The Lightstone Read online

  Evil, I knew then, was much more than darkness: it was a willful turning away from the light of the One. It was a poison that twists the soul, a madness, a terrible need to inflate one's self at the expense of others, as a tick swells on its victims' blood.

  No-go back!

  All the gray men now gathered around their leader at the opening to the fence Their knives pointed toward us. Then they too threw back

  their hoods. Although they wore no stones on their foreheads, their faces were as eyeless and stonelike as their leader's. They stood in the cold moonlight watching us and waiting.

  Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no!

  I felt Atara's terror, and Master Juwain's and Maram's, thundering at me with the wild beating of their hearts. I couldn't close it out. Neither could I close my eyes as the gray men pierced me with theirs and began drinking from inside me that which was more precious than blood.

  NO! NO! NO!

  I wanted with all my soul to close my eyes and end this living nightmare from which I could not awaken. But then, even as I tried desperately to move my legs and run away, I looked across the meadow to see another cloaked figure break from the trees. This lone man, slightly shorter than the others, ran as silently as a wraith through the silvery grass. He had a sword drawn: it was longer than a knife, and longer than many swords, for it was a kalama. His powerful strides revealed the gleaming mail beneath his cloak. It took him only a few seconds to reach the wolf pack of men by the open fence. He crashed into them, sending two flying and slicing through the neck of a third. And then, even as the gray men finally realized they were under attack and turned toward him, he stabbed his sword straight through the back of their leader.

  'Move!' he cried to us in voice like the roar of a tiger. 'Move now, I say!'

  And then he drove into the men with his sword, whirling about powerfully yet gracefully, cutting at them with a rare and terrible fury.

  With the death of the gray men's leader, I found myself suddenly free to move. A great surge of life welled up inside me and filled my hands with a new strength. Some of the gray men were running from the wild man at the opening of the fence; some were running at Atara and me. One of these aimed his knife at Atara's throat; without thinking, I picked up my sword and chopped off his arm in almost a single motion.

  Grayish-black blood sprayed into the air. It surprised me that he wore no armor and that the steel of my sword sliced through him so easily. The kalama is a fearsome weapon at any time, but most terrible to use against unprotected flesh. As I was forced to use it now. For in the rush of men coming at us with their gray, slashing knives, even as Maram and Atara drew their swords and laid about them in a wild death struggle, one of the men stole up behind her to stab her in the back. His back was to me, his knife poised to thrust home, and I was faced with a terrible choice: I could cut him down or let him kill her. It was no choice at all. And so, still reeling from the wound I had inflicted on the first man, I swung my sword at him. It sliced into his side and through his chest; I felt its cold steel rip through his heart. Dark blood sprayed into my eyes; I could hardly see as he jumped in agony and turned to regard me for a moment in the strange silence of his hate. And then he died, and 1

  almost died, too. I fell down to the blood-soaked earth screaming like a child as the darkness closed in and the battle raged all about me.

  Later, when the last of the gray men had been killed and Maram and Atara stood panting with their bloody swords in their hands, the man who had run to our rescue let loose a howl of triumph. He stood in the moonlight holding his sword up to the stars. I felt his great joy at having slain so many of his enemies. Even through the death-agony covering my eyes like a dark, gray shroud, I watched him turn toward me. He threw back the hood of his cloak. His face blazed with a terrible beauty, his eyes all black and bright, and I gasped to see that it was Kane.

  Chapter 16

  With Atara, Maram and Master Juwain still weak and trembling from what the gray men had done to us, Kane immediately took command. He ordered Master Juwain to tend to me while he walked around our camp counting the bodies of the slain. He numbered them at twelve, including the one that I had killed. Maram had managed to send two on to the other world, while Atara had added three more enemies toward her hundred. That meant Kane had accounted for six. As I lay with my head in Master Juwain's lap, I blinked my eyes in disbelief. I had never seen anyone fight with such quickness, skill and sheer ferocity.

  After Kane had completed his tally, he knelt by the gray men's leader on the bloody earth. He used his sword to cut the black stone from his forehead. He studied this flat oval a long time before tightening his fist around it. Then he turned toward us and said, 'This is no place to remain, eh? The sun will be up soon. Let's get Val into the shade of the trees before it boils his brains.'

  With Kane's help, my friends carried me into the trees. They found a nice dry spot beneath an old oak, and there they reestablished our camp. Atara laid out our sleeping skins while Maram got a fire going and Master Juwain went to work on making some tea. Kane brought over the packs from the dead horses. And then he went off into the woods to look for Altaru and the two sorrels. We heard his sharp whistles through the trees.

  Sometime later he returned holding the reins of a big bay, which I took to be his horse. Altaru, Tanar and the sorrels followed them. I was as glad to see Altaru as he was me. He walked over to where I lay and bent his great head down to nuzzle me.

  Then Kane tethered him and the three other horses to a nearby tree.

  'So, Valashu Elahad,' he said, looking down at me. 'I've wandered the wilds of Alonia looking for you. And now that I've found you, you're nearly dead.'

  He spoke the truth. The coldness cutting through me was worse than that with which the gray men had touched me. I lay against the earth without the strength to rise.

  Having killed again, I wanted to die. But seeing the concern on Maram's face and the love on Atara's as they gathered around me, I wanted to live even more.

  Maram laid his big hand on my head and said, 'Once before he recovered from something as bad as this.'

  'Yes, after he killed Morjin's assassin,'Kane said. He seemed to know all about me -

  and much else besides. 'But that was before the Grays went to work on him.'

  'Do you mean the Stonefaces?' Maram said. He pointed toward the meadow where the bodies of the gray men lay in the dawn's half-light.

  'No - I mean the Grays,' Kane said. ‘That is their name.'

  'Who are they, men?'

  'Servants of the Great Beast,' he growled out. 'They have the gift of speaking to themselves and others without using their tongues.'

  Maram looked at Atara and Master Juwain as if they had never heard of such men before. Neither had I.

  'They can see without using their eyes and smell the scent of others' minds,' Kane went on. 'That's how they tracked you all the way from Anjo.'

  As the wind rose and the night began to fade, he told us that no one knew the Grays'

  true origins. 'It's said that the Great Beast bred them during the Age of Swords as one might breed horses. So, he looked for those with the gift of touching others'

  minds. Then he culled the weakest of them that the strongest might breed true.'

  'But their faces, so gray,' Atara said, shuddering as she looked out into the field.

  'Their eyes, too. No men on Ea have such eyes.'

  'They don't, eh?' Kane said. Then he pointed up at the setting moon. 'It's also said that Morjin summoned the Grays from other worlds ages ago. From worlds even darker than this one.'

  I stared out at the dim meadow as I lay looking at the Grays. Nothing could be darker, I thought, than the lightless world pulling me down into the cold earth.

  'The Grays' favored method of killing,' Kane said, 'is to weaken their victims over many days. To drain them even as they drained you. Then, when they're too weak to move, they come for them with their knives.'

  Master Juwain had finally f
inished preparing his tea, which he man-aged to make me drink with Maram's and Atara's help. Then, to Kane, he said, 'But we weren't so weak that we couldn't have fought them off. There was something else, wasn't there?'

  Kane looked down at his fist for a while before opening it to reveal the black stone.

  He said, 'So, there was something else. The baalstei.' 'What's that?' Maram asked.

  'The black gelstei,' Master Juwain said, staring at Kane's open hand. 'Can that truly be one of the great stones?'

  Kane gazed at the stone, which seemed a crystal like the darkest obsidian. 'It is a gelstei,' he said. 'It's known that Morjin keeps at least three of the black stones.'

  He told us that the black gelstei were very rare and very powerful. Originally created to control the terrible fire of the red gelstei, they had a much darker side. For the Grays and some of the priests of the Kallimun used them to dampen the life fires of their victims and weaken their wills. Thus they could be used to enslave others by mastering their very minds. Used ruthlessly, as by the Grays, they could blow out the ineffable flame, causing disease, degeneration and ultimately death.

  'It may be,' Kane said, 'that at first the Grays were trying only to weaken Val.'

  'For what reason?' Maram asked.

  'Why, to make him into a ghul,' Kane said. He spoke of the darkest things as casually as Maram might the weather. 'Morjin would relish a slave such as Val, eh?

  But certainly after you fought off the Grays for so long and vanished into the Lokilani's wood, they intended to kill him - and all of you. They had no more time to do otherwise.'

  He told us that the Grays had most likely attacked us physically in desperation before they were really ready. We had entered the parts of Alonia where it was dangerous for the Grays to ride openly. Certainly they would never seek to work their evil against us once we had reached Tria. For there the noise of thousands of minds would drown out the whispers of the Gray's poisonous voices. The Grays, he said, almost never sought their victims in large cities or during the day when people were awake.

  'You seem to know a great deal about these Grays,' Maram said as he eyed Kane suspiciously.

  'That I do,' Kane said, his black eyes burning. 'I know that your friend might very well die if we don't help him.'

  His words seemed to blunt Maram's curiosity for the moment. I, too, had a hundred questions for Kane, but I was too weak to move my lips to ask them.

  Master Juwain bent over me then, feeling my forehead and testing the pulses in my wrists and other places along my body. Then he said, 'I've given him a tisane of karch and bloodroot. Perhaps I should have added some angel leaf as well.'

  'That's unlikely to do much good,' kane muttered. 'It may warm him a little, but his real problem is the valarda eh?'

  Now Master Juwain and Maram - Atara. too - looked at Kane in surprise. No one hade said anything to him of my gift.

  'Val has had the life nearly sucked out of him,' Kane said. 'We must help him light the sacred fire again, eh?'

  'Yes, but how ?' Master Juwain asked. 'I'm afraid I've had no exrperience with this.'

  'Neither have I,' Kane admitted. 'At least not for a long time. But just as Val has nearly died in touching the dead, he can be made well in feeling the fire of the living.'

  So saying, he bade Master Juwain and Maram to remove my armor. As the sun rose over the meadow and the birds brightened the morning with their songs, they laid my body bare. I felt the sun's warm rays touching the skin of my chest. And then I felt my friends' hands there too, as well as Kane's large, blunt hand. Together, the four of them made a circle of their hands over my heart. I heard Kane telling me that I must partake of the life they had to give me. This I tried to do. But I was too weak to open very far the door that I usually kept closed. Only the faintest of flames passed from them into me to warm my icy blood.

  'It's not enough,' Kane said. 'He's still as cold as death.'

  Just then, Flick appeared from behind the oak tree and streaked straight toward Master Juwain. He spun about just above the pocket of his robes. The swirls of his little form lit up as of a smiling face.

  'Eh, what's this?' Kane said, looking at Fick.' It's one of the Timpimpiri!'

  'You can see him?' Maram said.

  'As clearly as I can see your fat nose. But I never hoped to find one in woods such as these.'

  Master Juwain, touched by Flick's numinous light, seemed suddenly to remember something. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the sparkling green jewel that Pualani had given him. He said, 'The queen of the Lokilani told me that this emerald was to be used for healing.'

  Kane said nothing as he looked very closely at the emerald. His black eyes, like mirrors., fairly danced with the emerald's green fire.

  'She said that I was to use my heart to touch the stone,' Master Juwain said.

  'She did, eh? Well, use it then.'

  Master Juwain held the emerald against his chest for many moments as if meditating.

  Then he opened his eyes and took out his copy of the Saganom Elu. His knotty fingers began dancing through the pages.

  'I thought you were supposed to use your heart,' Maram said, pointing at the book.

  'Won't all these words cloud your head?'

  'Some of us,' Master Juwain said with a smile, 'must use our heads to reach our hearts. Now be quiet. Brother Maram, while I'm reading.'

  Maram watched his eyes flicking back and forth across the page and said, 'Excuse me, sir, but if you wish the words to reach your heart, shouldn't you read them out loud? Didn't you teach me that the verses of the Elu were meant to be recited and were for hundreds of years before they were written down?'

  'Oh, all right!' Master Juwain muttered. 'You've paid more attention to my lessons than I'd thought. This passage is from the Songs.'

  He cleared his throat and began speaking in his most musical voice. He fairly sang out the words of A Warrior's Heart:

  A warrior's heart is like the sun.

  She shines with golden light,

  Her golden sinews brightly spun

  With angel-given might.

  A warrior's heart is like the sea,

  Her love is very deep,

  She streams and swells with bravery

  That makes the waters weep.

  When he had finished, he again closed his eyes and held the emerald to his chest. He sat beside me as the sun rose and cast its rays into the woods. Atara sat beside me, too. She cupped her warm hand around mine. She remained silent, saying nothing with her lips. But her bright eyes said more than all the words in the Saganom Elu.

  After most of an hour, Master Juwain opened his eyes and his hand. We were well-shaded by the leaves of the oak tree; even so, some fragment of sunlight fell upon the emerald and set it shimmering a brilliant green. Or perhaps I only imagined this: when I looked more closely, it seemed that the emerald shone with a deeper light. Master Juwain touched this beautiful stone to my chest then. He touched his hand there, and so did Atara, Maram and Kane, making a circle as before.

  Something warm and bright passed into me. It made me want to open myself to the touch of the whole world. I gasped suddenly, breathing in the sweetness of the air. I breathed in as well the essence of the oak trees streaming with hot spring sap and the very fire of the sun. For one blazing moment, I felt myself overflowing with the life of the forest -and with that of my three friends and the strange man named Kane.

  'So,' Kane said to Master Juwain as he touched my face, 'this emerald of yours has great power, eh?'

  As quickly as it had overcome me, the death-cold suddenly left me. Although I was still very weak, I managed to sit up and press my back against the oak tree.

  'Thank you,' I told Master Juwain. Then I smiled at Maram, Kane and Atara. 'You saved my life.'

  I pressed my hand to my side where Salmelu's sword had cut me. I remembered Pualani holding a green crystal there and my awakening the next day to find myself miraculously healed.

  'I see,'
Master Juwain finally said. He gazed at the green stone that he held in his hand. 'This can't be an ordinary emerald, can it?'

  'No - you know it can't be,' Kane said. 'It's now proven: this is a varistei. A green gelstei.'

  Master Juwain gripped the green stone as if he were afraid he might drop it and lose it among the leaves on the forest floor.

  'I thought the green gelstei had all perished in the War of the Stones,' he said. 'This is a treasure beyond price. How did the Lokilani come by it?'

  'That's a long story,' Kane said. 'Before I tell it, why don't we make a little breakfast so you can regain your strength.'

  He stepped over to his horse's saddlebags, from which he removed a large round of bacon and a dozen chicken eggs. How he had found such fare in the middle of a wilderness I couldn't guess. He handed the supplies to Maram, who quickly set to work slicing strips of meat and frying it up in his pan. In little time, the delicious smell of sizzling bacon wafted out into the woods. It took only a little longer for Maram to fry up the eggs in the hot grease and serve us our meal.

  'We should celebrate,' Maram said. 'It can't be every day that the Red Dragon's men are defeated and my best friend is saved. Why don't we have a little brandy?'

  So saying, he broke out our last cask and filled our cups with the golden brandy. He made a toast to our freedom from the Grays' attacks. Then raised his cup and took a sip. I did too. I gasped as the fiery liquor burned sweetly down my throat. And Master Juwain gasped to see Kane throw back his head and guzzle his brandy like water before holding out his cup to be refilled by Maram. It was the strangest meal of my life, that breakfast of bacon, eggs and brandy in the woods beneath the rising sun.