The Lightstone: The Ninth Kingdom Read online

  Duke Rezu agreed that this must be so, then complimented me on finding my way out of the bog. I took a sip of beer from my goblet as I shook my head. I admitted that it had been Altaru, and not I, who had led us to dry ground.

  Kane’s black eyes seemed to drink in my every word, and he said, The powers of animals run very deep. Few people anymore understand just how deep.’

  It was a strange thing for him to say, and for a moment no one seemed to know how to respond. Naviru spoke of the nobility of his own horse, and Helenya told of a beloved dog that had once saved her from a robber’s knife. Then Duke Rezu finally called for our meal to begin. His grooms brought out of the kitchen many platters of food: fried trout and rabbit stew, goose pie and nut bread and a big salad of spring greens. There were mashed potatoes, too, and three roasted legs of lamb. I found myself very hungry. I piled planks of trout and heaps of potatoes on my plate, and I watched as Maram, too, began to eat with a good appetite. After some moments of clanking dishes and beer being sloshed into our quickly emptied goblets, Maram nudged his elbow into my side. He nodded toward Kane, then whispered, ‘I thought that you were the only one who could eat more than I.’

  Not wanting to be too obvious, I glanced down the line of the table to see Kane working at his meal with a startling intensity. At the Duke’s encouragement, he had taken a whole leg of lamb for himself. Using a dagger that he shook out of the sleeve of his tunic, he sliced off long strips of the rare meat with the skill of a butcher. His motions were so graceful and efficient that his hands and jaws – his whole body – seemed to flow almost languidly. He ate quite neatly, almost fastidiously. But as I watched his long, white teeth tear into the meat, I realized that he was devouring it with great speed. And with great relish, too: there was blood on his lips and fire in his eyes. In the time it took me to finish my first fillet of fish, he downed many gobbets of meat, all the while giving sound to murmurs of contentment from deep in his throat.

  Duke Rezu seemed glad to provide Kane such toothsome joys, and he urged upon him other dishes and poured his beer with his own hand. From comments that he made and the silent trust of their eyes, I understood that Kane had done services for him in the past – what kinds of services I almost didn’t want to know. As I watched Kane working with his dagger, I suspected that he could cut human flesh as easily as a lamb’s.

  ‘So, you wounded Lord Salmelu and left him alive,’ he said to me as he looked up from his plate. He swallowed a huge hunk of lamb, almost without chewing, then smiled at me without humor. ‘You should never leave enemies behind you, eh?’

  I smiled, too, with no humor, and said, ‘The world is full of enemies – we can’t kill them all.’

  At this, the bloodthirsty Durva shook her head and said, ‘I wish you had killed Salmelu. And I wish your countrymen would kill the Ishkans, as many as possible. That would keep them from looking north, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘But there must be better ways to discourage the wandering of their eyes.’

  Duke Rezu sighed at this and then pointed at the hall’s empty tables. ‘Even as we take this meal behind the safety of these walls, my eldest son, Ramashar, and my knights are riding the border of Adar. And we can only hope that the Kurmak clans won’t mount an invasion this summer. Sad to say, we have enemies all around us. And so long as we do, the Ishkans will never be discouraged.’

  ‘Enemies we have no lack of,’ Durva agreed. Then she looked at her husband in silent accusation. ‘And yet you chose this time to let our son go off on a hopeless quest.’

  Duke Rezu took a gulp of beer as he regarded his outspoken wife. And then, to me and his other guests, he explained, ‘Count Dario and the Alonians passed through Anjo before coming to Mesh. Ianar, my secondborn, has answered the call to the quest even as Sar Valashu and his friends have. He left for Tria ten days ago.’

  This news encouraged me, and I felt a warmth inside as if I had drunk a glass of brandy. At least, I thought, I wouldn’t be the only Valari knight in Tria.

  The Duke looked at Thaman, who had hardly spoken ten words all night. Then he asked, ‘And how is it in Surrapam? Have King Kiritan’s emissaries reached your land, too?’

  Thaman, dressed in stained woolens that had seen better days, used a napkin to wipe his hands. Then he ran his fingers through his thick red beard and said, ‘Yes, they have. A ship arrived in Taylan late in Viradar. But few of my people have set out for Tria. This is not the time for us to be making such quests.’

  ‘How so?’ Duke Rezu asked him.

  Thaman lifted back his head and drained the beer from his goblet. He grimaced as if he found the taste of the thick, black brew very bitter. Then he said, ‘On the eighth of Viradar, at the Red Dragon’s bidding, the armies of Hesperu marched against us. They’ve conquered our entire kingdom up to the line of the Maron River.’

  At these words, everyone at the table grew still and looked at Thaman. These were the worst tidings to come to the Morning Mountains since the story of Galda’s fall.

  ‘So you see,’ Thaman continued, ‘we can spare few warriors to go off looking for golden cups that no longer exist.’

  The Duke nodded his head and asked him, ‘How is it then that your king can spare you?’

  Thaman’s small eyes blinked as if stung by particles of blowing snow. Then he drew his sword and laid it on the table alongside one of the half-eaten roasts. Its blade was shorter and thicker than that of a kalama, and notched in several places. He said, ‘With this I’ve sent five Hesperuk warriors back to their ancestors. Do you question my courage?’

  Thaman’s sudden unsheathing of his sword caused Naviru and Arashar to grip the hilts of theirs. But Duke Rezu stayed their hands with a single look. He smiled coldly at Thaman and said, ‘In the Morning Mountains, as Sar Valashu has found, we must be careful of unsheathing our swords. But you are new to our land, and must be forgiven for not knowing our ways. As for your courage, no, I do not question it – it is rather the opposite. You’ve made a journey across most of Ea that few would be willing or able to make. My only question is why your king would allow a brave man to make such a journey at a time when your sword must be badly needed.’

  ‘It is needed,’ Thaman admitted. ‘I don’t know how long we’ll be able to hold. The Hesperuks fight like demons – it’s believed that the Red Dragon’s priests who lead their army have stolen their souls. They have done things I cannot speak of. My wife, my children …’

  Thaman’s voice suddenly died into the silence of the room. Although he kept his face as cold as stone and stared dry-eyed at the notched edge of his sword, I felt tears burning to break out from my own eyes at the great sorrow he held inside. An image of fish-scaled Hesperuk warriors ravaging the misty lands of far-off Surrapam came into my mind then. But I shook my head back and forth, trying not to let it take hold.

  Duke Rezu refilled Thaman’s goblet; bitterness or no, he drank the black beer almost in one gulp. Then he said, ‘You speak of having enemies all around you. But for the peoples of Ea, there is only one true enemy, and his name is Morjin.’

  At the sound of this name, I felt the arrow again bite into my side and the kirax burning in my blood. I turned to see Kane staring at Thaman with an even greater intensity than that with which he had attacked his meat.

  ‘The Red Dragon’s armies,’ Thaman said, ‘will soon control the entire south of Ea except for the Crescent Mountains and parts of the Red Desert.’

  Now Kane’s eyes, like black coals, began to burn with the heat of a hatred I couldn’t comprehend.

  ‘My king,’ Thaman said, looking at Duke Rezu and then me, ‘King Kaiman, has sent me to your land because it’s said that the Valari are the greatest warriors in Ea. He hopes that you’ll attack Sakai from the east before the Red Dragon swallows up what is left of Surrapam – and perhaps Eanna and Yarkona as well.’

  I felt the sudden pressure of Maram’s fat hand squeezing my leg beneath the table. Then he licked his lips as he winked a
t me. This was the very plan that he had proposed in Lord Harsha’s field just before Raldu had almost murdered me.

  Duke Rezu, who knew his history as well as anyone in Mesh, said to Thaman, ‘Once we Valari fought our way across the Wendrush to attack the Red Dragon. He burned our warriors with firestones and crucified the survivors.’

  At this, Thaman rapped his gold wedding ring against his sword. The thick steel blade rang out like a bell as he said, ‘Someday, and sooner than you think, the Red Dragon will do worse than that to all your people.’

  Duke Rezu shook his head sadly. ‘This is not the time for the Valari to fight the Red Dragon together.’

  ‘What would it take, then, to unite you?’

  ‘I’m afraid,’ the Duke said, ‘that nothing less than an invasion of the tribes of the northern Sarni would unite Anjo. And to unite all the Valari kingdoms? Who can say? Only Aramesh was ever able to accomplish that, and we’ll never see his like again.’

  Despite myself, a thrill of pride swelled inside me. Aramesh was the great-grandfather of my grandfathers, and his blood still ran through my veins.

  At that moment, I felt something like a dagger cutting into my forehead. I turned to see Kane staring at me, and his eyes were as hard and sharp as obsidian knives.

  ‘It doesn’t always take the united armies of the Valari to oppose Morjin,’ he growled out. He nodded at Yashku and asked him, ‘Do you know the Song of Kalkamesh and Telemesh?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Yashku said.

  ‘So – sing it for us, then.’

  It was unseemly for Kane to command Duke Rezu’s minstrel, and so Yashku looked at the Duke to gain his assent. Duke Rezu slowly nodded his head and told him, ‘We could use a song to hearten us tonight. But let’s fill our goblets before you begin – if I remember correctly, it’s a very long song.’

  We began passing the big, brown jugs full of beer as I stared at the candles throwing up their bright flames. The Duke’s grooms came out of the kitchen to remove the dishes, and the rattle of silverware and plates seemed very loud against the sudden quiet. Then Yashku, a wizened man with worn teeth, began pulling at his long, white hair and whispering to himself. His dark eyes danced with the candles’ lights as he called to mind the key mnemonics that would help him remember the many verses of this epic poem.

  The first part of it, which he sang out in a strong, mellow voice, told of the great crusade to liberate the Lightstone from Morjin at the end of the Age of Law. I listened to this history that I knew too well. Yashku sang of the alliance between Mesh, Ishka, Anjo and Kaash, and how these four kingdoms had sent armies across the Gray Prairies to join the Alonian army in assaulting Morjin’s fortress of Argattha. He recounted the heroics and evil deeds of the Battle of Tarshid. There, against the Law of the One, King Dumakan of Alonia had used a red gelstei against Morjin’s armies. But Morjin used the Lightstone to turn the firestones against the Alliance. Some of the firestones had exploded, destroying much of the Alonian army. Morjin had then turned his own firestones on the Valari armies, almost completely annihilating them. The survivors he had crucified along the road leading to Argattha. Then he and his priests had drunk the blood of their pierced hands in a great victory rite which heralded the coming of the Age of the Dragon. Yashku’s words cut like swords into my heart:

  A thousand men were bound in chains

  Along the road where terror reigns,

  And one by one were laid on wood

  Where once Valari knights had stood.

  In breaking of their flesh and bones,

  Priests took up hammers hard as stones,

  And iron spikes they drove through flesh,

  And thus they killed the men of Mesh.

  Their life poured out and reddened mud;

  The Dragon’s priests – they caught the blood

  In clutching hands and golden bowls,

  Then made a toast and drank their souls.

  Here Yashku paused to take a sip of beer. Then he began singing about the courage of two men some eighty years after this terrible event. The first of these was Sartan Odinan, Morjin’s infamous priest who had burnt the city of Suma to the ground with a firestone. But, in soul-searing remorse for this great crime, he had finally found his humanity and turned against Morjin. And so he made an alliance with a mysterious man named Kalkamesh – who was said to be the very same Kalkamesh who had fought beside Aramesh at the Battle of Sarburn thousands of years before. Vowing to regain the Lightstone by stealth where great armies had failed to take it by force, they had entered Argattha in secret. Sartan had led Kalkamesh through dark passageways that wound like worms through the underground city. After many perilous encounters, they had finally found the Lightstone locked away in one of Morjin’s deepest dungeons at the very center of the city. Kalkamesh had managed to open the dungeon’s iron door, but just as he was about to take the Lightstone in his hands, they were discovered.

  What happened then in Argattha three millennia before, as told by Yashku, brought a gleam to everyone’s eyes. While Kalkamesh had turned to fight Morjin’s guards with a rare and terrible fury, Sartan had made his escape with the Lightstone. He had fled Argattha with the golden cup into the snowy wastes of Sakai where he and it had vanished from history.

  ‘Very good,’ Kane growled out as Yashku again paused to wet his throat. His eyes were as black and bottomless as I supposed the tunnels of Argattha to be. ‘And now for Kalkamesh and Telemesh.’

  The many verses of the poem, to this point, had been only a sort of preamble to the poet’s true subject. This was the incredible valor of Kalkamesh and Telemesh. As we settled back in our chairs and sipped our beer, Yashku told of how Morjin had captured and tortured Kalkamesh. Believing that Kalkamesh must have known where Sartan intended to take the Lightstone, he had ordered Kalkamesh crucified to the mountain out of which was carved the city of Argattha. He had questioned him day and night, but Kalkamesh had only spat into his face. There, bolted naked to the side of the mountain, he endured every morning the rising of the blistering sun. And every morning as the sun’s first rays touched Kalkamesh’s writhing body, Morjin had arrived personally to cut open his belly with a stone knife and tear out his liver. He then used a green gelstei to aid this immortal man’s already astonishing regenerative powers, and each night Kalkamesh’s liver had grown back. It had been the beginning of the Long Torture that would last ten years.

  But Morjin had never been able to break Kalkamesh. The story of his suffering and courage spread into every land of Ea. High in the Morning Mountains, the young Telashu Elahad, who would one day ascend the Swan Throne to become King Telemesh, heard of Kalkamesh’s torment and vowed to end his misery. He had set out on his quest and crossed the Wendrush all alone. And then, on a night of lightning and storm, he had climbed Mount Skartaru in the dark to free Kalkamesh from his terrible fate. Yashku’s words now rang out like silver bells deep in my soul:

  The lightning flashed, struck stone, burned white –

  The prince looked up into the light;

  Upon Skartaru nailed to stone

  He saw the warrior all alone.

  Through rain and hail he climbed the wall

  Still wet with bile, blood and gall.

  Where dread and dark devour light,

  He climbed alone into the night.

  And there beneath the blackened sky,

  He met the warrior eye to eye,

  The ancient warrior, hard as stone –

  He raised his sword and cut through bone.

  The lightning flashed, struck stone, burned red,

  And still the warrior wasn’t dead.

  Where eagles perch and princes walk,

  He left his hands upon the rock.

  And down and down they climbed as one

  To beat the rising of the sun.

  Through rain and ice and wind that wailed,

  With strength and nerve that never failed.

  They came into a healing place

  Beneath S
kartaru’s bitter face.

  And there, the One, the sacred spark,

  Where love and light undo the dark.

  The lightning flashed, struck stone, burned clear;

  The prince beheld through rain and tear

  The hands that held the golden bowl,

  The warrior’s hands again were whole.

  ‘Very good,’ Kane growled out after Yashku had finished reciting the poem. ‘You sing well, minstrel. Very well indeed.’

  Kane sat sipping his dark beer, which he had asked Duke Rezu’s grooms to serve him hot like coffee. He was a hard man to read and an even harder one to look at. There was a heart-piercing poignancy beneath the brilliance of his black eyes, and he might have been considered too beautiful but for the harsh, vertical lines of a perpetual scowl that scarred his face. A scryer, it is said, with the aid of a crystal sphere can look into the future. There was something about him ageless and anguished as if he could look far into the past and recall all its hurts as his own. I wondered if he, like Thaman, had lost his family to the depredations of the Red Dragon. How else to explain the volcanic love and hate that threatened to erupt from him at every mention of Morjin’s name?

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘Kalkamesh and Telemesh – Sartan, too – defied Morjin. And shook the world, eh? I think it’s shaking still.’