The Lightstone: The Ninth Kingdom: Part One. David Zindell

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      I turned my head to watch the rain beating down on the assassin’s bloody chest. Who could ever escape the great emptiness? Truly, I thought, the same fate awaited us all.

      Asaru placed his warm hand on top of mine and said, ‘If it’s poison, Master Juwain will know a cure. We’ll take you to him as soon as the rain stops.’

      My grandfather had once warned me to beware of elms in thunder, but we took shelter beneath that great tree all the same. Its dense foliage protected us from the worst of the rain as we waited out the storm. As Asaru tended Maram’s wounded head, I heard him reassuring Maram that it rains hard in the Morning Mountains, but not long.

      As always, he spoke truly. After a while the downpour weakened to a sprinkle and then stopped. The clouds began to break up, and shafts of light drove down through gaps in the forest canopy and touched the rain-sparkled ferns with a deeper radiance. There was something in this golden light that I had never seen before. It seemed to struggle to take form even as I struggled to apprehend it. I somehow knew that I had to open myself to this wondrous thing as I had my brother’s love or the inevitability of my death.

       The stealing of the gold …

      And then there, floating in the air five feet in front of me, appeared a plain golden cup that would have fit easily into the palm of my hand. Call it a vision; call it a waking dream; call it a derangement of my aching eyes. But I saw it as clearly as I might have a bird or a butterfly.

      I was only dimly aware of Asaru kneeling by my side as he touched my throbbing head. Almost all that I could see was this marvelous cup shimmering before me. With my eyes, I drank in its golden light. And almost immediately, a warmth like that of my mother’s honey tea began pouring into me.

      ‘Do you see it?’ I asked Asaru.

      ‘See what?’

      The Lightstone, I thought. The healing stone.

      For this, I thought, Aryu had risen up and killed his brother with a knife even as I had killed the assassin. For this simple cup, men had fought and murdered and made war for more than ten thousand years.

      “What is it, Val?’ Asaru asked, gently shaking my shoulder.

      But I couldn’t tell him what I saw. After a while, as I leaned back against the solidity and strength of the great elm, the coldness left my body. I prayed then that someday the Lightstone would heal me completely so that the terror of my gift would leave me as well and I would suffer the pain of the world no more.

      Although I was still very weak, I managed to press my hands down into the damp earth. And then to Asaru’s and Maram’s astonishment – and my own – I stood up.

      Somehow I staggered over to where the assassin lay atop the glistening bracken. While my whole body shook and I gasped with the effort of it, I pulled my knife out of his chest and cleaned it. Then I closed the assassin’s cold blue eyes. In my own eyes, I felt a sudden moist pain, My throat hurt as if I had swallowed a lump of cold iron. Somewhere deeper inside, my belly and being heaved with a sickness that wouldn’t go away. There, I knew, the cold would always wait to freeze my breath and steal my soul. I vowed then that no matter the cause or need, I would never, never kill anyone again.

      In the air above me – above the assassin’s still form – the Lightstone poured out a golden radiance that filled the forest. It was the light of love, the light of life, the light of truth. In its shimmering presence, I couldn’t lie to myself: I knew with a bitter certainty that it was my fate to kill many, many men.

      And then, suddenly, the cup was gone.

      ‘What are you staring at?’ Asaru asked.

      ‘It’s nothing,’ I told him. ‘Nothing at all.’

      Now a fire burned through me like the poison still in my veins. I struggled to remain standing. Asaru came over to my side. His strong arm wrapped itself around my back to help me.

      ‘Can you walk now?’ he asked.

      I nodded and Asaru smiled in relief. After I had steadied myself, Asaru called Maram over to check his wounded head. He poked his finger into Maram’s big gut and told him, Your head is as hard as your belly is soft. You’ll be all right.’

      ‘Ah, yes, indeed, I suppose I will – as soon as you bring back the horses.’

      For a moment, Asaru looked up through the fluttering leaves at the sun. He looked down at the dead assassin. And then he turned to Maram and told him, ‘No, it’s getting late, and it wouldn’t do to leave either of you alone here. Despite what Val says, there may be others about. We’ll walk out together.’

      ‘All right then, Lord Asaru,’ Maram said.

      Asaru bent down toward the assassin. And then, with a shocking strength, he hoisted the body onto his shoulder and straightened up. He pointed deeper into the woods. ‘You’ll carry back the deer,’ he told Maram.

      ‘Carry back the deer!’ Maram protested. Asaru might as well have appointed him to bear the whole world on his shoulders. ‘It must be two miles back to the horses!’

      Asaru, straining under the great mass of the assassin’s body, looked down at Maram with a sternness that reminded me of my father. He said, You wanted to be a warrior – why don’t you act like one?’

      Despite Maram’s protests, beneath all his fear and fat, he was as strong as a bull. As there was no gainsaying my brother when he had decided on an action, Maram grudgingly went to fetch the deer.

      You look sick,’ Asaru said as he freed a hand to touch my forehead. ‘But at least the cold is gone.’

      No, no, I thought, it will never be gone.

      ‘Does it still hurt?’ he asked me.

      ‘Yes,’ I said, wincing at the pain in my side. ‘It hurts.’

      Why, I wondered, had someone tainted an arrow with poison? Why would anyone try to kill me?

      I drew in a deep breath as I steeled myself for the walk back through the forest. When I closed my eyes, I could still see the Lightstone shining like a sun.

      With Asaru in the lead, we started walking west toward the place where we had left the horses. Maram puffed and grumbled beneath the deer flopped across his shoulders. At least, I thought, we had taken a deer, even as Asaru had said we would. And so we would have something to contribute to that night’s feast with the Ishkans.

       3

      It was late afternoon by the time we broke free from the forest and rejoined Joshu Kadar at the edge of Lord Harsha’s fields. The young squire blinked his eyes in amazement at the load slung across my brother’s back; he had the good sense, however, not to beleaguer us with questions just then. He kept a grim silence and went to fetch Lord Harsha as my brother bade him.

      The horses, however, practiced no such restraint. Joshu had them tied to a couple of saplings beyond the wall surrounding Lord Harsha’s field; at the smell of fresh blood they began whinnying СКАЧАТЬ