David Zindell - The Lightstone

I raised high my sword then so that its silustria caught the sun's rays and threw them back into Kane's eyes. For a moment he stood there dazzled by this golden light. His sword wavered. Then he looked at me, and I looked at him. There was a calling of our eyes Valari eyes: black, brilliant and bottomless as the stellar deeps. There the stare shone, and there, too, Alpha nderry's last song reverberated and sailed out toward infinity. I heard the haunting sound of it inside me, and in that moment, so did Kane. And in the opening of his heart, he began to remember who he really was and who he was meant to be. This was a bright, blessed being, joyful and compassionate – not a murderer of terrified men who had thrown down their weapons and asked for mercy. But he feared this shining one more than any other enemy. It was upon me to remind him that he was great enough of heart and soul that he need fear nothing in this world – nor that which dwelled beyond it.

'So,' he said, suddenly sheathing his sword as tears filled his eyes. He stepped past the kneeling knight and came up to me. He touched my sword, touched my hand, and then clamped his hand fiercely about my forearm. A bright, blazing thing, secret until now, passed between us. And he whispered, 'So, Val – so.'

He turned his back on the knight, not wanting to look at him. It seemed, as well, that he couldn't bear the sight of me just then. The Librarians came to take the knight away to that part of the library where captives were being held. And all the while, Kane stared up at the sky as if looking for himself in the light that kept pouring from the bright, midday sun.

Three more times that long afternoon, Count Ulanu's armies made assaults upon the wall. And thrice we threw them back, each time with greater difficulty and desperation. Kane's newfound compassion did not keep him from fighting like an angel of death, nor did my own stay the terror of the sword Lady Nimaiu had given me. But all our efforts – and those of Maram, Atara and the Librarians – were not enough to defeat the much greater forces flung against us. Near the end of the third assault with most of Count Ulanu's army in retreat from the walls, we suffered our greatest loss thus far. For one of the Blues, who had fought his way up to a section of wall where Lord Grayam stood with his sword trying to meet a sudden crisis, felled Lord Grayam with a blow of his axe. He himself was slain s moment later, but the deed was done. The Librarians set Lord Grayam down behind the wall's battlements. There he called for me and the rest of our company to come to him.

While a messenger ran to summon Master Juwain and Liljana, I knelt with Kane, Atara and Maram by his side.

'I'm dying,' he gasped out as he leaned back against the bloodstained battlements.

I tried not to look at the bloody opening that the Blue had chopped through his mail into his belly. I knew it was a wound that not even Master Juwain could heal.

Jonatham and Braham called for a litter to carry the Lord Librarian to the infirmary.

But he shook his head violently, telling them, 'There's no time! Never enough time!

Now please leave me alone with Sar Valashu and his companions. I must speak with them before it's truly too late.'

This command displeased both Jonatham and Braham. But since they were unused to disobeying their lord, they did as he had asked, walking off down the wall and leaving us with him.

'The next attack will be the last,' he told us. They'll wait until the sun goes down so that Prince Maram can't use his firestone, and then… the end.'

'No,' I said, listening to the blood bubble from his belly. 'There's always hope.'

'Brave Valari,' he said, shaking his head.

In truth, unless a miracle befell us, the next assault would be the last. It was a matter of the numbers of Librarians still standing and the severity of their wounds; the promise of defeat was in the dullness of Librarians' eyes and in the exhaustion with which they held their notched and bloodstained weapons – no less the gaps the enemy's missiles had broken in the walls. A knowledge comes to men in battle when the battle is nearly lost. And now the enemy began reforming themselves in their companies and battalions in front of the houses of the glowing dry; and now the Librarians peered out at this gathering doom as courageously as they could: without much fear but also without hope.

And then, from the tower to our left, one of the Librarians there pointed toward the west and shouted down, 'They're coming! I see the standards of Sarad! We're saved!'

It seemed that we had our miracle after all. I stood to look out the crenel, beyond Count Ulanu's armies and the houses of the city, beyond even the broken outer wall to the west. And there, perhaps a mile out on the pasture, cresting a hill and limned against the setting sun, was a great host of men marching toward Khaisham. The red sun glinted off their armor, their standards, in a direct line with this fiery orb, were hard to see. I told myself that I could make out the golden lions of Sarad against a flapping blue banner. But then one of the Librarians, from the tower to our right, peered through his looking glass and announced, 'No, the standards are black! And it is the golden dragons of Brahamdur!'

He then swept his glass from north to south and shouted. 'The armies of Sagaram and Hansh march with them! We are lost!'

A pall of doom descended upon all who stood there, worse than before. Count Ulanu had sent for reinforcements to complete his conquest, and with all the inevitability of death, they had come.

'Sar Valashu!' Lord Grayam called to me. 'Come closer – don't make me shout.'

I knelt beside him with my friends to hear what he had to say. Just then he smiled as he saw Liljana and Master Juwain mount the steps to the wall. He beckoned them closer, too, and they joined us.

'You must save yourselves, if you can,' he told us. 'You must flee the city while you can.'

I shook my head sadly; Khaisham was now surrounded by a ring of steel too thick for even Alkaladur to cut through.

'Listen to me!' Lord Grayam called out. 'This is not your battle; even so you have fought valiantly and have done all you can do.'

I looked from Atara to Kane, and then at Maram, who bit his lip as he tried desperately not to fall back into fear. Master Juwain and Liljana were so tired that they could hardly hold up their heads. They had seen enough of death during the past day to know that soon, like the coming of night, it would fall uporf them as well.

'I should have bid you to leave Khaisham before this,' Lord Grayam told us, as if in apology. 'But I thought the battle could be won. With your swords, with the firestone that I suspected Prince Maram possessed…'

His voice trailed off as a spasm of agony ripped through his body and contorted his face. And then he gasped, 'But now you must go.'

'Go where?' Maram muttered.

'Into the White Mountains,' he said. 'To Argattha.'

The name of this dreadful city was as welcome to our ears as the thunder of Count Ulanu's war drums booming out beyond the walls.

'You must,' he told us, 'try to recover the Lightstone.'

'But, sir,' I said, 'even if we could break out, to simply forsake those who have stood by us in battle -'

'Faithful Valari,' he said, cutting me off. His eyes stared up and through me, up at the twilight sky. 'Listen to me. The Red Dragon is too strong. The finding of the Lightstone is the only hope for Ea. I see this now. I see… so many things. If you forsake your quest, you truly do forsake those who have fought with you here, For why have we fought? For the books? Yes, yes, of course, but what do books hold inside them? A dream. Don t let the dream die. Go to Argattha. For my sake, for the sake of my son and all who have fallen here, go. Will you promise me this, Sar Valashu?'