"David Zindell - Ea Cycle 04 - The Diamond Warriors" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zindell David)

through empty space again.
'Do not,' I told him, 'speak of that place.'
'But you kept yourself from falling - and all of us as well! And then, at the farmhouse
with Morjin, when everything was so impos-sibly dark, he might have seized your
will and made you into a filthy ghul. But as you always do, you found that brightness
inside yourself that he couldn't stand against, and you -'
'It is one thing to keep from falling into evil,' I told him. 'And it is another to succeed
in accomplishing good. Why don't we try to keep our sight on the task ahead of us?'
'Ah, this impossible task,' Maram muttered, shaking his head.
'Don't you speak that way!' Lilian a scolded him with a wag of her finger. 'The more
you doubt, the harder you make it for Val to become king.'

'It's not his kingship that I doubt,' Maram said. 'At least, I don't doubt it on my good
days. But even supposing that Val can win Mesh's warriors and knights where he
couldn't before, what then? That is the question I've asked myself for a thousand
miles.'
So had I asked myself this question. And I said to Maram simply, 'Then Morjin
must be defeated.'
'Defeated? Well, I suppose he must, yes, but defeated how?'
Master Juwain rubbed at the back of his brown-skinned head, then sighed out: 'The
closer that we have come to our journey's end, the more sure I have become of what
our course should be. I told this to Val years ago: that evil cannot be vanquished
with a sword, and darkness cannot be defeated in battle but only by shining a bright
enough light. And now. the brightest of lights has come into the world.'
He spoke, of course, of Bemossed: a slave whom we had rescued out of Hesperu
on the darkest of all our journeys. A simple slave - and perhaps the great Maitreya
and Lord of light long prophe-sied for Ea and all the other worlds of Eluru, I
couldn't help smiling in joy whenever I thought of this man whom I loved as a
brother.
It gladdened my heart to know that he was well-hidden in the fastness of the White
Mountains - in the safest place on Earth, And guarded from Morjin by Abrasax and
the Seven: the Masters of the Great White Brotherhood whose virtues in healing,
medi-tation and the other ancient arts exceeded even those of Master Juwain.
'Morjin retains the Lightstone,' Master Juwain continued, 'but Bemossed keeps him
from twisting it toward his purpose. Soon, I think, with Bemossed so
well-instructed, he will be able to grasp the Lightstone's radiance, if not the cup
itself. And then .. .'
Liljana caught his gaze and said, 'Please don't mind me – go on.'
'And then,' Master Juwain said, 'Bemossed will bring this radi-ance into all lands.
Men will feel an imperishable life shining within them like a star. Truth will flourish.
So will courage. Men will no longer listen to the lies of wicked kings and the
Kallimun priests who serve Morjin. They will resist these dark ones with their every
thought and action - and eventually they will cast them down. Then new kings will
follow Val's example here in creating a just and enlightened realm, and they will
rebuild our Brotherhood's schools in every land. The schools will be open to all: not
just to kings' and nobles' sons, and the gifted. Then the true knowledge will flourish
along with the higher arts, as it was in the Age of Law. And as it came to be during
the reign of Sarojin Hastar, there will be a council of kings, and a High King, and all
across Ea, men will turn once more toward the Law of the One.'
While Master Juwain paused in his speech to draw in a breath of air, Liljana kept