David Zindell - The Diamond Warriors

She went on to say more about her personal quest to explore the mysteries of her blue gelstei and gain mastery over it. In the Age of the Mother, she told me, in the great years, the whole continent of Ea had been knitted together by women in every land speaking mind to mind through the power of the blue gelstei. The Order of Brothers and Sisters of the Earth had trained certain sensitive people to attune to the lapis-like crystals, cast into the form of amulets, pendants, pins and figurines. Some had gained the virtue of detecting falseness or veracity in others’ words, and these were called truthsayers. Others found themselves able to speak in strange languages or remember events that had occurred long before their birth or give others great and beautiful dreams. Only the rarest and most adept in the ways of pure consciousness, however, learned to hear the whisperings and thoughts of another’s mind. No one knew why those most talented at mindspeaking had always been women. With the breaking of the Order into the Brotherhood and that secret group of women that became the Maitriche Telu, men had almost completely lost knowledge of the blue gelstei while any woman possessing even a hint of the ability to listen to another’s thoughts was reviled as a witch.

‘I know that the time is coming,’ Liljana said to me, ‘when the whole world will be one as it was in the Age of the Mother. We will make it so: those who still keep the blue gelstei or have the will to try to attune themselves to one, whether they hold the sacred blestei in hand, or not. I have not spoken to you of this, but I have been trying to seek out these women. If we could pass important communications from city to city and land to land at the speed of thought, we would gain a great advantage over Morjin.’

I nodded my head at this, then said, ‘Assuming that he himself does not have this power.’

‘He is a man,’ she huffed out with a wave of her hand as if that said everything.

‘He is a man,’ I said, ‘who somehow managed to control his three droghuls’ every thought and motion from a thousand miles away.’

‘Yes, droghuls ,’ she said. ‘Creatures made from his own mind and flesh.’

‘Kane,’ I said to her, ‘believes that Morjin keeps a blue gelstei.’

‘Even if he does, and is able to project his filthy illusions through it, that does not mean that he can speak mind to mind with other men.’

Some deep tension in her throat made me look at her more closely as I said to her, ‘Only men dwelled at the Brotherhood’s school. How, then, did you come by your knowledge of its destruction?’

‘It was Master Storr,’ she told me. ‘I believe he kept a blestei.’

I remembered very well the Brotherhood’s Master Galastei: a stout, old man with fair, liver-spotted skin and wispy white hair. A suspicious man, who spent his life in ferreting out secrets, whether of men and women or ancient crystals forged ages ago.

‘I was casting my thoughts in that direction,’ she continued. ‘I know I touched minds with him – it was only an hour ago! When the full moon rises and the world dreams, that is the best time to try to speak with others far away. Somewhere to the west, on the Wendrush, I think, the moon rose over Abrasax and Master Storr – perhaps the other Masters as well. And, I pray, over Bemossed. They were fleeing.’

She went on to explain that she had only had a moment to make out all that Master Storr wanted to tell her.

‘Somehow Morjin must have learned the secret of the tunnels,’ she said, ‘for he sent a company of Red Knights through one of them – right down through the valley. There was a battle, I think. A slaughter The younger brothers tried to stand before the Red Knights while the Seven escaped.’

I pressed my finger to the warm teapot as I said, ‘But how could they escape? Only one tunnel gives out into the valley – surely the Red Knights would have guarded the entrance.’

‘I can’t say – you know how strange those tunnels were. Perhaps there was another entrance. Or another tunnel.’

I thought about this for a few moments. ‘But did the Red Knights pursue the Seven? And did Bemossed escape with them?’

‘I don’t know. I couldn’t see that in Master Storr’s mind.’

‘But wouldn’t he have wanted to tell you that particular tiding, above all others?’

‘Of course he would have – I think.’ Liljana rubbed at her temple as she looked down at her little blue stone. ‘Speaking with another this way is not like sitting down to table to have a chat with a friend. At least, I don’t think it is. There has been no one to teach me this art, and I’m really like a child playing with matches. And Master Storr is even more artless than I. He is only a man – and a very confused one at that. At least he seemed so when we managed to attune our two gelstei. We had only a moment, you know. A single moment and a flood of images, as in a dream, fire and blood and bewilderment, you see, trying to make sense of it all. To really hear what was in Master Storr’s mind. It was like trying to drink from a raging river. In fact …’

Her voice died off into the sound of the crickets chirping somewhere in the garden. I waited for her to say more, but she only gazed up at the white disk of the moon.

‘In fact,’ she said in a trancelike rush of words, ‘if I am to be completely truthful with you, as I always try to be, I have to consider the possibility that what I touched upon in Master Storr’s mind was a dream.’

‘A nightmare, you mean,’ I said, taking a deep breath of air. I looked at Liljana. ‘Then it is possible that nothing of what you told me actually happened.’

‘No, it happened – of course it did. I know it in my heart.’

Here she pressed her hand to her chest and then reached out to pour the tea into our cups.

‘It might indeed have been a nightmare,’ she told me. ‘But if so, then Master Storr was dreaming of these terrible things that Morjin did to the Brothers and their school.’

‘But how do you know that Master Storr wasn’t just dreaming of that which he most feared would befall?’

‘I don’t know how I know – I just do. There is a difference. It is like the taste of salt versus the description of saltiness. But since I can’t expect you to appreciate this, as a mindspeaker does, I thought that I should tell you all.’

I sat sipping my tea and hoping that the chamomile might drive away the burning ache in my throat. I gazed at the clusters of the lilacs on the bushes along the garden’s wall. It was strange, I thought, that even in the intense light of the moon, their soft purple color had vanished into the darker tones of the night.

‘Have you tried again?’ I said to Liljana as I looked up at the sky. ‘We have hours of moonlight left, don’t we?’

‘I have tried and tried,’ she told me. ‘And then tried thrice more. But Master Storr, I have to tell you, is not much of a mindspeaker – whether or not he dreams or wakes. And neither am I.’

‘Once,’ I told her, ‘you looked into a dragon’s mind. And into Morjin’s.’

‘Yes, into his. But he burned me, Morjin did,’ she said with a terrible sadness.

‘I know he did,’ I told her. ‘But before he did, there was a moment, wasn’t there? When you saw the great Red Dragon, and he saw you. And was afraid of you, as it was with the dragon called Angraboda.’

‘He was afraid,’ she admitted. ‘But I was terrified.’

‘Terrified, perhaps – as much as you ever allow yourself to be. But that has never kept you from looking into dark places, has it? Or going into them.’

Now she took a turn sipping her tea before she finally said to me, ‘I’m not sure I want to know what you mean.’