On our next day's journey, the road rose steeply toward the pass between Ishka and Mesh. The horses drawing the wagons had hard work to keep driving themselves against the ancient paving stones; the horses that bore us snorted and sweated, and were grateful when we stopped to give them rest and exchange them for our remounts. Finally we came to that great cut of rock called the Telemesh Gate. One of my ancestors, using a great firestone, had melted it out of the granite in the saddle between Mount Raaskel and Mount Korukel. On my last journey imto Ishka, Maram, Master Juwain and I had been attacked here. Out the dark mouth of the Gate, a great, white bear had charged down upon us and had nearly torn us to pieces. It remained still unclear as to whether this bear was an animal ghul made by Morjin to murder us. Altaru, remembering his battle with the bear, let loose a tremendous whinny as we drew nearer the Gate. I had to pat his sweating black neck and reassure him that any bear mad enough to charge our company would be impaled on the Guardians' long lances.
I was less sure of what we would find on the other side of the Gate, for King Hadaru's knights had lances of their own, and many more than did we. And so I commanded my men to keep tight their columns, and keep even tighter their lips, and I led them straight into the den of an even greater bear.
Chapter 8
And so we crossed into Ishka. We wound our way down from the pass through fir forests smelling of flowers and fresh spring sap. A few miles farther, on a hill beside the road, we came upon the great fortress that guarded this approach into Ishka. Lord Shadru was its commander. When his lookouts in their towers espied our company advancing into his king's realm, he alerted his trumpeters to sound the alarm and rode out to meet us in force.
This proved to be two hundred Ishkan knights, part of the garrison stationed at this important fortress. Lord Shadru, a stout old man whose face had once been burnt with red-hot sand in the siege of a castle in Anjo, led his knights straight up to us. He called his men to halt, even as I did mine. Then he raised his hand in salute, even as I did mine.
'Lord Valashu!' he called to me. His words came out stiffly, as his lips were thick with scar. 'It is good to see you again, though I must ask why you have entered our land uninvited and without permission?'
His hand swept out toward the knights behind me. From the grim look on Lord Shadru's seamed and pitted face, one might have thought that I led an invasion force into Ishka.
'These are the Guardians of the Lightstone,' I told him. 'And we wish nothing more than to cross Ishka in peace.'
Lord Shadru's eyes widened as if he didn't believe me. He called out gruffly, 'You speak of peace, and yet you ride forth in battle armor! You speak of the Lightstone, and yet Lord Issur has told me that it is your father's intention to keep it in Silvassu for as long as it pleases him. Where is this Cup of Heaven, then, that you claim to guard?'
I motioned for Baltasar to join us, and my fiery young friend rode up from between the columns of knights behind me. I asked him to show Lord Shadru the Lightstone. then he brought forth the golden cup and held it high for all to see, Lord Shadru's eyes widened even more.
'Well, well it seems I was too hasty in my judgments, Lord Valashu.' I motioned for Baltasar to place the Lightstone in Lord Shadru's hands, and this he did. For a moment, it seemed that Lord Shadru was holding the sun itself. 'Well, well, well King Hadaru will be very pleased, indeed.'
I told Lord Shadru that we were on our way to the great tournament, and hoped to see King Hadaru there.
'I've had word that the king will lead a company of knights to Nar, so you certainly will see him there,' Lord Shadru said as he handed the Lightstone back to Baltasar. 'But first, you will see him in Loviisa.'
'Then he hasn't set out yet?'
'No, I had word that he would leave in a few more days.'
I exchanged quick looks with Baltasar, and then nodded at Asaru who came up beside him. We had been hoping to ride straight to Nar, but now it seemed that there was no graceful way to avoid a meeting with King Hadaru.
Lord Shadru confirmed this when he said, 'Very well, you will require an escort to the King's palace.'
He motioned at the knight beside him, a long, lean man with six battle ribbons tied to his long, gray hair. He presented him as Lord Jehu and said, 'He will ride with you to Loviisa.'
Lord Shadru gave the command of the Ishkan knights over to Lord Jehu. He wished us a pleasant journey. And then he looked at Baltasar and said, 'May I see the Lightstone one last time?'
Again Baltasar drew out the Cup of Heaven, and Lord Shadru sighed out, 'Remarkable, remarkable — who would have thought I would live to see such a thing?'
We said farewell to Lord Shadru and watched him ride back up to the huge stack of stones that was the Ishkan's fortress. Then Lord Jehu formed up his knights: a hundred ahead of us as in a vanguard and a hundred following behind. In this way, like a small army, we continued down the road through the most rugged part of the mountains. We of Mesh did not mingle with the Ishkans, for we had fought too many wars with them to make friends so easily. But neither did we quarrel with them. When we made camp that night in a fallow field that a generous farmer lent us, only a little brook separated our rows of tents from those of the Ishkans. There was to be no going back and forth over this little water. But the songs we sang around our campfires were the same that the Ishkans sang around theirs; as the night deepened, we made a single music that winged its way up toward the stars. We set out very early the next morning with the intention of reaching Loviisa by dusk. After some hours of working our way down through a series of gradually descending mountains and foothills, we broke out into the broad valley of the Tushur River. Here the forests and farms spread out in a patchwork of different shades of green for as far as the eye could see. The Tushur itself was a hazy blue band in the distance Loviisa had been built around the point where the North Road bridged the river. We spent the rest of the day riding toward it at an easy pace. The gently roiling country was kind to our mounts and to the horses drawing the wagons; the hours melted away into the abundant sunshine of a long and warm afternoon. We stopped only twice, to water the horses. At our second break, I watched Estrella picking wild flowers in a field buzzing with bees, and Lord Jehu, standing with his horse on the road above, watched us both.
It was just past dusk when we crested a palisade on the south side of the river and rode up to King Hadaru's palace. The fountains and gardens fronting it seemed to invite us closer. In all the Morning Mountains, there was nothing like King Hadaru's Wooden Palace. Its pagodas were exquisitely carved and arrayed on many levels, to delight the eye with its perfect proportions as much as to provide protection from wind and rain and the assault of enemy men.
Lord Jehu insisted that the hundred Guardians were far too many armed knights to be allowed into the palace. I insisted that if the Lightstone was to be brought before King Hadaru, the Guardians must accompany that which they guarded at all times, for this they had sworn upon their lives. King Hadaru broke this deadlock by sending a herald to invite all of us into his throne room. The King of Ishka, it seemed, would not deign to show fear of a hundred Meshian knights. And so, leaving our horses and baggage train to the care of the Ishkans, I led my brothers and the Guardians into the palace. The main hall was a splendid affair of great cherrywood and ebony columns carved like the pieces of my chess set. Its panels of shatterwood were as black and beautiful as jade. All this darkness contrasted with the room's floor, an almost unbroken expanse of white oak waxed and polished to a high gloss. The massive throne, at the center of the hall, had also been carved out of this wood which was as common as it was strong. King Hadaru sat upon it waiting to us to take our places before him. He seemed to disdain surrounding hjmself with a private guard. Instead, some of the greatest lords of Ishka stood by the sides
of his throne.
I nodded my head toward Prince Issur and Lord Nadhru, a dark and difficult man who had once threatened to bind me with ropes and drag me out of Ishka. Lord Mestivan at
tended King Hadaru as well and next to him stood Lord Solhtar who pulled at his thick black beard as he eyed us with a fierce pride of protectiveness of his king and his land. Devora, the King's sister, was not in attendance this evening, but his beautiful young wife, Irisha, stood near the very foot of the throne. Her hair was raven-black like Behira's and her skin was as fair as hers, too. But she had a fineness of face and form that the plump Behira lacked. Maram stared at her with a barely-concealed lust heating up his red face. And Behira, holding tightly onto Lord Harsha's arm, stared at Maram.
'Welcome to my house,' King Hadaru said as his black eyes caught Maram up in their cold light. He was a big, burly man — bigger even than Maram — and his large head and face reminded one of a bear. Many battle ribbons were tied to his thick, white hair. 'Prince Maram Marshayk, Lord Valashu, Lord Asaru, Lord Raasharu, and everyone — welcome all.'
I stood directly in front of the throne with my arm covering Estrella. Asaru, Yarashan and Lansar Raasharu took their places to my left with Maram, Master Juwain, Lord Harsha and Behira on my right. Baltasar and the Guardians were arrayed behind us. I made the presentations while King Hadaru nodded his head and smiled cordially. He regarded us as might a bear eyeing a herd of deer who had presented themselves as a meal.
Then he raised his hand, and Lord Jehu and his two hundred knights marched into the room and stationed themselves between the Guardians and the main doors. At the same time, the hall's side doors opened to let in another hundred knights. They crossed the room at speed to take their places near the throne. If King Hadaru didn't usually keep a private guard, he certainly had one now.
'Val!' Maram whispered to me as he nudged my side, 'we've walked into a trap!'
To my left, Asaru's hand came to rest on the hilt of his sword, and so it was with my brothers. I didn't turn to see if the Guardians behind me were also prepared to fight for their charge, any more than I would doubt the rising of the sun. King Hadaru gripped the hilt of his own sword, the famed kalama with which he had once beheaded Mukaval the Red of the Adirii tribe. And then he smiled his cold smile and demanded that I deliver into his outstretched hand the golden cup called the Lightstone.
As calmly as I could, I asked Sivar of Godhra to step forward. He was a diligent man who held his rather, short body rigidly erect at all times. His face, steely and serious, was now lit up with pride because it was his tunrn to bear the Lightstone. He brought it forth and gave it to King Hadaru, even as I asked him. Then he stepped back and waited to see what King Hadaru would say — and what he would do. 'Very good, very good,' King Hadaru murmured. His fingers closed around the golden cup as his eyes drank in its light. He fairly trembled with lust, envy and greed at last fulfilled. 'Very good, indeed'
'We have walked into a trap,' I whispered back at Maram. 'Let us hope that King Hadaru cannot escape it.'
King Hadaru, who missed little of what occurred in his palace, or in his realm, shot me a swift, hard look. His thin lips broke into another smile. 'Valashu Elahad, you must be honored for keeping your promise, after all.'
'My father said that the Lightstone would be brought into Ishka,'
'Yes,' King Hadaru said, nodding at Prince Issur, 'we had word of this. But no one thought it would be so soon.'
'Soon means soon,' I said, echoing my father's words. 'I confess you've caught us unawares. We've no stand on which to set the Lightstone, as your father keeps in his hall.'
Now my hand, which had never left the hilt of my sword, gripped its black jade and the seven set diamonds tightly. It had come time to dash King Hadaru's hopes, and I did not know what he would do. 'That's just as well,' I said, 'for no stand will be needed.'
The frostiness of King Hadaru's stare nearly froze my heart. 'What do you mean, Lord Valashu?'
'The Lightstone,' I told him, 'is on its way to Nar, even as are we.' I turned to nod at the Guardians behind me, and I saw that Lord Jehu and his two hundred knights lined up behind them were ready to draw their swords at their king's command.
'What?' King Hadaru snarled out. 'What treachery is this?'
'No treachery at all, King Hadaru, but only need.' I explained that the events in my father's hall had impelled the decision to take the Lightstone on the road. 'As Prince Issur has reminded my father, the Lightstone is to be shared among all the Valari.'
'Yes, but first it was to be shared among the Ishkans!' King Hadaru thundered. 'This was the promise made on the field of the Raaswash!'
'And it was shared there,' I said, 'on the day that my companions and I returned from Argattha. Every warrior and knight in you’re army held it in his hands.'
To the side of the throne. Prince Issur's plain face lit up with wonder as if he well-remembered the feel of the Lightstone's gold gelstei. So it was with Lord Nadhru and Lord Solhtar and the many other Ishkans in King Hadaru's hall.
'And still it is being shared,' I continued. I pointed at the golden bowl that King Hadaru now gripped in both hands. 'Its light now graces your hall.'
'For a night? For two? You promised that the Lightstone was to reside in Loviisa as it did in Silvassu.'
'No, that promise was never made.'
'It was made in spirit.'
'No, not even in spirit, King Hadaru. If you search your heart, you will know this is true.'
King Hadaru glared at me with his cold, dark eyes. I knew him to be an honest man, with others if not himself.
'Am I to be made to accept then,' he said to me, 'that you intend to take the Lightstone from my hall tomorrow? You promise me a birthday cake and leave me with only crumbs. I had hoped, I had hoped. .'
It was the great sorrow of his life, I thought that so many of his hopes and dreams had turned to despair.
'The Lightstone,' I reminded him, 'was made to be possessed by no man.'
'No, possessed by none,' he muttered. His eyes stabbed into me like cold swords. 'But claimed by one.'
'No one has claimed the Lightstone yet.'
'No, not yet,' he said as he gripped the cup even more tightly.
'I'm only the Lightstone's Guardian,' I said. 'And as its Guardian, I'm charged with deciding — '
'Who decides matters in this hall?' King Hadaru broke in. 'Who is king in my kingdom? Who must protect all its treasures?'
'The Lightstone belongs to no kingdom on earth. Its first Guardian brought it from the stars only to — '
'The Elahad,' he interrupted me again, 'was the ancestor of the Ishkans, too. But even he did not claim to be the Maitreya.'
The bitterness in King Hadaru's voice was a poison in my veins. He stared at me with a strange mixture of loathing and longing. All kings wish for their sons great virtues and great deeds that prove them worthy of inheriting their realms. But on the Raaswash and six nights ago in my father's hall, I had proved his firstborn, Salmelu, to be nothing more than a murderer and a traitor. And more, it had been I who had brought the Lightstone out of Argattha and not Salmelu or Prince Issur. And so I brought great shame to King Hadaru and all his line; my very existence and presence in his hall was an insult that tore his heart with an anguish almost too great for him to bear.
'Do you remember standing in that ring?' King Hadaru asked me. He pointed past my shoulder at the floor, where a great circle of red rosewood had been set into the white oak. The Guardians formed their lines behind it. I remembered too well standing in this ring of honor where the Ishkans fought their duels. There Salmelu's sword had pierced my side; there I had wounded him nearly to the death 'You spared the life of him whose name we no longer speak in this house,' King Hadaru said to me. 'You should have slain him. Is this the compassion of a Maitreya?'
I stood with my hand on my sword as I remembered the faces of the dead scryers and the slave girls; I found myself wishing that I had slain Salmelu. 'Of course, it's also said,' King Hadaru continued, 'that the Maitreya will be a great warlord. Have you ever led men into battle, Lord Valashu?'
I looked at the rigid faces of Lord Issur and Lord Nadhru and t
hose of the hundred Ishkans pmitioned near the throne. Behind me, lined up by the main doors, stood Lord Jehu and his knights, and their hearts beat with bloodlust and wrath. The Guardians I had led into Ishka trembled to test their swords against these men and take back the Lightstone from King Hadaru's clutching haft. It was possible, I knew, that a battle would break out in this room in another moment. King Hadaru desired this. Some shame burns so deeplf that it seems only blood can wash it clean.
'It's my hope,' I said to him, 'that we will fight no more battles.' He laughed his brittle, humorless laugh and said, 'You would end war, so I've been told.'
'Yes — we Valari were meant to be warriors of the spirit only.'
'Is that so? Then whom are we to war against? And how are we to war against them?'
With the valarda, I thought. With all the force of our souls.
'An alliance,' I said to him, 'must be made to oppose the Red Dragon. This is why we're journeying to the tournament.'
I felt the coldness of King Hadaru's eyes touching mine. And he must have felt a little of the fire of the dream that blazed inside me 'An alliance?' he asked. 'Waashians stand with Taroners? Ishkans stand with warriors of Mesh?'
'Even as we stand together in this room, King Hadaru. Even as we stood at the Sarburn three thousand years ago.'
King Hadaru gazed at the little bowl. A soft radiance flowed out of it and spilled over him in a golden sheen. There was a burn in his eyes, and in my own. It came to me then that shame was only a bitter reminder of our instinct to be restored to our inborn nobilty. King Hadaru, I knew, might long for death in battle and the slaying of all his foes. But there was something he desired even more.
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