The Lightstone Page 37

  'So you used us as bait to spring your trap.'

  'Would it have been better if I had walked into their trap and died with you?'

  I nodded my head because what he had said made sense. Then I told him, 'We should thank you for taking such great risks to save our lives.' 'It's not your thanks I want,' he told me.

  'What is it you want, then? You said you've spent a year looking for me - why?'

  Now Master Juwain, Maram and Atara rose up and stood beside me facing Kane.

  We all waited to hear what he would say.

  As the sun rose higher and the woods grew even warmer, Kane began pacing back and forth beneath the oak tree. His grim, bold face was set into a scowl; the large tendons along his neck popped out beneath his sun-burnt skin as his jaw muscles worked and he clamped his teeth together. Kane, I thought was a man who fought terrible battles - the worst ones with himself. I felt in him a great doubt, and even more, a seething anger at himself for doubting at all. Finally, he turned toward me, and his eyes were pools of fire catching me up in their dark flames.

  'So, I'll tell you of the prophecy of Ayondela Kirriland,' he said. The sounds issuing from his throat just then were more like an animal's growls than a human voice,

  'listen, listen well: "The seven brothers and sisters of the earth with the seven stones will set forth into the darkness. The Lightstone will be found, the Maitreya will come forth -'"

  "And a new age will begin," Maram said, interrupting him.'Ah we already know the words to the prophecy. King Kiritan's messenger delivered it in Mesh before we set out.'

  'Did he?' Kane said, fixing his blazing eyes on Maram.

  'Yes, we already know that the seven stones must be -'

  'Be quiet!' Kane suddenly commanded him. 'Be quiet, now - you know nothing!'

  Maram's mouth snapped shut like a turtle's. He looked at Kane in surprise, and not a little fear, as well.

  'There's more to the prophecy than you'll have heard,' he told us. He turned to stare at me. 'These are the last lines of it: "A seventh son with the mark of Valoreth will slay the dragon, The old world will be destroyed and a new world created."'

  As his voice died into the deepness of the woods, I stood there rubbing the scar on my forehead. I thought of Asaru, Karshur, Yarashan, Jonathay, Ravar and Mandru -

  my six brothers who were the sons of Shavashar Elahad. Then Maram turned toward me as if seeing me for the first time, and so did Atara and Master fuwain.

  'If this is truly the whole prophecy,' I said to Kane, 'then why didn't King Kiritan's messenger deliver it?'

  'Because he almost certainly didn't know it.'

  He stared at my face as he told us of the tragedy of Ayondela Kirriland. It was well known, he said, that Ayondela was struck down by an assassin's knife just as she recited the first two lines of the prophecy. But what was not known was that the great oracle in Tria had been infiltrated by Morjin's priests who helped murder Ayondela. Just before she died, she whispered the second two lines of the prophecy to two of these Kallimun priests - Tulann Hastar and Seshu Jonku - who kept them secret from King Kiritan and almost everyone else.

  'If the lines were kept secret, then how did you learn of them?' I asked.

  'Tulann and Seshu informed Morjin, of course,' Kane said. His dark eyes gleamed with hate. 'And before Tulann died, he whispered the whole of the prophecy to me.'

  I looked at the knife that Kane wore sheathed at his side; I didn't want to know how Kane had persuaded Tulann to reveal such secrets.

  'Tulann was an assassin,' Kane said to me. 'And I'm an assassin of assassins. Some day I may kill the Great Beast himself - unless you do first.'

  The scar above my eye was now burning as if a bolt of lightning had put its fire into me. I squeezed the hilt of my sword, hardly able to look at Kane.

  'You bear the mark of Valoreth that Ayondela told of,' he said to me. 'And unless I've forgotten how to count you're Shavashar Elahad's seventh son. That's why Morjin sent his assassins to kill you.'

  Atara came up to me and put her hand on my shoulder, I felt within her a terrible excitement and her great fear tor me as well. Master Juwain smiled happily as if he had just found a piece to a puzzle that he had thought lost.

  Maram bowed his head to me as a swell of pride flushed his face-To Kane, I said

  'Why didn't you tell me all this at the Duke's castle?'

  'Because you didn't trust me - why should I have trusted you?'

  'Why should you trust me now?' Kane's breath fairly steamed from his lips as he stared deep into my eyes. 'Why should I indeed, Valashu Elahad? Why, why? So I trust your valor and the fire of your heart - and your sword. I trust the truth of your words. I trust that if you set out to seek the Lightstone, you won't turn back. Ha - I suppose I trust you because I must.'

  So saying, he opened his hand to show me the black stone that he had torn from the Grays' leaders head. 'This, I believe, is one of the stones told of in Ayondela's prophecy.'

  He nodded at Master Juwain and said, 'And I believe that the varistei that the Lokii queen gave you is another.'

  Master Juwain took the green gelstei fern his pocket and held the sparkling crystal up to the sun.

  'The first two of the seven stones have been found,' Kane said. 'And here we stand, five of the seven brothers and sisters of the earth.' 'No, it's not possible,' I murmured. 'It can't be me that the prophecy told of. It can't be us.'

  But even as I spoke these words,I knew that it was. I heard something calling me as from far away and yet very near. It was both terrible and beautiful to hear, and it whispered to me along the wind in a keening voice that I could not ignore. I felt it burning into my forehead and tingling along my spine and booming out like thunder with every beat of my heart.

  'You can't choose your fate,' Kane said to me. 'You can decide only whether or not you'll try to hide from it.'

  I stared into the centers of his black eyes; I sensed in him a whole sea of emotions: wrath, hope, hate, love - and passion for life in all its colors and shades of light and dark. There was a terrible darkness about him that I feared almost more than death itself.

  He suddenly drew his sword which had sent on so many of the Grays. Its long blade gleamed in the sunlight filtering down through the trees. He said to me, 'You have the gift of the valarda. If you choose to, you can hear the truth in another's heart. Hear the truth of mine, then: I pledge this sword to your service so long as you seek the Lightstone. Your enemies will be my enemies. And I'll die before I see you killed.'

  There was a darkness about Kane as black as space, and yet there was something incredibly bright about him, too. The same black eyes that had fallen upon his enemies with a hellish hate now shone like stars. It was this light that dazzled me; it was this bright being whom I looked upon with awe.

  'Take me with you,' he said, 'and I'll fight by your side to the gates of Damoom itself.'

  'All right,' I finally said, bowing my head. 'Come with us, then.'

  And with that, I touched my hand to his sword. A moment later, he sheathed this fearsome weapon, and we grasped hands like brothers, smiling as we tested each other's strength.

  It was rash for me to have spoken without the other's consent. But I knew that Master Juwain would welcome Kane's wisdom as would Maram the safety of his sword. As for Atara, she had nothing but respect for this matchless old warrior. She came up to him and clasped hands with him, too. And then she told him, 'If fate has brought us together, as it seems it has, then we should go forth as brothers and sisters. Truly we should. I'd be glad if you came with us - though let's hope we won't have to go quite so far as these Dark Worlds that you've told of.'

  Master Juwain and Maram both welcomed Kane to our company, and we stood there in the shade of the oak tree smiling and taking each other's measure. Then Atara turned to Kane and said, 'There's one thing in your story that you glossed over.'

  'Eh, what's that?'

  Atara, who was as sharp as the point of one of her
arrows, smiled at him and said,

  'In your account of how Aryu stole the Lightstone, you claimed that he had hidden it in a cave before he died. If that's true, then how was it ever found?'

  Kane let out a low, harsh laugh and said, 'That's a story that will certainly be told at the gathering in Tria. Can you wait until then?'

  'Oh, if I really must,' she said.

  I looked up at the sun and said, 'If we're to be at the gathering at all, we'd better saddle the horses and ride on. We've only two full days until King Kiritan calls the quest.'

  And with that, we smiled at each other and turned to break camp.

  Chapter 17

  A little later, when we were ready to set out, Kane sat atop his big brown horse and told us, 'We still must be careful. One of the Grays escaped us, and he may have gone to find reinforcements.'

  This news dismayed all of us, Maram especially. 'Escaped?' he said to Kane. 'Are you sure?'

  Kane nodded his head as he looked into the meadow. 'The Grays always hunt in companies of thirteen. I counted only twelve bodies. One of them must have run off into the woods in the heat of the battle.'

  'Ah, this is very bad,' Maram said.

  'No, it's not that bad,' Kane told him. 'The Gray won't be able to find any more of his kind - and almost certainly, no assassins of the Kallimun, either. At least not between here and Tria. But for the next few days, we should still keep our eyes open.'

  And so we did. We quickly found our way through the woods back to the great road. I took the lead, keeping open much more than my eyes as I felt through the forested countryside for anyone who might be lying in wait for us. Atara, her bow at the ready, rode beside me, followed by Maram and Master Juwain. Kane insisted on taking the rear post. He was wise to the ways of ambuscade, he said, and he wouldn't let anyone steal upon us and attack us from behind.

  After an hour of easy travel along the straight road, the forest gave out onto broad swaths of farmland, and we all relaxed a little. The ground here was flat, allowing a view across the fields for miles in any direction. It was a rich land of oats, barley and wheat - and cattle fattening in fallow fields next to little, wooden houses. I was surprised to find that we had fought our battle with the Grays so close to such intensely cultivated land. Later, when we had stopped for lunch and f remarked that I had never seen so many people packed so closely together outside of a city, Kane just laughed at me. He told me that the domains along the Nar Road were barren compared to the true centers of Alonian civilization, which lay along the Istas and Poru rivers.

  'And as for true cities, you've never seen one,' he said. 'No one has until he's seen Tria.'

  Since he had seen so much of the world and seemed to know so much about it, I asked him if he had learned the identity of the assassin who had shot at me that day in the woods outside my father's castle.

  'No - it might've been anyone,' he told us. 'But most likely, a Kallimun priest or someone serving them. Master Juwain is right that they're the only ones to use the kirax.'

  At the mention of this poison that would always drag its clawed fingers along my veins, I shuddered. 'It's strange, but it seemed that the Grays could smell the kirax in my blood. It seemed that the Red Dragon could - and still can.'

  'So,' Kane said, 'the kirax is also known as the Great Opener - it opens one to death.

  But those it doesn't kill, it opens to worse things.'

  I remembered my dream of Morjin, and ground my teeth together. I said, 'Could it be that the Red Dragon used it to torment me? To try to make me into a ghul?'

  Kane favored me with one of his savage smiles. 'The kirax is designed to kill, quickly and horribly. The amount needed is tiny, eh? The amount you took inside is tinier still - it would be impossible to use it this way to make men into ghuls.'

  I smiled in relief, which lasted no more than a moment as Kane told me, 'However, for you, who bears the gift of the valarda, it would seem that the kirax is especially dangerous. If Morjin tries to make a ghul of you, you'll have to fight very hard to stop him.'

  'It's not easy to understand,' I said, 'why he doesn't just make ghuls of everyone and be done with it.'

  'Ha!' Kane laughed out harshly. 'It's hard enough for him to make a ghul of anyone.

  And harder still to control him. It requires almost all his will, all his concentration.

  And that, we can thank the One, is why ghuls are very rare.'

  As we resumed our journey, I tried not to think about Morjin or terrible poisons that might turn men into ghuls. It was a beautiful day of blue skies and sunshine, and it seemed almost a crime to dwell on dark things. As Master Juwain had warned me, the surest way to bring about that which we fear is to live in terror of it. And so I tried to open myself to other things: to the robins singing out their songs, cheery-up, cheery-me; to the farmers working hard in their fields; to the light that I poured down from the sky and touched the whole earth with its golden radiance.

  That night, in a town called Manarind, we found lodging at an inn, where we had a hot bath, a good meal and a sound sleep. We awoke the next morning feeling greatly refreshed and ready to push on toward Tria. The innkeeper, who looked something like a shorter Maram, patted his round belly and said to us, 'Learing already, then?

  Well, I shouldn't he surprised -it's good fifty miles to the city. You'll have to press hard to teach it by tomorrow.'

  He went on to say that other companies of knights had stopped at his inn, but not for many days.

  'You're the last,' he told us. 'I'm afraid you'll find all the respectable inns in Tria already full. No one wants to miss the King's celebration or the calling of the quest, I'd go myself, if I didn't have other duties.'

  In the clear light of the morning, he looked at us more closely as he stroked his curly heard.

  'Now where did you say you were from?' he asked us. He looked especially long at Atara. 'Two Valari knights and their friends. Well, for my friends, I can recommend an inn on the River Road not far from the Star Bridge. My brother-in-law owns it -

  he always keeps a room open for those I send on to him. For a small consideration, for my friends, of course, I could -'

  'No, thank you,' Kane growled out. His eyes flashed, and for a moment, I thought he was ready to send this fat innkeeper on.. 'We won't be staying in the city.'

  This was news to all of us. Kane's insistence on secrecy disturbed me. It seemed that, at need, he could slide from truth into falsehood as easily as a fish changing currents in a stream.

  'Well, then,' the innkeeper said, presenting Kane with the bill for our stay. 'I'll hope to see you on your return journey.'

  Kane studied the bill for a moment as his face pulled into a scowl. Then he fixed his fierce eyes on the innkeeper and said, 'The oats you gave our horses we'll pay for, though not at the rate that you'd charge for serving men porridge. But the water they drank we won't pay for at-all. This isn't the Red Desert - it rains every third day here, eh? Now fetch our horses, if you please.'

  The innkeeper appeared inclined to argue with Kane. He started to say something about the great labor involved in drawing water from his well and hauling it to his stables. But the look on Kane's face silenced him, and he went off to do as Kane had told him.

  The innkeeper's cupidity was my first experience of the Alonians' hunger for money but far from the last. (1 didn't count the hill-men who had tried to rob Atara as Alonians.) As we rode out from the inn that morning, we passed the estates of great knights. In the fields surrounding their palatial houses, ragged-looking men and women worked with hoes beneath the hot sun. Kane called them peasants. They slept in hovels away from their masters' houses; Kane said that the knights permitted them to till their fields and let them keep a portion of the crops they cultivated. Such injustice infuriated me. Even the poorest Valari, I thought, lived on his own land in a stout, if small, stone house - and possessed as well a sword, suit of armor and the right to fight for his king when called to war.

  'It's this w
ay almost everywhere,' Kane told us. 'Ha, the lands ruled by Morjin are much worse. There he makes his people into slaves.'

  'On the Wendrush,' Atara said, 'there are neither peasants nor slaves. Everyone is truly free.'

  'That may be. Still, it's said that the Alonians are better off than most peoples and that Kiritan Narmada is a better king.'

  Atara fell silent, and the clopping of the horses' hooves against the road seemed very loud. I felt in her a great disquiet whether over the plight of the Alonians or something else, it was hard to say. I guessed that she felt ill at ease to be traveling through the lands of the Sarni's ancient enemy. And the closer we drew to Tria, the more apprehensive she became.

  Around noon, we came to a village called Sarabrunan. There was little more there than a blacksmith's shop, a few houses and a mill above a swift stream grinding grain into flour. I wouldn't have thought of stopping there any longer than it took to water our horses and buy a few loaves of bread from the villagers. But then I chanced to look upon the hill to the north of the village: it was a low hump of earth topped with a unique rock formation that looked like an old woman's face. Its granite countenance froze me in my tracks and called me to remember.

  'Sarabrunan,' I said softly. 'Sarburn - this is the place of the great battle.'

  While Kane stared silendy up at the Crone's Hill, as it was called, I found a villager who confirmed that indeed Morjin had met his defeat here. For a small fee, he offered to guide us around the battlefield. 'No, thank you,' I told him. 'We'll find our way ourselves.' So saying, I turned Altaru toward the wheatfields to the north of the village. Maram protested that we had little enough time to reach Tria before the celebration the next night But 1 wouldn't hear his arguments. I looked at him and said, 'This won't take long, but it must be seen.'

  We followed the stream straight through the estate of some knight who had no doubt gone off to Tria. No one stopped us. After perrhaps a mile of riding through the new wheat - and through fallow fields and occasional patches of woods - we came to a place where another stream joined the one flowing back toward the village I pointed along these sparkling waters and said, 'This was once called the Sarburn. Here Aramesh led a charge against Morjin's center. He beat back his army across the stream. It's said that it turned red with the blood of the slain.'