I could hardly look at him as I nodded my head and said, ‘Yes.’
‘And you fear, too,’ Abrasax said as the others of the Seven bent closer to me, ‘that Morjin will be the one to damn you to exile in this lightless land?’
Yes, yes, yes! And as I feared, so I hated; and as I hated, my heart ached with a black, bitter wrath that poisoned my blood and darkened everything I held inside as beautiful and good. How I longed to take a sword to this dreadful disease that consumed me! But I could not, as I might rid myself of a rotting limb, simply cut it out.
‘And most of all,’ Abrasax said, looking at me deeply, ‘you fear your hatred of Morjin.’
‘It is killing me!’ I called out.
The fury that poured out of me beat against Liljana, Master Juwain and the others sitting close to me with the force of a raging river. It caught up the seven Masters, as well. Their faces fell ashen and sick, and Master Storr gripped the edge of his table as if to keep himself from being swept away. And then Master Juwain placed his hand on the center of my back, and I drew in three long, deep breaths.
‘You see,’ Abrasax said to me, ‘your hate is a terrible thing, and we fear it, too.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I finally gasped out. ‘I would have done better to have been born a lamb or made a gelding!’
Abrasax’s smile was like a cold bucket of water splashed in my face. And he said, ‘Do not mistake lack of passion for virtue. We must celebrate all the passions, as we do life itself.’
‘Even hate?’
‘Yes, even that. The virtuous man is not one who doesn’t hate, but he who is in full control of it, as he is all his passions, directing it toward a good end – and by good means.’
I traded dark looks with Kane then, for Abrasax had pierced to the heart of the conundrum that tormented me. Then I looked back at the Grandmaster and said, ‘Too often it seems that if I don’t give back Morjin evil for evil, he’ll win. And if I do fight this way, evil will still win.’
‘It is difficult, I know,’ he told me. ‘But you must find the way to make use of these blazing passions of yours, even the ugly and evil inside yourself, toward a higher end – even as the One does in creating the world. Pour fire the wrong way against a lump of coal and it will burn up and crumble into ashes. Wield fire as the earth does, however, as the sun and stars do, and you will make a diamond. This self-creation is the path of the angels; it is their fundamental duty and test.’
He came over to my table to pour some tea into my cup, and his steady gaze seemed to remind me that I held the keys to two opposing kingdoms inside my heart: either the wild joy of life or the rage for death.
Master Storr, who had recovered from my carelessness, pointed his finger at me and said, ‘We’ve all felt this passion of Prince Valashu tonight. With it, in Tria, he slew a man. How long before he slays again?’
‘Never!’ I cried out inside the cold castle of my mind. And then, to Master Storr and the others, I said, ‘I have vowed never again to use the valarda this way. And Morjin lives because of this!’
It might have been more accurate to say that Morjin had survived our last battle because of my hesitation – or because I could no more control my gift than I could a thunderstorm.
‘It is strange that Morjin left Argattha at this time,’ Abrasax said to me. ‘Indeed, there is something very strange about your encounter with him. I must believe that it is for the best that you did not slay Morjin with this secret sword of yours. All my understanding of the Law of the One is that the valarda is to be used only for the highest of purposes.’
Yes, I thought, it should be. To sense in others their deepest desires, to dream their dreams, to share with them my own – how I had longed for this! Yet too often the valarda had been a curse. I felt my heart pressing up against my throat as I said, ‘All my life, I have suffered others’ passions. And now, it seems, I have learned to inflict mine upon them – even to slay.’
Abrasax regarded me a moment before saying, ‘Surely you must suspect that your sentiments and passions, as powerful as they are, are not sufficient to kill another person?’
I looked at him in alarm and waited for him to say more.
‘Haven’t you ever wondered,’ he asked me, ‘at the true nature of the valarda?’
‘Only as long as I could think and feel!’ I told him.
‘Then haven’t you ever sensed that your openness to others is only the beginning of openness to much more? Indeed, I believe it leads to the identity with others, ultimately with the entire world. As with the Maitreya.’
‘But I am not the Maitreya!’
‘No, you are not,’ he told me. ‘But already you have wielded some of the power that must be his. Through him would flow the great soul force, the deepest fires of the world. Such a force, Valashu, can be used either for great evil or great good.’
He went on to say that, ultimately, this angel fire could be used to destroy whole universes, as the Ieldra were sometimes forced to do, or to create new ones.
He finished speaking and poured himself yet another cup of tea. And I said, ‘If what you’ve told us is true, then the Maitreya would possess the valarda in much greater measure than I.’
‘Perhaps. But I should say rather than possessing the valarda, the Maitreya, in his essence, is valarda, for he would be as a window letting in the light of all things.’
Above us, the twelve round windows filled with the faint sheen of the stars. The dome above us seemed to catch the exhalations of the Seven as they looked at me.
‘The Maitreya,’ I said to Abrasax, and to everyone, ‘must be able to draw forth the light from the Cup of Heaven. And we must find him before Morjin does.’
Master Virang’s discipline was meditation, not mind-reading, but I sensed that he exactly echoed Abrasax’s thoughts as he asked me, ‘Do you seek the Shining One to keep Morjin from using the Lightstone or for more personal reasons?’
‘Both,’ I told him truthfully.
Two flames, I thought, burned inside my heart. The first was reddish-black, and would destroy me if I let it. The other flame was as blue as the sky and connected me to all the lights of the heavens.
‘If we are to help you, we must be sure of you,’ Master Storr told me again. ‘Sure, at least, that you can use the valarda for good, and not ill. Will you allow us to test this?’
I nodded my head as I looked at him. ‘If you must.’
‘Good,’ Master Storr said. ‘Then please stand up.’
I did as he asked, and moved off to the side of the tables beneath the chamber’s dome. The Seven gathered around me. Each of them held one of the Great Gelstei out toward my chest.
‘Ah, just don’t make him disappear,’ Maram called out from his cushion below me.
Abrasax smiled at this as his open hand showed a little colored sphere. So it was with Master Yasul, Master Matai and the others of the Seven. Each of them, especially Master Storr, gazed at me intently. I felt their eyes pierce me like hot needles at many places through my body. Their hands, now glowing with the radiance of their crystals, seemed to reach inside me and open me to the whirls of light up and down my spine.
‘It burns, does it not?’ Abrasax said to me. His eyes filled with concern for me even as his crystal flared with a white luster. ‘Your belly is where you feel it, isn’t it? All your hatred of the Red Dragon?’
Deep within my belly, down behind my navel, the red flame raged