David Zindell - Diamond Warriors

'But why didn't you just tell me then?'

'Because,' he said, 'love burns infinitely hotter than dragon fire. It's beautiful, yes, but terrible, too. And so I was afraid.'

Behira bowed down her head to kiss Maram's fingers, and she told him, 'You are a prince of Delu who became a Valari knight. And the only man on earth who could have slain that dragon. Don't tell me that such a warrior can't win at love!'

They suddenly pulled closer together to kiss each other — and so with the fire of their lips and hearts, they finally sealed their troth to marry. When Maram leaned back to gaze at her, I had never seen him smile with such happiness.

'Let us drink to marriage, then!' he shouted. 'Ours — and Val's and everyone's!'

As the men at the other tables all looked on, Maram called out for mugs of beer to be set before everyone. I made the first toast, and Lord Harsha the second, and Ymiru the third. It did not take very long for everyone's mug to be emptied.

'Ah, but it's brandy we need!' Maram said, licking his newly-grown mustache. He thumped his hand against his chest. 'Now there's a fire that lingers here!'

He went on to lament the shortage of brandy in the city. Then he presented the man sitting next to him: Demarion Arriara, the merchant from Galda. Maram, it seemed, had arranged to buy wine from Demarion's vineyards and have it shipped to Tria.

'I shall build a distillery,' he announced, 'and make the best brandy in the world. Too many times these last years I've gone without it — but never again.'

'And I'll gladly help you drink it!' Ymiru said to him. 'But does that mean that you plan to make Tria your hrome?'

At the look of concern that befell both Behira and Lord Harsha, Maram again thumped his chest and assured them, 'Don't worry: there's more than enough room here for brandy and for love! And as for home, we'll have those five hundred acres in Mesh that Val has given us — and other places, too. With the Red Dragon defeated, the whole damn world will be our home!'

Later, that evening, after everyone had returned to the palace grounds, I stood on the new grass alone with Maram looking out at the city's lights.

'I am glad,' I said to him, 'that you and Behira will remain here for at least a part of the year. And the city is short of brandy. But I hadn't envisioned you suffering through two quests and twenty battles just to wind up a happily married merchant.'

'What have you envisioned, my friend?'

'Your father,' I said, 'will not rule Delu forever. Truly, he will not rule at all if I ask him to abdicate. You could help me there, Maram.'

'I would rather help you here.'

'But you could become a king!'

He looked at me and smiled hugely. 'I already am — and have been since the day that you called me your friend.'

My eyes burned into his as I smiled back at him. Then I said, 'But Delu is weak and needs a firmer hand than your father can provide.'

'That is true — but one of my brothers can certainly do better than I.' He pulled at his beard, and added, 'I have no liking to rule anyone, and even less to be ruled.'

'And yet, you would remain with me, who must be everyone's king.',

'You never ruled me, Val. You never told me what I must do.'

'But what will you do, then, aside from putting brandy in bottles where once you emptied them?'

Again, Maram smiled, and he waved his hand in a great circle out toward the city and the dark world that lay beyond. 'What won't I do! I will write poems that will bum in women's and men's hearts for ten thousand years! I will take up the mandolet and play duets with Alphanderry. I will father a dozen sons, and as many daughters — as many children as Behira wishes. I will make journeys: to talk to the Sea People by the great ocean and to walk through Galda's vineyards. And into the Vilds to eat the sacred timana again and marvel at the Timpum. I would look once more upon Jezi Yaga's eyes and even the sky of the Tar Harath. Somewhere, the Librarians who fled Khaisham will build the world's greatest library, and I will spend ten years there reading every book that I can lay my hands upon. I will climb mountains. Perhaps even Alumit, when the Morning Star rises and the whole mountain turns to glorre. And I will go down into Senta's caves to behold the music crystals buried in the earth and to listen to the angels sing. I will take ship and sail again to the Island of the Swans, and beyond, where the heavens light up like. .'

He spoke on in a similar manner for quite a while. Then he looked deep into my eyes. 'I have lived as no man has ever lived, and now I will love as no man has ever loved — almost no other.'

He clasped my hand in his, and we both smiled. Then I told him: 'Behira will be happy to help you.'

'Yes — even as oil helps fire to burn more brightly,' he said. And then he added, 'But the flame must burn straight and true, like a fire arrow, and for that I will ask the help of Master Juwain and Abrasax.'

'And they will be glad to give it, though they might ask difficult things of you.'

'Well, I must make my peace with the Brotherhood. I must finish what I began, when I joined their order.'

'To walk the way of the serpent?'

'To walk to the stars, Val. As Kalkin once did. And as some day I will, too, when it comes time for you to lead the way.'

He squeezed my hand so hard that I thought my bones might break. Then he laughed and told me, 'I have written another poem, a bit of doggerel, really, but I thought you might like to hear it.'

'I would like to hear it, Maram,' I told him.

'All right, then. This is the logical completion to the other verses I wrote when we we looking for the Brotherhood's school. Listen:

The highest man rules all below:

The wheels of light that spin and glow.

The heart and head, ketheric crown:

The mighty snake goes up or down.

It's love that turns the world each day.

Sets stars to shine, makes men of clay.

But in light's aim, desire of dust,

All things do blaze with blessed lust.

And so I praise the thrust of life

To rise beyond the body's strife,

But also women, war, and wine,

For all that is, is all divine.

I am a seventh chakra man

Living out the angels' plan,

My pleasure 'turns where it began;

I am a seventh chakra man.

It was not to be, however, that Maram found his way back to the Brotherhood, for the Great White Brotherhood had ceased to exist. As Abrasax said to me on a cool, cloudy day in early Soldru: 'Over the course of too many years, too many of our schools have been destroyed, and we will not rebuild them. That is, we won't rebuild as before. Our Order had grown old, Valashu. Our ways set, as if in stone. But we have entered a new age — the Age of Light! — and so we will need new ways.'

Toward that end, he told me, the Brotherhood would join with the Sisterhood, and what once had been sundered into two far back in the Age of the Mother would again become one. Their new order would be called the Preservers of the Ineffable Flame. As in the ancient times, they would build Temples of life and Gardens of the Earth. And the Lokilani of Ea's seven Viids would help them. Together they would take the emerald varistei crystals into all lands, and turn even the deserts green. All the world would be made more fertile and fruitful, and the joining of man and woman would be exalted. People would speak once again with the animals, and sing the grasses and flowers into ever greater life. But in each garden there would grow a great tree toward the sky. reminding women and men that they must reach ever higher, even while keeping themselves rooted in the earth. And on top of each temple, the Brothers and Sisters would build a great spire pointing at the heart of the heavens. As Abrasax also told me: 'We must never forget that it is our destiny to return home to the stars, where we have always been.'