The Lightstone: The Silver Sword: Part Two. David Zindell

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СКАЧАТЬ singing is all I wish to hear now,’ Atara said, forcing a smile. ‘Sing for me, now, will you? Please?’

      Master Juwain found the two instruments that he was looking for: a razor-sharp knife and a long, spoonlike curve of steel with a little hole in the bowl near its end. Just then Alphanderry sang out:

      Be ye songs of glory,Be ye songs of glory,That the light of the OneWill shine upon the world.

      Maram, with tears in his eyes, stood above Atara as he tried to position his gelstei so that it caught what little light filtered down to the floor of the pass. He called out, to the rocks and the clouded sky above us, ‘I’ll burn them if they come close! Oh, my Lord, I will!’

      The wild look in his eyes alarmed Kane. He drew out his black gelstei and stood looking between it and Maram’s stone.

      ‘Hold her!’ Master Juwain said to me sharply as he looked down at Atara.

      I put aside my sword, sat and pulled Atara onto my lap. My hands found their way between her arms and sides as I hung on to her tightly. Liljana bent to help hold her, too.

      Master Juwain cut open her leather armor and the softer shirt beneath. He grasped the arrow and tugged on it, gently. Atara gasped in agony, but the arrow didn’t move. Then Master Juwain nodded at me as if admonishing me not to let go of her. Sighing sadly, he used the knife to probe the opening that the arrow had made between her ribs and enlarge it, slightly. Now it took both Liljana and me to hold Atara still. Her body writhed with what little strength she had left. And still Master Juwain wasn’t done tormenting her. He took out his spoon and fit its tip to the red hole in Atara’s creamy white skin. Then he pushed his elongated spoon down along the arrow, slowly, feeling his way, deep into her. He twirled it about while Atara’s eyes leapt toward mine; from deep in her throat came a succession of strangled cries. At last Master Juwain smiled with relief. I understood that the hole at the spoon’s tip had snagged the tip of the arrow point; its curved flanges would now be wrapped around the point’s barbs, thus shielding Atara’s flesh from them so that they wouldn’t catch as Master Juwain drew the arrow. This he now did. It came out with surprising smoothness and ease.

      And so did a great deal of blood. It truth, it ran out of her like a bright red stream, flowing across her chest and wetting my hands with its warmth.

      And all the while, Alphanderry knelt by her and sang:

      Be ye songs of glory,Be ye songs of glory,That the light of the OneWill shine upon the world.

      ‘Maram!’ I heard Kane call out behind me. ‘Watch what you’re doing with that crystal!’

      The quick clopping of many horses’ hooves against stone came closer, as did the hideous howling, which filled the pass with an almost deafening sound: OWRRULLL!

      Kane glanced down at Atara, who was fighting to breathe, much air now wheezing out of her chest along with a frothy red spray.

      ‘So,’ he said. ‘So.’

      Master Juwain touched her chest just above the place where the archer’s arrow had ripped open her lungs. Everyone knew that such sucking wounds were mortal.

      ‘She’s bleeding to death!’ I said to Master Juwain. ‘We have to staunch it!’

      He stared at her, almost frozen in his thoughts. He said, ‘The wound is too grievous, too deep. I’m sorry, but I’m afraid there’s no way.’

      ‘Yes, there is,’ I said. I reached my bloody hand into his pocket where he kept his green crystal. I took it out and gave it to him. ‘Use this, please.’

      ‘I’m afraid I don’t know how.’

      ‘Please, sir,’ I said again to him. ‘Use the gelstei.’

      He sighed as he gripped his healing stone. He held it above Atara’s wound. He closed his eyes as if looking inside himself for the spark with which to ignite it.

      ‘I’m afraid there’s nothing,’ he said.

      Maram, breaking off his fumblings with his crystal, said, ‘Ah, perhaps you should read from your book. Or perhaps a period of meditation would –’

      ‘There is no time,’ Master Juwain said with uncharacteristic vehemence. ‘Never enough time.’

      OWRULLLLLLL!

      Through my hand, I felt Atara’s pulse weakening. I felt her life ready to blow out like a candle flame in an ice-cold wind. I didn’t care then if Count Ulanu’s men fell upon us and captured us. I wanted only for Atara to live another day, another minute, another moment. Where there was life, I thought, there was always hope and the possibility of escape.

      ‘Please, sir,’ I said to Master Juwain, ‘keep trying.’

      Again, Master Juwain closed his eyes even as his hard little hand closed tightly around the gelstei. But soon he opened them and shook his head.

      ‘One more time,’ I said to him. ‘Please.’

      ‘But there is no rhyme or reason to using this stone!’ he said bitterly.

      ‘No reason of the mind,’ I said to him.

      Atara began moving her lips as if she wanted to tell me something. But no words came out of them, only the faintest of whispers. The touch of her breath against my ear was so cold it burned like fire.

      ‘What is it, Atara?’ In her eyes was a look of faraway places and last things. I pressed my lips to her ear and whispered, ‘What do you see?’

      And she told me, ‘I see you, Val, everywhere.’

      In her clear blue eyes staring up at me, I saw my grandfather’s eyes and the dying face of my mother’s grandmother. I saw our children, Atara’s and mine, who were worse than dead because we had never breathed our life into them.

      A door to a deep, dark dungeon opened beneath Atara then. I was not the only one to look upon it. Atara, who could always see so much, and sometimes everything, turned and whispered, ‘Alphanderry.’

      Alphanderry stood up and smoothed the wrinkles out of his tunic, stained with sweat, rain and blood. He smiled as Atara said, ‘Alphanderry, sing, it’s time.’

      Just as Count Ulanu and the knights of his hard-riding guard showed themselves down the pass’s dark turnings, Alphanderry began walking toward them. I didn’t know what he was doing.

      ‘Oh, my Lord!’ Maram said above me. ‘Here they come!’

      OWRRULLLL! sang the voices of the Blues riding behind Count Ulanu as they clanked their axes together.

      And Alphanderry, with a much different voice, sang out, ‘La valaha eshama halla, lais arda alhalla …’

      His music had a new quality to it, both sadder and sweeter than anything I had ever heard before. I knew that he was close to finding the words that he had so long sought and opening the heavens with their sound.

      ‘Valashu Elahad!’ Count Ulanu called out as he rode with his captains and crucifiers inexorably toward us. ‘Lay down your weapons and СКАЧАТЬ