'So you used us as bait to spring your trap.'
'Would it have been better if I had walked into their trap and died with you?'
I nodded my head because what he had said made sense. Then I told him, 'We should thank you for taking such great risks to save our lives.' 'It's not your thanks I want,' he told me.
'What is it you want, then? You said you've spent a year looking for me – why?'
Now Master Juwain, Maram and Atara rose up and stood beside me facing Kane.
We all waited to hear what he would say.
As the sun rose higher and the woods grew even warmer, Kane began pacing back and forth beneath the oak tree. His grim, bold face was set into a scowl; the large tendons along his neck popped out beneath his sun-burnt skin as his jaw muscles worked and he clamped his teeth together. Kane, I thought was a man who fought terrible battles – the worst ones with himself. I felt in him a great doubt, and even more, a seething anger at himself for doubting at all. Finally, he turned toward me, and his eyes were pools of fire catching me up in their dark flames.
'So, I'll tell you of the prophecy of Ayondela Kirriland,' he said. The sounds issuing from his throat just then were more like an animal's growls than a human voice,
'listen, listen well: 'The seven brothers and sisters of the earth with the seven stones will set forth into the darkness. The Lightstone will be found, the Maitreya will come forth -''
'And a new age will begin,' Maram said, interrupting him.'Ah we already know the words to the prophecy. King Kiritan's messenger delivered it in Mesh before we set out.'
'Did he?' Kane said, fixing his blazing eyes on Maram.
'Yes, we already know that the seven stones must be -'
'Be quiet!' Kane suddenly commanded him. 'Be quiet, now – you know nothing!'
Maram's mouth snapped shut like a turtle's. He looked at Kane in surprise, and not a little fear, as well.
'There's more to the prophecy than you'll have heard,' he told us. He turned to stare at me. 'These are the last lines of it: 'A seventh son with the mark of Valoreth will slay the dragon, The old world will be destroyed and a new world created.''
As his voice died into the deepness of the woods, I stood there rubbing the scar on my forehead. I thought of Asaru, Karshur, Yarashan, Jonathay, Ravar and Mandru – my six brothers who were the sons of Shavashar Elahad. Then Maram turned toward me as if seeing me for the first time, and so did Atara and Master fuwain.
'If this is truly the whole prophecy,' I said to Kane, 'then why didn't King Kiritan's messenger deliver it?'
'Because he almost certainly didn't know it.'
He stared at my face as he told us of the tragedy of Ayondela Kirriland. It was well known, he said, that Ayondela was struck down by an assassin's knife just as she recited the first two lines of the prophecy. But what was not known was that the great oracle in Tria had been infiltrated by Morjin's priests who helped murder Ayondela. Just before she died, she whispered the second two lines of the prophecy to two of these Kallimun priests – Tulann Hastar and Seshu Jonku – who kept them secret from King Kiritan and almost everyone else.
'If the lines were kept secret, then how did you learn of them?' I asked.
'Tulann and Seshu informed Morjin, of course,' Kane said. His dark eyes gleamed with hate. 'And before Tulann died, he whispered the whole of the prophecy to me.'
I looked at the knife that Kane wore sheathed at his side; I didn't want to know how Kane had persuaded Tulann to reveal such secrets.
'Tulann was an assassin,' Kane said to me. 'And I'm an assassin of assassins. Some day I may kill the Great Beast himself – unless you do first.'
The scar above my eye was now burning as if a bolt of lightning had put its fire into me. I squeezed the hilt of my sword, hardly able to look at Kane.
'You bear the mark of Valoreth that Ayondela told of,' he said to me. 'And unless I've forgotten how to count you're Shavashar Elahad's seventh son. That's why Morjin sent his assassins to kill you.'
Atara came up to me and put her hand on my shoulder, I felt within her a terrible excitement and her great fear tor me as well. Master Juwain smiled happily as if he had just found a piece to a puzzle that he had thought lost.
Maram bowed his head to me as a swell of pride flushed his face-To Kane, I said
'Why didn't you tell me all this at the Duke's castle?'
'Because you didn't trust me – why should I have trusted you?'
'Why should you trust me now?' Kane's breath fairly steamed from his lips as he stared deep into my eyes. 'Why should I indeed, Valashu Elahad? Why, why? So I trust your valor and the fire of your heart – and your sword. I trust the truth of your words. I trust that if you set out to seek the Lightstone, you won't turn back. Ha – I suppose I trust you because I must.'
So saying, he opened his hand to show me the black stone that he had torn from the Grays' leaders head. 'This, I believe, is one of the stones told of in Ayondela's prophecy.'
He nodded at Master Juwain and said, 'And I believe that the varistei that the Lokii queen gave you is another.'
Master Juwain took the green gelstei fern his pocket and held the sparkling crystal up to the sun.
'The first two of the seven stones have been found,' Kane said. 'And here we stand, five of the seven brothers and sisters of the earth.' 'No, it's not possible,' I murmured. 'It can't be me that the prophecy told of. It can't be us.'
But even as I spoke these words, I knew that it was. I heard something calling me as from far away and yet very near. It was both terrible and beautiful to hear, and it whispered to me along the wind in a keening voice that I could not ignore. I felt it burning into my forehead and tingling along my spine and booming out like thunder with every beat of my heart.
'You can't choose your fate,' Kane said to me. 'You can decide only whether or not you'll try to hide from it.'
I stared into the centers of his black eyes; I sensed in him a whole sea of emotions: wrath, hope, hate, love – and passion for life in all its colors and shades of light and dark. There was a terrible darkness about him that I feared almost more than death itself.
He suddenly drew his sword which had sent on so many of the Grays. Its long blade gleamed in the sunlight filtering down through the trees. He said to me, 'You have the gift of the valarda. If you choose to, you can hear the truth in another's heart. Hear the truth of mine, then: I pledge this sword to your service so long as you seek the Lightstone. Your enemies will be my enemies. And I'll die before I see you killed.'
There was a darkness about Kane as black as space, and yet there was something incredibly bright about him, too. The same black eyes that had fallen upon his enemies with a hellish hate now shone like stars. It was this light that dazzled me; it was this bright being whom I looked upon with awe.
'Take me with you,' he said, 'and I'll fight by your side to the gates of Damoom itself.'
'All right,' I finally said, bowing my head. 'Come with us, then.'
And with that, I touched my hand to his sword. A moment later, he sheathed this fearsome weapon, and we grasped hands like brothers, smiling as we tested each other's strength.
It was rash for me to have spoken without the other's consent. But I knew that Master Juwain would welcome Kane's wisdom as would Maram the safety of his sword. As for Atara, she had nothing but respect for this matchless old warrior. She came up to him and clasped hands with him, too. And then she told him, 'If fate has brought us together, as it seems it has, then we should go forth as brothers and sisters. Truly we should. I'd be glad if you came with us – though let's hope we won't have to go quite so far as these Dark Worlds that you've told of.'
Master Juwain and Maram both welcomed Kane to our company, and we stood there in the shade of the oak tree smiling and taking each other's measure. Then Atara turned to Kane and said, 'There's one thing in your story that you glossed over.'
'Eh, what's that?'
Atara, who was as sharp as the point of one of her arrows, smiled at him and said,
'In your account of how Aryu stole the Lightstone, you claimed that he had hidden it in a cave before he died. If that's true, then how was it ever found?'
Kane let out a low, harsh laugh and said, 'That's a story that will certainly be told at the gathering in Tria.
