The Diamond Warriors. David Zindell

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ of an entirely different order.

      ‘There must be a way,’ I murmured.

      ‘But, Val,’ Master Juwain reminded me, ‘it has always been your dream to bring an end to these endless battles – and to war, itself.’

      For a moment I closed my burning eyes because I could not see how to defeat Morjin other than through battle. But neither could I imagine any conceivable force of Valari or other free people defeating Morjin in battle. Surely, I thought, that would be death.

      ‘There must be a way,’ I told Master Juwain. I drew my sword then. My hands wrapped around the seven diamonds set into its black jade hilt while I gazed at Alkaladur’s brilliant blade. ‘There is always a way.’

      The silver gelstei of which it was wrought flared with a wild, white light. Somewhere within this radiance, I knew, I might grasp my fate – if only I could see it.

      ‘You will never,’ Master Juwain said, ‘bring down Morjin with your sword.’

      ‘Not with this sword, perhaps. Not just with it.’

      ‘Please,’ Master Juwain said, stepping closer to lay his hand on my arm, ‘give Bemossed a chance to work at Morjin in his way. Give it time.’

      A shard of the sun’s light reflected off my sword’s blade, and stabbed into my eyes. And I told Master Juwain, ‘But, sir – I am afraid that we do not have much time.’

      Just then, from out of the shadows that an oak cast upon the raspberry bush, a glimmer of little lights filled the air. They began whirling in a bright spray of crimson and silver, and soon coalesced into the figure of a man. He was handsome of face and graceful of body, and had curly black hair, sun-browned skin and happy eyes that seemed always to be singing. We called him Alphanderry, our eighth companion. But we might have called him something other, for although he seemed the most human of beings, he was in his essence surely something other, too. At times, he appeared as that sparkling incandescence we had known as Flick; but more often now he took shape as the beloved minstrel who had been killed nearly three years previously in the pass of the Kul Moroth. None of us could explain the miracle of his existence. Master Juwain hypothesized that when the great Galadin had walked the earth ages ago, they had left behind some shimmering part of their being. But Alphanderry, I thought, could not be just pure luminosity. I could almost feel the breath of some deep thing filling up his form with true life; a hand set upon his shoulder would pass through him and send ripples through his glistening substance as with a stone cast into water. Day by day, as the earth circled the sun and the sun hurtled through the stars, it seemed that he might somehow be growing ever more tangible and real.

      ‘Hoy!’ he laughed out, smiling at Master Juwain and me. As it had once been with my brother, Jonathay, something in his manner suggested that life was a game to be played and enjoyed for as long as one could, and not taken too seriously. But today, despite his light, lilting voice, his words struck us all with their great seriousness: ‘Hoy, time, time! – it runs like the Poru river into the ocean, does it not? And we think that, like the Poru, it is inexhaustible and will never run out.’

      ‘What do you mean?’ Master Juwain asked, looking at him.

      Alphanderry stood – if that was the right word – on a mat of old leaves and trampled ferns covering the ground. And he waved his lithe hand at me, and said, ‘Val is right, and too bad for that. We don’t have as much time as we would like.’

      ‘But how do you know?’ Master Juwain asked him.

      ‘I just know,’ he said. ‘We can’t let Bemossed bear the entire burden of our hope.’

      ‘But our hope, in the end, rests upon the Lightstone. And the Maitreya. As you saw, Bemossed has kept Morjin from using it.’

      ‘I did see that, I did,’ Alphanderry said. ‘But what was will not always be what is.’

      Atara, I saw, smiled coldly at this, for Alphanderry suddenly sounded less like a minstrel than a scryer.

      ‘Did you think it would be so easy?’ he asked Master Juwain.

      ‘Easy? No, certainly not,’ Master Juwain said. ‘But I believe with all my heart that as long as Bemossed lives, Morjin will never be able to use the Cup of Heaven to free the Dark One.’

      The hot Soldru sun burned straight down through the clearing with an inextinguishable splendor. And yet, upon Master Juwain’s mention of the Dark One – also known as Angra Mainyu, the great Black Dragon – something moved within the unmovable heavens, and I felt a shadow fall over the sun. It grew darker and darker, as if the moon were eclipsing this blazing orb. In only moments, an utter blackness seemed to devour the entire sky. I believed with all my heart that if Angra Mainyu, this terrible angel, were ever freed from his prison on Damoom, then he would destroy not only my world and its bright star, but much of the universe as well.

      Master Juwain’s brows wrinkled in puzzlement as he looked up at the sky to wonder what I might be gazing at. So did my other friends, who seemed not to be afflicted by my wild imaginings.

      ‘The Seven,’ Master Juwain said, turning back towards Alphanderry, ‘aid Bemossed with all their powers. And so Bemossed’s power grows.’

      ‘So does Morjin’s,’ Alphanderry said. ‘For Angra Mainyu aids him.’

      ‘Even so, I believe that Bemossed will resist Morjin’s lies and his vile attacks.’

      ‘I pray he will; I fear that he may not. For Angra Mainyu himself has lent all his spite toward assaulting Bemossed’s body, mind and soul.’

      Master Juwain’s brows pulled even tighter with worry. ‘But how do you know this? And how can that be? The greatest of the Galadin have bound him on Damoom, and have laid protections against such things.’

      ‘No shield is proof against all weapons,’ Alphanderry said. ‘Angra Mainyu has had ages of ages to battle those who bind him. The shield you speak of has cracked. And things will only get worse.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘Some time this autumn,’ Alphanderry said, ‘there will be a great alignment of planets and stars. Damoom and its star will perfectly conjunct the earth. Toward that day, Angra Mainyu’s malice will rain down upon Ea ever more foul and deadly. And on that day, if Morjin should prevail and cripple Bemossed, or kill him, he will loose the Dark One upon the universe, and all will be destroyed.’

      The sun blazed down upon us, and from somewhere in the woods, the tanager continued trilling out its sweet song. We stood there in silence staring at Alphanderry. And then Master Juwain asked him again, ‘But how could you know this?’

      ‘I do not know … how I know,’ Alphanderry said. ‘As I stand here, as I speak, the words come to my lips, like drops of dew upon the morning grass – and I do not know what it will be that I must tell you. But my words are true.’

      So it had been, I thought, in the Kul Moroth, when Alphanderry had recreated the perfect and true words of the angels – and for a few glorious moments had sung back an entire army bent on killing us all.

      ‘And these words, above all others,’ he said to us in his beautiful voice. ‘Listen, I know this must be, for it is the essence of all that we strive for: The СКАЧАТЬ