Diamond Warriors

foam, and he sighed out, 'A man can't win all battles, can he?'

He did not, I thought, refer to Braggod's and his ongoing contest to see who could hold the most beer, for Maram always prevailed in this. In truth, I had only seen one man who could outdrink Maram, and that was Ymiru.

'Most women,' Behira said with the heat of anger shading her voice, 'would wish for their beloved to fight battles to win them!'

'And so I have,' Maram said. He stood up, and clasped hold of Behira's hand. 'I can see that you don't understand. Ah, I'm not really sure that I do myself. But here it is: all my life, almost, I fought hard to take as much pleasure as I could, wherever I could. So that I could know that I was alive. And I succeeded — too well, really. I lived, such as few men have, but I did not really live. And that is because I have been afraid of the greatest pleasure of all. There came a moment, just after the Dragon had burned away my shield, when I knew that I had to marry you, if by some impossible chance I lived to tell you how much I love you.'

'But why didn't you just tell me then?'

'Because,' he said, 'love burns infinitely hotter than dragon fire. It's beautiful, yes, but terrible, too. And so I was afraid.'

Behira bowed down her head to kiss Maram's fingers, and she told him, 'You are a prince of Delu who became a Valari knight. And the only man on earth who could have slain that dragon. Don't tell me that such a warrior can't win at love!'

They suddenly pulled closer together to kiss each other — and so with the fire of their lips and hearts, they finally sealed their troth to marry. When Maram leaned back to gaze at her, I had never seen him smile with such happiness.

'Let us drink to marriage, then!' he shouted. 'Ours — and Val's and everyone's!'

As the men at the other tables all looked on, Maram called out for mugs of beer to be set before everyone. I made the first toast, and Lord Harsha the second, and Ymiru the third. It did not take very long for everyone's mug to be emptied.

'Ah, but it's brandy we need!' Maram said, licking his newly-grown mustache. He thumped his hand against his chest. 'Now there's a fire that lingers here!'

He went on to lament the shortage of brandy in the city. Then he presented the man sitting next to him: Demarion Arriara, the merchant from Galda. Maram, it seemed, had arranged to buy wine from Demarion's vineyards and have it shipped to Tria.

'I shall build a distillery,' he announced, 'and make the best brandy in the world. Too many times these last years I've gone without it — but never again.'

'And I'll gladly help you drink it!' Ymiru said to him. 'But does that mean that you plan to make Tria your hrome?'

At the look of concern that befell both Behira and Lord Harsha, Maram again thumped his chest and assured them, 'Don't worry: there's more than enough room here for brandy and for love! And as for home, we'll have those five hundred acres in Mesh that Val has given us — and other places, too. With the Red Dragon defeated, the whole damn world will be our home!'

Later, that evening, after everyone had returned to the palace grounds, I stood on the new grass alone with Maram looking out at the city's lights.

'I am glad,' I said to him, 'that you and Behira will remain here for at least a part of the year. And the city is short of brandy. But I hadn't envisioned you suffering through two quests and twenty battles just to wind up a happily married merchant.'

'What have you envisioned, my friend?'

'Your father,' I said, 'will not rule Delu forever. Truly, he will not rule at all if I ask him to abdicate. You could help me there, Maram.'

'I would rather help you here.'

'But you could become a king!'

He looked at me and smiled hugely. 'I already am — and have been since the day that you called me your friend.'

My eyes burned into his as I smiled back at him. Then I said, 'But Delu is weak and needs a firmer hand than your father can provide.'

'That is true — but one of my brothers can certainly do better than I.' He pulled at his beard, and added, 'I have no liking to rule anyone, and even less to be ruled.'

'And yet, you would remain with me, who must be everyone's king.',

'You never ruled me, Val. You never told me what I must do.'

'But what will you do, then, aside from putting brandy in bottles where once you emptied them?'

Again, Maram smiled, and he waved his hand in a great circle out toward the city and the dark world that lay beyond. 'What won't I do! I will write poems that will bum in women's and men's hearts for ten thousand years! I will take up the mandolet and play duets with Alphanderry. I will father a dozen sons, and as many daughters — as many children as Behira wishes. I will make journeys: to talk to the Sea People by the great ocean and to walk through Galda's vineyards. And into the Vilds to eat the sacred timana again and marvel at the Timpum. I would look once more upon Jezi Yaga's eyes and even the sky of the Tar Harath. Somewhere, the Librarians who fled Khaisham will build the world's greatest library, and I will spend ten years there reading every book that I can lay my hands upon. I will climb mountains. Perhaps even Alumit, when the Morning Star rises and the whole mountain turns to glorre. And I will go down into Senta's caves to behold the music crystals buried in the earth and to listen to the angels sing. I will take ship and sail again to the Island of the Swans, and beyond, where the heavens light up like. .'

He spoke on in a similar manner for quite a while. Then he looked deep into my eyes. 'I have lived as no man has ever lived, and now I will love as no man has ever loved — almost no other.'

He clasped my hand in his, and we both smiled. Then I told him: 'Behira will be happy to help you.'

'Yes — even as oil helps fire to burn more brightly,' he said. And then he added, 'But the flame must burn straight and true, like a fire arrow, and for that I will ask the help of Master Juwain and Abrasax.'

'And they will be glad to give it, though they might ask difficult things of you.'

'Well, I must make my peace with the Brotherhood. I must finish what I began, when I joined their order.'

'To walk the way of the serpent?'

'To walk to the stars, Val. As Kalkin once did. And as some day I will, too, when it comes time for you to lead the way.'

He squeezed my hand so hard that I thought my bones might break. Then he laughed and told me, 'I have written another poem, a bit of doggerel, really, but I thought you might like to hear it.'

'I would like to hear it, Maram,' I told him.

'All right, then. This is the logical completion to the other verses I wrote when we we looking for the Brotherhood's school. Listen:

The highest man rules all below:

The wheels of light that spin and glow.

The heart and head, ketheric crown:

The mighty snake goes up or down.

It's love that turns the world each day.

Sets stars to shine, makes men of clay.

But in light's aim, desire of dust,

All things do blaze with blessed lust.