'All right,' Oni said at last as she gazed at my sword. I saw for the first time how lovely her eyes really were. The ice inside her seemed utterly to have melted. 'In the morning, I will take them to the Water. But now, we should eat the flesh of the angels - and dance and sing!'
She smiled, and years fell away from her. Then bowls full of golden, ripe timanas were brought forth so that we might eat the sacred fruit and deepen our visions of the Timpum, and all living things. Daj and Estrella, to their disappointment, were not allowed to touch the timanas, for the Loikalii counted them as children even though they stood as high as many of the Loikalii women and men. Sunji, Maidro, Arthayn and Nuradayn, however, each picked up a fat, gleaming timana. Maira warned them that the very taste of it sometimes killed. Sunji, speaking for all the Avari, said that they would risk it. As he put it: 'We have borne heat, wind, sand and sun to come this far. It is said that if a man dies in the desert seeking visions, he doesn't really die when he dies. And so we will gladly eat these fruits that you have given us.'
And so he did, along with the other Avari. That night, none of them died, nor did anyone else in the grove partaking in this part of the feast. The Avari finally beheld what we had looked upon for several days but could never take for granted: the millions of Timpum in their glory, gleaming as brightly as the stars and whirling ecstatically in and out of the astor trees. Old Maidro, upon standing up to dance with us and the hundreds of Loikalii forming up into circles, laughed like a young man and called out: 'I'm still alive, but I'm finally
ready
to die!'
Later that night, after it came time for rest, we returned to our olinda trees. Maram, though, did not come with us. He claimed that Anneli had yet to heal him wholly, and so he would sleep inside her house so that she might bestow upon him her gifts.
Just before going off with her, he took me aside and draped his arm across my shoulders. His breath, heavy with the vapors of elderberry wine, blasted into my face as he said, 'Ah, Val, there is healing and then there is
healing,
do you understand? Maidro might be ready to die, but I'm not. No, no - it's time I truly
lived
again.'
And with that, this irrepressible man who had come so close to breathing his last breath, walked off into the woods happily singing his favorite song.
In the morning, we all gathered in the grove, where Maira and Oni met us - along with all the other Loikalii. They thought nothing, it seemed, of giving up their work in favor of witnessing whatever event was about to occur. Oni led us through the trees in a winding way that followed no path. In the strong light raining down through the emerald leaves, the Timpum seemed to shine even more brightly than they had the previous night. So did the flowers and the birds and every other living thing in these mysterious woods.
At last we came into a clearing. A pool of water, fifty feet wide, gleamed in its center. The Loikalii sat around it on low banks of grass. Oni stood beside the pool's rippling waters with Maira and me - and with Kane. Although no one had invited him in so close, no one seemed to find the courage to warn him away. The Loikalii allowed no large predators into their woods, but Kane was like a tiger, pacing back and forth with a barely contained fire tormenting his great body as his fathomless eyes fixed on the pool.
Oni cupped her pale blue bowl in her hands, and shut her eyes. Almost immediately, the breeze died. A stillness fell upon the air over the pool. The only sounds were the songs of the birds deeper in the trees and Kane's restless footfalls.
'Be quiet!' Oni finally hissed at Kane. She opened her eyes and glared at him. 'Or else leave this place!'
Kane stared right back at her with a fiery gaze that might have wilted a tree. But he finally did as she had commanded, freezing into motionlessness like a great cat ready to spring. His bright, black eyes took in the glimmer of the pool.
As my heart drummed inside me, the waters of the pool grew stiller and clearer. I noticed that it sat within a bed of crystal that might have been diamond. No fly pad nor lake skimmer nor even a twig or a speck of dust floated upon this water. It came to me that I had never seen water so pure and deep.
'The waters of all worlds flow into each other,' Oni's voice intoned - a million miles away, it seemed. 'The waters of all things are one; in the end, there is only one Water.'
Now the pool's waters stilled with an utter clarity. In its depths - it was like looking through air - I beheld mountains and water-falls and a great, shimmering city. Crystalline towers half a mile high stood on rocky prominences above a broad valley. It must have been autumn there, for the valley's contours showed the yellows of aspens and maples' blazing reds - as well groves of astor trees whose golden foliage blanketed the earth. Throughout the valley and above it, upon rocky hills, stood many graceful buildings and houses agleam with the colors of living stone: azure and cinnabar, magenta, saffron and aquamarine. I knew that all these-structures had been built by the hand of man, but so perfect were they in design and in harmony with the landforms of the valley that it seemed here art and nature were as one. I couldn't help recalling the wondrous city that Ymanir had built high in the White Mountains: Alundil, the City of the Stars.
The valley's beauty called to something ancient within me. Without quite knowing what I was doing, I reached out my hand toward it. This simple motion unsettled my balance. Even as Kane's hand struck out to try to catch me, I found myself teetering at the edge of the pool, and then stumbling forward. I hit the water with a great splash. Its coldness stabbed into me like a thousand icy needles. The weight of my sword, strapped to my back, helped to pull me under, down and down into a deepening gloom for what seemed forever. I pulled hard with my hands against cold currents and kicked my feet. I swam up and up toward the light streaming through the water
.
Finally, with a gasp of air I broke from the surface of the pool into a burst of brilliant sunshine. I shook back my wet hair. I blinked my eyes because I could not believe what they beheld. Kane and Oni and everyone else who had gathered by the pool - the Loikalii, the Avari, too - were gone. The city that I had descried within the pool now spread out all around me, amethyst towers rising up from the mountainsides to my right and left. Upon the pool's grassy banks stood tall men and women with jet black hair and eyes as bright and black as my deepest dreams.
One of them, a man wearing a blue tunic trimmed in gold and a fillet of silver binding back his long hair, held out his hand to me and pulled me dripping and shivering from the pool. A woman - I had never seen a queen so striking, not even my mother -covered me with a long, thick robe of new lamb's wool. A man who might have been her brother stood smiling at me in welcome; the diamonds encrusting his tunic shone more brilliantly than a knight's armor. All these people, I thought, were like unto the Valari of my home, only more beautiful and even nobler in aspect. It come to
me
then that they
were
Valari, the true and ancient Valari, for I knew somehow that I had stepped out upon another world and looked upon twelve of the Star People.
'Tallina ira vos,'
the queenlike woman said to me.
'Lila satna garad.'
She spoke more words to me, and so did the others. As with veils pulled back to reveal a familiar fact:, their meaning became clearer and clearer. I realized that they were speaking in a language similar to ancient Ardik, which is to the language of the angels as the common tongue is to Ardik.
They gave me their names: Asha, Eva, Varjan, Jessur, Eldru and Shivaj. And Kavalad, Aja, Saya, Jerusha, Varda and Ramadar. They gave me to understand that they had come here to greet me; that seemed almost impossible, but I sensed that they were not lying. Something about the structure of their language made it unnatural to utter anything false or guileful. In the clear consonants and liquid vowels that poured from their beautiful lips, no less the light sparking in their eyes, I sensed only a strong intent toward goodness and truth. They each embodied these qualities, along with a nobility that I had seen in my father and mother, but few others. They were men and women, I thought, as I had always imagined men and women to be.
So awestruck was I that I could hardly speak. But I finally remembered my manners, and bowed my head to Ramadar, the man who had pulled me from the pool. I found my voice
and
stammered out:
'Satnamon Valashu - Valashu Elahad.'
'Valashu,'
he repeated, bowing to me. Then he pointed up at the deep blue sky, where a blue sun shone with a dazzling light.
'Val al'Ashu ni al'Elahad
-
vos art arda valas.'
My heart beat like a soaring swan within me as the meaning of what Ramadar had said became clear and confirmed what I knew to be true: 'Star-of-the-Morning of the line of Elahad you have journeyed deep into the stars.'
Only the dead, I thought, made such journeys. For several hours, I struggled to speak to them in their beautiful language. The sun dried my tunic then began to drop toward the blazing hills in the west. There, the light off the houses ran through a riot of shifting colors: violet and carnelian; ocher, turquoise and red. A few of the Star People - Eva, Saya and Jessur - walked off to their houses and returned with delicious foods, whose like I had never seen nor tasted. It grew darker, and the stars came out, and then I
knew
that I had left Ea, for the constellations here were all strange and lit up the sky with a brilliance beyond that of any sky I had ever beheld, even the Infinite black and silver dome above the tar Harath,
As the Star People's words became ever clearer to me, so did mine to them. I gained a clearer understanding of their purpose and how they had come to be waiting here to greet me. They had their scryers, too, it seemed. One of them had foretold my journey, and had warned that once I beheld the beauty of their city, Iveram, I would never want to leave. This was so. In gazing out at the mountains and waterfalls above the city's twinkling lights, it seemed that I had finally come home.
'You, Valashu, are welcome to remain with us,' Ramadar said to me. Although his long, grave face and bold eyes reminded me of my father, it seemed that he bore no higher rank than any other of his eleven companions. 'But we have been sent here to persuade you that you must go back.'
Was I not dead, then, after all? But go back to what, I thought? To a woman whom I could never marry? To friends whom I led on and on in a quest likely to find only their deaths? To a doomed world?
Although I had spoken around these doubts for many hours with Ramadar and the other Star People, I had not made them explici. It didn't matter. They sensed the volcano of fury and anguish that fumed inside me. They, too, perhaps in greater measure than I, bore the gift of valarda.
'Our lives present us with many choices,' Ramadar told me. 'But in the end, only one path will have been walked. We believe that yours lies back, toward the world you call Ea.'
'Perhaps it does,' I said. I turned to looked at Asha, and then at Eva, whose long black hair showed strands of silver and whose eyes shone with kindness and concern for me. 'Why don't you then come with me? All of you - and any of you who live here?'
I went on to say that many thousands of men and women willing to make this journey couid surely be found in Iveram and other cities of their world, which they named as Givene. Under a brilliant banner emblazoned with Givene's most brilliant stars, we could assemble a great host of warriors who would throw down Morjin and bring peace to Ea.
'No, Valashu, that we may not do,' Eva said to me. Her voice fell over me as cool and gentle as the wind blowing off the mountains. 'You know that we may not go to Ea, and you know why.'
'Because you are too pure to go down into Hell?'
Although I had eaten here the sweetest of fruits, there remained in my mouth a terrible bitterness.
'No, that we are not,' she said with a sad smile. 'Neither are the Elijin nor the Galadin. And it is
because
we are not that we may not go to Ea.'
Shivaj, a man with quick, hot eyes and a proud cast of chin, was more brusque than Eva. He said simply, 'The Galadin forbid it.'
'But what if this forbiddance were lifted?' I said.
'Long ago the forbiddance was lifted,' Shivaj said in a voice like a hammered gong, 'and a great Elijin became the Red Dragon. And Kalkin became the one you call Kane.'
'But one last time,' I said. 'One last battle - Morjin could not stand against a million Valari of Givene armed with spears and swords!'
'You do not know that,' Eva said to me. 'Not even our scryers can foresee what Morjin might do, armed with the Lightstone and the wrath of the Dark One filling his heart.'
'But we could win!' I cried out.
'Yes, we could win,' Ramadar said to me. His black eyes and noble bearing fell upon me with a heavy weight. 'The Valari could stand triumphant on Ea's soil beneath a star-silvered banner, holding high the Cup of Heaven that we had claimed. As we did once before. We remember too well how Elahad's brother fell mad and slew Elahad over the Lightstone. How Valari slew Valari in a bloodbath that has grown only deeper and redder with the passing of the ages. How will it end?
Not
with more Valari going to Ea. You are Valashu ni al'Elahad, the last and only heir of the Elahad. The stain of his murder lies upon all the Valari, on Ea and elsewhere, but it is upon
you
to put things right and end what was begun on Ea so long ago.'
He added that I was also Valashu ni al'Adar, the last of the great Adar's descendents and therefore the rightful guardian of the Lightstone. My task, he said, was to reclaim the Cup of Heaven for the Maitreya. I stared hard into Ramadar's bright eyes and asked, 'While and your people remain safe here on Givene and watch events unfold through the waters of your pool? Are you afraid to fight, then?'