The Diamond Warriors

by David Zindell

  As they pressed in closer, Lord Tanu turned about estimating numbers. And then he shouted: ‘It is done! The warriors acclaim Valashu Elahad as our king!’

  ‘Valashu Elahad!’ ten thousand men called out at once. ‘The Elahad for king!’

  ‘Elahad! Elahad! Elahad!’

  Then Lord Arajay Solval looked down at my bare hand, still gripping my sword, and he said, ‘But there is no ring!’

  I, too, looked down at my hand. In Hesperu, Kane had broken apart my lord’s ring for its four diamonds so that we might purchase a slave named Bemossed. Every king of Mesh, for ages, had worn on his finger a ring of five brilliant and perfect diamonds.

  ‘Lord Elahad,’ Lord Solval announced, ‘cast down his father’s ring upon the Culhadosh Commons, and so there is no ring!’

  ‘No, you are wrong!’ Lord Harsha’s gruff voice blared out. He stepped closer to me, and reached out his fist. When he opened his hand, everyone could see sparkling at its center my father’s old ring. ‘I kept this on that terrible day against this great day, which I always hoped would come.’

  So saying, after I gave Kane to hold my sword, Lord Harsha grasped my hand and slid the ring down upon my finger. It fit perfectly. I held up my hand for everyone to see the five bright diamonds, once worn by my father and my grandfather’s grandfathers.

  ‘With this ring,’ Lord Harsha intoned, repeating the ancient formula, ‘go forth in the name of the Shining One as King of Mesh and never forget from where you came.’

  ‘Valashu Elahad!’ Lord Avijan shouted. ‘King of Mesh – King Valamesh!’

  ‘Valamesh! Valamesh!’ thousands of warriors cried out. ‘King Valamesh!’

  Kane gave me back my sword, which I held blazing up to the sun. Then the warriors and knights all drew their swords and pressed in closer to me, not as a mob, but arrayed as ring around ring around sparkling rings, like those that circle the great planet Shahar. They pointed their swords up toward mine, and the reflection of bright steel off of silustria cast a cone of silver and light up into the sky.

  And the acclaim continued with shouts that seemed to shake the very earth: ‘Valamesh! Valamesh! Valamesh!’

  After what seemed a long time, the warriors quieted and broke their circles to allow my friends to pass. Estrella danced up to me with great delight filling her lively face, while Liljana came closer and kissed my hand. Straight across from me, Atara stood as proud as a queen, smiling and weeping, without tears. Kane beamed like the very sun. As for Maram, he shouted for a whole barrel of brandy to be opened so that we might celebrate the moment.

  ‘But what shall I call you now?’ he said to me. ‘“Sire” is how I addressed my father, and “Valamesh” has a strange ring to it.’

  ‘Call me “friend,”’ I said to him, smiling and clasping his hand.

  Then Joshu Kadar, standing nearby, bowed his head to me and said, ‘I shall call you the “King of Swords!” To fight as you did today – that was the most wondrous swordwork I have ever seen!’

  Kane, hearing this, nodded his head at me. ‘So it was.’

  A king, my father once said, lived in order to fulfill his duties, and my first was a happy one. I motioned for Sar Vikan and Sar Jessu to come closer. I took out two silver rings that I had reserved for this moment; each shone with four diamonds, and were the rings of lords. After bidding Sar Vikan and Sar Jessu to take off their old rings, I slipped these new ones in turn down around their fingers. Then I called out, ‘Only a king can make a master knight into a lord, and it is long since time that both of you received these rings. Stand and be recognized! Lord Vikan Arval! Lord Jessu the Lion-Heart!’

  Many warriors struck their swords together and cried out, ‘Vikan Arval, Jessu the Lion-Heart, Lords of Mesh!’

  Now many women and children from Hardu, Lashku and Godhra, and other towns, began making their way through the circles of soldiers in order to honor me. A few of the outlanders who had set up camp here also pressed in for a better look, even though Sar Shivalad and Sar Kanshar and my other Guardians kept them at a good distance. One man, however, would not be discouraged by the fence of swords surrounding me. He pushed himself right up against the flat of Sar Shivalad’s kalama, and called out to me in a strong, deep voice, ‘King Valamesh, indeed. As you desired, Valashu Elahad, it has come to be.’

  Then he threw back the hood of his traveling cloak to reveal a fine, weathered face as dark as chocolate and wreathed in wavy white hair and a great flowing beard. He had the wisest eyes I had even seen.

  ‘Grandfather!’ I cried out. ‘You are safe!’

  I motioned for Sar Shivalad and Sar Jurald to lower their swords. Then Abrasax, the Master Reader and the Grandmaster of the Great White Brotherhood whom his intimates called “Grandfather,” stepped closer to me. Others of his ancient order accompanied him: Master Virang, with his deep almond eyes and whimsical old face; the stolid Master Storr, whose title was Master Galastei; Master Nolashar, the Music Master; Master Yasul and Master Matai. I did not see Master Okuth among them, and my first fear would soon be proved true: that on their perilous journey from the Valley of the Sun where Morjin’s men had destroyed their school, the Seven had now become only six

  ‘Master Okuth,’ Abrasax said by way of explanation, ‘died so that your friend might live.’

  And with that he stepped aside so that Bemossed might come forward. The man I had befriended in Hesperu looked at me with the same large, luminous eyes that haunted my dreams. His face, soft yet handsome, had lost none of its gentleness, though deep lines creased his dark skin, especially across his forehead, tattooed with a black cross marking him as one of the despised Hajarim. But no man on Ea, I thought, could be more revered or more welcome in Mesh than he.

  ‘Bemossed!’ I called out, rushing up to embrace him. ‘You are alive!’

  ‘And you are a king!’ he said, bowing his head to me. The smile that broke upon his face seemed as natural and bright as the sun.

  Then Vareva stepped over to us, and she said to Bemossed, with relief and familiarity, ‘We came just in time.’

  ‘Thank you for leading us here,’ he told her, turning his smile upon her.

  Master Juwain, edging closer, looked from Abrasax to Vareva and then at Bemossed. ‘I can see that there are stories that must be told – why don’t we go somewhere we can tell them?’

  It was a good suggestion, but the fifteen thousand warriors surrounding us would not allow it. When it became known who Bemossed was, Lord Noldashan cried out: ‘It is the Maitreya! He has come to honor King Valamesh!’

  Then many, many voices, those of warriors and those of women, children, too, shouted out: ‘The Maitreya! The Maitreya! The Maitreya has come!’

  Once again, the warriors raised up their swords and sent a dazzling radiance out into the square. Bemossed, however, standing next to me, fairly shone with a deeper and finer light that seemed to fill up the whole world. Then his smile grew even brighter as his clear, sweet voice called out along with thousands of others’:

  ‘Valamesh! Valamesh! Long live King Valamesh!’

  9

  For the next three hours, I put my lips to many cups of brandy raised up to acknowledge the many men who insisted on toasting their new king. I walked among my warriors, looking into their eyes and asking their names. Too, I gathered Joshu Kadar, Sar Shivalad, Sar Kanshar and the other knights whom I had come to call my ‘Guardians.’ Now that they had made me king, in honor of their greatest aspirations, I formally declared them to be the ‘Guardians of the Lightstone.’ Then it came time to adjourn to my pavilion. My companions all followed me inside, along with Abrasax and the Masters of the Brotherhood. Bemossed, of course, came with them, and I invited Vareva to speak with us as well. I sat at the head of the long council table, with my companions on one side facing the Seven and Vareva on the other. Bemossed took his place at the end of the table opposite from me.

  ‘I still can’t quite believe that you are alive and safe here,’ I said to him. I gaze
d at his bright, restless face, and it seemed that I could not get enough of looking at him.

  ‘But I can believe that you are now king,’ he said with a smile. ‘Even when you first came to me in your guise as a poor flutist, it seemed that you must be something more. We’ve come a long way from Hesperu, haven’t we?’

  ‘We have,’ I agreed, glancing at the ring that sparkled around my finger. ‘And you have come a long way from the Valley of the Sun. What happened, friend?’

  As Bemossed rubbed at his tired eyes, his gaze seemed to turn inward. I sensed in him many troublesome things: shame, grief, dread and an overwhelming sense of failure. He finally looked at Abrasax to speak for him.

  ‘We had hoped,’ Abrasax said in his clear, forceful voice, ‘that we had more time. But in the end, the Red Dragon proved too clever. And too powerful.’

  He told us, simply, that Morjin had at last discovered the location of the Brotherhood’s school that he had been seeking for so long. Then one of Morjin’s Kallimun priests had led a whole battalion of soldiers and a company of the terrible Grays into the lower reaches of the White Mountains. This priest – whose name was Arch Igasho – had managed to unlock the secrets of the tunnel that gave into the Valley of the Sun. Then Morjin’s men had fallen upon the school with fire and steel and all the evil power of the black gelstei wielded by the leader of the Grays.

  ‘They cut down everyone who tried to reason with them,’ Abrasax told us in a heavy voice. ‘And they burned everything that could be burned. They found the library, and put torches to the books.’

  Master Juwain, nearly stricken by this terrible news, asked him, ‘But they can’t have burned the vedastei!’

  At the mention of these magical books, made of some sort of gelstei that could call ancient knowledge to its crystal pages as of light out of thin air, Abrasax sadly shook his head. And he told us, ‘The fire grew so hot it melted the vedastei’s crystal. There is nothing left but ashes.’

  I stared down at the floor of my tent. With the burning of the millions of books of the Library at Khaisham and now this even greater desecration, it seemed that Ea had suffered a burning away of wisdom that might plunge the whole world into a Dark Age without end.

  ‘But how could you have verified this?’ Master Juwain said to Abrasax. ‘Surely you did not remain to see the books destroyed?’

  Abrasax’s thick beard and hair seemed like a corona of white as he nodded his head for Master Storr to speak. Master Storr sat staring down at his liver-spotted hands. His old, fair face, burned red from his recent travels, grew tighter and tighter as if he could not bring himself to answer Abrasax’s silent request.

  Then finally he looked up and told us: ‘We did see the books destroyed. With this.’

  So saying, Master Storr, the Brotherhood’s Master Galastei, drew forth a sphere of white gelstei no different than Atara’s. And he said to us in his tight, fussy voice: ‘We managed to rescue many of the gelstei. I haven’t a scryer’s ability to see into the future. But sometimes I have seen things far away in space – or not so very far away. This crystal gave sight of what the Red Dragon’s men did to our school.’

  He held up the clear ball to the light streaming through the pavilion’s black silk. I was afraid that if I looked into it too deeply, I would see writhing flames and men screaming in agony.

  ‘You must have taken a blue gelstei, as well,’ Liljana said to him. She held up her little whale figurine. ‘I know I touched minds with you through this.’

  Master Storr nodded his head slowly. ‘That was a stroke of good fortune, I think. I wanted you to know that Bemossed was safe.’

  Master Juwain sat looking at the clear crystal in Master Storr’s hands. ‘But what of the Great Gelstei then? Are they safe?’

  In answer, Master Matai, an Old Galdan whose white curls fell over a browned, noble face, drew out of his pocket a small, translucent sphere, ruby in color. Master Virang kept a similar stone, tinted golden-orange, while Master Nolashar, the Music Master, had a yellow sun stone, which he raised up gleaming above the council table. I feared that with Master Okuth’s death his green heart stone had been lost, but it was not so. Master Storr held it in keeping for the Brotherhood’s new Master Healer, whoever that might be; he also still guarded his own purple stone. Master Yasul’s mahogany skin cracked into dozens of lines as he smiled and showed us a round, azure gelstei. Abrasax, of course, kept the last and most powerful of these seven stones: a clear bit of crystal no bigger than a marble. In his hand, it seemed insignificant, as did the crystals of the others. But I couldn’t help thinking that with great gelstei similar in kind, if not size, at the beginning of time, the Ieldra had summoned a beautiful music that sang the very stars into creation.

  ‘At least, then, Grandfather,’ Master Juwain said to Abrasax, ‘you have preserved your greatest treasures.’

  Abrasax’s wise, worn face grew sad beyond bearing as if he had lived not just a hundred and forty-seven years but a million. ‘No, our greatest treasures lie dead in the Valley of the Sun. Most of our Brothers fell beneath the soldiers’ swords. And those who were captured, Arch Igasho ordered crucified.’

  Now Master Juwain bowed his head in shame and grief. It seemed that he had almost forgotten his quest to escape the ideals and abstractions of his head in order to feel with his heart.

  Abrasax closed his hand around the Seventh, as his gelstei was called, and he put it away. Then he said, ‘We had hoped the moment would never come, but we had prepared for it a long time. Our Brothers all died believing their sacrifice was to the good. And we should believe it, too.’

  Here he looked at Bemossed, and smiled sadly. Kind, the Brotherhood’s Grandmaster might be, and compassionate, too, but I felt a will as hard as diamond buried deep inside him. It seemed that he could accept the sacrifice of others – and even encourage it – if that served his highest purpose. It was a lesson, I thought, that a king must take to heart.

  ‘But how,’ Maram asked, ‘did you escape, since only one tunnel leads in and out of the valley? Surely the soldiers would have guarded it.’

  ‘Indeed, they did,’ Abrasax said. ‘But we slipped past them, so to speak.’

  He looked at Master Virang, the Meditation Master, who showed us one of his mysterious smiles. I remembered how, when my companions and I had first come into the Valley of the Sun, this small and lively man had somehow concealed the school’s buildings from our sight. It seemed just possible that through his great control over his mind, and that of his enemies, he had somehow cast a cloak of invisibility over the Seven and Bemossed, and caused the soldiers not to see them.

  ‘Let us say,’ he told us by way of explanation, ‘that most men cannot keep their attention where they should. And so they do not see what they should see. And so we were able to hide in plain view of the soldiers – so to speak.’

  ‘As you hid today, out beyond the square?’ I asked him.

  Master Virang shrugged his shoulders as he touched the wool of the cloak enfolding him. ‘For that we needed little more than this!

  His words caused Kane to scowl, and my savage friend said, ‘All right – keep your secrets, then. But tell us this: how did Igasho get through the tunnel? Did Morjin give him a gelstei that unlocked it?’

  ‘He must have,’ Master Storr said. ‘As he must have given him another gelstei that gave him sight of our school.’

  ‘Ha – I wouldn’t have thought that the damned Igasho, as he calls himself now, could have such skill with such stones.’

  Arch Igasho had been born Prince Salmelu Aradar of Ishka into one of the most ancient and noble of Valari lines. All through his youth, he had trained at the sword like any other Valari warrior. But somehow his soul had sickened, and he had surrendered both sword and soul to Morjin. My blood still burned with the kirax that Salmelu had fired into me with his assassin’s arrow. In reward for his service, Morjin had made Salmelu a full priest of the Kallimun, and then elevated him again and again.

 
‘You mustn’t underestimate this man,’ Abrasax said to Kane and me. ‘He nearly destroyed you in Hesperu. As he nearly killed all of us – as he did our Brothers.’

  ‘Ha!’ Kane said again. ‘Igasho is a traitor and a worm, for he lives on Morjin’s droppings when he could have been a king in his own right. He failed to kill Val with his damned arrow, as he did in Hesperu – even as he did with you.’

  ‘He did,’ Abrasax agreed, ‘but each time he came very close. The Red Dragon must hope that the next time he will succeed.’

  ‘In a way, he did succeed,’ Master Storr said. ‘Our school is destroyed, and some of the brightest souls of our generation. Our books are ashes. Morjin would count this as a victory.’

  Abrasax made a fist as he fought for words that must have been hard for him to say: ‘Books can always be rewritten and new generations will arise to replace the old. No treasure is beyond being restored. Except one, I fear. This age is almost over, and if it comes to an end without the Maitreya taking the Lightstone in his hands, then all will come to end, forever. For Bemossed, it has been so close – as close as that hair you keep folded in your pocket, Valashu Elahad.’