The Lightstone

by David Zindell

  Hadn't I, after Atara had eaten the timana and lay stricken in the Lokilani's wood, somehow called her back from death? And hadn't I called to King Kiritan's compassion and softened his heart toward her? What other possibilities might be lost if the valarda were simply expunged from me like a raging fever that gives visions of the angels along with convulsions?

  Surely the Cup of Heaven held secrets unknown to any man. And surety the unbidden empathy that connected me to others held for me mysteries I might never understand.

  For many years, I had thought of my gift as a door that might be opened or closed according to my will. Some terrible things, such as my killing Raldu in the woods, paralyzed my will and left me open to the greatest of pain. But only three nights before, I had slain Baron Narcavage's men and suffered something less than the icy touch of their deaths. Was I somehow learning to keep closed the door to my heart even as I struck cold steel into others'? Or was I only hardening, as tender; flesh grows layers of callus to bear up beneath the world's outrages and thorns?

  I didn't know. But my dream led me to hope that someday, in some mysterious way, the valarda might help me withstand the most violent of passions and emotional storms. I did know that whatever the cost, I must somehow keep myself open to my companions, for I had something vital to give them.

  And I couldn't not give. They were as my brothers and sisters, and each of them was close to my heart in a different way. Each had weaknesses and even greater strengths that I was beginning to see ever more clearly. This was my gift, to see in others what they couldn't see in themselves. And in Kane and Atara, no less Maram and Master Juwain, was buried a finer steel than they ever knew.

  Maram, my fat friend, lived in fear of the world and all that might come growling out of its dark shadows to harm him. But he also lived, passionately and with great joy, as few men dared to do, and I believed that someday his love of life would overcome his fright. Master Juwain might dwell too much in his books and his brain, but I knew that someday, and soon, he would find the door to his own heart and emerge from it as a healer without equal. Atara might be overzealous in striving to make the world and everything around her perfect. But in her, more than anyone I knew, blazed a deep love that was already perfect in itself and needed no refinement to touch others with its beauty. As for Kane, his hate pooled black and bitter as bile.

  But his rage at life was all the more terrible for concealing something sweet and warm and splendid as a golden apple shining in the sunlight. I prayed that someday he would remember himself and behold the noble being he was born to be.

  Liljana and Alphanderry were harder for me to read, for I had known them only a few days. Already, however, on this very morning, Liljana's caring for others was obvious in the way she surprised us with a breakfast of bacon, eggs and some delicious crescent bread that she managed to coax out of a stone oven that she had painstakingly built while we had slept. She insisted on keeping our plates full while she waited to eat - and took nothing but joy at seeing our bodies and souls thus nourished. And Alphanderry, when we had finished our meal, picked up his mandolet and sang us a song with all his heart. He was incapable, I thought, of singing any other way. His music made our spirits soar and our feet eager to set out on the road before us.

  I believed in my friends as I did the earth and the trees, the wind, the sky, the very sun. In their presence I felt more fully human, more alive. Often it seemed that I longed for their company as I did food and

  drink Their smiles and kind words sustained me; the beating of their hearts reminded me of the power and purpose of my own. I loved the sound of Maram's deep voice the smell of Atara's thick hair, even the wild gleam bound up in the darkness of Kanes black eyes. Their gift to me was greater than anything I could ever give to them, for it fed the fire of my valarda; it made me want to touch all things no matter the passion or pain, to burn away and be reborn like a great silver swan from the flames. In them I heard the whisper of my deepest self no less the calling of the stars.

  We resumed our journey that morning with great good cheer. We rode without time pressing at us - and neither were we harried by wounds or men pursuing us with swords or knives. I was almost certain of this. The country through which we passed, with its little farms and fishing villages, was as peaceful as any I had ever seen. There was no smell of danger in the air, only the scent of the sea that blew over us in soft breezes and cooled the sun-drenched land.

  We stopped to take our midday meal in a village called Railan. From a stand near the boats by the beach, we bought some fried fish and little slices of potatoes all crisp and golden and redolent with strangely spiced oils, I stood a long time staring out at the shining ocean and marveling at its size. And then Kane growled out that it was growing late and we should be on our way.

  We left the coast road at Railan, from where it continued along the headland to the ancient town of Ondrar, built at the point of a peninsula sticking out into the ocean.

  Ondrar was famed for its museum housing many artifacts from the Age of Law; in setting out on the road toward this town, which lay northwest of Tria, we had hoped that anyone following us would suppose we would begin our quest there. But Kane was expert at maneuver and believed in always misdirecting the enemy. The Tur-Solonu, to the southwest, remained our objective. So, as we had decided the previous night we turned toward it on a little dirt road leading out of Railan. It was scarred with potholes and wagon tracks, but so long as the weather held good, it would suit our purpose well.

  'We're free,' Maram said to me that evening as we made camp on a farmer's field by a stream. 'Finally free. I'm sure no followed us from Tria. Ah, no one is following us, are they, Val?'

  'No, they're not,' I said to reassure him. I looked at the farmland spread across the green hills around us and the occasional stands of trees along the streams. Then I smiled and said, 'It's likely that there aren't even any bears.'

  The following morning we continued on into the fine spring sunshine. Away from the coast the air grew warmer, but never so hot that we suffered, not even Kane and I in our steel armor. All that day and the next our horses walked down the dry road. Fifty miles, at least, we covered with our steady plodding, and every mile was full of birds singing or bees buzzing in the flowers in the woods by the road. Along our way, the farms grew ever smaller and were separated by ever greater stands of trees.

  Some time on the fourth day of our journey, we passed from Old Alonia into the barony of Iviunn. A woodcutter that we met along the road told us that we had crossed into Baron Muar's domains. He also told us that we would find few farms or towns thereabout. We had entered a forest he said, that so far as he knew went on to the west for a good seventy miles.

  'So,' Kane told us later, 'the forest goes on a hundred and seventy miles, all the way to the Tur-Solonu - and beyond, across the mountains into the Vardaloon. That's the greatest forest in all of Ea.'

  The thought of such an unbroken expanse of trees awed me almost as much as had the sight of the ocean. I looked about us at the verdant swath of oaks and elms crowding the road - now reduced to a dirt track - and I said, 'So few people here.'

  'Yes - that's what we wanted, isn't it?'

  A long time ago, he said, this part of Alonia from Iviunn up into the domains of Narain and Jerolin, had been full of people. But the War of the Stones had laid waste the countryside, and the forest had reclaimed land once its own. There were still many people in Iviunn, but fifty miles to the south, along the Istas River.

  'Ah, perhaps we should have traveled that way,' Maram said as he stared off into the darkening woods. 'There is a road that goes from Tria to Durgin, isn't there? A good road, it's said.'

  'You're thinking of your bears again, aren't you?' Kane asked him.

  'Well, what if I am?'

  'So,' Kane said to him, 'you've seen bears and you've seen Morjin's men: Kallimun priests as well as the Grays. Which do you prefer?'

  'Neither,' Maram said, shuddering. 'But we don't know
that we'd find the Kallimun along the Durgin Road, do we?'

  'We won't find them here,' Kane snapped at him. Then, as if remem-bering that Maram was now his sworn companion, his voice softened and he said, 'At least it's much less likely.' We made camp under the cover of the trees that night In this thick forest among the oaks and elms, there were many that I had seen only rarely: black ash and locust magnolia and holly. We laid out ow sleeping furs near some thickets full of baneberry, with their tiny white flowers that looked like clumps of snow. The coming into our company of Kane, Alphanderry and Liljana had changed our daily routines for the better, I thought. Atara had a talent for finding good clear water and so set herself the task of filling our canteens and pots and bearing them back and forth from a nearby stream to our camp. I took charge of tending the horses: tethering and combing them down, and feeding them the oats that the packhorses carried. It gave me some moments to be alone with Altaru beneath the tree-shrouded stars. Maram, of course, gathered wood for his fires, while Kane worked furiously to fortify our camp, sometimes cutting brush or thornwood to place around it sometimes hiding dry twigs among the bracken so that whoever stood watch might be warned of approaching enemies by hearing a sudden snap. Master Juwain took to helping Liljana prepare our meals. Although he had acquired some skill with the cookware since Mesh and could turn out a good plate of hotcakes, he had much to learn from Liljana, who immediately commandeered the food supply and practically turned him into her servant. But we were all grateful that she did. That night she conjured up a fish stew out of the ugly planks of salt cod and some roots, herbs, mushrooms and wild onions that she found in the forest. It was delicious. For dessert we had raspberries, accompanied by a little brandy. And then, while Master Juwain washed the dishes, Alphanderry played his mandolet and sang to us before we slept

  He really did little other work. To be sure, he might wander about the camp, joining me to brush the horses or helping Kane cut sharpened stakes to be driven into the earth - until Kane grew exasperated with his desultory axework and growled at him to be left alone. He flitted from one task to another, sometimes completing it, sometimes not, but always having a good time talking with whomever he chose to help. And we took great delight in his company, for he was always outgoing and cheerful, and always responsive to others' moods or remarks. If he saw it as his charge to keep our spirits uplifted, no one disputed that. In the end, despite whatever fine foods we found to put into our bellies, sharpened stakes or no, it would only be by strengthening our spirits that we would ever find the Lightstone.

  That night, as we sat on top of our furs sipping our brandy, while Alphanderry's beautiful voice flowed out into the night, Flick appeared and spun about to the music. This lifted my spirits, and those of Master Juwain, Maram and Atara, for we hadn't seen much of him since we entered Tria. But since leaving the city, he had become ever more active and visible, and now the darkness between the trees filled with tiny, twinkling stars. I laughed to see him dancing among the flowers as he had in the Lokilani's wood. Even Kane smiled when Flick pulsed with little bursts of light to the rhythms of Alphandeny's song. He pointed off into the trees and said to me,

  'Your little friend is back.'

  Alphanderry, sitting toward the fire, suddenly put down his mandolet and turned to look into the woods. Then he looked around the fire at Atara, Maram, Master juwain and me, and asked, 'What are you all staring at?'

  Strangely, although Flick had been with us since the night of the fireworks, we hadn't yet remarked his presence. Does one make mention of the stars that come out every night? Sometimes, though, when the great Swan constellation and others are particularly bright, it is very hard not to look up in wonder. As it was now with Flick.

  'It's one of the Timpimpiri,' Kane told Alphanderry. 'He's followed us through most of Alonia.'

  Now Alphanderry blinked his eyes and stared hard toward the trees. Liljana did too.

  But neither of them saw anything other than shadows.

  'You're having a joke with me, aren't you?' Alphanderry said as he smiled at Kane.

  'A joke, is it?' Kane called out. 'Do I look like one to joke?'

  'No, you don't,' Alphanderry admitted. 'And we'll have to change that before this journey is through.'

  'You might as well try changing the face of the moon,' Maram put in.

  Again, Alphanderry smiled as he studied the woods and suddenly said, 'Hoy, yes, I do see him now! He's got ears as long as a rabbit and a face as green as the leaves we can't see.'

  'Ha - foolish minstrel,' Kane muttered as he took a sip of brandy. But his raising of his glass couldn't quite hide the smile that touched his lips.

  'Here, Flick!' Alphanderry suddenly called to the trees. 'Why don't you come here and say hello?'

  Alphanderry began whistling then, and this high-pitched sound was as sweet as any music that ever flowed from a panpipe. To our astonishment, and Kane's most of all, Flick came whirling out of the trees and took up position in front of Alphanderry's face.

  'Oh, Flick,' Alphanderry said to the air in front of him, 'you're a fine little fellow, aren't you? But it's too bad we've eaten all of Liljana's good stew and have only bread to share with you.'

  So saying, he found a crust of bread and held it out as he might to feed a squirrel.

  'You really can't see him, can you?' Maram said to him.

  'How could he,' Master Juwain asked, 'if he never ate the timana?

  'Of course I can see him,' Alphanderry said. 'He's a shy little one, isn't he? Come, Flick, this bread won't hurt you.'

  To prove this, he ate most of it and left a large crumb between his lips. And then he held out his hand as if beckoning Flick to hop onto it and take the crumb from his mouth.

  Once again, it astonished us when Flick moved onto the palm of his hand. The spiral swirls of his form flared with sparks and little purple flames.

  'Ha!' Kane said, 'he must understand more than we thought. It would seem that there's more to the Timpimpiri than anyone thought'

  'Of course there is,' Alphanderry said, after swallowing the breadcrumb. 'They are magical beings, known to live in the deeper woods everywhere. If they've taken food from you, they must grant three wishes.'

  'But Flick can't take food at all,' Maram said.

  'Of course he can!' Alphanderry said. 'Of course he did! Didn't you see him?'

  'Ah, I suppose I must have been looking away,' Maram said, grinning. 'What are your three wishes, then?'

  'My first wish, of course, is that Flick grant all my future wishes.'

  That's cheating!' Atara called out.

  'And my second wish,' he said, ignoring her, 'is that we accomplish the impossible and find the Lightstone.'

  'That's better,' Atara said, smiling.

  'And my third wish,' he continued, 'is that we accomplish the truly impossible and make our grim Kane laugh.'

  Kane sat by the fire staring at Alphanderry with his hard eyes, and a stone statue couldn't have been more still.

  'Now, then,' Alphanderry said, rising to his feet, 'the, ah, Timpimpiri are capable of many feats, magical and otherwise. Please watch closely, or you'll miss this.'

  Alphanderry, it turned out, was skilled not only in music and singing but in the art of pantomime. He stood looking at his open hand and talking to Flick as if trying to persuade his invisible friend to entertain us. And all the while, his face took on different moods and expressions, and seemed as easily molded as a ball of Liljana's bread dough. The extreme mobility of his face, no less the sudden and comical deepening of his voice, made us laugh a little - all of us except Kane.

  'Now, Flick,' Alphanderry said in a voice all arrogant and stern like King Kiritan's,

  'you've eaten our food and now must obey us. At my command, you'll jump into my other han.'/

  Alphanderry now held his left hand out and away from his body. He looked down toward Flick in his right hand, and said, 'Are you ready?

  Just then his face underwent a sudden transfigura
tion and fell softer. His voice softened, too, becoming fully feminine, and when he spoke, its tone was unmistakably that of Queen Daryana. As if speaking to himself, this new voice called out, 'Is he a Timpimpiri or a slave? Why don't you set him free?'

  Again, Alphanderry's face and voice took on the manner of King Kiritan. And he called out in response, 'Who rules here, you or I?'

  Now he looked down at his hand and continued, 'When the King says jump, you jump.'

  But before he, as King Kiritan, could get another word out, his face fell through yet another change. And speaking with Queen Daryana's voice, he said, 'The King has said you must jump, Flick. All right then, jump!'

  All at once, Flick shot up off Alphanderry's hand and streaked up in a fiery arc to land on the other. And Alphanderry, who had yet again returned to his King Kiritan persona, pretended to watch this feat with outrage coloring his face. His eyes opened wide at his Queen's defiance and bounced like balls as they turned toward his other hand.

  Now Kane's stony visage finally cracked. The faintest of smiles turned up his lips.

  Alphanderry's antics amused him much less, I thought, than did his utter blindness to Flick.

  Alphanderry, still speaking as Queen Daryana, said, 'Quick, Flick -jump! Jump again, jump now!'

  Each time he said this, Flick streaked from Alphanderry's one hand to the other, back and forth like a blazing rainbow. And with each jump, Alphanderry's face returned to the stern lines of King Kiritan as his eyes bounced up and down.

  Maram and I - everyone except Kane - were now laughing heartily. Alphanderry's failure to move Kane must have distressed him, for he stopped his pantomime, looked at Kane, and in his own voice, he said, 'Hoy, man, what will it take to make you laugh?'

  Kane didn't blink as he said, 'Make him spin on your nose.'

  Alphanderry again became King Kiritan as he replied, 'That would be beneath our dignity.'