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

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ there you’ll be on your own, my friend. I’m no Valari knight, after all. Ah, but if I were, and I did gain the Lightstone, there are so many things I might do.’

      ‘Such as?’

      ‘Well, to begin with, I would return with it to Delu in glory. Then the nobles would have to make me king. Women would flock to me like lambs to sweet grass. I would establish a great harem as did the Delian kings of old. Then famous artists and warriors from all lands would gather in my court.’

      I pushed the cork stopper into the half-empty cask as I looked at him and asked, ‘But what about love?’

      ‘Ah, yes, love,’ he said. He belched then sighed as he rubbed his eyes. ‘The always-elusive dream. As elusive as the Lightstone itself.’

      In a voice full of self-pity, he declared that the Lightstone had certainly been destroyed, and that neither he nor anyone else was ever likely to find his heart’s deepest desire.

      Master Juwain had so far endured Maram’s drinking spree in silence. But now he fixed him with his clear eyes and said, ‘My heart tells me that the prophecy will prove true. Starlight is elusive, too, but we do not doubt that it exists.’

      ‘Ah, well, the prophecy,’ Maram muttered. ‘But who are these seven brothers and sisters? And what are these seven stones?’

      ‘That, at least, should be obvious,’ Master Juwain said. ‘The stones must be the seven greater gelstei.’

      He went on to say that although there were hundreds of types of gelstei, there were only seven of the great stones: the white, blue and green, the purple and black, the red firestones and the noble silver. Of course, there was the gold gelstei, but only one, known as the Gelstei, and that was the Lightstone itself.

      ‘So many have sought the master stone,’ he said.

      ‘Sought it and died,’ I said. ‘No wonder my mother wept for me.’

      I went on to tell him that I would most likely be killed far from home, perhaps brought down by a plunging rock in a mountain pass or felled by a robber’s arrow in some dark woods.

      ‘Do not speak so,’ Master Juwain chastened me.

      ‘But this whole business,’ I said, ‘seems such a narrow chance.’

      ‘Perhaps it is, Val. But even a scryer can’t see all chances. Not even Ashtoreth herself can.’

      For a while we fell silent as the wind pushed through the valley and the fire crackled within its circles of stones. I thought of Morjin and his master, Angra Mainyu, one of the fallen Galadin who had once made war with Ashtoreth and the other angels and had been imprisoned on a world named Damoom; I thought of this and I shuddered.

      To raise my spirits, Maram began singing the epic of Kalkamesh from the Valkariad of the Saganom Elu. Master Juwain kept time by drumming on one of the logs waiting to be burned. So I brought out my flute and took up the song’s boldly defiant melody. I played to the wind and earth, and to the valor of this legendary being who had walked into the hell of Argattha to wrest the Lightstone from the Lord of Lies himself. It was a fine thing we did together, making music beneath the stars. My thoughts of death – the stillness of Raldu’s body and the coldness of my own – seemed to vanish like the flames of the fire into the night.

      We slept soundly after that on the soft soil of Yushur Kaldad’s field. No bears came to disturb us. It was a splendid night, and I lay on top of my furs wrapped only in my new cloak for warmth. When the sun rose over Mount Eluru the next morning to the crowing of Yushur’s cocks, I felt ready to ride to the end of the world.

      And ride we did. After breaking camp, we set out through the richest farmland of the valley. It was a fine spring day with blue skies and abundant sunshine. The road along this part of our journey was as straight and well paved as any in the Morning Mountains. Indeed, my father had always said that good roads make good kingdoms, and he had always gone to considerable pains to maintain his. Both Master Juwain and Maram could ride well, and Maram was tougher than he looked. And so we made excellent progress through the wind-rippled fields.

      Around noon, after we had paused for a quick meal and the horses had filled up on some of the sweet green grass that grew along the curbs of the road, the country began to change. Toward the northern end of the Valley of the Swans, the terrain grew hillier and the soil more rocky. There were fewer farms and larger stands of trees between them. Here the road wound gently around and through these low hills; it began to rise at an easy grade toward the greater hills and mountains to the north. But still the traveling was easy. By the time the sun had crossed the sky and began dipping down toward the Central Range, we found ourselves at the edge of the forest that blankets the northernmost districts of Mesh. A few more miles would bring us to the town of Ki high in the mountains. And a few miles beyond it, we would cross the pass between Mount Raaskel and Mount Korukel, and go down into Ishka.

      We made camp that night above a little stream running down from the mountains. The oak trees above us and the hill behind provided good cover against the wind. Master Juwain, although more knowledgeable than I in most things, allowed me to take the lead in choosing this site. As he admitted, he had little woodcraft or sense of terrain. He was very happy when I returned from the bushes along the stream with many handfuls of raspberries and some mushrooms that I had found. He sliced these last up and layered them with some cheese between slices of bread. Then he roasted the sandwiches over the fire that Maram had made. That night it was much cooler, and we were very glad for the fire as we edged close to it and ate this delicious meal. We listened to the hooting of the owls as they called to each other from the woods, and later, to the wolves howling high in the hills around us. After drinking some of the tea that Master Juwain brewed, we gathered our cloaks around us and fell soundly asleep.

      The next morning dawned cloudy and cool. The sun was no more than a pale yellow disk behind sheets of white in the sky. Since I wanted to be well through the pass by nightfall and I was afraid a hard rain might delay us, I encouraged the groggy and lazy Maram to get ready as quickly as he could. The few miles to Ki passed quickly enough, although the road began to rise more steeply as the hills built toward the mountains. Ki itself was a small city of shops, smithies and neat little chalets with steep roofs to keep out the heavy mountain snows that fell all through winter.

      One of the feeder streams of the Diamond River ran through the center of the town. Just beyond the bridge across these icy waters, where two large inns stood above the houses, the Kel Road from the east intersected the larger North Road. The Kel Road, as I knew from having traveled it, was one of the marvels of Mesh. It wound through the mountains around the entire perimeter of our kingdom connecting the kel keeps that guarded the passes. There were twenty-two of these high mountain fortresses spaced some twenty miles apart. I had spent a long, lonely winter at one of them watching for an invasion of the Mansurii tribe that never came.

      Maram, citing the hard work of the morning (which in truth was mostly the horses’ hard work), argued that we should stop for a few hours and bathe at one of these inns. He grumbled that the two previous nights’ camps had afforded us neither the time nor the opportunity for such vital indulgence. It was almost a sacred ritual that a Valari would wash away the world’s woes at the end of a day, and I wanted a hot bath as badly as he did. But I persuaded him that we should leave Ki behind us as swiftly as possible. Although it was late in the season, it could still snow, as I patiently explained to him. And so, after pausing at the inn only long enough to take a quick meal of fried eggs and porridge, we continued on our journey.

      For seven miles between Ki and the kel keep situated near Raaskel and Korukel, the СКАЧАТЬ