David Zindell - The Lightstone

Kane said nothing as he looked very closely at the emerald. His black eyes, like mirrors., fairly danced with the emerald's green fire.

'She said that I was to use my heart to touch the stone,' Master Juwain said.

'She did, eh? Well, use it then.'

Master Juwain held the emerald against his chest for many moments as if meditating.

Then he opened his eyes and took out his copy of the Saganom Elu. His knotty fingers began dancing through the pages.

'I thought you were supposed to use your heart,' Maram said, pointing at the book.

'Won't all these words cloud your head?'

'Some of us,' Master Juwain said with a smile, 'must use our heads to reach our hearts. Now be quiet. Brother Maram, while I'm reading.'

Maram watched his eyes flicking back and forth across the page and said, 'Excuse me, sir, but if you wish the words to reach your heart, shouldn't you read them out loud? Didn't you teach me that the verses of the Elu were meant to be recited and were for hundreds of years before they were written down?'

'Oh, all right!' Master Juwain muttered. 'You've paid more attention to my lessons than I'd thought. This passage is from the Songs.'

He cleared his throat and began speaking in his most musical voice. He fairly sang out the words of A Warrior's Heart:

A warrior's heart is like the sun.

She shines with golden light,

Her golden sinews brightly spun

With angel-given might.

A warrior's heart is like the sea,

Her love is very deep,

She streams and swells with bravery

That makes the waters weep.

When he had finished, he again closed his eyes and held the emerald to his chest. He sat beside me as the sun rose and cast its rays into the woods. Atara sat beside me, too. She cupped her warm hand around mine. She remained silent, saying nothing with her lips. But her bright eyes said more than all the words in the Saganom Elu.

After most of an hour, Master Juwain opened his eyes and his hand. We were well-shaded by the leaves of the oak tree; even so, some fragment of sunlight fell upon the emerald and set it shimmering a brilliant green. Or perhaps I only imagined this: when I looked more closely, it seemed that the emerald shone with a deeper light. Master Juwain touched this beautiful stone to my chest then. He touched his hand there, and so did Atara, Maram and Kane, making a circle as before.

Something warm and bright passed into me. It made me want to open myself to the touch of the whole world. I gasped suddenly, breathing in the sweetness of the air. I breathed in as well the essence of the oak trees streaming with hot spring sap and the very fire of the sun. For one blazing moment, I felt myself overflowing with the life of the forest -and with that of my three friends and the strange man named Kane.

'So,' Kane said to Master Juwain as he touched my face, 'this emerald of yours has great power, eh?'

As quickly as it had overcome me, the death-cold suddenly left me. Although I was still very weak, I managed to sit up and press my back against the oak tree.

'Thank you,' I told Master Juwain. Then I smiled at Maram, Kane and Atara. 'You saved my life.'

I pressed my hand to my side where Salmelu's sword had cut me. I remembered Pualani holding a green crystal there and my awakening the next day to find myself miraculously healed.

'I see,' Master Juwain finally said. He gazed at the green stone that he held in his hand. 'This can't be an ordinary emerald, can it?'

'No – you know it can't be,' Kane said. 'It's now proven: this is a varistei. A green gelstei.'

Master Juwain gripped the green stone as if he were afraid he might drop it and lose it among the leaves on the forest floor.

'I thought the green gelstei had all perished in the War of the Stones,' he said. 'This is a treasure beyond price. How did the Lokilani come by it?'

'That's a long story,' Kane said. 'Before I tell it, why don't we make a little breakfast so you can regain your strength.'

He stepped over to his horse's saddlebags, from which he removed a large round of bacon and a dozen chicken eggs. How he had found such fare in the middle of a wilderness I couldn't guess. He handed the supplies to Maram, who quickly set to work slicing strips of meat and frying it up in his pan. In little time, the delicious smell of sizzling bacon wafted out into the woods. It took only a little longer for Maram to fry up the eggs in the hot grease and serve us our meal.

'We should celebrate,' Maram said. 'It can't be every day that the Red Dragon's men are defeated and my best friend is saved. Why don't we have a little brandy?'

So saying, he broke out our last cask and filled our cups with the golden brandy. He made a toast to our freedom from the Grays' attacks. Then raised his cup and took a sip. I did too. I gasped as the fiery liquor burned sweetly down my throat. And Master Juwain gasped to see Kane throw back his head and guzzle his brandy like water before holding out his cup to be refilled by Maram. It was the strangest meal of my life, that breakfast of bacon, eggs and brandy in the woods beneath the rising sun.

'Excellent,' Kane said, licking his lips. 'Now I'll tell you what I know of the Lokii.'

'You mean, the Lokilani, don't you?' Maram said.

'No ~ that's not their true name,' Kane said. 'You see, the Lokii were one of the original tribes of Star People sent to Ea with the Lightstone ages ago.'

He went on to explain that there had been twelve of these tribes: the Danya, Weryin, Nisu, Kesari, Asadu, Ajani, Tuwari, Talasi, Sakuru, Helkiin and Lokii. And, of course, the Valari, headed by Elahad and entrusted with guarding the Lightstone.

Each of the tribes had brought with them a single varistei meant to bring the new world to flower. For the green crystals had power over all living things and the fires of life itself. The Gaiadin and Elijin who had sent the twelve tribes to Ea had intended for them to create a paradise. But instead, Aryu of the Valari had risen up in envy to slay his brother, Elahad. He had stolen the Lightstone and broken the peace and hope of Ea..

'This much is known everywhere, if not always believed,' Kane said. 'But what is not known is that Aryu also stole the varistei from Elahad.'

He told us that Aryu, and many of the Valari who followed him, had set sail from Tria on three ships, fleeing into the Northern Sea. Near the Island of Nedu, a storm had driven two of the ships onto rocks, killing everyone aboard them save Aryu. But Aryu had been mortally wounded; at last, realizing his folly, he crawled ashore on a small island and hid the Lightstone in a cave. The Valari on the remaining ship, under his son, Jolonu, found Aryu's body but not the Lightstone. Jolonu then took the varistei from Aryu's dead hand and set sail for the most distant land he could find.

And so the renegade Valari came at last to the Island of Thalu in the uttermost west.

There they used the green gelstei to slowly change their form to adapt to the cold mists of that harsh and rugged land. The followers of Aryu, or the Aryans, as they came to be called, became a tall, big-boned people, fair of face, with flaxen hair and blue eyes as bright as the sea.

Here Kane paused in his story to look at Atara. She sat on old leaves beneath the oak tree, and her bright, blue eyes were fixed on Kane's face. 'Have you never wondered at the origins of your people?' he asked her.

'No more than I have the origins of the antelope or the grass,' Atara told him. 'But it's said that the Sarni are the descendants of Sarngin Marshan.'

Prince Sarngin, she said, had fought with his brothers, Vashrad and Nawar, over the throne of Alonia late in the Age of the Mother. Vashrad had finally prevailed, killing Nawar. But he had spared Sarngin, whom he had loved. He had banished him and many of his followers, forbidding them ever to return to the lands of Alonia. And so Sarngin had come to the prairies of the Wendrush, where he and his followers had prospered and multiplied to become the ferocious Sarni. 'Sarngin and Vashrad were sons of Bohimir, eh?' Kane said. 'Yes,' Atara said. 'Bohimir the Great. He was Alonia's first king.'