Diamond Warriors

Kane looked at me as if he could peer into my soul, if not my mind. 'And most men when they live, they do not truly live. And so like Morjin and his master, they are already as ones dead. There is only one true immortality, Valashu. I have spoken of this before: it is the breath that holds the winds of all worlds within it, the stillness between heartbeats, the joy of a flower. The perfect moment, bright as ten thousand suns, that goes on and on forever. This is the indestructible life that the Shining One would show us.'

I thought of other words that the Urudjin had spoken about the universe's Maitreyas, and I now recited them to Kane:

They bring to them the deathless light,

Their fearlessness and sacred sight;

To slay the doubts that terrify:

Their gift to them to gladly die.

Then I said to Kane, 'The Shining Ones are that they might thus help the Galadin, and others, overcome their fear of death, yes?'

'So, they gladly die — and thus truly live, eternally.'

I stepped closer to Kane, and pressed my hand against his chest. 'This one, whom I have called Kane — I have not seen him quail before any enemy, in any battle, not even when it seemed certain that he must die.'

'Ha!' he called out. 'When one of the Blues swings an axe at my head, my heart beats as quickly as any man's!'

'But you never panic. You never think of running when you must fight. And you do not, do you, dread the dark? The never-ness. When the light dies and there is only a cold nothing forever.'

'But the light cannot die, Valashu. And so, no, I do not fear that.'

'But what of the other one, then? Was Kalkin so afraid of being cast out of the Elijin that he had to make a vow never to die?'

'No — fear was never Kalkin's failing.'

He thrust the point of his sword upwards, then called out: 'He dreamed of the day when he would become one of the Galadin. So bright they are! Like fireflowers that never dim, like stars come down from the sky. The Galadin make the whole earth sing! Songs of glory, Valashu, such a ringing splendor that I cannot say! And yet in the end, as I've told, they must die — like the Shining Ones, gladly so, to die in their bodies. Into light! This splendor, bright as all the stars from the Seven Sisters to the Great Bear, the fire that breathes into being whole new universes of stars, I have only imagined. So it was with Kalkin. And so no, he did not fear such a fate.'

I stood listening to the crickets chirping in the grass and the breath that fell heavy and quick from my lips. From below our little hill, the sound of thousands of Valari chanting out the old epics had given way to a single voice flowing out across the steppe:

Sing ye songs of glory.

Sing ye songs of glory.

That the light of the One

Will shine upon the world.

I knew then that my friends had finished their dinner and that Liljana must have used her blue gelstei to cast Alphanderry's music out along the river for all to hear.

'Kalkin did not fear death,' I said to Kane, 'and yet he still vowed not to die. Why, then?'

But Kane did not answer me. He stood staring off at the stars as if remembering a time when he had walked upon them.

I turned my gaze toward the sword that he had once made. The Sword of Fate, men called it. The Sword of Sight. Within its shimmering silustria I suddenly saw a thing. 'There was more to Kalkin's vow, wasn't there?' I said to him.

He slowly nodded his head to me. 'So — there was.'

'Tell me, then.'

Again he nodded his head, and I felt a terrible anguish working at him. And he said to me: 'I have spoken of flowers and music and other prettinesses, eh? The One's light that shines through all things. But the world is also swords and blood and fire. Sheer hell, I say. It can be a torment to live through a single moment, let alone a day or a whole lifetime — or more. It is hard just drawing a breath. And harder still for one to breathe life into oneself as an Elijin or a Galadin, for as an angel's being is vastly greater than a man's, so is his suffering. So, Kalkin had many flaws and did many wrongs, but he had one great virtue, eh? He was strong. And so he vowed to remain within life as long as he had to. To walk through the deeps of the world, where all is filth and fire, nails and screaming — so to find light in the darkest of places. Not to bring this light to others, for so the Maitreyas come forth with the Cup of Heaven. But only to help men and women, even the lowest, walk the path from the earth to the stars. Not until all who could had become Elijin and Galadin would he be free to leave the world. And so the first would truly be last — so Kalkin vowed to the sun and the earth, and to the Ieldra who had sung them into existence; so he promised himself and even the One.'

He fell into silence, and I could not help staring at him. The world turned no more quickly toward the east than it ever did, and yet for a moment the stars seemed to whirl past me in a blur of light. Kane stood within this radiance staring back at me.

'That was a noble vow,' I finally said to him.

'So, it was,' he admitted, nodding his head. 'Much later, during the War of the Stone, the Galadin said that through the very act of making it, Kalkin had healed himself — and so he might find the way to heal Angra Mainyu.'

I thought about this, then asked him the same question that I had Ondin in the Vild: 'But in the end, he failed, as the Amshahs who followed him failed. Why, then?'

'That I have journeyed across the stars for half a million years to this place to understand.'

I pointed my sword out toward the fire-brightened rocks of the Detheshaloon, and I said, 'I thought you came here to kill Morjin.'

But Kane made no response to this. I felt his eyes burning like coals as he looked at me.

From the direction of the Owl's Hill more than a mile away came a sound that might have been the howling of a wolf — or perhaps the battle cry of one of the dreadful Blues who had climbed to its top in order to demoralize our encampment:

OWRULLL!

And I said to Kane, 'Swords and axes hold no terror for you, nor fire nor crosses, nor even death. What is it you do fear, then?'

I knew that he did not want to answer me. His jaws clamped shut with such force that I felt his teeth grinding together. His hands locked around the hilt of his sword.

'Tell me,' I said to him as the sword that I held suddenly glistened.

There is a force, like a river of light, that runs through all things. I felt it rushing inside me, sweeping both Kane and me away.

'Tell me,' I said again, gazing at him.

'Damn you!' he finally growled out. 'I fear nothing! Nothing except that bright one — do not speak his name! He is too bright, eh? Too damn blessed and beloved of the One. He can dwell in the stillness so easily. In the light, Valashu. Far from all the dark and desperate things that must be done in this world if such as Morjin is to be defeated!'

He seemed to fight against the immense pull of the world in order to keep from falling; I felt an immense