Across the blazing, grassy sea,
Where steel and gelstei cruelly flashed
In deeds of dreadful savagery.
The sky burned black, the sea ran red -
At last the warrior seized his foe
Who stood as dead among the dead
By might of empathy laid low.
For Kalkin, with black stone in hand,
Now touched upon the depthless dark;
He brought him to that lightless land
And dimmed the Dragon's sacred spark.
And Marsul seized the golden bowl
While Manwe worked the Dragons doom:
With aid of angels sent from Skol
He bound the Dragon on Damoom.
Alkaladur! Alkaladur!
Triumphant Sword, the Righteous Blade,
Which men have named the Vanquisher
Of woe and evil men have made.
Then Marsul, mad with long-held lust,
Beheld the golden bowl that shone.
He broke the Amshahs' sacred trust,
And claimed the Lightstone for his own.
But Kalkin fought him sword to sword
Across Tharharra's blood-soaked field,
Contending for the ancient hoard,
He forced his furied friend to yield.
Bereft of that which maddened him,
Brave Marsul's ageless eyes grew clear,
He found that place of grace and glim,
And faced his fate without a fear.
And now this Galadin so bright,
Atoning for his killing pride,
Vanished in a cloud of light -
Thus Marsul, mighty Marsul, died.
Alkaladur! Alkaladur!
The Blade of Grace, Mysterious Sword,
Which men have named the Deepener -
To ruthless ruth will be restored.
The Amshahs then grew cold with dread
At setting of the bloody sun;
On ground where so much life was shed
They saw an even Darker One.
But he who'd touched the Sword of Light
Perceived the Lightsword had touched him.
While angels watched, his heart blazed bright,
His eyes, his hands and every limb.
The warrior gave to Valakand
To guard the ancient golden bowl;
He set the vessel in his hand,
Thus cooled the fire of his soul.
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.
As the ghost finished chanting, other beings appeared in the staging area. All were men, or something more, and all wore armor of various kinds: plate or steel mail or rings of silvery silustria — and not a few, diamond armor like my own. Many gripped swords or maces dripping with blood. They gathered among the bodies of the dead, who lay fallen all across the amphitheater's ground. One man, whose bright eyes shone like the diamonds he wore, stood tall and straight as another placed the Lightstone in his hand. This other man smiled a savage smile at me. I gasped to see Kane, or some apparition of him, gazing out at us through the darkness of the ages: He had the same cropped white hair, bold face and blazing, black eyes that I knew so well.
And then, as quickly as these new ghosts had come into the amphitheater, they were gone.
'Ah, that was worse than any dream,' Maram said. 'I hope never to see another battlefield, even one from the Elder Ages. If that is indeed what we saw.'
He looked at me to make sense of the ghost's verses and the haunting tableaux that had appeared before us. But where before I'd had a hundred questions about the past and future, now a thousand tormented me.
Master Juwain, sitting beside me, rubbed the back of his smooth head as he looked up at the sky. There were clouds in the east, and the stars of the Mother were falling toward the amphitheater's western rim. 'It's growing late, Val,' he told me. 'We've learned much, but I'm afraid you still don't know what you must, do you?'
'No, not yet,' I told him. I turned to look at Sajagax and Lansar Raasharu, who were watching me.
'If our need to journey on wasn't so great,' Master Juwain said, 'we could return here tomorrow night, and for the next year of nights, until we had our answers.'
Hearing this, the ghost again said, 'Aulara, Auliama,'
I gazed at his wavering form, and I murmured, 'It is late. The others will be worrying about us.'
I turned to Sar Varald and said to him, 'Will you go back out and inform Sar Baltasar of what we've found here? And that we will be delayed yet a short while longer?'
Sar Varald bowed his head to me. Then he stood and began walking toward the crack in wall by which we had entered the amphitheater.
