It was Maram, the most fearful of us and consequently the most hopeful, who could not bear to think of such an end. He loved the pleasures of life too much to imagine it ever ceasing — even for others. And so he looked at Kane and said, 'But Angra Mainyu was defeated once, and so might be again. And it was you who defeated him!'
'No, it was not,' Kane said as a strange light filled his eyes. 'And I've told you before, he was not defeated. From Damoom, he still works his evil on all of Eluru.'
'But he was bound there,' Maram persisted. 'And so might be again.'
'No, he will not be,' Kane told us. 'Once, on Erathe, on the plain of Tharharra long ago, there was a battle — the greatest of all battles. A host of the Amshahs pursued Angra Mainyu and his Daevas there. Ashtoreth and Valoreth forbade this violence, but Marsul and others of the Galadin would not heed them. And neither would Kalkin.'
Kane, who had once borne this noble name, stood up tall and straight as the light of the night's first stars rained down upon him.
'A hundred thousand Valari died that day,' Kane said to us. 'And as many of the Elijin. So, Elijin slaying Valari and other Elijin, against the Law of the One, and Galadin such as Marsul and Varkoth slaying all — this was the evil of that day. A victory Maram calls it! Ha! Many of the Amshahs fell mad after that. Darudin threw himself on his sword in remorse, and so with Odin and Sulujin and many others. But it is not so easy for the living to expunge the stain of such an atrocity, eh? Many there were who bore the shadow of Tharharra on their souls.'
Kane paused in his account of this ancient history before known history. He began pacing about like a tiger again in front of the fire, and his hand clenched and unclenched like a beating heart.
'And so,' he said, 'once a time the Amshahs came to Erathe; they will not come to Ea, especially if the Baaloch and his Daevas are loosed upon it. The danger is too great. Ea is a Dark World now — almost a Dark World. Here, Morjin turned from the fairest of men into the most foul. Here, even the brightest of the Amshahs might come under Angra Mainyu's spell, and how could the stars above us abide even one more fallen Galadin? And then, too, there is the Black Jade.'
Almost without thought my hand fell upon my sword. Seven diamonds, like stars, were set into its hilt, carved out of true black jade, which might be dug up from the earth like any other stone. But the jade of which Kane spoke was the black gelstei, rarest of the rare, wrought in furnaces long ago from unknown substances and with an an long since lost. And not just any black gelstei.
Kane paused in his pacing to set his bow on top of the logs of the breastwork. Then he brought forth a flat, black stone, shiny as obsidian, and held it gleaming dully in the palm of his hand. And he said to us, 'This baalstei is small, eh? And yet the one that Kalkin used upon Angra Mainyu was no larger — in size. But it had great power, like unto the dark of the moon, for in it was bound all the blackness of space and the great emptiness that lies inside all things.'
He stood still for a moment as he stared up at the sky. Then he continued: 'You can't imagine its power, for in a way, the Black Jade is the Lightstone's shadow. I spoke of how the Ieldra might be forced to unmake the universe, but I say the Black Jade is the greater dread. For even men, such as Morjin, might use it to steal the very light from this world: all that is bright and good.'
Maram thought about this as he gazed at Kane. Then he asked him, 'But why didn't you tell us that the black gelstei you used on Angra Mainyu had power beyond any others?'
'Because,' Kane said, 'I didn't want to frighten you. So, I didn't want to frighten.myself. To wield it was to touch upon a cold so terrible and vast that it froze one's soul in ice as hard as diamond. To wield it too long was to be lost in a lightless void from which there could be no escape. Angra Mainyu himself, early in the War of the Stone, forged this cursed stone we call the Black Jade. There will never be another like it. Long ago, it was lost. And so once the Baaloch is freed, no one will ever bind him again.'
Maram stood up from the fire to get a better look at the black crystal seemingly welded to Kane's hand. And he asked: 'If Angra Mainyu made the great baalstei, how did Kalkin come by it?'
'So, how did Kalkin come by it, eh?' Kane said. He spoke his ancient name as if intoning a requiem for a long lost friend. 'That is a story that I won't tell here, unless you'd like to remain in this cursed gorge for a month, and then half a year alter, Let's just say that the Lightstone wasn't the only gelstei that the Amshahs and the Daevas fought over.' 'But how was it lost, then?'
Kane clamped his jaws together with such force that I heard the grinding of his teeth. Then he said. 'That story is even longer. I can tell you only that Angra Mainyu's creatures regained it. Some say that it was brought to Ea, to await his coming.'
Again, I stared at the chasm's layers of rock; now nearly black with the fail of night, it seemed that in ages without end, on uncountable worlds, anything might happen — and almost every-thing had. It seemed as well that the folds of the earth might conceal many dark things, even one as dark and terrible as the ancient black gelstei.
Kane suddenly made a fist, and the small crystal seemed to vanish. When he opened his hand again, there was nothing inside it except air.
And I asked him, 'Do you believe the baalstei was brought to Ea?'
'Where else would it have been brought if not here?'
My mysterious friend, I thought, possessed all the evasive arts of a magician. Somewhere on his person, no doubt, he had secreted the black gelstei. Just as somewhere in his soul he kept hidden even more powerful things.
'You told us once,' I said to him, 'that the Galadin sent Kalkin to Ea. Along with Morjin, and ten others of the Elijin?'
Kane's eyes grew brighter and more pained as he said, 'Yes — Sarojin and Baladin, and the others. I have told you their names.'
'Yes, you have. But you haven't told us why you were sent here? Why, if Ea was so perilous for your kind?'
'It was a chance,' he said, looking up at the night's first stars. 'A last, desperate chance. The Lightstone had been sent here long before, and that was chance enough.'
And this supreme gamble on the part of Ashtoreth and the other Galadin on Agathad had nearly succeeded: Kalkin. in the great First Quest, had led the others of his order to recover the lost Lightstone. But then Morjin had fallen mad: he had murdered Garain and Averin to claim the Lightstone for himself- And Kalkin, in violation of the Law of the One, had killed five of Morjin's henchmen, and in a way. slain himself as well. Now only Kane remained.
'So, you see how it went for the Elijin who came to Ea' Kane said. 'How much worse would it be for any Galadin to come to this cursed place?'
At this, Liljana's kind face tightened in anger. She patted the ground beneath her, and snapped at Kane: 'Such things you say! I won't listen to such slander! The earth is our mother, the mother of us all — even you!'
As Kane regarded Liljana, I felt a strange, cold longing ripple through him.
'Liljana is right,' Master Juwain said. 'You can't blame Ea for corrupting Morjin. Neither can you blame the black gelstei.'