Diamond Warriors

gripping Behira's hand. Her gaze drank in the thousands of people gathered on the lawn and its many bubbling fountains. She stared out, across the river where the ruby beacon continued streaking out from the firestone that Kalkin and Ymiru had made. Buildings constructed of living stone and stained glass cast their colors at each other in a brilliance that lit up the whole city. Tria's many new towers and spires, pointing up toward the heavens, caught the radiance of the stars, now coming out in all their millions from within the depths of the blue-black sky. But the greatest of all glories resided here, on the lawn in front of the new palace where Atara stood shaking her head in awe.

'He does have your eyes!' she called out to me.

She took back our son from me, and laid his head in the crook of her arm, and stood smiling down at him.

'Oh, Val!' she cried out. 'He is so beautiful!'

She kept looking at him as if she couldn't quite believe in such a miracle, looking and looking and laughing with a happiness that almost hurt to hear. And the new bit of life that was Elkasar Elahad looked up at her. And in the meeting of their eyes, mother and child, life reached out to life in all its glory, anguish, hope and love.

'Elkasar,' she sang out to him, running her fingers through his dark soft hair. Her joy was boundless. 'Elkasar, my little lion, my bright, beautiful star.'

She began weeping then, weeping and laughing and singing to our son, all at once. Her tears fell down and moistened his face. I watched as the corners of his mouth twitched and then pulled up into his first smile. Then tears welled up from his eyes, too, for he could no more withstand the force of Atara's love than I could — or Estrella, Daj, Maram or any of my friends. Even the man I had once called Kane blinked against the water filling his dark eyes, and that astonished me, for I had thought that his kind could not be touched by such things.

After that we all ate the fruits that Kalkin had given us. And I took Atara's hand and told her, 'There is something I must show you.'

I led the way down from the lawn and into the Elu Gardens. We walked among its many flowers and new trees, which had taken ten years of growth in a single season. A small, brown-skinned man named Danali, whom we had met in the first of the Vilds, appeared as if by magic from behind the oaks and elms. He held a bright emerald crystal in his hand; Elan, Iolana and other Lokilani who came forth to greet Atara also each kept one of the green gelstei. Atara seemed amazed at their presence here, for although she and I had rested among the garden's flowers nearly every night since the spring, the Lokilani had remained hidden from her, as indeed they had from most people.

After I had told Danali why we had come here, he called out: 'Come, come, Queen Atara! Let us go deeper into the trees!'

We all walked down the stone-lined path that wound around a patch of lilies and a small hill sparkling with starflowers. And there, at the center of the garden, grew a single tree. It was a new astor, with silver bark and leaves of gold: the first that the Lokilani had planted outside of their magic wood. Although still too young to bear fruit, the whole of it — bark, branches and leaves — shone with a soft light that spilled out into the garden.

'Val!' Atara cried out, hurrying over to it. 'Why didn't you tell me the Lokilani had come to Tria and had managed to grow an astor here?'

I moved over to her side, and said to her, 'I wanted you to see. . for yourself.'

She stood beneath this beautiful tree, holding up our son to show him all the wonder of the world. The astor's radiance filled his bright, black eyes.

'But how is this possible?' Atara asked Danali. 'I thought astors only grew in the Forest and other enchanted places.'

Danali proudly swept his hand around the garden and said, 'But the Forest is here! Finally, finally here, as it will now come to all the earth! There is only one Forest, as we once told you.'

We all gazed at the growing trees and plants around us. Bursts of blue-eyed daisies, goldenrod, trillium and sunflowers brightened the evening. The sweet smell of life filled the air. Then Ymiru, standing nearly as tall as the trees, suddenly laughed out in a voice as deep as thunder: 'This be a hroly place! The Timpum have come here, too! I know you told me that they lived in such woods, but I almost thought that they must be a hroax!'

But the bright beings that everywhere lit up the garden were neither hoax nor hallucination but only the realest and loveliest of luminosities. They seemed to have faces, of a sort, playful or compassionate, as Flick had once had, and to speak in quick flashes the language of the angels. They touched the trees with white and silver sparks and filaments of fire. The whole garden glimmered with a living light. Alphanderry, too, stood staring out past the astor in wonder. In looking upon the Timpum in all their shimmering millions, he seemed for a single moment almost transparent to the deeper radiance that formed him.

'And now the Ellama will come here, too,' Danali said to me, 'just as Pualani once told you. And the Galad a'Din will walk the earth again!'

He paused to gaze at Kalkin, who gazed right back at him. And then he added, 'Soon, soon, they will come — go out on the grasses and see!'

And Alphanderry said to him, 'Will you come with us?'

'No — we will wait here, with the Timpum.'

I smiled at this, for the Lokilani had been waiting thousands of years for the beings they called the Bright Ones to return to their woods.

Because Atara wanted to find Sajagax and look upon his face, too, we said goodbye to Danali and went back up to the lawn. There we rejoined Joshu Kadar and Sar Shivalad and other Guardians of the Lightstone, who always fell a little anxious when Estrella and I walked away from the protection of their swords for too long. Word of what had happened with Atara spread quickly across the palace grounds. Sajagax came limping up to us, accompanied by Tringax, Braggod and Bajorak, and Sonjah and Aieela and a few other women who had once called themselves the Manslayers. King Mohan and King Waray — and the other Valari sovereigns — pressed up to us as well. So did Abrasax and Master Matai and many others.

'Look!' Sonjah called out, smiling at Atara. 'The imakla one has been healed!'

From farther out in the throngs surrounding us, a blond-haired giant from Thalu added, 'The Maitreya has healed the blind Queen!'

A thousand men and women, it seemed, turned toward Estrella to look upon her and the Lightstone. Neither I, nor any of my friends, corrected this man, for in truth I could have done nothing to help Atara if Estrella hadn't helped me.

It was Sonjah who asked Atara the question that many must have wondered at: 'But, my dear one, can you still see the faraway things as you once did?'

Atara hesitated only a moment as a darkness clouded her eyes, and I wondered if she thought of Angra Mainyu, still bound on Damoom. But then she hugged Elkasar against her breasts and smiled brightly, and she said, 'I don't have to be a scryer to see what everyone can now see: that the future will be such a happy one. So beautifully, beautifully happy.'

After that, almost everyone seemed to want come up close in order to speak with Atara. And to celebrate the miracle of the restoration of her eyes. Maram saw to the distribution of hundreds of glasses of brandy and the speaking of toasts. Alphanderry played his mandolet, making a lovely music. He seemed to direct his words at Atara and Elkasar as he called out into the night: We are songs that sing the world into life.

And as he sang, his voice built higher and deeper and ever brighter. No bell could have sounded out with a purer or more perfect tone. It pealed like struck silver, and moved the air with its power. Then, as from far away, a ringing filled the sky. It seemed that the wind was singing back to him with a much vaster sound. It held something of the low, mournful melodies of the great whales and of the eagle's cry as well. Louder and louder it grew until it set the stones of the palace to vibrating and shook the very earth. 'It be Alumit!' Ymiru cried out. 'It be the hroly mountain!' I did not know how he could have known such a thing. Or how the great crystal mountain, the highest on earth, could have come suddenly alive with a ringing that carried hundreds of miles across the world to our land, and perhaps into others. Did the fishermen in Galda, I wondered, turn their heads to look for the source of this sound? Did the Lost Valari on the Island of Swans, who did not know war, hear this deep calling? Did the Avari, who knew too much? All the men and women around me stood listening as if struck to their core. Many of them, later,