David Zindell - The Lightstone

Maybe not even then. But this woman of the waters and wind – she has a terrible beauty like that of Ashtoreth herself. This is the beauty that the world was meant to bring into life. This is the beauty that every woman was born for. But that woman I will never be until men become what they were meant to be. And nothing will ever change men's hearts except the Lightstone itself.'

'Nothing?' I asked, dropping my eyes toward her arrow.

Here she laughed nicely for a moment and then admitted, 'I said; before that I sought the Lightstone to unite all the Sarni. And that's true. And yet, I would like to see all men united. All men and all women.'

'That's a lovely thought,' I told her. 'And you're a lovely woman.' 'Please don't say that.'

'Why not?'

'Please don't say that the way that you say that.'

'My apologies,' I said, looking down as she slid the arrow between her sanding stones.

Then she put down both her arrow and her stones and waved her hands at the darkened trees all about us. 'It's strange,' she said, 'here we are in the middle of a wood that has almost no end, far from either the Wendrush or any city. And yet, whenever I come near you I feel like I'm returning home.'

'It's that way for me, too,' I said.

'But it shouldn't be. It mustn't be. This isn't the time for anyone to be making homes together. Or anything else.'

'Such as children?'

'Children, yes.'

'Then you've no wish ever to be a mother?'

'Of course I have,' she said. 'Sometimes I think there's nothing I want more.' She looked straight at me and continued, 'But there are always choices, aren't there? And I was given the choice between making babies or killing my enemies.'

'So,' I said, 'if you kill enough bad men, the world will be a better place for babies?'

'Yes,' she said. 'That's why I joined the Society and made my vow.'

'Would you never consider breaking it then?'

'As Maram breaks his?'

'A hundred men,' I said, staring off at the shadows between the trees. Not even Asaru or Karshur, I thought, had slain so many. No Valari warrior I knew had.

'A vow is a vow,' she said sadly. 'I'm sorry, Val.'

I was sorry, too. I put away my sword then and took out my flute. The world about me was more peaceful than it had been since Mesh. The trees swayed gentiy beneath the starry sky while the wind blew cool and dean. On the other side of the fire, Maram snored happily and Master luwain moved his lips in his sleep as if memorizing the lines from a book. And yet beneath this contentment was a sadness that seemed to touch all things, the ferns and the flowers no less than Atara and me.

It was in recognition of the bittersweet taste of life that I began to play a song that my grandmother had taught me. The words formed up inside me like dried fruits stuck in my throat Wishes are wishing you would wish them. What wish, I wondered, was waiting for me to give it life? Only that Atara and I might someday stand face to face, as man and woman, without the thunder of the war drums sounding in the distance.

And so I played, and each note was a step taking the music higher; my breath was the wind carrying this wish up into the sky. After a while, played other songs even as Atara put away her arrow and looked at me. | her eyes danced the dark lights of the fire and much else. I couldn t help thinking of the words that Maram had called out some days before. Her eyes are windows to the stars. He had forgotten the lines of his new poem even more quickly than he had Duke Gorador's wife. But I hadn't Neither had I forgotten the verse that he had recited the night of the feast in my father's hall:

Star of my soul, how you shimmer

Beyond the deep blue sky

Whirling and whirling – you and I whisperlessly Spinning sparks of joy into the night.

Even as the crackling fire sent its own sparks spinning into the darkness, I was overwhelmed with a strange sense that Atara and I had once come from this nameless star. In truth, whenever she looked at me it seemed that we returned there.

As we did now. For an age, it seemed, we sat there on our rock beneath the ancient constellations as the world turned and the stars whirled. Almost forever, I looked into her eyes. What was there? Only light. How, I wondered, even if she should miraculously fulfill her vow, could 1 ever hold it? Could I drink in the sea and all the oceans of stars?

Wordlessly, she reached out her hand and grasped mine. Her touch was like lightning splitting me open. All of her incredible sadness came flooding into me; but all of her wild joy of life came, too. In the warmth of her fingers against mine there was no assurance of passion or marriage, but only a promise that we would always be kind to each other and that we wouldn't fail each other. And that we would always remind each other where we had come from and who we were meant to be. It was the most sacred vow I had ever made, and I knew that both Atara and I would keep it.

It was good to be certain of at least one thing in a world where men tried to twist truth into lies. In the quiet of the night we lost ourselves in each other's eyes and breathed as one.

And so for a few hours, I was happier than I had ever been. But when a door to a closed room is finally opened, not only does light stream in, that which was confined in the darkness is free to leap howling out. In my soaring hope, in my great gladness of Atara's company, I didn't dare see that my heart was wide open to the greatest of terrors.

Early the next morning my nightmares began again. I came screaming out of sleep convinced that the ground beneath my sleeping furs had opened up and I was plunging into a black and bottomless abyss. My cries of terror awoke myself and everyone else. Master Juwain came over to where I lay by the fire's glowing embers and rested his hand on my forehead. 'Your fever has returned,' he told me. 'I'll make you some tea.' While he went off to fetch some water and prepare his bitter brew, Atara soaked a cloth in the cool water of the stream and returned to press it against my head. Her fingers – callused from years of pulling a bowstring – were incredibly gentle as she brushed back my sweat-soaked hair. She was quiet, her full lips pressed together with her concern.

'Do you think his wound is infected?' Maram said to Master Juwain. 'I thought it was getting better.'

'Let's see,' Master Juwain said as the water for the tea was heating. 'Let's get your mail off, Val.'

They helped strip me bare to the waist, and then Master Juwain removed my bandage to examine my wound. He probed it gently, and pronounced that it was healing again and looked clean enough. After bandaging my side and helping me dress, he sat by his pot of boiling water and looked at me in puzzlement. 'Do you think it's the kirax?' Maram asked.

'I don't think so,' Master Juwain said. 'But it's possible.' 'And what,' Atara asked, 'is kirax?'

Master Juwain turned to me as if wondering how much he should tell her. In answer, I nodded my head. 'It's a poison,' Master Juwain said. 'A terrible poison.'

He went on to recount how an assassin's arrow had wounded me in the woods outside Silvassu. He explained how the priests of the Kallimun sometimes used kirax to slay horribly at Morjin's bidding.

'Oh, but you make evil enemies, don't you?' Atara said to me. 'It would seem so,' I said. Then I smiled at Master Juwain, Maram and her. 'But; also the best of friends.' Atara returned my smile then asked, 'But why should Morjin wish you dead?'

That was one of the questions of my life I most wanted answered. Because I had nothing to say, I shrugged my shoulders and stared off at the glow of the dawn in the east.

'Well, if he does wish you dead and this man Kane is the one he has sent after you, I have a present for him.' So saying, Atara drew forth an arrow from her quiver and pointed it west toward Argattha. 'Morjin's assassins aren't the only ones who can shoot arrows, you know.'