David Zindell - The Lightstone

'Ah. this isn't so bad,' Maram whispered to me, drawing his white coat around himself. He fingered its collar and added, 'It's as though the best part of the world is keeping me warm. Such softness – I wonder if the Ymanir women are so soft. Now that is something I would like to live to discover.'

He must have thought that Ymiru, lying on the bare ground between Kane and Liljana with only his own fur to cover him. was asleep. But it seemed that he was only deep in thought. And hearing, as Maram discovered to his embarrassment, was very keen.

He turned about, facing the fire – and Maram. And then he laughed and said, 'And just what would you do with one of our women, little man?'

'Little?' Maram said. 'Ah, I confess that there aren't any yet who have found me so.'

'No? Are you considering the size of your mouth? Or perhaps you speak of your head, which seems swollen with unattainable dreams?'

'Ah, well, my head,' Maram muttered. He shot me a quick, knowing look as if giving thanks that Lord Harsha hadn't cut it off. 'Let's just say I'm speaking of the size of my, ah, soul.'

'Your soul is it?' Ymiru said.'Now that be a great and glorious thing, I'm sure. Even a little man can have a great soul.'

'Just so, just so.'

'It must be your plan, then, to find a willing woman and fill her with this magnificent, questing soul of yours?'

'Ah, you do understand.'

'I do indeed,' Ymiru said, letting loose a laugh that shook the side of the mountain.

'Now that would be something I would like to live to see.'

We all laughed with Ymiru and Maram, and felt the better for it. Since Alphanderry's death, we'd had little enough opportunity for laughter and even less inclination. In truth, making jokes again around a campfire made us miss his mirthful ways terribly and seemed almost to mock his memory. But it would have been worse, I thought, if we had kept to our mournful mood forever. Alphanderry, of all people, would not have wanted it so. He would have wished upon us music and song, dancing and friendship and laughter. I knew that the only way we could ever really honor his death was to live our lives more deeply and take his spirit into us.

The coming of Ymiru into our company made this easier in some ways and more difficult in others. He had a wit to match Alphanderry's and a song in his heart – but the melodies that sounded there were less often light and sweet than complex, dark and deep. His quiet glooms and occasional enthusiasms reminded us that he could never simply replace Alphanderry as the seventh of our company. He was his own person, as brooding and mysterious as Alphanderry was cheerful and open.

Although we already appreciated his thoughtfulness and courage, no less his steadiness and strength, he would have to find his way toward us, and we toward him.

At least, I thought, we would have many miles in our coming together toward out common cause. From Alundil to Argattha, Burri had told us, was a distance of a good two hundred and fifty miles. Perhaps thirty of these me had already covered..

How long would the remaining miles take us to cross? A month? Already, it was near the end of Soal, and loj was nearly upon us. If Valte, with its snows, found us still in the mountains. it might be very bad for us indeed.

After breakfast the following morning we crossed a high valley peopled with only a few dozen Ymanir families. One of these served us a big lunch of vegetable and barley soup, cream cheese sandwiches and applesauce. They shared a little kalvaas with us too, before wishing us well on our journey.

That afternoon we crossed over a rather low ridgelinc into a wild country broken with many tors. We snaked our way around these rocky prominences, working our way through mostly barren furrows toward the east. The air grew cold as we gradually gained elevation. The horses, driving their newly shod hooves against the icy rocks and patches of snow, moved steadily forward, bearing the six of us on their backs as Ymiru walked a few paces ahead of them. Of all of horses, I thought, only Altaru knew how much I worried over the finding of grass for them in the even more forbidding land into which we were headed.

We made camp well before sunset by a stream that flowed out from between two good-sized hills. The faces of these rocky heaps were jacketed with slabs of sandstone, growing out of the earth at a sleep angle like huge flatirons. After the work of gathering water, making a fire and preparing dinner had been done – and after we had eaten the thick cheese and potato soup that liljana made – Ymiru sat by the fire playing with some chips of sandstone that he had found. Then, from a pouch on the great black belt that he wore, he took out the gelstei Hrothmar had given him.

He held the flat purple crystal over the sandstone chips in various positions, turning it this way and that. His ice-blue eyes were afire with the intensity of his concentration.

'Ah, may I ask what you're doing?' Maram said as he held a mug of kalvaas in his hand and sat nearby looking on.

When Ymiru didn't answer him, Atara came close and said, 'That should be obvious.'

'Well, it's not obvious to me.' now Liljana moved closer, and so did Kane. And Atara said, 'You might say he's trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.' Ymirus faint, curving smile suggested that he had heard Atara's words as from far away.

' Trying?' Maram said. 'But he's a Frost Giant! Don't they all know how to use these stones?'

He then began a long speech – made much longer by the quantity of kalavas that he drank – about the wonders of Alundil. After he were on and on extolling the great crystalline sculptures of the Garden of the Gods, which could only have been formed through the power of the purple gelstei, Ymiru had finally had enough. He held up his great hand for silence. Then he said to Maram, 'The Garden of the Gods was made long ago, with knowledge that has been lost to us. And with much greater galastei than this one.'

As he looked at the gleaming stone in his hand, Master Juwain came over and said,

'It's told that the purple crystals sing with the deeper vibrations of the earth. And thus, in many ways, they are the hardest to use.'

'And who tells this?' Ymiru asked him.

'My Brotherhood's alchemists.'

'Have they worked with many of the lilastei, then?'

Master Juwain shook his head. 'Not for three thousand years. The purple stones have been lost to us, too. The alchemists' knowledge comes from books.'

'So does mine,' Ymiru said, fingering his crystal. 'And from the teachings of the elders. Many of my people are instructed in the ways of the lilastei should the Ymanir ever find the secret of making more of them.'

And with that, he bent over to direct his attention to the task at hand, trying to unlock the secrets of his violet-colored crystal.

After a while, Liljana and Atara went to work on cleaning the pots and dishes while Ma ram slipped off into a drunken doze. I stood up to cover the horses with the white blankets that the Ymanir women had woven for them, Kane stood because he hated sitting; he walked about the perimeter of our camp, staring off into the darkness to look for enemies that he was unlikely to find within the safety of the Ymanir's land.

And then, just as I was feeding Altaru a chunk of carrot that I had saved from my soup, I heard Master Juwain cry out with delight: 'Do you see? He's done it after all!

Val, Kane, Liljana – come here and look!'

As Mararn awoke with a loud, breaking snore, we all gathered around Ymiru. I looked down at the ground beneath his purple gelstei. Where only a few moments before a pile of sandstone chips had been, now three long, dear, quartz crystals grew out of a fused mass of stone.

'What is it?' Maram asked. He struggled to sit up as he peered at Ymiru's work through his bleary eyes. 'What is this – sleight of hand?'