'Ah, I'm afraid I am, sir.' The diamonds of his ring dazzled his eyes. 'Ah, I'm afraid that I must formally renounce my vows to the Brotherhood.'
At this, Master Juwain smiled and bowed his head in acceptance. He said, 'I think you renounced them many miles ago.'
As the two kings sent squires to call for their armies to come closer and view the Lightstone, Lord Harsha limped over to us. On his bluff, old face was the brightest of smiles. His single eye fell upon me, and he said, 'Lord Valashu – you can't know how glad it makes me to say that.'
Maram, I saw, had pulled back behind the cover of Karshur's thick body. He looked away from Lord Harsha like a child at school who is afraid that his master might call upon him.
'And Sar Maram!' Lord Harsha said, finding him easily enough. 'We're all glad to see you.'
'You are?' Maram asked. 'I had thought you might be distressed, ah, about things that had distressed you.'
Lord Harsha looked at the two diamonds of Maram's ring and said, 'It might have been so. But my poor daughter has talked of little else but you since you went away.
And that distresses me.'
'Behira,' Maram said as if struggling to remember her name, 'is a lovely woman.'
'Yes, the loveliest. And she will be delighted to see that you've been knighted. What honor could we bestow upon you to equal that which you've brought to us?'
'Ah, perhaps some of your excellent beer, sir.'
'That you shall have, Sar Maram. And much else as well. The month of Ashte is a lovely time for a wedding, don't you think?'
'Yes, a lovely time.' Lord Harsha stepped forward favoring his crippled leg. He embraced Maram and said, 'My son!'
'Ah, Lord Harsha, I -'
'There is only one thing in the world that could distress me on such a fine day as this,' Lord Harsha added. He smiled at Maram as he rested his hand on his kalama.
'And that would be to see my daughter further distressed. Do you understand?'
Maram did understand, and he looked at me as if pleading that I might come to his rescue. But this one time, I was powerless to help him.
'Ashte,' I said to him, as Lord Harsha walked off, 'is half a year away. Much might happen between now and then.'
'Yes,' Maram said optimistically, 'I might come to love Behira, mightn't I?'
' You might,' I told him. 'Isn't it love that you really sought?' Now, as the Lightstone was passed back and forth between knights arriving at our encampment on the middle of the field, as my father stood conferring with King Hadaru, and Maram showed Yarashan the rock with the hole that he-had burned with his red gelstei in the Vardaloon, Asaru took my hand. Our lord's rings clicked together, and he said, 'My apologies for doubting that the Lightstone might be found. Our grandfather would have been proud of you.'
'Thank you, Asaru,' I told him. 'But you had me worried,' he said.
'When the news came from Ishka, about the Bog, we all gave up hope.'
I looked deep into the essential innocence gathering in his dark eyes, and I said, 'All except you.'
We clasped hands so tightly that my fingers hurt. And he said, 'You've changed, Valashu.'
All at once, as if ice were breaking beneath me, I felt myself plunging into unbearably cold waters. There pooled all the pain of Atara's blinding, of Kane's darkened soul, of Alphanderry's death.
'Valashu,' my brother said.
I blinked my eyes to see him suddenly weeping as all the anguish inside me flowed into him. I knew then that the gift of valarda that my grandfather had bestowed upon me had not left Asaru untouched. It lay waiting to be awakened in all Valari, perhaps in all men.
Now the twelve thousand warriors of Ishka and the ten thousand of Mesh had finally closed and met all about us in the middle of the field. At the commands of the warlords and captains, they laid their spears and shields down upon the snow. Its white crystals, like millions of diamonds, shimmered with blues and golds and reds.
Soon the morning sun would melt the ground's cold covering, even as the Lightstone melted six thousand years of hatred, envy and suspicion. I turned to watch the warriors of King Hadaru and King Shamesh passing the cup from hand to hand, along the ranks, up one file and then down another. The Valari drank in its radiance through their bright eyes and through their hands. It blazed like the sun through their beings. In each of them, as in Asaru, I saw a golden cup pouring out its light from inside their hearts. It melted them open, melted the very diamond armor encasing them. And in this grade that seemed almost an illusion but was as real as the water in my eyes, as real as my love for Asaru and for my brothers, for my father and King Hadaru and all the Ishkans, it melted even me.
'Look,' Asaru said, pointing up at the sky, 'there's a good sign.' I followed the line of his finger to see a great flock of swans winging their way south as they flew over the Upper Raaswash into Mesh. As my heart opened to this glorious sight, and to the hearts of the twenty thousand jubilant Valari all around me, I knew that the valarda was truly the greatest of gifts. For the joy of my brothers in arms and fellow guardians came flooding into me, and I felt myself soaring through the sky as well.
'Tonight,' Asaru said, still looking at the swans, 'they'll sleep at home. As we will soon enough, since there will be no war. What will you do, Valashu, now that you've found the Lightstone?'
What would I do, I wondered?
I turned to watch the swans disappear over the mountains to the south. In that direction lay the Valley of the Swans and the three great peaks above my father's castle. My mother and grandmother would be waiting for me there – even as my grandfather waited in another place. Atara was waiting in darkness for our son to be born and behold the beauty of the world. Where the stars burned cold and clean and bright, there the Elijin and Galadin waited for the Shining One to come forth. All people everywhere, and all things, always waiting.
And I must wait a little longer, too. The Quest had been fulfilled but one task remained: I must show my grandfather the golden cup that he knew would one day be found. And so, soon, on a clear winter night, I would climb Mount Telshar or Arakel and stand upon the summit with the Lightstone in my hand. I would breathe the cold breath of all those who had come before me; I would dream my fiery dreams and speak my promise to the stars: that darkness would be defeated, that men and women would soar the heavens with wings of light, that someday the Lightstone would be returned to that bright, blazing place from which it came.
