Although we already appreciated his thoughtfulness and courage, no less his steadiness and strength, he would have to find his way toward us, and we toward him.
At least, I thought, we would have many miles in our coming together toward out common cause. From Alundil to Argattha, Burri had told us, was a distance of a good two hundred and fifty miles. Perhaps thirty of these me had already covered..
How long would the remaining miles take us to cross? A month? Already, it was near the end of Soal, and loj was nearly upon us. If Valte, with its snows, found us still in the mountains. it might be very bad for us indeed.
After breakfast the following morning we crossed a high valley peopled with only a few dozen Ymanir families. One of these served us a big lunch of vegetable and barley soup, cream cheese sandwiches and applesauce. They shared a little kalvaas with us too, before wishing us well on our journey.
That afternoon we crossed over a rather low ridgelinc into a wild country broken with many tors. We snaked our way around these rocky prominences, working our way through mostly barren furrows toward the east. The air grew cold as we gradually gained elevation. The horses, driving their newly shod hooves against the icy rocks and patches of snow, moved steadily forward, bearing the six of us on their backs as Ymiru walked a few paces ahead of them. Of all of horses, I thought, only Altaru knew how much I worried over the finding of grass for them in the even more forbidding land into which we were headed.
We made camp well before sunset by a stream that flowed out from between two good-sized hills. The faces of these rocky heaps were jacketed with slabs of sandstone, growing out of the earth at a sleep angle like huge flatirons. After the work of gathering water, making a fire and preparing dinner had been done – and after we had eaten the thick cheese and potato soup that liljana made – Ymiru sat by the fire playing with some chips of sandstone that he had found. Then, from a pouch on the great black belt that he wore, he took out the gelstei Hrothmar had given him.
He held the flat purple crystal over the sandstone chips in various positions, turning it this way and that. His ice-blue eyes were afire with the intensity of his concentration.
'Ah, may I ask what you're doing?' Maram said as he held a mug of kalvaas in his hand and sat nearby looking on.
When Ymiru didn't answer him, Atara came close and said, 'That should be obvious.'
'Well, it's not obvious to me.' now Liljana moved closer, and so did Kane. And Atara said, 'You might say he's trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.' Ymirus faint, curving smile suggested that he had heard Atara's words as from far away.
' Trying?' Maram said. 'But he's a Frost Giant! Don't they all know how to use these stones?'
He then began a long speech – made much longer by the quantity of kalavas that he drank – about the wonders of Alundil. After he were on and on extolling the great crystalline sculptures of the Garden of the Gods, which could only have been formed through the power of the purple gelstei, Ymiru had finally had enough. He held up his great hand for silence. Then he said to Maram, 'The Garden of the Gods was made long ago, with knowledge that has been lost to us. And with much greater galastei than this one.'
As he looked at the gleaming stone in his hand, Master Juwain came over and said,
'It's told that the purple crystals sing with the deeper vibrations of the earth. And thus, in many ways, they are the hardest to use.'
'And who tells this?' Ymiru asked him.
'My Brotherhood's alchemists.'
'Have they worked with many of the lilastei, then?'
Master Juwain shook his head. 'Not for three thousand years. The purple stones have been lost to us, too. The alchemists' knowledge comes from books.'
'So does mine,' Ymiru said, fingering his crystal. 'And from the teachings of the elders. Many of my people are instructed in the ways of the lilastei should the Ymanir ever find the secret of making more of them.'
And with that, he bent over to direct his attention to the task at hand, trying to unlock the secrets of his violet-colored crystal.
After a while, Liljana and Atara went to work on cleaning the pots and dishes while Ma ram slipped off into a drunken doze. I stood up to cover the horses with the white blankets that the Ymanir women had woven for them, Kane stood because he hated sitting; he walked about the perimeter of our camp, staring off into the darkness to look for enemies that he was unlikely to find within the safety of the Ymanir's land.
And then, just as I was feeding Altaru a chunk of carrot that I had saved from my soup, I heard Master Juwain cry out with delight: 'Do you see? He's done it after all!
Val, Kane, Liljana – come here and look!'
As Mararn awoke with a loud, breaking snore, we all gathered around Ymiru. I looked down at the ground beneath his purple gelstei. Where only a few moments before a pile of sandstone chips had been, now three long, dear, quartz crystals grew out of a fused mass of stone.
'What is it?' Maram asked. He struggled to sit up as he peered at Ymiru's work through his bleary eyes. 'What is this – sleight of hand?'
He looked at Ymiru suspiciously, as he might a street magician who has been given a bauble to play with. I did not think that he would ever be willing to lend Ymiru a gold coin for fear that Ymiru would return to him only a lump of lead.
'There's your silk purse,' Atara said, pointed at the newly-formed quartz crystals.
'It's good work – they're lovely, Ymiru.'
'So small,' he said, holding the crystals up to the light of the fire. 'And stived with flaws. But it be a beginning.'
Master Juwain had his own crystal in his hand as he looked at Ymiru approvingly.
He couldn't have helped noticing, I thought, that just as Ymiru's knowledge and will had brought out the power of the purple stone, the stone had also brought out his power and exalted him.
'It is a beginning,' Master Juwain said, to Ymiru and to all of us. 'Or, I should say, a completion. Now, for perhaps the first time since the Age of Law, seven of the greater gelstei have been brought together.'
He explained that the seven greater gelstei were each emanations of the gold gelstei and held something of its virtue. Used together, they were much more powerful than all of the stones used separately. They were like the fingers of a hand gripping the cup of fate that is also called the Lightstone.
'And as with the gelstei, so with us,' he said, looking at Ymiru. 'For we are only emanations of the One. Each of us – all have some seeds of the great gifts. It's the gelstei's purpose to quicken these gifts.'
Maram let loose a loud belch and said, 'You seem happy, sir.'
'I am happy, Brother Maram. Do you see? It's as I've always said -there is only one pattern to everything, a single tapestry. And we are its threads.'
Maram, still trying to wake up, rubbed his eyes and said, 'Ah, I don't quite understand.'
'One pattern,' Master Juwain said to him again. 'And the Lightstone holds the secret of its making. Its making. And I've sought just the opposite. All my life, looking for the knowledge to cut through and understand, the way to unravel the tapestry – all my life. And now, when perhaps there is not much left of it, I see that I was mis guided.'
He turned to look at Liljana and Atara, and then at Kane and me. He said, 'We've been seeking to quicken our gifts and use the gelstei in order to find the Lightstone.
But perhaps we should seek the Lightstone in order quicken our gifts.'
He went on to tell us that our work with the gelstei had great merit, as did our lives, even if we failed in our quest.
'Alphanderry said it best,' he reminded us. 'Do you remember his words?'
We are the songs that sing the world into life, I thought. And then I said them aloud for all to hear.
I sat staring up at the stars, wondering if Alphanderry's music had ever found its way toward these eternal lights. And then Kane's gruff voice brought me back to earth.
'Our lives are our lives, and we shouldn't give them up too easily,' he said to Master Juwain. 'So, I'll sing better when we hold the Lightstone in our hands.'
I fell off to sleep that night holding the hilt of Alkaladur in my hand. I prayed for the thousandth time that I might never again use this sword to take others' lives in defense of mine, but only to find my way through to the Lightstone.
