The Lightstone: The Ninth Kingdom Read online

  ‘Why, Valashu?’ he finally asked me.

  I felt the deeper question burning inside him like a heated iron: Why have you disobeyed me?

  And I told him, ‘Because the Lightstone must be found, sir.’

  My father’s eyes were hard to look at then. But despite his anger, his love for me was no less real or deep than my grandfather’s had been. And I loved him as I did the very sky and wanted very badly to please him. But there is always a greater duty, a higher love.

  ‘My last born,’ he suddenly called out to the nobles in the hall, ‘has said that he will journey to Tria, and so he must go. It seems that the House of Elahad will be represented in this quest, after all, if only by the youngest and most impulsive of its sons.’

  He paused to rub his eyes sadly, and then turned toward Salmelu and said, ‘It would be fitting, would it not, if your house were to send a knight on this quest as well. And so we ask you, Lord Salmelu, will you journey to Tria with him?’

  My father was a deep man, and very often he could be cunning. I thought that he wished to weaken the Ishkans – either that or to shame Salmelu in front of the greatest knights and nobles of our two kingdoms. But if Salmelu felt any disgrace in refusing to make the quest that the least of Shamesh’s sons had promised to undertake, he gave no sign of it. Quite the contrary. He sat among his countrymen rubbing his sharp nose as if he didn’t like the scent of my father’s intentions. And then he looked from my father to me and said, ‘No, I will not make this quest. My father has already spoken of his wishes. I would never leave my people without his permission at a time when war threatened.’

  My ears burned as I looked into Salmelu’s mocking eyes. It was one of the few times in my life that I was to see my father outmaneuvered by an opponent.

  ‘However,’ Salmelu went on, smiling at me, ‘let it not be said that Ishka opposes this foolish quest. As our kingdom offers the shortest road to Tria, you have my promise of safe passage through it.’

  ‘Thank you for your graciousness, Lord Salmelu,’ I said to him, trying to keep the irony from my voice. ‘But the quest is not foolish.’

  ‘No? Is it not? Do you think you will ever recover what the greatest Valari knights have failed even to find?’ He pointed toward the empty stand behind me. ‘And even if by some miracle you did manage to gain the Lightstone, could you ever keep it? I think not, young Valashu.’

  Even more than resenting Mesh’s keeping the Lightstone in this castle for three millennia, the Ishkans reviled us for losing it. The story was still told in low voices over fires late at night: how many centuries ago, King Julumesh had brought the Lightstone from Silvassu to Tria to give into the hands of Godavanni Hastar, the Maitreya born at the end of the Age of Law. But Godavanni had never been able to wield the Lightstone for the good of Ea. For Morjin had broken free from Castle of Damoom, and he managed to slay Godavanni and steal the Cup of Heaven once again. King Julumesh and his men had been killed trying to guard it, and the Ishkans had blamed Mesh ever since.

  ‘We will not speak of the keeping of that which is yet to be regained,’ my father told Salmelu. ‘It may be that the Lightstone will never be found. But we should at least honor those who attempt to find it.’

  So saying he arose from his chair and walked toward me. He was a tall man, taller even than Asaru, and for all his years he stood as straight as a spruce tree.

  ‘Although Valashu is the wildest of my sons, there is much to honor in him tonight,’ he said. He pointed at Raldu’s body, which still lay stretched out on the cart at the center of the hall. ‘A few hours ago he fought and killed an enemy of Mesh – and this with only a knife against a mace. Possibly he saved my eldest son’s life, and Brother Maram’s as well. We believe that he should be recognized for his service to Mesh. Is there anyone here who would speak against this?’

  My father had managed to save face by honoring my rebelliousness instead of chastising it, and it seemed that Salmelu hated him for that. But he sat quietly sulking in his chair all the same. Neither he nor Lord Nadhru nor any of the other Ishkans spoke against me. And, of course, none of my countrymen did either.

  ‘Very well,’ my father said. He reached inside the pocket of his tunic and removed a silver ring set with two large diamonds. They sparkled like the points of his crown and the five diamonds of his own ring. ‘I won’t have my son going to Tria as a warrior only. Val, come here, please.’

  I stood up from my chair and went over to where he waited for me by the banner at the front of the hall. I knelt before him as he bade me. I noticed my mother watching proudly, but with great worry, too. Asaru’s eyes were gleaming. Maram looked on with a huge smile lighting up his face; one would have thought that he congratulated himself for somehow bringing about this honor that no one could have anticipated. And then, before my family and all the men and women in the hall, my father pulled the warrior’s ring from my finger and replaced it with the ring of a full knight. I sensed that he had kept this ring in his pocket for a long time, waiting for just such an occasion.

  ‘In the name Valoreth,’ he said, ‘we give you this ring.’

  My new ring felt cold and strange on my finger. But the heat of my pride was quickly warming it up.

  My father then drew his sword from its sheath. It was the marvelous Valari kalama: a razor-sharp, double-edged sword that was light enough and well-enough balanced for a strong man to swing with one hand from horseback, and long and heavy enough to cut mail when wielded with two hands. Such swords had struck terror even into the Sarni tribes and had once defeated the Great Red Dragon. The sword, it is said, is a Valari knight’s soul, and now my father brought this shimmering blade before me. With the point held upward as if to draw down the light of the stars, he pressed the flat of the blade between my eyes. The cold steel sent a thrill of joy straight through me. It made me want to polish my own inner sword and use it only to cut through the darkness that sometimes blinded me.

  ‘May you always see the true enemy,’ my father told me, repeating the ancient words of our people. ‘May you always have the courage to fight it.’

  He suddenly took the sword away from me and lifted it high over his head. ‘Sar Valashu Elahad,’ he said to me, ‘go forth as a knight in the name of the Shining One and never forget from where you came.’

  That was all there was to the ceremony of my being knighted. My father embraced me, and signaled to his guests that the feast had come to an end. Immediately Asaru and my brothers gathered close to congratulate me. Although I was glad to receive the honor which they had long since attained, I was dreadfully afraid of where my pledge to recover the Lightstone might take me.

  ‘Val, congratulations!’ Maram called out to me as he pressed through the circle of my family. He threw his arms around me and pounded my back with his huge hands. ‘Let’s go back to my room and drink to your knighthood!’

  ‘No, let’s not,’ I told him. ‘It’s very late.’

  In truth, it had been the longest day of my life. I had hunted a deer and been wounded with a poison that would always burn inside me. I had killed a man whose death had nearly killed me. And now, before my family and all my friends, I had promised to seek that which could never be found.

  ‘Well,’ Maram said, ‘you’ll at least come say goodbye to me before you set out on this impossible quest of yours, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I told him, smiling as I clasped his arm.

  ‘Good, good,’ he said. He belched up a bloom of beer and then covered his mouth as he yawned. ‘Ah, I’ve got to find Behira and tell her the rest of the poem before I pass out and forget it. Would you by chance know where she might be quartered in this huge heap of stones of yours?’

  ‘No,’ I told him, committing my first lie as a knight. I pointed at Lord Harsha as he made his way with his daughter and several lords out of the hall. ‘Perhaps you should ask Lord Harsha.’

  ‘Ah, perhaps I won’t, not just now,’ Maram said as he stared at Lord Harsha’s shea
thed sword. It seemed that he had seen one kalama too many that night. ‘Well, I’ll see you in the morning.’

  With that, he joined the stream of people making their way toward the door. Although I was as tired as I had ever been, I lingered a few more moments as I watched the Alonians and Ishkans – and everyone else – file from the hall. Once more I opened myself to see if I could detect the man who had fired the arrow at me. I couldn’t. One last time I turned toward the white granite stand to see if the Lightstone would reappear, but it remained as empty as the air.

  6

  The next morning, the Ishkans departed our castle in a flurry of pounding hooves and muffled curses – so Asaru later told me. Apparently Salmelu wanted to bring King Hadaru the news of the war’s postponement as quickly as possible. Likewise, the Alonians continued on their journey toward Waas and Kaash, where they would tell King Talanu and my cousins at his court of the great quest. Despite my intention to get an early start on the road to Tria, I slept almost until noon. My father had always upbraided me for liking my bed too well, and so I did. In truth, now that the time had come for me to leave the castle that I had never regarded as home, I was reluctant to do so.

  It took me most of the day to make my preparations for the journey. I went from shop to shop among the courtyards as if moving in a dream. It seemed that there were a hundred things to do. Altaru’s hooves needed reshoeing, as did those of our pack horse, Tanar. I had to visit the storerooms in the various cellars to gather rations for myself: cheeses and nuts, dried venison and apples and battle biscuits so hard they would break one’s teeth if they weren’t first dipped in a cupful of brandy or beer. These vital beverages I poured into twelve small oak casks which I carefully balanced on Tanar’s back along with the waterskins. I worried that the weight would be too much for the brown gelding to carry, but Tanar was young and almost as heavily muscled as Altaru himself. He seemed to have no trouble bearing this load of consumables as well as my ground fur, cookware and other equipment that would make sleeping beneath the stars a delight rather than a misery.

  He balked only when I strapped onto him my longbow and sheaves of arrows that I would use hunting in the forests between Silvassu and Tria. Once, at the Battle of Red Mountain, he had been struck in the flank by a stray arrow and had never forgotten it. I had to reassure him that we were embarking on a quest to regain a cup that would end such battles forever and not going out to war. But my appearance, unfortunately, belied any soothing words I could offer him. My father had insisted that I set forth as a knight of Mesh, and to honor him, I had gathered up the necessary accouterments. By law, no knight could leave Mesh alone wearing our diamond armor; such displays would be likely to incite the envy and hatred of robbers who would murder for the gain of these priceless gems. So instead, I had donned a mail suit made of silver steel. Over its gleaming rings I had pulled a black surcoat bearing the swan and stars of Mesh. As well I bore a heavy charging lance, five lighter throwing lances, and, of course, the shining kalama that my father had given me on my thirteenth birthday. The massive war helm, with its narrow eye slits and silver wings projecting out from the sides, I would not put on until just before I was ready to leave the castle.

  I spent at least two hours of the afternoon saying my farewells. I visited briefly with the master carpenter in his shop full of sawdust and riven wood. He was a thick, jowly man with an easy laugh and skillful hands that had made the frame of my grandfather’s portrait. We talked about my grandfather for a while, the battles he had fought, the dreams he had dreamed. He wished me well and warned me to be careful of the Ishkans. This advice I also received from Lansar Raasharu, my father’s seneschal. This sad-faced man, whom I had always loved as one of my family, told me that I should keep a tighter watch over my own lips than I did even over the enemy.

  ‘They’re a hotheaded bunch,’ he said, ‘who will fashion your own words into weapons and hurl them back at you toward disastrous ends.’

  ‘Better that,’ I said, ‘than poison arrows fired in the woods.’

  Lord Raasharu rubbed his rugged face and cocked his head, looking at me in surprise. He asked, ‘Hasn’t Lord Asaru spoken to you?’

  ‘No, not since before the feast.’

  ‘Well, you should have been told: it can’t be Prince Salmelu who was your assassin. He and his friends crossed my path in the woods down by the Kurash at the time of your trouble.’

  ‘And you’re sure it was he?’

  ‘As sure as that you’re Valashu Elahad.’

  ‘That is good news!’ I said. I hadn’t wanted to believe that Salmelu would have tried to murder me. ‘The Ishkans may be Ishkans, but they’re Valari first.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Lord Raasharu said. ‘But the Ishkans are still Ishkans, so you be careful once you cross the mountains, all right?’

  And with that he clapped his hand across my shoulder hard enough to make the rings of mail jingle, and said goodbye.

  It distressed me that I could find neither Maram nor Master Juwain to tell them how much I would miss them. According to Master Tadeo, who still remained in the Brothers’ quarters, both Master Juwain and Maram had left the castle in great haste that morning while I had been sleeping. Apparently, there had been some sort of altercation with Lord Harsha, who had ridden off in a fury with Behira and their wagon before breakfast. But it seemed I had not been forgotten. Master Tadeo handed me a sealed letter that Maram had written; I tucked this square of white paper behind the belt girdling my surcoat, and vowed to read it later.

  There remained only the farewells to be made with my family. Asaru insisted on meeting me by the east gate of the castle, as did my mother, my grandmother and my other brothers. In a courtyard full of barking dogs and children playing in the last of the day’s sun, I stood by Altaru to take my leave of them. They each had presents for me, and a word or two of wisdom as well.

  Mandru, the fiercest of my brothers, was the first to come forward. As usual, he carried his sword in the three remaining fingers of his left hand. It was rumored, I knew, that he slept holding this sword, and not his young wife, which might have explained his lack of children. For a moment, I thought that he intended to give me this most personal of possessions. And then I noticed that in his right hand, he held something else: his treasured sharpening stone made of pressed diamond dust. He gave this sparkling gray stone to me and said, ‘Keep your sword sharp, Val. Never yield to our enemies.’

  After he had embraced me, Ravar next approached to give me his favorite throwing lance. He reminded me always to set my boots in my stirrups before casting it, and then stepped aside to let Jonathay come nearer. With a faraway, dreamy look on his face, this most fatalistic of my brothers presented me with his chess set, the one with the rare ebony and ivory pieces that he loved playing with while on long campaigns. His calm, cheerful smile suggested to me that I play at the game of finding the Lightstone – and win.

  Now it was Yarashan’s turn to say goodbye. He strode up to me as if everyone in the castle was watching each of his lithe, powerful motions. He was even prouder than Asaru, I thought, but he lacked Asaru’s kindness, innocence and essential goodness. He was a handsome, dashing man, and was considered the finest knight in Mesh – except for those who said this of Asaru. I thought that he considered he would make a better king than Asaru, although he was much too perceptive and loyal ever to say such a thing. He held in his hand a well-worn copy of the Valkariad, which was his favorite book of the Saganom Elu. He gave it to me and said, ‘Remember the story of Kalkamesh, little brother.’

  He, too, embraced me, then stepped aside as Karshur handed me his favorite hunting arrow. I had always envied this solid, simple man because he seemed never to have a doubt as to the right thing to do or the difference between evil and good.

  Then I looked up to see Asaru standing between my mother and grandmother. As I listened to the distant sound of hammered iron coming from the blacksmith’s shop, I watched him step over to me.

  ‘
Please take this,’ he said to me. From around his neck, he pulled loose the thong binding the lucky bear claw that he always wore. He draped it over my head and told me, ‘Never lose heart – you have a great heart, Val.’

  Although he fell silent as he clapped me on the shoulder, the tears in his eyes said everything else there was to say.

  I was sure that he thought I would be killed on some dark road in a strange kingdom far from home. My mother obviously thought this as well. Although she was a strong, brave woman, she too was weeping as she came forward to give me the traveling cloak which I knew she had been weaving as a birthday present. I guessed that she had stayed up all night finishing it; with its thick black wool trimmed out with fine silver embroidery and a magnificent silver brooch with which to fasten it, it was a work of love that would keep me warm on even the stormiest of nights.

  ‘Come back,’ was all she told me. ‘Whether you find this cup or not, come home when it’s time to come home.’

  She kissed me then and fell sobbing against me. It took all of her will and dignity to pry herself loose and stand back so that my grandmother could give me the white, wool scarf that she had knitted for me. Ayasha Elahad, whom I had always called Nona, tied this simple garment around my neck. She stood in the darkening courtyard looking up at me with her bright eyes. Then she pointed at the night’s first stars and told me, ‘Your grandfather would have made this quest, you know. Never forget that he is watching you.’

  I hugged her tiny body against the hardness of the mail that encircled mine. Even through this steel armor with its hundreds of interlocked rings, I could feel the beating of her heart. This frail woman, I thought, was the source of love in my family, and I would take this most precious of gifts with me wherever I went.

  At last I stood away from her and looked at my family one by one. No one spoke; no one seemed to know any more words to say. I had hoped my father, too, would come to say goodbye, but it seemed that he was still too angry to bear the sight of me. And then, even as I turned to take Altaru’s reins and mount him, I heard footsteps sounding hard against the packed earth. I looked out to see my father emerge from the gateway to the castle’s adjoining middle courtyard. He was dressed in a black and silver tunic, and he bore on his arm a shield embossed with a silver swan and seven stars against a triangular expanse of glossy, black steel.