The Diamond Warriors

by David Zindell

  ‘It is fate,’ he said, smiling bitterly at me. ‘My fate, and Athar’s.’

  Athar’s dispute with Lagash also went back to the Age of Swords – and perhaps farther. It had continued on and on through the centuries in one bloody war after another. Only thirty years before, both Athar and Lagash had accused each other of violating the rules of Sharshan: the formal battles that we Valari waged against each other as a lesser evil than total war. More recently, after I had failed to unite the Valari in Tria two years ago, King Mohan and King Kurshan had drawn swords on each other on their journey home.

  ‘You come too late,’ King Mohan told me. ‘King Kurshan and I have already agreed to meet in battle ten days hence on the field of Arantu outside of Osh.’

  ‘You must make a new agreement, then! I have sent envoys to King Kurshan. Surely once he has learned of what Morjin intends, he will join with us to oppose him.’

  King Mohan shook his head at this. ‘Your envoys will not reach him. It is said that he has gone to meditate in the mountains, and will speak with no one until the day of the battle.’

  ‘Not even myself? If I were to ride up into Lagash?’

  ‘Can you afford to waste so much time?’

  I thought about this as I felt the world beneath me whirling around the sun. ‘All right – then you must send envoys to King Kurshan informing him that you have marched with us. They will reason with King Kurshan when he comes down from the mountains.’

  Now King Mohan slammed his sword back into his scabbard and called out, ‘But King Kurshan will not reason! He will declare that Athar has once again broken Sharshan – then he will use that as an excuse to ravage and burn Athar!’

  ‘He will not!’ I called back to him. ‘He is a man of honor. And he is Valari. When he learns that you have led your warriors out to meet Morjin, and why, he will follow with Lagash’s army.’

  ‘So you dream, King Valamesh. But how can I take such a risk? For my kingdom? For my people?’

  ‘How can you risk letting Morjin crucify your people?’

  King Mohan’s black eyes filled a wild ferocity, like that of a leopard trapped by hunters on all sides. Then he snapped out: ‘Morjin has never made a threat against Athar – and King Kurshan has never stopped making threats!’

  ‘Morjin’s very existence is a threat – you face none worse. Come! Help me to end it!’

  I nudged my horse closer to his and extended my hand to him. But he shook his head and kept his hand clamped around the hilt of his sword.

  ‘How can you ask me to do this?’ he called to me.

  Because, I thought, feeling the fire of his eyes, I know what is in your heart. And you know what is in mine.

  At that moment, with my hand still held open in midair, with Bemossed looking on with all the ardor of the sun, I felt something deep and irresistible rend King Mohan apart. It was, I knew, the valarda. I had always sensed that this mysterious power lay waiting to be awakened in everyone.

  ‘Come with me!’ I called to him again. ‘Let us throw down Morjin!’

  All my warriors lined up behind me down the road seemed to echo my plea to King Mohan; so did his warriors, waiting to either side of us, in the silence of their eyes and the drumming of thousands of hearts. How could King Mohan turn away from this terrible but beautiful force?

  ‘What is it you want?’ I said to him.

  ‘You know what I want!’ he shouted back. ‘You and yours go forth to fight the battle of the ages! And what a fight you will make! The minstrels will sing of you, for ages! You will lose, but so what? Your warriors will die, but that is war. In dying for each other, though, they will feel their spirits blaze like the stars, and they will know they are alive. And that, King Valamesh, is what I truly want.’

  He removed his hand from his sword, and regarded it with his fierce, dark eyes. ‘But it is what I may not have. Kings, if they love their lands, do not do as they want to do, but only as they must’.

  And what King Mohan thought he must do, as he had said, was to protect his land by marching off to the wrong battle. And his warriors must follow his will, even as he submitted himself to his own sense of honor and duty.

  Two roads, north and west, lay before him, and as with King Sandarkan, I wanted to push out with the force called Alkaladur and nudge him onto the one leading to the meeting with Morjin. But I could not bring myself to commit this violence. I could only look at him and tell him what my father had once told me: ‘King Mohan – your heart is free!’

  ‘Yes,’ he said with a seething bitterness, ‘free to follow this will of the world that you have spoken of, but never my own.’

  ‘No – always your own,’ I said to him. ‘Don’t you see? In the end, they are one and the same.’

  I waited for him to apprehend this, to feel it like a fire deep in his heart. Instead, he inclined his head to me and forced out: ‘I am sorry, but I have given my word. I must go where I must. I wish you well on your journey, King Valamesh.’

  I did not want to believe that King Mohan had refused to join with me; why, I wondered, had I failed yet again? There seemed nothing to do now except to continue on, as King Mohan had said. I could only hope that he would change his mind and follow after me.

  And so I returned to my vanguard, and then led my army up the road between the assembled lines of King Mohan’s warriors. As we marched past, the Atharians began striking their spears against their shields and crying out acclamations to honor us. I did not want to think that even King Mohan would punish them for breaking discipline that day.

  Later, after we had passed through Gazu, with its many buildings of ironwood and white granite, Master Juwain rode up beside me. He must have doubted the success of what I intended to accomplish, as many in the columns behind us now must have as well. Even more, he must have questioned Abrasax’s decision that the Seven should help me to wage war. But he refused to dwell in the dark. And so he pointed up the Nar Road and said, ‘There are other Valari kings.’

  I clenched my teeth as I squinted against the late sun. Then I said, ‘I came so close.’

  ‘King Mohan,’ he said, ‘is a hard man, and even more, a willful one. But it may be as you said, that in the end he will see where his will should lead him. Give it time, Valashu.’

  ‘But that is just it, sir,’ I said to him. ‘I have no more time.’

  That, however, was not quite true, for some three hundred miles and many days of hard marching still lay between my army and the plain of the Detheshaloon. We crossed over into Taron early the next afternoon. At a bone-jolting pace, we passed through a rich countryside of apple orchards and farms growing barley and rye. We bought supplies from the Taroners, who were generous with their prices. Then, nearly a week after my meeting with King Mohan, we made our way up into the Iron Hills outside of Nar. This ancient city, largest in the Nine Kingdoms, spread out on the other side of these red hills to the north and west. Its many smithies cast a bitter black smoke into the air. The stinging of my eyes and the reek of hot iron made me instantly recall the three other times that I had journeyed to Nar, where King Waray for many years had plotted to make himself the greatest king and Taron the greatest kingdom in the Morning Mountains.

  King Waray arranged for my army to encamp near Nar’s northern outskirts, on the Tournament Grounds laid out on a greenway of many acres. Then he invited me and my friends, though not my captains, to a meeting at his palace, which was built on the side of a hill overlooking the city’s southern districts. He invited as well King Viromar. Although Taron had never been particularly friendly with Kaash, King Waray must have wished to charm Kaash’s new king, as he had so many others. He would be glad to have Kaash’s help against Waas, for he had long had ambitions against King Sandarkan’s domain.

  King Waray received us on a lawn giving out onto a stream flowing down through a wild green past the palace. Some of us sat on rocks above the stream; others stood to appreciate the view of the city below. Three of King Waray’s advisors joine
d us: Lord Jurathar, Lord Marjun, and the very tall and very muscular Lord Stavaru. King Waray also invited his only child: a daughter named Chantaleva. Many called her beautiful, with her jet black hair and finely sculpted features. I thought her too thin and too pale, as her delicate skin seemed almost bone white. She took a quiet pleasure in pouring the coffee that King Waray’s attendants brought out to us, but she had few words to offer anyone.

  King Waray stood with his back against a large rock with the rest of us arrayed around him. After I had told him of what had transpired since I had become king and marched with my army out of Mesh, he rapped his king’s ring with its five diamonds against his coffee cup and said, ‘King Valamesh – no man could be more worthy of succeeding your father, whom I felt fortunate to call my friend. If he is looking down from the stars, he would rejoice at your great victory in Delu, as everyone who knows of it must.’

  King Waray, a strikingly handsome man with a broad forehead and radiant eyes, spoke as always with the steel knife of his true thoughts and intentions concealed by a handkerchief of silk. His voice spilled out through his long, high nose as through a trumpet, even as it seemed to rumble and catch deep within his throat. It could be as sweet as sugared wine – and as deadly as poison.

  ‘But it is a pity that you failed to persuade King Mohan to ally with you,’ he continued. ‘War, among our people, has always been the tragedy of our people. Athar’s quarrel with Lagash couldn’t help but lead to war, once you failed in Tria to bring the Valari into alliance.’

  King Waray, of course, knew that I hadn’t come up to his palace that day just to drink a good Galdan coffee and to appreciate the view of smoky Nar from these wooded heights. He had always resisted my leadership of the Valari – as he did now.

  ‘That war could be helped,’ I told him. I stood across from him with my boot pressed up against an exposed tree root. I looked very hard for his innate nobility within his gleaming eyes. ‘King Mohan wanted to make alliance. And might have, but for his fear of King Kurshan.’

  And how often, I wondered, had King Waray spoken to King Mohan of King Kurshan’s design to build a great fleet of ships and so strengthen his realm in order to threaten King Mohan’s? And all under the guise of friendship and averting war?

  ‘That fear,’ he said to me, ‘is reasonable enough. For how long has King Kurshan been readying his army for an attack against Athar?’

  ‘Only as long as he has feared that King Mohan would attack him.’

  ‘That concern, too,’ King Waray said, ‘is not without foundation. I have reasoned with King Mohan many times, trying to find a way to make a permanent peace between Athar and Lagash.’

  I tried not to smile at this. I said, ‘You are a reasonable man.’

  ‘I like to think I am. And that others speak of me that way, too.’

  ‘Then can you not reason with both King Mohan and King Kurshan one last time? I must march west with my army tomorrow, but if you sent fast riders east to Athar and Lagash, there is still time for you to help persuade their kings to put aside war and join us at the Detheshaloon.’

  ‘To avoid their war, you mean,’ he said, tapping his cup. ‘Only to join you in making a much worse war against the Red Dragon.’

  ‘What comes is not of my making.’

  ‘Is it not? If you hadn’t put yourself forward as the Maitreya, if you hadn’t lost the Lightstone to Morjin, we might have made alliance two years ago and kept the Dragon from marching on the Nine Kingdoms.’

  I tried to quiet the wild, hot rush of blood through my veins. I asked him: ‘Do you mean, you might have organized the alliance and led it?’

  King Waray took a sip of coffee, then waved his hand at my question as if shooing away a biting fly. ‘Many have spoken of me as warlord of our people, but I think that it is perhaps less important who leads us than that we are led. I would see even King Hadaru take command of our armies, if that was the only way to stop the Red Dragon.’

  My heart beat hard with a sudden surge. ‘Then you will support an alliance?’

  King Waray flashed me a brilliant smile, and said, ‘I always have. It was always just a question of how to bring it about.’

  ‘The way to bring it about is simple: send word to Athar and Lagash that Taron will not tolerate a war just beyond her border. Inform King Hadaru that you have joined with Mesh and Kaash. When Athar marches after us, so will Lagash. Then King Hadaru will have no choice but to lead the Ishkans out against Morjin. As Ishka goes, so Anjo will have to follow. Perhaps even King Sandarkan will be persuaded to make alliance as well.’

  After I finished speaking, King Waray stood gazing at me. His counselors waited near him, ready to support him in whatever line of reasoning or debate he might pursue. I hated it that so much should depend upon this one conniving king who had always positioned himself at the center of Valari affairs. And then King Waray said to me, ‘You have given this matter a great deal of thought.’

  ‘I have thought of little except Morjin’s defeat for a long time.’

  King Waray, like a duelist evading his opponent’s sword and then circling, turned his attention to Abrasax, Master Matai and the others of the Seven. He said to Abrasax: ‘We of the Nine Kingdoms had long heard that secret Masters ruled the Brotherhood, but until today I had thought this a legend. I have to say that it is strange to see Brothers supporting an Elahad as the Valari’s warlord. What of the Brotherhood’s rule forsaking wine, women and war?’

  Abrasax’s corona of white hair and beard gleamed in the sunlight as he said to King Waray, ‘The spirit of our rule has led us to see that forsaking war is a good thing but ending it forever would be even better.’

  ‘I see,’ King Waray said, glancing at me. ‘The Elahad’s dream.’

  He smiled at he turned toward Maram, who sat on a fat rock imbibing his coffee with too much relish. I wondered if he had somehow persuaded one of the attendants to add a little brandy to it.

  Then King Waray asked, ‘But is not fighting a war to end war something like hoping for sobriety by drinking dry every cask of wine in the world?’

  Before Abrasax could answer, Maram put in, ‘Ah, well – there must be a bottom to everything.’

  Abrasax only smiled at this. Then he looked at King Waray. He, too, could circle around an opponent, though the sword he wielded was not one of steel. He seemed to look down deep into King Waray, and he said, ‘What ails you, lord? What has made you so cynical?’

  King Waray’s face darkened in anger, but he could not hold the Grandmaster’s kindly gaze. He turned to Master Juwain, and said to him in a sweet but pinched voice: ‘Am I to understand that your order has made you its Master Healer? Was that your reward for removing gelstei from the school here without my leave?’

  A couple of years ago, King Waray had closed down the Brotherhood’s school in Nar, in part because of Master Juwain’s necessary indiscretion. It seemed that King Waray had never forgiven him this slight defiance – and, as it happened, for other things.

  ‘We made Master Juwain the Brotherhood’s Master Healer,’ Abrasax said, ‘because on all of Ea there is none more worthy.’

  ‘Is there not?’ King Waray said. He held his hand out toward Bemossed, sitting on a rock with Estrella at the edge of the stream. ‘But what of this one that King Valamesh, with the Brotherhood’s blessing, has now put forth as the Maitreya?’

  Bemossed stood up to address King Waray, saying much as he had before: ‘I am no healer, as Master Juwain is, for I know little of his art. But sometimes, a kind of light that heals passes through me, and then –’

  ‘And then,’ King Waray said, interrupting him, ‘I suppose people are miraculously made well. If true, you are too modest.’

  ‘It is true,’ Master Juwain said. ‘His power far exceeds my own, and he would make a better Master Healer than I if he didn’t have other work to do.’

  ‘And you,’ King Waray told Master Juwain, ‘aspire to modesty, too. I believe that someday you will succeed, f
or you have much to be modest about.’

  I could almost feel Master Juwain’s misshapen ears burning with shame; King Waray’s daughter, Chantaleva, looked at Master Juwain as she let out a little cough. She coughed again, this time harder, and Estrella got up and went over to her. Estrella’s dark, quick eyes seemed to ask permission of the princess as she laid her hand on Chantaleva’s chest.

  Bemossed, upon noticing this, stepped up to Chantaleva, too, and rested his hand on top of Estrella’s. Then he said to King Waray, ‘Your daughter is cachetic – it is the white plague, isn’t it?’

  At this, Lord Jurathar looked at the immense Lord Starvaru in surprise, while old Lord Marjun studied King Waray’s angry face. And King Waray shook his long finger at Master Juwain as he snapped at him: ‘You promised, upon your honor as a healer, to keep this confidence!’

  ‘But I have, King Waray!’ Master Juwain said. ‘I have told no one – not even my order’s Grandmaster.’

  Abrasax nodded his head to confirm this. It now came out that Master Juwain, on his mission to Nar two years before, had attempted something more profound than purloining gelstei, and that was the healing of Princess Chantaleva. As King Waray saw things, Master Juwain had failed. Even though, in truth, he had not failed completely.

  ‘There is no cure for the white plague that I know,’ Master Juwain said. ‘Morjin bred this disease with the aid of a green gelstei two thousand years ago, and I hoped to use my gelstei to undo its hold upon the princess. I am sorry that I could not.’

  ‘But it seems you kept the disease from progressing,’ Abrasax said. ‘At least, from progressing too quickly. How many can live with the white plague eating at them as long as the princess has?’

  Chantaleva’s face seemed to grow even paler. I did not think that she had made her peace with her inevitable death. And from the look of adoration and dread with which King Waray favored her, I knew that his fear for his daughter was even greater than her own.