The Lightstone: The Ninth Kingdom

by David Zindell

  With Kane’s help, my friends carried me into the trees. They found a nice dry spot beneath an old oak, and there they re-established 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, then?’

  ‘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 finished preparing his tea, which he managed 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 Grays’ 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 had 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 experience 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 Flick. ‘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 em
erald. 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.

  ‘Excellent,’ Kane said, licking his lips. ‘Now I’ll tell you what I know of the Lokii.’

  ‘You mean the Lokilani, don’t you?’ Maram said.

  ‘No – that’s not their true name,’ Kane said. ‘You see, the Lokii were one of the original tribes of Star People sent to Ea with the Lightstone ages ago.’

  He went on to explain that there had been twelve of these tribes: the Danya, Weryin, Nisu, Kesari, Asadu, Ajani, Tuwari, Talasi, Sakuru, Helkiin and Lokii. And, of course, the Valari, headed by Elahad and entrusted with guarding the Lightstone. Each of the tribes had brought with them a single varistei meant to bring the new world to flower. For the green crystals had power over all living things and the fires of life itself. The Galadin and Elijin who had sent the twelve tribes to Ea had intended for them to create a paradise. But instead, Aryu of the Valari had risen up in envy to slay his brother, Elahad. He had stolen the Lightstone and broken the peace and hope of Ea.

  ‘This much is known everywhere, if not always believed,’ Kane said. ‘But what is not known is that Aryu also stole the varistei from Elahad.’

  He told us that Aryu, and many of the Valari who followed him, had set sail from Tria on three ships, fleeing into the Northern Sea. Near the Island of Nedu, a storm had driven two of the ships onto rocks, killing everyone aboard them save Aryu. But Aryu had been mortally wounded; at last, realizing his folly, he crawled ashore on a small island and hid the Lightstone in a cave. The Valari on the remaining ship, under his son, Jolonu, found Aryu’s body but not the Lightstone. Jolonu then took the varistei from Aryu’s dead hand and set sail for the most distant land he could find.

  And so the renegade Valari came at last to the Island of Thalu in the uttermost west. There they used the green gelstei to slowly change their form to adapt to the cold mists of that harsh and rugged land. The followers of Aryu, or the Aryans, as they came to be called, became a tall, big-boned people, fair of face, with flaxen hair and blue eyes as bright as the sea.

  Here Kane paused in his story to look at Atara. She sat on old leaves beneath the oak tree, and her bright, blue eyes were fixed on Kane’s face. ‘Have you never wondered at the origins of your people?’ he asked her.

  ‘No more than I have the origins of the antelope or the grass,’ Atara told him. ‘But it’s said that the Sarni are the descendants of Sarngin Marshan.’

  Prince Sarngin, she said, had fought with his brothers, Vashrad and Nawar, over the throne of Alonia late in the Age of the Mother. Vashrad had finally prevailed, killing Nawar. But he had spared Sarngin, whom he had loved. He had banished him and many of his followers, forbidding them ever to return to the lands of Alonia. And so Sarngin had come to the prairies of the Wendrush, where he and his followers had prospered and multiplied to become the ferocious Sarni.

  ‘Sarngin and Vashrad were sons of Bohimir, eh?’ Kane said.

  ‘Yes,’ Atara said. ‘Bohimi
r the Great. He was Alonia’s first king.’

  ‘Ha, a king!’ Kane said to her. ‘He was an adventurer and a warlord. In three hundred ships, he sailed from Thalu with the Aryan sea rovers – descendants all of them of Aryu and Jolonu. That was in the year 2177 of the Age of the Mother. The Dark Year, as it’s now called. The Aryans entered the Dolphin Channel and sacked Tria. Bohimir crowned himself king. And that is the origin of your people.’

  Kane paused to drink yet another cup of brandy. The potent liquor seemed to have little effect on him. While bees buzzed in the blossoms of a nearby dogwood and the day grew warmer, he sat looking back and forth between Atara and me.

  ‘It’s strange,’ he muttered. ‘Very, very strange.’

  ‘What is?’ I asked him.

  He pointed at my hair and then held his hand toward my face as his black eyes burned into mine. ‘It’s said that all the Star People who came to Ea looked like you. Like the Valari. The Valari who settled the Morning Mountains were the only people to have had their varistei stolen. And so they were the only people of Ea to remain true to the Star People’s original form.’

  I looked down at the black hair spilling over my chest and at the ivory tones of my hands. I rubbed my long, hawk’s nose and the prominent bones of my cheeks. Then I looked at Atara, whose coloring and cast of face couldn’t have been more different.

  ‘The Valari and the Aryans,’ Kane said, ‘were once of one tribe. Thus they’re the closest of all peoples – and yet, ever since Aryu killed Elahad, they’ve always been the bitterest of enemies. The Sarni are ultimately the descendants of Aryu himself, and who has warred with the Valari more?’

  Only the Valari, I thought, biting back a bitter smile.

  ‘It’s strange,’ Kane said, bowing his head first at Atara and then at me, ‘that you two should have made a peace between yourselves at a time when it’s foretold the Lightstone will be found.’