The Lightstone Read online

  We rode up this stream for a half mile and stopped. Five miles to the east, the Crone's Hill rose up overlooking the peaceful countryside. Other than a small knoll half a mile to our west - I remembered that it had once been called the Hill of the Dead - the land in every direction was level as the skin of a drum.

  'The armies met in Valte, just after the harvest,' I said. 'The wheat had all been cut, and the chaff still lay in the fields when the battle began.'

  I turned to ride toward the knoll, then. I found its slopes overgrown with thick woods where once meadows had been. While the others followed slowly behind me, I dismounted Altaru and walked him through the oak trees. Near one of them, I began rooting about in the bracken as I listened to a crow cawing out from somewhere ahead of me. I searched among old tree roots and the dense undergrowth for twenty yards before I found what I was looking for.

  'Look,' I said to the others as I held up a long, flat stone for them to see. It was of white granite and covered with orange and brown splotches of lichen. Two long ages had weathered the stone so that the grooves cut into it were blurred and almost impossible to read.

  'It looks like the writing might be ancient Ardik,' Master Juwain said as he traced his finger along one of the smooth letters. 'But I can't make out what it says.'

  'It says this,' I told him. "Here lies a Valari warrior."

  I handed the stone to him; it was the first time in my life I had ever given him a reading lesson.

  'Ten thousand Valari fell that day,' I said. 'They were buried on this knoll. Aramesh ordered as many stones cut from a quarry near Tria and brought here to mark this place.'

  At this, Maram and Kane began searching the woods for other death stones, and so did I. After half an hour, however, we had found only two more.

  'Where are they all?7 Maram asked. 'There should be thousands of them.'

  'Likely the woods have swallowed them up,' Kane said. 'Likely the peasants have taken them to use as foundation stones to build their huts.'

  'Have they no respect for the dead, then?' Maram asked.

  'They were Valari dead,' I said, opening my hands toward the forest floor. 'And the army they fought was mostly Alonian.'

  This was true. In ten terrible years toward the end of the Age of Swords, Morjin had conquered all of Alonia and pressed her peoples into his service. And in the end, he had led them to defeat and death here on this very ground upon which we stood.

  And so Aramesh had finally freed the Alonians from their enslavement - but at a great cost. Who could blame them for any bitterness or lack of gratitude they might feel toward the Valari?

  For a long while, I stood with my eyes closed listening to the voices that spoke to me. Men might die, I thought but their voices lingered on almost forever: in the rattling of the oak leaves, in the groaning of the swaying trees, in the whisper of the wind. The dead didn't demand vengeance. They made no complaint against death's everlasting cold. They asked only that their sons and grandsons of the farthermost generations not be cut down in the flush of life as they had.

  All this time, Atara had remained as quiet as the stone that Master Juwain still held in his rough, old hands. She kept staring at it as if trying to decipher much more than its worn letters.

  'You don't like to dwell in the past, do you?' I said to her.

  She smiled sadly as she shook her head. She took my arm and pulled me deeper into the woods where we might have a bit of privacy.

  'Surely you know that many Sarni warriors died in the battle, too,' she told me. 'But the past is the past. Can I change one moment of it? Truly, I can't. But the future!

  It's like a tapestry yet to be woven. And each moment of our lives, a thread. Each beautiful moment everything we do. I have to believe that we can weave a different world than this. Truly, truly, we can.'

  It was a strange thing for her to say, and I couldn't help thinking of the spider she had seen weaving its web in her father's house - and of the Grays walking toward us across the moonlit meadow before they actually had. I wondered, then, if she might be gifted with seeing visions of the future. But when I asked her about this, she just laughed in her easy, spirited way as her blue eyes sparkled.

  'I'm no server,' she told me. 'Twice, only, I've seen these thing. Surely it's just chance. Or perhaps for a couple of moments, Ashtoreth herself has given her sight directly into my eyes.'

  It was neither the time nor the place to dispute what she said. I looked up at the sun, and led her back toward the others.

  'It's growing late,' I told them. I bowed my head toward the stone that Maram held in his hand. 'There's nothing more here to see.'

  'What should we do with this, then?' Maram asked.

  I took the stone from him, and then used my knife to dig a trench i the leaf-covered ground. I planted the stone there; after a little more work with my knife, I set the other two stones back in the earth as well.

  'Here lie ten thousand VaJari warriors,' I said, looking about the knoll. 'Now come -

  there's nothing more we can do for them.'

  After that we returned to the road as we had come. We rode in silence for a good few miles, west toward Tria, even as Aramesh had once ridden following his great victory.

  That night we found another inn where we took our rest. We set out very early the next morning, and rode hard all that day. It was the seventh of Soldru - a day of clear skies and crisp air, perfect weather for riding. The miles passed quickly as a measure of the hours we spent cantering through the ever-more populated land. But measured by our anticipation of attending King Kiritan's birthday celebration, the time passed very slowly indeed.

  Around noon, we entered a hilly country. I would have thought to find there fewer fields, but the Alonians had cut them out of the very land. Except on the steepest slopes, terraces of wheat and barley like green steps ran in contours around the hills.

  White stone walls supported each terrace and set one level off from another. It was a beautiful thing to see, and a hint of the Alonians' great skill at building things.

  A few hours later, the proof of their genius was laid before us. The Nar Road cut between two of these hills; at the notch, where the road rose to its greatest elevation before winding down into lower and flatter lands, we had our first view of Tria. I could hardly believe what my eyes told me must be true. For there, to the northwest across some miles of gende farmland, great white towers rose high above the highest wall I had ever seen. They sparkled as if covered with diamond dust, catching and scattering the brilliant sunlight, and cut like spears a quarter mile high into the blue dome of the sky. Other, lesser buildings - though still very great - formed a jagged line beneath them. Master Juwain told us that ail these structures had been cast of living stone during the Age of Law, a marvelous substance of great beauty and strength. Although the secret of its making had long been lost, its splendor remained to remind men of the glories to which they might attain.

  The City of light, Tria was called. It stood before us in the late after-noon sun shimmering like a great jewel cut with thousands of facets.

  It was sited at the mouth of the Poru River where it widened and flowed into the Bay of Belen. I saw these blue waters gleaming along the horizon beyond the city. It was my first glimpse of the Great Northern Sea. Jutting out of the bay were the dark shapes of many islands. The largest of these - it looked almost like a skull made of black rock - was called Damoom. Master Juwain said that it had been named after the world where the Dark Angel Angra Mainyu, was bound. For on this ominous-looking island, Aramesh had imprisoned Morjin after his defeat.

  We rode down to the city, approaching it from the southeast. To our right was the Bay of Belen; to our left, the mighty Poru wound like a brown snake through the gentle, green countryside. We crossed fields and estates that led nearly up to the great walls themselves. Three thousand years ago, Master Juwain said, the city had overflowed for miles beyond the walls, encompassing the very ground over which we now rode. But, like Silvassu and
other cities, it had diminished in size and greatness all during the Age of the Dragon. Only a few scattered houses, smithies and such remained outside the walls to hint of its former dimensions.

  The Poru divided Tria into two unequal halves, west and east. East Tria, the older part of the city, was the smaller of the two - though still very much greater than any other city I had ever seen. The wall protecting it began at the banks of the bay and curved around it for a good four miles to the southwest, where it ended in a stout tower abutting the river. A mile to the west, across the river, the wall began again and ran almost straight for another four miles, before turning back toward the bay to form the defenses of the western part of the city. Nine gates, named after the nine Galadin who had defeated Angra Mainyu, were set into this great wall. The Nar Road led straight up to the Ashtoreth Gate, which opened upon the southern districts of East Tria. We rode past its iron doors unchallenged. And so we entered the City of Light late on the day that Count Dario had appointed as the date that his king would call the great quest.

  'We'll still have to hurry if we're to be on time,' Kane said. 'We've the whole city still to cross.'

  The King's Palace, he said, lay a good five miles across the river in West Tria. The Nar Road led almost straight towards it, and so we would keep to it for nearly the whole distance. It was hard to hurry, however, on such a crowded thoroughfare.

  With our cloaks pulled tightly around us to hide our faces, we rode in a line as quickly as we could, with Kane taking the lead. But carts drawn by tired horses and laden with wheat grain - and with barrels of beer, bolts of cloth and a hundred other things - blocked our way. Many hundreds of people crowded the street, too. Most were dressed poorly in homespun woolens, but there were also merchants wearing fine silks and not a few mercenaries clad in mail, even as Kane and I were. The din of horses whinnying, men shouting and iron|-shod wheels rolling along the paving stones nearly deafened me. I had never heard such a noise other than on a battlefield.

  It came to me then that cities such as Tria, however beautiful, were dangerous places where men had to fight for a few feet of space or to keep themselves from being trampled - if not worse.

  I should have kept my mind on forcing my way through the crowds and not allowing Altaru to strike out with his deadly hooves at anyone who drew too close. Instead, I stared at the many sights, even as Maram and the others did. Along the street were many stalls selling various viands: roasted breads, sausages, hams, apple pies and hot cakes sizzling in sesame oil. The smells of all these foods hung in the air and set our mouths watering. Maram eyed the stands of the beer sellers and almost stopped at a shop which advertised wines from Galda and Karabuk. I stared at a diamond seller, whose sparkling wares might have been looted from the dead Valari at the Sarburn and reset into brooches and rings. Other shops sold pottery from the Elyssu, Sunguru cotton as white as snow, glasswork handblown by the Delian masters of that art -almost anything made by the hand of man. And, in truth, the Trians sold many other things less substantial. Would-be servers offered to read our futures for a few bronze coins while the astrologers did a brisk business casting horoscopes and drawing for their clients maps of the stars.

  Everyone seemed eager to take our money. Hawkers shouted at us to enter shops selling fine jewelry; beautifully dressed - and beautiful -women came up to us and pulled insistently on our cloaks. Swarms of ragged children bravely darted in between our horses, holding out their hands as they stared at us with their big, sad eyes. Kane called them beggars. I had never seen such poor, gaunt-faced people before. Every few yards, it seemed, I reached into my purse to give one of them a silver coin. Kane cast a dark look at them, shooing them away as if they were flies.

  He told me that not even King Kiritan had enough money to feed all the poor of the world. But I couldn't help myself. I could feel the aching of their empty bellies. My coins couldn't feed everyone, but perhaps they would put bread into the mouths of these hungry people for a few days.

  Atara, too, gave them coins: gold coins, of which she seemed to have many. She was a Sarni warrior, after all, and it was said that gold flows down to the Wendrush like the waters of the rivers to the sea. Kane chided her for attracting attention to us and wasting her money. He said that the Beggar King would likely rob the children of their new-found riches. Atara, however, met his hardened stare with an icy one of her own. She drew herself up straight in her saddle and told him, 'They're children. Have you no heart?'

  Kane muttered something about the softness of women, and turned to gaze upon a great tower near the city's wall The Tur-Tisander, he said it was called. To distract us from the beggars, he told us more about Morjin's defeat. He said that following the Battle of Sarburn Morjin had fled to the city and tried to hide behind its walls.

  But Aramesh had pursued him there; he had fought sword to sword with Morjin along the top of the great walls themselves. There, near the Tur-Tisander, between the Valoreth and Arwe Gates, Aramesh finally wounded and disabled Morjin, who laid down his sword and pleaded for his life. The kings and knights who had fought with Aramesh clamored for Morjin's death. But according to the Valari warrior codes, Aramesh was obliged to spare Morjin, although he hated to do so. Then, too, the scryer Katura Hastar had prophesied that 'the death of Morjin would be the death of Ea.'

  And so, after Morjin surrendered the Lightstone to Aramesh, he had Morjin bound in chains. He ordered an impregnable fortress built on a small island, which he renamed Damoom. There Morjin was to be imprisoned until 'all the earth grew green again and the people of all the lands returned to the stars.'

  'Morjin should never have been freed,' Kane said, pointing north toward the dark island in the bay. 'But that's another story.'

  He turned his horse and pressed on toward the river. We followed him through this crowded, old district. The Nar Road cut through it along a straight enough line, but most of the nearby streets curved and twisted like snakes. There were many small houses and tenements among the great towers, and many buildings where events of great moment had taken place. We passed the Old Sanctuary of the Maitriche Telu -

  or rather its ruins. I learned that in the year 2284 of the Age of Swords, six years before Morjin's downfall, he had tried to annihilate this Sisterhood of scryers and mind readers who oppposed him. And so he had ordered their sanctuaries across Alonia torn down and the Sisters crucified. It was said that he had utterly destroyed their ancient order. But it was also said, by Kane and others, that the Sisters of Maitriche Telu still existed, dreaming their impossible dreams and plotting to remake the world from secret sanctuaries, perhaps even in Tria itself.

  A couple of miles from the Astoreth Gate, the great boulevard led down to the river.

  Here the look of the city changed, giving way to many taverns, crumbling tenements and warehouses. There were shops making rope and sail, and others where hot pitch was poured into fat, wooden barrels. The air grew moist, and smelled of the faint salt tang of the sea. We crossed a broad road just to the east of the river; along its muddy banks were many docks, at which great ships were anchored. I had never seen a real ship before, and the sight of them lined up along the quay - and pointed out into the river under full sail - made me think

  of storms whipping up raging seas and pirates venturing after treasure. Many of the men working on the ships even looked like pirates: there were sailors from Thalu with their sun-reddened skin and gold rings dangling from their ears. They wore bright bolts of cloth wrapped around their yellow hair and thick-bladed swords at their sides. Other sailors I took to be from the Elyssu, for their appearance was more like that of Master Juwain, except that most of them had a full head of hair. Master Juwain told me that when he had first come to Tria on a galley as a young man, he had had all his hair, too.

  The Nar Road gave onto a great bridge named after an angel called Sarojin. With its huge stone pylons sunk down into the muddy waters of the Poru, 1 thought it the most magnificent such structure I had ever seen. But then, after we
had progressed some hundred yards across it, the curve of the river allowed a view of a still greater bridge half a mile to the north. This was the famous Star Bridge. No pylons supported its immense mass. It seemed cast of a single piece of living stone that spanned the river in a great, sweeping, mile-long arch. All golden it was in the light of the setting sun, and Master Juwain called it by its more common name, which was the Golden Band. He said that the High King, Eluli Ashtoreth, had built it to remind his people of the leldra's sacred light that fell upon the earth at the end of every age.

  'There's another light that I'd like to be reminded of,' Maram said as he looked at the bridge. 'Has anyone seen Flick since we entered the city?'

  None of us had. We were all afraid that he had finally perished amidst the tumult of so many thousands of people and acres of stone - either that or simply evanesced into nothingness. But there was nothing we could do except to ride on and hope that he might soon reappear.

  When we reached the Poru's west bank, just past the dockyards on that side of the river, we found a broad, tree-lined street leading straight up to a hill with a great tower and two palaces at the top. I supposed all this magnificence to be the residence of King Kiritan, but I was wrong. The tower, though not the city's largest, was the Tower of the Sun: the first such ever to be built in Tria or anywhere else.

  The southernmost palace was the abode of the ancient Marshan clan while the other one was named after the Hastars. After we passed from the shadow of a rectangular temple blocking our view, Kane directed my attention to a still greater hill a mile to the north of them. The palace rising from the top of it was larger than my father's entire castle. Built of living stone that gleamed like marble and with nine golden domes surmounting its various sections, it was the most impressive thing I had ever seen.