surrounding mountains.
'Look!' Maram said, pointing at the ground closer to the Tower. 'There are more stones over there.'
A hundred yards closer in toward the Tower, we found another circle of the larger stones half-buried in the grass. Only a few of these were still standing. They were covered with splotches of green and orange lichens that seemed to have been growing for thousands of years.
No sooner had we begun walking around these stones, than Maram descried yet a third circle of them fallen down closer still to the Tower. We moved from stone to stone around toward the east in the direction of the temple. Neither I nor any of the others was sure what we might be looking for among them if not the Lightstone itself. But their configuration was intriguing. Master Juwain believed they had been set to mark the precession of the constellations or some other astrological event.
Liljana, however, questioned this. With one of her mysterious smiles that hid more than it revealed, she said, 'The ancient scryers, I think, cared more about the earth than they did the stars.'
Maram, who was in no mood for learned disputes, continued leading the way around the circle. Soon we found ourselves to the north of the Tur-Solonu, directly along the line leading toward the apex of the notch. Without warning, Maram began walking toward the second circle as he studied the fallen stones and the scorch marks on the few standing ones with great care. When he reached the wide ring of stones, he stopped to point at a huge stone overturned and sunken into the ground.
It lay by itself exactly at the midpoint between the second and third circles. It was thrice as long as any of the other stones and must have once stood nearly forty feet high.
'Look there's something about this stone!' he said. Again, he stood measuring distances with his eyes. He was breathing hard now, and his face was flushed.
Inside, he was all pulsing blood and pure, sweet fire. 'This is the place – I know it is!'
So saying, he hurried over to one of the packhorses and unslung the axe that it carried. With the axe in his hands and a wild gleam in his eyes, he rushed back to the end of the great stone and there fell upon it with a fury of motion most unlike him.
'Hold now! What are you doing?' Kane yelled at him. He rushed over and grabbed Maram from behind. 'You fat fool – that's good steel you're mining!'
Maram managed one last swipe with the axe before Kane's grip tightened around him. By then it was too late: the axe's edge was already notched and splintered from chopping into cold, hard stone.
'Let me go!' Maram shouted, kicking at the ground like a maddened bull, 'Let me go, I said!'
And then the impossible happened: he broke free from Kane's mighty armlock. He raised the axe above his head, and I was afraid he might use it to brain the astonished Kane.
It's here!' Maram shouted. 'A couple more good blows ought to free it!'
'What is here?' Kane growled at him.
'The gelstei,' Maram said. 'The firestone. Can't you see that when this stone was still standing, the Red Dragon must have mounted the red gelstei on top of it to bum down the Tower?'
Suddenly, we all did see this. Looking south toward the Tur-Solonu and all the other structures and stones in the notch, we could all see to our minds the blasts of fire that must have once erupted from this spot.
'Well, even if you're right,' Kane said to him, 'why should you think the firestone is still here?'.
'How do I know my heart is here?' Maram said, thumping the flat of the axe against his ches. t Then he pointed at the end of the: stone, which was all bubbled and fused as if it had once been touched by a great heat. 'It is here. Can't you see it must have melted itself into the stone?'
Again, he raised up the axe, and again Kane called to him, 'Hold, now! If you must have at it, don't ruin our axe beyond all repair.'
'What should I use then – my teeth?'
Kane strode over to the second packhorse. where he found a hammer and one of the iron stakes we used to picket the horses. He gave them to Maram and said, 'Here use these.'
With his new tools, Maram set to work, panting heavily as he hammered the stake's iron point against the stone, little gray chips flew into the air as iron rang against iron; dust exploded upward and powdered Maram all over. Twice, he missed his mark, and the hammer's edge bloodied his knuckles. But he made no complaint hammering now with a rare purpose that I had seen in him only in his pursuit of women.
We all moved in close to see what this furious work might uncover. But it was growing dark, and Maram was bent close to the stone, using his large body for leverage. So that we wouldn't be blinded by the flying stone chips – as we were afraid Maram might be – we stepped back to give him more room to work and wait for him either to give up or announce that he had found the fabled firestone,
'Ha – look at him!' Kane said as he pointed at Maram. 'A starving man wouldn't work so hard digging up potatoes.'
All at once, with a last swing of the hammer and a great cry, Maram freed something from the rock. Then he held up a great crystal about a foot long and as red as blood.
It was six-sided, like the cells of a honeycomb, and pointed at either end. It looked much like an overgrown ruby – but we all knew that it must be a firestone.
'So,' Kane said, staring at it. 'So.'
'It is one of the tuaoi stones,' Master Juwain said as he gazed at it in wonder. 'It would seem that the Lord of Lies really did make a red gelstei.'
Alphanderry, ducking as Maram carelessly swung the point of the crystal in his direction, laughed out 'Hoy, don't point that at me!'
I stood beneath the night's first stars and watched as Flick appeared and described a fiery spiral along the length of the gelstei. With such a crystal I thought Morjin had once burned Valari warriors even as he had destroyed the Tur-Solonu.
'The seven brothers and sisters of the earth,' Liljana said quietly. 'The seven brothers and sisters with the seven stones will set forth into the darkness.'
The words of Ayonldela Kirriland's prophecy hung in the falling darkness like the stars themselves. Seven gelstei Ayondela had spoken of, and now we had three: Master Juwain's varstei, Kane's black stone and a red crystal that might burn down even mountains.
'Prophecies,' Kane muttered. 'Who could ever know what hasn't yet happened? Why should we believe the words of this dead scryer?'
Despite his bitterness the light in his eyes told me that he desperately wanted to betieve them.
'Is this, he asked, pointing at the firestone, 'the reason we've jour-neyed half the way across Ea to a dead oracle?'
His deep voice rolled one as if he were speaking his doubts to the wind. And it seemed that the wind answered him. A different voice deeper in its purity if not tone, poured down the mountain slope to the west and floated across the field of stones.
'And who is it who has journeyed half the way across Ea to tell us that our oracle is dead?'
We all whirled about to see six white shapes appear in the darkness from behind the standing stones. Kane and I whipped free our swords even as Maram shouted,
'Ghosts! this place is haunted with ghosts!'
His eyes went wide, and he held out his crystal in front of him as he might a short sword.
Then the 'ghosts' began moving toward us. In the twilight they seemed almost to float over the grass. Soon we saw that they were women, each with long hair of varying color; they each wore plain white robes that gleamed faintly: the robes, I saw, of scryers.
'Who are you?' their leader said again to Kane. She was a tall woman with dark hair and a long, sad face. 'What are your names?'
'Scryers,' Kane spat out 'If you're scryers, you tell me, eh?'
Kane's rudeness appalled me, and I quickly stepped forward and said, 'My name is Valashu Elahad. And these are my companions.'
I presented each of my friends in turn. When I came to Kane, he practically cut me off and asked the scryer, 'So, what is your name, then?'
'I'm called Mithuna,' she said. She turned to the five women who accompanied her and said. 'And this is Ayanna, Jora, Twi, Tiras and Songljian'
