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

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      We spent a very comfortable night there in those wet woods on the wrong side of the mountains. With morning came the passing of the storm and the rising of the sun against a blue sky. We ate a quick meal of porridge and bacon as we listened to the sparrows chirping in the trees. Then we thanked Ludar and his family for the grace of their house; we saddled our horses and urged them down the path that led to the North Road.

      That morning we rode through a misty countryside of high ridges and steep ravines. Although I had never passed this way before, the mountains beyond Raaskel and Korukel seemed strangely familiar to me. By early afternoon we had made our way through the highest part of them; stretching before us to the north, was a succession of green-shrouded hills that would eventually give way to the Tushur River valley. With every mile we put behind us, these hills grew lower and less steep. The road, while not as well paved as any in Mesh, wound mostly downhill, and the horses found the going rather easy. By the time we drew up in a little clearing by a stream to make camp that night, we were all in good spirits.

      The next day we awoke early to the birds singing their morning songs. We traveled hard through the rolling hill country which gradually opened out into the broad valley of the Tushur. There, the road curved east through the emerald farmland toward the golden glow of the sun – and toward Loviisa, where King Hadaru held his court. We debated making a cut across this curve and rejoining the road much to the north of the Ishkans’ main city. It seemed wise to avoid the bellicose Salmelu and his friends, as Maram pointed out.

      ‘What if Salmelu,’ he asked me, ‘hired the assassin who shot at us in the woods?’

      ‘No, he couldn’t have,’ I said. ‘No Valari would ever dishonor himself so.’

      ‘But what if the Red Dragon has gotten to him, too? What if he’s been made a ghul?’

      I looked off at the gleaming ribbon of the Tushur where it flowed through the valley below us. I wondered for the hundredth time why Morjin might be hunting me.

      ‘Salmelu,’ I said, ‘is no ghul. If he hates me, it’s of his own will and not the Red Dragon’s.’

      ‘If he hates you,’ Maram said, ‘shouldn’t we avoid him altogether?’

      I smiled grimly and shook my head. I told him, ‘The world is full of hate, and there’s no avoiding it. In front of his own countrymen, Salmelu has promised us safe passage, and he’ll have to keep his word.’

      After stopping for a quick meal, we decided that making a straight cut through the farms and forests of Ishka would only delay us and pose its own dangers: there would be the raging waters of the Tushur to cross and perhaps bears in the woods. In the end, it was the prospect of encountering another bear that persuaded Maram that we should ride on to Loviisa, and so we did.

      We planned, however, to spend the night in one of Loviisa’s inns; the following morning we would set out as early and with as little fanfare as possible. But others had made other plans for us. It seemed that our passage through Ishka had not gone unnoticed. As night approached and we rode past the farms near the outskirts of the city, a squadron of knights came thundering up the road to greet us. Their leader was Lord Nadhru, whom I recognized by the long scar on his jaw and his dark, volatile eyes. He bowed his head toward me and told me, ‘So, Sar Valashu, we meet again. King Hadaru has sent me to request your presence in his hall tonight.’

      At this news, I traded quick looks with both Maram and Master Juwain. There was no need to say anything; when a king ‘requested’ one’s presence, there was nothing else to do except oblige him.

      And so we followed Lord Nadhru and his knights through Loviisa, whose winding streets and coal-fired smithies reminded me of Godhra. He led us past a succession of square, stone houses up a steep hill at the north of the city. And there, on a heavily wooded palisade overlooking the icy, blue Tushur, we found King Hadaru’s palace all lit up as if in anticipation of guests. As Ludar Narath had told me, the King disdained living in his family’s ancient castle in the hills nearby. And so instead he had built a palace fronted with flower gardens and fountains. The palace itself was an array of pagodas, exquisitely carved on its several levels out of curving sweeps of various kinds of wood. Indeed, it was famed throughout the Morning Mountains as the Wooden Palace. Ludar himself had cut dozens of rare shatterwood trees to provide the paneling of the main hall. Inside this beautiful building, if the stories proved true, we would find beams of good Anjo cherrywood and ebony columns that had come all the way from the southern forests of Galda. It was said that King Hadaru had paid for his magnificent palace with diamonds from the overworked Ishkan mines, but I did not want to believe such a slander.

      We entrusted our horses to the grooms who met us at the entrance to the palace. Then Lord Nadhru led us down a long corridor to the hall where King Hadaru held his court. The four warriors guarding the entrance to this great room asked us to remove our boots before proceeding within, and so we did. They allowed me, of course, to keep my sword sheathed by my side. One might better ask a Valari knight to surrender his soul before his sword.

      The Ishkan nobles, Salmelu and Lord Issur foremost among them, stood waiting to welcome us near King Hadaru’s throne. This was a single piece of white oak carved into the shape of a huge bear squatting on its hind legs. King Hadaru seemed almost lost against this massive sculpture, and he was no small man. He sat very straight in the bear’s lap, back against the belly and chest, with the great white head projecting up and out above him. He himself seemed somewhat bearlike, with a large head covered by a mane of snowy white hair that showed ten red ribbons. He had a large, predatory nose like Salmelu’s and eyes all gleaming and black like polished shatterwood. As we walked through the hall, with its massive oak beams arching high above us, his dark eyes never left us.

      After Lord Nadhru had presented us, he took his place near Salmelu and Lord Issur, who stood near their father’s throne. Other prominent knights attended the King as well: Lord Mestivan and Lord Solhtar, a proud-seeming man with a heavy black beard that was rare among the Valari. Two of the women present that night were Devora, the King’s sister, and Irisha, a beautiful young woman who seemed about my age. Her hair was raven-black and her skin almost as fair as the oak of King Hadaru’s throne. She was the daughter of Duke Barwan of Adar in Anjo, and it was said that King Hadaru had coerced him into giving her as his bride after his old queen had died. She stood in a bright green gown close to the King’s throne, closer even than Salmelu. It was somewhat barbaric, I thought, that even a queen should be made to stand in the King’s presence, but that was the way of things in Ishka.

      ‘Sar Valashu Elahad,’ the King said to me in a voice thickened with the bitterness of age. ‘I would like to welcome you to my home.’

      He nodded at Maram and Master Juwain, who stood on either side of me, and continued, ‘And you, Prince Maram Marshayk of Delu and Master Juwain of the Great White Brotherhood – you are welcomed, too.’

      We thanked him for his hospitality, and then he favored me with a smile as brittle as the glass of the many windows of the hall. He told me, ‘I hope you like your accommodations here better than those of that draughty old castle of yours.’

      In truth, I already liked the palace of this sad, old king more than my father’s castle, for it was a splendid thing. The vast roof of the hall, supported by great ebony columns, opened out in sweeping curves high above us like an indoor sky made of some sort of bluish wood. The panels of the walls were of the blackest shatterwood and red cherry, carved with battle scenes of Ishka’s greatest victories. The darkness of these woods would have cast a gloom upon the hall if they hadn’t been waxed and polished to a mirrorlike finish. In their gleaming surfaces was reflected the light of the thousands of candles burning in their stands. As well, I saw thousands of leaping red flames in the deep gloss of СКАЧАТЬ