David Zindell - The Lightstone

It seemed a desperate business to try to fool or force our way into the throne room past Morjin's guards. Although fortune often favored such boldness, I was reluctant to attempt this frontal assault even so. And then Daj surprised me, and all of us, saying, 'There's another way into the throne room.'

He told us that three great gates, on the throne room's east, west and north sides, opened upon the streets of the city and were always guarded. But a door inside the throne room, on its west wall, opened upon an unguarded passage that led directly through the palace to Morjin's private quarters.

'Oh, excellent,' Maram said to Daj. 'And I suppose you know a way to get inside the Red Dragon's rooms without just knocking at his door?'

'I do,' Daj said, and our surprise turned to amazement. 'There's a secret passage from Lord Morjin's rooms into the city.'

He went on to tell us that Morjin often used this passage to leave his palace unnoticed; he would go about the city in disguise, Daj said, acting as his own most trusted spy to ferret out any plots or slanders made against him.

'But why didn't you tell us this?' I asked him.

'Because I was afraid,' he said, looking at Kane grip his dagger.

'Afraid of what?'

'Afraid that you've come to kill Lord Morjin.'

He went on to say that an ancient curse had been laid upon anyone who would dare to try to slay the Red Dragon. And so he had been afraid, he said, to lead us through his private chambers.

'But why are you telling us this now, then?' I asked him.

'Because I don't care anymore,' he said. His dark, youthful eyes suddenly filled with hate, like Kane's. 'About the curse, I mean. I hope you do kill him. I'll never sleep well again until he's dead.'

The hurt inside him cut me like a heated knife. And I said to him, 'But we haven't come here to kill anyone. We're not assassins, Daj.'

As Kane's eyes flared like coals, I went on to tell him that we meant to enter Morjin's throne room in order to recover something that had once been stolen from the king's palace in Tria.

'What is it then, treasure?' he asked. 'There's plenty of that in the throne room.'

'Yes, treasure,' I said. And then, to myself, I whispered: The greatest treasure in the world.

We decided that Daj should take us through the district outside Morjin's Palace to the secret passage that led into it. But first we must reconnoiter the streets around the gates to the throne room, in the hope that we might find Atara and the others seeking a way inside. Then we might rejoin them and tell of our new plan for gaining entrance.

When we reached the street facing the throne room's north gate, however, we found many people milling about the food stalls and fortune tellers there, but none of them were our friends. The gate itself – great iron doors twenty feet high and as wide – was guarded by four of Morjin's men. We might simply have rushed upon them and murdered them; it would then be easy to push open the doors and storm our way into the throne room and begin our search for the Lightstone. But even if we completed our quest within a few minutes, the alarm would have been given, and we would have to try to fight our way back out against perhaps a hundred hastily summoned guards.

'Does this street ever grow quiet?' I asked Daj. I looked at the silksellers hawking their wares from their carts and other merchants displaying golden bangles, silver brooches and jeweled rings.

'At night it does,' he said.

Maram pulled at his beard and muttered, 'But how can you tell when it's night in this accursed place?'

'Well, the criers come to call out the curfew.'

'So,' Kane said, 'if our friends have discovered that then perhaps they're waiting for night to clear the streets.

'Perhaps,' I said, as I watched a nearby vendor roasting a baby pig over a little fire.

The spit and hiss of its dripping fat sent a greasy, black smoke out onto the noisy street.

'Perhaps we should wait here, after all,' Maram said. 'If we're to steal through the Red Dragon's rooms, it would be better to do so at night when he's sleeping.'

'But he doesn't sleep/ Daj said. 'He stays up all night reading his books. Or playing chess with himself. Or.. other things.'

'And during the day?' I asked, looking for some ray of light driving down the airshafts that opened upon the street.

'During the day,' Daj said, 'he could be anywhere in the city.'

I pulled my cloak more tightly about myself as he said this. I felt the eyes of many people about the street watching us.

'Anywhere except the throne room,' Liljana said.

'Yes, that's right,' Daj said, nodding toward the iron gate. 'The doors are almost always open when Lord Morjin is holding court.'

'Almost always?' Liljana asked him.

Daj nodded his head. 'Yes, sometimes he holds… private audi ences.'

I felt my heart beating like a hammer and sweat running beneath the padding of my armor. I said, 'All right, the throne room is likely empty, as we stand here talking.

And our friends, if they haven't been taken, are likely waiting somewhere for night to fight their way into it.'

'And if they have been taken?' Maram asked.

I tried not to look at the heated iron running through the sizzling pig or listen to the scream building inside me. I said, Then all the more reason that we should hasten to find this secret passage that Daj has told of And if our friends are safe, we'll no doubt find them outside one of the gates tonight after we've completed our quest'

Everyone agreed that it would be best if we attempted the secret passage now, before we were discovered or our courage foiled And so Daj led the way into the district to the northwest of the palace. Here the streets were narrow and twisted like tunnels that would have contused an ant. Nobles, mostly, lived here between the shops of the bakers, vintners and others who served their needs. The stares of these people as we quickly passed by disquieted all of us. But we moved along without any trouble until we came to another square, much smaller than that of the Red Fountain.

Here, on a great wooden cross caked with layers of old blood, a nearly naked man had been crucified for all to see. A crowd had gathered to watch his death throes, and for a moment we joined them. I couldn't take my eyes off the man's head, which was slumped down against his chest as if he were watching his heart's last flame about to be blown out.

Almost against my will, I found my hand sliding beneath my cloak and gripping the hilt of my sword. And then Kane's steely fingers gripped my arm as he shook his head and told me, 'You can't save everyone, Val.'

'But what was his crime?' I whispered to him.

No one around us seemed to know. One old woman, likely the wife of some great lord, gathered in her silks and told her attendant that she believed the condemned man had somehow insulted Morjin.

'Come, now,' Kane saillpulling at my arm. 'Let's take our revenge on Morjin by stealing from him what he covets most.'

I nodded my head, and we pushed our way out of the crowd. Daj led us onto a dim street that turned toward the north, in the direction of the great stairs. But then it turned again, west and south. We walked on a little way. Then Daj pointed at an open doorway next to a butchery where many fly-blown chickens and lambs were hung. It was an unusual doorway, the rock on either side of it being carved with standing dragons that framed it like pillars. It gave into a little chamber that was one of Argattha's many sanctuaries. Inside, as we found, was little more than a single glowstone hanging from the low ceiling. This one light, Daj said, symbolized the Light of the One. The meaning of our passage through the pillars was clear: that the way toward the One was through the way of the Dragon.