Diamond Warriors

With winter soon coming on, both were badly needed in a place that had fallen nearly into lawlessness. And even more, the Trians — those who hadn't fled the ruins of their city — required food, shelter, clean water and the other necessities of life. Too many of them shivered beneath crude coverings of animal hides draped over blackened poles as their only protection against Ashvar's icy rains. The cries of babies wailed out day and night from these acres of squalid half-tents as their mothers' milk dried up. Long before spring, I feared, many men, women and children would begin starving to death.

'So it must have been in Surrapam after the Hesperuks devastated it,' Maram said to me late in Ashvar as we stood on the scorched grass of the palace grounds looking out over the city. 'I've always regretted having to flee that poor land and leaving the Surrapamers to such a fate.'

I had, too, and so before King Thaddeu had marched away from the Detheshaloon, I had made him promise to send aid to Surrapam to repair a part of the damage wrought by his father's murderous ambition. All Ea's people, now, I told Maram, would have to help each other.

Toward that end, I asked Lord Harsha to oversee the rebuilding of Ea's docks. This practical farmer and proud warrior had a great talent for dealing with almost anything of the material world. He sent his quartermasters galloping across the countryside outside the city to locate supplies of lumber. Soon, along both the Poru's muddy banks, the sound of saws tearing through wood ripped out into the cold, wet air. The new quays and docks, smelling of sap and tar, took form and pushed out into the river. Then bilanders and barks and other sailing ships made their way in from the sea and past the rocky island of Damoom to tie up in Tria's new harbor. They came from Delu, the Elyssu, Nedu and even faraway Thalu, and brought with them grain, oil, salt, furs, iron, wood — and a thousand other needful things. King Kurshan, still encamped with his warriors and the other Valari at the heart of the city, nevertheless managed to get word to his kingdom's people that the Lagashuns should send out a small fleet of ships to Tria. That did not prove so grand or impossible a venture as sailing through the waters of the Northern Passage and up to the stars. But the sacks of barley in the holds of the Lagashun ships kept many from starving — and that seemed a miracle enough.

On the darkest day of the year, Atara informed me that she was carrying our child. I wanted to rejoice and call for a thousand bottles of brandy to be emptied in celebration. I wanted to set a date for our wedding, too. But Atara, her voice heavy with sorrow, said to me, 'Let us wait, Val, for winter to end, and then we shall see.'

When Triolet came and spring beckoned, we began to build Tria anew. On a cool, blustery day, Kalkin stood with me on top of the rabble that had once been King Kiritan's palace. He stamped his boot against the pulverized stone and said to me, 'The new city will rise up out of the old. Just as your ancestors built Tria on top of an even more ancient city.'

'But I thought that the Star People founded Tria,' I said to him.

Kalkin's gaze seemed to tear open the ground. 'When Elahad led the Valari here to what he supposed was a virgin world, Ea was already old beyond old, as I've told you. Erathe, we once called it. And if we dug down deeply enough through this, we would find the ruins of Trialune.'

He went on to say that it was in Trialune that a great king had ruled the world before he had become the first of the Elijin.

'Build well,' he said, looking up at me. 'Make yourself a city that will be a glory to the earth and stars.'

And build we did. True to his admonition, I called to Tria architects, stonecutters, masons and sculptors from across Alonia, and indeed, the whole world. Once we had the roads repaired, teams of oxen drew forth carts of white and silver granite cut from the quarries to the southwest of the city. As well, ships brought into port cargoes of fine Delian marble, dragonstone from faraway Nedu and the very best Galdan glass, in dozens of colors. Such materials would have sufficed to restore Tria to its former splendor. But I wished for something more, and toward that end, I asked Ymiru for the help of his people. Late in Triolet, from out of the fastness of the White Mountains, Ymiru summoned forth a host of Ymaniri, who journeyed across the Wendrush bearing iron mallets and chisels and a great knowledge of the art of shaping stone. And making it, as well. For the Frost Giants, as the incredulous Trians thought of these massive, white-furred men, had used purple gelstei to grow the huge crystals that gone into the building of the beautiful Alundil, the City of the Stars. Or rather, the Ymaniri's ancestors had, for they now possessed only a single lilastei, kept in trust by Ymiru. They would need dozens of such to accomplish the great work that I, and Ymiru himself, envisioned.

And so once again, Kalkin shared with Ymiru the ancient lore of the Star People, and Ymiru used his violet stone to create out of dragon ore another, and then fifty of these powerful gelstei. They made as well new firestones. Then the Ymaniri went to work, molding hard stone as they might clay, cutting flame through granite and raising up houses, inns, temples and other buildings. They fabricated sheets and blocks of living stone, in all its shimmering iridescence, and they crystalized out of water pure shatar, as clear and hard as quartz. One of the Ymaniri — the Elder named Hramjir — even succeeded in making glisse: a crystal nearly as adamantine as diamond and invisible to the eye. It would be many years before the Ymaniri, along with the Alonians and others who had come to this ruined place, set the last stone and called Tria complete. But by the first day of Ashte, with the fields outside the walls greening, flashes of ruby fire filled the air over the city from the Arwe Gate in the east to the Urwe Gate in the northwest, and its light spilled over the beginnings of new spires, towers and great bridges arching across the Poru River.

All this construction would take a great deal of time, and treasure. Many people paid for Tria's splendor with their sweat, blood and life fire freely given. But I sent gold to Galda in payment for their glass, and so to other kingdoms for other materials. Much of this coin — good, solid Alonian archers, as the shining round disks were called — came from King Kiritan's hoard, divided up by the Narmadas after he had been murdered. That hall of the clan led by Javas Narmada surrendered this wealth gladly, while Belur Narmada, who had supported neither Morjin nor myself in the war, made great complaint. But I proclaimed that the Narmadas' treasure belonged to the true Narmada heir, and that was Atara. Furthermore. I told Alonia's great lords that they must all contribute to Trias rebuilding, and indeed, that of the entire world. I summoned them to the city late in Ashte. We met on the lawn outside of the new palace rising up from the Hill of Gold, as the Trians called this residence of their most powerful families. I commanded my army to draw up in all their thousands; my warriors' suits of diamond armor glittered beneath the sun in an eye-burning brilliance. Before them, in their finest tunics, embroidered with jewels and gold, stood Count Muar of Iviunn and Duke Malatam of Tarlan, who had both marched with Morjin's Dragon army. And Harkin Kirriland, scion of one of the ancient Five Families, which had ruled Alonia since time immemorial, and Duke Parran of Jerolin. All those who had answered my call to battle gathered there, too: Young Baron Narcavage, Baron Monteer, Javaris Narmada and the Eriades brothers, Julun and Breyonan. They looked uneasily upon their countrymen who had done nothing either to help or hinder Morjin, but preferred to stand back and hope that Morjin's army and mine might destroy each other. The most powerful of these were Belur Narmada and Baron Maruth of the Aquantir. Bringing Alonia's great lords together, I thoughtpwas something like herding tigers, for it had taken a strong sovereign such as King Kiritan to keep them from falling with swords on each other and tearing Alonia apart.

I stood before them, with Atara at my side and my warriors behind us, and I told the lords that the time of war among the Five Families and the various dukedoms and baronies had come to an end. They would spend their wealth rebuilding their kingdom, and not on spears, shields and swords.

'You ask too much!' Count Muar shouted out. He was a thin man with angry green eyes and deadly-looking, like a cobra. 'I must be responsible for Iviunn: many estates were destroyed when the Aquantir fell against us during the war.'

Here he glared at Baron Maruth, whom I thought he would gladly have murdered, if given the chance.

'You do ask too much,' Belur Narmada said to me. 'You know nothing of the realm that you would rule.'

'No Alonian king,' Old Duke Parran said, tapping his finger against his cleft nose, 'has ever taxed us so!'

For a while I let him, and others, speak out as they would. Then I held up my hand for silence. And I told them: 'It will not be a king who taxes you. I shall rule Ea from Tria, but the ordering of Alonia I shall leave to her rightful sovereign. I have called you here today that you might acclaim Atara Ars Narmada.'

Atara stood quietly next to me, wearing her lion-skin cloak over a long, formal tunic that did little to hide the great swell of her belly. Although her white blindfold bound her blond hair instead of a crown, I thought that no woman could have looked more of a queen.