The Lightstone

Chapter 9

We were awakened from our sleep by the sound of trampling horses. With the sun dipping low toward the high mountains to the west, I guessed that we had slept all through the day and into the late afternoon. A mile behind us, the bog waited like a sea of dark green. In the clear daylight, it didn't seem nearly so threatening. Ahead us, however, up through the valley toward the castle on the hill, a small company of knights rode straight toward us across the rock-studded heather. There were five of them, and they seemed more worrisome. As I stood to greet them, I grasped the hilt of my sword because I didn't know their intentions.

'Who are these men?' Maram whispered to me as he stepped over to my side.

'Where in the world are we?'

The knights drew closer; I saw green falcons emblazoned on their shields and surcoats. I searched my memory for the lore that my father's heraldry master had taught me. Hadn't the Rezu clan, I wondered, taken the green falcon as its emblem?

'We must be in Rajak,' Master Juwain confirmed. Rajak, I recalled, was the westernmost duchy of Anjo. 'These must be Duke Rezu's men.'

The five knights rode straight up to us. As they drew nearer, I saw that only their leader wore the two diamonds of a full knight in his ring. He wore a suit of mail, even as I did, and his hand rested on the hilt of his sword. He had a sharp face and sharp eyes that flicked back and forth from our tired horses to our mud-spattered garments. He gazed for a long moment at my bandaged arm and even longer at the emblem that I wore.

'Who are you?' he called out in a rough but steady voice. 'From where have you come?'

'My name,' 1 said hoarsely, 'is Valashu Elahad.' Then I turned to present Master Juwain and Maram. 'We've come from Mesh.'

The knight presented himself as named Sar Naviru. Then he looked at me more closely and said, 'From Mesh, indeed – that I can see. But how did you come from there to here?' I pointed at the bog behind us and said, 'We came through Ishka' 'Through the bog? No, that's not possible – no one has ever come out of the Black Bog.'

Now his fist tightened around his sword, and he looked at us as if we had better give him a true accounting of our journeys.

'Nevertheless, we did,' I told him. 'We crossed it last night and -'

A sudden shiver of pain tore through my side, and I had to hold on to Maram for a moment to keep from falling. I stood there gasping for air. Then Master Juwain came over to me and held his hand against my burning forehead. He looked at Naviru and said, 'My friend has been wounded. Is there any way you can help us?'

Naviru pointed at me and said, 'If you are truly of Mesh and not demons, as has been said, you will be helped.'

Master Juwain pressed his hand to my side and then held it up for everyone to see.

My bandage must have soaked through because his palm and fingers were covered with my blood.

'Does a demon,' Master Juwain asked, 'bleed?'

'I don't know,' Naviru said with a half-smile. 'I've never seen one. Now please come with us'

It took most of Maram's considerable strength to boost me up onto Altaru's back and all of mine to keep me there during our short ride up to the castle. Master Juwain wanted to send Naviru's men for a litter, but I didn't want to greet Duke Rezu lying down. We rode across a long, open slope blazing a deep green with new spring grass. It looked like good country for grazing: off in the distance towards the bluish mountains to the east, a flock of sheep covered the side of a hill. Sar Naviru informed us that these low mountains to our right were those of the Aakash Range.

On the other side of them, he said, was the duchy of Adar, from where we were fortunate not to have come.

The Rezu clan had built the Duke's castle against the backdrop of the much greater mountains of the Shoshan Range to the west. It was a small castle with only four towers and a single keep that also held the Duke's living quarters and hall. The walls, though not particularly high, were of a blue granite, and seemed in good repair. We rode into ther castle across a moat on which floated many ducks and geese. I noted that the great chains that worked the drawbridge were free of rust and freshly greased. In the single courtyard, where some sheep milled about baahing nervously, three more knights wearing the green falcons of the Rezu clan stood waiting to greet us. The shortest of them – he was a sharp – faced man with sharp, quick eyes that reminded me of Sar Naviru's – wore a fresh black tunic and a kalama whose sheath was scarred with gouges. He greeted us warily and then presented himself as Duke Rezu of Rajak.

After Naviru had presented us and related our story, or as much as we had told him, the Duke looked straight at me for an uncomfortably long time. Then he said, 'Sar Valashu Elahad – I met your father at the tournament in Nar. You have his eyes, you know. And I hope you have his honesty as well: I can't believe that the son of Shavashar Elahad would tell my son anything other than the truth. Even so, it's hard to believe that you crossed the bog. It seems that you have stories for us. However, we won't ask you to tell them just now. You are wounded and need rest. That you shall have. And fire, salt and bread as well.'

And with that, he bowed to me, and took my hand in his to offer his hospitality. He summoned a groom to water, feed and comb down our horses. Then he instructed Naviru, who proved to be his third and youngest son, to take us to the guest quarters in the rooms above the great hall. This Naviru did without complaint. He seemed used to following his father's commands, and I sensed that they had fought in more than one battle together.

Naviru led us into the keep through an arched entrance surmounted with two carved falcons. Heavy wooden doors closed behind us, cutting off the sounds of the courtyard. The Duke's castle was like all castles: dark, dreary and cold. I shuddered at the prospect of being locked away in one again; I shuddered, too, because my entire body felt weak and cold. I was glad to lean against Maram's considerable bulk for support, but not glad at all to discover that the quarters to which we had been assigned lay on the keep's topmost floor. There were endless stairs to climb; with Maram's help, I somehow made my way up them. The far-off smell of baking bread encouraged me. And our rooms, when Naviru opened the door to them; gave me hope that the world was yet a fine place to live: along the west wall facing the Shoshan were many long windows letting in the late sunshine. There were two fireplaces lit with blazing logs, and our beds were stuffed with fresh straw and built off the floor on freshly waxed wooden platforms. Most wondrous of all was the large wooden tub in the bathing room that might be filled with hot water whenever we wanted a bath.

I spent all that night and most of the next three days in my very comfortable bed.

Maram helped me wash away the muck of the bog, and Master Juwain fashioned a fresh dressing for my wound. He also made me a strong, bitter tea that tasted of turpentine and mold; he said it would fight my fever. After eating a little of the bread and chicken soup that Duke Rezu sent up for dinner, I slept long into the next morning. I awoke to find that my fever had broken, and I ate a much larger meal of bacon, fried eggs and porridge. And so it went for the next two days, the rhythm of my. ife settling in to successive rounds of eating and sleeping.

On the evening of the third day, Naviru returned to inquire if we would like join the Duke for dinner. He told us that the castle had guests whom the Duke wished us to meet. Although I wasn't particularly eager for company, I saw that Maram and Master Juwain had been confined much too long nursing me back to health. And so I quickly agreed to the Duke's summons. I put on my tunic, which Maram had sown and washed while I had been sleeping. And then we all went down to take our meal together.

The Duke's hall was not nearly so large as my father's. With its low, smoke-stained beams and a wooden floor lined with woven carpets, it seemed a rather cozy room for feasting. In it were crammed six smallish tables for Duke Rezu's warriors and knights, and a longer one that served his family and guests. That evening, only this longer table, made of planks of rough-cut hickory, was set with dishes.

The Duke stood waiting for us by his chair at the head of the table, while his wife took her place at the opposite end. Along the north side of the table gathered various members of the Rezu clan: Naviru and a nephew named Arashar; Chaitra, the Duke's recendy widowed (and beautiful) niece, and his mother, Helenya, a small, dour woman whose eyes were as sharp as flints. Next to her stood an old minstrel named Yashku. Master Juwain, Maram and I took our places at the table's south side – I was glad that my sense of direction had returned to me – along with the Duke's two other guests. The first of these he presented as Thaman of Surrapam. I tried not to stare at this barbaric man with his mottled, pinkish skin and icy blue eyes. But how could I help looking at him again and again, especially at the bright red hair and beard that seemed to surround his head like a wreath of flames? Who had ever seen such hair on a human being? Well of course I could help myself – hadn't my father taught me restraint? So instead of offending Thaman with the insolence of my gaze, I turned to regard the Dukes other guest instead.

This was a man with the strange and singular name of Kane. He wore loose, gray-green woolens without insignia or emblem that almost concealed the suit of mail beneath. I wondered from what land he had come. Although not as tall as most Valari, he had the brilliant black eyes and bold face bones of my people. But his accent sounded strange, as if he had been born in some kingdom far from the Morning Mountains, and he wore his snowy white hair cropped close to his head.

I couldn't tell how old he was: the hair suggested an age of sixty while his sun-beaten features were those of a forty-year-old man. He moved, however, like a much younger warrior. In the highlands of Kaash, I had once seen one of the few snow tigers left in the world; Kane reminded me of that great beast in the power and grace of his muscular body, and most of all, in the fire I sensed blazing inside him. His dark eyes were hot, angry, wild and pained as if he were used to looking upon death and I immediately mistrusted him.

'So, Valashu Elahad,' he said, drawing out the syllables of my name after the Duke had introduced us and we had all sat down. I felt his eyes cutting into the scar on my forehead. 'Of the Meshian Elahads -now there's a name that even I have heard.'

'Heard… where?' I asked, trying to ferret out his homeland.

But he only stared at me with his fathomless eyes as he scowled and the muscles above his tense jaws stood out like blocks of wood.

'So, you've journeyed from Mesh,' he continued. 'The Duke tells me you came through the bog.'

'Yes, we did,' I said, looking at Master Juwain and Maram.

Here the Duke's wife – a harsh-looking woman named Durva -fingered her graying hair and said, 'We've always counted on the bog being impassable. It's bad enough having to guard our border with Adar, to say nothing of the Kurmak raids. But if we have to worry about the Ishkans coming at us from the south, then we might as well just go into the bog ourselves and let the demons devour us.'

I shook my head as I smiled at her. Then I said, ' There aren't any demons in the bog.'

'No?' she asked. 'What is there in the bog?'

'Something worse,' I said.

While the Duke called for our goblets to be filled so that we could begin our rounds of toasting, I told of our passage through the bog. I had to explain, of course, why we had chosen to flee into it, and that led to an account of my duel with Salmelu and my reasons for leaving home. When I had finished my story, everyone sat looking at me quietly.

'Remarkable,' Duke Rezu said, staring at me down the ridge of his sharp nose. 'A sun that never rises, and a moon that vanishes like smoke! If I didn't have to worry about Duke Barwan, I'd be tempted to ride into the bog myself to witness these wonders.'

'Wonders?' Durva said. 'If those are wonders, then the Kurmak are angels sent to deliver us from our other enemies.'

The Duke took a sip of beer and then nodded at me. 'Perhaps your fever gave you visions of things that weren't there.'

'Master Juwain and Maram,' I said, 'didn't suffer from fevers, and they saw what I saw, too.'

At this, Maram took much more than a sip of beer, and nodded his head to affirm what I had said.

'Sleeplessness can cause one to view time strangely,' Duke Reza said He looked at his mother and smiled. 'Isn't. that true?'

'It certainly is,' Helenya said crabbily. 'I haven't slept since Duke Barwan made an alliance with the Ishkans. I can tell you that a single night can well seem like a month.'

The Duke went around the table then, polling both family and guests as to what they thought of my story. Naviru, Chaitra and Arashar were inclined to believe me, while his mother and wife were more skeptical. Yashku, the old minstrel, however, seemed to doubt nothing of what I had said, even as Thaman shook his head and impatiently drummed his fingers against the table. As for Kane, his response surprised me. He took a long pull of his beer; then to Thaman, and the rest of us, he said. 'A man who has never seen a boat won't want to believe that mariners, could cross the sea in one.

So, there are many bad places in the world. And there are many things in Ea left from the War of Stones that we don't understand. This Black Bog is only one of them, eh?'

Duke Rezu agreed that this must be so, then complimented me on finding my way out of the bog. I took a sip of beer from my goblet as I shook my head. I admitted that it had been Altaru, and not I, who had led us to dry ground.

Kane's black eyes seemed to drink in my every word, and he said, 'The powers of animals run very deep. Few people anymore understand just how deep.'

It was a strange thing for him to say, and for a moment no one seemed to know how to respond. Naviru spoke of the nobility of his own horse, and Helenya told of a beloved dog that had once saved her from a robber's knife. Then Duke Rezu finally called for our meal to begin. His grooms brought out of the kitchen many platters of food: fried trout and rabbit stew, goose pie and nut bread and a big salad of spring greens. There were mashed potatoes, too, and three roasted legs of lamb. I found myself very hungry. I piled planks of trout and heaps of potatoes on my plate, and I watched as Maram, too, began to eat with a good appetite. After some moments of clanking dishes and beer being sloshed into our quickly emptied goblets, Maram nudged his elbow into my side. He nodded toward Kane, then whispered, 'I thought that you were the only one who could eat more than I.'

Not wanting to be too obvious, I glanced down the line of the table to see Kane working at his meal with a startling intensity. At the Duke's encouragement, he had taken a whole leg of lamb for himself. Using a dagger that he shook out of the sleeve of his tunic, he sliced off long strips of the rare meat with the skill of a butcher. His motions were so graceful and efficient that his hands and jaws – his whole body – seemed to flow almost languidly. He ate quite neatly, almost fastidiously. But as I watched his long white teeth tear into the meat, I realized that he was devouring it with great speed. And with great relish, too: there was blood on his lips and fire in his eyes. In the time it took me to finish my first fillet of fish, he downed many gobbets of meat, all the while giving sound to murmurs of contentment from deep in his throat

Duke Rezu seemed glad to provide Kane such toothsome joys, and he urged upon him other dishes and poured his beer with his own hand. From comments that he made and the silent trust of their eyes, I understood that Kane had done services for him in the past – what kinds of services I almost didn't want to know. As I watched Kane working with his dagger, I suspected that he could cut human flesh as easily as a lamb's.

'So, you wounded Lord Salmelu and left him alive,' he said to me as he looked up from his plate. He swallowed a huge hunk of lamb, almost without chewing then smiled at me without humor. 'You should never leave enemies behind you, eh?'

I smiled, too, with no humor, and said, 'The world is full of enemies – we can't kill them all.'

At this, the bloodthirsty Durva shook her head and said, 'I wish you had killed Salmelu. And I wish your countrymen would kill the Ishkans, as many as possible.

That would keep them from looking north, wouldn't it?'

'Perhaps,' I said. 'But there must be better ways to discourage the wandering of their eyes.'

Duke Rezu sighed at this and then pointed at the hall's empty tables. 'Even as we take this meal behind the safety of these walls, my eldest son, Ramashar, and my knights are riding the border of Adar. And we can only hope that the Kurmak clans won't mount an invasion this summer. Sad to say, we have enemies all around us.

And so long as we do, the Ishkans will never be discouraged.'

'Enemies we have no lack of,' Durva agreed. Then she looked at her husband in silent accusation. 'And yet you chose this time to let our son go off on a hopeless quest.'

Duke Rezu took a gulp of beer as he regarded his outspoken wife. And then, to me and his other guests, he explained, 'Count Dario and the Alonians passed through Anjo before coming to Mesh. Ianar, my secondborn, has answered the call to the quest even as Sar Valashu and his friends have. He left for Tria ten days ago.'

This news encouraged me, and I felt a warmth inside as if I had drunk a glass of brandy. At least I thought, I wouldn't be the only Vaiari knight inTria.

The Duke looked at Thaman, who had hardly spoken ten words all night. Then he asked, 'And how is it in Surrapam? Have King Kiritan's emissaries reached your land, too?'

Thaman, dressed in stained woolens that had seen better days, used a napkin to wipe his hands. Then he ran his fingers through his thick red beard and said, 'Yes, they have. A ship arrived in Taylan late in Viradar. But few of my people have set out for Tria. This is not the time for us to be making such quests.'

'How so?' Duke Rezu asked him.

Thaman lifted back his head and drained the beer from his goblet. He grimaced as if he found the taste of the thick, black brew very bitter. Then he said, 'On the eighth of Viradar, at the Red Dragon's bidding, the armies of Hesperu marched against us.

They've conquered our entire kingdom up to the line of the Maron River.'

At these words, everyone at the table grew still and looked at Thaman. These were the worst tidings to come to the Morning Mountains since the story of Galda's fall.

'So you see,' Thaman continued, 'we can spare few warriors to go off looking for golden cups that no longer exist.'

The Duke nodded his head and asked him, 'How is it then that your king can spare you?'

Thaman's small eyes blinked as if stung by particles of blowing snow. Then he drew his sword and laid it on the table alongside one of the half-eaten roasts. Its blade was shorter and thicker than that of a kalarna, and notched in several places. He said,

'With this I've sent five Hesperuk warriors back to their ancestors. Do you question my courage?'

Thaman's sudden unsheathing of his sword caused Naviru and Arashar to grip the hilts of theirs. But Duke Rezu stayed their hands with a single look. He smiled coldly at Thaman and said, 'In the Morning Mountains, as Sar Valashu has found, we must be careful of unsheathing our swords. But you are new to our land, and must be forgiven for not knowing our ways. As for your courage, no, I do not question it – it is rather the opposite. You've made a journey across most of Ea that few would be willing or able to make. My only question is why your king would allow a brave man to make such a journey at a time when your sword must be badly needed.'

'It is needed,' Thaman admitted. 'I don't know how long we'll be able to hold. The Hesperuks fight like demons – it's believed that the Red Dragon's priests who lead their army have stolen their souls. They have done things I cannot speak of. My wife, my children…'

Thaman's voice suddenly died into the silence of the room. Although he kept his face as cold as stone and stared dry-eyed at the notched edge of his sword, I felt tears burning to break out from my own eyes at the great sorrow he held inside. An image of fish-scaled Hesperuk warriors ravaging the misty lands of far-off Surrapam came into my mind then. But I shook my head back and forth, trying not to let it take hold.

Duke Rezu refilled Thaman's goblet; bitterness or no, he drank the black beer almost in one gulp. Then he said, 'You speak of having enemies all around you. But for the peoples of Ea, there is only one true enemy, and his name is Morjin.'

At the sound of this name, I felt the arrow again bite into my side and the kirax burning in my blood* I turned to see Kane staring at Thaman with an even greater intensity than that with which he had attacked his meat.

'The Red Dragon's armies,' Thaman said, 'will soon control the entire south of Ea except for the Crescent Mountains and parts of the Red Desert.'

Now Kane's eyes, like black coals, began to burn with the heat of a hatred I couldn't comprehend.

'My king,' Thaman said, looking at Duke Rezu and then me, 'King Kaiman, has sent me to your land because it's said that the Valari are the greatest warriors in Ea. He hopes that you'll attack Sakai from the east before the Red Dragon swallows up what is left of Surrapam – and perhaps Eanna and Yarkona as well.'

I felt the sudden pressure of Maram's fat hand squeezing my leg beneath the table.

Then he licked his lips as he winked at me. This was the very plan that he had proposed in Lord Harsha's field just before Raldu had almost murdered me.

Duke Rezu, who knew his history as well as anyone in Mesh, said to Thaman, 'Once we Valari fought our way across the Wendrush to attack the Red Dragon. He burned our warriors with firestones and crucified the survivors.'

At this, Thaman rapped his gold wedding ring against his sword. The thick steel blade rang out like a bell as he said, 'Someday, and sooner than you think, the Red Dragon will do worse than that to all your people.'

Duke Rezu shook his head sadly. 'This is not the time for the Valari to fight the Red Dragon together.'

'What would it take, then, to unite you?' 'I'm afraid,' the Duke said, 'that nothing less than an invasion of the tribes of the northern Sarni would unite Anjo. And to unite all the Valari kingdoms? Who can say? Only Aramesh was ever able to accomplish that, and we'll never see his like again.'

Despite myself, a thrill of pride swelled inside me. Aramesh was the great-grandfather of my grandfathers, and his blood still ran through my veins.

At that moment, I felt something like a dagger cutting into my forehead. I turned to see Kane staring at me, and his eyes were as hard and sharp as obsidian knives.

'It doesn't always take the united armies of the Valari to oppose Morjin,' he growled out. He nodded at Yashku and asked him, 'Do you know the Song of Kalkamesh and Telemesh?'

'Yes, I do,' Yashku said.

'So – sing it for us, then.'

It was unseemly for Kane to command Duke Rezu's minstrel, and so Yashku looked at the Duke to gain his assent. Duke Rezu slowly nodded his head and told him, 'We could use a song to hearten us tonight. But let's fill our goblets before you begin – if I remember correctly, it's a very long song.'

We began passing the big, brown jugs full of beer as I stared at the candles throwing up their bright flames. The Duke's grooms came out of the kitchen to remove the dishes, and the rattle of silverware and plates seemed very loud against the sudden quiet. Then Yashku, a wizened man with worn teeth, began pulling at his long, white hair and whispering to himself. His dark eyes danced with the candles' lights as he called to mind the key mnemonics that would help him remember the many verses of this epic poem.

The first part of it, which he sang out in a strong, mellow voice, told of the great crusade to liberate the Lightstone from Morjin at the end of the Age of Law. I listened to this history that I knew too well. Yashku sang of the alliance between Mesh, Ishka, Anjo and Kaash, and how these four kingdoms had sent armies across the Gray Prairies to join the Alonian army in assaulting Morjin's fortress of Argattha.

He recounted the heroics and evil deeds of the Battle of Tarshid. There, against the Law of the One, King Dumakan of Alonia had used a red gelstei against Morjin's armies. But Morjin used the Lightstone to turn the firestones against the Alliance.

Some of the firestones had exploded, destroying much of the Alonian army. Morjin had then turned his own firestones on the Valan armies, almost completely annihilating them. The survivors he had crucified along the road leading to Argattha.

Then he and his priests had drunk the blood of their pierced hands in a great victory rite which heralded the coming of the Age of the Dragon. Yashku's words cut like swords into my heart:

A thousand men were bound in chains

Along the road where terror reigns,

And one by one were laid on wood

Where once Valari knights had stood.

In breaking of their flesh and bones,

Priests took up hammers hard as stones,

And iron spikes they drove through flesh,

And thus they killed the men of Mesh.

Their life poured out and reddened mud;

The Dragon's priests – they caught the blood

In clutching hands and golden bowls,

Then made a toast and drank their souls.

Here Yashku paused to take a sip of beer. Then he began singing about the courage of two men some eighty years after this terrible event. The first of these was Sartan Odinan, Morjin's infamous priest who had burnt the city of Suma to the ground with a firestone. But, in soul-searing remorse for this great crime, he had finally found his humanity and turned against Morjin. And so he made an alliance with a mysterious man named Kalkamesh – who was said to be the very same Kalkamesh who had fought beside Aramesh at the Battle of Sarburn thousands of years before. Vowing to regain the Lightstone by stealth where great armies had failed to take it by force, they had entered Argattha in secret Sartan had led Kalkamesh through dark passageways that wound like worms through the underground city. After many perilous encounters, they had finally found the Lightstone locked away in one of Morjin's deepest dungeons at the very center of the city. Kalkamesh had managed to open the dungeon's iron door, but just as he was about to take the Lightstone in his hands, they were discovered.

What happened then in Argattha three millennia before, as told by Yashku, brought a gleam to everyone's eyes. While Kalkamesh had turned to fight Morjin's guards with a rare and terrible fury, Sartan had made his escape with the Lightstone. He had fled Argattha with the golden cup into the snowy wastes of Sakai where he and it had vanished from history.

'Very good,' Kane growled out as Yashku again paused to wet his throat. His eyes were as black and bottomless as I supposed the tunnels of Argattha to be. 'And now for Kalkamesh and Telemesh.'

The many verses of the poem, to this point had been only a sort of preamble to the poet's true subject. This was the incredible valor of Kalkamesh and Telemesh. As we settled back in our chairs and sipped our beer, Yashku told of how Morjin had captured and tortured Kalkamesh. Believing that Kalkamesh must have known where Sartan intended to take the Lightstone, he had ordered Kalkamesh crucified to the mountain out of which was carved the city of Argattha. He had questioned him day and night, but Kalkamesh had only spat into his face. There, bolted naked to the side of the mountain, he endured every morning the rising of the blistering sun. And every morning as the sun's first rays touched Kalkamesh's writhing body, Morjin had arrived personally to cut open his belly with a stone knife and tear out his liver. He then used a green gelstei to aid this immortal man's already astonishing regenerative powers, and each night Kalkamesh's liver had grown back. It had been the beginning of the Long Torture that would last ten years.

But Morjin was never been able to break Kalkamesh. The story of his suffering and courage spread into every land of Ea. High in the Morning Mountains, the young Telashu Elahad, who would one day ascend the Swan Throne to become King Telemesh, heard of Kalkamesh's torment and vowed to end his misery. He had set out on his quest and crossed the Wendrush all alone. And then, on a night of lightning and storm, he had climbed Mount Skartaru in the dark to free Kalkamesh from his terrible fate. Yashku's words now rang out like silver bells deep in my soul: The lightning flashed, struck stone, burned white -

The prince looked up into the light;.

Upon Skartaru nailed to stone

He saw the warrior all alone.

Through rain and hail he climbed the wall

Still wet with bile, blood and gall.

Where dread and dark devour light,

He climbed alone into the night.

And there beneath the blackened sky,

He met the warrior eye to eye,

The ancient warrior, hard as stone -

He raised his sword and cut through bone.

The lightning flashed, struck stone, burned red, And still the warrior wasn't dead.

Where eagles perch and princes walk,

He left his hands upon the rock.

And down and down they climbed as one

To beat the rising of the sun.

Through rain and ice and wind that wailed,

With strength and nerve that never failed.

They came into a healing place

Beneath Skartaru's bitter face.

And there, the One, the sacred spark,

Where love and light undo the dark.

The lightning flashed, struck stone, burned clear.

The prince beheld through rain and tear

The hands that held the golden bowl,

The warrior's hands again were whole.

'Very good,' Kane growled out after Yashku had finished reciting the poem. 'You sing well, minstrel. Very well indeed.'

Kane sat sipping his dark beer, which he had asked Duke Rezu's grooms to serve him hot like coffee. He was a hard man to read and an even harder one to look at.

There was a heart-piercing poignancy beneath the brilliance of his black eyes, and he might have been considered too beautiful but for the harsh, vertical lines of a perpetual scowl that scarred his face. A server, it is said, with the aid of a crystal sphere can look into the future. There was something about him ageless and anguished as if he could look far into the past and recall all its hurts as his own. I wondered if he, like Thaman, had lost his family to the depredations of the Red Dragon. How else to explain the volcanic love and hate that threatened to erupt from him at every mention of Morjin's name?

'So,' he said, 'Kalkamesh and Telemesh – Sartan, too – defied Morjin. And shook the world, eh? I think it's shaking still.'

We all agreed that this was so, and we thanked Yashku for singing us the poem.

Then Maram turned to Master Juwain and asked, 'What befell Kalkamesh after Argattha?'

'It's said that he perished in the War of the Stones.'

Thaman turned to Kane and regarded him coolly. 'And what of Sartan Odinan? He might have spirited away the Lightstone, but to where? The Song doesn't say.'

'No,' Kane agreed, 'it doesn't.'

'Surely, then, Sartan must have perished himself trying to make his escape. Surely the Lightstone must lie with his bones somewhere buried in the snows of Sakai or in the sands of the Red Desert.'

'No,' Kane said, shaking his large head. 'If Sartan was strong and cunning enough to enter Argattha, then surely he must have been resourceful enough make his escape unharmed.'

'Then why,' Thaman asked, 'do none of the epics tell of this?'

At this, Kane fell silent as he took a draw of his hot beer. And then Master Juwain interjected, 'But, of course, some of the epics do.'

We all turned to regard him with surprise. It was the first time on our journey from Silvassu that he had spoken of the Lightstone's fate.

'There is the Song of Madhar,' he said. 'And the Lay of Alanu. The first tells of how Sartan brought the Lightstone to the islands of the Elyssu and founded the Kingdom of Light early in the Age of the Dragon. The second tells that he hid the Lightstone in a castle high in the Crescent Mountains and studied its secrets. It's said that Sartan, too, gained immortality, and used the Lightstone to create an order of secret Masters who have journeyed across Ea for thousands of years opposing the Lord of Lies.

And there are other legends, almost too many to mention.'

'Then why aren't these songs sung in Surrapam?' Thaman asked. He looked around the table at the curiosity on all our faces. 'Why aren't these legends told?'

Master Juwain rubbed the back of his bald head with his knotty hand. Despite his ugliness, he had a glowing presence that commanded respect. Maram, especially, regarded him proudly.

'Do you read ancient Ardik?' he asked Thaman. 'Do any of your countrymen?'

'No – we've no time for such indulgences anymore.'

'No,' Master Juwain agreed, 'it's been over three hundred years since your King Donatan closed the last of the Brotherhood schools in the west, hasn't it?'

Thaman took a gulp of beer and then grimaced in shame. He obviously didn't like it that Master Juwain knew so much about his country. I smiled proudly along with Maram because Master Juwain knew more about almost everything than anyone I had ever met.

'I read ancient Ardik,' Duke Rezu suddenly announced to everyone's surprise. 'And I've never heard of these legends, either.'

It was a victory for ignorance, I thought, that some of the Valari king-doms had stopped sending their sons and daughters to the Brotherhood schools. But Anjo, at least, for all its troubles was not one of these.

'If you'd like,' Master Juwain told the Duke, 'later I'll show-you a couple of books of the Lightstone legends that I've brought with me.'

'Yes, thank you,' Duke Rezu said, 'I'd like that very much.'

'Books, legends,' Thaman spat out. 'It's not words we need now but men with strong arms and sharp swords.'

Master Juwain's bushy eyebrows suddenly narrowed as he pointed his gnarly finger at my side. He said, 'Strong arms and swords we have in abundance here in the Morning Mountains. But without the knowledge of how to use them, they're worse than useless.'

'Use them against Morjin, then.'

'The Lord of Lies,' Master Juwain said, 'will never be defeated by the force of arms alone.'

'Then you think to defeat him by finding this golden cup that your legends tell of?'

'Does knowledge defeat ignorance? Does truth defeat a lie?'

'But not all the legends in your book can be true,' Thaman said.

'No,' Master Juwain agreed, 'but one of them might be. The trick is in discovering the right one.'

'But what if the Lightstone has been destroyed?'

'The Lightstone,' Master Juwain said, 'was wrought of gold gelstei by the Star People themselves. It can't be destroyed.'

'Well, then, what if it's lost forever?'

'But how can we know that?' Master Juwain asked. 'We can only say that it is lost forever if we stop seeking it and declare that it is forever lost.'

At this fencing of words, Thaman finally gave up and returned to his beer. He took a long drink of it and then asked, 'What do you think, Sar Kane?'

'Just Kane, please,' Kane said gruffly. 'I'm no knight'

'Well,' Thaman asked him, 'will the Lightstone ever be found?'

Kane's eyes flashed just then, and I was reminded of lightning bolts lighting up the sky on a hot summer night. 'The Lightstone must be found,' he said. 'Or else the Red Dragon will never be defeated.'

'But defeated how?' Thaman asked, pressing him. 'Through knowledge or through the sword?'

'Knowledge is dangerous,' Kane said with a grim smile. 'Swords are, too. Who has the wisdom to use either, eh?'

'There's still wisdom in the world,' Master Juwain said stubbornly. 'There's still knowledge aplenty for those who open their minds to it.'

'Dangerous, I say,' Kane repeated, looking at Master Juwain. 'Long ago, Morjin opened his mind to the knowledge bestowed by the Lightstone, and he gained immortality, so it's said. So – who on Ea has benefited from this precious knowledge?'

As Duke Rezu's grooms arrived to bring out fresh pitchers of beer, Master Juwain sipped from the cup of tea that he had ordered. He regarded Kane with his large, gray eyes, obviously considering how to respond to his arguments.

'The Lord of Lies is the Lord of Lies,' he finally said. 'If he's truly the same tyrant who crucified Kalkamesh so long ago, then he makes a mockery of the immortality that is the province of the Elijin and Galadin.'

At this mention of the names of the angelic orders. Kane's eyes grew as empty as black space. I felt myself falling into them; it was like falling into a bottomless black pit.

'So,' Kane finally said, pinning Master Juwain with the daggers of his eyes, 'it's knowledge of the angels that you ultimately seek, isn't it?'

'Isn't that what the One created us to seek?'

'How would I know about that, damn it!' Kane growled out.

His vehemence startled all of us, and Master Juwain's voice softened as he said,

'Knowledge is power. The power to be more than animals or men of the sword. And the power to do great good in the world.'

'So you say,' Kane told him. 'Is that why you seek the Lightstone?'

Master Juwain forced a smile to his lips and looked at Kane with all the kindness he could muster. 'It's said that the Lightstone will bring infinite knowledge to him who drinks its golden light.'

'Is it really?' Kane said, showing his long white teeth in another grim smile. 'Isn't the true prophecy that the Lightstone will bring knowledge of the infinite?'

For a moment, I thought that the puzzled look on Master Juwain's face indicated that he had misremembered this particular bit of knowledge. Then, with a slow and measured motion, he removed a small copy of the Saganom Elu from the pocket of his robe and began thumbing through its dog-eared pages.

'Aha!' he finally said. From his other pocket, he had produced a magnifying glass, which he held over the pages of the opened book. 'The lines are here, in the seventy-seventh of the Trian Prophecies. And also, in the Visions, chapter five, verse forty-five. And if my memory serves, we'll find it written as well in the Book of Stars. Would you like to see?'

'No,' Kane told him. 'I try not to read such books.'

Kane might as well have told him that he tried not to smell the perfume of flowers or took no joy in the light of the sun. It was one of the few times I had ever seen Master Juwain moved to want to humble an opponent. He looked straight into Kane's unmoving eyes as he said, 'It would seem that you're wrong, wouldn't it?'

'So it seems,' Kane said. Although his words were agreeable enough, nothing in his tense, large-boned body suggested that he was yielding the point The Duke was used to battles, but not in his own hall. After lifting up his goblet and making a toast to the courage of Telemesh and Kalkamesh, he nodded at Kane. 'I think we're all agreed, at least, that we must oppose Morjin, however we can.'

'That I will agree to,' Kane said. 'I'll oppose Morjin even if it means seeking the Lightstone myself, and if I find it, letting the Brotherhoods take from it what knowledge they can.'

It was a noble thing for him to say, and his words warmed Master Juwain's heart.

But not mine. I found that I could no more trust Kane than I could a tiger who purred softly one moment and then stared at me with hungry eyes the next.

'As it happens,' he told Master Juwain, 'I've business in Tria myself. If you'll let me, I'll accompfny you there.'

Master Juwain sat sipping his tea as he slowly nodded his head. I sensed that he relished the opportunity to reopen his arguments with Kane, and he said, 'I would be honored. But the decision is not mine to make alone. What do you think, Brother Maram?'

Maram, who was busy making eyes with Chaitra, tore his gaze away from this lovely woman and looked at Master Juwain. He was more than a little drunk, and he said,

'Eh? What do I think? I think that even four is too few to face the dangers ahead that I don't even want to think about. The more the merrier!'

So saying, he turned back to Duke Rezu's widowed niece and flashed her a winning smile.

Master Juwain smiled too, in exasperation at the task of taming. Maram. Then he said to me, 'What about you, Val?'

I turned toward Kane, who was staring at me with his unflinching gaze. It hurt to look at him too long, and so instead I glanced at the dagger that he still held in his large hands. And then I asked, 'What is your business in Tria?'

'My business is my business,' he growled at me. 'And your business, it would seem, is in reaching Tria without being killed. I'd think that you'd welcome the opportunity to increase your chances.'

Truly, I would, but did that mean welcoming this stranger to our company? I glanced at the sword sheathed at his side; it looked like a kalama. I tought that we might all welcome its sharp edges in fighting the unknown dangers that Maram was so afraid of. But a sword, as my grandfather used to say, can always cut two ways.

'We've come this far by ourselves,' I said to Kane. 'Perhaps it would be best if we continued on as we have.'

'So,' Kane said, 'if Morjin's men hunt you down in the forest of Alonia, you think to make it easy for them, eh?'

How, I wondered, had Kane sensed that Morjin might be pursuing me? Had Maram, in his drunken murmurings, blurted out clues that Kane had pieced together? Had the story of Raldu nearly murdering me somehow reached this little duchy of Rajak ahead of us? 'There's no reason,' I said, 'for the Lord of Lies to be hunting us.' 'You think not, eh? You're a prince of Mesh – King Shamesh's seventh son. Do you think Morjin needs any more reason than that to kill you?'

Kane spoke Morjin's name with so much hate that if words were steel, Morjin would now be dead. Watching Kane's neck tendons popping as he ground his teeth together, I couldn't doubt that he was Morjin's bitter enemy. But the enemy of my enemy, as my father liked to say, was not necessarily my friend.

'My apologies,' I said to him, 'but perhaps you can find other company.'

'Other company, you say? The outlaws who've taken over the wild lands beyond Anjo? The bears that infest the deeper woods?'

At the mention of Maram's least favorite beast, my love-stricken friend suddenly broke off his flirtation with Chaitra and said, 'Ah, Val, perhaps we should considering taking this Kane with us. To, ah, protect him from the bears.'

Kane's black eyes turned toward me to see what I Would say. They were like enormous boulders used to crushing the will out of others.

'No,' I said, struggling to breathe. 'The bears will leave him alone if he leaves them alone. Surely he has enough woodcraft to avoid them.'

Both Master Juwain and Maram, while not agreeing with my decision, knew me well enough not to try to dissuade me. Master Juwain smiled at Kane and said, 'I'm sorry, but perhaps we can meet in Tria and continue our discussion about the prophecies.'

'So,' Kane snarled out. He ignored Master Juwain and continued to stare at me. 'You insist on making this journey alone, eh?'

'Yes,' I told him, trying not to look away from his blazing eyes.

'So be it then,' he said with all the finality of a king pronouncing a sentence of death.

After that, Duke Rezu tried to return our conversation to the legends of the Lightstone. But the mood was broken. As it had grown very late, Yashku excused himself and went off to bed, followed in short order by Helenya, who complained of her aching joints and sleeplessness. Maram, of course, would have stayed there all night flirting with Chaitra if she hadn't suddenly winked at him and announced her need to go finish some undone knitting. As for me, the wound in my side pained me almost as much as the anguish of Kane's wounded soul puzzled me. Who was this man, I wondered, whose eyes looked as if they were forged in some hellish furnace put of black iron fallen down from the stars? From where had he come? To where did he really intend to go? As we all pushed back our chairs and stood up from the table, I thought that I would never know the answers to these questions. For tomorrow, at first light, Master Juwain and Maram would join me in saddling our horses, and we would set out for Tria by ourselves.