Black Jade

follow the light of the Ieldra, and the Ieidra work the will of the One.'

I shook my head at this even as my hand closed hard and hurtful around the hilt of my sword.

'If you doubt, then look!' Eva said to me as she pointed at the pool. 'Look — and listen!'

For a while, in the quiet of the cool night, as Eva and the others moved in closer around me, I gazed into the pool. It had fallen so dark that only the faintest shimmer of starlight played upon its black waters. Then a radiance began welling up from deep inside it. Words, perfectly pitched like ringing bells, poured forth in a beautiful song. They reminded me of the immortal words thaj Alphanderry had sung out in the pass of the Kul Moroth: La valaha eshama halla, lais arda alhalla raj erathe…' As in the moments before Alphanderry had died, the words blended so harmoniously into the music and the music into the words that it seemed they were one.

I sensed that those around me understood more of this song than I did. I watched as the pool grew brighter and ever clearer. Just below its perfectly still surface I caught sight of another body of water, much larger: a silver lake, very lovely, and beside it on a hilly bank grew a great and glorious astor tree. Framing it, in the distance, were two white-capped mountains. This could only be Irdrasil, the world-tree of legend and dreams, and the mountains Vayu and Telshar — the ageless and true Telshar, after which the sacred peak rising above my father's castle had been named. Just as I had beheld Givene through the waters of the pool in one of Ea's Vilds, I knew that now I looked upon the Galadin's world of Agathad.

'Ashtoreth,' I said, murmuring out the name of one of the greatest of the Galadin. 'Valoreth.'

It was hard to tell, but in the music sounding from deep inside the pool I thought I heard the breath and heartbeat of my own name.

'The blessed tree!' Eva whispered from beside me.

The whole world shimmered with the numinous color of Irdrasil's perfect leaves. In the shadings and tones pulsing out of the great tree, I sensed unfathomed layers of the angels' language and deeper unities: the melodies of all music and all the words ever spoken. The Galadin, I thought, must understand this, just as they surely understood the language of light that fell upon Agathad. Thus did the Ieldra speak to them and bring them the word of the One.

Lais arda alhalla raja Valashu ni al'Elahad ni al'Adar…

I thought it a miracle that I, too, should grasp this eternal language. Who was I to speak to the Ieldra or to stand before their fiery tree as they spoke to me? It came to me that I understood only the tiniest part of what these luminous beings had to tell me, and yet that part contained its entirety and essence; that I must vanquish my fear of death, both in dealing it out to others and in dying myself. And I must return to Ea to fulfill nay fate.

'No!' I cried out from within the deep, dark pools of my heart. I wondered if the Ieldra — or the Galadin — could understand the fleshes of fire lighting up my eyes. 'What can you really know of Ea? To feel your flesh burning up or to scream as a length of steel is driven through your insides? You do not die nailed to crosses! You do not even die!'

I expected no answer to the fury that raged through me. And then, through the Star People's pool I watched with awe as the glorre of the great astor tree faraway blazed with a terrible and beautiful light.

Valashu Elahad.

In the end, I knew, we each opened ourselves to this light, or not.

Valashu.

Or perhaps this eternal light opened itself to us and drew us within. For a moment that seemed to last forever, I stood in a place that could not be: the pristine fields of Culhadosh Commons on another world across the universe. Its green acres were undefined by the terror of Morjin's armies. None of the slain lay in bloody heaps upon the grass, not my father nor my brothers. In truth, it seemed that those closest to me hadn't died at all, for out of the stream of sunlight spilling down upon the pasture coalesced the faces and forms of Karshur, Mandru, Jonathay, Ravar and Yarashan. My brother, Asaru, dressed in a suit of brilliant diamonds, stood with my father at the center of the field. So did my mother and my grandmother, whom I called Nona.

No wounds marred their flesh as they smiled at me, warm smiles that filled the whole of my being. My father told me that I must return to Mesh to become king, while my mother, in the soft light of her eyes, conveyed to me the simplest of truths: that men and women could die but love never could. The force pouring from her heart into mine made me weep. I did not want to leave her. Tney spoke to me for a long time; there was a sense in which I was speaking with myself. But my father reminded me that I was still of the living, and could not remain with the dead. He promised me, however, that he would never leave my side. He told me, too, that help would be sent to me. Then he smiled one last time, and dissolved back into light, along with my mother, grandmother and brothers.

I found myself still standing by the edge of the pool on Givene with the Star People. They asked me what I had experienced, and I told them. Then I said, 'I do not know if I saw things outside and beyond myself, or was only dreaming.'

Eva nodded her head at this, and told me mysteriously, 'Sometimes, there is no difference.'

I noticed that the sun had risen over the mountains in the east and its light painted the houses and towers in the hills around us a softly blazing blue. It came to me that my friends on Ea might have given me up as dead.

And when I stared back into the pool, I no longer saw Vayu and Telshar and the great astor tree of Agathad, but only the smaller pool in the Loikalii's Vild into which I had fallen. Oni and Kane stood above it looking down into its black waters with wonder and dread; so did Maram and my other companions, and all the Loikalii.

'You must go back,' Ramadar said to me. He told me of the understanding that he had gleaned from his own gazing at Irdrasil: 'Help will be sent with you.'

I nodded my head as he clasped my hand; Eva embraced me, and so did the others. Then Ramadar pressed into my hand a perfectly-cut diamond the size of a walnut. He told me. 'This was taken from the crown that Adar once wore. Elahad should have brought the crown with him to Ea, but he would not wear it until Ea was made one with the worlds of the stars and the great Maitreya came forth. The crown has been lost, but we have kept this last stone all these ages. Take it back with you that you might remember what you have seen and who you really are.'

I gripped my hand around the huge diamond. I bowed my head to Ramadar. Then, with a final look at the waterfalls spilling down toward the shimmering city around me, I dived back into the pool

The moment I broke from its cold waters, Kane's hand snapped out and locked onto mine. With a single heave that nearly dislocated my shoulder, he pulled me up onto the pool's banks. Water fell off my sodden hair and clothing onto the grass. Master Juwain and Maram hurried over to me, and so did Liljana, Atara, Daj and Estrella. Even Flick spun in a whirl of sparks as if astonished at my reappearance. Maira and Anneli and the Loikalii gathered in as close as they could. The great trees of the vild towered high above us.

'Val!' Maram shouted at me. He squeezed the back of my neck as if to reassure himself that I had really returned to him. 'We thought you were gone — sucked down into the bowels of the earth!'

I saw that Maram's loin covering was soaking wet, as was Kane's tunic. It seemed they had dived into the pool after me.

Master Juwain stepped forward to look into my eyes. 'You should not be conscious — not even alive! You were under for too long!'

'For most of a day,' I said, shaking the water from my hair.

'Not that long,' Master Juwain said. 'But ten minutes is long enough to kill — I suppose that we should be glad that the lack of air has served only to confuse you.'

I told him, 'But, sir, I am not confused. I stood on the banks of another pool on another world and watched the sun set and then rise again.'

He and all the others listened intently as I described what had happened to me since I fell into the pool. Finally, Oni fixed me with one of her withering gazes and said, 'The Water only gives visions of places faraway. It must be that one of these visions captured you and convinced you that it was real.'

I shook my head at this, wondering if it could be true, then I felt in my hand the great diamond that I still held. Sunlight reflected off its many facets in a brilliance of colors. This convinced almost everyone of the veracity of my story, but Oni only squinted her old eyes and said, 'Perhaps such diamonds grow at the bottom of the Water.'

As she pointed at the pool and stared into it, its waters grew ever calmer and clearer. After a while, they stilled so that its surface fell as smooth as glass. In the silver of this liquid mirror, I caught flashes of great purple