The Lightstone: The Ninth Kingdom

by David Zindell

  For a long time, I stared into the golden cup he held before me. I saw the Red Desert bloom with flowers and the Vardaloon changed into a paradise. I saw warriors in the thousands laying down their swords and peace brought to all lands.

  When I finally looked up, I saw that Morjin had changed as well. If possible, he was even more beautiful than before. His golden eyes had softened with an immense compassion, and in place of his dragon-embroidered tunic, he seemed clothed in an unearthly radiance of many colors. Without him telling me so, I knew that he had been made from a man into one of the great Elijin themselves.

  ‘For three ages,’ he told me, ‘in a hard and terrible world, I’ve had to do hard and terrible things. Many times I’ve slain men, even as you have, Valashu Elahad.’

  The suffering I saw in his sad and beautiful eyes was real. It made my eyes burn and touched me more deeply than I could bear. Only the golden cup, which poured out a healing light like the coolest and sweetest of waters, kept me from falling down and weeping.

  ‘But soon the Lightstone will be found,’ he told me as he looked down into the cup. ‘The old world will be destroyed and a new one created. And you and Atara – all your children and grandchildren – will live your lives in a world that knows only peace.’

  Only Morjin knew how badly I wanted the things that he showed me. But it was all a lie. The most terrible of lies, I thought, is that which one desperately wants to be true.

  ‘You’re close, aren’t you?’ Morjin said to me.

  I shut my eyes as I slowly shook my head back and forth.

  ‘Yes, so very close now to finding it,’ he said. ‘Open your eyes to me that I might see where you are.’

  I wanted with a terrible longing to open my eyes and see the world transformed into a place of beauty and light.

  ‘Open your eyes, please – it’s growing late and the morning will soon be upon us.’

  I stood at the bow of the heaving ship, trying to listen to the wind instead of his golden voice. I knew that I couldn’t fight him much longer.

  ‘The stars, Valashu. Let me look at the same stars that you see.’

  My hand closed about the hilt of my sword, but I remembered that it was broken. And so, at last, I opened my eyes to look upon the stars rising in the east. Master Juwain had once told me that darkness couldn’t be defeated in battle but only by shining a bright enough light. And there, just above the dark line of the horizon, blazed a white star that was brighter than any other. I fixed my eyes upon this single shimmering light that was called Valashu, the Morning Star. As I opened myself to its radiance, it suddenly filled the sky like the sun. It consumed me utterly. And I vanished into it like a silver swan soaring into that sacred fire that has no beginning or end.

  ‘Damn you, Elahad!’ I heard Morjin’s voice cursing me as from far away. But when I turned to look at him, he was gone.

  I gripped the railing along the topsides as I gasped and gave thanks for my narrow escape. I breathed in the smell of the sea and the pungency of pitch that sealed the seams of the creaking ship. Although the night’s constellations still hung in the sky like twinkling signposts, there was a red sheen in the east that heralded the rising of the sun.

  When I returned to my companions where we had spread out our sleeping furs along the deck, I found that Kane was awake. He was always awake, it seemed. Or perhaps it was more true to say that he seldom slept.

  ‘What is it?’ he murmured to me as I sat down on my fur. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘Worse,’ I whispered back to him. ‘Morjin.’

  Many times, Master Juwain had warned me not to say this accursed name; now the mere utterance of it seemed to rouse him from his sleep. Of course, he liked to rise early anyway, and the ship’s open deck was now glowing in the day’s first light.

  I told them both what had happened while I had stood alone by the railing. And Master Juwain said, ‘You did well, Val. The Morning Star, you say? Hmmm, an interesting variation of the light meditations I’ve taught you.’

  Kane’s eyes were black pools darker than the nighttime sea. They searched along the deck and behind the towering masts as if looking for Morjin. And then he said, ‘It disturbs me how much he knows of his son’s death. He’s growing stronger, I think.’

  Both he and Master Juwain agreed that I must continue my meditations. As well, I must practice the art of guarding the doorway to my dreams.

  ‘And we must practice swords,’ Kane told me. ‘Not all our battles against Morjin, I think, will be with his damned illusions and lies.’

  When I pointed out that I had no sword to cross against his, he said, ‘So, why don’t you make one, then? I’m sure Captain Kharald can spare a bit of wood.’

  As it happened, Captain Kharald was only too glad to provide me with a piece of a broken old spar that one of his men fetched from the hold – for a price. He said that good oak was valuable, broken or not, and asked for a silver piece in payment. But silver we had none, only the gold coins in Atara’s purse, any one of which would have bought a whole forest of oaks. And so we settled on shaving a coin’s rim, and giving these gold splinters to Captain Kharald. Such debasement of royal coinage, of course, was a crime. Or would have been if the coin had been Alonian. But as it was stamped with the head of King Angand of Sunguru, who was Morjin’s ally, no one on board seemed to mind.

  I spent most of the morning whittling the hard oak spar. While the sails above me filled with a good following wind and the Snowy Owl fairly flew through the water, I shaved off long strips of wood with my dagger – the same blade that I had put into Raldu’s heart. It wasn’t the best tool for such work, but its Godhran steel cut well enough. By the time the fierce Marud sun was high above us and heating up the deck, I had a wooden sword as long as a kalama. Wood being lighter than steel, I had made it much thicker than the blade I was used to in order to preserve its heft. But its balance was good and it handled quite well – indeed so well that I held my own against Kane for most of our first round of swordplay. Although he finally cut through my defenses, it seemed that he was having to work ever harder to do so.

  We sailed all that day and next night into the west beneath fair skies. A hundred miles we made from sunset to sunset, Captain Kharald told us. By the second morning of our voyage, we had reached a point just south of Orun off Nedu. There some clouds came up upon a rising wind as the sea grew rougher. The ship rocked and heaved to the swelling of ten-foot waves, and so did our bellies. A strange malady called sea-sickness stole upon us like a fever that comes from eating rotten meat. It grabbed hold of Maram and me the most tightly, while Atara, Alphanderry and Liljana were less troubled. Master Juwain, who had grown up around boats, said that he hardly felt sick at all. As for Kane, the ship might have rolled over on its side and cast us all into the ocean before he complained of any distress.

  ‘Ah, oh, ohhhh!’ Maram gasped. We knelt side by side and hung our heads over the ship’s stern as we gave up our dinners to the sea. ‘Oh, this is too much! This is the worst yet – I’ll never get on a ship again.’

  All about us, the wind howled like a stricken beast and the water churned a blackish-green. The ship’s masts, trimmed back of much sail, groaned even more loudly than did Maram.

  ‘I want to go back, Val,’ Maram said as a wave slapped the side of the ship. ‘I don’t care if we ever find the Lightstone.’

  Even though I knew we were close to laying our hands upon this long-sought cup, I pressed my fist into the pit of my belly and said, ‘All right then – we’ll go back.’

  Maram looked at me through the spray that the ship cast up. ‘Do you really mean that, my friend?’

  ‘Yes, why not? We’ll return to Mesh as soon as we can. We’re sure to have a warm homecoming, even if we fail in our quest.’

  ‘All your family would turn out to greet us, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Of course they would,’ I said. ‘Lord Harsha, too.’

  At the mention of this name, Mar
am moaned even louder and cried out, ‘Oh, Lord Harsha – I’d almost forgotten about him!’

  His belly heaved as he leaned even farther over the side of the ship – so far in fact that I had to grasp hold of his belt for fear that he would fall into the sea. He might have been grateful that I had saved his life. But instead he groaned, ‘Oh, just me let go and be done with it! Oh, I want to die, I want to die!’

  It gave us little courage when Kane later told us that we would soon find our sea-legs, as with Captain Kharald and the others of his crew. After sipping some tea that Master Juwain brewed to ease our suffering, I cast my wretched, empty body down upon my furs and lay as still as I could upon the ship’s rolling deck. I fell asleep and had dark dreams, dreams of death. Whether these nightmares came from Morjin or my own misery was hard to say. But it seemed that the ally Master Juwain had bade me summon to watch over my sleep was a poor guard that night.

  By the next morning, however, the sea had quieted somewhat and so had my belly. I found myself able to stand and fix my gaze upon the wavering blueness of the horizon. One of Captain Kharald’s men, another redbeard named Jonald, pointed out a hazy bit of land to the starboard and said that it was one of the Windy Isles. This was a long chain of rocky outcroppings that ran for more than three hundred miles between Nedu and the coast of Eanna to the south. We had made good speed, he said, coming some two hundred and fifty miles since setting sail from King Vakurun’s little city. Another hundred and fifty should find us pulling in to the great harbor at Ivalo.

  We took this opportunity to hold a brief council and decide the best course for reaching the Island of the Swans. Kane spoke for us all when he said, ‘This Captain Kharald is a greedy man, but he knows his business. He has a good ship and good crew, I think. Why not let them take us to the island?’

  Atara brought out her purse and hefted it so that the coins jingled. She said, ‘Greedy, hmmph, I suppose he is. Well, we have gold for him then. But will it be enough?’

  That question seemed settled an hour later when we took Captain Kharald aside and put our proposal to him. When he learned of where we truly hoped to journey, he looked aghast and said, ‘The Island of the Swans, you say? Why would you want to go there? It’s cursed.’

  ‘Cursed how?’ I asked him.

  ‘No one knows for certain. But it’s said there are dragons there. No one ever sails to that place.’

  I told him that we must reach this island, and soon. I told him about the vows we had made in King Kiritan’s palace and our hopes of regaining the Lightstone.

  ‘The Lightstone, the Lightstone,’ Captain Kharald sighed out. ‘I’ve heard talk of little else in all the ports from Ivalo to the Elyssu. But surely your golden cup no longer exists. It must have been melted down into coinage or jewelry long ago.’

  ‘Melted, ha!’ Kane called out. ‘Can the sun itself be melted? The Lightstone is no ordinary gold.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s not,’ Captain Kharald said reasonably. ‘But I’ve only ever known gold of one kind.’

  Here he smiled significantly at Atara as if he could see beneath her cloak. Understanding only too well the meaning of this avaricious look, she brought out her purse and handed it to him.

  ‘Aha, you do have gold, don’t you?’ he said. He took Atara’s purse in one hand and weighed it carefully while he stroked his red beard with the other. Then he opened it, and his green eyes lit up like emeralds as he looked inside. ‘Beautiful, beautiful – but where is the rest of it, then?’

  Atara cast me a quick, sharp look, then said, That’s all we have.’

  ‘Well, if that’s all you have, that’s all you have,’ he said as if consoling a poor widow who has to live on a meager inheritance. ‘But the Island of the Swans lies more than three hundred miles from Ivalo. Across the Dragon Channel at that.’

  ‘That’s all the money we have,’ Atara said again.

  ‘I believe you,’ he said. ‘But gold’s gold, and not all of it is pressed into coins.’

  Here he pointed at the gold medallion that King Kiritan had slipped around Atara’s neck. His eyes fixed on this brilliant sunburst and the golden cup standing out in relief at its center. Then he looked at Kane and Liljana and all the rest of us as well.

  ‘Do you expect us to give you these?’ she said, touching her medallion.

  ‘My dear young woman, I expect nothing,’ he said. ‘But it is a very long way to this island you seek.’

  Now Atara’s fingers were twitching as if at any moment she might reach for her sword. I had never seen her so angry. ‘The King gave us these with his blessing, that we might be known and honored in all lands.’

  ‘A great man, is King Kiritan,’ Captain Kharald said. ‘And you are honored greatly. Who could bring more honor upon themselves than they who were willing to give the gold that all men desire for that finer metal of the Lightstone which so few have the courage to seek?’

  His clever words shamed us, and we all looked at each other in silent understanding of what we would have to pay for our passage to the Island of the Swans.

  ‘Very well,’ I said, touching the words written around my medallion’s rim. ‘If that is what it takes.’

  ‘Oh, I’m afraid it would take much more than that to cross the Dragon Channel,’ he told us. ‘That is a dangerous water. There are bad currents, many storms. And it’s grown more dangerous of late, now that Hesperu has sent its ships to blockade Surrapam’s ports.’

  He spoke sadly about the war that had riven his homeland; he gave us to understand that he had lost a great fortune in fleeing his warehouses and ships to re-establish himself in Ivalo.

  ‘So you see, this is a time for prudence,’ he said. ‘And prudence demands that great risks be undertaken only at the prospect of great gain.’

  I nodded at the purse he still clutched in his hand. I said, ‘The coins you may have. Our medallions as well. What more do you ask of us?’

  ‘My good Prince,’ he said, ‘I ask nothing. At least nothing more than fair compensation for such dreadful risks.’

  Now his gaze fell upon the ring that my father had given me. Its two diamonds sparkled brilliantly in the morning light.

  ‘You want me to give you this?’ I said, holding up my knight’s ring. Would I give up my hand to gain the Lightstone? Would I give up my arm?

  ‘Well,’ he told me, ‘diamonds are dearer than gold.’

  Now it was my turn to be angry. I shook my ring at him as I said, ‘Am I a diamond-seller, then?’

  ‘Excuse me if I insulted you,’ Captain Kharald said as he held out his hands. ‘I don’t like to argue.’

  I took ten deep breaths as I tried to quiet the drumming of my heart. And then I said, ‘All right, if it’s diamonds you want, then you may have these two. But not the ring itself, do you understand?’

  ‘Very well,’ he said in a voice as cool as the sea. ‘But you must understand that I could never risk my ship for even two such splendid diamonds as these.’

  ‘How many would it take then?’ I asked, clenching my teeth. If I had been wearing the diamond armor of a Valari warrior, I might have given him a whole fistful of diamonds – across the face.

  ‘How many do you have?’ he asked me.

  ‘Only these two,’ I said, nodding at my ring.

  ‘Two only?’ he said, shaking his head. ‘And you a prince of Mesh?’

  ‘In Mesh,’ I told him, ‘we set our diamonds into armor and such rings as you see. But we would never carry any outside our land.’

  ‘Well, I’ve no liking to call any man a liar,’ he said as he pulled on his red mustache. ‘Neither do I like to haggle.’

  I looked at Kane and the others, then told him, ‘All that we have to give you for our passage, we have offered.’

  Now Captain Kharald cocked his head as he looked at Atara’s golden torque then turned to regard the rings that encircled each of Maram’s fingers.

  ‘You want my rings, too?’ Maram said.

  ‘Perhaps not,’
Captain Kharald said, shaking his head again. ‘Perhaps this journey of yours is just too dangerous. You must understand.’

  At the coldness of his voice, Kane finally lost his patience. As quick as a flash, he whipped out his sword and held it reflecting the sun.

  ‘So, I don’t like to haggle either,’ Kane said. ‘We’ve offered you more than fair. Do you understand?’

  ‘Do you draw your sword,’ Captain Kharald said in an icy voice, ‘against a ship’s captain?’

  Just then, Jonald and ten other of Captain Kharald’s men came running toward us with their cutlasses drawn. All of them, however, had seen Kane’s sword work, and they held back, forming a circle around us.

  ‘No, not against you, Captain,’ Kane said. ‘I’ve no liking for mutiny, only exercise, eh?’

  So saying, he slowly stretched his sword back behind him as if going through the first motion of the killing art that he had taught me.

  ‘My men will never take you to the Island of the Swans without me,’ Captain Kharald said. ‘If you run me through, you gain nothing.’

  ‘Nothing but satisfaction,’ Kane growled at him.

  ‘Kane!’ I called out suddenly. I didn’t like the look in his dark eyes just then.

  Captain Kharald looked straight at Kane and said, ‘You must do what you must. And I must do the same.’

  Whatever Captain Kharald’s failings, I thought, lack of courage wasn’t one of them. I stepped forward then, and bade Kane put away his sword. I watched with relief as Captain Kharald’s men sheathed theirs as well. To Captain Kharald, I said, ‘You are certainly the captain of this ship – and the master of your own will as well. So long as the Red Dragon is kept at bay, you always will be.’