The Lightstone: The Ninth Kingdom Page 21

We all agreed that this was so, and we thanked Yashku for singing us the poem. Then Maram turned to Master Juwain and asked, ‘What befell Kalkamesh after Argattha?’

  ‘It’s said that he perished in the War of the Stones.’

  Thaman turned to Kane and regarded him coolly. ‘And what of Sartan Odinan? He might have spirited away the Lightstone, but to where? The Song doesn’t say.’

  ‘No,’ Kane agreed, ‘it doesn’t.’

  ‘Surely, then, Sartan must have perished himself trying to make his escape. Surely the Lightstone must lie with his bones somewhere buried in the snows of Sakai or in the sands of the Red Desert.’

  ‘No,’ Kane said, shaking his large head. ‘If Sartan was strong and cunning enough to enter Argattha, then surely he must have been resourceful enough make his escape unharmed.’

  ‘Then why,’ Thaman asked, ‘do none of the epics tell of this?’

  At this, Kane fell silent as he took a draw of his hot beer. And then Master Juwain interjected, ‘But, of course, some of the epics do.’

  We all turned to regard him with surprise. It was the first time on our journey from Silvassu that he had spoken of the Lightstone’s fate.

  ‘There is the Song of Madhar,’ he said. ‘And the Lay of Alanu. The first tells of how Sartan brought the Lightstone to the islands of the Elyssu and founded the Kingdom of Light early in the Age of the Dragon. The second tells that he hid the Lightstone in a castle high in the Crescent Mountains and studied its secrets. It’s said that Sartan, too, gained immortality, and used the Lightstone to create an order of secret Masters who have journeyed across Ea for thousands of years opposing the Lord of Lies. And there are other legends, almost too many to mention.’

  ‘Then why aren’t these songs sung in Surrapam?’ Thaman asked. He looked around the table at the curiosity on all our faces. ‘Why aren’t these legends told?’

  Master Juwain rubbed the back of his bald head with his knotty hand. Despite his ugliness, he had a glowing presence that commanded respect. Maram, especially, regarded him proudly.

  ‘Do you read ancient Ardik?’ he asked Thaman. ‘Do any of your countrymen?’

  ‘No – we’ve no time for such indulgences anymore.’

  ‘No,’ Master Juwain agreed, ‘it’s been over three hundred years since your King Donatan closed the last of the Brotherhood schools in the west, hasn’t it?’

  Thaman took a gulp of beer and then grimaced in shame. He obviously didn’t like it that Master Juwain knew so much about his country. I smiled proudly along with Maram because Master Juwain knew more about almost everything than anyone I had ever met.

  ‘I read ancient Ardik,’ Duke Rezu suddenly announced to everyone’s surprise. ‘And I’ve never heard of these legends, either.’

  It was a victory for ignorance, I thought, that some of the Valari kingdoms had stopped sending their sons and daughters to the Brotherhood schools. But Anjo, at least, for all its troubles was not one of these.

  ‘If you’d like,’ Master Juwain told the Duke, ‘later I’ll show you a couple of books of the Lightstone legends that I’ve brought with me.’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ Duke Rezu said, ‘I’d like that very much.’

  ‘Books, legends,’ Thaman spat out. ‘It’s not words we need now but men with strong arms and sharp swords.’

  Master Juwain’s bushy eyebrows suddenly narrowed as he pointed his gnarly finger at my side. He said, ‘Strong arms and swords we have in abundance here in the Morning Mountains. But without the knowledge of how to use them, they’re worse than useless.’

  ‘Use them against Morjin, then.’

  ‘The Lord of Lies,’ Master Juwain said, ‘will never be defeated by the force of arms alone.’

  ‘Then you think to defeat him by finding this golden cup that your legends tell of?’

  ‘Does knowledge defeat ignorance? Does truth defeat a lie?’

  ‘But not all the legends in your book can be true,’ Thaman said.

  ‘No,’ Master Juwain agreed, ‘but one of them might be. The trick is in discovering the right one.’

  ‘But what if the Lightstone has been destroyed?’

  ‘The Lightstone,’ Master Juwain said, ‘was wrought of gold gelstei by the Star People themselves. It can’t be destroyed.’

  ‘Well, then, what if it’s lost forever?’

  ‘But how can we know that?’ Master Juwain asked. ‘We can only say that it is lost forever if we stop seeking it and declare that it is forever lost.’

  At this fencing of words, Thaman finally gave up and returned to his beer. He took a long drink of it and then asked, ‘What do you think, Sar Kane?’

  ‘Just Kane, please,’ Kane said gruffly. ‘I’m no knight.’

  ‘Well,’ Thaman asked him, ‘will the Lightstone ever be found?’

  Kane’s eyes flashed just then, and I was reminded of lightning bolts lighting up the sky on a hot summer night. ‘The Lightstone must be found,’ he said. ‘Or else the Red Dragon will never be defeated.’

  ‘But defeated how?’ Thaman asked, pressing him. ‘Through knowledge or through the sword?’

  ‘Knowledge is dangerous,’ Kane said with a grim smile. ‘Swords are, too. Who has the wisdom to use either, eh?’

  ‘There’s still wisdom in the world,’ Master Juwain said stubbornly. There’s still knowledge aplenty for those who open their minds to it.’

  ‘Dangerous, I say,’ Kane repeated, looking at Master Juwain. ‘Long ago, Morjin opened his mind to the knowledge bestowed by the Lightstone, and he gained immortality, so it’s said. So – who on Ea has benefited from this precious knowledge?’

  As Duke Rezu’s grooms arrived to bring out fresh pitchers of beer, Master Juwain sipped from the cup of tea that he had ordered. He regarded Kane with his large, gray eyes, obviously considering how to respond to his arguments.

  ‘The Lord of Lies is the Lord of Lies,’ he finally said. ‘If he’s truly the same tyrant who crucified Kalkamesh so long ago, then he makes a mockery of the immortality that is the province of the Elijin and Galadin.’

  At this mention of the names of the angelic orders, Kane’s eyes grew as empty as black space. I felt myself falling into them; it was like falling into a bottomless black pit.

  ‘So,’ Kane finally said, pinning Master Juwain with the daggers of his eyes, ‘it’s knowledge of the angels that you ultimately seek, isn’t it?’

  ‘Isn’t that what the One created us to seek?’

  ‘How would I know about that, damn it!’ Kane growled out.

  His vehemence startled all of us, and Master Juwain’s voice softened as he said, ‘Knowledge is power. The power to be more than animals or men of the sword. And the power to do great good in the world.’

  ‘So you say,’ Kane told him. ‘Is that why you seek the Lightstone?’

  Master Juwain forced a smile to his lips and looked at Kane with all the kindness he could muster. ‘It’s said that the Lightstone will bring infinite knowledge to him who drinks its golden light.’

  ‘Is it really?’ Kane said, showing his long white teeth in another grim smile. ‘Isn’t the true prophecy that the Lightstone will bring knowledge of the infinite?’

  For a moment, I thought that the puzzled look on Master Juwain’s face indicated that he had misremembered this particular bit of knowledge. Then, with a slow and measured motion, he removed a small copy of the Saganom Elu from the pocket of his robe and began thumbing through its dog-eared pages.

  ‘Aha!’ he finally said. From his other pocket, he had produced a magnifying glass, which he held over the pages of the opened book. ‘The lines are here, in the seventy-seventh of the Trian Prophecies. And also, in the Visions, chapter five, verse forty-five. And if my memory serves, we’ll find it written as well in the Book of Stars. Would you like to see?’

  ‘No,’ Kane told him. ‘I try not to read such books.’

  Kane might as well have told him that he tried not to smell the perfume of flowers or took no joy
in the light of the sun. It was one of the few times I had ever seen Master Juwain moved to want to humble an opponent. He looked straight into Kane’s unmoving eyes as he said, ‘It would seem that you’re wrong, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘So it seems,’ Kane said. Although his words were agreeable enough, nothing in his tense, large-boned body suggested that he was yielding the point.

  The Duke was used to battles, but not in his own hall. After lifting up his goblet and making a toast to the courage of Telemesh and Kalkamesh, he nodded at Kane. ‘I think we’re all agreed, at least, that we must oppose Morjin, however we can.’

  ‘That I will agree to,’ Kane said. ‘I’ll oppose Morjin even if it means seeking the Lightstone myself, and if I find it, letting the Brotherhoods take from it what knowledge they can.’

  It was a noble thing for him to say, and his words warmed Master Juwain’s heart. But not mine. I found that I could no more trust Kane than I could a tiger who purred softly one moment and then stared at me with hungry eyes the next.

  ‘As it happens,’ he told Master Juwain, ‘I’ve business in Tria myself. If you’ll let me, I’ll accompany you there.’

  Master Juwain sat sipping his tea as he slowly nodded his head. I sensed that he relished the opportunity to reopen his arguments with Kane, and he said, ‘I would be honored. But the decision is not mine to make alone. What do you think, Brother Maram?’

  Maram, who was busy making eyes with Chaitra, tore his gaze away from this lovely woman and looked at Master Juwain. He was more than a little drunk, and he said, ‘Eh? What do I think? I think that even four is too few to face the dangers ahead that I don’t even want to think about. The more the merrier!’

  So saying, he turned back to Duke Rezu’s widowed niece and flashed her a winning smile.

  Master Juwain smiled too, in exasperation at the task of taming Maram. Then he said to me, ‘What about you, Val?’

  I turned toward Kane, who was staring at me with his unflinching gaze. It hurt to look at him too long, and so instead I glanced at the dagger that he still held in his large hands. And then I asked, “What is your business in Tria?’

  ‘My business is my business,’ he growled at me. ‘And your business, it would seem, is in reaching Tria without being killed. I’d think that you’d welcome the opportunity to increase your chances.’

  Truly, I would, but did that mean welcoming this stranger to our company? I glanced at the sword sheathed at his side; it looked like a kalama. I thought that we might all welcome its sharp edges in fighting the unknown dangers that Maram was so afraid of. But a sword, as my grandfather used to say, can always cut two ways.

  ‘We’ve come this far by ourselves,’ I said to Kane. ‘Perhaps it would be best if we continued on as we have.’

  ‘So,’ Kane said, ‘if Morjin’s men hunt you down in the forests of Alonia, you think to make it easy for them, eh?’

  How, I wondered, had Kane sensed that Morjin might be pursuing me? Had Maram, in his drunken murmurings, blurted out clues that Kane had pieced together? Had the story of Raldu nearly murdering me somehow reached this little duchy of Rajak ahead of us?

  ‘There’s no reason,’ I said, ‘for the Lord of Lies to be hunting us.’

  ‘You think not, eh? You’re a prince of Mesh – King Shamesh’s seventh son. Do you think Morjin needs any more reason than that to kill you?’

  Kane spoke Morjin’s name with so much hate that if words were steel, Morjin would now be dead. Watching Kane’s neck tendons popping as he ground his teeth together, I couldn’t doubt that he was Morjin’s bitter enemy. But the enemy of my enemy, as my father liked to say, was not necessarily my friend.

  ‘My apologies,’ I said to him, ‘but perhaps you can find other company.’

  ‘Other company, you say? The outlaws who’ve taken over the wild lands beyond Anjo? The bears that infest the deeper woods?’

  At the mention of Maram’s least favorite beast, my love-stricken friend suddenly broke off his flirtation with Chaitra and said, ‘Ah, Val, perhaps we should consider taking this Kane with us. To, ah, protect him from the bears.’

  Kane’s black eyes turned toward me to see what I would say. They were like enormous boulders used to crushing the will out of others.

  ‘No,’ I said, struggling to breathe. The bears will leave him alone if he leaves them alone. Surely he has enough woodcraft to avoid them.’

  Both Master Juwain and Maram, while not agreeing with my decision, knew me well enough not to try to dissuade me. Master Juwain smiled at Kane and said, ‘I’m sorry, but perhaps we can meet in Tria and continue our discussion about the prophecies.’

  ‘So,’ Kane snarled out. He ignored Master Juwain and continued to stare at me. ‘You insist on making this journey alone, eh?’

  ‘Yes,’ I told him, trying not to look away from his blazing eyes.

  ‘So be it, then,’ he said with all the finality of a king pronouncing a sentence of death.

  After that, Duke Rezu tried to return our conversation to the legends of the Lightstone. But the mood was broken. As it had grown very late, Yashku excused himself and went off to bed, followed in short order by Helenya, who complained of her aching joints and sleeplessness. Maram, of course, would have stayed there all night flirting with Chaitra if she hadn’t suddenly winked at him and announced her need to go finish some undone knitting. As for me, the wound in my side pained me almost as much as the anguish of Kane’s wounded soul puzzled me. Who was this man, I wondered, whose eyes looked as if they were forged in some hellish furnace out of black iron fallen down from the stars? From where had he come? To where did he really intend to go? As we all pushed back our chairs and stood up from the table, I thought that I would never know the answers to these questions. For tomorrow, at first light, Master Juwain and Maram would join me in saddling our horses, and we would set out for Tria by ourselves.

  10

  As the sun brightened the bluish peaks of the Aakash Range to the east, we gathered in the castle’s courtyard. It was a cool, clear day, and the sounds of roosters crowing and horses snorting filled the air. After I had greeted Altaru with a handful of warm bread that I had saved from breakfast, and Master Juwain and Maram had readied their sorrels, Duke Rezu came out into the courtyard to bid us farewell. Kane and Thaman accompanied him. I soon learned that Kane would be putting off his journey to Tria for at least another day–if indeed he really intended to travel in that direction. As for Thaman, our conversation over dinner had persuaded him that it would be useless to pursue his quest in either Ishka or Mesh at this time. And so later that morning he would continue on to Adar and then to the barony of Natesh before crossing the Culhadosh River and making his plea to the king of Taron.

  ‘Farewell, Sar Valashu,’ he said to me as I stood by Altaru. ‘Forgive me if I spoke hastily last night. Sometimes I think the Red Dragon has poisoned my soul. But it may be that there is more than one way of fighting him. I wish you well on your quest.’

  ‘And I wish you well on yours,’ I said as we clasped hands.

  Kane came up to me then, but not to touch hands in friendship. He stood with his arms folded across his chest, all the while eyeing the lines of Altaru’s trembling body as well as my war lance couched in the holster at his side. Kane’s dark gaze took in the hunting bow and arrows that my pack horse bore and then fell upon the kalama that I always kept close at hand. He nodded once, in seeming approval of these well-tested weapons, and then told me, ‘I have no apologies for you, Valashu Elahad. Rain is gladly drunk by parched soil but runs off cold stone. If you’ve closed your heart to me, so be it. But please accept this last piece of advice in the spirit in which it’s given: Beware the hill-men west of the Gap in the mountains. They’re very fierce, and they don’t like strangers.’

  So saying, he nodded his head toward me, and I returned the gesture. Then Duke Rezu stepped over to my pack horse and patted his bulging saddlebags. He asked, ‘Did my steward take care of your provisions? It’s a l
ong way to Tria from here.’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ I told him. ‘We’ve as much as we can carry.’

  ‘Very well,’ he said. He sighed as he pointed toward the castle’s north tower. ‘You’ll find it easy riding from here into Daksh. You say that Duke Gorador is a friend of your father?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He gave him this horse.’

  ‘Altaru, you call him, yes? Well, he’s a magnificent animal–in all of Daksh, I doubt if you’ll find another like him, and there are no horses like those the Dakshans ride, I’ll give them that. As for Duke Gorador, I’m sure he’ll welcome both you and your horse. But after you leave his castle, you should avoid the wild lands to the north. There are too many outlaws in those woods, I’m afraid. Instead, skirt around the Aakash Mountains and approach the Nar Road through the west of Jathay. Avoid Sauvo, if you can. There are plots against the King, and you won’t want to be caught up in them. And stay well clear of Vishal–the Havosh River is its border. Baron Yashur has been pressing his claims against Count Atanu of Onkar, and they’ve been at war since last summer. But Yarvanu is safe. You should enter it from the southwest, through Jathay. My cousin, Count Rodru, has ruled Yarvanu for twenty-three years now, and he still keeps the bridge over the Santosh open.’

  Having completed this little dissertation of the geography and politics of the broken kingdom of Anjo, Duke Rezu clasped my hand and wished me well. Then he watched me climb onto Altaru’s back, which was no mean feat considering that I still had trouble using my left arm. But my right arm was strong enough, and I lifted it to wave goodbye. To Altaru, I whispered, ‘All right, my friend–let’s see if we can find this City of Light that everyone talks about.’

  We rode down from the castle to the sound of the wind blowing across the heath. It was a high, fair country that the Duke called home, with mountains lining our way both on the east and west. There were only a few trees scattered across the green hills of Rajak’s central valley, and our riding was easy, as the Duke had promised. Most of the land near his castle was given over to pasture for the many flocks of sheep basking in the early sun; their thick winter wool was as white and puffy as the clouds floating along the blue sky. But there were farms, too. Patches of emerald green, marked off by lines of stone walls or hedgerows, covered the earth before us like a vast quilt knit of barley and oats and other crops that the Duke’s people grew. Here and there, a few fields lay fallow casting up colors of umber and gold.