The Lightstone: The Ninth Kingdom: Part One

My father’s hand tightened into a fist, and for a moment it seemed that he might accuse the Ishkans of this very crime. And then Count Dario raised up his voice and said, ‘Mesh and Ishka: the two greatest kingdoms of the Valari. And here you are ready to make war against each other when the Lord of Lies is on the march again. Isn’t there any way I could persuade you of what a tragedy this war will be?’

My father took a deep breath and relaxed his fingers. And then he spoke not just to Count Dario but to all those present in the hall. ‘War,’ he said, ‘has not yet been decided. But it is growing late, and we would like to hear from anyone who would speak for or against war with Ishka.’

As quickly as he could, Lord Harsha rose to his feet. He seemed in a combative mood, probably because he had lost his chance to chastise Maram. He rubbed the patch over his missing eye, then pointed at Raldu’s body and said, ‘We’ll probably never know if the Ishkans hired this man or his friend. But it doesn’t matter if they did. It’s plain that what the Ishkans really want is our diamonds. Well, why don’t we give them a bit of Meshian steel, instead?’

With that, he patted the sheath of his sword, and the cries of many of Mesh’s finest knights suddenly rang out into the hall. As he sat back down, I noticed Salmelu smiling at him.

During the whole time of the feast, my grandmother, sitting six places from me near the center of our family’s table, had been quiet. She was rather small for a Valari and growing old, but once she had been Elkamesh’s beloved Queen. I had never known a more patient or kinder woman. Although she was shrinking in her body as the years fell upon her, a secret light seemed to be gathering in her eyes and growing ever brighter. Everyone loved her for this deep beauty as she loved them. And so when Ayasha Elahad, the Queen Mother, arose to address the knights and ladies of Mesh, everyone fell silent to listen to her speak.

‘It’s been twelve years now since my King was killed in battle with the Ishkans,’ she called out in a voice like aged wine. ‘And many more since my first two sons met a similar fate. Now only King Shamesh remains for me – and my grandsons by him. Must I watch them be taken away as well over a handful of diamonds?’

That was all she said. But as she returned to her chair, she looked at me as if to tell me that it would break her heart if I died before she did.

Then Master Juwain arose and gazed out at the hundreds of warriors with his clear, gray eyes. ‘There have been thirty-three wars,’ he said, ‘over the centuries between Ishka and Mesh. And what has either kingdom gained? Nothing.’

That was all he said, too. He sat back down next to Master Kelem, who sagely nodded his hoary old head.

‘It’s to be expected that Master Juwain would feel thusly,’ Salmelu called out from where he still stood by the cart. ‘The Brothers always side with the women in avoiding matters of honor, don’t they?’

It is one of the tragedies of my people that the other Valari such as the Ishkans, do not esteem the Brotherhoods as do we of Mesh. They suspect them of secret alliances and purposes beyond the teaching of meditation or music – all true. But the Brothers, Maram notwithstanding, have their own honor. I hated Salmelu for implying that they – and noble women whom I loved – might be cowards.

I rose to my feet then. I took a drink of beer to moisten my dry throat. I knew that almost no one would want to hear what I had to say. But the kirax was beating like a hammer in my blood, and I still felt the coldness of Raldu’s body in my own. And so I looked at Salmelu and said, ‘My grandfather once told me that the first Valari were warriors of the spirit only. And that a true warrior would find a way to end war. It takes more courage to live life fully with an open heart than it does to march blindly into battle and die over a heap of dirt. And this is something women understand.’

Salmelu gave me barely enough time to return to my chair before firing his sneering words back at me: ‘Perhaps young Valashu has been spending too much time with the Brothers and the women. And perhaps it’s well that his grandfather is no longer 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, took this as a sign of encouragement. He smiled at him and said, ‘King Kiritan has asked that all kings of the free lands send knights to Tria. He would make this request of you, King Shamesh.’

My father nodded his head respectfully then looked across the hall at Lord Harsha, Lord Tomavar and his seneschal, Lansar Raasharu. He said, ‘Very well, but before this decision is made, we would like to hear counsel. Lord Raasharu, what do you have to say?’

Lord Raasharu was a solid, cautious man renowned for his loyalty to my family. He had long, iron-gray hair, which he brushed back from his plain face as he stood and said, ‘Sire, how can we trust the prophecies of foreign scryers? The oracles of Alonia are known to be corrupt. Are we to risk the lives of knights on the words of this Ayondela Kirriland?’

As soon as he had sat back down, Lord Tomavar arose to take his place. In his slow, ponderous voice, he looked at my father and said, ‘Risk the lives of our knights? Wouldn’t it be more like throwing them away? Can we afford to do this at a time when the Ishkans are demanding our diamonds?’

Now Lord Tanu, a fierce, old warrior whose four diamonds flashed brilliantly from his ring, said simply, ‘This quest is a fool’s errand.’

His sentiment seemed to be that of most of the lords and knights in the hall. For perhaps another hour, my countrymen arose one by one to speak against King Kiritan’s request. And nearly all this time, I sat staring at the empty granite stand behind my father’s chair.

‘Enough,’ my father finally said, raising his hand. He turned to address Count Dario. ‘We said earlier that hearing King Hadaru’s request first might help us decide King Kiritan’s request. And so it has. It seems that we of Mesh are all agreed on this, at least.’