David Zindell - The Lightstone

At last the sun broke over the flaming ridgeline to the east. The air warmed, slightly, as the morning grew brighter. And still we waited, facing this great Mountain of the Morning Star. And then, to the thunder of ten thousand hearts and the rising of the wind, the colors of the mountain began to change. Slowly its jewel-like hues deepened and grew even more splendid. They seemed to flow into each other, red into yellow, orange into green, miraculously transforming into a single color like nothing I had ever dreamed. It was not a blending or a tessellation of colors, but one solid color – though perhaps not so solid at all, for in staring at it, I seemed to fall into it and become aware of infinite depths. How could this be, I wondered? How could there exist in the world an entirely new color of the spectrum that no one ever saw? It was as different from red or green as those colors are from violet or blue.

And yet I could only describe it to myself in terms of the more common colors, for that was the only way I could make sense of such an amazing thing: it had all the fire of red, the brightness and expansiveness of yellow, the deep peace of the purest cobalt blue.

'How is this possible?' I heard Maram whisper behind me. 'Oh, my Lord, how can this be?'

I shook my head as I stared at the great mountain, now wholly shimmering with a single hue, at once like living gold and cosmic scarlet, like the secret blue inside blue that people do not usually see.

'What is it?' Maram gasped, directing his words at Ymiru. 'Tell me before I fall mad.'

'It be glorre,' Ymiru said to him. 'It be the color of the angels.'

Glorre, I thought, glorre – it was so beautiful that I wanted to drink this color into my deepest self; it was almost too real to be real. And yet it was real, the truest and loveliest thing I had ever beheld. I melted into it; I felt it washing through my entire being, carrying into every part of me the clear, sweet, numinous taste of the One that is just the essence of all things.

'But yesterday,' Maram gasped out, 'the mountain didn't appear so!'

'No, it did not,' Ymiru agreed. 'It takes on this color only once each day, in the light of the Morning Star – with the rising of the sun.'

Atara stared at Alumiit as intensely as she ever had her scryer's sphere. Behind her, Master Juwain asked Ymiru, 'Has it always taken on this color?'

'No, only for the last twenty years,' Ymiru said. 'Ever since the earth entered the Golden Band.'

'I see,' Master Juwain said, rubbing his bald head. 'Yes, I see.' Liljana looked upon the mountain in awed silence while Kane stood stricken beside her. His fathomless eyes were fixed on the glorre of the mountain. He didn't move; he seemed not even to breathe. If one of the Ymanir had fallen on him with a club just then, I did not think that he would have drawn his sword to defend himself.

'The mountain speaks to those who listen,' Ymiru said softly. 'As we must listen now.'

The silence that descended upon the square was a strange and beautiful thing. We stood with ten thousand Ymanir looking up at the sacred Alumit to the west, and not a single child fidgeted or called for his mother to take him home. I tried to listen with the same concentration as did they. As I my eyes drank in this mountain of a numinous hue seen only in the stars, I became aware of voices singing as from far away. Fair but almost impossibly near: every building in the city seemed suddenly to vibrate with these sweet sounds, which I felt resonating inside me. It was like the ringing of bells and gentle laughter carried along the wind. The music reminded me of that which Alphanderry had sung in the Kul Moroth. I tried to understand the words that formed up in my mind, breaking like the crest of a wave always just beyond my reach. And yet I knew that I could always keep them within me, in my heart and hands, if only I had the courage to hold onto them.

Others, however, were more practiced or gifted at such apprehension. Liljana stood with her gelstei pressed to her forehead over her third eye. The little blue whale seemed to have deepened to the color of glorre. Liljana's eyes, wide open, flicked about with the little movements of one who is deep in dream. 'What does she see?'

Maram whispered to me.

'You might better ask yourself,' Ymiru told him, 'what she hears.' We soon had our answer. As the sun rose still higher, in the sky, Liljana's hand fell down to her side.

She smiled at Master Juwain in her peacable way, and then turned to Atara and me.

She said, 'They're waiting for us, you know. On many, many worlds, the Star People are waiting for us to complete the quest.' The nine E0lders of the Urdahir, led by Hrothmar, turned our way.

The guards around us pulled aside to allow hirn room to step for ward.

'They are waiting,' he told us. 'As are the Elijin and Galadin themselves. We feared that it would be so.'

He sighed as he pulled at the white fur of his chin and looked at me. 'Sar Valashu, we believe that you and your friends must try to enter Argattha and recover the Lightstone. If you agree, we'd like to help you.'

Audhumla and Yvanu, standing just behind him, smiled as he said this; Hramjir and Hramdal nodded their massive heads while even Burri seemed to have been moved by the wonder of what he had just heard.

Maram muttered something about the madness of fordng Argattha's gates, and Hrothmar, not quite understanding him, nodded his head gravely, saying 'Then you may remain here as our guests for as long as you live – or until the Star People return.'

I couldn't help smiling at Maram's consternation. To Hrothmar I said, 'We would welcome whatever help you have to give us.'

'Very good,' his huge voice rumbled out. He looked from Atara to Liljana, and then at Kane, Maram, Master Juwain and me. 'The prophecy you told us spoke of the seven brothers and sisters with the seven stones of the greater galastei. And seven you were until you lost the minstrel in Yrakona. Therefore, you need one more to complete your company. And so we must ask that we send one of our people with you to Argattha.'

I knew from the set of his hard, blue eyes that there could be no disputing this demand. I looked toward the edge of the square at the guards, with their fearsome borkors. Either we accepted one of these giants into our company, I thought, or we must remain here forever.

'Who would you send with us then?' I asked him.

He turned to Ymiru and said, 'I have seen in you a desire to make this journey. It would be fitting, wouldn't it, that after breaking the lower law, you should fulfill the higher?'

'Yes,' Ymiru said, 'it would.'

'Will you show the little people the way through Asakai?'

'Yes, I will.'

Hrothmar looked at me. 'Well, Sar Valashu – will you take Ymiru into your company?'

I met eyes with Ymiru and smiled at him. 'Gladly,' I said.

Then I reached out to grasp Ymiru's huge hand with mine. Now, as the sun rose higher and the glorre of Alumit began to break apart into its usual, brilliant colors, the thousands of people in the square all turned their attention on, Ymiru and the nine Elders – and us.

'But we've still only six gelstei,' Maram pointed out. 'How can Ymiru come with us without a gelstei?'

Hrothmar's sudden grin seemed bigger than the sky. I noticed then that he was holding a small, jeweled box in his hand. He gripped this tightly next to his furry hip.

Then he lifted it up and said to us, 'You have found six of the galastei on your journey; now we would like to give you the seventh.'

And with that, he opened the box. He pulled out a large, square-cut stone, clear and bright and purple as wine.

'This be a lilastei,' he said, handing it to Ymiru. 'It be the last one remaining to our people. Take it with our blessing. For with you goes the hope of our people.'