waving it about like a sword, now holding it tightly to his chest. He studied its dark, red interior with a diligence he had never applied to the Saganom Elu or the healing arts. He had a great passion to use this crystal, I thought and I prayed that he had an equally great devotion to using it well.
Late that afternoon, as we made camp by a stream running through a pretty vale, he managed to coax the first fire from his stone. We all watched as he knelt over a pile of dry twigs and positioned the gelstei so that it caught what little light the sun drove through the forest's thick canopy. And it was good that the crystal drank in only a little light. For just as Maram's whole body trembled excitedly and he let loose a great gasp of wonder, the pointed end of the crystal erupted with a bolt of red flame.
It shot like lightning into the firepit, instantly igniting and consuming the tinder, and turning it to black ash. The pit's stones cast the fire straight back into Maram's face so that it burned his cheeks and scorched his eyebrows. But he seemed not to mind this chastisement, or even to feel it. He jumped away from the pit and thrust his crystal toward the sky as he cried out, 'Yes! Oh, my Lord, yes – I've done it!'
After that, we all decided that Kane should stand over Maram when-ever he practiced summoning the fires of the red gelstei, and this Kane did. The next morning, as Maram tried to burn holes in an old log just for the fun of it, Kane drew forth his black stone. His black eyes came alive to match the dark glister of his gelstei, but otherwise his whole being seemed to touch upon a place that utterly devoured light. The coldness that came over him chilled my heart and reminded me of things that I wished to forget. But it also seemed to cool the fires of Maram's crystal. In truth, Maram managed to call from it scarcely more than a candle's worth of flame- and this only after Kane had gathered his gelstei into his clenched fist. If Maram chafed at having to work with Kane and having his best efforts at firemaking dampened, Kane was wroth. When Maram complained that Kane had gone too far, Kane practically shoved the black gelstei in Maram's face and growled out, 'Do you think I like using this damn stone? Too far, you say, eh? What do you know about too far?'
His words remained a mystery to me until that night when we made our second camp in the mountains. Our two days of traveling had taken us almost all the way across this narrow range; just to the west, below us, gleamed the sea of green that was the Vardaloon. We found a shelf of earth on the side of a mountain overlooking it, and there we made our firepit and set out our furs. Around midnight, just after Alphanderry had finished his watch and gone to sleep, Kane and I stood together gazing at Flick's whirling form against the backdrop of the stars.
'Too far,' Kane said again in a low voice, 'always too far.'
'What is too far?' I asked, turning toward him.
He looked at me for a long few moments as his face softened and his eyes seemed to fill with starlight. Then he said, 'You might understand. Of all men, you might.'
He smiled at me, and the warmth that poured out of him was a welcome tonic against the chill of the mountains. Then he opened his hand to show me the black gelstei and said, 'There is a place. One place, and one only, eh? All things gather there; there they shimmer, they whirl, they tremble like a child waiting to be born. From this place, all things burst forth into the world. Like roses, Val, like the sun rising in the morning. But the sun must set, eh? Roses soon die and return to the earth. The source of all things is also their negation. So, this is the power of the black gelstei. It touches upon this one place, this utter blackness. It touches: red gelstei or white, flowers or men's souls. And whatever fire burns there is sucked down into the blackness like a man's last gasp into a whirlpool.'
He paused to stare down at his stone, even as Flick spun faster and flared more brightly. I waited for him to go on, but he seemed caught in silence.
'To use this gelstei,' I said, 'you must touch upon this place, yes?'
'So, just so – I must,' Kane muttered, nodding his head. 'I cannot, but I must.'
'It is dangerous, yes?'
'Dangerous – ha! You don't know, you don't know!'
'Tell me, then.'
His voice fell strange and deep as he looked at Flick and said, 'This place I have told of – it's darker than any night you've ever seen. But it's something else, too. Out of it come the sun, the moon, the stars, even the fire of the Timpimpiri. The fire, Val, the light. There's no end to it. This is why the black stones are the most dangerous of the gelstei. Go too far, touch what may not be touched, and there's no end. Then instead of negation, its opposite. So, a light beyond light. If a black gelstei is used wrongly in controlling a firestone, then out of it might pour such a fire as hasn't been seen since the beginning of time.'
He looked over toward Maram where he slept by the fire holding his red crystal in his hand. Then he stared out at the blazing stars for a long time and said, 'No, Val, it's not the darkness I fear.'
We stood there on the side of the mountain talking of the gelstei as the sky turned and the night deepened. After a while, because he was Kane, the man of stone who also held a deep and brilliant light I told him of Mithuna's last words to me.
'There is something there,' I said as I looked off toward the dark hills of the Vardaloon. 'Some dark thing, Mithuna said.'
'So, stories are told of the Vardaloon,' Kane muttered.
'Tell me.'
'They're just stories.'
'Perhaps,' I said.
'You fear this thing, eh?'
I continued staring into the night for as long as it took for my heart to beat ten times, then said, 'Yes.'
'So,' he said. 'So it always is. It's fear that's the worst, eh? Well, let's at least slay this one enemy, if we can.'
Without other warning, he suddenly whipped his sword from its sheath. So quickly did he move that it seemed to bum the air. I heard its steel hissing scarcely inches in front of my face.
'What are you doing?' I asked him.
'Draw! Draw now, I say! It's time we had a little practice with these blades.'
'Here? Now? It must be nearly midnight.'
'So?'
'So it's too dark to see.'
'Of course it is – that's the point! Now draw before I lose my patience!'
'But we'll wake the others.'
'Let them wake, then, damn it! Now draw your sword!'
I looked over at our five friends sleeping soundly by the fire. There was little enough ground between them and the wall of thistles and branches we had cut to surround our camp. I looked back at Kane, and the change that had come over him chilled me.
He stood glaring at me with his kalama held at the ready. The stars gave off just enough light that I could see it glinting behind his head.
'All right then.' I said, freeing my kalama from its sheath.
I should have been grateful that he deigned to fence with me. In all the battles i had fought, in all the duels I had ever watched, I had never seen his like with the sword.
He knew things that even Asaru and my father's weapons master, Lansar Raasharu, did not. And it was his way to hold on to his secrets more tighdy than a miser does gold. But now, it seemed, he was willing to share them with me.
'Ha!' he cried out. 'Ha, now, Valashu Eiahad!'
His long steel blade leaped out of the dark like lightning from a blackened sky. I barely had a moment to raise up mine to parry it. The clash of steel against steel rang out across the side of the mountain. As I had feared, it brought Atara and the others flying out of their sleep. While Maram waved his crystal wildly in front of his face, Atara made a quick grab for her sword and might have charged toward us if Kane hadn't called out: 'It's only us, now go back to sleep! Or stay up and watch, if that's what you want!'
Again his sword flashed out at me, and again I parried it – by inches, by the shrieking sound of it as much as sight. We stared at each other through the darkness as we each waited for the other to move.
And move Kane did, suddenly, explosively, attacking me in a fury of slashing steel.
For several moments, we whirled about the dark ground, feinting and cutting at each other. Something dark
