strength, I would accept all the pain in the world and pass on the Lightstone to one more worthy if that meant such as Meliadus would never be born and evil places like the Vardaloon would never blight the world again.
At last I looked at Lady Nimaiu and said, 'I would find the Lightstone to heal the lands of Ea and make them like yours. I'd fight all the demons of hell that this might be.'
After Liljana had translated this, a sad smile broke upon Lady Nimaiu's face. She bowed her head as if acknowledging the purity of my purpose and finding it distressful even so. And then, as the many people behind us on the lawn began murmuring quiet words of approval, she looked deep into my eyes for a long time.
'You are of the sword,' she finally said to me, glancing down at the hilt of my kalama. 'And so if you must fight you should have a sword to fight with.'
She took my hand then and led me down the steps to the lake's edge. I had no idea what her intentions were; perhaps, I thought she wanted to cleanse me of blood that I must someday spill in pursuit of this dream.
After taking many deep breaths, she suddenly let go my hand. And then she turned to walk down the steps into the water.
'What is she doing?' Maram cried out
I, too, wondered this, as it seemed did everyone else. Many of the Maii stared at Lady Nimaiu as she took one final breath and disappeared into the lake. Their cries of concern told me that this was no part of any purification ceremony they knew.
My heart began beating quickly as if it were I who was holding my breath. I peered into the water and thought that I saw Lady Nimaiu swimming down toward a stone altar covered with silt and swaying with strands of lake moss. But then the mountains moved, casting a glow of fire into the sky and causing the earth to tremble. Gleaming ripples cut the lake's surface making it impossible to see very far into its icy depths.
' Quiwriri Lais Nimaiu?' A young man behind me half-shouted. Now he and many of his people were on their feet pointing at the lake and murmuring, ' Quiwiri Lais Nimaiu?'
The pressure in my chest grew into a pain almost too great to bear. I couldn't move, so keen was the cold in my limbs that froze me to the shore gazing at the deep blue water.
And then, even as the swans suddenly cried out and leapt toward the sky with a great thunder of beating wings, a hand holding a sword broke the lake's surface. A moment later, Lady Nimaiu's face appeared as water streamed from her glistening black hair and she gasped for breath. Her feet found the marble steps, and she climbed them one by one, arising out of the lake while she held the sword high above her.
'The Sword of Flame,' I heard Alphanderry whisper behind me. 'The Sword of Light.'
Although I didn't dare believe that he might be right, I saw that the sword was bright enough to be called that and more. It was long and double-edged like the swords of the Valari; its blade shone more brilliantly than silver, and its edges were so keen they seemed to cut the very rays of the sun.
While all the Maii stood and the temple attendants stirred excitedly, while my friends looked on and Kane's eyes blazed like black coals. Lady Nimaiu approached to give me the sword. My hands closed around a hilt of black jade that was carved with swans and set with seven starlike diamonds; a much larger diamond, cut with many sparkling facets, formed its pommel stone. At the sword's first touch, fire leapt inside me. And something like a numinous flame ran along its silvery blade from the upswept guard to its incredibly sharp point for it seemed suddenly to flare much brighter. I couldn't take my eyes from it or let it go. It was very heavy, as if truly wrought of silver or other noble metal, and yet strangely light, as if the sun itself were filling it with its radiance and drawing it toward the sky. I sliced the air with it a few times to get the feel for wieldingit; its balance, I thought, was perfect. How such a marvelous weapon had come to be kept beneath the waters of the Maii's lake I couldn't imagine.
Now it came time for Lady Nimaiu to tell of this. Having shaken the water from her dripping kirtle and caught her breath, her hand swept out toward the sword as she recounted this story: Long ago in another age, she said, a Maiian fisherman named Elkaiu had cast out his net hoping to catch some of the silver salmon that swim off the coast of their island. But instead his net snagged on something heavy, and he hauled it in to find the silver sword gleaming among the folds of knotted rope. Elkaiu was amazed, not only because he had found an object for which he had no name, but because the sword bore no mark of rust or tarnish even though it had drifted for untold years along the currents of the salty sea. Elkaiu had brought the sword to his Lady, who had sensed that there was a great power in it. She sensed, too, that it had been cast into the sea to be cleansed, and so she had ordered it kept beneath the lake to continue its purification. The Lady had eventually grown old and died, of course, but she had passed on the knowledge of the sword to her successor. And so it had gone, generation after generation for many hundreds of years, the secret of the sword known only to the various Ladies of the Lake who preserved it. Over the centuries, Lady Nimaiu said, there arose a legend that one day the sword's true owner would come to take it away.
'And that must be you, Sar Valashu,'she said as she pointed at my sheathed kalama whose hilt was also carved with swans and stars 'And this sword, as you call it must be the gelstei of which the Sea People told.'
Yes, I thought as I stared at the shimmering wonder of it, yes, it must be.
'The silver gelstei,' Master Juwain said, breathing deeply. 'So this is why we've come here.'
He went on to say that on all of Ea, throughout all the ages, he knew of no greater work of silver gelstei than this sword.
'If,' he said, 'this truly is the Sword of Light.'
For a moment everyone fell silent as they looked at this long blade gleaming in the bright morning sunlight. Kane, who loved good steel almost more than life, seemed to gaze at it the longest and most deeply. And his eyes burned more brightly than anyone else's as he said, 'Alkaladur – so, Alkaladur.'
Here Alphanderry, standing by his side, rested his hand on his shoulder as he sang out:
Alkaladur! Alkaladur!
The Sword of Flame, the Sword of Light,
Which men have named Awakener
From ages dark and dream-dark night.
'What words are these?' Maram asked.
'So, they're from a much longer song telling of how Kalkamesh forged the Bright Sword,' Kane said. 'This was in the time after the First Quest when Morjin had nearly killed Kalkamesh and taken the Lightstone for himself.'
'Do you know the whole song?' Maram asked Alphanderry. 'Will you sing it?'
Alphanderry nodded his head, but then looked at Lady Nimaiu and her attendants who were combing out her tangled hair. It would have been rude for him to sing words that Liljana could have no hope of translating quickly and faithfully enough to be appreciated. But Lady Nimaiu, when apprised of this difficulty, asked Alphanderry to continue. She said that the spirit of the song would come through in his voice, and that was all that mattered. And so she stood smiling encouragingly at Alphanderry as all the Maii turned toward him and he began to sing: When last the Dragon ruled the land,
The ancient warrior came to Mesh.
He sought for vengeance with his hand,
And vengeance bitter burned his flesh.
And yet a finer flame he held,
The sacred spark, aglow, unseen,
In hand and heart it brightly dwelled:
The fire of the Galadin.
He brought this flame into the realm
Of swans and stars and moonlit knolls
Where rivers ran through oak and elm
And diamond warriors called swords souls.
To Godhra thus the warrior came
Beside the ancient silver lake.
By might of mind, by forge and flame,
A sacred sword he vowed to make.
Alkaladur! Alkaladur!
The Sword of Flame, the Sword of Light,
