The Lightstone: The Ninth Kingdom Page 25

  ‘I’ve heard that the Valari are great warriors,’ she told me.

  Yes, I thought, Telemesh and my grandfather were. My father is.

  Atara pointed down at the body of the man I had spared. ‘It must be hard to be a great warrior who is afraid to kill his enemies.’

  Her eyes, which were as beautiful as diamonds, could be as cold and hard as these stones, too. They cut right through me and seemed to strip me naked.

  ‘Yes,’ I told her, ‘it is hard.’

  ‘Why did you ride to help me then?’

  My gift, which sometimes let me see others’ motivations so easily, often left me quite blind to my own. What could I say to her? That I had felt compassion for her plight? That even now I was afraid I might feel something more? Better then to say nothing, and so I stared off at the mist swirling over the hills.

  ‘Well, you did help me, after all,’ Atara finally said. You saved my life. And for that, I owe you a debt of blood.’

  ‘No,’ I said, looking at her, ‘you owe me nothing.’

  ‘Yes, I do. And I should ride with you until this debt is repaid.’

  I blinked my eyes at the strangeness of this suggestion. A Sarni warrior ride with a Valari knight? Did wolves run with lions? How many times over the ages had the Sarni invaded the Morning Mountains–always to be beaten back? How many Valari had the Sarni sent on, and the Sarni slain of the Valari? Not even a warrior of the Manslayer Society, I thought, could count such numbers.

  ‘No,’ I said again, ‘there is no debt.’

  ‘Yes, of course there is. And I must repay it. Do you think I’d ride with you otherwise?’

  Upon looking at the way she impatiently moved her hands as if to sweep away my obduracy, I sensed that she wouldn’t. No, I thought, she would be much more likely to make her own way out of this wilderness–or even to fight me for the sheer joy of fighting.

  ‘If the hill-men return,’ she said, ‘you’ll need my bow and arrows.’

  I touched my hand to my kalama and said, ‘We Valari have always done well enough with our swords–even against the Sarni.’

  Atara, who still held her saber in her long hands, glanced down at its curved blade and said, Yes, ‘you’ve always had the superior weaponry.’

  ‘You have your bows,’ I said, pointing at hers, which she had left by her horse.

  ‘We do,’ she admitted. ‘But the mountains have always proved bad ground for employing them to the best advantage. We’ve always had bad luck, as well.’

  ‘That’s true,’ I said. ‘At the Battle of the Song River, Elemesh’s good generalship was your misfortune.’

  We might have stood there arguing all day if Master Juwain hadn’t observed that the sun wouldn’t stop to listen and neither would the earth stand still to see who had prevailed. We should move on, and soon. Then he pointed out that Atara had no horse, and asked me if I truly intended to leave her alone in the woods.

  ‘Are you sure you want to ride with us?’ I asked her. Then I told her about Kane and the unknown men whom we suspected of hunting us since Anjo, and who might be hunting us still.

  If I had thought to discourage her, however, I was disappointed. In answer to my question, she just stood there cleaning the blood from her sword and smiling as if I had proposed a game of chess on which she might gladly bet not only her bag of gold but her very life.

  How, I wondered, could I ever trust such a woman? I looked at the bodies of the hill-men she had slain. Truly, she was the enemy of my enemies, but her people were also the enemy of mine. Was my enemy, then, so easily to become my friend?

  ‘I pledge my life to the protection of yours,’ she said simply. ‘But I can’t keep the hill-men away–or anyone else – if I don’t ride with you.’

  How could I not trust this courageous woman? I could almost feel her will to keep her word. I saw in her eyes a bright light and a basic goodness that touched me to the core. Even as I feared the fire building in my own eyes: if I let it, it might burn through me and consume me utterly. But if I ran away from this ineffable flame as I always had, then how would I be able protect her should evil men come for her again?

  ‘Please,’ I said, ‘ride with us. We’ll be glad of your company.’

  I clasped hands with her then, and I felt the blood on her palm warm and wet against my own.

  We spent most of the next hour readying ourselves for our journey. While Master Juwain redressed my wound, Maram shared out some of my hunting arrows with Atara. With her pony dead, we had to convert one of the pack horses to a mount. Atara reluctantly suggested riding my pack horse, Tanar. Although the big, bay gelding was quite strong, it had been a long time since he had borne a human being on his back. He was happy enough when I removed the bags of food and gear from him, but he shook his head and stamped his hoof when Atara buckled her saddle around him. Atara, however, had a gift for gentling horses. And for taking command of them. After convincing Tanar to accept the hard, iron bit in his mouth, she rode him about the hill for a while and announced that he would have to do until she could buy a better horse in Suma or Tria.

  With one less horse available for carrying our supplies, I considered jettisoning the little casks of brandy and beer that Tanar had borne all the way from Silvassu. But this prospect horrified Maram. He protested that if necessary, he would dismount and carry the casks on his own back as far as Tria – or until he had managed to drain every dram from them, if that came first. Atara chided him, and all of us, for traveling so heavily burdened. A Sarni warrior, she said, could cross five hundred miles of the Wendrush with little more than a leather cloak and a bag full of dried antelope meat. But we were not Sarni. In the end, we redistributed our supplies as best we could over the backs and sides of our six horses.

  We rode down from the hill then. After pausing by a stream so that Atara could clean herself, we found our way around the side of the hill into the valley we had seen from its top. A short distance through the trees brought us to a sudden break into bright sunlight where the Nar Road cut across the land. I marveled at the road’s width: it was like a river of stone flowing through the forest. Grass grew in the many small cracks in it, and here and there, a tree grew out of larger breaks in its surface. But it was quite serviceable. Whole armies, I thought, could pass down this road. Whole armies had.

  We traveled northeast along it for the rest of the day. We rode four abreast with the two remaining pack horses trailing behind us. If the hill-men were watching us from behind the walls of trees along the sides of the road, they didn’t dare to show themselves. I thought that Atara was right, that they’d had enough of battle for one day. Even so, Atara and Maram kept their bows strung and close at hand as we all listened for breaking twigs or rustling leaves.

  Master Juwain told us what he knew of the hill-men: he said they were descendants of a Kallimun army that had invaded Alonia early in the Age of the Dragon. The army’s captain had been none other than Sartan Odinan, the very same Kallimun priest who had betrayed Morjin and then led Kalkamesh into Argattha to reclaim the Lightstone. After the rape and burning of Suma, Sartan’s heart had softened and he had abandoned his bloodthirsty men. Morjin had then recalled the leaderless army to Sakai just as the conquest of Alonia seemed certain. But many of Sartan’s men had remained to ravage the countryside. When King Maimun’s soldiers began to hunt them down, they took refuge in the hills all about us, which their descendants had infested ever since.

  ‘Sartan Odinan used a firestone to break the Long Wall,’ Master Juwain said. Thus did his army force its way into Alonia. Even as the Sarni did in the Age of Swords.’

  ‘No, the Sarni did not use a firestone to breach the Wall,’ Atara said. ‘The Sarni knew nothing of firestones then.’

  As our horses clopped down the road and the slanting sun broke upon the canopies of the trees, Atara recounted the times of Tulumar Elek, who had united the Sarni tribes in the year 2054 of the Age of Swords. According to Atara, Tulumar had been determined to conquer Alo
nia, then and still the greatest of Ea’s kingdoms. And so Tulumar’s armies had besieged the immense fortifications of the Long Wall for a year, without result. And then one day a mysterious man named Kadar the Wise had arrived in Tulumar’s camp bearing casks of a red substance called relb. As Atara explained, relb was only a forerunner of the red gelstei, a first essay into the art of making these powerful stones. But it had power enough of its own: it concentrated the rays of the sun and set even stone on fire. Thus it was called the Stoneburner. Kadar the Wise persuaded Tulumar’s Sarni warriors to spread the relb at night over a section of the Long Wall, and this they did, with great sacrifice. It looked much like paint or fresh blood, and the Alonians thought that the Sarni had gone mad.

  But the next day, as the sun’s rays at noon poured down upon the Long Wall, the relb burst into flame, melting stone to lava and killing thousands of the Wall’s defenders. This great event had become known as the Breaking of the Long Wall. In the coming years, Tulumar would go on to conquer all of Alonia and Delu.

  ‘Tulumar was a great warrior,’ Atara said. ‘One of the greatest of the Sarni. But Kadar the Wise tricked him.’

  Master Juwain, rubbing his bald head as he rode along, looked at her in surprise. ‘If your story is true – and I should say it’s nowhere mentioned in the Saganom Elu or any of the histories of the Elekar dynasty – then it would seem that Tulumar owed much of his success to this Kadar the Wise.’

  ‘No, Kadar tricked Tulumar,’ Atara said again. ‘For Kadar was really Morjin in disguise.’

  ‘What!’ Master Juwain called out. He rubbed his gnarly hands together as if in anticipation of a feast. I had never seen him so excited. ‘The Red Dragon began his rise more than two hundred years after that!’

  ‘No, it was Morjin,’ Atara said. This is known. The stories have been told for two ages. Morjin tried to use Tulumar to conquer all of Ea. He tried to make a ghul of him, and in the end this killed him.’

  ‘The Saganom Elu tells that Tulumar died of a fever after preparing an invasion of the Nine Kingdoms.’

  ‘If he did, it was a fever born of poison and Morjin’s lies.’

  I thought about the poison burning in my own veins and what it might eventually do to me. To distract myself from these dark thoughts, I said, Tulumar’s son was Sagumar, I believe.’

  ‘Yes,’ Atara said. ‘Morjin tried to enslave him, too.’

  ‘And this was the same Sagumar, wasn’t it, whom King Elemesh defeated at the Song River? If what you say is true, then King Elemesh defeated Morjin as well.’

  ‘For a time,’ Atara said bitterly, nodding her head. ‘Morjin has always posed as the Sarni’s greatest friend, but he is our greatest enemy. Even now, he is trying to win the tribes with promises of diamonds and gold. This is the key for him. If he wins the Sarni, he wins all of Ea.’

  Although the sun was a bright yellow disk in the west, the world suddenly seemed cast into darkness. I asked Atara, ‘Are the tribes listening to the Red Dragon then?’

  ‘Some of them are. The Danladi and Marituk have practically pledged their swords to him. And half the clans of the Urtuk, it is said, favor an alliance with Sakai.’

  At this news, I ground my teeth together. For the Urtuk commanded the steppe just to the west of the mountains of Mesh. ‘And what about the Kurmak?’ I asked her. ‘Will your people ride with the Red Dragon?’

  ‘Never!’ Atara said. ‘Sajagax himself would slay any warrior of the clans who even suggested following Morjin.’

  She went on to tell us that this fierce, old chief of the Kurmak was her grandfather, and that he favored finding the Lightstone as a way of defeating Morjin. As did Atara.

  As we made our way through the lovely afternoon, I thought about all that Atara had said. I thought about her as well. I liked her forceful and sportive temperament, and I liked her passion for justice even more. She had a wisdom I had never seen in a woman her age. And this was not simply a discerning knowledge of things unknown even to Master Juwain, but a keen sense for the ways of the world. Her eyes seemed to miss no detail of the forest we passed through, and her feel for terrain was even better than mine: more than once she was able to guess what streams we might find or how the road might turn beyond the wall of the hills before us. And that evening, as we halted by one of these streams, I discovered just how deep her understanding of animals ran. She told me that since I was wounded, I should rest and allow her to do much of the work of making camp. She insisted on unsaddling Altaru and brushing him down. When I insisted that my unruly horse might kill her if she drew too close to him, she simply walked up to his side and told him that they must be friends. Something in the dulcet tones of her voice must have worked a magic on Altaru, for he nickered softly and allowed her to breathe into his great nostrils. She stroked his neck for a long time then, and I could feel the beginning of love stirring in his great chest.

  I was forced to admit that it was good that Atara had joined us; she was good company, and we all appreciated her enthusiasm and easy laughter. But she managed to vex us as well. Over the days of our journey, Master Juwain, Maram and I had grown used to each other and had established a certain rhythm in making camp. Atara changed all that. She was as meticulous in performing chores as she was precise in shooting her arrows. Water must be taken from a stream at its exact center so as to avoid collecting any unwanted sediment; the stones for the fire had to be set around the pit in an exact circle and the firewood neatly trimmed so as to fit the pit perfectly. She seemed tireless in making these devotions. For Atara, I thought, there was a right way and a wrong way of doing everything, and she attended each little action as if the fate of the world hung in the balance.

  It must have been hard for her to demand so much of herself. I sensed in her a relentless war between what she wanted to do and what she knew she must do. At those rare moments when she relaxed and let down her guard, her wild joy of life came bubbling up out of her like a fountain. She liked to laugh at even the most ridiculous of Maram’s stories, and when she did, the peals rang out of her without restraint. That night, over a warm fire and a nip of brandy, she laughed and sang while I played my flute. I thought it was the finest music I had ever heard, and wished that we might have the chance again to make more.

  The next day dawned bright and clear with the music of a million birds filling the forest. We traveled down the road through some of the most beautiful country I had ever seen. The hills were on fire with a deep and pure green, and glowed like huge emeralds; the sun was a golden crown melting over them. Wildflowers grew everywhere along the side of the road. With spring renewing the land, every tree was in leaf, and every leaf seemed to reflect the light of every other so that the whole forest shimmered with a perfect radiance.

  Everything about the world that day touched me with astonishment at its perfection. It pleased me to see the squirrels scurrying after new shoots, and the sweetness of the buttercups and daisies filled my lungs with every breath. But I took my greatest joy from Atara for she seemed the greatest of the world’s creations. As we passed down the road toward Tria, I found myself looking at her whenever I could. At times she rode ahead of me with Maram, and I listened to them talking spiritedly. When Atara laughed at one of Maram’s rude jokes, my ears couldn’t seem to get enough of the sound. My eyes drank in the sight of her long, browned arms and her flowing yellow hair, and were unquenchably thirsty for more. I marveled at even her hands for they were graceful and finely made, with long, tapering fingers – not at all the hands of a warrior. The image of her whole being seemed to burn itself into me: straight, proud, laughing, wise and allied with all the forces of life, a woman as a woman was born to be.

  On the next day of our journey, we left the hills behind us, and the forest grew flatter. With nothing but wild land empty of human beings before us, we all began to relax a little. Around mid-morning, I found myself riding beside Maram while Atara and Master Juwain went on ahead of us some thirty yards. Atara was telling Master Juwain of
the Sarni’s greatest stories and feats, which he was furiously scribbling down in his journal as he rode. I couldn’t keep myself from admiring Atara’s poise in the saddle, the way that the play of her hip and leg muscles seemed to guide Tanar effortlessly along. And Maram couldn’t keep himself from noticing my absorption – and commenting upon it.

  ‘You’re in love, my friend,’ he quietly said to me. ‘At last, in love.’

  His words caught me completely by surprise. The truth often does. It is astonishing how we can deny such things even when it is in our eyes and hearts. ‘You think I’m in love?’ I said stupidly. ‘With Atara?’

  ‘No, with your pack horse, whom you’ve been watching all morning.’ He shook his head at my doltishness.

  ‘But I thought it was you who loved her.’

  ‘I? But what made you think that?’

  ‘Well, she’s a woman, isn’t she?’

  ‘Ah, a woman she is. And I’m a man. So what? A stallion smells a mare in heat, and it’s inevitable that the inevitable will happen. But love, Val?’

  ‘Well, she’s a beautiful woman.’

  ‘Beautiful, yes. So is a star. Can you touch one? Can you wrap your arms around such a cold fire and clasp it to your heart?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘If you can’t, why should you think I can?’

  ‘Because you’re different from me,’ he said simply. ‘You were born to worship such impossible lights.’

  He went on to say that the very feature I loved most about Atara unnerved him completely. The truth is, my friend, I can’t bear looking at her damn eyes. Too blue, too bright – a woman’s eyes should flow into mine like coffee, not dazzle me like diamonds.’

  I looked down at the two diamonds of my knight’s ring but couldn’t find anything to say.

  ‘She loves you, you know,’ he suddenly told me.

  ‘Did she say that?’

  ‘Ah, no, not exactly. In fact, she denied it. But that’s like denying the sun.’