The Diamond Warriors Read online

  ‘My apologies,’ King Waray said to Master Juwain with a real warmth flowing out of him. ‘We must be grateful for the time that my daughter has had. But I would give a barrel of diamonds to anyone who would give her a long and happy life.’

  I said nothing to this declaration, and did not question King Waray as to where these diamonds might have come from. At least, I did not question him, with words. But I thought that King Waray sensed my doubt of him, for his belly tightened up as if he had eaten tainted meat, and he fell back upon his habit of evasion and scheming.

  ‘My daughter is dear to me, and I possess no greater treasure,’ he told me. ‘I would give my own life and claim upon my kingdom to see her made well, but if she were healed, well, then I would have to see her married and leave my house. A king, a father, can take consolation in this loss only by seeing his daughter wed to the most worthy of men, and one who could make her happy.’

  He smiled at me, and his handsome face seemed as bright as the sun.

  ‘A worthy man, indeed,’ he continued, repeating himself as he looked at me. ‘A great warrior who will sire grandchildren great not just in their prowess at arms, but strong and bright in their spirits. Such a son-in-law I have always longed for, one who might stand by my side in accomplishing the greatest dreams of our people.’

  I looked right back at King Waray. I gathered that he was offering Chantaleva to me as a wife, if only I would support him as the Valari’s warlord.

  ‘Of course, it is true,’ he said, ‘that my daughter might not be healed, and then she would have only a few more years to live, as might I. And so the rule of Taron would have to pass to the man I called my son.’

  Now I noticed Chantaleva gazing at me – not in desire of me as a husband, I thought, but only from a gnawing wish that somehow I might help her to live long enough to see her children grow up healthy and strong.

  ‘A true treasure,’ King Waray said as he regarded his daughter with what seemed a deep love. ‘The greatest of all treasures.’

  I did not know what to say to him. Certainly I could not consider marrying Chantaleva, sick or well. But neither did I wish to antagonize King Waray with too blunt a refusal. It was then that Liljana, who had remained quietly seated all this time, came to my rescue by drawing his aggression toward her.

  ‘Your daughter is indeed beautiful,’ Liljana said to King Waray. She had her hand buried in her pocket, and I sensed her grasping her gelstei. ‘Any king would be proud to have her as a wife. Or any prince. I am sure that Prince Issur looks forward to being just the son-in-law of whom you have spoken.’

  King Waray’s eyes grew dark with a quick and sudden rage. He must have realized that his deepest maneuvering had been exposed. He did not, however, attribute this uncovering to its correct source, for he turned from Liljana to Master Virang, and pointed his finger at him as he called out: ‘You are the Brotherhood’s Meditation Master, aren’t you? Have you then turned from the most profound of arts to reading minds? It is said that the Brotherhood keeps the ancient blue gelstei, once used by the accursed witches of the Maitriche Telu.’

  As King Waray glowered at Master Virang, Liljana managed to keep her face as still as a mountain lake. No hint of emotion rippled upon it.

  ‘Many things are said of the Brotherhood,’ Master Virang called out with his almond eyes twinkling. ‘But I had never heard that we could read minds.’

  ‘Then you must keep spies at your schools in Ishka. You should not heed too closely the rumors they report or share them with King Valamesh’s companions and confidants.’

  Liljana might have smiled at this, if she had been able to smile. Instead, she looked at King Waray and said: ‘It is certainly no rumor that King Hadaru made battle against Taron in response to your conspiring against him – and that you lost this battle. And that King Hadaru was pierced with a lance and the wound still festers. As many do, you wait for him to die, don’t you?’

  King Waray looked at Liljana with a sudden new understanding – and dread. He must have finally suspected that she might be one of the witches he had just decried.

  ‘And what do you know of this … Lady Liljana Ashvaran of Tria?’

  King Waray turned all the considerable force of his person upon her in a blaze of his black eyes. But Liljana would be cowed by no man, and so she answered his question with another ‘What did it take for you to make the peace with Ishka?’

  ‘Only the blood of too many of my warriors!’

  ‘And also your promise of your daughter’s hand in marriage to Prince Issur – is that not so?’

  ‘Yes!’ King Waray cried out.

  ‘And your support of King Hadaru as the warlord of the alliance?’

  King Waray took a step away from his rock, and he clapped his hands across his temples as he shouted at her: ‘Witch! Mindreader! Leave me alone!’

  But Liljana had not finished with this vain, manipulative king. She said to him, ‘King Hadaru does not know that your daughter is ill, does he? No doubt you hope that he dies before this is discovered. And then, with your daughter wedded to the new and inexperienced king of Ishka, you would use all your influence to –’

  ‘I should lead the Valari!’ King Waray cried out. ‘It is what I have striven for all my life!’

  In the silence that fell over the rocks around him, the rushing of the stream seemed as loud as the ocean. King Waray stared at Liljana with such a deadly intensity that he did not immediately notice Bemossed pressing his hand against Chantaleva’s chest. He turned just in time to behold the radiance that passed from Bemossed’s hand into Chantaleva. I might have thought that it would take some days, at least, for this healing force to work upon her. Within moments, however, the color returned to her face, and she stood breathing more easily as she stared at Bemossed in awe.

  ‘I am well!’ she cried out. She bent to kiss Bemossed’s hand.

  ‘But how do you know?’ King Waray asked, going over to her.

  ‘I know!’ she said. She clasped Bemossed’s hand to her chest. ‘There is no more pain here.’

  And upon her utterance of this word, I felt a sudden new pain come alive within King Waray’s chest.

  ‘Maitreya!’ he called out to Bemossed. He bowed his head, then declared, ‘I shall give you two barrels of diamonds.’

  ‘Thank you, King Waray,’ Bemossed told him. ‘But I would not know what to do with such wealth.’

  ‘What is it that you want, then?’

  In answer, Bemossed looked at me in a deep and painful silence.

  ‘That, surely, must be obvious,’ King Waray continued, answering his own question. ‘You would see Valashu Elahad lead the alliance.’

  ‘To lead it, yes,’ Bemossed said. ‘But not to war.’

  ‘But war is nearly upon us. What will you do?’

  ‘I will fight,’ Bemossed said mysteriously. ‘As all must fight.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ King Waray said.

  But Bemossed did not enlighten him. He just gazed down at the city below us, where Nar’s white Tower of the Sun rose up almost as high as the surrounding hills.

  ‘What will you do?’ I asked King Waray. ‘Will you support the alliance? And not just with words, but with your warriors and your own sword?’

  King Waray stood considering this. Around him gathered Abrasax and the others of the Seven, who had their hands thrust down into the pockets of their robes. Though none of them looked at King Waray, I could sense their deep concentration upon him; I sensed as well that Master Juwain, and not Abrasax, guided the Seven in directing the power of their hidden gelstei at King Waray.

  ‘I will support it!’ King Waray finally said to me.

  ‘Good!’ I called it. ‘Then who is to lead?’

  King Waray thought about this for a few moments. Then he said, ‘When we Valari first came to the Morning Mountains, we made our homes in Mesh. Mesh has always been at the forefront of our affairs. And it was a Meshian, King Aramesh, who defeated Morjin at the Sarburn
.’

  He paused as he looked at me, and I waited for him to say more. Once, in the silver shimmer of my sword, I had seen that one, and only one, could unite the Valari. The wind flowing across the world from the west seemed to whisper his name to me.

  ‘And that is why,’ he went on, ‘that this time, the king who leads us must not be from Mesh. We Valari have failed, too many times. Even Aramesh failed to defeat Morjin once and forever. I am sorry, Valashu Elahad, but the Valari will not follow you.’

  For ages, I thought, the Valari had suffered two opposing impulses: to elevate Mesh and the Elahads as exemplars of all that was most truly Valari, and to tear down my kingdom and my family out of jealousy.

  ‘They would follow me,’ I said to King Waray, ‘if you did. Will you?’

  He stood straight across from me looking at me deeply, and I knew that he wanted to say yes. Something, however, kept him armored inside his ambition and pride as with a breast-piece made of steel plate. I knew that within my heart I held a sword that could cut it open.

  Kane waited to my right with his hand poised near a very different kind of sword. His black eyes seemed to ask me if I wanted him to draw it and slay this recalcitrant king.

  ‘How can I follow you?’ King Waray said to me.

  I looked past him, down across Nar, where the green, wooded plain of Taron vanished into the west of the world. King Waray had spoken truly: I did have a dream, and I saw a way to make it be. But, always, men opposed me. And not just evil ones such as Morjin and the Red Priests of the Kallimun, but foolish kings such as Sulavar Jehu Waray. He had his own ideas for the world, and for himself. I knew that if only I could eliminate such men, I could accomplish the greatest of things. That, however, was Morjin’s way, and too often, Kane’s. I knew that I could never allow him to put King Waray to the sword. And neither could I use the true Alkaladur to destroy King Waray’s will so that he would give his consent to what I desired. If I did, with him and with others, then soon I would kill my own soul and make myself like unto Morjin.

  ‘How can you not help me to fight our enemy?’ I asked him.

  If I could not wield the sword within me to rule King Waray, much less to slay him, then at least I could hold it before him like a shining silver mirror. And what might he see as he stood there gazing into my eyes? I thought that he, too, had a secret dream, which was to ally the whole world as one so that Chantaleva’s children might grow up to pursue meditation and music and all the higher things. He would make a better world, cleansed of hideous diseases such as the white plague. He might, too, behold himself as I sometimes could: that his immense pride concealed a haunting sense of his basic flawlessness; that his refusal to tell an outright lie suggested a long-forgotten love of truth; that all his intrigues sprang from his quest for a deeper ordering of the world.

  I thought, too, that he might come alive to his own compassion and open himself to all the immense suffering around him – if only I could open myself to him.

  ‘King Waray,’ I said to him, holding out my hand, ‘let us join our forces together!’

  I felt his urge to reach out and press his palm against mine. Then, at the last, he looked away from me, down at the ground. And he said, ‘Perhaps we should first wait to see if Morjin really does march his armies toward the Morning Mountains’

  At this, Daj jumped up from his rock to face King Waray. Daj usually had a great respect for rank, even that of false kings such as Morjin. Now, however, he shook his fist at King Waray and cried out, ‘If you won’t help Val, Morjin will win! What is wrong with you! How can you call yourself a king?’

  For what seemed a long time, I stared at my empty hand. Then I pulled my arm back and closed my fingers around the hilt of my sword.

  ‘This council,’ King Waray said, glaring at Daj as his face flushed with anger, ‘is over.’

  He drew in a deep breath, then looked at me and added, ‘You should consider long and well before you take this boy with you to war. You should consider taking anyone, King Valamesh.’

  He paused to regard Bemossed. ‘Especially this man. He might really be the Maitreya.’

  After that my companions and I, with King Viromar and the Seven, rode back down from King Waray’s palace into Nar. At a tree-lined curve along the winding road, Daj pushed his horse up to me and asked: ‘How can the Valari kings keep spurning you? How can they, Val?’

  King Viromar, riding just behind us, had remained as faithful as anyone could be. He cleared his throat as he looked at Daj and said, ‘Some of them, at least, must hope that now that Morjin possesses the Cup of Heaven, he will leave the Nine Kingdoms alone.’

  He fell silent for a moment, then added, ‘They must think that Morjin’s quarrel was only with Valashu Elahad.’

  I smiled at this with great bitterness. I said, ‘No, that is not why the Valari refuse me.’

  ‘Why, then?’ Daj asked.

  ‘Because,’ I told him, ‘I broke their hearts’

  I stopped Altaru and turned my huge warhorse around in the middle of the road so that I could speak with my friends. ‘In Tria, we almost made an alliance. And so in coming an inch from a great dream, the Valari kings have had to tell themselves that it would have been a nightmare.’

  But Master Juwain, for one, would not accept my condemnation of myself. He told me, ‘You have not failed, Val. King Waray might yet come to his senses.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’

  Master Juwain nodded his head and said to me, ‘King Waray suffers from a sad malady: he experiences the world and other people as does any other man. But because his heart chakra has been blocked, he cannot feel anything of what he experiences very deeply.’

  ‘And so,’ Abrasax explained, looking at Master Virang, ‘we employed the great crystals to open all his chakras, and particularly that of the heart.’

  I thought of Master Juwain using the dead Master Okuth’s green stone on King Waray, and my heart warmed, slightly.

  ‘All that happened today,’ Master Juwain told me, ‘might yet work a slow magic on King Waray. Give it time, Val.’

  I ground my teeth together as I saw the moments of my life running out like grains of sand through an hourglass.

  And then Maram, sitting on top of his big horse, turned to Liljana and accused her: ‘You opened up King Waray like popping a cork out of a bottle! But you promised that you would never, without permission, use your gelstei to look into anyone’s mind!’

  ‘How many times have you broken your promise to forsake brandy?’ she countered. ‘When the need is great enough, exceptions must be made. King Waray needed to be pushed by the truth of what he has done. I thought it would save Val from pushing in his way, as he is loath to push.’

  I did not know whether to thank her or to take her to task for what she had done. Kane, though, could not abide her violation of King Waray. He sat on his horse glaring at her, and I did not like the look that burned through his black eyes.

  ‘But what shall we do now?’ Maram asked. ‘Since we haven’t the strength even to consider going up against Morjin?’

  I closed my eyes as I gripped the hilt of my sword. Then I told him, ‘We will march on. If the warriors consent, tomorrow we will march toward Anjo and then cross over the mountains. And we will join with Sajagax and the other Sarni tribes.’

  ‘And then?’ Maram asked.

  ‘We will wait – and hope for the magic that Master Juwain has spoken of.’

  ‘You mean, hope for a miracle.’

  I tried not to let my terror show as I forced myself to smile. And I said to him, ‘There is always hope.’

  As I turned my horse back around and looked out at the cloud-darkened sky to the west, I prayed that the words I had spoken would not prove to be a lie.

  18

  The next morning, with the wind blowing in rain clouds from the west, I called for the warriors of Mesh, Kaash and Delu to assemble on the grassy fields of the Tournament Grounds. Twenty thousand men stood in their gle
aming armor to hear what I had to say. I told them that we could count on no allies among the Valari; I said that I still intended, however, to answer Sajagax’s call and join with the Kurmak tribe in drawing swords against the Red Dragon. Anyone, I said, who did not want to make this fight was welcome to return to his home, without penalty or shame. It touched my heart that not a single man declined to march with me.

  Two hundred miles lay between Nar and the appointed meeting place on the Wendrush. I led my army up the Nar Road for sixty of these miles at a bone-bruising pace. Summer rains found us passing through pastures, and soaked us to the skin. A few score of my men, suffering from chafing boots and bleeding feet, had to drop out of their columns and ride in the wagons. But then, after we crossed over the Culhadosh River into King Danashu’s realm of Anjo, I had to order that every spare inch of space in the wagons be cleared. Indeed, I asked Lord Harsha to use the last of the gold that we had brought with us, jangling in little chests, to purchase more wagons – and great quantities of aged birch. I set our arrow makers to fashioning as many thousands of killing shafts as they could, sitting in their workshops inside jostling wagons. The wood of the white birch, especially from the upland forests of Anjo, was famed across Ea for making the straightest and truest arrows.

  King Danashu declined to meet with me, although our route took us down through Onkar and the barley fields of Jathay, where King Danashu held court at Sauvo. He sent an envoy to inform me that he could not possibly consider leading any of his warriors against Morjin at this time. This did not surprise me. After King Danashu had conspired to take sides with King Waray against Ishka, King Hadaru had forced him to yield to Ishka the duchy of Adar and the barony of Natesh. Everyone knew that King Danashu feared that King Hadaru would soon send his entire army against Anjo, though King Danashu’s envoy did not speak of this. For a long time, many had ridiculed King Danashu as a king in name only; now, with two great pieces of his realm broken off and the rest of it under dire threat from Ishka, he seemed less a king than ever.