Kirutu might have objected, Stephen thought, but here with a full army in the face of no threat, doing so might be seen as weakness. And more, there was a place in his wounded soul that surely cried to be free of the prison he’d lived in for so long.
Or perhaps there was another reason—Stephen didn’t know—but Kirutu made no move.
She stopped in front of him and searched his eyes.
“You are a great leader, my husband. And I am your humble servant.”
The words streamed into Kirutu’s face, unseen by all but Stephen yet felt by Kirutu to his very core. His eyes were wide.
“In any way that you have hurt me, I remember it no more.” The tangible power of her words reached Stephen as a warm wave that swept over his skin. She was speaking to them all, he knew. And to the whole world.
“My heart cries with you and your people. Like children we long for love. Know my love for you. Know that your Maker would see only the love in your heart. Hear his call, Kirutu. Hear his song calling your name and know that he will remember no blame on your part.”
Kirutu’s hands were shaking. He might have been trying to stem the tears that filled his eyes. If so, he failed miserably.
She stepped up to him, lifted her hand to his face, and brushed away his tears with her thumb.
“The heart of all Tulim cries for a great love that would make you innocent of all but love,” she said. “Hear my words and see this same love now. It is my gift to you.”
She took his hand and kissed his knuckles.
The first sound of crying came from the woman who’d stood by Wilam. His wife, Melino, stood thirty paces away, weeping softly, unabashed. And Wilam too was quickly besieged by tears, his silent. They had suffered too deeply and for too many years to hold steady in face of such beauty.
His mother leaned forward and whispered something to Kirutu that only he could hear. But its power became immediately evident.
Even as she spoke, Kirutu began to shake from head to toe. And the moment she pulled away he sank to his knees. He sat back on his haunches, let his arms drop by his sides, and began to weep with his head hung low.
The sight of their powerful warlord so overcome by kind words swept away the last bonds of fear that had kept his warriors in check, and now the soft sound of crying could be heard spreading through their ranks.
Stephen slowly scanned the scene before him. He had a few broken ribs, and his head had taken far too many blows, but the pain sat at the edge of his awareness, only a minor disturbance.
The Warik, on the other hand, had suffered a lifetime of cruelty. They looked like lost children, some confused, some weeping, some only standing with vacant eyes. Their minds could not begin to understand the full implications of what they were witnessing, but in their hearts they knew that something had changed in the Tulim valley. In time to come they would find a new life. Then they would understand more.
It was for this that his mother had been called. It was for them that she had suffered.
Stephen looked at the sky. Stars shone brightly. The bands of light were no longer visible, not because they weren’t there, but because he no longer needed to see them with these eyes, placed like buttons on his costume.
Why should he? The full power of the light lived inside him already.
His mother was walking toward him, eyes swimming in the sea of such love and power.
She took his hand.
“Come with me, my son.”
And she led him away from the Warik so that they could be together.
Chapter Thirty-two
One Week Later
THE TULIM valley lay in all its lush splendor beneath a bright blue sky helmed by a crystalline sun. From this vantage high upon the hill, where Shaka had first called to his mother in her dreams and later opened her eyes to see what few ever saw, the endless swamps glistened with reflected light where the canopy thinned to expose the still waters. A flock of red-and-green parrots flapped over the jungle below Stephen. He could barely hear their call.
“It’s all so clear now,” his mother said, gazing out over the expansive scene. “This was what I saw in my dreams on the night you were born.” She faced him, eyes round. Such a beautiful woman, his mother. A woven yellow headband crowned her as the queen in this valley, though she was the servant of all.
“I couldn’t see who was calling to me, but I knew, where deep calls to deep—I had to come. Even as I know now that I must stay.”
Stephen looked into her eyes, then offered her a gentle smile. He turned back to the valley without speaking. They’d spent a week on the mountain where he’d lived with Shaka, speaking little at first. Whatever could be said in the wake of such a powerful encounter with love was best left to the heart, not the mouth. As Shaka had often said, sometimes words diminished the greatest truths and experiences.
Then they’d slept and bathed and eaten and been, just as he and Shaka had been for so many years. They hadn’t discussed the awakening in the Tulim valley until the second day, and then only in simple terms, because they already knew what had happened.
Strangely, his mother seemed to know much of how he’d spent his life on the mountain, as if she’d lived there with him. But then, she had, in a manner of speaking. She recalled it all as she might a dream, distant and slightly out of focus, but remembered. Even so Stephen had taken great delight in recounting those years for her. Once they began, their talk went all day, filled with wonder and laughter. In some ways they had many years to catch up on; in other ways none.
She’d gone down to the valley on the fifth day, and two days later he’d met her on the hill where they now stood. She’d had to see the people, she said. It was her place to do so, alone. She’d found the Warik still in a daze. Confused. Stripped of all the brutality that had ordered their world for so long. Kirutu had not come out of his house once since that night of power. He’d wept like a child when she went in to see him.
“So you will stay,” Stephen said, eyes down-valley, “and I must go.”
“Yes.”
He felt some apprehension at the prospect of leaving, but he knew that his time here was finished. He had come for two reasons: to be raised on the mountain with Shaka, and to help his mother bring light into the valley. He was ready to take that same light to a faraway land so that others might awaken as well. He couldn’t deny the eagerness he felt in setting out for that discovery. This was his purpose in life.
This and to walk in the light himself.
“I’ve lived my whole life with you and Shaka,” he said. “It will be a new thing.”
“It will, and I will miss you more than I can bear to think about at times. But I send you gladly.”
She stepped up to him and took his hand in hers. Kissed his fingers.
“I’m so grateful for you. Proud beyond any mother’s right to be. You’re such a man. The world needs the light you have to share.”
She was a foot shorter than him, so he tilted his head to look into her eyes. “And what would I be without your sacrifice? Is there another woman like you on this earth?”
She chuckled. “Many. They just don’t know it yet.”
“Then I’ll help them learn.”
“I’m sure you will. And break a few hearts along the way.”
“Break them?”
“Just an expression, dear. Unknowing hearts are fragile and easily broken. Wasn’t mine?”
She had a point.
His mother stepped away, crossed her arms, and faced a slight breeze that shifted her hair. “It’s quite ironic, isn’t it? I left my home to bring God’s love to this dark valley. Now you will leave this valley to bring that same love to others. Full circle.”
He nodded. “There’s a part of me that would like very much for you to come with me. Not in a sad way, just in a hopeful way. We’ll see each other again, won’t we?”