The Lightstone Page 17

  We were very hungry, but all we had to eat was a few wheels of cheese and some battle biscuits pulled from the pack horses' bags. Maram complained that the iron-hard biscuits hurt his teeth; he bemoaned my due with Salmelu, and then chided me, saying, 'Why couldn't you at least wait until after the feast before drawing on him?'

  Eating the biscuits hurt my teeth, too. Everything about that nighttime flight from Ishka hurt. As always, Altaru sensed my condition and moved so as to ease the discomfiture of my wound. Even so, I could feel my outraged body throbbing with every beat of my heart. Around midnight, some clouds came up, and it rained. It grew suddenly colder. Maram pulled his cloak tightly around himself and then shook his fist at the sky as he growled out, 'I'm cold, I'm tired; I'm wet - and I'm still hungry. The merciless Ishkans can't expect as to ride all night can they?'

  It seemed they could. Soon after that Master Juwain insisted that we stop to make camp for the night. But even as we were tethering our horses to to the fence edging a farmer's fields, Lord Nadhru came thundering up the road on a huge war horse. I could barely make out his sharp features through the spattering of the rain. But his quick eyes found me easily enough. He stared straight at me and said, 'You've been denied any hospitality while in Ishka Mount your horses, and don't try to stop again.'

  'Are you mad?' Maram snapped at him. 'We've ridden since dawn, and our horses are exhausted, we are too, and -'

  'Mount your horses,' Lord Nadhru commanded again, 'or we'll bind you with ropes and drag you from Ishka!'

  Just then Lord Issur came riding up. He sat high on his horse while he regarded us through the rain. He was a spirited, graceful man, perhaps even kind in his own way, and I thought. I might have liked him if we had met under different circumstances.

  'Please mount your horses,' he told us. 'We've no liking to do as Lord Nadhru has said.'

  Master Juwain stepped forward and looked up at these two towering knights on their horses. Although he was a small man, it seemed that he might be able to keep them at bay by the power of his voice alone.

  'My friend is badly wounded and needs rest,' he said. 'If you have any compassion, you'll let us be.'

  'Compassion?' Lord Issur cried out 'We should all strive for such a noble estate, but does Sar Valashu? If he had any compassion at all, he would have slain my brother rather than condemning him to live in shame.'

  'At least your brother is still alive,' Master luwain said. 'And so long as he continues to draw breath, there's always hope that he'll find a way to undo his shame, is there not?' 'Perhaps,' Lord Issur said.

  Master Juwain pointed at me and said, 'This journey might kill Valashu. His best hope lies in finding rest as soon as possible.'

  'You don't understand,' Lord Issur said shaking his head sadly. 'For him, there is no hope. He made his choice and he must live by it - and die by it Now please mount your horses, or I'll have to let Lord Nadhru fetch his ropes.'

  There was no arguing with him. Kind he might be, deep in his heart but there was steel in him, too, and he seemed determined to execute King Hadaru's wishes no matter how bravely Master Juwain stood before him.

  After he and Lord Nadhru had ridden back to the other knights, we prepared to set out again. Then Maram suddenly drew his sword and shook it at the dark road in their direction.

  'How they speak to you!' he called out to me. 'Didn't they see what you did to Salmelu? I've never seen such sword work in my life? Tie us with ropes, they say!

  Why, if they even lay a hand om you. I'll -'

  'Maram, please,' I broke in. 'Save your fight for our passage into An jo. Now let's ride while we still can.'

  The Sarni warriors, it is said, eat and sleep in the saddle, and let a little blood from a vein in their horses' necks for drink. Riding hard, they can cover a hundred miles in a day. We rode hard ourselves that night, although we did not cover nearly so many as a hundred miles. But we did well enough. As the rain pelted my cloak and the farmland gave way to rougher country, I struggled to remain awake. The pain in my side helped me. As for Maram, more than once he nodded off with a loud snoring, only to be jolted rudely awake when he felt himself slipping off his horse. Master Juwain, however, seemed to need little sleep. He admitted that his daily meditations had nearly overcome his need for such sweet oblivion. Beneath his vow of nonviolence and his kindly ways, he was a very tough man, as many of the Brothers are.

  Sometime before morning, the rain stopped and the clouds pulled back from the night's last stars. Daybreak found us in a broad, green valley more than half the way to Anjo. To the east a low range of mountains cut the golden-red disk of the rising sun. Its streaming rays fell upon us, not so warmly that it dried our garments, but not so weakly that we didn't all feel a little cheered. To the west framed by the great snow-capped peaks of the Shoshan Range, the sunlight glinted off an expanse of blue water. I guessed that this must be Lake Osh, which was the largest and only real lake in Ishka. From the northern shore of its gleaming waters to the ishkan border, if I remembered correctly, was a distance of only fifteen miles.

  'Will I insult you,' Maram asked as he rode by my side, 'if I observe that this is a beautiful country? Almost as beautiful as Mesh.'

  'Beauty can never be an insult,' I told him. I looked at him and tried to smile. 'Does it distress you that you might have remained to appreciate it if you hadn't ogled King Hadaru's wife?'

  'Ogle, you say?' Maram's flushed beet-red with resentment 'But I wasn't ogling her!'

  'What were you doing, then?'

  'Ah, I was only appreciating her. You have to be grateful to a world that could bring such beauty into life.' I smiled again and said, 'You sound as if you're in love with her.' 'Well, I am.'

  'But you only just met her - you weren't even properly presented. How could you love her?'

  'Does a fish need an introduction to love the water? Does a flower need more than a moment to love the sun?'

  'But Irisha,' I said, 'is a woman.'

  'Ah, yes, a woman indeed - just so. When you touch a woman's eyes with your own, you touch her soul. And then you know.'

  'Do you think it's always so simple, then?'

  'Of course it is - what could be simpler than love?'

  What, indeed? Because I had no answer for him, I just rubbed my tired eyes and smiled.

  Then Maram continue, 'How old do you think Irisha is - eighteen? Nineteen? King Hadaru has set himself to planting very old seed in some very fertile earth. I predict that nothing will grow from it. He won't live forever, either. And then someday I'll return for her.'

  'But what about Behira?' I asked him. 'I thought you loved her.'

  'Ah, sweet Behira. Well, I do love her - I think. But I'm sure I love Irisha even more.'

  I wondered if Maram would ever return for either of these women -or even return at all. Even as the sparrows chirped in the fields around us and the sun began its climb into the sky, King Hadaru was still very much alive in his palace, and his knights were still pursuing us. A couple of hundred yards behind us, their brightly colored surcoats flapped in the early wind as they urged their horses forward.

  We rode, too, as hard and steadily as we dared. More than once we stopped to feed and water the horses. The Ishkans made no complaint against these brief breaks.

  They might press us until we dropped from exhaustion, but being knights, they would have no wish to kill our horses. The morning deepened around us as the sun grew ever brighter. It heated up my armor, and I was grateful for the surcoat that covered most of its searing, steel rings. The warmth of the day made me drowsy and I scarcely noticed the rocky slabs of the mountains to the east or the higher peaks that lay ahead of us. By noon, we had passed well beyond Yarwan, a pretty little town that reminded me of Lashku in Mesh. I guessed that the border to Anjo - and the Aru-Adar Bridge - lay only ten or twelve miles farther up the road. And so I eased Altaru to a halt, and turned to talk with Maram and Master Juwain. 'It would be best,' I told them, 'if you go on from here without me.' 'What
do you mean?' Maram asked. I pointed up the road, which led north like a ribbon of gleaming stone. 'The Ishkans won't follow you across the bridge.'

  'But where are you going?'

  Now I pointed west to the hilly country that lay between Lake Osh and the mountains to the north.

  'If what my father's minstrel once told me is true,' I said, 'there's a way through the mountains farther to the west. We'll part company for a few days and meet in Sauvo.'

  In Sauvo, I explained, King Danashu would give us shelter, and there the Ishkans would not go.

  Now Master Juwain nudged his horse over to me and touched his cool hand to my forehead. 'You're very hot, Val - you have a fever, and that might kill you before the Ishkans do. You need rest, and soon.'

  'That might be,' I said. I closed my eyes for a moment as I tried to remember why I had set out on this endless journey. 'The world needs peace, too, but must go on all the same.' 'We won't leave you alone,' Master Juwain said. 'No, we won't,' Maram told me. Then, as he realized what he had committed himself to, doubt began to eat at his face, and he summoned up the bravado to bluster his way through it. We'll follow even through

  the gates of hell, my friend.' 'How did you know,' I said with a smile, 'where we were going?' And with that, I turned Altaru toward the west and left the road. We began riding easily through the soft, green hills. The Ishkans, obviously alarmed at our new tack, tightened their ranks and followed us more closely. The soil beneath our horses' trampling hooves was too poor for crops, and so there were few farms about. Few trees grew, either, having been cut long ago for firewood or the Ishkans'

  wasteful building projects. I had hoped for more cover than this from Lord Issur's and Lord Nadhru's unrelenting vigilance. In truth, I had hoped for a thick forest into which we might dash wildly trying to make our escape.

  There were forests in this part of Ishka, but only on the steep slopes or the mountains rising up to the north. I considered riding straight into them, but thought the better of it. I doubted if I or the horses, even Altaru, had any strength left for negotiating such rocky terrain. And even if we evaded Lord Issur and his knights, we would still have to make our way through one of the three passes along this part of the border. I was afraid that any of the garrisons guarding them might hold us up until Lord Issur tracked us down. The only unguarded pass - if it could be called that - still lay some miles ahead across these bare, undulating foothills. It took all my will to keep Altaru moving toward it, but I could think of nothing else to do.

  And so I followed the sua and Maram and Master Juwain followed me. It was the longest day of my life. My side felt as if Salmelu's sword was still stuck there, and every bone in my body, particularly those of my trembling legs, hurt. After some hours, the country around us seemed to dissolve into a sea of blazing green. I dozed in my saddle and I dreamed feverish dreams. More than once, I almost toppled off Altaru's back; but each time he moved with a knowing grace to check my fall. I marveled at the trust he had in me, leading him on toward a destination that none of us had ever seen. My trust in him - his surefootedness and his plain good sense -

  grew with every mile we put behind us; it seemed even more solid than the earth over which we rode.

  Nightfall made our journey no easier. Indeed, if not for the full moon that rose over the hills about us, we wouldn't have been able to journey at all. I tried to set my gaze on a great, white-capped peak that swelled against the black sky straight ahead; there the lesser mountains to the north met the Shoshan Range like a great hinge of rock.

  But my eyes were dry as stones, and I could hardly keep them open. I was so tired that I couldn't even eat the pieces of bread that Master Juwain kept trying to urge into my mouth like a mother bird. It was all I could do to gulp down a few swallows of water. Soon, I knew, I would slip from Altaru's back no matter the great horse's agility and love for me. I would find oblivion in the sweet heather that blanketed the hills. And then Lord Nadhru would have to come for me with his ropes.

  It was the Lightstone, I believe, that kept me going. I held the image of this golden cup close to my heart. From its deep hollows welled a cool, clear liquid that seemed to flow into me and give my body a new strength. It woke me up, at least enough so that my eyes didn't close in darkness.

  It awakened me, too, to the sorry state of my friends, for they were nearly as tired as I was. And they were even more fearful of the unknown lands ahead. Their plight struck to my heart, and I vowed to do all that I could for them so long as any strength remained to me.

  I rode side by side with them over the silver hills. And then, around midnight, just as we topped a hill crowned with many sharp rocks, I caught a moist, disturbing scent that jolted me wide awake. I stopped Altaru as I gazed at a depression in the generally rising terrain that seemed out of place. Patches of mist hung over it as of cotton balls floating in a great bowl. On the east side of it, the range of mountains along which we had been riding came to a sudden end. On the west side farther ahead of this dark scoop in the earth was the mountainous wall of the great Shoshan Range. Here, at last, was the hinge in the mountains that I had been seeking. And as I had hoped, the hinge was broken at its very joint, and the way into Anjo lay open before us.

  'What is it?' Master Juwain said as he stared down across the moon-lit land.

  Now a whiff of decay fell over me, and the air seemed suddenly colder. And then I said, 'It's a bog - and not a large one, either.'

  I went on to tell both him and Maram what I knew about this unseemly break in the mountains. Indeed, it was more than unseemly, I said, it was an evil wound upon the land. For once, in the Age of Law, a mountain had stood upon this very spot. The Ishkans of old had named it Diamond Mountain in honor of the richest deposits of these gems ever to be found in the Morning Mountains. In their lust for wealth, they had used firestones to burn away layers of useless rock and uncover the veins of diamonds. Such wasteful mining, over hundreds of years, had burned away the entire mountain. It had left a poorly-drained depression that filled with silt and sand so that now, a whole age later, only a foul-smelling bog remained.

  Maram, staring in horror at this miles-wide patch of ground, took me by the arm and said, 'You can't mean to ride down into that, can you? Not at night?'

  If my father had taught me anything about war, it was that a king should never rely on mountains, rivers or forests - or even bogs - for protection. Such seemingly impenetrable natural barriers are often quite penetrable, sometimes much more readily than one might suspect. Often, hard work and a little daring sufficed for forcing one's way through them.

  'Come on,' I said to Maram, 'it won't be so bad.'

  'Oh no?' he said. 'Why do I suspect that it will be worse than bad?'

  As we were debating the perils of bogs - Maram held that the quicksands in them could trap both man and horse and suck them down into a dreadful death - the Ishkans came riding up to us. Lord Issur and Lord Nadhru led eighteen grim-faced knights who seemed nearly as tired as we were. They sat shifting about uneasily in their saddles as the line of their horses stretched across the top of the hill.

  'Sar Valashu!' Lord Issur called out to me. He pressed his horse a few paces closer to me and pointed down into the bog. 'As you can see, there is no way out of Ishka in this direction. Now you must return as you have come, and set out through one of the passes to the north.'

  'No,' I said, looking down the line of his outstretched finger, 'we'll go this way.'

  'Through the Black Bog?' he asked as his countrymen laughed uneasily. 'No, I think not.'

  Maram wiped the sweat from his bulging forehead. 'The Black Bog, is it called?

  Excellent - now there is a name to inspire courage.'

  'It will take more than courage,' Lord Nadhru put in, 'for you to cross it.'

  'How so?' Maram asked.

  'Because it is haunted,' Lord Nadhru said. 'There's something in there that devours men. No one who has ever gone into it has ever come out again.'

  N
ow Master Juwain looked at me as I felt his belly suddenly tighten. But his steely will kept his fear from overcoming him; I smiled at him to honor his courage, and he smiled back. To Lord Issur I said, 'Nevertheless, we will go into it.' 'No, you mustn't,' he said.

  'Your father,' I told him, 'has said that we must leave Ishka. But surely the choice of our route out of it is ours to make.'

  'Go back,' he urged me. There was a tightness in his own voice which I suspected he didn't like. 'It is death to go into this bog.'

  'It is deatth for me to go into any of the passes if you follow so closely behind me.'

  'There are worse things than death,' he said. I stared down into the misty depression but said nothing. 'At least,' Lord Issur went on, nodding at Master Juwain and Maram, 'it will be your own death only. And you may die fighting with a sword in your hand.'

  Just then, Altaru let out a whinny of impatience, and I patted his trem-bling neck to steady him. 'No, there's been enough fighting,' I said.

  'Master Juwain?' Lord Issur called out. 'Prince Maram Marshayk -what will you do?'

  In a voice as cool as the wind, Master Juwain affirmed that he would follow me into the bog. Maram looked at me for a long moment as our hearts beat together. And then, after taking a deep breath, he said that he would go with me, too. And then he muttered to the sky, 'Ah, the Black Bog indeed - why don't you just kill us here and save us the misery?'

  For a moment it seemed that the Ishkans might do exactly that. The eighteen knights each gripped their lances more tightly as they looked at Lord Nadhru and Lord Issur and waited for their command.

  'You must understand,' Lord Issur said to me, 'that it would be death as well for me to lead my men into the bog.'

  'Perhaps,' I said.

  'And that I will not do,' he told me.

  I listened to the far-off howling of a wolf as I waited to see what he would do. Many miles before, I had foreseen that he might kill me on this very spot - and kill as well Master Juwain and Maram as witnesses to such a crime. But I had counted on him honoring Salmelu's promise that I wasn't to be harmed while on Ishkan soil. In the end, one is either a Valari or not.