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’ leader’s 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 from 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 others’ 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.
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 I 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 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, ‘Leaving already, then? Well, I shouldn’t be surprised–it’s a good fifty miles to the city. You’ll have to press hard to reach 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 beard.
‘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. (I 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 way 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 silently 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 I 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 perhaps 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.’
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?’ 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.’
The Lightstone: The Ninth Kingdom Page 38
