The Lightstone: The Ninth Kingdom

by David Zindell

  We spent all that day sailing along the island’s north shore looking for a place to land. But the forbidding walls of rock there warned us away; the currents were bad, too, and Captain Kharald kept a wary eye out for any reefs which might splinter his stout ship like kindling. We spent the night farther out at sea where we would be safe from running aground. And then the next morning, we rounded the island’s westernmost point – the top of the seahorse’s head – and made our way along its ‘nose’ for about five miles. When we reached its tip, we turned again, this time heading straight for the belly of the island, which bulged out to form a great deal of its southern shore. Here the waters grew calmer and the currents less swift. As we drew closer to this misty land arising out of the ocean, we saw beaches giving way to the green-shrouded heights beyond. Captain Kharald chose a likely looking expanse of sand, and steered the Snowy Owl toward it.

  With one of his men sounding the water’s depth with a length of a weighted and knotted rope, Captain Kharald finally ordered the Snowy Owl anchored about a quarter-mile offshore. Along with Jonald and six other sailors, he joined us to the starboard and watched as Jonald directed the lowering of the skiff that would take us to the island.

  ‘This far we’ve come against our better judgment,’ Captain Kharald said to us. ‘But I can’t ask my men to accompany you onto the island.’

  I stood armored in my mail, wearing my black and silver surcoat and my helmet with the silver swan wings projecting upward from the sides. I held the throwing lance that my brother Ravar had given me and my father’s gleaming shield. Kane bore his long sword and Maram his shorter one; Atara had her saber and her deadly bow and arrows. Liljana and Alphanderry had strapped on their cutlasses, even though they had chipped them badly on Meliadus’ rock-hard hide. And Master Juwain, of course, would carry no weapon. In his gnarly old hands, he clutched his copy of the Saganom Elu as if it contained whole armories within its leather-bound pages.

  ‘Thank you for bringing us here,’ I said to Captain Kharald. ‘It will be enough if you’ll wait until we return.’

  From near the mast behind us, I heard one of his men mutter, ‘If they do return.’

  ‘Three days we’ll wait, but no more,’ Captain Kharald said. ‘Then we’ll have to sail for Artram. You must understand, my people are hungry.’

  ‘Yes, they are,’ I agreed. ‘But hungry for more than bread.’

  I stared off at the wall of green rising up beyond the beach. I was sure that somewhere on this lost island, we would finally behold the Lightstone that we had crossed the length of Ea to claim. And then we would find a way to end war and suffering, and people would never be hungry again.

  We climbed down to the skiff on rope ladders hanging over the ship’s side. It disquieted me that we would have to leave the horses behind, but there was no good way of getting them ashore. I sat in silence in the skiff with my companions as Jonald and the other sailors rowed the open boat toward the beach. The rhythmic sound of the oars dipping into the water seemed to measure out the remaining moments of our quest.

  After Jonald and the others had put us ashore and set out to sea again, I stood with my friends on the beach’s hard-packed sand. The island stretched out twenty-five miles to the west and as many to the east. We guessed that it must be at least ten miles wide at its widest part. In listening to the wind pour over this considerable length of land, suddenly realized that I had no idea of where the Lightstone might be found.

  And neither did any of my friends. Maram squinted against the squawking seagulls flying above us and said, ‘Well, Val, what do we do now?’

  I turned to Atara to ask her if she had seen anything in her crystal sphere. But in answer Atara only held out her hands helplessly and shook her head.

  Four points there are to the world, and three of these were land while the fourth was ocean. I stood with my back to this gray water as I gazed at the smoking mountain to the north. When I looked in that direction, my heart beat more quickly. And so I began walking toward it.

  The others followed close behind me across the beach. Soon its brownish sands gave out onto the wall of forest that had seemed so forbidding from the water. Up close, the tall trees and dense undergrowth proved nearly impenetrable. Search though we did for a few hundred yards up and down the beach, we could find no path cutting through them.

  ‘Are you sure we should go this way?’ Maram said, pointing into the forest. ‘I don’t like the look of it.’

  ‘Come,’ I said, taking a step forward. ‘It won’t be so bad.’

  ‘That’s what you said of the Vardaloon,’ he moaned. Upon remembering our passage of that dark wood, he shuddered as he pulled the hood of his cloak up over his head. ‘If I see a single leech, I’m turning back, all right?’

  ‘All right,’ I agreed. ‘You can camp here on the beach and wait for us to return with the Lightstone.’

  The thought of us gaining what he so deeply desired while he sat here on the sand sobered him. He suddenly found his courage, and muttered to me, ‘All right, but you go first. If there are leeches here, maybe they’ll drop first on you.’

  But the forest turned out to hold none of these loathsome worms. Neither were we troubled by ticks, even though the undergrowth near the beach was very thick and brushed continually against us. As for mosquitoes, in all that thick band of woods, we saw only one. This, as it happened, landed right on Maram’s fat nose. In his panic to swat it, he forgot the delicacy of this fleshy protuberance. His huge hand nearly flattened it out, causing him to shout in pain. Although the cunning little mosquito escaped this blow, he did manage to bloody himself. It was the funniest thing I had seen since Flick had spun about on Alphanderry’s nose.

  ‘Stop laughing at me!’ Maram called out as he pressed his hand to his bleeding nose. ‘Where’s your compassion? Can’t you see I’m wounded?’

  This ‘wound’ Master Juwain tended with a few swipes of a cloth and a bit of a leaf tucked up into Maram’s nostril. And then Kane came over and snapped at Maram, ‘Save your valor for our real enemies. We don’t know what we’re going to find on this island.’

  His rebuke reminded me that we knew almost nothing of the Island of the Swans. Dragons we surely need not fear, but what awaited us deeper in the forest, no one could say.

  As we started off again, I used my shield to brush the ferns away from my face. I gripped my lance in my sword hand. But I saw nothing more threatening than a red fox darting out of our way and a few bumble bees. In truth, I immediately liked the feel of this ancient woodland. Its giant trees, towering far above the carpets of bracken along the forest floor, were hung with witch’s hair and icicle moss as if arrayed in enchanted garments. Every living thing about us seemed soft and glowing with greenness; even the air smelled sweet and good.

  I felt strangely at home here although there were many types of trees and plants that were strange to me. Master Juwain put names to a few of them: he pointed out the great cedars with their long strips of red bark and the yew trees and big-leaf maples. Others he had never seen either. But it turned out that Kane had. He showed us the sword ferns and the horsehair lichens, the lovely pink rhododendrons and the blue hemlocks shagged with old man’s beard. Each name he spoke as if reciting that of an old friend. And each name Master Juwain dutifully recorded. I thought that it was part of his own private quest to remember the name of each and every thing in the world.

  We made slow progress, for there were many new plants to identify, and the ground before us was thick with ferns and rose steeply. There were quite a few downed trees, too, which made the footing treacherous. Kane called some of these moss-covered trunks nurse logs. He said that in rotting apart into bits of crumbling wood, they served as nursery beds for other trees that took seed there. They were also homes to the red-backed voles and other animals we saw scurrying about the forest floor.

  ‘I’ve never seen a wood so lush,’ Maram said as he puffed along behind me. ‘If the Lightstone is here, it could be anywhe
re. How are we to find it? I can’t even find my own feet beneath me.’

  Liljana came up to him then and reassured him that Sartan Odinan, if he had truly come here, wouldn’t have just dropped the Lightstone down into a clump of moss. ‘Don’t you give up hope just yet, young prince. Perhaps we’ll find a cave in one of the mountains we saw.’

  These three peaks were now obscured by the wall of vegetation before us. But if we kept a straight line through the giant trees, after perhaps another five miles, we should come upon the slopes of the smoking mountain.

  And so we fought our way up across the densely wooded ground that led toward it. It took us perhaps an hour to cover the first half-mile. As there were few enough hours left in the day, and we had only three days until the Snowy Owl sailed again, it seemed that we would be able to explore only the tiniest corner of the island.

  And then, after another half-mile, the headland we were climbing came to a crest. The forest suddenly changed and thinned, and gave way to many more yews, maples and dogwoods. Through the gaps between them, we looked down into the most beautiful valley I had ever seen.

  ‘Oh, my Lord!’ Maram called out. ‘There are people here!’

  We saw signs of them everywhere. Between the crest on which we stood and the mountains some five miles away were many patches of green that could only be fields. Small stands of trees – they looked like cherry and plum – divided them from each other in darker green lines. Many pastures covered the long slope leading down to the valley’s center. There a sparkling blue lake pooled at the base of the three mountains, which curved around its northern shore like a crescent moon. There, too, near the lake’s southern shore, surrounded by what seemed to be many streets and colorfully painted houses, stood a great, square building whose white stone caught the sunlight streaming out of a break in the clouds. Liljana said that it reminded her of the ruins of the Temple of Life in Tria.

  ‘We must go there then,’ I said. Now my heart was beating very quickly.

  ‘Whoever lives here,’ Kane said, squinting as he looked about the valley, ‘may not want us here at all. We should be careful, Val.’

  I remembered how the Lokilani had stolen upon us and nearly killed us with arrows before rare chance had saved us.

  ‘Careful we’ll be, then,’ I said. ‘But when one walks into the lion’s lair, there’s only so much care that can be taken.’

  And with that, I led off, walking warily through the woods. Atara kept pace with me just to my left; she held an arrow nocked in her bowstring as she looked off through the trees. Master Juwain came next, followed by Liljana and Alphanderry. Behind then, Maram trod carefully down the long slope, all the while fingering his firestone as he started at every squirrel or bird moving about in the branches above him. Kane, as usual, brought up the rear.

  After about a half-mile, the woods thinned even more and gave out onto a wide pasture on which only a few isolated trees grew. Here the grass was long and lush, and as green as grass could be. Many day’s-eyes, with their sunlike yellow centers and long white petals, made a show of themselves, and thousands of dandelions brightened the grass as well. Bees buzzed from flower to flower in their slow but determined way, gathering up nectar peacefully. From somewhere ahead of us, across the lines of rolling and gradually descending ground, came the distant baahing of some sheep. If this was a lion’s lair into which we were walking, I thought as I gripped my lance and shield, then surely we were the lions.

  Another quarter-mile brought us out onto a bowl-like pasture smelling of some sweet blue flowers and sheep droppings. We saw the flock ahead of us, fifty or sixty fat sheep spread out over the soft green grass, their white fleeces gleaming in the sun. We saw their shepherd, too. And he saw us. The look on his face as we suddenly appeared over a low rise above him was one of utter astonishment. But strangely, his bright, black eyes showed no sign of fear.

  ‘Di nisa palinaii,’ he said to us, holding out his hand as if in greeting. ‘Di nisa, nisa – lililia waii?’

  The words he spoke made no sense to me. Nor did any of the others seem to understand him, not even Alphanderry, who held the seeds of all languages upon his fertile tongue.

  ‘My name is Valashu Elahad,’ I said, pressing my hand to my chest. ‘What are you called, and who are your people?’

  ‘Kilima nisti,’ the man said, shaking his head. ‘Kilima nastamii.’

  The shepherd, who was about my age, wore a long kirtle that seemed woven of the same white wool that covered his sheep. He was tall, almost my height, with ivory skin and a long, high nose that gave great dignity to his noble face – and a hint of fierceness, too. But there seemed nothing fierce about him. His manner was gentle, curious, welcoming. He wore no weapon on his braided and brightly colored cloth belt, and his hand held nothing more threatening than his shepherd’s crook. This surprised me almost as much as did his appearance. For with his thick black hair and eyes like black jade, he might have been my brother.

  ‘Oh, my Lord!’ Maram said as he came up beside me. ‘He looks Valari!’

  My friends, gathering around the shepherd, stared at him and remarked the resemblance as well. Master Juwain said, ‘There’s a mystery here: a lost island upon which stands a Valari warrior who seems no warrior at all. And who doesn’t speak the language that all men do.’

  If he was a mystery to us, we were an even greater one to him. He approached me as one might a wild animal; he slowly extended his hand and traced his finger along the swan and seven silver stars of my surcoat. He touched the steel links of my armor, too. Finally, he tapped his fingernail against my helmet as he slowly shook his head.

  ‘Di nisa, verlo,’ he murmured. ‘Kananjii wa?’

  It seemed pointless, and a little rude, to continue talking with him from behind my helmet’s curving steel plates. And so I took it off. The shepherd stood staring at me as if looking into a mirror for the first time.

  ‘Di nisa, nisa, he said again, this time more doubtfully. ‘Wansai paru di nisalu?’

  He turned to go among Maram and the others. He smiled at Liljana respectfully, then narrowed his eyebrows as he seemed to look for his reflection in the gleaming surface of Master Juwain’s bald head. He put his finger to Alphanderry’s dark curls then paused a moment as he looked at Kane. But he spent the longest time examining Atara. Everything about her seemed a marvel to him. He examined her leather armor and ran his finger along her bowstring; he touched her long blonde hair with all the reverence that Captain Kharald might have reserved for handling gold.

  ‘Di nisa athanu,’ he whispered. ‘Athanasii, verlo.’

  “What language is this?’ Maram asked, shaking his head. ‘I can’t understand anything of what he says.’

  ‘I can almost understand,’ Alphanderry said. ‘Almost.’

  ‘It sounds something like ancient Ardik,’ Master Juwain told us. ‘But, I’m afraid, no more than a pear is like an apple.’

  Kane had now lost patience, perhaps with his own ignorance most of all. He nodded at Liljana and said, ‘You spoke with the Sea People, eh? Can’t you speak to this man?’

  All this time Liljana had been clutching her little carved whale in her hand. Now she brought this figurine to her head. The blue gelstei, I suddenly recalled, were not only the stones of mindspeaking but also quickened the powers of truthsaying and apprehending languages and dreams.

  ‘Nomja?’ the shepherd said, looking at the figurine. ‘Nomja, nisami?’

  A quick smile suddenly split Liljana’s round face as if she were very pleased with herself. And then she opened her mouth and surprised us all by saying, ‘Janomi … io di gelstei. Di blestei, di gelstei … falu.’

  After that, she began speaking the shepherd’s language more rapidly. She paused only to allow him to return the discourse and ask her questions. And then, with a smile that lit up her whole being, she found her tongue again and managed to keep up a continual stream of conversation. The strange words poured out of her like a waterfall. The sheep baahed
at each other and the sun dipped lower in the sky as she stood there talking with the shepherd.

  After a while, she took the gelstei away from her head and told us, ‘He says his name is Rhysu Araiu. And his people are called the Maii.’

  ‘And this island?’ Kane asked her. ‘Does it have a name as well?’

  ‘Of course it does,’ Liljana said, smiling at him. ‘The Maii call it Landaii Asawanu.’

  ‘And what does that mean, then?’ Kane asked.

  ‘It means,’ she said, ‘the Island of the Swans.’

  Rhysu returned to his flock then, and we followed him across the pasture, which he had told Liljana he wanted us to do. Soon we came to a rather large house, built mostly of stone and wood that had been painted a bright yellow. Rhysu called out excitedly as we approached it. The door suddenly opened, and a tall woman with hair as straight and black as Rhysu’s stepped out and greeted us. She had the high nose and exquisitely sculpted face bones of many Valari. Rhysu presented her as Piliri, and said she was his wife. Three more of his household soon joined us on the lawn: a young boy named Nilu and his older sister, Bria. Oldest of all, however, perhaps even older than Kane, was Piliri’s grandmother, Yakira Araiu. Despite her years, despite an ailing hip and knee, which she painfully favored, she too was a tall woman; she stood proudly on the doorstep above her family as Rhysu presented us. That Rhysu so obviously deferred to her surprised me a little. And it surprised me even more to learn that she, not he, was the head of the Araiu family.

  ‘Strange, isn’t it,’ Maram muttered, ‘that he should take the name of his wife’s grandmother? But then everything about this island is a little strange.’

  Liljana bowed to Yakira, and stood talking with her for quite a while. And then she told us that the Maiians passed their family names from mother to daughter – and from mother to son.