David Zindell - The Lightstone

As I stood gasping for breath, I realized that the Baron's knights had not attacked us at random. A good number of them had come directly at me. And there, within a few yards of me and Kane's bloody sword, they sprawled in twisted heaps. I was almost certain that I had slain four of them myself. Their death agonies built inside me like great, cresting waves. But strangely, they never quite broke upon me and crushed me down into the icy dark. Perhaps it was because I remembered how Master Juwain and my friends had healed me after the battle with the Grays; perhaps I was able to open myself to the life fires blazing through Kane and Atara and everyone around me. Or perhaps I was only learning to keep closed the door to death and others' sufferings.

Even so, the great pain of it drove me to my knees and then caused me to collapse, moaning. Queen Daryana must have thought the Baron's men had run me through, for she suddenly called out, 'Over here! A man is wounded!'

For a moment, I couldn't imagine to whom she might be calling. Then, through the cold clouds of death touching my eyes, I saw a great number of the King's guards running toward us. I was afraid that they, too, were traitors come to kill the Queen; even if they weren't, I was afraid that Kane and the Valari knights would see them as such and begin the battle anew. But then the Queen cried out that my friends and I had saved her life. She called for everyone to put aside their swords, and this they did.

For what seemed an eternity, confusion reigned across the blood-spattered lawns of the palace grounds. Trumpets sounded while horses thundered across the grass some distance away. I heard women wailing and men screaming that the King had been killed. Then Queen Daryana took charge, calling out commands with a coolness that stilled the panic in the air. She deployed guards to see that the palace gates were closed to prevent any of the plotters from slipping away. Other guards she sent to hunt down any of the Baron's men who might be hiding around the palace. She ordered that the bodies of the slain be taken away and their blood washed with buckets of water into the earth. And she sent messengers to call up many new guards from the garrison that manned the city walls.

Word soon came that the King had only been wounded and borne away into the palace. He had called for Queen Daryana to come to his side.

'Your father isn't badly wounded,' Queen Daryana said to Atara. 'But it seems that your Valari knight might be. Please stay with him until I return.'

As Atara nodded her head, the Queen gathered up five guards and hurried off toward the palace.

Other guards drew up in a protective wall around us. King Kiritan's thousands of guests still milled about the fountains; despite their panic over Baron Narcavage's plot, they had nowhere to flee. But it seemed that most of the Baron's knights had died in attacking our circle. As for the traitorous guards, they had all been killed, too

– or so it was hoped.

While the Valari knights gathered some yards away, Alphanderry and Liljana drew in closer above me. They watched Kane, Atara, Maram and Master Juwain kneel in a circle by my side. My friends removed my armor, as they had in the woods near the meadow where we had killed the Grays, and laid their hands upon me. So great was the power of their touch that I immediately felt a familiar fire warming me inside.

Then Master Juwain drew out his green crystal and placed it over my chest. He and the others positioned their bodies to shield the sight of this healing from the guards and others looking on.

Very soon, I was able to stand up and move about again. In a low voice, Master Juwain marveled that he had hardly needed his green crystal to help revive me.

'Thank you, sir,' I said to him as I put on my armor again. I nodded to each of my friends. 'Thank you, all of you.'

I noticed Alphanderry looking at me curiously as if wondering why I had needed my friends' ministrations at all. He smiled at me in great relief, and my eyes asked him why he had risked his life for me as if he were my brother.

Because, his soft brown eyes answered me, all men are brothers.

Master Juwain's order, of course, taught this ideal of a higher love for all beings, even strangers. But Alphanderry's selfless act was the first time I had seen it embodied so unrestrainedly.

'Thank you,' I said to him. Then I turned to Liljana Ashvaran, whose courage had been no less than his. 'Thank you, too.'

Liljana bowed her head to me and smiled. Then she pointed at Master Juwain's pocket, where he had returned his green gelstei. In a voice pitched soft and low so that none of the guards or other onlookers might hear, she said, 'I think you have one of the stones told of in the prophecy.'

'What do you know of that?' Kane said sharply. He took a step closer to her; I was afraid he was about to draw his dagger and hold it to her throat. 'How did you know the wine was poisoned?'

Liljana folded her hands together as she stood there considering her answer. Her round face, I thought, was given to sternness as easily as kindness, and she seemed a thoughtful, unhurried and even relentless woman. She looked at Kane with her wise old eyes, and told him, 'I smelled it.' You smelled it?' he said. 'You must have the nose of a hound.' 'It was poisoned with wenrock,' she said. 'Its scent is almost like that of poppy. I've heen trained to detect such things.' 'Trained by whom?'

'By my mother and grandmother,' the said. 'They were master tasters to King Kiritan's father and grandfather.'

'Then are you King Kiritan's taster?'

'Not any more,' she said. 'You see, I disobeyed him.'

As trumpets sounded and new guards took their places about the lawns, she told us a little of her past. Having studied very hard with her mother and grandmother, as a young woman she had entered King Kiritan's service in the very year he had ascended the throne. So devoted had she been to protecting him that she had forsaken marriage, as King Kiritan had demanded of her. But in the eighth year of her service, she had fallen in love with Count Kinnan Marshan and had married him against the King's wishes.

'He banished me from his court just before you were born,' Liljana said to Atara. 'He told me that love would cloud my senses and leave me unable to protect his family from his enemies. But I told him that love was like an elixir that sharpened all the senses. Unfortunately, he never believed me.'

And so Liljana had lived many unhappy years in the Count's house. Her three children had each died in infancy, while her husband had been called away almost constantly to fight in the King's many wars. One of these had ruined his leg while another had crippled his manhood. He had died soon after this, leaving Liljana a widow.

'When King Kiritan called the quest,' she said, 'I decided it was time for me to leave Tria and all its plots and poisons behind me.'

As she turned into the light of the moon, the medallion that she wore glowed with a soft golden light. And all the while, Kane's black eyes bored into her as if drilling for the truth.

'What I don't understand,' Maram said, stroking his beard 'is why Baron Narcavage was willing to drink the wine if it was poisoned?'

'That should be dear enough,' Kane snapped. He nodded at Liljana and said, 'Tell him.'

Liljana nodded back at him, then explained, 'Certain men and women who use poisons such as wenrock take minute quantities of it over a period of years to build an invulnerability to it.' 'And who are these and women?' Kane demanded.

'They're priests of the Kallimun,' Liljana said.'The Kallimun uses such poisons.'

At the mention of this dreadful name, Alphanderry shuddered and said, 'Before Galda fell to the Kallimun, they poisoned many. And crucified many more. My friends. My brothers.'