find so sweet.'
His words suddenly sobered Maram, who sat muttering into his wine. While Alphanderry took out his mandolet and Flick began spinning in anticipation of his music, Atara came over to Maram and laid her hand on his shoulder consolingly.
And then she asked the question that puzzled all of us: 'Who are these people? They certainly look Valari.'
'They are certainly Valari,' Master Juwain said, looking up from his book. 'The question is, of which tribe? That of Aryu? Or that of Elahad?'
He went on to say that the Maiian's ancestors must be some of the Lost Valari: either the followers of Aryu after he had stolen the Lightstone or the companions of Arahad who had set out on the Hundred Year March to search for it.
'The Lost Valari, yes, that seems possible,' I said to Master Juwain. 'But how could they be of the tribe of Aryu?'
Here Kane stopped his pacing and came over to me. 'Do you remem-ber what I told you after we killed the Grays? How Aryu had also stolen a varistei, which his people used to change their forms to suit Thalu's cold and mists? So, what if some of his tribe repented Aryu's crime? What if they fell out with their brethren before the varistei was used? If they fled Thalu to the south and came to land here, they would still look Valari, eh?'
'I'm afraid that seems the most likely explanation of the Maiians' origins,' Master Juwain agreed.
I sat on my bed staring at a tapestry showing a great oak tree in full leaf; I didn't quite want to admit that the Maiians were really Aryans who still retained the Valari form.
'But if what you say is true,' I said to Master Juwain, 'then how is it that the Aryans let the Maiians live here in peace so many thousands of years?'
'That we may never kno,' Master Juwain said. 'Perhaps fortune favored them.
Perhaps a curse was laid upon the Maiians and this island.'
'It would have to have been a mighty curse,' Liljana said, 'to have kept the Aryans from plundering it'
We gathered around debating the mystery of the Maiians as the night deepened and their city fell quiet around us. And then Atara, who could often see things quite clearly with the natural keenness of her mind no less than with her second sight, twined her golden hair about her finger as she said, 'If Sartan Odinan sought a safe land in which to hide the Lightstone, he couldn't have found better than this lost island.'
That brought us back to the temple, which stood towering above us in the starlight only fifty yards to the east. We were all sure that the Lightstone must be waiting for us within its gleaming marble walls.
'We must find our way inside,' Maram said again. 'We must see if the cup is there.'
'And then what?' I asked him. I didn't like the greedy light that brightened his eyes just then.
'And then? Ah, I suppose we'll have to trade the Maiians something for it. Your shield, perhaps. Or your sword. They seemed interested in anything made of steel.'
I didn't believe that the Maiians would simply trade the Cup of Heaven for a broken sword, and I told Maram this.
'Hmmm, perhaps not,' he murmured as he pulled at his beard. 'But what if they don't know the cup's true value? After all these centuries, they might have lost the knowledge of what it is.'
'But what if they do know what it is?'
'Ah, well, I suppose we'll have to find a way to claim it, won't we?'
'Are we to plunder the temple, then? As the Aryans did Tria?'
Maram now sat up very straight, all signs of drunkenness gone from his reddened face. In its place was shame and other painful emotions.
'Ah, no, no – you misunderstand me, my friend! I'm only pointing out that there might be more than one way to gain the Lightstone.'
I drew my sword and sat staring at the ugly break in it. I said, 'Not this way, Maram.'
'But what if the Maiians don't see the need of our returning the Lightstone to the world? What if they take offense at us and declare us, ah, shaida? What if we have to fight for it?'
Atara, who now sat oiling her bow, suddenly plucked its braided string. It twanged out a note of discord utterly unlike the music that Alphanderry made with his mandolet
'Fight, hmmph,' Atara said to Maram. 'And who is it that will lead in this fighting?
You? Didn't you hear what the Lady Nimaiu said about her people throwing themselves on swords? And throwing anyone so mad as to draw them into their fire mountain?'
'It's one thing to speak of throwing oneself onto a sword,' Maram said. 'It's quite another to find the corurage to do it. Why, Kane could fell a hundred of them before they knew what was happening. And you could shoot anyone who tried to pursue us. Surely we could cut our way through to the coast, if we had to.'
I suddenly stood up slmmed what was left of my sword back into its sheath. Then I moved over to Maram's bed. With a fury that astonished me, I grabbed the wine glass from Maram's hand and hurled it against the wall where it shattered into a thousand pieces.
'Tomorrow, we'll look through the temple,' I said. 'But tonight we'll sleep and put these careless words behind us.'
So saying, I stormed across the room and flung myself into my bed. My anger kept me from seeing that I would be wrong about both the assertions that I had just made.
Chapter 28
As the chasm of disaffection between me and Maram seemed to widen with each passing hour, neither of us got much sleep that night – nor did any of the others. And the next morning, after a breakfast of fruit and cream which I hardly touched, we knocked at the great temple doors only to be turned away. The women who guarded them informed us that we could not pass within until we had been purified.
'And how does one become purified?' I asked her testily.
'Oh, by the Lady, of course,' she told us.
'But which Lady, then? Lady Nimaiu or Lady Ea?'
The guards – if that was the right word for them – giggled at this question as if it had been a child who asked it. Then the first of the women said, 'Only Lady Ea can purify, with her tears. But the Lady Nimaiu is her hands, and it is to her that you must go if you truly wish for purification.'
'We truly wish it,' I said, speaking through Liljana for all of us. 'May we see Lady Nimaiu that we may discuss this?'
As it happened, Lady Nimaiu would not see us that morning. She was busy attending to matters of great importance, the guard told us, and so we would have to wait.
'Ah, wait,' Maram muttered after the guards had closed the doors on us. 'How long can we wait? Two more days, and then the ship sails whether we're aboard her or not.'
'Then we'll wait two days, if we must,' I said. 'In the meantime, why don't we explore the island? The Lightstone might be anywhere.'
It was the Island of the Swans and the Maiians themselves that healed the wound opened by the shards of the glass I had broken. Maram and I went our own ways then, as did the others, each of us choosing a separate path through the city streets or among the fields and woods surrounding the lake. It surprised me that the Maiians allowed us to go about their land bearing our shaida weapons. But it was not their way to disallow anyone simple freedoms that even their children enjoyed. That they trusted us not to use our weapons touched me deeply. They had no fear of us, only a sweet and natural compassion for our urge to seek that which it seemed they already possessed. For the Maii were a contented people. They found their happiness neither in remembrance of the glories of ages past nor in dreams of future redemption, but rather in rock and leaf, wind and flower. The glint of the sun off the marble of their beautiful temple pleased them more than gold; the laughter of their children playing in pasture or field was to them a finer music than even Alphanderry could make. They were wholly wedded to the earth, and took great delight in that marriage.
I spent the morning wandering about the great gardens to the west of the temple.
