The Lightstone: The Ninth Kingdom Read online

  ‘Val,’ Maram said to me in a low voice, ‘I’m afraid.’

  ‘We all are,’ I told him. ‘But we have to keep going – there’s nothing else to do.’

  And then, seeing that my words had done little to cheer him, I nudged Altaru closer to him and gripped his hand in mine. I said, ‘It’s all right – I won’t let anything happen to you.’

  As we rode on in silence over the sucking mosses, I was very afraid that the pain and fever of my wounded side would soon set me to screaming. But even worse than this throbbing agony was the sensation of something squirming in my head, clawing my eyes from inside. I could still feel something or someone following us through the mist. And something else – it felt like a vast, black, bloated spider – was watching us and waiting for us even as it somehow called us toward the darkest of places at the bog’s very center. The more I tried to evade this dreadful thing, the closer I seemed to be drawn to it – and Maram and Master Juwain with me. It was only a matter of time, I thought, until it seized me and tore me open to suck out my mind.

  Before fear maddened me completely, I tried to use my mind to reason our way out of the bog. Hadn’t we been traveling through it for at least twelve hours? Shouldn’t we then have covered at least forty miles and not merely the four or five miles of the bog’s true width? Were we moving in circles? Was the black, rippling mere to our right new to us or one that we had left behind many miles ago? And if we kept the mountains of the Shoshan Range always to our left – during those rare moments when the mist lifted and we could see them – shouldn’t we have long since found our way into Anjo?

  ‘Val, I’m so tired,’ Maram said to me as our horses stepped through a patch of sodden grasses. He waved his hand in front of his face as if to dispel the mist nearly blinding us. ‘Will this night never end?’

  No, I suddenly thought, the neverness of night has no end.

  ‘Where are we?’ he asked. ‘Why can’t we find our way out of here?’

  Master Juwain, riding beside him, touched his arm to steady him. But he had no answer for him, and neither did I. I had no answers for myself, and no hope, either. My command of direction, on which I had always prided myself, seemed to have abandoned me utterly. I could neither see nor sense my way out of this forsaken place. Perhaps there was no way out, even as Lord Issur had said. Soon, we would all slip off our horses and have to rest. We might awaken, once, twice, or even twenty more times to continue our journey into the endless night. But in the end, our food would run out and we would weaken beyond repair; we would fall into the sleep from which there is no awakening, even as the poor knight had. And then we would die in this desolate bog – I was as certain of this as I was of the fever eating through my side into my mind. Perhaps someday another knight would find our bones and behold the fate that awaited him.

  At last, I slumped forward in my saddle and threw my good arm around Altaru’s neck to keep myself from plunging down into the wet earth. And then I whispered in his ear, ‘We’re lost, my friend, we’re very lost. My apologies for bringing you here. Now go where you will, and bring yourself out, if you can.’

  I closed my eyes then, and tried to hold on to his thickly muscled neck as the long column of it vibrated with a sudden nicker. He seemed to understand me, for he nickered again and surged forward with a new strength. Master Juwain’s and Maram’s sorrels, tied to him along with the pack horses, followed closely behind him. As I felt the rocking of Altaru’s great body, my mind emptied and I drifted toward sleep. I was only dimly aware of him pausing before various meres and sniffing the air as he circled right or left and wound his way across the squishing mosses. My only thought was to keep hold of him and not let myself fall into the bog.

  How long we traveled this way, I couldn’t say. The heavy mist devoured both moon and stars. The darkness of the night seemed ever to deepen into a blackness as thick as ink. Although I knew that the fever must be working at me, my entire body felt as cold as death, and I couldn’t stop shivering.

  On and on we rode for many miles. I fell into a sleep in which I was strangely aware that I was sleeping. I dreamed that Altaru somehow found true north, and I felt the ground beginning to rise beneath us. And then this horse that I loved beyond all others let loose a tremendous whinny that shook me fully awake. The mist fell away from me. I opened my eyes to see both moon and stars and the jagged mountains of the Shoshan rising up to the west. Behind us – we all turned to look – the hazy bog steamed silver-gray in the soft light. But ahead us, a mile away on top of a steep hill, a castle stood limned against the glowing sky. Maram called out that we were saved, even as I let out a cry of joy. And then I finally let myself slip from Altaru’s back, and I lay down against the hard, rocky, sweet, beautiful earth.

  9

  We were awakened from our sleep by the sound of trampling horses. With the sun dipping low toward the high mountains to the west, I guessed that we had slept all through the day and into the late afternoon. A mile behind us, the bog waited like a sea of dark green. In the dear daylight, it didn’t seem nearly so threatening. Ahead us, however, up through the valley toward the castle on the hill, a small company of knights rode straight toward us across the rock-studded heather. There were five of them, and they seemed more worrisome. As I stood to greet them, I grasped the hilt of my sword because I didn’t know their intentions.

  ‘Who are these men?’ Maram whispered to me as he stepped over to my side. ‘Where in the world are we?’

  The knights drew closer; I saw green falcons emblazoned on their shields and surcoats. I searched my memory for the lore that my father’s heraldry master had taught me. Hadn’t the Rezu clan, I wondered, taken the green falcon as its emblem?

  ‘We must be in Rajak,’ Master Juwain confirmed. Rajak, I recalled, was the westernmost duchy of Anjo. ‘These must be Duke Rezu’s men.’

  The five knights rode straight up to us. As they drew nearer, I saw that only their leader wore the two diamonds of a full knight in his ring. He wore a suit of mail, even as I did, and his hand rested on the hilt of his sword. He had a sharp face and sharp eyes that flicked back and forth from our tired horses to our mud-spattered garments. He gazed for a long moment at my bandaged arm and even longer at the emblem that I wore.

  ‘Who are you?’ he called out in a rough but steady voice. ‘From where have you come?’

  ‘My name,’ I said hoarsely, ‘is Valashu Elahad.’ Then I turned to present Master Juwain and Maram. ‘We’ve come from Mesh.’

  The knight presented himself as named Sar Naviru. Then he looked at me more closely and said, ‘From Mesh, indeed – that I can see. But how did you come from there to here?’

  I pointed at the bog behind us and said, ‘We came through Ishka.’

  Through the bog? No, that’s not possible – no one has ever come out of the Black Bog.’

  Now his fist tightened around his sword, and he looked at us as if we had better give him a true accounting of our journeys.

  ‘Nevertheless, we did,’ I told him. ‘We crossed it last night and –’

  A sudden shiver of pain tore through my side, and I had to hold on to Maram for a moment to keep from falling. I stood there gasping for air. Then Master Juwain came over to me and held his hand against my burning forehead. He looked at Naviru and said, ‘My friend has been wounded. Is there any way you can help us?’

  Naviru pointed at me and said, ‘If you are truly of Mesh and not demons, as has been said, you will be helped.’

  Master Juwain pressed his hand to my side and then held it up for everyone to see. My bandage must have soaked through because his palm and fingers were covered with my blood.

  ‘Does a demon,’ Master Juwain asked, ‘bleed?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Naviru said with a half-smile. ‘I’ve never seen one. Now please come with us.’

  It took most of Maram’s considerable strength to boost me up onto Altaru’s back and all of mine to keep me there during our short ride up to the castle. Master
Juwain wanted to send Naviru’s men for a litter, but I didn’t want to greet Duke Rezu lying down. We rode across a long, open slope blazing a deep green with new spring grass. It looked like good country for grazing: off in the distance toward the bluish mountains to the east, a flock of sheep covered the side of a hill. Sar Naviru informed us that these low mountains to our right were those of the Aakash Range. On the other side of them, he said, was the duchy of Adar, from where we were fortunate not to have come.

  The Rezu clan had built the Duke’s castle against the backdrop of the much greater mountains of the Shoshan Range to the west. It was a small castle with only four towers and a single keep that also held the Duke’s living quarters and hall. The walls, though not particularly high, were of a blue granite, and seemed in good repair. We rode into the castle across a moat on which floated many ducks and geese. I noted that the great chains that worked the drawbridge were free of rust and freshly greased. In the single courtyard, where some sheep milled about baahing nervously, three more knights wearing the green falcons of the Rezu clan stood waiting to greet us. The shortest of them – he was a sharp-faced man with sharp, quick eyes that reminded me of Sar Naviru’s – wore a fresh black tunic and a kalama whose sheath was scarred with gouges. He greeted us warily and then presented himself as Duke Rezu of Rajak.

  After Naviru had presented us and related our story, or as much as we had told him, the Duke looked straight at me for an uncomfortably long time. Then he said, ‘Sar Valashu Elahad – I met your father at the tournament in Nar. You have his eyes, you know. And I hope you have his honesty as well: I can’t believe that the son of Shavashar Elahad would tell my son anything other than the truth. Even so, it’s hard to believe that you crossed the bog. It seems that you have stories for us. However, we won’t ask you to tell them just now. You are wounded and need rest. That you shall have. And fire, salt and bread as well.’

  And with that, he bowed to me, and took my hand in his to offer his hospitality. He summoned a groom to water, feed and comb down our horses. Then he instructed Naviru, who proved to be his third and youngest son, to take us to the guest quarters in the rooms above the great hall. This Naviru did without complaint. He seemed used to following his father’s commands, and I sensed that they had fought in more than one battle together.

  Naviru led us into the keep through an arched entrance surmounted with two carved falcons. Heavy wooden doors closed behind us, cutting off the sounds of the courtyard. The Duke’s castle was like all castles: dark, dreary and cold. I shuddered at the prospect of being locked away in one again; I shuddered, too, because my entire body felt weak and cold. I was glad to lean against Maram’s considerable bulk for support, but not glad at all to discover that the quarters to which we had been assigned lay on the keep’s topmost floor. There were endless stairs to climb; with Maram’s help, I somehow made my way up them. The far-off smell of baking bread encouraged me. And our rooms, when Naviru opened the door to them, gave me hope that the world was yet a fine place to live: along the west wall facing the Shoshan were many long windows letting in the late sunshine. There were two fireplaces lit with blazing logs, and our beds were stuffed with fresh straw and built off the floor on freshly waxed wooden platforms. Most wondrous of all was the large wooden tub in the bathing room that might be filled with hot water whenever we wanted a bath.

  I spent all that night and most of the next three days in my very comfortable bed. Maram helped me wash away the muck of the bog, and Master Juwain fashioned a fresh dressing for my wound. He also made me a strong, bitter tea that tasted of turpentine and mold; he said it would fight my fever. After eating a little of the bread and chicken soup that Duke Rezu sent up for dinner, I slept long into the next morning. I awoke to find that my fever had broken, and I ate a much larger meal of bacon, fried eggs and porridge. And so it went for the next two days, the rhythm of my life settling in to successive rounds of eating and sleeping.

  On the evening of the third day, Naviru returned to inquire if we would like join the Duke for dinner. He told us that the castle had guests whom the Duke wished us to meet. Although I wasn’t particularly eager for company, I saw that Maram and Master Juwain had been confined much too long nursing me back to health. And so I quickly agreed to the Duke’s summons. I put on my tunic, which Maram had sown and washed while I had been sleeping. And then we all went down to take our meal together.

  The Duke’s hall was not nearly so large as my father’s. With its low, smoke-stained beams and a wooden floor lined with woven carpets, it seemed a rather cozy room for feasting. In it were crammed six smallish tables for Duke Rezu’s warriors and knights, and a longer one that served his family and guests. That evening, only this longer table, made of planks of rough-cut hickory, was set with dishes.

  The Duke stood waiting for us by his chair at the head of the table, while his wife took her place at the opposite end. Along the north side of the table gathered various members of the Rezu clan: Naviru and a nephew named Arashar; Chaitra, the Duke’s recently widowed (and beautiful) niece, and his mother, Helenya, a small, dour woman whose eyes were as sharp as flints. Next to her stood an old minstrel named Yashku. Master Juwain, Maram and I took our places at the table’s south side – I was glad that my sense of direction had returned to me – along with the Duke’s two other guests. The first of these he presented as Thaman of Surrapam. I tried not to stare at this barbaric man with his mottled, pinkish skin and icy blue eyes. But how could I help looking at him again and again, especially at the bright red hair and beard that seemed to surround his head like a wreath of flames? Who had ever seen such hair on a human being? Well, of course I could help myself – hadn’t my father taught me restraint? So instead of offending Thaman with the insolence of my gaze, I turned to regard the Duke’s other guest instead.

  This was a man with the strange and singular name of Kane. He wore loose, gray-green woolens without insignia or emblem that almost concealed the suit of mail beneath. I wondered from what land he had come. Although not as tall as most Valari, he had the brilliant black eyes and bold face bones of my people. But his accent sounded strange, as if he had been born in some kingdom far from the Morning Mountains, and he wore his snowy white hair cropped close to his head. I couldn’t tell how old he was: the hair suggested an age of sixty while his sun-beaten features were those of a forty-year-old man. He moved, however, like a much younger warrior. In the highlands of Kaash, I had once seen one of the few snow tigers left in the world; Kane reminded me of that great beast in the power and grace of his muscular body, and most of all, in the fire I sensed blazing inside him. His dark eyes were hot, angry, wild and pained as if he were used to looking upon death, and I immediately mistrusted him.

  ‘So, Valashu Elahad,’ he said, drawing out the syllables of my name after the Duke had introduced us and we had all sat down. I felt his eyes cutting into the scar on my forehead. ‘Of the Meshian Elahads – now there’s a name that even I have heard.’

  ‘Heard … where?’ I asked, trying to ferret out his homeland.

  But he only stared at me with his fathomless eyes as he scowled and the muscles above his tense jaws stood out like blocks of wood.

  ‘So, you’ve journeyed from Mesh,’ he continued. ‘The Duke tells me you came through the bog.’

  ‘Yes, we did,’ I said, looking at Master Juwain and Maram.

  Here the Duke’s wife – a harsh-looking woman named Durva – fingered her graying hair and said, ‘We’ve always counted on the bog being impassable. It’s bad enough having to guard our border with Adar, to say nothing of the Kurmak raids. But if we have to worry about the Ishkans coming at us from the south, then we might as well just go into the bog ourselves and let the demons devour us.’

  I shook my head as I smiled at her. Then I said, ‘There aren’t any demons in the bog.’

  ‘No?’ she asked. ‘What is there in the bog?’

  ‘Something worse,’ I said.

  While the Duke called for our gob
lets to be filled so that we could begin our rounds of toasting, I told of our passage through the bog. I had to explain, of course, why we had chosen to flee into it, and that led to an account of my duel with Salmelu and my reasons for leaving home. When I had finished my story, everyone sat looking at me quietly.

  ‘Remarkable,’ Duke Rezu said, staring at me down the ridge of his sharp nose. ‘A sun that never rises, and a moon that vanishes like smoke! If I didn’t have to worry about Duke Barwan, I’d be tempted to ride into the bog myself to witness these wonders.’

  ‘Wonders?’ Durva said. ‘If those are wonders, then the Kurmak are angels sent to deliver us from our other enemies.’

  The Duke took a sip of beer and then nodded at me. ‘Perhaps your fever gave you visions of things that weren’t there.’

  ‘Master Juwain and Maram,’ I said, ‘didn’t suffer from fevers, and they saw what I saw, too.’

  At this, Maram took much more than a sip of beer, and nodded his head to affirm what I had said.

  ‘Sleeplessness can cause one to view time strangely,’ Duke Rezu said. He looked at his mother and smiled. ‘Isn’t that true?’

  ‘It certainly is,’ Helenya said crabbily. ‘I haven’t slept since Duke Barwan made an alliance with the Ishkans. I can tell you that a single night can well seem like a month.’

  The Duke went around the table then, polling both family and guests as to what they thought of my story. Naviru, Chaitra and Arashar were inclined to believe me, while his mother and wife were more skeptical. Yashku, the old minstrel, however, seemed to doubt nothing of what I had said, even as Thaman shook his head and impatiently drummed his fingers against the table. As for Kane, his response surprised me. He took a long pull of his beer; then to Thaman, and the rest of us, he said, ‘A man who has never seen a boat won’t want to believe that mariners could cross the sea in one. So, there are many bad places in the world. And there are many things in Ea left from the War of the Stones that we don’t understand. This Black Bog is only one of them, eh?’