The Lightstone: The Ninth Kingdom: Part One

‘Very good,’ Lord Issur suddenly said. Although he was Salmelu’s brother, he seemed to have little of his pugnaciousness and none of his arrogance. ‘That is a worthy dream.’

King Hadaru must have caught a flash of concern from his young wife, for he suddenly looked at Irisha and said, ‘Do you agree?’

I noticed Maram staring at Irisha intently as she brushed back her long hair and said, ‘Of course it is worthy – worthy of our noblest efforts. But shouldn’t we first look to the safeguarding of our own kingdom?’

This ‘safeguarding,’ I thought, might well mean the eventual incorporation of Anjo into Ishka. Although Irisha’s father might owe allegiance to Anjo’s King Danashu in Sauvo, Danashu was a king in name only. And so Adar, much to Duke Barwan’s shame, had practically become a client state of Ishka. In truth, the only thing that kept Ishka from biting off pieces of Anjo one by one like a hungry bear was fear of Meshian steel.

For a while I listened as these proud nobles talked among themselves. They seemed little different, in their sentiments and concerns, from the lords and knights of Mesh. And yet the Ishkans were different from us in other ways. They wore colors in their clothing and battle ribbons in their hair in a time of peace, something that my dour countrymen would never do. And some of them, at least, had taken foreign-born wives. But worst of all, I thought, was their habit of frequently using the pronoun ‘I’ in their speech, which sounded vulgar and self-glorifying.

I remembered well my father telling me about the perils of using this deceptive word. And wasn’t he right, after all? It is vain. It is a distracting mirror. It shrinks the soul and traps it inside a box of conceits, superficialities and illusions. It keeps us from looking out into the universe and sensing our greater being in the vastness of the infinite and the fiery exhalations of the stars. In Mesh, one used the word in forgetfulness or almost as a curse – or, rarely, in moments of great emotion as when a man might whisper to his wife in the privacy of their house, ‘I love you.’

As it grew closer to the hour appointed for dinner, King Hadaru listened patiently to all that everyone had to say. Then finally, with a heaviness both in his body and spirit, he looked at Salmelu and asked, ‘Of what do you dream, my son?’

Salmelu seemed to have been waiting for this moment. His eyes flared like a fire stoked with fresh coal as he looked at me and said, ‘I dream of war. Isn’t that what a Valari is born for? To stand with his brothers on the battlefield and feel his heart beating as one with theirs, to see his enemies crumble and fall before him – is there anything better than this? How else can a warrior test himself? How else can he know if he is diamond inside or only glass that can be broken and ground beneath another man’s boot, to blow away like dust in the wind?’

I took these words as a challenge. While King Hadaru watched me carefully, I held my knight’s ring up so that it gleamed in the candlelight.

And then I said, ‘All men are diamonds inside. And all life is a series of battles. It’s how we face this war that determines whether we are cut and polished like the diamonds of our rings or broken like bad stones.’

At this, Master Juwain smiled at me approvingly, as did Lord Issur and many of the Ishkans. But Salmelu only stood there glowering at me. I could feel his malice toward me rising inside him like an angry snake.

‘I myself saw your father give you that ring,’ he said. ‘But I can hardly believe what I see now: a Valari warrior who does everything that he can to avoid war.’

I took a deep breath to cool the heat rising through my belly. Then I told him, ‘If it’s war you want so badly, why not unite against the Red Dragon and fight him?’

‘Because I do not fear him as you seem to. No Ishkan does.’

This, I thought, was not quite true. King Hadaru paled a little at the utterance of this evil name. It occurred to me then that he might not, after all, desire a war with Mesh that would weaken his kingdom at a dangerous time. Why wage war when he could gain his heart’s desire through marriage or merely making threats?

‘It’s no shame to be afraid,’ King Hadaru said. True courage is marching into battle in the face of fear.’

At this Salmelu traded quick looks with both Lord Nadhru and Lord Mestivan. I sensed that they were the leaders of the Ishkan faction that campaigned for war.

‘Yes,’ Salmelu said. ‘Marching into battle, not merely banging on our shields and blowing our trumpets.’

‘Whether or not there is a battle with Mesh,’ the King reminded him, ‘is still not decided. As I recall, the emissaries I sent to Silvassu failed to obtain a commitment for battle.’

At this, Salmelu’s face flushed as if he had been burned by the sun. He stared at his father and said, ‘If we failed, it was only because we weren’t empowered to declare war immediately in the face of King Shamesh’s evasions and postponements. If I were King –’

‘Yes?’ King Hadaru said in a voice like steel. ‘What would you do if you were King?’

‘I would march on Mesh immediately, snow or no snow in the passes.’ He glared at me and continued, ‘It’s obvious that the Meshians have no real will toward war.’

‘Then perhaps it is well that you’re not King,’ his father told him. ‘And perhaps it’s well that I haven’t yet named an heir.’

At this, Irisha smiled at King Hadaru as she protectively cupped her hands to cover her belly. Salmelu glared at her with a hatefulness that I had thought he reserved only for me. He must have feared that Irisha would bear his father a new son who would simultaneously push him aside and consolidate the King’s claims on Anjo.

King Hadaru turned to me and said, ‘Please forgive my son. He is hotheaded and does not always consider the effects of his acts.’

Despite my dislike of Salmelu, I felt a rare moment of pity for him. Where my father ruled his sons out of love and respect, his father ruled him out of fear and shame.

‘No offense is taken,’ I told him. ‘It’s clear that Lord Salmelu acts out of what he believes to be Ishka’s best interest.’

‘You speak well, Sar Valashu,’ the King said to me. ‘If you weren’t committed to making this impossible quest of yours, your father would do well to make you an emissary to one of the courts of the Nine Kingdoms.’

‘Thank you, King Hadaru,’ I said.

He sat back against the white wood of his throne, all the while regarding me deeply. And then he said, ‘You have your father’s eyes, you know. But you favor your mother. Elianora wi Solaru – now there is a beautiful woman.’

I sensed that King Hadaru was trying to win me with flattery, toward what end I couldn’t see. But his attentions only embarrassed me. And they enraged Salmelu. He must have recalled that his father had once wooed my mother in vain, and had only married his mother as his second choice.

‘Yes,’ Salmelu choked out, ignoring his father’s last comment. ‘I agree that Sar Valashu should be made an emissary. Since it’s clear that he’s no warrior.’

Maram, standing impatiently next to me, made a rumbling sound in his throat as if he might challenge Salmelu’s insult. But the sight of Salmelu’s kalama sheathed at his side helped him keep his silence. As for me, I looked down at the two diamonds sparkling in my ring, and wondered if Salmelu was right, after all.

Then Salmelu continued, ’I would say that Sar Valashu does favor his father, at least in his avoidance of battle.’

Why, I wondered, was Salmelu now insulting both my father and me in front of the entire Ishkan court? Was he trying to call me out? No, I thought, he couldn’t challenge me to a duel since that would violate his pledge of a safe passage through Ishka.

‘My father,’ I said, breathing deeply, ‘has fought many battles. No one has ever questioned his courage.’

‘Do you think it’s his courage I question?’

‘What do you mean?’

Salmelu’s eyes stabbed into mine like daggers as he said, ‘It seems a noble thing, this pledge of yours to make your quest. But aren’t you really just fleeing from war and the possibility of death in battle?’

I listened as several of the lords near Salmelu drew in quick breaths; I felt my own breath burning inside me as if I had inhaled fire. Was Salmelu trying to provoke me into calling him out? Well, I wouldn’t be provoked. To fight him would be to die, most likely, and that would only aid him in inciting a war that might kill my friends and brothers. I was a diamond, I told myself, a perfect diamond which no words could touch.

And then, despite my intentions, I found myself suddenly gripping the hilt of my sword as I said to him, ‘Are you calling me a coward?’

If he called me a coward, to my face, then that would be a challenge to a duel that I would have to answer.

As my heart beat inside my chest so quickly and hard that I thought it might burst, I felt Master Juwain’s hand grip my arm firmly as if to give me strength. And then Maram finally found his voice; he tried to make a joke of Salmelu’s deadly insult, saying, ‘Val, a coward? Ha, ha – is the sky yellow? Val is the bravest man I know.’

But his attempt to quiet our rising tempers had no effect on Salmelu. He just fixed me with his cold black eyes and said, ‘Did you think I was calling you a coward? Then please excuse me – I was only raising the question.’

‘Salmelu,’ his father said to him sternly.

But Salmelu ignored him, too. ‘All men,’ he said, ‘should question their own courage. Especially kings. Especially kings who allow their sons to run away when battle is threatened.’

‘Salmelu!’ King Hadaru half-shouted at him.

Now I gripped my sword so hard that my fingers hurt. To Salmelu, I said, ‘Are you calling my father a coward, then?’

‘Does a lion beget a lamb?’

These words were like drops of kirax in my eyes, burning me, blinding me. Salmelu’s mocking face almost disappeared into the angry red sea closing in around me.

‘Does an eagle,’ he asked, ‘hatch a rabbit from its eggs?’

The wily Salmelu was twisting his accusations into questions, and thus evading the responsibility for how I might respond. Why? Did he think I would simply impale myself on his sword?

‘It’s good,’ he said, ‘that your grandfather died before he saw what became of his line. Now there was a brave man. It takes true courage to sacrifice those whom we love. Who else would have let a hundred of his warriors die trying to protect him rather than simply defend his honor in a duel?’

As I choked on my wrath and stopped breathing, the whole world seemed to come crushing down upon my chest. I allowed this terrible lie to break me open so that I might know the truth of who Salmelu really was. And in that moment of bitterness and blood, his hate became my hate, and mine fed the fires of his, and almost without knowing what I was doing, I whipped my sword from its sheath and pointed it at him.

‘Val,’ Maram cried out in a horrified voice, ‘put away your sword!’

But there was to be no putting away of swords that night-some things can never be undone. As Salmelu and his fellow Ishkans quickly drew their swords, I stared in silent resignation at this fence of gleaming steel. I had drawn on Salmelu, after all. Despite his taunts, I had done this of my own free will. And according to ancient law that all Valari held sacred, by this very act it had been I who had thus formally challenged him to a duel.

‘Hold! Hold yourselves now, I say!’ King Hadaru’s outraged voice cut through the murmurs of anticipation rippling through the hall. Then he arose from his throne and took a step forward. To Salmelu, he said, ‘I did not want this. I would not have you make this duel tonight – you needn’t accept Sar Valashu’s challenge.’

Salmelu’s sword wavered not an inch as he pointed it toward me. He said, ‘Nevertheless, I do accept it.’

The King stared at him for a long moment, and then sighed deeply. ‘So be it, then,’ he said. ‘A challenge has been made and accepted. You will face Sar Valashu in the ring of honor when you are both ready.’

At this, Salmelu and the other lords slid their swords back into their sheaths, and I did the same. So, I thought, the time of my death has finally come. There was nothing more to say; there was nothing more to do – almost nothing.

Because Valari knights do not fight duels wearing armor, the King excused me for a few minutes so that I might remove my mail. With Maram and Master Juwain following close behind me, I repaired to an anteroom off the side of the hall. It was a small room, whose rosewood paneling had the look and smell of dried blood. I stood staring at yet another battle scene carved into wood as the heavy door banged shut and shook the entire room.

‘Are you mad!’ Maram shouted at me as he smacked his huge fist into the palm of his hand. ‘Have you entirely taken leave of your senses? That man is the best swordsman in Ishka, and you drew on him!’

‘It… couldn’t be helped,’ I said.

‘Couldn’t be helped?’ he shouted. He seemed almost ready to smack his fist into me. ‘Well, why don’t you help it now? Why not just apologize to him and leave here as quickly as we can?’

At that moment, with my legs so weak that I could hardly stand, I wanted nothing more than to run away into the night. But I couldn’t do that. A challenge had been made and accepted. There are some laws too sacred to break.

‘Leave him alone now,’ Master Juwain said as he came over to me. He helped me remove my surcoat, and then began working at the catches to my armor. ‘If you would, Brother Maram, please go out to the horses and bring Val a fresh tunic.’

Maram muttered that he would be back in a few moments, and again the door opened and closed. With trembling hands, I began pulling off my armor. With my mail and underpadding removed, it was cold in that little room. Indeed, the entire palace was cold: out of fear of fire, the King allowed no flame hotter than that of a candle in any of its wooden rooms.

‘Are you afraid?’ Master Juwain asked as he laid his hand on my trembling shoulder.

‘Yes,’ I said, staring at the dreadful, red wall.

‘Brother Maram is an excitable man,’ he said. ‘But he’s right, you know. You could simply walk away from all this.’

‘No, that’s not possible,’ I told him. ‘The shame would be too great. My brothers would make war to expunge it. My father would.’

‘I see,’ Master Juwain said. He rubbed his neck, and then fell quiet.

‘Master Juwain,’ I said, looking at him, ‘in ancient times, the Brothers would help a knight prepare for a duel. Will you help me now?’

Master Juwain began rubbing the back of his bald head as his gray eyes fell upon me. ‘That was long ago, Val, before we forswore violence. If I helped you now, and you killed Salmelu, I would bear part of the blame for his death.’

‘If you don’t help me, and he kills me, you would bear part of the blame for mine.’

For as long as it took for my heart to beat twenty times, Master Juwain stared at me in silence. And then he bowed his head in acceptance of what had to be and said, ‘All right.’

He instructed me to gaze at the stand of candles blazing in the corner of the room. I was to single out the flame of the highest candle and concentrate on its flickering yellow tip. Where did a candle’s flame come from when it was lit? he asked me. Where did it go when it went out?

He steadied my breathing then as he guided me into the ancient death meditation. Its purpose was to take me into a state of zanshin, a deep and timeless calm in the face of extreme danger. Its essence was in bringing me to the realization that I was much more than my body and that therefore I wouldn’t fear its wounding or death.

‘Breathe with me now,’ Master Juwain told me. ‘Concentrate on your awareness of the flame. Concentrate on your awareness, in itself.

Was I afraid? he told me to ask myself. Who was asking the question? If it was I who asked, what was the ‘I’ who was aware of the one who asked? Wasn’t there always a deeper I, a truer self – luminous, flawless, indestructible – that shone more brightly than any diamond and blazed as eternally as any star? What was this one radiant awareness that shone through all things?

For once in my life, my gift was truly a gift. As I opened myself to Master Juwain’s low but powerful voice, his breathing became one with my breathing and his calm became my own. After a while, my hands stopped sweating and I found that I could stand without shaking. Although my heart still beat as quickly as a child’s, the crushing pain I had felt earlier in my chest was gone.

And then suddenly, like thunder breaking through the sky, Maram came back into the room with my tunic, and it was time to go.

‘Are you ready?’ Master Juwain said as I pulled on this simple garment and buckled my sword around my waist.

‘Yes,’ I said, smiling at him. ‘Thank you, sir.’

We returned to the main hall. King Hadaru and his court had gathered in a circle around the disc of rosewood at the center of the room. In Mesh, when a duel was to be fought, the knights and warriors formed the ring of honor at any convenient spot. But then, we did not fight duels nearly so often as did the bloodthirsty Ishkans.

As I made my way toward this red circle, the floor was so cold beneath my bare feet that it seemed I was walking on ice. Salmelu was waiting for me inside the ring of his countrymen. He had his sword drawn, and Lord Issur stood by his side. Although it took me only a few moments to join him there, with Maram acting as my second, it seemed like almost forever. Then we began the rituals that precede any duel. Salmelu handed his sword to Maram, who rubbed its long, gleaming blade with a white cloth soaked in brandy, and I gave Lord Issur mine. After this cleansing was finished and our swords returned, we closed our eyes for a few moments of meditation to cleanse our minds.

‘Very good,’ King Hadaru called out at last. ‘Are the witnesses ready?’

I opened my eyes to see the ring of Ishkans nod their heads and affirm that they were indeed ready. Maram and Master Juwain now stood among them toward the east of the ring, and they both smiled at me grimly.

‘Are the combatants ready?’

Salmelu, standing before me with his sword held in two hands and cocked by the side of his head, smiled confidently and called out, ‘I’m ready, Sire. Sar Valashu was lucky at chess – let’s see how long his luck holds here.’

The King waited for me to speak, then finally said, ‘And you, Valashu Elahad?’

‘Yes,’ I told him. ‘Let’s get this over.’

‘A challenge has been made and accepted,’ King Hadaru said in a sad, heavy voice. ‘You must now fight to defend your honor. In the name of the One and all of our ancestors who have stood on this earth before us, you may begin.’

For a few moments no one moved. So quiet was the ring of knights and nobles around us that it seemed no one even breathed. Some duels lasted no longer than this. A quick rush, a lightning stroke of steel flashing through the air, and as often as not, one of the combatants’ heads would be sent rolling across the floor.

But Salmelu and I faced each other across a few feet of a blood-red circle of wood, taking our time. Asaru had once observed that a true duel between Valari knights resembled nothing so much as a catfight without the hideous screeching and yowling. As if our two bodies were connected by a terrible tension, we began circling each other with an excruciating slowness. After a few moments, we paused to stand utterly still. And then we were moving again, measuring distances, looking for any weakness or hesitation in the other’s eyes. I felt sweat running down my sides and my heart beating like a hammer up through my head; I breathed deeply, trying to keep my muscles relaxed yet ready to explode into motion at the slightest impulse. I circled slowly around Salmelu with my sword held lightly in my hands, waiting, waiting, waiting …

And then there was no time. As if a signal had been given, we suddenly sprang at each other in a flurry of flashing swords. Steel rang against steel, and then we locked for a moment, pushing and straining with all our might against each other, trying to free our blades for a deadly cut. We grunted and gasped, and Salmelu’s hot breath broke in quick bursts against my face. And then we leapt back from each other and whirled about before suddenly closing again. Steel met steel, once, twice, thrice, and then I aimed a blow downward that might have split him in two. But it missed, and his sword burned the air scarcely an inch above my head. And then I heard Salmelu cry out as if in pain; I cried out myself to feel a sudden sharp agony cut through my leg almost down to the bone.

‘Look!’ Lord Mestivan called out in his high, nervous voice. ‘He’s cut! Salmelu has been cut!’

As Salmelu and I stood away from each other for a moment to look for another opening, I noticed a long, red gash splitting the blue silk of his trousers along his thigh. It seemed that my blow hadn’t altogether missed him after all. The gash ran with fresh blood, but it didn’t spurt, so most likely he wasn’t fatally wounded. It was a miracle, I thought, that I had wounded him at all. Asaru had always said that I was very good with the sword if I didn’t let myself become distracted, but I had never believed him.

And clearly the Ishkans suffered from the same disbelief. Gasps of astonishment broke from knights and lords in the ring around me. I heard Lord Nadhru call out, ‘He’s drawn first blood! The Elahad has!’

Standing across the circle from him, Maram let out a sudden, bellowing cheer. He might have hoped that Salmelu and I would put away our swords then, but the duel wouldn’t end until one of us yielded.

Salmelu was determined that this would not be him. The steel I had put in his leg had sent a thrill of fear through him, and his whole body trembled with a panic to destroy me. I felt this dreadful emotion working at me like ice rubbed along my limbs, paralyzing my will to fight. I remembered my vow never to kill again, and I felt the strength bleed away from me. And in my moment of hesitation, Salmelu struck.

He sprang off his good leg straight at me, whirling his sword at my head, all the while snarling and spitting out his malice like a cat. Once again, his hate became my hate, and the madness of it was like a fire burning my eyes. As he cut at me, I barely managed to get my sword up to parry his. Again and again he swung his sword against mine, and the sound of steel against steel rang out into the hall like the beating of a blacksmith’s hammer. Somehow I managed to lock swords with him to forestall this furious onslaught. In breaking free, however, he lunged straight toward my heart. It was only by the miracle of my gift that I felt the point pushing through my breast – and then pulled frantically aside a moment before it actually did so. But the point took me in my side beneath my arm. His sword drove clean through the knotted muscle there and out my back. I cried out for all to hear as he wrenched his sword free; I jumped backward and held my sword in my good hand as I waited for him to come for me again.

‘Second blood to Ishka!’ someone near me called out. ‘The third blood will tell!’

I stood gasping for breath as I watched Salmelu watching me. He took his time circling nearer to me; he moved as if in great pain, careful of his wounded leg. My left arm hung useless by my side; in my right hand, I gripped my long, heavy kalama, the bright blade that my father had given me. Experience should have told me that our respective wounds hampered each of us almost equally. But my fear told me something else. I was almost certain that Salmelu would soon find a way to cut through my feeble defenses. I felt myself almost ready to give up. But the combat, I reminded myself, wouldn’t end until one of us yielded – yielded in death.

Again, Salmelu came at me. His little jaw worked up and down as if he were already chewing open my entrails. He now seemed supremely confident of cutting me open there – or in some other vital place. He had the strength and quickness of wielding his sword with two practiced arms, while my best advantage was in being able to dance about and leap out of his way. But the circle was small, and it seemed inevitable that he would soon catch me up near the edge of it. If I tried to break free from the ring of honor, angry Ishkan hands would push me back, into his sword. If I stood my ground, sword against sword, he would surely kill me. The seeming certainty of my approaching death unnerved me. Despite the fury of the battle, I began sweating and shivering. So badly did my body tremble that I could hardly hold my sword.