The Lightstone

by David Zindell

  It surprised me when Liljana stood up and answered for us. She brushed back her gray hair and looked up at the Urdahir, her round face filling with a steely obstinacy.

  To Burri, she sad, 'Do you mean that we should have allowed Ymiru to kill us out of hand?'

  'Yes, little woman, I do mean that,' he told her in a voice that fell like a club. 'Thus you would have spared yourselves the false hope of your continued existence.'

  Liljana smiled at his thinly veiled threat; her coolness beneath Burri's savage gaze lent me the forbearance to keep my hand away from my sword. Then Liljana nodded at him and said, 'If we had acquiesced in our own murders, by our law, we would become murderers, too.'

  'Do you carry your own law with you, then, into others' lands?'

  'We carry it in our hearts,' Liljana said, pressing her hand between her breasts.

  'There, too, we carry something greater than the law. And that is life. Is the law made to serve life, or life to serve the law?'

  'The law of the Ymanir,' Burri told her, 'is made to serve the Ymanir. And so each of us must serve it.'

  'And this is for the good of your people, yes?'

  'It is for my people's life,' he growled at her.

  Liljana stared out into the immense room, with its stone walls covered with marvelous golden hangings and sweeping arches high overhead. Built into recesses of the columns that supported this great vault were glowstones giving off a soft, white light. The walls themselves at intervals often feet, were set with blocks of hot slate, which radiated a steady heat. And these lesser gelstei were not the only ones visible in the room that night. Many of the Ymanir wore warders about their necks; more than a few sported dragon bones, and at least one old woman rolled a music marble between her long, furry hands. Not even in Tria had I seen so many surviving works of the ancient alchemists. From what Ymiru had said, I thought that these gelstei might not be so ancient. For the Ymanir had surely preserved the art of forging them. They had as much pride in this, I sensed, as they did sadness in being slaughtered by the Red Dragon and driven into this lost corner of their ancient realm.

  They were a strange people and a great one; I could not blame them for savagely enforcing laws that preserved what little they had left.

  Liljana's round face fell soft and kind as she gathered in all her compassion and looked back up at Burri. She said, 'The lowest law is the law of survival, and even the beasts know this. But a human being knows much more: that she may not live at the sacrifice of her people.' 'Just so,' Burri growled again.

  'And so each of us must obey the law of her people.'

  'Just so, just so.'

  'And a people,' Liljana went on, smiling at him, 'may not live at the sacrifice of their world. And so any people's law must always give way before the higher law.'

  Burri, not liking to be swayed by Liljana's relentless calm, suddenly lost his temper and thundered down at her: 'And how do you know of the Ymanir's higher law?'

  'I know,' she said, 'because the higher law is the same for all peoples. It is just the Law of the One.'

  Burri suddenly stood up to his full height of eight feet. His hands opened and closed as if they longed to grip a borkor. He turned toward the other elders and said, 'We all knew that Ymiru would invoke the higher law. And so he has, through this little woman. But what could possibly persuade us of the need? The fact that two of the strangers bear greater galastei? That they are seekers of the Galastei? The Red Dragon's priests are seekers of the same and have come to us with firestones in their hands - to burn us. And so no one has ever objected to us sending them to their fate.'

  Liljana waited for him to finish speaking and said simply, 'We are not the Red Dragon's priests.'

  'But how do we know this?' Burri said, looking out at the hundreds of Ymanir in the hall. 'The Red Dragon has set clever traps for us before. And who among us be more clever than he? No, no, we Ymanir are clever with our hands, but not in this way. And so we've made our law. And so we should use it.'

  'Before hearing what we have to say?' Liljana asked him.

  'We've all heard the cleverness of your words, little woman,' Burri said to her. 'Must we hear more?'

  He turned to look at Hramjir, a gnarled old man with only one arm. He spoke to him, and to the other Elders, saying, 'Hrothmar has told us that all should be allowed to speak. But I say this be folly. Let us not wonder if the strangers speak lies. Such doubt be a poison to the heart. Let us execute the law, now, before it be too late.'

  With a glance at the guards along the walls and by the door, he called for the Elders to decide our fate then and there. And this, also by the Ymanir's law, they were forced to do. And so they gathered in a circle and put their heads together as they conferred in their long, low, rumbling voices. And then they took their places again on their mats, and Hrothmar stared down at us as he waited for silence in the room.

  'Burri has spoke for the Ymanir's law,' he told us. 'And Ulla and Hramjir would see this law immediately executed. But most of us would not. Therefore, we'll call on others to speak for other concerns. Audhumla will speak for the Law of the One.'

  Now Audhumla, an old and rather small woman, for the Ymanir - she couldn't have been an inch over seven feet - smoothed back the silky white fur of her face. Then in a raspy voice she said, 'The essence of this law be simple: that throughout the stars the One must unfold in the glory of creation. The Ymanir's part in this be also simple: We are to prepare the way for the Elijin's and Galadin's coming to earth. This be why we be. Only then will Ea be restored to her place in the creation of the true civilization, which has been lost for six long ages.'

  She paused to take a breath and continued, 'If the strangers' lives are to be spared in consideration of the higher law, if our lives are to be put at risk in sparing theirs, it must be shown that they also have a place in our purpose. Or have an equally great purpose of their own.'

  Here a young man behind us - I gathered he was a friend of Ymiru's - stood up and said, 'But it has already been told that the strangers seek the Galastei. What could be a greater purpose than that?'

  'If it be true,' Audhumla said to him. 'If it be true.'

  'If it be true,' Hrothmar added, 'that would still not be enough. The strangers would still have to show that they had a chance to find it.'

  He turned his penetrating gaze upon me and asked 'Sar Valashu -will you now speak for your people?'

  Maram, sitting next to me, nudged me in the ribs to stand up. Atara, Master Juwain and Liljana each looked at me and smiled encouragingly! Kane's black eyes buried themselves in mine. I felt him urging me to speak, and speak well. I felt also that if the Ymanir guards should ever come at us with their borkors, he would not honor my promise to keep our swords sheathed in the Ymanir's land.

  'Yes,' I said, standing before the Elders. 'I will speak for us.'

  And so I did. While the glowstones shone on sempiternally through the night, I told the Ymanir a tale such as they had never heard before. I began it six long ages past, when Aryu had killed Elahad and had stolen the Lightstone. Its history, much of it unknown to the Ymanir, I then recounted, much as King Kiritan had when he had gathered the thousands of knights in his hall and called the great quest. My part in this, and my friends', I explained with as much candor as I could. I told of the black arrow and the kirax that had poisoned my blood; I even told them of Ayondela Kirriland's prophecy and pointed out the scar that had saved us from the Lokilani's arrows. The hundreds of men and women in the room fell into a deep silence as I went on with the story of our long journey that had taken us across most of Ea to the Library at Khaisham. What we had found there, however, I did not tell. It would be very dangerous, I thought, to announce the Lightstone's hiding place to so many people.

  'Your story,' Burri said, shaking his head when I had finished, 'be too fantastic to be true.'

  'It be too fantastic not to be true,' Yvanu countered. She was the youngest of the Urdahir and a beautiful woman, whose long white fur
about her head and neck had been twisted into long braids.

  All the Elders were now staring at me, as was everyone else in the room. Still shaking his head, Burri said to me, 'How will we ever know if you speak the truth?'

  'You'll know,' I said softly. 'If you listen, you'll know.'

  But Burri, like many people, did not wish to listen to his own heart. He pointed his clublike finger at me and demanded, 'But where are the proofs of your story? Let us see the proofs.'

  I met eyes with each of my friends then, and they brought forth their gelstei. The sudden sight of Maram's firestone and Atara's crystal sphere, no less Liljana's little blue whale, Master Juwain's varistei and Kane's black stone, stunned everyone in the room. Nowhere on Ea are any people so in awe of the gelstei as are the Ymanir.

  'And where be the sarastria, then?' Burn asked.

  Ymiru gave me permission to draw my sword, and this I did. As I swept it toward the east, its silver length gleamed with a deep light.

  'Do you see?' Ymiru said, standing to face Burri. 'Their story must be true.'

  All at once, a hundred giant men and women called out that a miracle had befallen the Ymanir, and that our lives should be spared. But this wasn't good enough for Burri.

  'We must know if these stones truly be the greater galastei,' he said, pointing down at what we held in our hands. 'They must be put to the test.'

  But it was hard to test Maram's red crystal with no sun to fire it. And hard, too, to test the powers of my friends' other gelstei. And so Burri had to satisfy himself with Hrothmar's suggestion: that a diamond be brought forth to see if Alkaladur's blade could mark it. Ulla, the oldest of the Urdahir, sacrificed the perfection of her wedding ring for this test.

  She held out her hand to me and bade me come forward with my sword. She watched utterly spellbound as I set its edge and cut the diamond.

  'It is the silver,' she exclaimed, holding up her ring for all to see. Then her old eyes fixed on my sword. 'The silver will lead to the gold.'

  At first I thought she knew the words of the song that Alphanderry had sung after I had gained Alkaladur. And then many of the Ymanir in the room began murmuring their ancient belief that the secrets of the silver gelstei would lead to the making of the gold.

  'This be a very great thing that you've been given,' Hrothmar said to me, staring at my sword. 'Who would ever have thought, that a stranger would bring the silver galastei into our land?'

  The gleam in Burri's eyes as they fell upon my sword told me that he didn't want it ever to leave his land.

  'The silver galastei,' he muttered, 'what do these strangers know of it? What do they truly know of any of the galastei?'

  'We know this,' I told him, sheathing my sword. 'W'e know that the silver has sometimes led to covetousness of the gold.'

  So saying, I reached into the pocket of my tunic and drew forth the False Gelstei that we had found in the Library. I moved across the dais and set it into Burri's outstretched hand. 'The Galastei! It is the Galastei!' many voices cried out at once.

  But Burri, who had a more practiced eye, held the goldish cup beneath the glowstones' light. As I explained what it was, he nodded his long head in acceptance of the truth.

  'In ages past,' he said, looking at the cup in amazement 'it's said that the Ymanir made many such cups. Perhaps even this very one.'

  'If that is so,' I said, 'then perhaps it would he fitting that you keep it, for your people.'

  Burn's icy blue eyes froze into mine. He said, 'You can't buy our mercy.'

  I felt my spine stiffen with pride; I felt my father in me as words that he would have spoken formed themselves upon my lips: 'In my land, when a gift is given, we usually just say "thank you." And it is not your mercy that we seek - only justice.'

  But I knew that such a speech would not convince Burri that I truly wanted to help his people. My rebuke wounded him. His fingers closed angrily about the cup, and it nearly disappeared in his huge hand.

  'There be much of the strangers' story for which we can never have proofs,' he called out. 'His claim of descent from this Elahad. This twinkling Timpum being that only the strangers can see. This golden-voiced minstrel -'

  'We saw Khaisham burn,' a stout man said as he stood to address the room. 'My brother and I were returning from the South Reach, and we saw the fire.'

  'Do not interrupt me again!' Burri thundered at him. He turned to stare down at the other elders. 'Do you see how the strangers have already put us off our manners?

  Should they also put us off doing justice?'

  'We shall do justice,' Hrothmar assured him. 'After we know the truth.'

  'But we can never know the truth here!'

  Just then, Audhumla brought forth a bluish stone about the size of an eagle's egg. It looked something like lapis, and she rolled it between her thin, graceful hands. And then she said, 'You're wrong, Burri. We shall soon know the truth of the strangers'

  story.'

  After asking Burri and me to sit back down, she announced to the Elders, and to the assembled Ymanir in the hall, that she held a truth stone in her hands.

  'But that can't be!' Burri said. 'We haven't made a truth stone for a thousand years.'

  'No, we haven't,' Audhumla said. 'This be a family heirloom.'

  In the discussion that followed, I learned that the truth stones were a kind of lesser gelstei related to Liljana's blue gelstei. Although they did not allow sight into another's mind, they were able to record certain impressions from it, such as falseness or truth.

  Burri looked at Audhumla doubtfully, and with ill-concealed loath-ing. 'There hasn't been a truthsayer among us for a thousand years.' 'None except the women of my family.'

  'If that be true,' Burri said, 'then why haven't they made themselves known?'

  'So that the hateful can cast scorn upon them?'

  Liljana's eyes, I noticed, filled with tears as she said this.

  'Scorn would be the least that a truthsayer would deserve,' Burri said, 'if she failed to use her gift for her people.'

  'And how should she use it if, for a thousand years, no stranger has come among us to be tested?'

  The Elders again gathered in a circle to discuss this unexpected turn. Then they took their places on their mats, and Hrothmar's voice carried out into the room: 'We believe the truth of what Audhumla has told us, if nothing else. And so we've agreed to allow Sar Valashu to be tested this way, if he be willing.'

  With two hundred Ymanir suddenly looking at me, and my six friends as well, I saw that I had little choice. And so I said, 'Then test me, if you will.'

  Audhumla bade me to come forward again and kneel before her on the dais. She held her blue stone out to me, cupped in her hands. I placed my hand upon it. It was warm from the heat of Audhumla's body, and felt more porous that the crystal of the greater gelstei. It seemed to drink in my sweat and the pulsing of the blood that beat through my hand. I remembered that such gelstei were also called touchstones because they seemed to touch all of one's flesh straight through to the heart.

  I looked straight into Audhumla's eyes and said, 'All that I have told tonight is true.'

  I took my hand away and watched Audhumla's much larger hands close upon the stone. Her eyes closed as she stroked it; she was like a mother gathering in her child's emotions from the touch of a tear-stained cheek.

  At last she looked at me and said, 'All that you have told is true. But you have not told all that is true.'

  The two hundred Ymanir in the hall waited for her to say more. But she had no more to say. Hrothmar, however, did. This wise old man needed no gelstei, lesser or greater, to discern the part of my story that I had left incomplete.

  'Sar Valashu,' he said to me, 'you have told that you and your companions have sought the Lightstone across the length of Ea. But you have not told why you entered our land to seek it.'

  No, I thought, I hadn't. But I saw that I finally must. And so I took a deep breath and told them about Master Aluino's journal. T
hen I admitted that my friends and I had vowed to journey into Sakai and enter the underground city of Argattha.

  For a long time, no one in the hall spoke. No one even moved. I felt the great hearts of the hundreds of Ymanir beating out a great thunder of astonishment.

  At last, Hrothmar found his voice and spoke for all his people even Burri. He said to me, 'Even the bravest of the Ymanir seldom go any more into Asakai, where once we went so freely. Either you and your companions are mad or you are possessed of a great courage. And I do not believe you are mad.'

  A roar of voices cascaded through the room like a suddenly unleashed flood.

  Hrothmar let his people speak for quite a while. Then he held up his hand for silence.

  'The strangers have brought us the greatest chance that we Ymanir have ever had,' he said in his grave, deep voice. 'And the greatest peril, too. How are we to decide their fate - and our own?'

  He paused to rub his tired eyes. Then he said, 'Let us not try to make this decision tonight. Let us reflect and sleep and dream. And let us all gather before first light in the great square, that we might call upon the wisdom of the Galadin to help us.'

  He dismissed the assemblage and stood, as did everyone else. Then the men who had guarded the hall escorted us to Ymiru's house at the edge of the town, where we had been offered quarters. Compared with the other Ymanir houses on the wooded slopes nearby, it was a small affair of stacked stone and rough-hewn beams - but quite large enough to accommodate us.

  Ymiru proved an excellent host. He laid out extra sleeping mats by the fire that he lit in the hearth. There, too, he set out a block of cheese that it might soften so we could dip crusts of bread.into it for our evening meal. He drew baths for us and later poured our tea into small blue cups with his huge hand. He seemed glad for our company and bemused that his fate seemed to have tied itself up with ours.

  'When I awoke yesterday, it was a morning like any other,' he told us as he joined us by the fire. 'And now here I sit with six little people, talking about the Lightstone.'

  He went on to say that the next morning would come soon enough and that we should get a good night's rest to prepare us for what was to come.