Diamond Warriors

by David Zindell

  'If you know this, then why not join with us?'

  'You mean, join with you. Your purpose has not changed, has it, King Valamesh? You would still be warlord of the Valari.'

  'I would have us make an alliance, yes. Can you not see that is our only hope?'

  'I can see well enough,' he told me. He looked past me toward the knights and my friends in my army's vanguard; I turned to watch him meet eyes with Bemossed. 'Once, you put yourself forth as the Maitreya. And now, another.'

  'I did not know who the Maitreya was,' I said. 'I did not know what he is. I did not know... myself.'

  King Mohan looked back at me. I felt his scorn battle with deeper emotions within him. 'Again, you hint at your fate. What title, if you vanquished the Red Dragon, would you take for yourself? King Valamesh, Lord of the Valari and Emperor of Ea?'

  'I would take nothing except the lightstone so that I might guard it with my life, all the days of my life, for the Maitreya!' Once more, King Mohan's eyes flicked toward Bemossed and then back at me. His voice softened as he said, 'I think you speak the truth. Still, it is one thing to purpose to vanquish Morjin and another thing to do it.'

  'We can vanquish him!' I called out. 'If the Valari unite, and go out on the Wendrush to meet Morjin as he marches -'

  'If we did unite,' he snapped out, cutting me off, 'we should remain behind our mountains and force Morjin to battle on bad ground for his armies. We can kill half his men coming through the passes!'

  'No,' I told him, 'we must answer Sajagax's call, and meet at the Detheshaloon.'

  'Unite with the Sarni savages? Why?'

  'Because that is where we must face Morjin. That is where the battle must be.'

  That is where it will be, I thought. That is where our children's children will say it has always been.

  King Mohan, who was more perceptive than people suspected, looked at me strangely. 'Again, as always, you follow your fate, don't you? Instead of the basic principles of warfare that your father must have taught you?'

  'I remember everything that my father taught me,' I told him. 'And this above all: that in the end, a king must follow his own heart.'

  King Mohan tried to hold my gaze, and I felt his black eyes burning. He turned his head to look at his warriors lined up in silence at the side of the road. They looked back at him with a great weight of devotion and expectation. I knew that they must have heard of the slaughter of the Galdan and Karabuk armies at the Seredun Sands.

  'It must be said,' King Mohan finally told me, 'that your father taught you well. And that no one will ever doubt the heart of King Valamesh.'

  I bowed my head to him, and said, 'Join us, then! No one ever doubted King Mohan's heart or those of his men - or their swords!'

  King Mohan pointed at King Viromar, wearing the white tiger of the Solaru line and sitting on his horse ten yards behind me. He said, 'Kaash, as always, joins with Mesh.'

  King Mohan, of course, had no love of his neighbor to the south. It had been only eight years since King Talanu had fought King Mohan and the Atharians to a draw at the Battle of Sky Lake. And long ago, in the year 841 of the Age of Swords, Athar had met its greatest defeat when King Sarjalad led an alliance of Kaash, Mesh and Waas to crush the invading Atharians under King Saruth at the Battle of Blue Mountain.

  'And now Delians,' King Mohan said, pointing at Prince Thubar, 'march with Valari.'

  I did not remind him that Athar, in its bid for glory and empire during the reign of King Saruth, had conscripted Delian levies into its- army. Who knew better than an Atharian Athar's long and bloody history?

  'Why must things always be so complicated?' King Mohan spat out.

  And I answered him, 'What is so complicated about free men joining freely to defeat a great evil?'

  'But who is really free?'

  'You are,' I told him. I pointed west, back along the road behind him. 'You have only to give the command, and your warriors will gladly follow you to where they must go.'

  'But my warriors,' he said, pointing toward the north, 'must go that way.'

  I turned to look along the line of his finger. To the right of the Nar Road, half a mile behind him, stood a small town and a much smaller road that ran across the rounded green pastures toward King Kurshan's realm of Lagash.

  'It is fate,' he said, smiling bitterly at me. 'My fate, and Athar's.'

  Athar's dispute with Lagash also went back to the Age of Swords - and perhaps farther. It had continued on and on through the centuries in one bloody war after another. Only thirty years before, both Athar and Lagash had accused each other of violating the rules of Sharshan: the formal battles that we Valari waged against each other as a lesser evil than total war. More recently, after I had failed to unite the Valari in Tria two years ago. King Mohan and King Kurshan had drawn swords on each other on their journey home.

  'You come too late,' King Mohan told me. 'King Kurshan and I have already agreed to meet in battle ten days hence on the field of Arantu outside of Osh.'

  'You must make a new agreement, then! I have sent envoys to King Kurshan. Surely once he has learned of what Morjin intends, he will join with us to oppose him.'

  King Mohan shook his head at this. 'Your envoys will not reach him. It is said that he has gone to meditate in the mountains, and will speak with no one until the day of the battle.'

  'Not even myself? If I were to ride up into Lagash?'

  'Can you afford to waste so much time?'

  I thought about this as I felt the world beneath me whirling around the sun. 'All right - then you must send envoys to King Kurshan informing him that you have marched with us. They will reason with King Kurshan when he comes down from the mountains.'

  Now King Mohan slammed his sword back into his scabbard and called out, 'But King Kurshan will not reason! He will declare that Athar has once again broken Sharshan - then he will use that as an excuse to ravage and burn Athar!'

  'He will not!' I called back to him. 'He is a man of honor. And he is Valari. When he learns that you have led your warriors out to meet Morjin, and why, he will follow with Lagash's army.'

  'So you dream, King Valamesh. But how can I take such a risk? For my kingdom? For my people?'

  'How can you risk letting Morjin crucify your people?'

  King Mohan's black eyes filled a wild ferocity, like that of a leopard trapped by hunters on all sides. Then he snapped out: 'Morjin has never made a threat against Athar - and King Kurshan has never stopped making threats!'

  'Morjin's very existence is a threat - you face none worse. Come! Help me to end it!'

  I nudged my horse closer to his and extended my hand to him. But he shook his head and kept his hand clamped around the hilt of his sword.

  'How can you ask me to do this?' he called to me.

  Because, I thought, feeling the fire of his eyes, I know what is in your heart. And you know what is in mine.

  At that moment, with my hand still held open in midair, with Bemossed looking on with all the ardor of the sun, I felt something deep and irresistible rend King Mohan apart. It was, I knew, the valarda. I had always sensed that this mysterious power lay waiting to be awakened in everyone.

  'Come with me!' I called to him again. 'Let us throw down Morjin!'

  All my warriors lined up behind me down the road seemed to echo my plea to King Mohan; so did his warriors, waiting to either side of us, in the silence of their eyes and the drumming of thousands of hearts. How could King Mohan turn away from this terrible but beautiful force?

  'What is it you want?' I said to him.

  'You know what I want!' he shouted back. 'You and yours go forth to fight the battle of the ages! And what a fight you will make! The minstrels will sing of you, for ages! You will lose, but so what? Your warriors will die, but that is war. In dying for each other, though, they will feel their spirits blaze like the stars, and they will know they are alive. And that, King Valamesh, is what I truly want.'

  He removed his hand from his sword, an
d regarded it with his fierce, dark eyes. 'But it is what I may not have. Kings, if they love their lands, do not do as they want to do, but only as they must.' And what King Mohan thought he must do, as he had said, was to protect his land by marching off to the wrong battle. And his warriors must follow his will, even as he submitted himself to his own sense of honor and duty.

  Two roads, north and west, lay before him, and as with King Sandarkan, I wanted to push out with the force called Alkaladur and nudge him onto the one leading to the meeting with Morjin. But I could not bring myself to commit this violence. I could only look at him and tell him what my father had once told me: 'King Mohan - your heart is free!'

  'Yes,' he said with a seething bitterness, 'free to follow this will of the world that you have spoken of, but never my own.'

  'No - always your own,' I said to him. 'Don't you see? In the end, they are one and the same.'

  I waited for him to apprehend this, to feel it like a fire deep in his heart. Instead, he inclined his head to me and forced out: 'I am sorry, but I have given my word. I must go where I must. I wish you well on your journey, King Valamesh.'

  I did not want to believe that King Mohan had refused to join with me; why, I wondered, had I failed yet again? There seemed nothing to do now except to continue on, as King Mohan had said. I could only hope that he would change his mind and follow after me.

  And so I returned to my vanguard, and then led my army up the road between the assembled lines of King Mohan's warriors. As we marched past, the Atharians began striking their spears against their shields and crying out acclamations to honor us. I did not want to think that even King Mohan would punish them for breaking discipline that day.

  Later, after we had passed through Gazu, with its many build-ings of ironwood and white granite, Master Juwain rode up beside me. He must have doubted the success of what I intended to accom-plish, as many in the columns behind us now must have as well. Even more, he must have questioned Abrasax's decision that the Seven should help me to wage war. But he refused to dwell in the dark. And so he pointed up the Nar Road and said,'There are other Valari kings.'

  I clenched my teeth as I squinted against the late sun. Then I said, 'I came so close.'

  'King Mohan,' he said, 'is a hard man, and even more a willful one. But it may be as you said, that in the end he will see where his will should lead him. Give it time, Valashu.'

  'But that is just it, sir,' I said to him. 'I have no more time.' That, however, was not quite true, for some three hundred miles and many days of hard marching still lay between my army and the plain of the Detheshaloon. We crossed over into Taron early the next afternoon. At a bone-jolting pace, we passed through a rich countryside of apple orchards and farms growning barley and rye. We bought supplies fom the Taroners who were generous with their prices. Then, nearly a week after my meeting with King Mohan, we made our way up into the Iron Hills outside of Nar. This ancient city, largest in the Nine Kingdoms, spread out on the other side of these red hills to the north and west. Its many smithies cast a bitter black smoke into the air. The stinging of my eyes and the reek of hot iron made me instantly recall the three other times that I had journeyed to Nar, where King Waray for many years had plotted to make himself the greatest king and Taron the greatest kingdom in the Morning Mountains.

  King Waray arranged for my army to encamp near Nar's northern outskirts, on the Tournament Grounds laid out on a greenway of many acres. Then he invited me and my friends, though not my captains, to a meeting at his palace, which was built on the side of a hill overlooking the city's southern districts. He invited as well King Viromar. Although Taron had never been particularly friendly with Kaash, King Waray must have wished to charm Kaash's new king, as he had so many others. He would be glad to have Kaash's help against Waas. for he had long had ambitions against King Sandarkan's domain.

  King Waray received us on a lawn giving out onto a stream flowing down through a wild green past the palace. Some of us sat on rocks above the stream; others stood to appreciate the view of the city below. Three of King Waray's advisors joined us: Lord Jurathar, Lord Marjun. and the very tall and very muscular Lord Stavaru. King Waray also invited his only child: a daughter named Chantaleva. Many called her beautiful, with her jet black hair and finely sculpted features. I thought her too thin and too pale, as her delicate skin seemed almost bone white. She took a quiet pleasure in pouring the coffee that King Waray's attendants brought our to us, but she had few words to offer anyone.

  King Waray stood with his back against a large rock with the rest of us arrayed around him. After I had told him of what had transpired since I had become king and marched with my army out of Mesh, he rapped his king's ring with its five diamonds against his coffee cup and said, 'King Valamesh - no man could be more worthy of succeeding your father, whom I felt fortunate to call my friend. If he is looking down from the stars, he would rejoice at your great victory in Delu, as everyone who knows of it must.' King Waray, a strikingly handsome man with a broad forehead and radiant eyes, spoke as always with the steel knife of his true thoughts and intentions concealed by a handkerchief of silk. His voice spilled out through his long, high nose as through a trumpet, even as it seemed to rumble and catch deep within his throat. It could be as sweet as sugared wine - and as deadly as poison.

  'But it is a pity that you failed to persuade King Mohan to ally with you,' he continued. 'War, among our people, has always been the tragedy of our people. Athar's quarrel with Lagash couldn't help but lead to war, once you failed in Tria to bring the Valari into alliance.'

  King Waray, of course, knew that I hadn't come up to his palace that day just to drink a good Galdan coffee and to appreciate the view of smoky Nar from these wooded heights. He had always resisted my leadership of the Valari - as he did now.

  'That war could be helped,' I told him. I stood across from him with my boot pressed up against an exposed tree root. I looked very hard for his innate nobility within his gleaming eyes. 'King Mohan wanted to make alliance. And might have, but for his fear of King Kurshan.'

  And how often, I wondered, had King Waray spoken to King Mohan of King Kurshan's design to build a great fleet of ships and so strengthen his realm in order to threaten King Mohan's? And all under the guise of friendship and averting war?

  'That fear,' he said to me, 'is reasonable enough. For how long has King Kurshan been readying his army for an attack against Athar?'

  'Only as long as he has feared that King Mohan would attack him.'

  'That concern, too,' King Waray said, 'is not without foundation. I have reasoned with King Mohan many times, trying to find a way to make a permanent peace between Athar and Lagash.'

  I tried not to smile at this. I said, 'You are a reasonable man.'

  'I like to think I am. And that others speak of me that way, too.'

  'Then can you not reason with both King Mohan and King

  Kurshan one last time? I must march west with my army tomorrow, but if you sent fast riders east to Athar and Lagash, there is still time for you to help persuade their kings to put aside war and join us at the Detheshaloon.'

  'To avoid their war, you mean,' he said, tapping his cup. 'Only to join you in making a much worse war against the Red Dragon.'

  'What comes is not of my making.'

  'Is it not? If you hadn't put yourself forward as the Maitreya, if you hadn't lost the Lightstone to Morjin, we might have made alliance two years ago and kept the Dragon from marching on the Nine Kingdoms.'

  I tried to quiet the wild, hot rush of blood through my veins. I asked him: 'Do you mean, you might have organized the alliance and led if?'

  King Waray took a sip of coffee, then waved his hand at my question as if shooing away a biting fly. 'Many have spoken of me as warlord of our people, but I think that it is perhaps less important who leads us than that we are led. I would see even King Hadaru take command of our armies, if that was the only way to stop the Red Dragon.'

  My heart beat hard with
a sudden surge. 'Then you will support an alliance?'

  King Waray flashed me a brilliant smile, and said, 'I always have. It was always just a question of how to bring it about.'

  'The way to bring it about is simple: send word to Athar and Lagash that Taron will not tolerate a war just beyond her border. Inform King Hadaru that you have joined with Mesh and Kaash. When Athar marches after us. so will Lagash. Then King Hadaru will have no choice but to lead the Ishkans out against Morjin. As Ishka goes, so Anjo will have to follow. Perhaps even King Sandarkan will be persuaded to make alliance as well.'

  After I finished speaking. King Waray stood gazing at me. His counselors waited near him. ready to support him in whatever line of reasoning or debate he might pursue. I hated it that so

  much should depend upon this one conniving king who had always positioned himself at the center of Valari affairs. And then King Waray said to me. 'You have given this matter a great deal of thought.'

  'I have thought of little except Morjin's defeat for a long time.'

  King Waray, like duelist evading his opponents swoid and then circling turned his attention to Abrasax. Master Matai and the others of the Seven. He said to Abrasax: 'We of the Nine Kingdoms had long heard that secret Masters ruled the Brotherhood, but until today I had thought this a legend. I have to say that it is strange to see Brothers supporting an Elahad as the Valari's warlord. What of the Brotherhood's rule forsaking wine, women and war?'

  Abrasax's corona of white hair and beard gleamed in the sunlight as he said to King Waray, 'The spirit of our rule has led us to see that forsaking war is a good thing but ending it forever would be even better.'

  'I see,' King Waray said, glancing at me. 'The Elahad's dream.'

  He smiled at he turned toward Maram, who sat on a fat rock imbibing his coffee with too much relish. I wondered if he had somehow persuaded one of the attendants to add a little brandy

  to it.

  Then King Waray asked, 'But is not fighting a war to end war something like hoping for sobriety by drinking dry every cask of wine in the world?'