The Diamond Warriors. David Zindell

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СКАЧАТЬ a tree. Above an arch of one of the corridors giving out onto the hall, Lord Avijan had mounted the head of a white bear. It looked exactly like the beast whose will Morjin had seized and sent to murder Maram, Master Juwain and me in the pass between Mount Korukel and Mount Raaskel: the great ghul of a bear that I had killed with my old sword.

      ‘There are the dead, and there are the truly dead,’ I told Lord Noldashan. ‘When Morjin would have turned me into a ghul, the man I call the Maitreya gave me his hand and pulled me back into life. There, I found my mother and grandmother – my brothers, too. And my father, the King.’

      I stepped over to him and his son, and I felt his whole being wincing inside even as his back stiffened and he stared at me.

      ‘So long as we don’t forget,’ I said to him, ‘so long as we live, truly and deeply, with passion, they cannot really die. And neither can we.’

      I laid my hand on the gauntlet covering Sar Jonavar’s hand, and eased it off. A circle of reddish scar marred the back of his hand and his palm, which seemed slightly misshapen, as if the bones had been pushed apart. I grasped his hand then, gently, and I felt something warm and bright pass from me into him, and from him into me. He looked at me with tears in his eyes as he said, ‘My apologies for not fighting with you at the Commons. The greatest battle of our time, and I missed it.’

      Then I removed his other gauntlet so that he wouldn’t have to hide his shame, which was really no shame at all.

      ‘Sometimes,’ I said to him, ‘the greatest battle is just to go on living.’

      At this, he clasped his other hand around my arm and smiled at me.

      I felt the blaze that burned inside me grow even brighter. I looked at the men gathered around me: Lord Harsha, Lord Avijan, Lord Sharad, Sar Jessu and Sar Shivalad and all the others. And they looked at me.

      They are afraid, I thought. The greatest warriors in the world, and they are afraid.

      I could feel how their dread of Morjin tormented their very bodies and souls. And then, for the first time in my life, I opened my heart to these grave men whom I had always revered. I moved over to Lord Sharad and set my hand upon his chest, where I could feel the hurt of his old wound where an Ishkan lance had once pierced him. I touched Sar Viku Aradam’s shoulder, which I sensed must have been split open, perhaps by an axe or a sword. And then on to grasp the stump below Vishtar Atanu’s elbow and rest my hand on Araj Kharashan’s mangled jaw. And so it went as I walked around the hall to honor other warriors and knights, Sar Barshan and Sar Vikan and Siraj Evar, touching my hand to heads and arms and faces and nearly every other part of a man’s body that could be torn or cut or crushed.

      I drew strength from my friends, looking on: from Liljana, who had gazed into the horror of Morjin’s mind, and now could not smile; from Estrella, who could not speak; from Maram, who had been burned to a blackened, oozing crisp in the hell of the Red Desert. And from Atara, who could not look at me with her eyes, but somehow communicated all her wild joy of life despite the most terrible of mutilations.

      Then my fear suddenly went away. I knew with an utter certainty of blood and breath that I had something to give these warriors who had come here to honor me. The light inside me flared so hot and brilliant that my heart hurt, and I could not hold it. I did not want to hold it within anymore, but only to pass it on, through my hand as I pressed it against the side of Sar Yardru’s wounded neck, and through my eyes as I looked into old Sar Jurald’s eyes, still haunted by the deaths of his sons at the Culhadosh Commons. And with this splendid light came the promise of brotherhood: that we would never fail each other and would fight side by side to the end of all battles. And that there was no wound or anguish so great that we could not help each other to bear it. And most of all, that we would always remind each other where we had come from and who we were meant to be.

      That was the miracle of the valarda: how my love for these noble warriors could pass from me like a flame and set afire something bright and inextinguishable in them. At last, I returned to where Lord Noldashan stood, staring at me. I pressed my hand to his, and felt it come alive with an incendiary heat.

      ‘I am sorry,’ I told him, ‘for your family.’

      For a long time he stood looking at me as if wondering if he could bring himself to say anything. His eyes seemed like bright black jewels melting in the light of some impossibly bright sun. Finally, he seemed to come to a decision, and his breath rasped out: ‘And I am sorry for yours. I should not have said what I said. You are not to blame for what Morjin did to our land. In truth, it is as Sar Jessu has told, that without you, the battle would have been lost. I know this in my heart.’

      I squeezed his hand, hard, and held on tightly to keep myself from weeping. I did not succeed. Through the blur of water filling my eyes, I saw Lord Noldashan gazing at me with a terrible, sweet sadness, and so it was with Lord Harsha and Lord Avijan and many others. But within them, too, burned a great dream.

      ‘You are not to blame for Morjin’s deeds,’ Lord Avijan affirmed, inclining his head to me. ‘As for your own deeds, we shall honor them in the telling and retelling, down to our grandchildren’s grandchildren – and beyond, when our descendants know of Morjin only by the tale of how we Valari vanquished him, leaving to legend only his evil name.’

      Sar Vikan then came forward and said to Lord Noldashan, ‘Well, sir, I am certainly to blame for what I said to you. I wish I could unsay it. But I since I cannot, I will ask your forgiveness.’

      ‘And that you shall have,’ Lord Noldashan said, clasping his hand. ‘As I hope I shall have yours for forgetting that we are brothers in arms.’

      At this, Lord Harsha called out his approval, and so did Sar Jessu and dozens of other warriors.

      Then Lord Noldashan turned back to me as he laid his arm around Sar Jonavar’s shoulders. ‘Despite my misgivings, I came here tonight because my son has great hope for you. And because I loved your father and Lord Asaru. An oath, too, I gave to Lord Avijan, but he has released me from it. What, then, should I now do?’

      ‘Only what you must do,’ I told him.

      Lord Noldashan continued gazing into my eyes, and then said, ‘My head speaks one thing to me, and my heart another. It is the right of a warrior to stand for one who would be king – or not to stand. But once this one is king, no one may gainsay him.’

      I felt something vast and deep move inside Lord Noldashan. Then he glanced at Lord Sharad, before looking back to me and smiling grimly. ‘Very well, then, Lord Elahad, I will follow you past the very end of the earth, to the stars or hell, if that is our fate.’

      As he bowed deeply to me, a hundred warriors drummed the hilts of their swords against the tables. Then Lord Avijan stepped forward, and held up his hand. He called for fresh pots of beer to be brought up from his cellar. When everyone’s cup had been filled anew, he raised his cup and cried out: ‘To Lord Valashu Elahad, heir of the Elahads, Guardian of the Lightstone, and the next king of Mesh!’

      I sipped my thick, black beer, and I found it sweet and bitter and good. I smiled as Alphanderry came forth and everyone hailed this strange minstrel. Tomorrow, I thought, we must meet in council again to lay our plans for my gaining my father’s throne – and for Morjin’s eventual defeat. But now we had a few moments for camaraderie and cups clinked together, and singing songs of glory and hope far into the night.

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