The Lightstone: The Ninth Kingdom Read online

  Despite the pain in my side–which still cut into me like a knife whenever I moved my arm–it was good to be in the saddle again. It was good to smell grass and earth and the thick horse scent of Altaru’s surging body. With neither the Ishkans nor any enemy we knew pursuing us, we set a slow pace toward Daksh and the lands that awaited us farther to the north.

  Beautiful country or no, Maram could barely keep his eyes open to behold it. All that morning, he slumped in his saddle, yawning and sighing. Finally, after we had paused by a little stream to water our horses, Master Juwain took him to task for once again breaking his vows.

  ‘I heard you get up last night,’ Master Juwain told him. ‘Did you have trouble sleeping?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I did,’ Maram said as he rode beside me. ‘I wanted to take a walk around the walls and look at the stars.’

  ‘I see,’ Master Juwain said, riding beside him. ‘Shooting stars, they were, no doubt. The light of the heavenly bodies.’

  ‘Ah, it’s a wonderful world, isn’t it?’

  ‘Wonderful, yes,’ Master Juwain admitted to him. ‘But you should be careful of these midnight walks of yours. One night you might find yourself plunging off the parapets.’

  Maram smiled at this, and so did I. Then he said, ‘I’ve never been afraid of heights or of falling. To fall in love with a woman is the sweetest of deaths.’

  ‘As you’ve fallen for Chaitra?’

  ‘Have I fallen for Chaitra?’ Maram asked as he pulled at his thick brown beard. ‘Ah, well, I suppose I have.’

  ‘But she’s a widow,’ Master Juwain said. ‘And a newly made one at that. Didn’t the Duke say that her husband had been killed last month in a skirmish with Adar?’

  ‘Yes, sir, he did say that.’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s cruel, then, to take walks in the starlight with a bereaved woman and then leave her alone the next day?’

  ‘Cruel? Cruel, you say?’ Maram was wide awake now, and he seemed genuinely aggrieved. ‘The wind off Arakel in Viradar is cruel. Cats are cruel to mice, and bears–such as the one we fought at the Gate–live only to make me suffer. But a man’s love for a woman, if it be true, can never be cruel.’

  ‘No,’ Master Juwain agreed, ‘love can’t be.’

  Maram rode on a few paces, all the while muttering that he was always misunderstood. And then he said, ‘Please, sir, listen to me a moment. I would never think to dispute with you the declensions of the pronouns in Ardik or the declinations of the constellations in Soldru. Or almost anything else. But about women–ah, women. Widows, especially. There’s only one way to truly console a widow. The Brotherhood teaches us to honor our vows but that compassion is more sacred yet. Well, to make a woman sing where previously she has been weeping is the soul of compassion. When I close my eyes and smell the perfume that clings to my lips, I can hear Chaitra singing still.’

  As I closed my eyes for a moment to listen to the chirping of the sparrows in the fields around us, I could almost hear Maram singing along with them. He seemed truly happy. And I had no doubt that Chaitra was doing the day’s knitting with a song on her lips as well.

  Maram’s worldly ways obviously vexed Master Juwain. I thought that he might upbraid him in front of me or perhaps lay upon him some harsh punishment. But instead he gave up on instilling in Maram the Brotherhood’s virtues–at least for the moment. He sighed as he turned to me and said, ‘You young people these days do as you will, don’t you?’

  ‘Are you speaking of Kane?’ I asked him.

  ‘I’m afraid I am,’ he said. ‘Why did you refuse his company?’

  I looked out at a nearby hill where a young shepherd stood guarding his sheep against marauding wolves; I thought a long time before giving him a truthful answer to his question.

  ‘There’s something about Kane,’ I said. ‘His face, his eyes–the way he moves the knife in his hands. He … burns. Raldu’s accomplice put a bit of kirax in my blood, and that still burns like fire. But in Kane, there’s more than a little bit of hell. He hates so utterly. It’s as if he loves hating more than he could ever love a friend. How could anyone trust a man like that?’

  Master Juwain rode next to me, thinking about what I had said. Then he sighed and rubbed the back of his head, which gleamed like a large brown nut in the bright sunlight. He said, ‘You know that Kane has Duke Rezu’s trust.’

  ‘Yes, the Duke has need of men with quick swords,’ I said. For a moment I listened to the thump of our horses’ hooves against the stony soil. ‘It’s strange, isn’t it, that this Kane showed up at the Duke’s castle at the same time we escaped from the bog.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s just a coincidence,’ Master Juwain said.

  ‘You taught me not to believe in coincidence, sir,’ I said to him.

  ‘What do you believe about Kane, then?’

  ‘He hates the Lord of Lies, that much seems certain,’ I said. ‘But why does he hate him so much?’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s only natural to hate that which is pure hate itself.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘But what if it’s more than that?’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘There’s something about Kane,’ I said again. ‘What if it was he who shot at me in the forest? And then somehow followed me into Anjo?’

  You think that it was Kane who tried to assassinate you?’ Master Juwain asked. He seemed genuinely astonished. ‘I thought we had established that it was the Lord of Lies who wished you dead. As you’ve observed, Kane hates him. Why should he then serve him?’

  ‘That is what’s puzzling me, sir. Perhaps the Lord of Lies has made a ghul of him. Or perhaps he has captured Kane’s family and threatens them with death or worse.’

  ‘Now that is a dark thought,’ Master Juwain said. ‘I’m afraid there’s something dark about you, Valashu Elahad, to be thinking such thoughts on such a beautiful morning.’

  I was afraid of the same thing, and I lifted up my face to let the bright sun drive away the coldness gnawing at my insides.

  ‘Well,’ Master Juwain continued, ‘it’s said that ghuls sometimes retain enough of their souls to hate their master. As for your other hypothesis, who knows? The Lord of Lies is certainly capable of doing as you said–and much worse.’

  Master Juwain stopped to let his horse eat some grass. He began pulling at the folds of flesh beneath his chin. Then he said, ‘But I don’t think either hypothesis accounts for what I’ve seen of our mysterious Kane.’

  ‘What do you think then, sir?’

  He sat there on his horse on the middle of a gently rising hill, all the while regarding me with his large gray eyes. And then he asked, ‘What do you know of the different Brotherhoods, Val?’

  ‘Only what you taught me, sir.’

  And that, I thought, was not very much. I knew that early in the Age of Law, in a time of rebirth known as the Great Awakening, the Brotherhood had finally come out from behind the Morning Mountains to open schools across all of Ea. The different schools took on different names according to the colors of the gelstei that were to become the soul of that brilliant civilization; each school specialized in pursuing knowledge that related to its particular stone, and eventually became its own Brotherhood. Thus the Blue Brotherhood concerned itself with communications of all sorts, especially languages and dreams, while the Red Brotherhood sought understanding of the secret fire that blazed inside rocks and earth and all things. And so on. While each of the seven new Brotherhoods eventually opened schools of their own across the whole continent, some were much stronger in certain lands: the Silver Brotherhood predominated in far-off Surrapam while the Green Brotherhood came to its fullest flowering in the forest academies of Acadu. For two thousand years, the Brotherhoods had led civilization’s rise into a golden age. And then, with the release of Morjin from his prison on the Isle of Damoom and his stealing of the Lightstone, had come the fall.

  All during the Age of the Dragon, the various Brotherhoods had dwindled or were destroyed by Morj
in’s assassin-priests. The closing of the Silver Brotherhood’s school in Surrapam that Master Juwain had lamented over dinner was among the last of these. Now, only the original Brotherhood remained to spread the light of truth throughout Ea. Although its Brothers had been the first to make vows to preserve the wisdom of the stars and raise up humanity to its birthright, they called themselves the Last Brotherhood.

  ‘All of the Brotherhoods have been destroyed,’ I said to Master Juwain. ‘All except one.’

  ‘Hmmm, have they indeed?’ Master Juwain said. ‘What do you know of the Black Brotherhood?’

  ‘Only that they were once strongest in Sakai. And that when the Kallimun priests established their fortress in Argattha, they hunted down the Brothers and razed every one of their schools to the ground. The Black Brotherhood was completely destroyed early in the Age of the Dragon.’

  Maram, taking an interest in our conversation, nudged his horse forward to hear better what we were saying.

  Master Juwain turned about in his saddle, left and right, scanning the empty hills around us. And then, in a much-lowered voice, he said, ‘No, the Black Brotherhood was never destroyed. The Kallimun only drove them out of Sakai into Alonia.’

  He went on to tell us that the Black Brotherhood, seeking to understand the fire-negating properties of the black gelstei and the source of all darkness, had always been different from the other Brotherhoods. Early in the Age of Law, when the Brotherhoods had renounced war, the Black Brothers had rebelled against the new rule of nonviolence. Believing that there would always be darkness in the world, they began taking up knives and other weapons to fight against it. And they fought quite fiercely, for thousands of years. As the other Brotherhoods–the Blue and the Red, the Gold and the Green–closed their schools all through the Age of the Dragon, the Black Brotherhood opened schools in secret in almost every land.

  When Master Juwain had finished speaking, Maram sat very erect on his horse and said, ‘I’ve never heard anyone speak of that’

  ‘We don’t speak of it,’ Master Juwain said. ‘Certainly not to novices. And not usually to any Brother before he has attained his mastership.’

  At this, Maram, who was no more likely to attain a mastership than I was to become a king, slowly nodded his head as if proud to be taken into Master Juwain’s confidence. And then he said, ‘I didn’t know there were any black gelstei left in the world for anyone to study.’

  ‘There may not be,’ Master Juwain said. ‘But the Black Brothers gave up the pursuit of such knowledge long ago.’

  ‘They have? But what is their purpose, then?’

  ‘Their purpose,’ Master Juwain said, ‘is to hunt the Kallimun priests who once hunted them. And ultimately, to slay the Red Dragon.’

  Here he turned toward me and said, ‘And that brings us back to Kane. I’m afraid that he might be of the Black Brotherhood. From what I’ve read about the Black Brothers, he has their look. Certainly he has their hate.’

  I looked off at the soft green hills and the purplish Aakash Mountains just beyond them. The sun poured down its warmth upon the earth, and a sweet wind rippled the acres of grass. On such a lovely day, it seemed strange to speak of dark things such as the Black Brotherhood. Almost as strange as Kane himself.

  ‘And so you asked Kane to ride with us,’ I said to Master Juwain. ‘Why, sir? Because you thought he might scare away any of the Red Dragon’s men who might be hunting us? Or because you want to know more about the Black Brotherhood?’

  Master Juwain laughed softly as he looked at me with his deep eyes. And then he said, ‘I think you know me too well, Val. Kane was right about me, after all. I do seek knowledge, sometimes even in dark places. It’s my curse.’

  I looked up at the sun then as I thought about my own curse; I thought about the way that Kane’s eyes had nearly sucked me down into the dark whirlpool of his soul. Would I, I wondered, ever find that which would heal me of my terrible gift of experiencing the sufferings of others?

  ‘If Kane is of the Black Brotherhood,’ I finally said to Master Juwain, ‘why would he press to accompany us?’

  But Master Juwain, who knew so much about so many things, only looked at me in silence as he slowly shook his head.

  For the rest of the morning, as we journeyed north along the Aakash Range, we talked about the Brotherhoods’ role in the study and fabrication of the seven greater gelstei stones. The fine day opened into the long hours of the afternoon even as the valley through which we rode opened toward the plains of Anjo. The hills about us gradually lessened in elevation and began to flatten out. Maram wanted to pause on the top of one of these to eat our midday meal and take a nap. But despite the soreness of my side, I was eager to press on, and so we did. Late in the day, with the sun arching down toward the jagged Shoshan Mountains to the west, we crossed into Daksh. No river or border stones marked off this dukedom. We knew that we had entered Duke Gorador’s domain only because a shepherd whom we passed told us that we had. He also told us that we would find the Duke’s castle some five miles farther up the valley at the mouth of one of the canyons leading through the Aakash Mountains. And so we did. It was almost full night as we rode up to the castle’s main gate and presented ourselves to the Duke.

  Duke Gorador proved to be a heavy man with a long face like a horse and long lower lip, at which he pulled with his steely fingers as we told him our story. He seemed glad to hear that I had made enemies of Lord Salmelu and the Ishkans; apparently he regarded the enemy of his enemy as his friend, for he immediately offered us his hospitality, and ordered that we be feted. But before we sat down to take dinner with him, he insisted on looking at Altaru and taking his measure. He well remembered sending him to my father, and was astonished to see me astride him.

  ‘I never thought anyone would ride this horse,’ he said to me just inside his castle’s gate. Unlike my father, he had the good sense to keep well away from him. ‘Now come dine with me and tell me how you managed to win his friendship. It seems that we have many stories to tell tonight.’

  That evening, over a meal of roasted lamb and mint jelly, we spoke of many things: of the warlords who terrorized the wild lands to the north of Daksh and the warriors of Duke Barwan who patrolled the passes of the mountains to the east. As it happened, Duke Gorador, too, had a son who had gone off to the great gathering in Tria. He gave us his blessings and told us to look for a Sar Avador, who would be riding a black gelding that might have been Altaru’s cousin. Of Kane, whom he had met, he had nothing to say. For as he told us, his father had taught him that if he couldn’t speak well of a man, he shouldn’t speak at all. He did, however, have words of praise for Thaman and his cause. He surprised everyone by announcing that the Valari must someday unite under a single king. But it surprised no one that he thought this king should be of Anjo: perhaps even Lord Shurador, his eldest son.

  We slept well that night to the music of the wolves howling in the hills. That is, Master Juwain and I slept well. Maram insisted on staying up until the dark hours writing a poem by candlelight. He intended to give Lord Shurador’s wife his adoring words the next day since he couldn’t manage to give her his love that night. But when the dawn broke its first light over the castle, both Master Juwain and I dissuaded him from this potentially disastrous act. We told him that if his verses were well-made and true, his passions would be preserved for all the ages. He could work on his poem as we journeyed north, and if he so desired, he could read it to the nobles and princes in Tria.

  We said goodbye to the Duke near the gate where we had met him. Then we rode into the soft, swelling hills around his castle. The sky was as blue as cobalt glass; the soft wind smelled of dandelions and other wildflowers that grew on the grassy slopes. In the east, the sun burned with a golden fire.

  It was a fine day for traveling, I thought, perhaps our finest yet. I determined that we should leave Daksh far behind us and cross well into Jathay before evening came. Perhaps some thirty miles of rolling country lay before
us. We began our journey through it to the sound of Maram bellowing out the verses of his new poem. It was a measure of the safety that Duke Gorador provided his domain that we could ride without fear of Maram’s noise provoking any enemy to attack us.

  As the noon hour approached, the mountains to our east grew lower and lower like great granite steps leading down into the plains of Anjo. Their forested slopes gradually gave way to grassier terrain. At the border between Daksh and Jathay, they stopped altogether. Here, where one of the feeder streams of the Havosh led northeast toward Yarvanu and Vishal, we paused to eat a meal of lamb sandwiches and take our bearings.

  ‘Ah, Val, listen to this,’ Maram said between bites of his sandwich. ‘Which line do you think is better? “Her eyes are pools of sacred fire”? Or, “Her eyes are fire feeding fire”?’

  We sat on top of a hill above the west bank of the Havosh River. The day was still clear, and we could see many miles in any direction. To the east, just across the sparkling trickle of the river, the plains of Jathay glistened like a sea of green. Only some fifteen miles from us lay the city of Sauvo and the court intrigues that Duke Rezu had spoken of. To the northeast, along the line of the Havosh, were the fields of Vishal and Yarvanu, and some miles beyond their domains, the distant blue haze of the Alonian Sea. The Shoshan Range still rose like a vast wall of rock and ice to the west, but I knew that their jagged peaks gave way to a great gap some seventy-five miles to the northwest. Forty miles due north of our hill, the raging Santosh River flowed down from these mountains into the Alonian Sea. It formed the border between Alonia and Anjo’s wild lands that both Duke Rezu and Duke Gorador had warned us against. From our vantage above them, they didn’t seem so wild. Long stretches of swaying grass and shrubs were cut by stands of trees in an irregular patchwork of vegetation. The ground undulated with soft swells of earth, as of the contours of a snake, but nowhere did it appear hilly or difficult to cross.