The Lightstone: The Silver Sword: Part Two

‘Ah, for the love of woman, Kane, please tell us if you know what we’re facing!’

But Kane remained silent, staring off into the dark. The cry came again, but it seemed to be moving away from us. After a while, it faded and then vanished into the night.

‘This is too too much,’ Maram said. He turned toward Kane accusingly as if it was he who had called forth the hideous voices. ‘Wolves don’t howl like that.’

‘No,’ Kane muttered, ‘but the Blues do.’

‘The Blues!’ Maram said. ‘Who or what are the Blues?’

But it was Master Juwain who answered him. He knelt by the fire, reading from his book as he quoted from the Visions: ‘ “Then came the blue men, the half-dead whose cries will wake the dead. They are the heralds of the Red Dragon, and the ghosts of battle follow them to war.” ’

He closed his book and said, ‘I’ve always wondered what those lines meant.’

‘They mean this,’ Kane said. ‘None of us will sleep tonight.’

He told us then what he knew of the Blues. He said that they were a short, immensely squat and powerful people, a race of warriors bred by Morjin during the Age of Swords. It was their gift – or curse – to have few nerves in their bodies and so to feel little pain. This gift was deepened by their eating the berries of the kirque plant, which enabled them to march into battle in a frenzy of unfeeling wrath toward their foes. The berries also stained their skin a pale shade of blue; most of their men accentuated this color by rubbing berry juice across their skin so that the whole of their bodies were blemished a deep blue the color of a bruise. Most of them, as well, displayed many scabs, open cuts and running sores across their arms and legs, for in their nearly nerveless immunity to pain, they were wont to wound themselves and take no notice of the injury. But others couldn’t help noticing them: they went into battle naked wielding huge, terrible, steel axes. They howled like maddened wolves. They killed without pity or feeling as if their souls had died. Because of this, they were called the Soulless Ones or the Half-Dead.

‘But if the Beast created these warriors during the Age of Swords for battle,’ Master Juwain asked, thumping his book, ‘why isn’t more told of their feats in here?’

‘There are other books,’ Kane said, scanning the gleaming terrain about us. ‘If we ever reach the Library, maybe you’ll read them.’

As if realizing that he had spoken too harshly to a man he had come to respect, he softened his voice and said, ‘As for their feats, they were almost too terrible to record. Great axes they wielded, remember, and they had even less care for others’ flesh than they did their own.’

He went on to say that Morjin had employed the Blues in his initial conquest of Alonia. They had left almost no one alive to tell of their terror. They had also proved almost impossible to control. And so after one particularly vicious battle, Morjin – the Lord of Lies, the Treacherous One – had invited the entire host of Blues to a victory celebration. There, with his own hand, he had poured into their cups a poisoned wine.

‘It’s said that all the Blues perished in a single night,’ Kane told us, looking toward the mountains to the north. ‘But I think that some must have escaped to take refuge here. I’ve long heard it rumored that there was some terror hidden in the White Mountains – other than the Frost Giants, of course.’

In silence, we all looked at the great, snow-capped peaks glistering in the moonlight. And then Maram said, ‘But we’re still a good forty miles from the mountains. If it is the Blues we heard, what are they doing in the hills of Yarkona?’

‘That I would like to know,’ Kane told him. Then he clapped him on the arm and smiled his savage smile. ‘But not too badly. And not tonight. Now why don’t we at least try to sleep? Alphanderry and I will take the first watch. If the Blues come back to sing for us, we’ll be sure to wake you.’

But the Half-Dead, if such they really were, did not return that night. Even so, none of us got much sleep. By the time morning came, we were all red-eyed and crabby, almost too tired to pull ourselves on top of our footsore horses. We prayed for a few clouds to soften the sun. Each hour, however, it waxed hotter and hotter so that it threatened to set all the sky on fire.

We rode through a land devoid of people. After we turned southeast at the bend in the river, we sought out the few scattered huts along the rock-humped plain to gather knowledge of the country through which we passed. But the huts were all empty, deserted it seemed in great haste. Perhaps, I thought, the cries of the Soulless Ones had driven their owners away. Perhaps they had fled for protection to a nearby castle of some local lord.

Late that morning, we saw some vultures circling in the sky ahead of us. As we rode closer, the air thickened with a terrible smell. Maram wanted to turn aside from whatever lay in that direction, but Kane was eager as always to see what must be seen. And so we pressed on until we crested a low rise. And there before us, growing out of the sage and grass like trees, were three wooden crosses from which hung the blackened bodies of three naked men. Vultures, perched on the arms of the crosses, bent their beaks downward, working at them. When Kane saw these death birds, his face darkened and his heart filled with wrath. He charged forward, waving his sword and growling like a wolf himself. At first, the vultures managed to ignore him. But such was his fury that when his sword leapt out to impale one of the vultures in the chest, the others sprang into the air and began circling warily about, waiting for the maddened Kane to leave them to their feast.

‘How I hate these damn birds!’ Kane raged as he dismounted to wipe his sword on the grass. ‘They make a mockery of the One’s noblest creation.’

We rode up to him, holding our cloaks over our noses against the awful smell. I forced myself to look up at these husks of once-proud men, which iron nails and the iron-hard beaks of the vultures had reduced so pitifully. To Kane, I said, ‘You didn’t tell us that the Blues learned the defilements of the Crucifier.’

‘I never heard that they did,’ he said, looking at the crosses. ‘This may be the work of some lord who has gone over to the Kallimun.’

‘What lord?’ Liljana asked, nudging her horse closer to Kane. ‘Rinald said that the lords of Virad looked to Khaisham for leadership.’

‘So, it seems that some of them may look to Aigul.’

I dismounted Altaru and walked over to the center cross. I reached out and touched the foot of the man who had been nailed to it. His flesh was soft, swollen and hot – as hot as the burning air itself.

‘We should bury these men,’ I said.

Kane stuck his sword down into the rock-hard earth. ‘We should bury them, Val. But it would take us a day of digging, eh? Whoever put them here may come back and find us.’

Maram, whose hand was trembling as he held his cloak tightly covering his face, said, ‘Come, please, let’s go before it’s too late!’

And then Kane, always a man of oppositions, snarled out, ‘He’s right, we should go. Let’s leave these birds their meal. Even vultures must eat.’

And so, after saying a prayer for the three men who had ended their lives in this desolate place, we mounted our horses and resumed our journey. But as we rode over the hot, tormented earth, Alphanderry wet his throat with a little blood from his cracked lips and gave us a song to hearten us. He made a hauntingly beautiful music in remembrance of the dead men, singing their souls up to the stars behind the deep blue sky. Despite the terrible thing we had just seen, his words were in praise of life:

Sing ye songs of glory,Sing ye songs of glory,That the light of the OneWill shine upon the world.

‘Too loud,’ Kane muttered as he scanned the low hills about us.

But Alphanderry, perhaps concentrating on an image of the Lightstone that lay somewhere before us, raised up his voice even louder. He sang strongly and bravely, with a reckless abandon, and his voice filled the countryside. Even the grasses, I thought, sere and stunted here, would want to weep at the sound of it.

‘Too damn loud, I say!’ Kane barked out, flashing an angry look at Alphanderry. ‘Do you want to announce us to the whole world?’

Alphanderry, however, seemed drunk on the beauty of his own singing. He ignored Kane. After a while, strange and wonderful words began pouring from his lips in a torrent that seemed impossible to stop.

‘Damn you, Alphanderry, come to your senses, will you?’

As Kane glowered at Alphanderry, he finally fell quiet. The look on his face was that of a scolded puppy. To Kane, he said, ‘I’m sorry, but I was so close. So very close to finding the words of the angels.’

‘If the crucifiers come upon us here,’ Kane said, ‘not even the angels will be able to help us.’

Even as he said this, Atara pointed at a far-off hill. I looked there and thought I saw a hazy figure vanish behind it.

‘What is it?’ Kane asked, squinting.

Atara, who had the best eyes of any of us, said, ‘It was a man – he seemed dressed in blue.’

At this news, Maram sat swallowing against the fear in his throat as if he could so easily make it go away.

‘I’m sorry,’ Alphanderry said again. ‘But maybe the blue man didn’t see us.’

‘Foolish minstrel,’ Kane said softly. ‘Let’s ride now, and hope he didn’t.’

And so we set out again, riding as swiftly as we dared for half an hour. And with each mile we covered, the air grew hotter so that it fairly roiled, and the stench of death stayed with us. We entered a country of rolling swells of earth like the waves of the sea; some were a hundred feet high and broken with rocky outcroppings. We kept a reasonably straight course, winding our way down their troughs. After a while, I felt a sick sensation along the back of my neck as if the vultures were watching me. I stopped and turned toward the left; I looked toward the top of the rise even as Atara did, too.

‘What is it?’ Maram said, reining up behind us. ‘What do you see?’

We had been told to avoid Aigul, and so we had. But Aigul hadn’t avoided us. Just as Maram swallowed another mouthful of air and belched in disquiet, a company of cavalry broke over the rise and thundered down the slope straight toward us. There were twenty-three of them, as I saw at a glance. Their mail and helms gleamed in the sun. And holstered and upraised from a horse near their leader was a long pole from which streamed their standard: a bright yellow banner showing the coils and fiery tongue of a great red dragon.

‘Oh, my Lord!’ Maram cried out. ‘Oh, my Lord!’

Liljana, who had drawn her sword, looked about with her calm, penetrating eyes and said to me, ‘Do we flee or fight, Val?’

‘Perhaps neither,’ I said, trying to keep my voice calm for Maram’s sake – and my own. I turned, pointing toward the right, where a hummock stood like a grass-covered castle. ‘Up there – we’ll face them up there.’

‘That’s very right,’ Master Juwain said reassuringly as he looked at the men bearing down on us. ‘This is probably just some wayward lord and his retainers. If we flee, he’ll think we’re thieves or afraid of them.’

‘Well, we are afraid of them!’ Maram pointed out. He might have said more, but we had already turned to gallop up the hummock, and the shock of his horse’s heaving muscles drove the wind from him.

It took us only a few moments to gain what little protection the hummock’s height provided us. Its top was nearly flat, perhaps fifty yards across; we sat on our horses there as we watched the men approach. I didn’t remark what we could now see quite plainly: that next to this great lord, who bore upon his yellow surcoat another red dragon, rode three naked men whose bodies seemed painted blue. Their little mountain ponies carried them up our hummock with greater agility than did the war horses of their more heavily armored companions. Each of the three men was short and immensely muscled, and they each brandished in their knotted fists an immense steel axe.

‘I’m sorry,’ Alphanderry said to Kane, who had his sword drawn as his black eyes stared down at the approaching company.

‘It’s not your sorrow that we need now, my young friend,’ Kane said with a grim smile, ‘but your strength. And your courage.’

The company drew up in a crescent on the slope below us. And then their leader, along with the standard-bearer and one of the blue men, rode forward a few paces. He was a quick-eyed man with a vulpine look to his hard face, which seemed all angles and planes, like pieces of chipped flint. Many would have called him handsome, a grace that he seemed to relish as he sat up straight on his horse in all his vanity and pride. His eyes were almost as dark as his well-trimmed beard; they fixed upon me like poisoned lances that pierced my heart with all the darkness of his.

‘Who are you?’ he called out to me in a raspy voice. ‘Come down and identify yourselves!’

‘Who are you,’ I said to him, ‘who rides upon us in surprise like robbers?’

‘Robbers, is it?’ he said. ‘Be careful how you speak to the lord of this domain!’

I traded a quick look with Kane and then Atara, who held her strung bow down against her saddle. Rinald had told us that Virad’s lord was Duke Vikram, an old man with scars along his white-bearded face. To this much younger man below us, I said, ‘We had heard that the lord of this domain is Duke Vikram.’

‘Not anymore,’ the man said with glee. ‘Duke Vikram is dead. I’m the lord of Virad now. And of Sikar and Aigul. You may address me as Count Ulanu.’

It came to me, all in a moment, what the terrible stench in the air must be: the taint of many corpses rotting in the sun. Somewhere near here, I knew, a battle had recently been fought. And Count Ulanu claimed the lordship of Virad by right of conquest.

‘You have my name, now give me yours,’ the Count said to me.

‘We’re pilgrims,’ I told him, ‘only pilgrims bound for Khaisham.’

‘Pilgrims with swords,’ he said, looking at Kane, Maram and Liljana. Then he turned his gaze on me and studied my face for a long time. ‘It’s said that the Valari look like you.’

I slipped my hand beneath my cloak as I rested it on the hilt of my sword. I noticed Maram gripping his red crystal in his free hand even as Liljana held her blue stone to her head.

‘What’s that you’ve got in your hand?’ Count Ulanu barked at her.

But Liljana didn’t answer him; she just sat staring at him as if her eyes could drink up all the challenge in his and still hold more.

Count Ulanu bent his head to whisper something to one of the Blues, whose large, round head was shaved and stained darkly with the juice of the kirque berries, even as Kane had said. One of his ears was missing, and the skin about the hole there all scabbed over. Along his side, he showed an open wound, probably from a sword cut; in the dark red suck of it squirmed many white maggots eating away the decaying flesh there. As he pointed at Alphanderry and whispered back to Count Ulanu, I understood that this was the man who had sighted us earlier. Most likely, he had then gone to fetch the Count and his other men upon us.

‘You picked an evil time for your pilgrimage,’ the Count said, looking up at us. His raspy voice had now softened as if he were trying to lure a reluctant serving girl into his chambers. ‘There has been unrest in Sikar and in Virad. Both Duke Amadam and Duke Vikram were forced to ask our help in putting down rebellions. This we did. We’ve recently fought a battle not far from here, at Tarmanam. Victory was ours, but sadly, Duke Vikram was killed. A few of the rebellious lords and their knights escaped us. They’ll likely turn to outlawry now and fall upon pilgrims such as you. This country isn’t safe. That is why we must ask you to lay down your arms and come with us for your own protection.’

I sat on top of Altaru sweating in the burning sun as I listened to him. I smelled the acridness of his own sweat and that of the knights about him. I knew that he was lying, even if I couldn’t quite tell what the truth really was. I noticed Liljana suddenly close her eyes; it was strange how she seemed to be staring straight at him even so.

‘You might ask us to lay down,’ Kane told him, with surprising politeness, ‘but we must respectfully decline your request.’

‘I’m afraid we must do more than ask,’ Count Ulanu said, his voice rising with anger. ‘Please lay down now and come with us.’

‘No,’ Kane told him. ‘No, we can’t do that.’

‘When peace has been restored,’ the Count went on, ‘we’ll provide you an escort to Khaisham so that you may complete your pilgrimage.’

‘No, thank you,’ Kane said icily.

‘You have my word that you’ll be treated honorably and well,’ Count Ulanu said, smiling sincerely. ‘There’s a tower for guests at Duke Vikram’s castle – it overlooks the Ashbrum River. We’ll be happy to set you up there.’

Now Liljana’s nose pointed straight toward him as if she were sniffing out poison in a cup. She suddenly opened her eyes to stare at him as she said, ‘He speaks the truth: there are many towers of wood now at the Duke’s castle. He intends to set us on these crosses with the Duke’s knights and his family.’

The sudden rage that enpurpled Count Ulanu’s face just then was terrible to behold. He whipped out his saber and pointed it at Liljana as he shouted, ‘Damn you, witch! Give me what’s in your hand before I cut it off and take it from you!’

Liljana opened her hand to show him her blue gelstei. Then she smiled defiantly as she closed her hand about the stone and stuck her fist out toward him.

‘Damn witch,’ the Count muttered.

‘There was a battle at Tarmanam,’ she said to all who could hear. ‘But there were no rebellious lords – only those faithful to Duke Vikram, who has been cruelly tortured to death.’

In her frightfully calm and measured way, she went on to tell us something of what she had seen in the Count’s mind. She said that he and his army had marched into Sikar even as Rinald had told us. But there had been no siege of the mighty fortifications there. As soon as the Count’s engineers had set up their catapults and battering rams, his army had been joined by a host of Blues. And then Kallimun priests within the city had assassinated the Duke of Sikar and his family; the Duke’s cousin, Baron Mukal, bowing before the terror of these priests, had thrown open the city gates. Hostages had been taken and threatened with crucifixion. The Sikar army had then gone over to the Count, taking oaths of loyalty to him and his distant master. Thus Sikar had fallen in scarcely a day.

Count Ulanu had then gathered up both armies – and the companies of Blues. In a lightning strike, he had swept south, into Virad. Duke Vikram and his lords had had no time to watch events unfold in Sikar and to sue for peace on favorable terms; their only choice was to surrender unconditionally or to ride out to battle. With the Khaisham Librarians still preparing to send a force to Sikar, much too late, Duke Vikram chose to fight alone over bowing to Count Ulanu and the Red Dragon. But his forces had been slaughtered and many of the survivors crucified. And now his captured family awaited the same fate, imprisoned in his own castle.

‘It was treachery that took Sikar,’ Liljana said to us. ‘And, listen, do you hear the lies in the Count’s words? He promises us more treachery with every breath.’

As Count Ulanu stared at her, I was given to understand that he had been out riding with his personal guard in search of the best route to march his army through to Khaisham when one of his Blues had alerted him as to our presence.

On either side of the Count, two of his knights, clad in mail and armed with wicked-looking, curved swords, nudged their horses closer to him as if to steady him and show their support in the face of Liljana’s barbs. It was to her that the Count now said, ‘You know many things but not the one that really matters.’

‘And what is that, dear Count?’ Liljana asked.

‘In the end, you’ll beg to be allowed to bow before me and kiss my feet. How long has it been, old witch, since you’ve kissed a man?’

In answer, Liljana again held out her fist to him, this time with her middle finger extended.

The Count’s face filled with hate, but he had the force of will to channel it into his derisive words: ‘Why don’t you try looking into my mind now?’

Then he, this priest of the Kallimun, turned upon her a gaze so venomous and full of malice that she gave a cry of pain. As something dark yet clear as a black crystal flared inside him, I felt the still-sheathed Alkaladur flare as well even through its jade hilt.

‘What a gracious lord you are!’ she said. She continued to stare at him despite her obvious anguish. ‘I should imagine that all Yarkona has remarked your exemplary manners.’

I knew, of course, what she intended, and I approved her strategy: she was trying to use her blue gelstei and all the sharpness of her tongue to provoke the Count into an action against us. For surely there must be a battle between us; it would be best for us if we forced the Count and his men to fight it, here, upon this high ground, charging up this hill. This was our fate, perhaps written in the moon and stars, and I could see it approaching as clearly as could Atara. And yet it was also my fate that I must first speak for peace.

‘Count Ulanu,’ I said, ‘you are now Lord of Sikar and Virad by conquest. But your domains were gained through treachery. No doubt the lords of Khaisham are preparing to take them back. Why don’t you withdraw your men so that we may continue our journey? When we reach Khaisham, we’ll speak to the Librarians concerning these matters. Perhaps a way can be found to restore peace to Yarkona without more war.’

It was a poor speech, I thought, and Count Ulanu had as much regard for it as I. His contemptuous eyes fell upon me as he said, ‘If you are Valari, it seems you’ve lost your courage that you should suggest such cowardly schemes of running off to the enemy.’

For quite a few moments, he stared at the scar on my forehead. Then his eyes, which had caused Liljana nearly to weep, bored into mine. I felt something like black maggots trying to eat their way into my brain. My hand closed more tightly around Alkaladur’s swan-carved hilt. I felt the fire of the silustria passing into me and gathering in my eyes. And suddenly Count Ulanu looked away from me.

‘Pilgrims, are you?’ he muttered. ‘Seven of you, what’s to be done with seven damn pilgrims?’

As the hot wind rippled the grasses about the hill, the Blue warrior with the shaved head impatiently turned to speak to the Count. His words came out in a series of guttural sounds like the grunts of a bear. He suddenly raised his axe, which caught the fierce rays of the sun. From his neck dangled a clear stone, which also gleamed in the bright light. It was a large, square-cut diamond like those that are affixed to leather breastpieces to make up the famed Valari battle armor. The other Blues sported identical gems. With the veins of my wrist touching my sword’s diamond pommel, I saw in a flash how these Blues had acquired such stones: they had been ripped free from the armor of the crucified Valari after the battle of Tarshid an entire age ago. For three thousand years, Morjin had hoarded them against the day they might be needed. As now they were. For clearly, he had bought the service of the Blues’ axes – and perhaps their forgetfulness of past treacheries – with these stolen diamonds.

‘Urturuk here,’ the Count said, nodding at the scabrous Blue, ‘suggests that we do send you on to Khaisham. Or at least your heads.’

Like a perfect jewel forming up in my mind, I suddenly saw what Morjin’s spending of this long-hoarded treasure portended: that he had finally committed to the open conquest of not only Yarkona but all of Ea.

‘The Librarians,’ the Count said, ‘must be sent some sign that they’ve forfeited the right to receive more pilgrims.’