the side of my bed. A bright flame still blazed inside me. I wanted to pass it on like a strengthening elixir to Atara, sleeping in the little house next to mine, and to Estrella, Liljana, and everyone. I couldn't help hoping that we might bring something beautiful into creation, even though I knew that before us lay an endless road of blood, destruction and death.
We spent the next days resting and preparing tor what Maram kept calling our 'mad quest', in the warmth of the brightening spring, we feasted on good, solid food to build up our bodies against the trials that would soon come. We tried to strengthen our minds and spirits as well. Master Juwain passed many hours in the school's library studying maps and reading accounts of the lands that we must pass. Liljana held counsel with Abrasax in an unprecedented effort to combine the resources of the Sisterhood and Brotherhood. Master Nolashar taught Estrella and me secret songs to play on our flutes and drive evil humors away. We all sat in the stone conservatory with Master Virang, who guided us through meditations so as to enliven our auras. This unseen radiance, like an armor woven of light, might protect us against the malice and lies of the Red Dragon - against even cold and hunger and the depredations of our own despair.
Alter nearly a week of this practice, the other masters joined us in these meditations, and the Grandmaster, too. The Seven brought forth their crystals and used them to quicken our chakras' fires. As Abrasax told us. this would help open us to the angel fire and greater life.
'That is the power and purpose of the Great Gelstei,' he told us one fine morning with the larks singing in the nearby cherry orchard. 'At least, the purpose of
these
small stones that we are Privileged to keep. We use them with you as we believe the Star People do: in the creation of angels.'
'Ah. yes,' Maram said as he patted his overstuffed belly and let loose a rude belch, 'I
am
rather like an angel aren't I? Five-Horned Maram will become Maram of the Golden Wings. Soon, soon, I know, lesser men will have to bow to me and address me as "Lord Elijin".'
Abrasax shook his head in reproach for his sarcasm, and told him, 'You need not worry about taking on that burden just now. The Way is very long - long even for the Star People, and we have rediscovered only part of it.'
He looked at Kane as if in hope that he might say more about this ancient path that human beings walked toward the heavens. But Kane just stared at the conservatory's stone walls in silence.
'I must say,' Maram grumbled out, as he pressed his hand against his belly, solar plexus, heart and throat, 'that I feel little different than I did before we began this work.'
'That is because,' Master Storr chided him, 'your fires are blocked and trapped within your second chakra.'
At this, Maram shot Master Storr a belligerent look, and wantonly waggled his hips. Master Storr stared back at him in disdain.
Abrasax, however, was kinder. He smiled at Maram and said, 'Give it time.'
'Ah, time,' Maram muttered. 'How much of it do I have left before the candle burns out?'
He sighed as he stood up and gazed out the conservatory's window at the setting sun. Then he turned to Abrasax and said, 'You seem to have had all the time in the world. Grandfather, and yet that hasn't kept old age from snowing white hair on you, if you'll forgive me for speaking so bluntly.'
Abrasax smiled at this. 'I will forgive you, Sar Maram, but things are not always as they seem. Just how old do you think I am?'
Maram gazed at Abrasax, and I could almost hear him mentally subtracting ten years from his assessment in an effort to repay Abrasax's kindness: 'Ah, seventy, I should guess/
Abrasax's smile widened. He said, 'I was born in the year that the Red Dragon destroyed the Golden Brotherhood and captured the False Gelstei. That was -'
'2647!' Maram cried out. 'But that is impossible! That would make you a hundred and forty-seven years old!'
'Please, Sar Maram - a hundred and forty-six. Abrasax said with a grin. 'I won't have my next birthday until Segadar.'
'But that is impossible!' Maram said again. He looked from Abrasax to Kane. 'Only the Elijin are immortal and -'
'We of the Seven,' Abrasax said, interrupting him, 'have
not
gained immortality - only longevity. And other things.'
'Ah,
what
things?' Maram asked with great interest.
In answer, Abrasax stepped over to him, and he laid his long, wrinkled hands on Maram's sides along his chest And then he lifted him as he might a child, straight up into the air. Maram although obviously no angel, did for a moment appear to be flying. He whooped as he beat his arms like wings. I blinked my eyes in disbelief, for with all the eating he had been doing during the past week, he must have weighed twenty stone.
Abrasax set him down, and Maram stared at him as if he too couldn't believe what had just happened. He said to him, 'You look like an old bird, but you're as strong as a bear!'
'Thank you, I think,' Abrasax told him.
Maram clasped Abrasax's hand as if to test its strength. Abrasax squeezed back, and Maram winced and coughed out, 'Did I say a bear? A bull, you are, a veritable old bull. And all
this
from the work you do with your little crystals? What other, ah,
powers
have you gained?'
Abrasax smiled at this and said, 'What powers would
you
most like to gain?'
'Do you need to ask? A bull has only two horns, but I have five! A veritable dragon, I am, and oh how I burn! And so I would strengthen those fires that burn the most pleasurably.'
'There is more to life, Sar Maram, than pleasure. And there is more to pleasure than this little tickle in the loins that you pursue so ardently.'
'Yes, there is beer and brandy,' Maram said. 'And that which bestirs me down there is no little thing - it is more like dragon fire!'
Abrasax said nothing to this as he studied Maram with his keen eyes.
'Pure dragon fire, I tell you! And I can direct it as I will, no matter what Master Storr says about me being blocked!'