The Diamond Warriors. David Zindell

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      ‘Does it matter what I want?’ I asked her. I gazed into her gelstei as if I could see within its sparkling clarity not only the shape of future events but the calamities of the past. ‘Once, I wanted nothing more than to climb mountains and play the flute in the company of my family. And to marry you.’

      ‘And now?’

      I blinked against the burning in my eyes, and turned away from her crystal because I could not bear what I saw there. And I said, ‘After Morjin murdered my mother and grandmother, and my brothers, everything seemed to burn away. Everywhere I looked, at myself most of all, I could see only fire. I was this fire, Atara. You know, you must know. I thought only of murdering Morjin, in revenge. As I now think only of destroying him. Everything that he is – even his memory in the hearts and minds of those he has deluded. I can almost hear the wind calling me to do this, and the birds and the wolves and every child that Morjin’s Red Priests have ever nailed to a cross or put to the sword. Sometimes, it seems the very world upon which we sit cries out for me to put my sword into him.’

      She positioned her head fully facing me, then she said, ‘Do you remember the lines from the Laws?’

      She drew in a breath, and then recited from the twenty-fourth book of the Saganom Elu:

       You are what your deep, driving desire is:

       As your desire is, so is your will;

       As your will is, so is your deed;

       As your deed is, so is your destiny

      I smiled at this, as Kane might smile at a whirlwind sweeping down upon him. And I asked her, ‘Have you seen my destiny then?’

      ‘I have seen your desire,’ she said to me, taking hold of my hand again. ‘I have felt it, Val – I can’t tell you how deeply I’ve felt it, this beautiful, beautiful thing that burns me up like the sweetest of fires. It is not to do this terrible deed that you dream of. Not just. A marriage you would make with me, you have said. A child we would make together, I have said. But I will not see him born into this world.’

      I stared down by my side where I had set my sword. ‘But what other world is there?’

      ‘Only the one that you dream of even more than you do Morjin’s death.’

      ‘Oh, that world,’ I said, smiling. ‘That impossible world.’

      She smiled back as if she could really see me. ‘What was it that your father used to say?: “How is it possible that the impossible is not only possible but inevitable?”’

      ‘He was a wise man,’ I told her. ‘He would have wanted me to believe it is inevitable that I will marry you. That this is not just my own desire, but the will of the world.’

      ‘That is a beautiful, beautiful thought,’ she told me.

      ‘But it will never be, will it? Not unless we defeat Morjin. And that will never be if I keep you from aiding Sajagax.’

      She held up her clear gelstei before me. ‘Very little of the future is set in stone, but I can tell that you cannot prevail against Morjin alone, without the help of the Sarni tribes.’

      I considered this as I drew out the handkerchief that I always kept close to me. I unfolded it, and I gazed at its center, at the single long, coiled, golden hair, no different from any of Atara’s other hairs. And I whispered to her, ‘One chance for victory, you said, as slender as this hair. And one chance only that I will marry you.’

      ‘One chance,’ she said, squeezing her crystal. ‘And I must make it be. And so must you.’

      I felt a stream of fear burn down my throat as if I had swallowed molten silver. And I asked her, ‘Will I ever see you again?’

      She smiled in her mysterious way, and said, ‘The better question might be: will I ever see you again? As the king you must be?’

      ‘Tomorrow will be the test of that,’ I told her.

      ‘No,’ she said with a wave of her hand, ‘I do not mean King of Mesh, but King of the World. And not this world, as Morjin wishes to rule, but a true king, of starfire and diamond, such as has never been before on Ea.’

      I considered this, too, then said, ‘I am not sure I know what you mean.’

      ‘I am not sure that I do either,’ she said. ‘But I once told you that I can never be the woman I have hoped to be until you become the man you were born to be. The one I have always dreamed of.’

      Because her words cut at me, I pressed my fist against my chest. ‘But I am who I am, Atara. And I am just a man.’

      ‘And that one I have always loved, with all my heart, with all my soul,’ she told me. ‘The man who is just a man – and an angel, too.’

      At this, I looked off at the walls of the tent, hoping that no one was listening in on our words. ‘You shouldn’t speak that way of anyone, not even me.’

      ‘No, I shouldn’t, should I?’ she said. ‘But I can’t help myself, and never have been able to. Most people take too little upon themselves; a few take too much. They look in the mirror and behold a giant, immortal and invincible. I was always afraid of being one of these. I wanted to make everything perfect. Or, at least, to see things come out as they should. And that is why, when I look at my fate, and yours, I want to laugh or cry, and sometimes I don’t know which.’

      ‘But why, then?’ I said, not fully understanding her.

      And she grasped hold of my hand and said, ‘Because that is the strange, strange thing about our lives, Val. It might really be upon us to save the world.’

      She started laughing then, and so did I: deep, belly laughs that shook the whole of my body and brought tears to my eyes. I drew Atara closer, and kissed her lips, her forehead and the white band of cloth covering the empty spaces where her eyes used to be. And I whispered in her ear: ‘I will miss you so badly – as the night does the sun.’

      ‘And I will miss you,’ she told me. ‘Until I see you again in the darkest of places, where it seems there is no sun – only Valashu, the Morning Star.’

      She kissed me then, long and deeply, and I didn’t think she would have cared if anyone had heard the murmurs of delight and fear within our throats or had seen us sitting with our arms wrapped around each other for what seemed like hours. At last, though, we broke apart. Atara said that she had to go feed her horse and prepare for a long journey. And I must prepare to meet my fate – or make it – when the sun rose on the morrow.

       7

      On the twenty-first day of Soldru, early on a morning of blue skies and brilliant sunlight, I put on my diamond armor and girded my sword at my side. When I came out of my pavilion, my companions and counselors stood on the crushed grass of our encampment’s central lane waiting for me. I nodded at Lord Avijan, tall and grave, and resplendent in СКАЧАТЬ