The Lightstone: The Ninth Kingdom: Part One

I believe that my father might have allowed this part of the feast to continue half the night so that he might better have a chance to study the Ishkans – and his own countrymen and sons. But the toasting came to a sudden and unexpected end, from a most unexpected source.

‘My lords and ladies!’ a strong voice suddenly bellowed out from below our table, ‘I would like to propose a toast.’

I turned just in time to see Maram push back his chair and stand away from the Brothers’ table. How Maram had acquired a goblet full of beer in plain sight of his masters was a mystery. And clearly it was not his first glass either, for he used his fat, beer-stained fingers to wipe the dried froth from his mustache as he wobbled on his feet. And then he raised his goblet, spilling even more beer on his stained tunic.

‘To Lord Harsha,’ he said, nodding toward his table. ‘May we all thank him for providing this wonderful drink tonight.’

That was a toast everyone could gladly drink to; all at once hundreds of goblets, both of glass and silver steel, clinked together, and a grateful laughter pealed out into the room. I looked across the hall as Lord Harsha shifted about in his chair. Although he was plainly embarrassed to have been singled out for his generosity, he smiled at Maram all the same. If Maram had left well enough alone and sat back down, he might even have gained Lord Harsha’s favor. But Maram, it seemed, could never leave anything alone.

‘And now I would like to drink to love and beautiful women,’ he said. He turned to Behira, fairly drinking in the sight of her as if the sensibilities of the hundreds of people looking on didn’t matter. ‘Ah, the love of beautiful women – it’s what makes the world turn and the stars shine, is it not?’

Master Juwain looked up at Maram but Maram ignored his icy stare.

‘It’s to the most beautiful woman in the world that I would now like to dedicate this poem, whose words came into my mind like flowers opening the first moment I saw her.’

He raised his goblet toward Behira. Forgetting that he was supposed to wait until after the toast before drinking, he took a huge gulp of beer. And all the while, Behira sat next to her father flushing with embarrassment. But it was clear that Maram’s attentions delighted her, for she smiled back at him, glowing with an almost tangible heat.

‘Brother Maram,’ Lord Harsha suddenly called out in his gravelly old voice, ‘this isn’t the place for your poetry.’

But Maram ignored him, too, and began his poem:

Star of my soul, how you shimmer Beyond the deep blue sky, Whirling and whirling – you and I whisperlessly Spinning sparks of joy into the night.

I stared at the rings glittering from Maram’s fingers and the passion pouring from his eyes. The words of his poem outraged me. For it wasn’t really his poem at all; he had stolen the verse of the great but forgotten Amun Amaduk and was passing it off as his own.

Lord Harsha pushed back his chair and called out even more strongly, ‘Brother Maram!’

Maram would have done well to heed the warning in Lord Harsha’s voice. But by this time he was drunk on his own words (or rather Amun’s), and with childlike abandon began the second stanza of the poem:

From long ago we came across the universe: Lost rays of light, we fell among strange new flowers And searched in fields and forests Until we found each other and remembered.

Now Lord Harsha, gritting his teeth against the pain of his broken knee, suddenly rose to his feet. With surprising speed, he began advancing down the row of tables straight at Maram. And still Maram continued reciting his poem:

Soul of my soul, for how few moments Were we together on this wandering earth In the magic of our love Dancing in the eyelight, breathing as one?

Suddenly, with a sound of fury in his throat, Lord Harsha drew his sword. Its polished steel pointed straight at Maram, who finally closed his mouth as it occurred to him that he had gone too far. And Lord Harsha, I was afraid, had gone too far to stop, too. Almost without thinking, I leaped up from my chair, crossed the dais, and jumped down to the lower level of the guests’ tables. My boots hit the cold stone with a loud slap. Then I stepped in front of Maram just as Lord Harsha closed the distance between them and pointed the tip of his sword at my heart.

‘Lord Harsha,’ I said, ‘will you please excuse my friend? He’s obviously had too much of your fine beer.’

Lord Harsha’s sword lowered perhaps half an inch. I felt his hot breath steaming out of his nostrils. I was afraid that at any moment he might try to get at Maram by pushing his sword through me. Then he growled out, ‘Well, then he should remember his vows, shouldn’t he? Particularly his vow to renounce women!’

Behind me, I heard Maram clear his throat as if to argue with Lord Harsha. And then my father, the King, finally spoke.

‘Lord Harsha, would you please put down your sword? As a favor to me.’

If Maram had been Valari then there would have been a death that night, for he would have had to answer Lord Harsha’s challenge with steel. But Maram was only a Delian and a Brother at that. Because no one could reasonably expect a Brother to fight a duel with a Valari lord, there was yet hope.

Lord Harsha took a deep breath and then another. I felt the heat of his blood begin to cool. Then he nodded his head in a quick bow to my father and said, ‘Sire, as a favor to you, it would be my pleasure.’

Almost as suddenly as he had drawn his sword, he slipped it back into his sheath. When the King asked you to put down your sword – or take it up – there was no choice but to honor his request.

‘Thank you,’ my father called out to him, ‘for your restraint.’

‘Thank you,’ I whispered to him, ‘for sparing my friend.’

Then I turned to look at Maram as I laid my hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down into his chair. From the nearby table of Valari masters and their ladies, I swept up two goblets of beer and gave one to Lord Harsha.

‘To brotherhood among men,’ I said, raising my goblet. I looked from my family’s table to that of Master Juwain, and then back across the room to the table of the Ishkans. ‘In the end, all men are brothers.’

I listened with great hope as echoes of approval rang out to the clinking of many glasses. And then Maram, my stubborn, irrepressible friend, looked up at my father and said, ‘Ah, King Shamesh – I suppose this isn’t the best time to finish my poem?’

My father ignored him. ‘The time for making toasts is at an end. Lord Harsha, would you please take your seat so that we might move on to more important matters?’

Again Lord Harsha bowed, and he walked slowly back through the rows of tables to his chair. He sat down next to his greatly relieved daughter, whom he looked at sternly but with an obvious love. And then a silence fell over the room as all eyes turned toward my father.

‘We have before us tonight the emissaries of two kings,’ he said, nodding his head at Salmelu and then Count Dario. ‘And two requests will be made of us here tonight; we should listen well to both and neither let our hearts shout down the wisdom of our heads nor our heads mock what our hearts know to be true. Why don’t we have Prince Salmelu speak first, for it may be that in deciding upon his request, the answer to Count Dario’s will become obvious.’

Without smiling, he then nodded at Salmelu, who eagerly sprang to his feet.

‘King Shamesh,’ he said in a voice that snapped out like a whip, ‘the request of King Hadaru is simple: that the border of our kingdoms be clearly established according to the agreement of our ancestors. Either that, or the King asks that we set a time and place for battle.’

So, I thought, the ultimatum that we had all been awaiting had finally been set before us. I felt the hands of three hundred Meshian warriors almost aching to grip the hilts of their swords.

‘The border of our kingdoms is established thusly,’ my father told Salmelu. ‘The first Shavashar gave your people all the lands from Mount Korukel to the Aru River.’

This was true. Long, long ago in the Lost Ages before the millennia of recorded history, it was said that the first Shavashar Elahad had claimed most of the lands of the Morning Mountains for his kingdom. But his seventh son, Ishkavar, wanting lands of his own to rule, had despaired of ever coming into this great possession. And so he had rebelled against his own father. Because Shavashar refused to spill the blood of his favorite son, he had given him all the lands from Korukel to the Aru, and from the Culhadosh River to the grassy plains of the Wendrush. Such was the origin of the kingdom that came to be called Ishka.

‘From Mount Korukel,’ Salmelu snapped at my father. “Which you now claim for your own!’

My father stared down at him with a face as cold as stone. Then he said, ‘If a man gives his son all his fields from his house to a river, he has given him only his fields – not the house or the river.’

‘But mountains,’ Salmelu said, repeating the old argument, ‘aren’t houses. There’s no clearly marked boundary where one begins and ends.’

‘This is true,’ my father said. ‘But surely you can’t think a mountain’s boundary should be a line running through the center of its highest peak?’

‘Given the spirit of the agreement, it’s only the way to think.’

‘There are many ways of thinking,’ my father said, ‘and we’re here tonight to determine what is most fair.’

‘You speak of fairness?’ Salmelu half-shouted. ‘You who keep the richest lands of the Morning Mountains for yourselves? You who kept the Lightstone locked in your castle for an entire age when all the Valari should have shared in its possession?’

Some of what he said was true. After the Battle of Sarburn, when the combined might of the Valari had overthrown Morjin and he had been imprisoned in a great fortress on the Isle of Damoom, Aramesh had brought the Lightstone back to Silvassu. And it had resided in my family’s castle for most of the Age of Law. But it had never been locked away. I turned to look at the white granite pedestal against the banner-covered wall behind my father’s chair. There, on this dusty, old stand, now dark and empty, the Lightstone had sat in plain view for nearly three thousand years.

‘All the Valari did share of its radiance,’ my father told Salmelu. ‘Although it was deemed unwise to move it about among the kingdoms, our castle was always open to any and all who came to see it. Especially to the Ishkans.’

‘Yes, and we had to enter your castle as beggars hoping for a glimpse of gold.’

‘Is that why you invaded our lands with no formal declaration and tried to steal the Lightstone from us? If not for the valor of King Yaravar at the Raaswash, who knows how many would have been killed?’

At this, Salmelu’s small mouth set tightly with anger. Then he said, ‘You speak of warriors being killed? As your people killed Elsu Maruth, who was a very great king.’

Although my father kept his face calm, his eyes flashed with fire as he said, ‘Was he a greater king than Elkasar Elahad, whom you killed at the Diamond River twelve years ago?’

At the mention of my grandfather’s name, I stared at Salmelu and the flames of vengeance began eating at me, too.

‘Warriors die,’ Salmelu said, shrugging off my father’s grief with an air of unconcern. ‘And warriors kill – as King Elkamesh killed my uncle, Lord Dorje. Duels are duels, and war is war.’

‘War is war, as you say,’ my father told Salmelu. ‘And murder is murder, is it not?’

Salmelu’s hand moved an inch closer to the hilt of his sword as his fingers began to twitch. Then he called out, ‘Do you make an accusation, King Shamesh?’

‘An accusation?’ my father said. ‘No, merely a statement of truth. There are some who say that my father’s death was planned and call it murder. But you’ll never hear me say this. War is war, and even kings are killed on the field of battle. No matter the intent, this can’t be called murder. But the hunting of a king’s son in his own woods – that is murder.’

For a long time, perhaps as many as twenty beats of my racing heart, my father sat staring at Salmelu. His eyes were like bright swords cutting away at Salmelu’s outward hauteur to reveal the man within. And Salmelu stared at him: with defiance and a jealous hatred coloring his face. While this duel of the eyes took place before hundreds of men and women stunned into silence, I noticed Asaru exchange a brief look with Ravar. Then Asaru nodded toward a groom standing off to the side of the hall near the door that led to the kitchens. The groom bowed back and disappeared through the doorway. And Asaru stood up from the table, causing Salmelu to break eyes with my father and look at him instead.

‘My lords and ladies,’ Asaru called out to the room, ‘it has come to my attention that the cooks have finally prepared a proper ending to the feast. If you’ll abide with me a moment, they have a surprise for you.’

Now my father looked at Asaru with puzzlement furrowing his forehead. As did Lord Harsha, Count Dario, Lord Tomavar, and many others.

‘But what does all this have to do with murder?’ Salmelu demanded.

And Asaru replied, ‘Only this: that all this talk of killing and murder must have made everyone hungry again. It wouldn’t do to end a feast with everyone still hungry.’

Upon these curious words, the doors to the kitchen opened, and four grooms wheeled out one of the great serving carts usually reserved for the display of whole roasted boars or other large game. It seemed that one knight or another must have indeed speared a boar earlier that day in the woods, for a voluminous white cloth was draped over what appeared to be the largest of boars. Apparently it had taken all these many hours to finish cooking. The grooms wheeled the cart right out toward the front of the room, where they left it sitting just in front of the Ishkans’ table.

‘Is that really a boar?’ I heard Maram ask one of the grooms. ‘I haven’t had a taste of a good boar in two years.’

Despite himself, he licked his lips in anticipation of this most succulent of meats. How anyone could still be hungry after all the food consumed earlier, I didn’t know. But if any man could, Maram was certainly that man, and he eyed the bulging white cloth along with Master Tadeo and everyone else in the room.

Asaru came down from the dais and stepped over to the serving cart. He looked straight into Salmelu’s troubled eyes. And then, with a flourish I hadn’t known he possessed, he reached down and whisked the cloth away from the cart.

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

All at once, many others gasped out with him in astonishment as they stared at the cart. For there, laid out on its bloodstained boards, was the body of the assassin that I had killed in the woods.

5

The man’s face, I saw, was livid with the darkness of death. Although his eyes remained as I had closed them, no one had thought to change his dirty tunic, which was still moist with the blood that I had spilled.

‘What is this?’ Salmelu cried out, jumping to his feet. He rushed over to Asaru and stood facing him across the assassin’s body. ‘Who is this man? Are you saying that I murdered him?’

‘No,’ Asaru said, glancing up at me, ‘no one will say that.’

‘But who is he?’

‘That we would all like to know,’ Asaru said, looking first at my father and then out into the hall.

Salmelu flicked his hand toward the cart. ‘But what did you mean by saying it wouldn’t do to end a feast with everyone still hungry? This is no way to end a feast.’

‘No, it isn’t,’ Asaru agreed. ‘Not with all of us still hungry for the truth.’

I thought that my father had no knowledge of this ugly surprise that had been presented to his guests. It had all the markings of something that Asaru and Ravar had cooked up together, so to speak. But my father immediately saw their purpose. And so did I. With his bright eyes glistening, he looked out into the hall to see if anyone might give a sign that he recognized the assassin. I looked too, but with a sense deeper than that of sight. I thought I might detect the pangs of guilt or grief emanating from some knight who would prove to be the second assassin. But all I could feel was a great, spreading wave of revulsion that made me sick.

As all looked upon Asaru, he began telling of how two hooded men had tried to murder him in his father’s own forest. Although he gave a full account of my killing the man upon the cart, it was obvious that he still believed the first assassin’s arrow had been meant for him.

‘If anyone present knows this man,’ he said, pointing at the dead assassin, ‘will he speak and tell us who he is?’

Of course, Asaru must have thought that no one would speak at all. So he was as surprised as everyone else when Count Dario suddenly rose and walked over to the cart.

‘I know this man,’ he announced, looking at the body. ‘His name is Raldu. He joined our party in Ishka, just after we had crossed the Aru River.’

The other emissaries at the Alonian table, including two named Baron Telek and Lord Mingan, all looked at each other and nodded their heads in affirmation of what Count Dario had said.

‘But who is he?’ Asaru asked Count Dario. ‘And how is it that emissaries of a great king came to share fellowship with a murderer?’

Count Dario stood pulling at his bristly red chin hairs; then he fingered the golden wand of the caduceus emblazoned on his blue tunic. He was a cool-headed man, I thought, and he evinced not the slightest sign that my brother’s questions had insulted him.

‘I do not know if this man has a name other than Raldu,’ he said in a calm, measured voice. ‘And so I cannot say who he truly is. He said that he was a knight of Galda who fled that land when it fell to the Lord of Lies. He said that he had been wandering among the kingdoms in hope of finding a way to fight him. When he learned the nature of our mission, he asked to join us. He seemed greatly excited at the prospect of the Lightstone being recovered. As we all are. I apologize that I let this excitement fan the flames of my own. My enthusiasm obviously overwhelmed my judgment. Perhaps I should have questioned him more closely.’

‘Perhaps you should have,’ Asaru said, touching his hair where the arrow had burned through it.

At this my father looked at him sternly. And then, to Count Dario, he said, ‘It was not upon you to seek out the secrets of this Raldu’s heart. He joined you as a free companion only, not as a servant, and so you can’t be held responsible for his actions.’

‘Thank you, King Shamesh,’ Count Dario said, bowing.

My father bowed back to him, then continued, ‘But we must ask you to search your memory deeply now. Did Raldu ever speak against myself or my house? Did he form any close associations with your other companions? Or with anyone while you were in Ishka? Did he ever say anything to indicate who his true lord might be?’

Count Dario moved back over to his table where he conferred with his countrymen for a while. Then he looked up at the King and said, ‘No, none of us had cause to suspect him. On the journey through Ishka, he kept to himself and comported himself well at all times.’

So, I thought, if Count Dario spoke truly, Raldu had used the emissaries as cover to enter Mesh from Ishka. And then used the hunt as an opportunity to try to murder me.

‘So, then,’ my father said, as if echoing my thoughts, ‘it’s clear how Raldu found his way into Mesh. But what was he doing in Ishka? Is it possible that the Ishkans had no knowledge of this man’s presence?’

My father turned to look at Salmelu then. And Salmelu looked back at him as his hand touched his sword and he snarled out, ‘If you think to accuse us of hiring assassins to accomplish what good Ishkan steel has always done quite well, then perhaps we should add that to the list of grievances that only battle can address.’

My father’s hand tightened into a fist, and for a moment it seemed that he might accuse the Ishkans of this very crime. And then Count Dario raised up his voice and said, ‘Mesh and Ishka: the two greatest kingdoms of the Valari. And here you are ready to make war against each other when the Lord of Lies is on the march again. Isn’t there any way I could persuade you of what a tragedy this war will be?’

My father took a deep breath and relaxed his fingers. And then he spoke not just to Count Dario but to all those present in the hall. ‘War,’ he said, ‘has not yet been decided. But it is growing late, and we would like to hear from anyone who would speak for or against war with Ishka.’

As quickly as he could, Lord Harsha rose to his feet. He seemed in a combative mood, probably because he had lost his chance to chastise Maram. He rubbed the patch over his missing eye, then pointed at Raldu’s body and said, ‘We’ll probably never know if the Ishkans hired this man or his friend. But it doesn’t matter if they did. It’s plain that what the Ishkans really want is our diamonds. Well, why don’t we give them a bit of Meshian steel, instead?’

With that, he patted the sheath of his sword, and the cries of many of Mesh’s finest knights suddenly rang out into the hall. As he sat back down, I noticed Salmelu smiling at him.

During the whole time of the feast, my grandmother, sitting six places from me near the center of our family’s table, had been quiet. She was rather small for a Valari and growing old, but once she had been Elkamesh’s beloved Queen. I had never known a more patient or kinder woman. Although she was shrinking in her body as the years fell upon her, a secret light seemed to be gathering in her eyes and growing ever brighter. Everyone loved her for this deep beauty as she loved them. And so when Ayasha Elahad, the Queen Mother, arose to address the knights and ladies of Mesh, everyone fell silent to listen to her speak.

‘It’s been twelve years now since my King was killed in battle with the Ishkans,’ she called out in a voice like aged wine. ‘And many more since my first two sons met a similar fate. Now only King Shamesh remains for me – and my grandsons by him. Must I watch them be taken away as well over a handful of diamonds?’

That was all she said. But as she returned to her chair, she looked at me as if to tell me that it would break her heart if I died before she did.

Then Master Juwain arose and gazed out at the hundreds of warriors with his clear, gray eyes. ‘There have been thirty-three wars,’ he said, ‘over the centuries between Ishka and Mesh. And what has either kingdom gained? Nothing.’

That was all he said, too. He sat back down next to Master Kelem, who sagely nodded his hoary old head.

‘It’s to be expected that Master Juwain would feel thusly,’ Salmelu called out from where he still stood by the cart. ‘The Brothers always side with the women in avoiding matters of honor, don’t they?’

It is one of the tragedies of my people that the other Valari such as the Ishkans, do not esteem the Brotherhoods as do we of Mesh. They suspect them of secret alliances and purposes beyond the teaching of meditation or music – all true. But the Brothers, Maram notwithstanding, have their own honor. I hated Salmelu for implying that they – and noble women whom I loved – might be cowards.

I rose to my feet then. I took a drink of beer to moisten my dry throat. I knew that almost no one would want to hear what I had to say. But the kirax was beating like a hammer in my blood, and I still felt the coldness of Raldu’s body in my own. And so I looked at Salmelu and said, ‘My grandfather once told me that the first Valari were warriors of the spirit only. And that a true warrior would find a way to end war. It takes more courage to live life fully with an open heart than it does to march blindly into battle and die over a heap of dirt. And this is something women understand.’