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

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СКАЧАТЬ alive to spread the foolishness of myths and old wives’ tales.’

      Again, as if I had drunk a cup full of kirax, a wave of hatred came flooding into me. My eyes hurt so badly that I could hardly bear to keep looking at Salmelu. But I couldn’t tell if this poisonous emotion originated from myself or him. Certainly, I thought, he had hated me since the moment I had bested him at chess. How deep did this hate reach? I wondered. Could it be that this prince of Ishka was the man who had shot the arrow at me?

      ‘You should be careful,’ my father warned Salmelu, ‘of how you speak of a man’s ancestors.’

      ‘Thank you, King Shamesh, for sharing your wisdom,’ Salmelu said, bowing with exaggerated punctilio. ‘And you should be careful of what decision you make here tonight. The lives of many warriors and women depend on this famous wisdom.’

      As my father caught his breath and stared out at the great wooden beams that held up the roof of the hall, I wondered why the Ishkans had really come to our castle. Did they wish to provoke a war, here, this very night? Did they truly believe that they could defeat Mesh in battle? Well, perhaps they could. The Ishkans could field some twelve thousand warriors and knights to our ten, and we couldn’t necessarily count on our greater valor to win the day as we had at the Diamond River. But I thought it more likely that Salmelu and his countrymen were bluffing: trying to cow us into ceding them the mountain by displaying their eagerness to fight. They couldn’t really want war, could they? Who, I wondered, would ever want a war?

      My father asked everyone to sit then, and so we did. He called for the council to continue, and various lords and ladies spoke for or against war according to their hearts. Lord Tomavar, a long-faced man with a slow, heavy manner about him, surprised everyone by arguing that the Ishkans should be allowed to keep their part of the mountain. He said that Mesh already had enough diamonds to supply the armorers for the next ten years and that it wouldn’t hurt to give a few of them away. Other lords and knights – and many of the women – agreed with him. But there were many more, such as the fiery Lord Solaru of Mir, who did not.

      Finally, after the candles had burned low in their stands and many hours had passed, my father held up his hand to call an end to the debate. He sighed deeply and said, ‘Thank you all for speaking so openly, with reason as well as passion. But now it is upon me to decide what must be done.’

      As everyone waited to hear what he would say and the room fell quiet, he took another deep breath and turned toward Salmelu. ‘Do you have sons, Lord Salmelu?’ he asked him.

      ‘Yes, two,’ he said, cocking his head as if he couldn’t grasp the point of the question.

      ‘Very well, then as a father you will understand why we are too distraught to call for war at this time.’ Here he paused to look first at Asaru and then at me. ‘Two of my sons were nearly murdered today. And one of the assassins still walks free; perhaps he’s among us in this room even now.’

      At this, many troubled voices rumbled out into the hall as men and women cast nervous glances at their neighbors. And then Salmelu rebuked my father, saying, ‘That’s no decision at all!’

      ‘It’s a decision not to decide at this time,’ my father told him. ‘There’s no need to hurry this war, if war there must be. The snows are not yet fully melted from the passes. And we must determine the extent of the diamond deposits before deciding if we will cede them or not. And an assassin remains to be caught.’

      My father went on to say that the end of summer, when the roads were dry, would be soon enough for battle.

      ‘We’ve come here to bring you King Hadaru’s request,’ Salmelu said, staring at my father, ‘not to be put off.’

      ‘And we’ve given you our decision,’ my father told him.

      ‘That you have,’ Salmelu snapped out. ‘And it’s a dangerous decision, King Shamesh. You would do well to reflect upon just how dangerous it might prove to be.’

      Truly, I thought, my father was taking a great chance. For thousands of years, the Valari had made war upon each other, but never toward the ends of conquest or the enslavement of the defeated. But if a king tried to avoid a formal war such as the Ishkans had proposed, then he ran a very real risk that a war of ravage, rapine and even annihilation might break out.

      ‘We live in a world with danger at every turn,’ my father told Salmelu. ‘Who has the wisdom always to see which of many dangers is the greatest or the least?’

      ‘So be it, then,’ Salmelu snarled out, looking away from him.

      ‘So be it,’ my father said.

      This pronouncement answered the first of the requests asked of him that night. But no one seemed to remember that a second remained to be made. For a long time, various lords and knights looked at their empty goblets while Salmelu stared at Lord Nadhru in the shame of having failed to wrest an immediate decision from my father. I could almost feel the hundreds of hearts of the men and women in the hall beating like so many war drums. And then Count Dario finally stood to address us.

      ‘King Shamesh,’ he called out, ‘may I speak now?’

      ‘Please do – it has grown very late.’

      Count Dario touched the golden caduceus shining from his tunic, then cast his voice out into the hall. ‘We do live in troubled times with dangers at every turn,’ he said. ‘Earlier today, two princes of Mesh went hunting for deer in a quiet wood only to find someone hunting them instead. And I have watched the noblest lords of Ishka and Mesh nearly come to blows over past grievances that no one can undo. Who has the wisdom to overcome this discord? Who has the power to heal old wounds and bring peace to the lands of Ea? I know of no such man now living, neither king nor Brother nor sage. But it is said that the Lightstone has this power. And that is why, with the Red Dragon uncaged once again, it must be found.’

      He paused to take a deep breath and look around the room as my father nodded at him to continue.

      ‘And it will be found,’ he said. ‘Before the snows of next winter come, men and women will behold the Cup of Heaven as in ancient times. This is the prophecy that the great scryer, Ayondela Kirriland, gave us before she was murdered. It is why King Kiritan has sent messengers into all the free lands.’

      Although it was not Salmelu’s place to speak, he looked Count Dario up and down with his dark eyes and snapped out, ‘What are the words of this prophecy, then?’

      Count Dario paused as if counting the beats of his heart. I thought that he couldn’t have expected to encounter such rudeness among the Valari. And then, as all eyes turned his way and I held my breath, he told us, ‘Her words are these: “The seven brothers and sisters of the earth with the seven stones will set forth into the darkness. The Lightstone will be found, the Maitreya will come forth, and a new age will begin.”’

      A new age, I thought as I gazed at the empty stand behind our table where once the Lightstone had shone. An age without killing or war.

      ‘My King,’ Count Dario continued, ‘has asked for all knights wishing to fulfill the prophecy to gather in Tria on the seventh day of Soldru. There he will give his blessing to all who vow to make this quest.’

      ‘Very well,’ my father finally said, looking at him deeply. ‘And a very noble quest this is.’

      Count Dario, not knowing my father, СКАЧАТЬ