The Lightstone: The Ninth Kingdom

by David Zindell

  ‘What do mean, “so-called”?’

  ‘Is the King of Anjo truly a king? Or Anjo a kingdom? And what of Mesh? My own domain is bigger than your entire realm.’

  Now I felt my temper rising, too, and Maram gripped my arm to steady me. To Baron Narcavage, he said, ‘That might be true, but at least his, ah, sword is longer than yours.’

  Being well pleased with his riposte, Maram grinned broadly and then winked at Queen Daryana.

  Baron Narcavage shot him a dark look and then said, ‘Yes, the famed Valari swords – used mostly to cut each other to pieces.’

  I wondered at the Baron’s purpose in belittling Maram’s and my kingdoms. Perhaps it was pride in Alonian accomplishments; perhaps it was resentment. From talk I had heard in the hall, I gathered that the Baron’s grandfather had fought fiercely with King Kiritan’s grandfather to keep Arngin an independent domain. But in the end, he had knelt to King Sakandar even as Baron Narcavage kneeled to King Kiritan. It was said that Baron Narcavage was now the most trusted of the King’s men and his greatest general. If so, then he must have harbored deep hurts that he chose to inflict on other people.

  Queen Daryana seemed to like neither the Baron nor his usurping the conversation. To distract us all from squabbles almost as old as time – and to reclaim for herself the center of everyone’s attention – she said, ‘We live in a time of swords, and it’s said that the Valari do have long ones. But this is a night of peace. Celebration and song. Who knows the Song of the Swan? Who will sing it with me?’

  As I touched the silver swan embroidered on my tunic, she smiled at me, and I loved her for that. Her warmth and generosity of spirit moved me: this, after all, was Sajagax’s daughter, who couldn’t want me ever to marry Atara. But she chose to let our natural regard for each other shine forth even so.

  Atara and I both drew close to her as we all started singing the song. It was mostly a sad song, telling of a king who falls in love with a great white swan. To gain her love in return, he builds a magnificent castle in which to keep her, and feeds her delicacies even as he dresses her in the finest silks. But the swan soon sickens and starts singing her death song. The grief-stricken king then goes among the people of his realm offering a great measure of gold to anyone who can tell him the answer to the riddle of how he may heal her without letting her go.

  As we worked through the verses, Maram and the Valari knights joined us, and then other knights and their ladies came over and began singing, too. One of the women caught my eye: she had iron-gray hair and a pretty, pleasant face, and around her neck she wore the same gold medallion as did Atara and I. I remembered her earlier giving her name to King Kiritan as Liljana Ashvaran; she was one of the few Alonian women to have vowed to make the quest. Although obviously no knight, she had an air of courage about her. She pressed in closer toward Queen Daryana, all the while singing with a measured assurance. When she thought I wasn’t looking, she stole quick glances at me. Once, for a moment, we locked gazes, and I thought that her penetrating hazel eyes hid a great deal.

  We stood there singing beneath the moon and stars for quite a while, for the song was a long one. When we reached the part of it where the king asks his people for advice, I took note of a new voice added to the chorus. Although in no way overpowering any other, it distinguished itself in subtle harmonies with its clarity and perfection of pitch. It came from a slender man whose black, curly hair gleamed in the light of the glowstones. He had the large brown eyes and the brown skin of a Galdan, those comeliest of people; his fine features seemed in perfect accord with the great beauty of his voice. His age was perhaps thirty or slightly more: the only lines I could make out on his face were the crow’s-feet around his eyes – I guessed from smiling so much. He struck me as being spontaneous, witty, gifted, guileless and wild, and I liked him immediately.

  I cocked my head, listening as we sang out the words to the king’s terrible dilemma:

  How do you capture a beautiful bird

  without killing its spirit?

  And then the answer came, from this man’s perfectly formed lips and those of many others:

  By letting it fly;

  By becoming the sky.

  The song ended happily with the king tearing down the walls of stone that he had built to imprison his beloved swan – and himself. For he realized that his true realm was not some little patch of earth, but of the heart and spirit, and was as vast as the sky itself.

  The Queen took note of this man, too. When we had finished singing she called him over to her. He gave his name as Alphanderry of Galda. Although no noble, with his silk tunic trimmed in gold and elegance of carriage he managed to look more distinguished than any of the princes there. He was a minstrel, he said, exiled because his songs had offended Galda’s new rulers. At the Queen’s request, he lifted up his mandolet and sang one of these for us.

  No bird, I thought, not even a swan, had a voice so beautiful as his. It spread out across the lawn and seemed to touch even the grasses with dewdrops of light. As we all grew quiet, it was much easier to appreciate its power and grace. His words were beautiful, too, and they told of the anguish of love and the eternal yearning for the Beloved. As with the Song of the Swan, its themes were bondage and the freedom that might be attained through the purest of love. Like the ringing of a perfect golden bell, his verses carried out in the night – so sweet and clear and full of longing that they were both a pain and a pleasure to hear.

  And as he made his music, Flick suddenly appeared above him and whirled around and around like a tiny dancer raimented in pure light. Alphanderry, I thought, couldn’t see him, nor could any of the nobles gathering around him. But I felt Maram’s hand squeeze my shoulder as Atara flashed me a look of relief almost as sweet as Alphanderry’s singing.

  At the end of his song, he lowered his mandolet and smiled sadly. I, like everyone else, was filled with a sense that he had been singing just for me. We looked at each other for a moment, and he seemed to know how deeply his music had touched me. But there was no pride or vanity in him at this accomplishment, only a quiet joy that he had been gifted with the voice of the angels.

  ‘That was lovely,’ Queen Daryana said to him as she wiped the tears from her eyes. ‘Galda’s loss is Alonia’s gain. And Ea’s, as well.’

  Alphanderry bowed to her, then gripped the gold medallion that King Kiritan had given him. Now his smile was happy and bright; like a butterfly among flowers, he seemed able to flit easily from one color of emotion to another.

  ‘Thank you, Queen Daryana,’ he told her. ‘I haven’t had the privilege of singing before such an appreciative audience for a long time.’

  Baron Narcavage stepped forward and raised the wine bottle that he still held. He said, ‘Allow us then to show our appreciation with some of this. I think you’ll like the vintage – it’s Galdan, from the King’s special reserve. I was just about to pour Sar Valashu and the Queen a glass.’

  So saying, he motioned to a groom, who brought over a tray of goblets. The Baron uncorked the wine, then poured the dark red liquid into eight of them. He handed the goblets one by one to me and my friends, and to Alphanderry and the Queen. The last one he took for himself. I thought it rude of him to ignore Sar Yarwan and the Valari knights – and everyone else who gathered around looking at us. Liljana Ashvaran seemed especially watchful of this little ceremony. She stood with her little nostrils sniffing the air as if any wine not offered to her must be sour.

  ‘To the King,’ the Baron called out. ‘May his life be a long one. May we honor him in drinking his health as he has honored us in requesting our presence at his fiftieth birthday and the calling of the quest.’

  He nodded at the King, who was still talking with his dukes near the fountain while a dozen of his guards kept watch nearby. Kane, who stood a few yards from me scowling at his goblet, turned to scowl at the King instead. Then I gripped my goblet tightly in my hand as I looked down into the blood-red wine.

  ‘It’s not
poison, Sar Valashu,’ the Baron said to me. ‘Do you think the King would poison you in front of his guests?’

  I looked into the wine, which smelled of cinnamon and flowers and the strange spices of Galda. I could almost taste its fragrant sweetness.

  ‘Do you think I would drink poison wine?’ he said. Then he put the rim of the golden goblet to his thick lips and took a long drink. ‘Come now, Sar Valashu, drink with me. All of you – drink!’

  I sensed in him no intention to harm me, only a sudden exuberance and desire to win my good regard – most likely to atone for his previous unkindness. And that, I thought, was a noble thing indeed. Kane and my friends were watching to see what I would do. The Queen and Alphanderry, and Liljana Ashvaran – everyone was watching and waiting for me to take a drink of the King’s wine.

  Just as I was lifting the goblet to my lips, however, Liljana suddenly rushed toward me, crying out, ‘No, it is poison – don’t drink it!’

  The certainty in her voice shocked me; I whirled around toward her to see if she might have fallen mad. Many things happened then almost in the same moment. Baron Narcavage, standing to the other side of me, looked toward King Kiritan and cried out, ‘To me!’ He drew a long dagger and lunged at my throat even as Liljana knocked the goblet from my hand. Alphanderry, who was nearer to me than any of my friends, suddenly jumped between me and the Baron. He grabbed at the Baron’s knife arm with both hands and stood locked in a desperate struggle with him. If not for his inexplicable courage, the knife would surely have torn open my throat.

  For that was surely the Baron’s true intention. I saw it clearly now in the way his face fell into a fury of hate as he clubbed Alphanderry’s head with his other hand, ripped free his knife and lunged at me again. Now, however, Liljana was close enough to grab his arm. She held onto it with all the tenacity of a hound, even as he cursed at her, beat at her with his other arm and knocked her about. Then I struck out with my fist straight into his bearded face. I felt my knuckles almost break against his thick jawbone. But he seemed invulnerable to pain and possessed of an insane strength. He shook his knife arm free and aimed another lunge toward my throat. He would have killed me if Kane hadn’t come up then and run him through with his sword.

  The Baron fell dead to the grass. Alphanderry stood dazed, shaking his bleeding head. From the trees planted across the palace grounds, the nightingales sang their songs.

  Then I became aware of a great clamor toward the fountains. Spears clashed against shields; swords crossed with swords, and the sound of outraged steel rang out to a great chorus of curses and shouts. Knights and ladies were running away in great numbers, even as the King’s guards fell upon one another. At first, I thought they had fallen mad. And then I saw the King slash his sword toward one of his dukes while five of his guards fought fiercely to protect him from the others. They were trying to kill the King, I realized. And other men – all with badges bearing the oaks and eagles of House Narcavage – were running toward us to kill the Queen.

  Or so I thought, for it didn’t occur to me that they might be coming to kill me. There were nearly thirty of these knights; they appeared out of the throngs of panicked people like vultures from the clouds. Their swords were drawn and gleaming in the moonlight. ‘To me!’ the Baron had called out, and now I understood to whom he had been calling. His men must have seen him fall, for their faces were masks of determination and hate as they came at us.

  Queen Daryana cried out as she saw her husband fighting for his life and positioned herself near Alphanderry for the protection he offered, as did Liljana and Master Juwain. The rest of us stared at our attackers as we decided what to do.

  We had no one to lead us, or rather too many: Sar Yarwan, Sar Ianar and the other five Valari knights – and Kane, Maram, Atara and myself. The leading of others into battle, my father once told me, is a strange thing. It depends not so much on rank or authority, but rather on the courage to see what must be done and the mysterious ability to communicate one’s faith that victory is not only possible but inevitable. For only a moment, we stood there confused by the violence that Baron Narcavage had unleashed. And then I looked at the two diamonds shining like stars from my ring. A light flashed in my eyes, and in my heart, and I suddenly called out: ‘Form a circle! Protect the Queen!’

  For another moment, my command hung in the air. And then, as on the drill field, Sar Yarwan and the other Valari knights formed up into a circle around Queen Daryana. Savages the King had called us, and savages we were: savages whose swords were our souls, and we called kalamas.

  We drew them now just in time to meet the attack of Baron Narcavage’s men. Kane stood to my right, and Atara and Maram to my left – all of us facing outward. Sar Yarwan guarded the point of the circle directly across and in back of me. We were only eleven against some thirty knights. And yet when our swords were done flashing and stabbing and rending flesh, all of them lay dead or dying in the grass.

  As I stood gasping for breath, I realized that the Baron’s knights had not attacked us at random. A good number of them had come directly at me. And there, within a few yards of me and Kane’s bloody sword, they sprawled in twisted heaps. I was almost certain that I had slain four of them myself. Their death agonies built inside me like great, cresting waves. But strangely, they never quite broke upon me and crushed me down into the icy dark. Perhaps it was because I remembered how Master Juwain and my friends had healed me after the battle with the Grays; perhaps I was able to open myself to the life fires blazing through Kane and Atara and everyone around me. Or perhaps I was only learning to keep closed the door to death and others’ sufferings.

  Even so, the great pain of it drove me to my knees and then caused me to collapse, moaning. Queen Daryana must have thought the Baron’s men had run me through, for she suddenly called out, ‘Over here! A man is wounded!’

  For a moment, I couldn’t imagine to whom she might be calling. Then, through the cold clouds of death touching my eyes, I saw a great number of the King’s guards running toward us. I was afraid that they, too, were traitors come to kill the Queen; even if they weren’t, I was afraid that Kane and the Valari knights would see them as such and begin the battle anew. But then the Queen cried out that my friends and I had saved her life. She called for everyone to put aside their swords, and this they did.

  For what seemed an eternity, confusion reigned across the blood-spattered lawns of the palace grounds. Trumpets sounded while horses thundered across the grass some distance away. I heard women wailing and men screaming that the King had been killed. Then Queen Daryana took charge, calling out commands with a coolness that stilled the panic in the air. She deployed guards to see that the palace gates were closed to prevent any of the plotters from slipping away. Other guards she sent to hunt down any of the Baron’s men who might be hiding around the palace. She ordered that the bodies of the slain be taken away and their blood washed with buckets of water into the earth. And she sent messengers to call up many new guards from the garrison that manned the city walls.

  Word soon came that the King had only been wounded and borne away into the palace. He had called for Queen Daryana to come to his side.

  ‘Your father isn’t badly wounded,’ Queen Daryana said to Atara. ‘But it seems that your Valari knight might be. Please stay with him until I return.’

  As Atara nodded her head, the Queen gathered up five guards and hurried off toward the palace.

  Other guards drew up in a protective wall around us. King Kiritan’s thousands of guests still milled about the fountains; despite their panic over Baron Narcavage’s plot, they had nowhere to flee. But it seemed that most of the Baron’s knights had died in attacking our circle. As for the traitorous guards, they had all been killed, too – or so it was hoped.

  While the Valari knights gathered some yards away, Alphanderry and Liljana drew in closer above me. They watched Kane, Atara, Maram and Master Juwain kneel in a circle by my side. My friends removed my armor, as they had in
the woods near the meadow where we had killed the Grays, and laid their hands upon me. So great was the power of their touch that I immediately felt a familiar fire warming me inside. Then Master Juwain drew out his green crystal and placed it over my chest. He and the others positioned their bodies to shield the sight of this healing from the guards and others looking on.

  Very soon, I was able to stand up and move about again. In a low voice, Master Juwain marveled that he had hardly needed his green crystal to help revive me.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ I said to him as I put on my armor again. I nodded to each of my friends. Thank you, all of you.’

  I noticed Alphanderry looking at me curiously as if wondering why I had needed my friends’ ministrations at all. He smiled at me in great relief, and my eyes asked him why he had risked his life for me as if he were my brother.

  Because, his soft brown eyes answered me, all men are brothers.

  Master Juwain’s order, of course, taught this ideal of a higher love for all beings, even strangers. But Alphanderry’s selfless act was the first time I had seen it embodied so unrestrainedly.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said to him. Then I turned to Liljana Ashvaran, whose courage had been no less than his. Thank you, too.’

  Liljana bowed her head to me and smiled. Then she pointed at Master Juwain’s pocket, where he had returned his green gelstei. In a yoke pitched soft and low so that none of the guards or other onlookers might hear, she said, ‘I think you have one of the stones told of in the prophecy.’

  ‘What do you know of that?’ Kane said sharply. He took a step closer to her; I was afraid he was about to draw his dagger and hold it to her throat. ‘How did you know the wine was poisoned?’

  Liljana folded her hands together as she stood there considering her answer. Her round face, I thought, was given to sternness as easily as kindness, and she seemed a thoughtful, unhurried and even relentless woman. She looked at Kane with her wise old eyes, and told him, ‘I smelled it.’