Diamond Warriors

Master Juwain, edging closer, looked from Abrasax to Vareva and then at Bemossed. 'I can see that there are stories that must be told — why don't we go somewhere we can tell them?'

It was a good suggestion, but the fifteen thousand warriors surrounding us would not allow it. When it became known who Bemossed was, Lord Noldashan cried out: 'It is the Maitreya! He has come to honor King Valamesh!'

Then many, many voices, those of warriors and those of women, children, too, shouted out: 'The Maitreya! The Maitreya! The Maitreya has come!'

Once again, the warriors raised up their swords and sent a dazzling radiance out into the square. Bemossed, however, standing next to me, fairly shone with a deeper and finer light that seemed to fill up the whole world. Then his smile grew even brighter as his clear, sweet voice called out along with thousands of others':

'Valamesh! Valamesh! Long live King Valamesh!'

Chapter 9

For the next three hours, I put my lips to many cups of brandy raised up to acknowledge the many men who insisted on toasting their new king. I walked among my warriors, looking into their eyes and asking their names. Too, I gathered Joshu Kadar, Sar Shivalad, Sar Kanshar and the other knights whom I had come to call my 'Guardians.' Now that they had made me king, in honor of their greatest aspirations, I formally declared them to be the 'Guardians of the Lightstone.' Then it came time to adjourn to my pavilion. My companions all followed me inside, along with Abrasax and the Masters of the Brotherhood. Bemossed, of course, came with them, and I invited Vareva to speak with us as well. I sat at the head of the long council table, with my companions on one side facing the Seven and Vareva on the other. Bemossed took his place at the end of the table opposite from me.

'I still can't quite believe that you are alive and safe here,' I said to him. I gazed at his bright, restless face, and it seemed that I could not get enough of looking at him.

'But I can believe that you are now king,' he said with a smile. 'Even when you first came to me in your guise as a poor flutist, it seemed that you must be something more. We've come a long way from Hesperu, haven't we?'

'We have,' I agreed, glancing at the ring that sparkled around my finger. 'And you have come a long way from the Valley of the Sun. What happened, friend?'

As Bemossed rubbed at his tired eyes, his gaze seemed to turn inward. I sensed in him many troublesome things: shame, grief, dread and an overwhelming sense of failure. He finally looked at Abrasax to speak for him.

'We had hoped,' Abrasax said in his clear, forceful voice, 'that we had more time. But in the end, the Red Dragon proved too clever. And too powerful.'

He told us, simply, that Morjin had at last discovered the location of the Brotherhood's school that he had been seeking for so long. Then one of Morjin's Kallimun priests had led a whole battalion of soldiers and a company of the terrible Grays into the lower reaches of the White Mountains. This priest — whose name was Arch Igasho — had managed to unlock the secrets of the tunnel that gave into the Valley of the Sun. Then Morjin's men had fallen upon the school with fire and steel and all the evil power of the black gelstei wielded by the leader of the Grays.

'They cut down everyone who tried to reason with them,' Abrasax told us in a heavy voice. 'And they burned everything that could be burned. They found the library, and put torches to the books.'

Master Juwain, nearly stricken by this terrible news, asked him, 'But they can't have burned the vedastei!'

At the mention of these magical books, made of some sort of gelstei that could call ancient knowledge to its crystal pages as of light out of thin air, Abrasax sadly shook his head. And he told us, 'The fire grew so hot it melted the vedastei's crystal. There is nothing left but ashes.'

I stared down at the floor of my tent. With the burning of the millions of books of the Library at Khaisham and now this even greater desecration, it seemed that la had suffered a burning away of wisdom that might plunge the whole world into a Dark Age without end.

'But how could you have verified this?' Master Juwain said to Abrasax. 'Surely you did not remain to see the books destroyed?'

Abrasax's thick beard and hair seemed like a corona of white as he nodded his head for Master Storr to speak. Master Storr sat staring down at his liver-spotted hands. His old, fair face, burned red from his recent travels, grew tighter and tighter as if he could not bring himself to answer Abrasax's silent request.

Then finally he looked up and told us: 'We did see the books destroyed. With this.'

So saying, Master Storr, the Brotherhood's Master Galastei, drew forth a sphere of white gelstei no different than Atara's. And he said to us in his tight, fussy voice: 'We managed to rescue many of the gelstei. I haven't a scryer's ability to see into the future. But sometimes I have seen things far away in space — or not so very far away. This crystal gave sight of what the Red Dragon's men did to our school.'

He held up the clear ball to the light streaming through the pavilion's black silk. I was afraid that if I looked into it too deeply, I would see writhing flames and men screaming in agony.

'You must have taken a blue gelstei, as well,' Liljana said to him. She held up her little whale figurine, 'I know I touched minds with you through this.'

Master Storr nodded his head slowly. 'That was a stroke of good fortune, I think. I wanted you to know that Bemossed was safe.'

Master Juwain sat looking at the clear crystal in Master Storr's hands. 'But what of the Great Gelstei then? Are they safe?'

In answer, Master Matai, an Old Galdan whose white curls fell over a browned, noble face, drew out of his pocket a small, translucent sphere, ruby in color. Master Virang kept a similar stone, tinted golden-orange, while Master Nolashar, the Music Master, had a yellow sun stone, which he raised up gleaming above the council table. I feared that with Master Okuth's death his green heart stone had been lost, but it was not so. Master Storr held it in keeping for the Brotherhood's new Master Healer, whoever that might be; he also still guarded his own purple stone. Master Yasul's mahogany skin cracked into dozens of lines as he smiled and showed us a round, azure gelstei. Abrasax, of course, kept the last and most powerful of these seven stones: a clear bit of crystal no bigger than a marble. In his hand, it seemed insignificant, as did the crystals of the others. But I couldn't help thinking that with great gelstei similar in kind, if not size, at the beginning of time, the Ieldra had summoned a beautiful music that sang the very stars into creation.

'At least, then, Grandfather,' Master Juwain said to Abrasax, 'you have preserved your greatest treasures.'

Abrasax's wise, worn face grew sad beyond bearing as if he had lived not just a hundred and forty-seven years but a million. 'No, our greatest treasures lie dead in the Valley of the Sun. Most of our Brothers fell beneath the soldiers' swords. And those who were captured, Arch Igasho ordered crucified.'

Now Master Juwain bowed his head in shame and grief. It seemed that he had almost forgotten his quest to escape the ideals and abstractions of his head in order to feel with his heart.

Abrasax closed his hand around the Seventh, as his gelstei was called, and he put it away. Then he said, 'We had hope the moment would never come, but we had prepared for it a long time. Our Brothers all died believing their sacrifice was to the good. And we should believe it, too.'

Here he looked at Bemossed, and smiled sadly. Kind, the Brotherhood's Grandmaster might be, and compassionate, too, but I felt a will as hard as diamond buried deep inside him. It seemed that he could accept the sacrifice of others — and even encourage it — if that served his highest purpose. It was a lesson, I thought, that a king must take to heart.

'But how,' Maram asked, 'did you escape, since only one tunnel leads in and out of the valley? Surely the soldiers would have guarded it.'

'Indeed, they did,' Abrasax said. 'But we slipped past them, so to speak.'

He looked at Master Virang, the Meditation Master, who showed us one of his mysterious smiles. I