The Lightstone: The Ninth Kingdom Read online

  Just before dusk, as we were making camp in the dripping woods, the rain finally broke. My fever didn’t. It seemed to be centered in my head, searing all my senses, cooking my brain. I had no evil dreams that night only because I couldn’t sleep. I lay awake on the cold, sodden earth tossing and turning and hoping that the sky might clear and the stars would come out. But the clouds remained thick and heavy long past midnight; through the long hours of darkness, the sky seemed lower than it should be. Morning’s thin light showed a gray mist lying over the tops of the trees. It was a bad day for travel, I thought, but travel we must.

  ‘You’re still hot,’ Master Juwain told me as he tested my head. ‘And you’re so pale, Val – I’m afraid you’re growing weaker.’

  In truth, I was so weak that I could hardly hold the mug of tea that Maram gave me or move my mouth to speak. But I had to warn them of my feeling of being followed because it was growing ever stronger.

  ‘Someone is coming for us,’ I said. ‘Maybe Kane – maybe others.’

  This news alarmed Maram almost as much as it surprised Atara. Her blonde eyebrows arched as she asked, ‘But we’ve seen no sign of anyone since the hills. Why should you think someone is pursuing us?’

  ‘Val has a sense about such things,’ Master Juwain tried to explain.

  Atara cast me a long, penetrating look and then nodded her head as if she understood. She seemed to see me as no one ever had before; she both believed me and believed in me, and I loved her for that.

  ‘Someone is coming for us, you say,’ Maram muttered as he stood by the fire scanning the woods. ‘Why didn’t you tell us, Val?’

  I, too, stood staring off through the woods; I hadn’t told them anything because I had doubted what I had sensed, even as I doubted it now. Only two days before, in my joy at finding Atara, I had opened myself to the whole world and had been stricken by the beauty of the sun and the sky, by the sweetness of the flowers and the trees and the wind. But what if my gift, quickened by the kirax in my blood, had also opened me to other things? What if I were picking up on every fox in the forest stalking the many rabbits and voles? What if I could somehow sense the killing instinct of every bear, racoon and weasel – as well as every fly-catching frog and worm-hunting bird and all the other creatures around us? Might I not have mistaken this flood of natural urges for a feeling that someone was hunting me?

  And yet it was the sheer unnaturalness of what I now felt that filled me with dread. Something slimy and unclean seemed to want to fasten itself to the back of my neck and suck the fluids from my spine; something like a clot of worms gnawed continually at my belly. I was afraid that if I let them, they would eat their way up through my heart and head and bleed away my very life. And so, because I was afraid that this horrible thing might be coming for Atara and the others, too, I decided that it was long past time that I warned them of the danger.

  ‘My apologies for not telling you sooner,’ I said to Maram. ‘But I had to be sure. There is a wrongness here.’

  Maram, who remembered very well our near-death at the Telemesh Gate, drew in a quick breath and asked, ‘Do you think it’s another bear?’

  ‘No, this is different. No beast could make me feel this way.’

  ‘No beast except the Red Dragon,’ he muttered.

  ‘If it is men who are pursuing us,’ Master Juwain said, ‘then shouldn’t we be on our way as soon as possible?’

  ‘If it is men,’ Atara said, slinging on her quiver, ‘then as soon as they show themselves, my arrows will pursue them.’

  She wondered if we shouldn’t find a place of concealment by the side of the road and simply wait for whoever might be riding after us. But I couldn’t countenance shooting at men from behind trees as my would-be assassin had shot at me. And I couldn’t bear more killing in any case. Because our pursuers might still be untold miles away, it seemed the safest course to ride west as quickly as we could.

  And ride we did. For most of the first hour of that day’s journey, we moved along at a swift canter. Our horses’ hooves struck the road in a three-beat rhythm of iron against stone, clop-clip-clop, again and again. When they grew tired, we slowed to a trot. At last we broke for a rest as Atara dismounted and pressed her ear to the road to listen for the sound of other hooves.

  ‘Do you hear anything?’ Maram called to her from the side of the road. ‘What do you hear?’

  ‘Nothing except you,’ Atara told him. ‘Now please be quiet.’

  But after a few moments, she stood up and slowly shook her head.

  ‘Let’s ride, then,’ Maram said. ‘I don’t like the look of this wood.’

  I smiled then because I thought it wasn’t the trees or any growing thing that disturbed him. Some miles back, we had entered a hilly country again – but nothing so rugged or high as the tors along the gap of the Shoshan Range. Here the hills were low and rounded, and were covered in chestnut, yellow poplar, black ash and oak. In the broad valley through which we rode grew stands of beech, walnut, sycamore, elm and silver maple. Many of these giants of the forest were clothed in honeysuckle and wild grape. In truth, it was a lovely wood, sweet with fruits and singing birds, and I lamented that only man could bring any evil into it.

  We rode through the rest of the day. Around noon, the sun boiled away the last of the mist, and the sky cleared to a hazy blue. It grew quite hot, and humid, too, with the earth’s moisture flavoring the air like a fermy soup. I was hot from a fever that had now spread from my head into the rest of my body. Beneath my layers of surcoat, mail and underpadding, I began to sweat. For a long while, I suffered this torment as I had been taught. But then the worms in my belly seemed to ignite like writhing tendrils of flame; my skin felt like a tunic soaked in oil and set on fire. I wanted to pull off this wrapping of burning flesh, along with all my clothing and armor, and jump into the stream that ran by the roadside. Instead, I fixed my gaze on the white blister of the sun as it slowly made its way toward the west. I might have screamed at the agony of it all if I hadn’t remembered that Valari warriors are not allowed to give voice to such pain.

  We made camp that night in a grove of elms by a stream half a mile from the road. We risked no fire until it grew dark and the smoke from the damp wood we found would not be seen. Our meal that evening was as cold and cheerless as it was sparse: upon opening our food bags, we found that half our biscuits and all our cheese had grown a thick, green fur of mold. Although Master Juwain cut away as much of it as he could, neither Atara nor Maram had much appetite for what remained.

  And I had none. Since I didn’t have the strength to chew the leathery dried meat that Atara urged upon me, I sat back against a tree drinking some cool water. Although I insisted on staying awake to take the first watch – and perhaps the other watches as well – I almost immediately fell asleep. I never felt my friends’ hands lifting me onto my bed of furs by the small fire.

  I was vaguely aware that I was writhing and sweating there on the ground for most of the night. At times I must have dreamed. And then suddenly I found myself somehow awakening many miles away in a large room with rich furnishings. I stood by a magnificently canopied bed marveling at the gilded chests and wardrobes along the walls. There I saw three long mirrors, framed in ornate gold as well. The ceiling was like a chessboard, with squares of finely carved white wood alternating with the blackest ebony; an intricately woven carpet showing the shapes of many animals and men covered the floor. I couldn’t find any window or door. I stood sweating in fear because I couldn’t imagine how I had come to be there.

  And then the mirror opposite me began rippling like still water into which someone had thrown a stone. A man stepped out of it. He was slightly above average height, slim and well-muscled, with skin as fair as snow. His short hair shone like spun gold, and the fine features of his face radiated an almost unearthly beauty. I gasped to behold his eyes, for they were all golden, too. He was elegantly dressed, in a golden tunic trimmed with black fur. Across the chest, the tunic was emb
roidered with an emblem that drew my eyes and held them fast: it was the coiled shape of a large and ferocious red dragon.

  ‘You’re standing on my head,’ he told me in a strong, deep voice. ‘Please get your muddy boots off it.’

  I looked down to see that I was indeed standing on the eyes of a red dragon woven into the wool at the center of the carpet. I instantly found myself moving backward. No king I had ever known – neither King Hadaru nor even my father – spoke with such command as did this beautiful man.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ he asked me.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. I was sweating fiercely now; I wanted to close my eyes and scream, but I couldn’t look away from him. ‘You’re the Red Dragon.’

  ‘I have a name,’ he said. ‘You know what it is – please say it.’

  ‘No,’ I told him. ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Say it now!’

  ‘Morjin,’ I said, despite my resolve. ‘Your name is Morjin.’

  ‘Lord Morjin, you should call me. And you are Valashu Elahad. Son of Shavashar Elahad, who is of the line of Elemesh, Aramesh and Telemesh. Do you know what these men did to me?’

  ‘Yes – they defeated you.’

  ‘Defeated? Do I look defeated?’ Morjin positioned himself by one of his mirrors as he adjusted the folds of his tunic. He stood very straight, and his face took on a fierce and implacable countenance. It seemed that he was searching for fire and iron there and finding both in abundance. He looked into his own golden eyes for a long time. And then he turned to me and said, ‘No, in the end, it was I who defeated them. They are dead and I am still alive.’

  He took a few steps closer to me and said, ‘But they did defy me. Even as you have, Valashu Elahad.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘no, no.’

  ‘No … what?’

  ‘No, Lord Morjin.’

  ‘You killed one of my knights, didn’t you?’

  ‘No, that’s not true – are assassins knights?’

  ‘You put your knife into him. You killed this man, and so you owe him a life. And since he was my man, you owe me your life.’

  ‘No, that’s a lie,’ I said. ‘You’re the Lord of Lies.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘You’re the Lord of Illusions, the Crucifier, the Great Beast.’

  ‘I’m only a man, like you.’

  ‘No – that’s the worst lie of all! You’re nothing like me.’

  Morjin smiled, revealing small white teeth as lustrous as pearls. He asked me, ‘Have you never lied, then?’

  ‘No – my mother taught me not to lie. My father, too.’

  ‘That is the first lie you’ve told me, Valashu. But not the last.’

  ‘Yes, it is!’ I said. I pressed my hand to my throbbing head. ‘I mean, no, it isn’t – I wasn’t lying when I said it’s wrong to lie.’

  ‘Is it really?’ he asked me. He took another step closer and said, ‘It pleases me that you lie to me. Why not be truthful about what all men do? You honor the truth, don’t you? You’re an Elahad aren’t you? Then listen to this truth that I give to you freely: He who best knows the truth is most able to tell a falsehood. Therefore the man best at lying is the most true.’

  ‘That’s a lie!’ I half-shouted. But my head hurt so badly I could hardly tell what was true and what was not. I tried to close my ears to the music that poured off Morjin’s silver tongue. I tried to close my eyes and heart to him, but he just stood there smiling at me nicely as if he were my brother or best friend.

  ‘Is this a lie then, Valashu? That there must be truth between us? That we already know the truth about each other, deep in our hearts?’

  ‘No – you know nothing about me!’

  ‘Don’t I?’

  Morjin pointed his long finger at my chest and said, ‘I know that you’re in love. Show her to me, please.’

  I closed my eyes as I shook my head. In my mind there appeared a blazing image of Atara clasping hands with me, and I quickly shut it away in the stone-walled keep of my heart as I would the most precious of treasures.

  ‘Thank you,’ Morjin told me. ‘I might have foreseen the irony of a Valari knight falling for a Sarni warrior. Do you congratulate yourself on the nobility of your making friends with your enemy?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Well, she’s a beautiful woman, in an animal kind of way. But then, you like riding horses, don’t you?’

  ‘Damn you!’ I told him. I moved my hand to draw my sword, but I found that I wasn’t wearing it.

  ‘My apologies, that wasn’t kind of me,’ he said. ‘And as you’ll see, I’m really the kindest of men. But the truth is, this woman is as far beneath you as an earthworm.’

  ‘I love her!’

  ‘Do you? Or do you only love the benefits of loving her? When a man burns for a woman, all other hurts disappear, don’t they? Tell me, Valashu, did you save her from my men out of love or so that you wouldn’t have to suffer the agony of her violation and death?’

  I made a fist to strike him then, but then he smiled as if to remind me of my vow not to harm others.

  ‘You tell yourself that you honor truth, but sometimes it’s too painful to face, isn’t it? And so, like all men, you tell yourself lies.’ Morjin’s fine hands moved dramatically to emphasize his point; it seemed that such bright fires burned inside him that he couldn’t stop moving. ‘But please, do not chastise yourself. These little lies enable us to go on living. And life is precious, is it not? The most precious gift of the One? And therefore a lie told in the service of the One is a noble thing.’

  I stood there pressing my hands over my temples and ears. It felt like some beast was trying to break its way into my head.

  ‘You’ve been told that I’m evil, but some part of you doubts this.’ Morjin nodded his head at me, and I suddenly found myself nodding my head, too. ‘It’s a great suffering for you, isn’t it, this doubt of yours? And most of all, I think, you doubt yourself.’

  Again, I nodded my head.

  ‘But wouldn’t it be good to live without this doubt?’ he asked me.

  Yes, yes, I thought, it would be very good.

  ‘How is evil known, then?’ he asked. ‘Is evil the light that shines from the One?’

  ‘No, of course not – it’s just the opposite,’ I said. And then I quoted from the Laws: ‘“Darkness is the denial of the One; darkness is the illusion that all things are separate from the light of the One.”’

  ‘You understand,’ he said kindly. ‘Please don’t separate yourself from the gifts I bring you, Valashu.’

  I slowly shook my head, which throbbed with a deep agony at every beat of my heart.

  ‘Please don’t deny me.’

  Now Morjin took the final step toward me and smiled. I was suddenly aware that he smelled of roses. I tried to move back, but found that I didn’t want to. I told myself that I mustn’t be afraid of him, that he had no power to harm me. Then he reached out his hand, which was long and beautiful with tapering fingers. He touched his forefinger to the scar on my forehead; the tip of it was warm, and I could almost feel it glowing with a deep radiance. He traced this finger slowly along the zig-zags of the scar, sinuously impressing it into me. He smiled warmly as he then cupped the whole of his hand around my head. Despite the delicacy of his fingers, I sensed that there was iron there and that he had the strength to crush my skull like an eggshell. But instead he only touched my temples with exquisite sensitivity and breathed deeply as if drawing my pain into him. And suddenly my headache was gone.

  ‘There,’ he said, stepping away from me. He waited a moment for me to speak, then told me, ‘You’re deciding if your Valari manners permit you to thank me, aren’t you? Is it so hard to say the words, then?’

  ‘To the Lord of Lies? To the Crucifier?’

  ‘Men have called me that – they don’t understand.’

  ‘They understand what they see,’ I said.

  ‘And what do you see, young Valashu?’

  Again he smiled, and the r
oom lit up as with the rising of the sun. For a moment, I couldn’t help seeing him as an angel of light, as what I imagined the Elijin to be.

  ‘They understand what you do,’ I said. ‘You’ve enslaved half of Ea and tortured everyone who has opposed you.’

  ‘Enslaved? When your father accepts homage from a knight, is that enslavement? When he punishes a man for treason, is that torture?’

  ‘My father,’ I said, ‘is a king.’

  ‘And I am a king of kings,’ he said. ‘My realm is Sakai – and all the lands east, west, north and south. A long time ago, the land that you and your friends are traveling through belonged to me, and will once again.’

  ‘By what right?’

  ‘By the right of what is right,’ he told me. ‘Do you remember the words written in your book?’

  He pointed at my hand, and I suddenly saw that I was holding Master Juwain’s copy of the Saganom Elu. I hadn’t been aware that I held it.

  Morjin’s face grew bright as he quoted from the Commentaries: ‘“The Lord called Morjin far excels the rest of mankind.”’

  ‘But you’ve left something out!’ I accused him. ‘Isn’t the full passage: “The Lord Morjin far excels the rest of mankind in doing evil”?’

  ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘My enemies added those words after I had been imprisoned on Damoom and there was no one to gainsay their lies.’

  I stood there watching the quick and elegant motions of his hands as he tried to convince me. I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I’m more than seven thousand years old,’ he told me. ‘And I didn’t come by my immortality by accident.’

  ‘No – you gained immortality by stealing the Lightstone.’