Diamond Warriors

by David Zindell

  Know that, on your account, I have already punished the Trians. The city fell to my armies five days ago; but too many of its subjects took up swords in secret against me. The blame for their rebellion and their chastening falls upon you. You, who brought the Lightstone into their city and claimed to be the Maitreya. You incited their illicit hope and turned their sight away from the true Maitreya. Lord Morjin, they should address me, the Lord of Light. After today, they shall. For I have burned Tria to the ground, and the light of this conflagration shall be seen across Ea as a signal of the future: those who stand against me shall be utterly destroyed, along with all they possess. And their ashes shall be the fertile soil out of which will grow a new civilization and a new order for all who remain alive.

  Many, however, in all righteousness, must be sacrificed to bring about this new world. The grandfather of the woman you think you love has called for the Sarni tribes to take up arms against me. I shall tear out Sajagax's liver with my own hands and feed it to my hounds; his head I shall mount on a pole. Thus to those who have let Valashu Elahad incite them to defy me! Atara Ars Narmada, you will want to know, has taken on the title of Chiefess of the Manslayers. She shall soon be slain by one who is much more than a man. The last time I had this vixen under my thumb, I took her eyes; this time I will flay her alive and make a cloak of her skin. Tell me, Valashu, will you want to clasp her close to you then?

  As for the Hajarim stave whom you harbor, he is a false Maitreya and an abomination who keeps the true Shining One from using the Lightstone - and therefore keeps the world in darkness. I shall punish him above all others, except yourself. I swear to you that you will live to see him crucified. And his agony shall become yours, multiplied a thousandfold.

  Even as my fingers forced the quill to form these hateful words, I tried to command myself to stop writing. I could not. I sweated and ground my teeth and fought against the burning spasms of my muscles. The Ahrim now seemed to have seized control of my arm and most of my body. I could not stand up away from the table, even though I trembled to flee from my tent. I could not even draw my sword to cut off my own hand and the stream of lies that poured from the quill in swirls of black ink. All I could do was to stare down in horror at what I wrote:

  Do not think that what I have done and still must do has not caused me infinite suffering. But it is you who have made me do it. Have I not said before that our fates are bound together as one? And that you and I are as brothers?

  True, we are brothers who have come to hate each other. But joined to hate, as left hand to right, is always its opposite; can you deny that we have developed a terrible affection for each other, as well? Row much poorer would the world be, I wonder, if Valashu Elahad had not come forth as the greatest of evils that gives birth, in bitter opposition and war, to the greatest of good? And how much less a man would you have been, you should wonder, if I hadn't sought to end your cursed life at every turn?

  And so it is from my great affection for you that I will make this pledge: when at last you are defeated in battle and you are brought before me, I shall not have you crucified. A murderer you are, and you do deserve death, no man more so. But since you have already murdered your own soul, what more can the Red Dragon do? Only this: you will live, even as you live at this moment, transcribing my message to you. You shall serve me, all the days of your life. I shall not permit you to take your own life. Is it not fitting that he who has opposed me the most strenuously should be made to write down my words and then to proclaim them to all the world? You shall be my herald, Valashu. My most beloved ghul. Men will listen to you. And they will fear you, even as they do me, for you will take up the hammer and nails and crucify my enemies as if they were your own. And together we shall bring peace to the world.

  Please reflect on this as you write on and on into the night. Do not lament that you once possessed a will of your own; it has only betrayed you and all those you loved. Your fate is to serve, as we all must. The world has far more need of you as its subject than as a would-be Maitreya and a King of Kings,

  Faithfully, Morjin, King of Sakai, Lord of Ea and Lord of Light

  In coming to the end of this despicable letter, I hoped that the Ahrim - or Morjin - would let go its hold upon my hand. But then I gripped the quill even more tightly. With my left hand, I reached out to pull another sheet of paper from the stack before me.. I did not know what additional words Morjin might wish me to transcribe. A confession of my guilt as to the butchery of the Galdans and Karabukers? Denunciations of my friends and the captains of my army, accompanied with their death sentences? Or perhaps a credo proclaiming a new purpose for the Valari people in pledging their swords to the true Maitreya? Whatever Morjin wished me to write, I fought against his distant hand with every nerve fiber in my body and all the strength of my own. Sweat poured in rivulets down my face and neck and soaked into my tunic, and every muscle in my body quivered as with an over-tightened bowstring. I could not lift my finger a hair's-breadth away from the quill; I could scarcely keep my mind thinking those thoughts that I wished it to think.

  And then I heard someone enter my tent and come up beside me. Although I could not turn my head to see who it was, I felt his presence as a fresh, sea wind that drives away the stench of death after a battle. A hand, long of palm and with delicate, tapering fingers, laid itself down on top of my hand. Immediately, I felt the cold burning through my muscles leave me. The Ahrim seemed to vanish along with it, like smoke into the sky. I finally looked up to see Bemossed gazing at me.

  I would never know how he had managed to arise out of the catalepsy sickening him. Had it been, I wondered, through the Master Juwain's healing arts or the strengthening virtue of the Great Gelstei that the other masters of the Seven wielded? Had the goodness of Liljana's soup finally found its way deep into his body or one of Alphanderry's songs called to his soul? Or had Estrella's quiet but fierce love awakened him? He did not speak of this to me. Although he seemed weaker and more tired than ever in his flesh, a fire had come into his soft eyes. I sensed a terrible resolve burning through him and a vast will to make this be. 'Valashu,' he said to me, 'I must speak with you.'

  I drew my hand out from beneath his and stared at it. I said to him, 'You have driven away the Ahrim!'

  With great sadness, Bemossed shook his head. 'No, it was not I - I have no power over that thing.'

  'But it id gone!' I said, flexing my flngers. 'You do have power over it!'

  'No,' he told me with a shake of his head. 'Only power over you.'

  He smiled at me, but there was no joy in him, only oceans of pain. Then he added, 'No, that isn't right, either. I have no power over you. But I can help you to be free.'

  At this, I dropped the quill onto the new sheet of paper. It left scrapes of black against white.

  'I am free,' I told him. 'Free from that evil thing.'

  Bemossed bowed his head at this, and his smile grew deeper, 'That is good, friend. But the question that we should ask ourselves is not what we are free from. Rather, it is what are we free for?'

  'Surely,' I said, reaching out to grasp the hilt of my sword, 'we are free to make our fate. Or, at least, to meet it bravely.'

  'You would meet Morjin, wouldn't you? And his army?'

  'They have burned Tria!' I told him, looking down at the letter that I had been forced to write. 'If Morjin tells true, they have done this terrible thing. Now he will march on the Nine Kingdoms to do the most evil work of all!'

  'Then you will not turn back from the road that you march down?'

  'You know what I dream - how can I?'

  'And you know what I dream, too,' he told me. 'And so how can I watch men slaughter men ever again? How can I, Valashu?'

  That was all he said to me that night, and for many days after that. In the morning, while everyone went about the business of breaking camp, he took up his post on the east slopes of Magda overlooking the sea. He stood watching as I led the Meshian vanguard out from between the hills onto the
corpse-strewn beach. Then came Lord Tanu at the head of our foot warriors, and Lord Tomavar, and then the Kaashans in their masses of knights and glittering columns. True to King Talanu's wishes, the Kaashans had acclaimed Prince Viromar as their new king. That morning he rode beside me so that we might hold council as we marched north up the great highway of the beach. His standard, showing a white eagle against a blue field, flapped and cracked in the stiff wind blowing off the sea. The great noise of our army - the snorting horses, creaking wagons and jingling bells - drove away most of the gulls working at the fallen Galdans and Karabukers. I did not know until the last if Bemossed could bring himself to join us on our march. But as I led my thousands of men toward the Pillars of Heaven to the north of the beach, I looked back to see Bemossed come down from his post and mount his horse. Then he galloped forward to rejoin Liljana, Daj, Estrella and Alphanderry riding behind the vanguard.

  I was the first of the Valari to pass between the great black monoliths rising up toward the sky. Then came Viromar Solaru, now King Viromar, and the rest of our army. I did not know if these strange rocks held any magic or if marching across King Talanu's grave might inspirit my warriors. I prayed, however, that my army might somehow gain invincibility and go forth toward the greatest of victories.

  Abrasax, looking back at the devastation of the beach, his face all gray and grave, spoke only these words to me from the Book of Battles: '"From out of the darkest dark, the brightest light. From the worst of evil, the greatest of good."

  For all that day and part of the next we journeyed north across the hardpacked sands of the beaches of Delu's southern coast. Then, at a point where the coast slanted off northeast toward Delarid, we turned northwest to cross Delu's lowlands and cut the Nar Road some fifty miles away. Morjin, I thought, would leave a burning Tria behind him and march down the Nar Road from the opposite direction, perhaps to attack the Nine Kingdoms through Anjo and Taron. Our journey to the Seredun Sands had taken the Meshian and Kaashan armies far afield, and we had need of haste if we were to keep Morjin's soldiers from ravaging across the Morning Mountains and destroying the Valari armies one by one. My hope was that when we passed into Athar, the Valari kings would begin to join us, one by one. And then inevitably, somewhere, we would meet Morjin in a great battle where the Valari would once again fight together as one.

  It took us three days of tramping through some rich farmland to reach the city of Nagida astride the Nar Road. The umber foothills of the eastern ranges of the Morning Mountains rose up ten miles to the west of Nagida's red brick buildings. To the east, a hundred and seventy miles down the Nar Road, lay the white stone city of Delarid and King Santoval's magnificent palace, said to be the second grandest on all of Ea. I had sent an invitation to King Santoval, requesting that he lead his army forth and meet up with mine at Nagida. As his men would have a longer distance to cover than would mine, I was prepared to wait some days to welcome Delu's eighty thousand soldiers to our great purpose of defeating Morjin.

  'He won't come,' Maram told me for the twentieth time as we made camp. 'He hates to leave the company of his concubines.' 'He must come,' I told him. 'I know he will come.' King Santoval's army, however, true to Maram's prediction, never made the journey from Delarid, nor did King Santoval himself. In his place, he sent an envoy, Prince Adamad, a cousin of Maram. Prince Adamad, a large, florid-faced man wearing jeweled rings on seven of his fingers, rode up to our encampment along with half a dozen others of his retinue. He dismounted in front of my pavilion, and made a great show of bowing to me and my battle-hardened captains. In a voice as smooth and sweet as orange oiljtee called out to me: 'King Valamesh the Victorious, Champion of the Tournament at Nar, Hero of the Great Quest, Guardian of the Lightstone! - know that my lord, King Santoval Marshayk, sends his greetings! And his everlasting gratitude for your valor and that of your men in defeating the invaders from Galda and Karabuk! You have done Delu a great service! It shall never be forgotten! In recognition of your deeds, King Santoval has created a new honor just for you: that Valashu Elahad shall ever after be known as the Friend of Delu and Savior of the Realm!'

  So saying, he presented me with a golden wand set with emeralds fend topped with a cut diamond as large as a horse's eye. Wings, like those of an eagle and covered with diamond dust, projected out from the sides of the wand. It was a gaudy thing of great value but little beauty. I stood holding it and looking at Prince Adamad.

  'Please convey my thanks to your lord for this,' I said, squeezing the wand. 'But it would be an even greater honor to see King Santoval again - and to march with the king and his men to war.'

  Prince Adamad's face seemed to lose a little of its color. His smile lacked warmth as he said to me: 'War is upon now, and all free men from all the Free Kingdoms must do all that men can do to throw back our enemy.'

  'Good!' I called out. 'Then when can I expect King Santoval to join us here?'

  'Unfortunately, he is ill, and so he had to send me in his place.'

  I looked at Master Juwain, waiting nearby, and I said, 'What ails your king? Perhaps we can be of help.'

  'Oh, it is just the flux, and nothing that our own healers can't cure. But it will keep my lord from taking the field for some time.'

  'But we haven't much time!' told him. 'The Red Dragon has burned Tria! We must march west to meet him, and soon. If King Santoval is too ill, is there another who would lead the army here?'

  Prince Adamad cast me a long, hard look from beneath his heavily-lidded eyes. He looked even harder at Maram, standing next to me.

  'Prince Tymon commands the army in the king's absence,' Prince Adamad said. 'But I must tell you that he has been forced, from strategic necessity, to keep the army close to Delarid.' I stared right back at him and said, 'Please tell me why.' 'Why, in case the Galdans and Karabukers return. Our diviners believe that more armies might be summoned from Galda.'

  At this, Kane stepped forward. I felt him restraining himself from grabbing Prince Adamad's jeweled tunic and shaking him. 'Return, ha! There's no one left to return. We destroyed our enemy nearly down to the last man!'

  'So it is said,' Prince Adamad coughed out. He looked at Kane as he might an uncaged tiger. 'But the Red Dragon seems always able to summon up new armies. King Santoval has determined that Delu can be of greatest service to the Free Kingdoms - and of course, to the Valari - if we guard the gateway to the west and prevent any of the Red Dragon's armies from marching on your rear.'

  He looked at Lord Avijan and then Lord Harsha, whose single eye seemed to shine upon Prince Adamad like a star. The prince smiled with much nervousness at Lord Tomavar, Lord Tanu and King Viromar, who watched him with the concentration of a falcon. Now it came Maram's turn to confront Prince Adamad. He said to him, 'If you believe what you just told me, you are even more a fool than my father - and he is more a coward than I had thought possible!'

  Maram's words failed to chasten Prince Adamad, or even embarrass him. He drew himself up stiffly, and with the relish of nastiness declared to Maram: 'You have no father, now. You wear diamond armor and the sword of a Valari knight; you have given your allegiance to a Valari king. Where the Valari march, you will march as well. And where they fall, so will you. King Santoval will make no prayers over your grave.'

  'So be it,' Maram said. I could feel him holding back tears - of anguish and rage. 'But at least I will lie in the company of men.' Prince Adamad made no response to this, nor did any of the other Delians in his retinue. Then Maram shouted at them: 'Is there no one of our land who will fight?'

  Prince Adamad said nothing to this, either. Then he bowed to me and told me, 'My lord and all of Delu wish you well on your journey. King Santoval will send provisions to speed you upon it. The Savior of the Realm will always have Delu's blessings.'

  He bowed once again, then mounted his horse and rode off with the others of his embassy. I stood watching them disappear down the road to the east. I gripped the golden wand of victory that King Santoval had sent to me. The
n I turned in the opposite direction and said to King Viromar: 'It seems that those who should have been our allies have abandoned us. Will Kaash still march with Mesh?'

  Prince Viromar. whose face seemed harsher than that of an eagle, smiled and told me: 'To the end of the earth, if that ts our fate. It will be as that fat prince said: we Valari will march together.'

  I, too, smiled grimly. Then I cast the golden wand down to the dirt at my feet and clasped King Viromar's hand.

  It was our fate, however, that the Delians did not completely desert us in our time of need. Just before nightfall from the north, a renowned Deilan warrior known as Prince Thubar led five hundred mounted knights and three thousand foot soldiers into our encampment. Prince Thubar, a great bull of a man and yet another of Maram's innumerable cousins, met with King Viromar and my captains and me outside my pavilion, where the wand of triumph still lay on the ground. Prince Thubar looked down at it, and said, 'I had heard that King Santoval ordered a victory baton made. And that he has betrayed you, King Valamesh. But you might, even so, wish to keep the baton in recognition of your men's sacrifice for Delu and your great victory. My countrymen, across our land, know of what you did, and we do honor you. Those who would not be made cowards by their king have come here with me in proof of this honor, that we might pledge our swords to your cause.'

  So saying, he drew out his single-edged sword, only slightly less long than a kalama. I bowed my head to him, and pressed my hand to the flat of his blade. I picked up the golden wand. Then I walked with Prince Thubar out to the edge of the encampment where he had ordered the Deilan cavalry and infantry to draw up in neat ranks and columns. The Deiian knights wore a good mail armor reinforced with steel plate; the infantry, though, had only thin sheets of bronze sewn to padded leather to protect them. I wondered at the fighting quality of these men. But I could not doubt their spirits, for they stood here not only in defiance of Morjin but of their own king.