David Zindell - The Diamond Warriors

And I knew it, too, though it worried me that Bemossed might blind himself to the totality of Morjin’s evil and dwell too deeply on this healing that Master Juwain spoke of. Was it truly possible, I wondered? Could the Great Beast ever atone for the horrors that he had wreaked upon the world – and himself – and turn back toward the light?

It took all the force of my will and the deepest of breaths for me to say, ‘I would see Morjin healed, if that could be. But I will see him defeated.’

‘Oh, we are back to that, are we?’ Maram groaned. He looked at me as he licked his lips. ‘Why can’t it be enough to keep him at bay, and slowly win back the world, as Master Juwain has said? That would be a defeat, of sorts. Or – I am loath to ask this – do you mean he must be defeated defeated, as in –’

‘I mean utterly defeated, Maram. Cast down from the throne he falsely claims, reviled by all as the beast he is, imprisoned forever,’ I gripped my sword’s hilt as a wave of hate burned through me. ‘Or killed, finally, fittingly, and even the last whisper of his lying breath utterly expunged from existence.’

As Maram groaned again and shook his head, Master Juwain said to me, ‘That is something that Kane might say,’

My friends stood around regarding me. Although I was glad for their companionship, I was keenly aware that we should have numbered not eight but nine. For Kane, the greatest of all warriors, had ridden off to Galda to oppose Morjin through knife, sword and blood, in any way he could.

‘Kane,’ I told Master Juwain, ‘would say that I should stab my sword through Morjin’s heart and cut off his head. Then cleave his body into a thousand pieces, burn them and scatter the ashes to the wind.’

Maram’s ruddy face blanched at this. ‘But how, Val? You cannot defeat him in battle.’

‘We defeated him in Argattha, when we were outnumbered a hundred against nine,’ I told him. ‘And on the Culhadosh Commons when he sent three armies against us. And we defeated his droghuls and his forces in the Red Desert – and in Hesperu, too.’

‘But that was different, and you know it!’ Maram’s face now heated up with anger – and fear. ‘If you seek battle, none of the Valari kings will stand with you. And even if they did, Morjin will call up all his armies, from every one of his filthy kingdoms. A million men, Val! Don’t tell me you think Mesh’s ten thousand could prevail against that !’

Did I truly think that? If I didn’t, then I must at least act as if I did. I looked at Atara, whose face turned toward me as she waited for me to speak. Then it came to me that bravura was one thing, while truly believing was another. And knowing, with an utter certainty of blood and breath that I could not fail to strike down Morjin, was of an entirely different order.

‘There must be a way,’ I murmured.

‘But, Val,’ Master Juwain reminded me, ‘it has always been your dream to bring an end to these endless battles – and to war, itself.’

For a moment I closed my burning eyes because I could not see how to defeat Morjin other than through battle. But neither could I imagine any conceivable force of Valari or other free people defeating Morjin in battle. Surely, I thought, that would be death.

‘There must be a way,’ I told Master Juwain. I drew my sword then. My hands wrapped around the seven diamonds set into its black jade hilt while I gazed at Alkaladur’s brilliant blade. ‘There is always a way.’

The silver gelstei of which it was wrought flared with a wild, white light. Somewhere within this radiance, I knew, I might grasp my fate – if only I could see it.

‘You will never,’ Master Juwain said, ‘bring down Morjin with your sword.’

‘Not with this sword, perhaps. Not just with it.’

‘Please,’ Master Juwain said, stepping closer to lay his hand on my arm, ‘give Bemossed a chance to work at Morjin in his way. Give it time.’

A shard of the sun’s light reflected off my sword’s blade, and stabbed into my eyes. And I told Master Juwain, ‘But, sir – I am afraid that we do not have much time.’

Just then, from out of the shadows that an oak cast upon the raspberry bush, a glimmer of little lights filled the air. They began whirling in a bright spray of crimson and silver, and soon coalesced into the figure of a man. He was handsome of face and graceful of body, and had curly black hair, sun-browned skin and happy eyes that seemed always to be singing. We called him Alphanderry, our eighth companion. But we might have called him something other, for although he seemed the most human of beings, he was in his essence surely something other, too. At times, he appeared as that sparkling incandescence we had known as Flick; but more often now he took shape as the beloved minstrel who had been killed nearly three years previously in the pass of the Kul Moroth. None of us could explain the miracle of his existence. Master Juwain hypothesized that when the great Galadin had walked the earth ages ago, they had left behind some shimmering part of their being. But Alphanderry, I thought, could not be just pure luminosity. I could almost feel the breath of some deep thing filling up his form with true life; a hand set upon his shoulder would pass through him and send ripples through his glistening substance as with a stone cast into water. Day by day, as the earth circled the sun and the sun hurtled through the stars, it seemed that he might somehow be growing ever more tangible and real.

‘Hoy!’ he laughed out, smiling at Master Juwain and me. As it had once been with my brother, Jonathay, something in his manner suggested that life was a game to be played and enjoyed for as long as one could, and not taken too seriously. But today, despite his light, lilting voice, his words struck us all with their great seriousness: ‘Hoy, time, time! – it runs like the Poru river into the ocean, does it not? And we think that, like the Poru, it is inexhaustible and will never run out.’

‘What do you mean?’ Master Juwain asked, looking at him.

Alphanderry stood – if that was the right word – on a mat of old leaves and trampled ferns covering the ground. And he waved his lithe hand at me, and said, ‘Val is right, and too bad for that. We don’t have as much time as we would like.’

‘But how do you know?’ Master Juwain asked him.

‘I just know ,’ he said. ‘We can’t let Bemossed bear the entire burden of our hope.’

‘But our hope, in the end, rests upon the Lightstone. And the Maitreya. As you saw, Bemossed has kept Morjin from using it.’

‘I did see that, I did,’ Alphanderry said. ‘But what was will not always be what is .’

Atara, I saw, smiled coldly at this, for Alphanderry suddenly sounded less like a minstrel than a scryer.

‘Did you think it would be so easy?’ he asked Master Juwain.

‘Easy? No, certainly not,’ Master Juwain said. ‘But I believe with all my heart that as long as Bemossed lives, Morjin will never be able to use the Cup of Heaven to free the Dark One.’

The hot Soldru sun burned straight down through the clearing with an inextinguishable splendor. And yet, upon Master Juwain’s mention of the Dark One – also known as Angra Mainyu, the great Black Dragon – something moved within the unmovable heavens, and I felt a shadow fall over the sun. It grew darker and darker, as if the moon were eclipsing this blazing orb. In only moments, an utter blackness seemed to devour the entire sky. I believed with all my heart that if Angra Mainyu, this terrible angel, were ever freed from his prison on Damoom, then he would destroy not only my world and its bright star, but much of the universe as well.