A few moments later, Kane returned as he had gone, bearing a huge smile on his face.
‘Well?’ Maram said. ‘Did you see any of these shells-in-shale?’
‘Many,’ Kane told him as his smile grew wider.
‘I don’t believe you – you’re lying!’
‘Go see for yourself,’ Kane said, pointing across the river.
‘Do you think I won’t?’ Maram eyed the swift water that cut through the valley and shook his head. ‘Ah, perhaps I won’t, after all. It’s enough that one of us risked his life proving out those silly lines. You did see shells, didn’t you? She sells? I mean, sea shells?’
‘I’ve told you that I did. What more do you want of me?’
‘Well, it wouldn’t have hurt to bring back one of these shelled rocks, would it?’
Kane laughed at this and produced a flat, thick piece of slate as long as his hand. He gave it to Maram. All of us gathered around as Maram stared at the grayish slate and fingered the little, stone-like shells embedded within it.
‘Impossible!’ Maram said. ‘I saw shells like these on the shore of the Great Northern Sea!’
‘But then how did they get into this rock?’ Daj asked him.
Kane stood silently staring at the rock as the rest of us examined it more closely. Not even Master Juwain had an answer for him.
‘Perhaps,’ Atara said, ‘there really was once a great flood that drowned the whole world, as the legends tell.’
Kane’s black eyes bored into the rock, and he seemed lost in endless layers of time. He finally said to us, ‘So, the earth is stranger than we know. Stranger than we can know. Who will ever plumb all her mysteries?’
‘Well,’ Maram said, hefting the rock and then tucking it into his saddlebag, ‘this is one mystery I’ll keep for myself, if you don’t mind. If I ever return home, I can show this as proof that I found sea shells at the top of a mountain!’
I smiled at this because it was not Maram who had found the rock, nor had it quite been taken from a mountain’s top. It cheered me to know, however, that he still contemplated a homecoming. And so he held inside at least some hope.
‘Your way homeward,’ Master Juwain said to him, ‘lies through this valley. Are we agreed that we must traverse it?’
‘Toward the setting sun,’ Maram said, pointing to the west. ‘But I can’t see if the valley truly divides there.’
I stood with my hand shielding my eyes as I peered up the valley. It seemed to come to an end upon a great wedge of a mountain rising up to the west. But it was a good thirty miles distant, and the folds and fissures of the mountains along the valley’s rim blocked a clear line of sight.
‘Then let us go on,’ Atara said, ‘and we shall see what we shall see.’
A faint smile played upon her lips, and it gladdened my heart to know that she could joke about her blindness. Then she mounted her horse and said, ‘Come, Fire!’ She guided her mare along the strip of grass that paralleled the river, and it gladdened me even more to see that her second sight had mysteriously returned to her.
And so we followed the river into the west. It was a day of sunshine and warm spring breezes. Wildflowers in sprays of purple and white blanketed the earth around us where the trees gave way to acres of grass. It seemed that we were all alone here in this quiet, beautiful place. Our spirits rose along with the terrain, not so high, perhaps, as the great peaks shining in the distance, but high enough to hope that we might have at least a day or two of surcease from battle and travail.
And so it came to be. We made camp that first night in the valley on some good, grassy ground above the river. While Kane, Maram and I worked at fortifying it, and Liljana, Estrella and Daj set to preparing our dinner, Atara went off into the woods to hunt. Fortune smiled upon her, for she returned scarcely an hour later with a young deer slung across her shoulders. That night we made feast on roasted venison, along with our rushk cakes and basketfuls of raspberries that Estrella found growing on bushes in the woods. Master Juwain chanted the Way Rhymes to Maram, and later Kane brought out the mandolet that he had inherited from Alphanderry. It was a rare thing for him to play for us, and lovely and strange, but that night he plucked the mandolet’s strings and sang out songs in a deep and beautiful voice. He seemed almost happy, and that made me happy, too. Songs of glory he sang for us, tales of triumph and the exaltation of all things at the end of time. He held inside a great sadness, as deep and turbulent as oceans, and this came out in a mournful shading to his melodies. But there, too, in some secret chamber of his heart, dwelled a fire that was hotter and brighter than anything that Angra Mainyu could ever hope to wield. As he sang, this ineffable flame seemed to push his words out into the valley where they rang like silver bells, and then up above the snow-capped mountains through clear, cold air straight toward the brilliant stars.
With the making of this immortal music, Flick burst forth out of the darkness above the mandolet’s vibrating strings. At first this strange being appeared as a silvery meshwork, impossibly fine-spun, with millions of clear tiny jewels like uncut diamonds sewn into it. Strands of fire streamed from these manifold points throughout the lattice, making the whole of his form sparkle with a lovely light. The longer that Kane played, the brighter this light became. I watched with a deep joy as the radiance summoned out of neverness many colors: scarlet and gold, forest green and sky blue – and a deep and shimmering glorre. And still Kane sang, and now the colors scintillated and swirled, then mingled, deepened and coalesced into the form and face of Alphanderry. And then our lost companion stood by the fire before us. His brown skin and curly black hair seemed almost real, as did his fine features and straight white teeth, revealed by his wide and impulsive smile. Even more real was his rich laughter, which recalled the immortal parts of him: his beauty, gladness of life and grace. Once before, in Tria, this Alphanderry, as messenger of the Galadin, had come into being in order to warn me of a great danger.
‘Ahura Alarama,’ I said, whispering Flick’s true name. And then, ‘Alphanderry.’
‘Valashu Elahad,’ he replied. ‘Val.’
Kane stopped singing then, and put aside his mandolet to stare in amazement at his old friend.
‘He speaks!’ Daj cried out. ‘Like he did in King Kiritan’s hall!’
The boy came forward, and with great daring reached out to touch Alphanderry. But his hand, with a shimmer of lights, passed through him.
Alphanderry laughed at this as he pointed at Daj and said, ‘He speaks. But I don’t remember seeing him in King Kiritan’s hall.’
So saying, he reached out to touch Daj, but his hand, too, passed through him as easily as mine would slice air. Then he laughed again as he turned toward Estrella. His eyes were kind and sad as he said, ‘But the girl still doesn’t speak, does she?’
Estrella, her eyes wide with wonder, spoke entire volumes of poetry in the delight that brightened her face.
‘But where did you come from?’ I asked Alphanderry. ‘And why are you here?’
‘Where did you come from, Val?’ he retorted. ‘And why are any of us here?’
I waited for him to answer what might be the essential question of life. But all he said to me was, ‘I am here to sing. And to play.’
And with that, he reached for the mandolet, but his fingers passed through it. It was as hard, I thought, for such a being to grasp a material thing as it was for a man to apprehend the realm of spirit.
‘So,’ Kane said, plucking the mandolet’s strings, ‘I will play for you, and you will sing.’
And so