Her eyes were wide.

"I see it now," he said with rising pa.s.sion, watching his words wash over her. "I see that I was brought to the valley to help you love him. Now. They are down in the valley, killing our costumes, but we are here, and here we're swimming in power and love. Can you forgive and love him?"

"Now?"

"Yes, now."

"Yes," she said. "Now I see his costume as nothing more. There's no need for any grievance."

"Then speak to him now."

She blinked. "How?"

"How were you called to this valley?"

"A song," she said.

"Then sing as Shaka sang to you. Draw him where soul calls to soul, as you were called."

She stared out over the valley, awareness dawning in her eyes. "Yes," she whispered.

"Yes," he said. He lifted his hand and caressed her cheek. "Sing to Kirutu, Mother. Sing to him now, while you can. Let that song hold you in its embrace of love and call to the one you would forgive."

A tear broke from her eye.

"Forgive him," Stephen said. "He is only a broken child who doesn't know love."

A slight smile nudged the corners of her mouth. "Yes," she said, and wiped the tears from her cheek. "Thank you, Stephen. Thank you."

Then his mother turned to face the valley, stared into the colored light for a moment, closed her eyes, and began to sing. A simple long note, pure and crystalline. It streamed from her mouth into the air, bearing more power than had ever been known in all of the Tulim valley.

Chapter Thirty-one.

THE WORLD shifted, and Stephen found himself on the ground at Kirutu's feet. Two things he knew before he had time to open his eyes. The first was that nothing had changed in the valley, because only a moment had pa.s.sed, not enough time for Kirutu to land more than one blow.

The second was that everything had changed in the valley. He could hear the sound, very faint, only at the very edge of his consciousness. It was a note and it came from his mother.

He opened his eyes and saw her in his direct line of sight, hanging from the pole, head slumped, hair draping her face.

And now he knew a third thing. He could still see. A very faint wisp of color drifted from his mother's mouth, eked out by a note so thin that perhaps only he could hear it.

He lifted his head off the ground. The sky above was still dark, yes, but from his mother on the post, color was coming into the valley.

"And now you will watch her burn," Kirutu was saying.

He landed another blow to Stephen's face, but this didn't bother him. His eyes were on his mother and his heart was one with hers.

"Sing, Mother," he whispered.

He watched in amazement as a red wave left his mouth, closed the distance to his mother, and washed over her body.

He said it with more power. "Sing."

Another blow from Kirutu landed on his body.

"Sing..."

She sang. Eyes still closed, head still hanging, she sang from her soul, a long note that streamed with increasing volume and color.

"Sing..."

The note came pure and long, a haunting tone that could not be denied.

Stephen shifted his eyes and saw that Kirutu had hesitated. The soft song was now just audible above the roaring flames-he'd heard it. Surely he had.

The man twisted his head and stared at the slumped form on the post.

There was his mother, hanging as though dead, and yet from her mouth came a beautiful song that defied her state. They could all hear it and they'd all gone still.

And as Stephen watched, his mother's head began to rise. Her eyes were still closed, but her mouth was parted and the colored light that streamed from it shot past him, up the hill, into the night sky far behind him.

Kirutu slowly stepped back, away from Stephen, fixed by what he heard and saw. Not the color, surely, but to hear such beauty from such a desolate victim...

"Sing," Stephen whispered. "Sing."

Her head came all the way up and she sang to the distant mountains, now with even greater volume and growing intensity. Light streamed from her face, shooting deep into the night sky.

Stephen was just twisting his head to see where the light was going when the first band of color from that distant horizon swept through the sky above him.

Her simple call for forgiveness was being returned, not as another streak of light, but in thick ribbons pushed by a wall of light that rolled into the valley.

A thundering, concussive tsunami of brilliance that rushed toward the valley. The ground shook with its power as it approached, moving fast.

Cries of alarm spread. The Warik weren't looking at the sky-they couldn't see the light. But they could feel the earth trembling and it sent them scattering, running for their very lives.

Still the light came, hurling down the valley like a rolling mountain of color, threatening to crush everything in its path.

Still the Warik fled in terror before the thundering sound and bucking earth.

Then the light reached his mother and blew through her, lifting her hair from her shoulders.

She sang on, one long crystalline note returned by crushing power.

The flames of the fires bent low, bowing toward his mother under the power of the wave.

Still she sang, as the light streamed past the fence, through the village, and flowed toward the lowlands beyond.

This was the song his mother had first heard in her dreams, now made manifest in the Tulim valley. This was why she'd come.

This was why he'd been saved. So that they too could be saved.

Her song remained unbroken and beautiful until Stephen wondered if his own body could stand the power sweeping through it. Her hair streamed backward as the light rushed past her, but her face glowed in perfect peace, like that of a child singing through a dream.

For an endless breath that robbed Stephen of his own, she sang, face full in the rushing color.

And then, when Stephen thought his own lungs would burst, she closed her mouth. Her song quieted and the rumbling earth settled. But the silent, colored light did not abate. It flowed through her, filling her with its infinite life. She hung from her pole, head erect, bathed in power.

The Warik warriors who'd fled crept back, eyes on his mother, as the earth stopped shaking. Villagers-women and children and the aged-rushed out of the gates and pulled up short at the sight before them.

His mother's eyes opened. She stared ahead for a moment; then, as if knowing precisely what she must do, she slowly turned to look at Kirutu.

For a long time she said nothing. When she spoke, her words flowed as light.

"Let me speak to you, my husband."

Her light reached out to Kirutu and flowed through him, and although he couldn't see what Stephen saw, the power of her love was affecting him already. He stood rooted to the ground, unable to comply or refuse. The night seemed to have stalled completely.

His mother turned to the man who stood next to the emaciated woman. "Cut me down, Wilam," she said softly.

A tear glistened on Wilam's cheek, but he showed no other outward signs of emotion. He looked at his brother, who made no move to stop him, walked over to a warrior, took the man's knife from his hand, and stepped up to the pole.

Stephen pushed himself to his feet, watching with vision blurred only by emotion.

With one last glance at Kirutu's wide eyes, Wilam cut the gra.s.s ropes-first the ones at her feet, so that she could reach the ground, then the ones that bound her hands behind the pole.

His mother stepped away from the pole slowly, on light feet, as if still in a dream. She took Wilam by the hand and led him halfway toward Kirutu before releasing him and crossing the rest of the way alone, eyes fixed on the man who had tormented her for so long.

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 b.u.t.tons 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."