Maitreya will come forth only to be crucified; a new age will begin: the Age of Darkness that will last a thousand times three thousand years.'
King Kiritan, who was now breathing hard, paused to swallow painfully. I could almost feel his thirst and desire to call for a glass of water. But he would not be seen surrendering to his body's needs at such a moment. And so he pressed his thin, dry lips together as he sat tensely on his throne.
And then he cried out, 'And that is why it must be we who find the Lightstone first!
One of us here in thMhall tonight! Or seven, or seventy, or a thousand – who will join voices with me and vow to make this Quest?'
For a moment, no one in the hall moved. Then Count Dario, with his flaming red hair and burning eyes, put his hand to his sword as he cried out, 'I will seek the Lightstone!'
Behind him, two more Alonian knights touched hands to swords and shouted, 1 will!' as well. And then five knights from the Elyssu called out their promise, and all at once, like a fire shooting through dry wood, the fervor to regain this lost cup spread through the hall as hundreds of voices began crying out as one: 'I will! I will!
I will!'
There was magic in that moment, and I found myself calling out the same pledge I had made in the hall of my father's castle. Atara and Master Juwain joined me, and Maram, despite his doubts, added his booming voice to the clamor. Even Kane seemed swept away by the great passion of it all and growled out his assent.
After a while, when the multitude had quieted and the stones of the hall grew silent again, King Kiritan drew forth his sword and held it by the blade for all to see. He said to us, 'Swear this oath, then. By your swords, by your honor, by your lives – swear that you will seek the Lightstone and never rest until it is found. Swear that you will seek it by road, by water, by fire, by darkness, by the paths of the mind and the heart. Swear that your seeking will not end unless illness, wounds or death strike you down first. Swear that you will seek the Cup of Heaven for all of Ea and not yourselves.'
It was a harsh oath that King Kiritan called us to make, and more than one knight present bit his lip and shook his head. But many more called out that they would do what was asked of them. Atara, Kane and I did; Master Juwain, though no knight, did as well. I was afraid that Maram might balk at speaking such binding words. But he surprised me, and himself, by vowing to seek the Lightstone to his very death.
'Ah, Maram, my friend,' I heard him muttering to himself a moment later, 'what have you done?'
At first, I supposed that he had become drunk on the powerful wine of fellowship and had forgotten himself. And then I saw him staring at a pretty Alonian woman; she had hair like burnished bronze and full red lips and adoring eyes for all the knights who had vowed to make the quest. If Maram failed to catch her attention, I thought, there would be many other women in the coming years who would want to bless his bravery by giving him what gifts they could.
Now the time had come for King Kiritan to bless those who had made vows. These numbered perhaps a thousand of those present King Kiritan called for them to move towards his throne. Even as my friends and I began pressing through the crush of people in the hall, King Kiritan stepped down from his throne. Then he called out to ten of his grooms, who walked down the southern aisle bearing a golden chest between each pair of them. They set the five chests at King Kiritan's feet near the first step of his throne. King Kiritan smiled as he bowed toward the handsome woman I had presumed to be his wife. And so she was. She had golden hair almost the color of Atara's and a haughty manner, and the King presented her as Queen Daryana Ars Narmada.
The Queen opened one of the chests and removed a large, gold medallion suspended from a golden chain. She held it high above her head for everyone to behold. The medallion was cast into the shape of a sunburst with flames shooting off of it As I would soon see, a cup stood out in relief at its center. Seven rays, also in relief, streamed out of the cup toward the medallion's rim. There, around the rim, were written words in ancient Ardik that those making the quest should never forget: Sura Longaram Tat-Tanuar Galardar.
Queen Daryana gave this medallion to King Kirtian, who then draped it over the head of Count Dario, the first knight to have caleed out his pledge. After the King had given his blessing, Queen Daryana reached into the chest for another medallion, even as another knight stepped up to the King. This knight, too, received both medallion and blessing. And so it went, the Queen removing the medallions from the chest one by one as the King gave them with his own hands to the many questers lining up before him. As there were a thousand of us, however, this gift-giving took a long time. My friends and I were the last to enter the hall, and so we would be the last to receive our medallions.
While we stood waiting among the multitude in the hall, various knights announced their plans for finding the Lightstone. Many, of course, would journey to Ea's many oracles in hope of receiving prophecies that might direct them. Some would search the island off Nedu. for they believed that perhaps the Lightstone that Morjin claimed at the end of the Age of Law was only one of the many False Gelstei and that the true and only Gelstei remained somewhere on the island where Aryu originally left it.
Three knights from Delu were determined to journey into the Great Southern Forest of Acadu while others planned voyages across the sea. I heard knights vowing to seek the Lightstone in old sanctuaries or museums or in the ruins of ancient cities. A few decided to set forth alone, but many more were forming into bands of seven, for good luck and protection, but also because the prophecy spoke of 'the seven brothers and sisters of the earth with the seven stones.' These seven stones everyone presumed to be geistei but where the questers might find them, no one knew for most of the gelstei forged during the Age of Law had been destroyed or lost and those few that remained were jealously guarded like the treasures they were.
With Master Juwain pressed against my side, I thought of the varistei that Pualani had given him and of the black stone that Kane had cut from the Gray's forehead.
Kane, standing just ahead of me, had surely secreted this stone on his person. I knew that he would guard it to the death from anyone who tried to take it from him.
Of lesser treasures., he seemed to care nothing. He nodded toward King Kiritan and the chest of medallion and said, 'That's a pretty piece of gold that the King's handing out and a thousand of them must have cost him dearly. But gold's only gold – it's the true gold that we're after. We've made our vows to find it. Now why don't we leave before something keeps us from our quest?'
'But we haven't received the King's blessing,' I whispered to him.
'If it's a blessing you want,' he grumbled, 'I'll give you mine.'
'Thank you,' I said. 'But you're not a king.'
At this, Kane ground his teeth together as he stared at me. Master Juwain said that we should certainly stay to receive King Kiritan's blessing while Maram, in his own mind, was likely already strutting before the ladies with his new golden medallion shining from his chest. As for Atara, she hadn't come all this way from the Wendrush and fought two battles to turn aside now. Each time Queen Daryana handed a medallion to the King, Atara's blue eyes flared like stars as a fierce desire ignited inside her.
The great nobles of Alonia were the first to receive their medallions that night. I heard them call out their names one by one. These included Belur Narmada, Julumar Hastar, Breyonan Eriades, Javan Kirriland and Hanitan Marshan. All were scions of the ancient Five Families, each of which had been founded in the Age of the Mother by the Aryan invaders who sailed with Bohimir Marshan. For three ages, the Alonian kings and queens had come from these clans. They built their palaces on Tria's seven hills, to which they had given their names. They also kepi great estates on the lands surrounding the city. Many times the nobles had fought among themselves for the throne. They established dynasties, such as the renowned Marshanid dynasty, only to be overthrown and wait a hundred or five hundred more years to see their clan rise to preeminence again. Warriors their patriarchs had been, and warriors they remained. They wore well-used armor, and were fairer of hair and eyes than most of the Alonians I had seen in the streets.
Most recently, they and their fathers had made war upon the second group of nobles to stand before the King. These were the lords of Alonia's various domains. The greatest of them, Kane told me, were Baron Narcavage of Amgin and Baron Monteer of Ivendenhall. Two generations earlier, when Alonia had been reduced in power and size, the barons and dukes had ruled their possessions as independent lords. But King Sakandar the Fair, King Kiritan's grandfather, had begun the reconquest of Alonia's ancient realm. Before he died, he had forced the Duke of Raanan and the Count of Iviunn to do him homage and kneel to him. His son, King Hanikul, had continued the wars that he began. Only upon the ascension of his son, King Kiritan, however, had the reconquest been completed. King Kiritan had spent almost his entire reign riding at the head of his knights into one rebellious domain or another.
