David Zindell - The Lightstone

'Val!' From on top of the throne, Atara's strong, clear voice rang out like a bell through the hall. 'You mustn't kill him!'

I suddenly remembered the prophecy that the death of Morjin would be the death of Ea.

'Val.'

It was said by some that Morjin was the finest swordsman on Ea. And perhaps he was. But now his hatred of me and the rigidness of his lust to take my head betrayed him. I felt his murderous intentions deep in my throat, and ducked beneath the vicious slash of his sword at the last moment. And then, rising quickly, I saw my chance. I thrust my sword over the shoulder of a quickly closing guard into Morjin's neck. It was a terrible wound, a mortal wound – but it failed to kill him.

'His fate is yours,' Atara called to me. 'If you kill him, you kill yourself!'

'I don't care!' I cried out.

I knew what she said was true. I stood in the land of death with all the men I had slain. If I now killed Morjin, this great immortal being with whom I was connected by the poison in my blood and the dark weave of fate, I would never leave it. Already, with the muscles and veins of Morjin's neck ripped open into a bloody hole, I could barely stand, barely see. Again, I raised back my sword.

'Val, if you kill yourself, you kill me!'

Atara's warning seemed to crack the stone of the mountain and stop the earth itself from turning. I suddenly knew something else: that Atara's blinding had shocked her to a wholly new level of scrying. Thus, even though eyeless, she had been able to

'see' to fire her arrows into Morjin's guards. I sensed that she was seeing things both far and near in space and time. And now she fired a different kind of arrow into me.

Even as I hesitated and Morjin's guards closed in and came between us, she called out that she loved me more than life. If I died, she told me, she would die, too.

Her words tore open my heart. How much more must this beautiful, tortured woman be made to lose? I looked through the ring of guards to see Morjin choking on his blood and gasping for breath. His eyes closed even as his guards tried desperately to bear him back away from me.

'Atara,' I whispered.

My sword lowered as I cast a terrible look at the nearby guards to warn them away from me. I knew that I couldn't kill Morjin. It was the strangest and bitterest turning of fate that out of compassion for the one I most loved, I must spare Morjin's life.

'Damn it Val!' Kane thundered from my right. 'You're letting him get away!'

He started after the mass of guards, many fewer in number now who were bearing Morjin's gravely wounded body toward the southwest corner of the room. There, one of his guards had finally managed to open the door to his chambers. I suddenly grabbed Kane's arm and looked into his furious black eyes. I'd had enough of killing for one day.

'Damn you!' Kane said again. 'If you can't kill him, I will!'

He wrenched his arm free from my grip to pursue Morjin. He ran across the hall, savagely cutting down the few guards who tried to stop him. I ran after him. By the time I reached his side, however, the guards and remaining priests had succeeded in dragging Morjin through the open doorway. A dozen guards stood in front it, waiting their turn to enter the passageway beyond. Kane fell upon them, all the while stabbing and slashing and howling out his frustration that Morjin was escaping him.

'Let him go!' I shouted. 'It would be your death to follow him!'

Not even Kane, I thought, could fight his way through such a narrow passageway held by so many men.

'I don't care!' Kane roared. 'Morjin must die!'

Perhaps Morjin would die of his dreadful wound, but it was too late to inflict any other. In order to save Kane's life, I came up behind him and wrapped my arm like an iron band across his chest. He surged against me like an enraged tiger. By the time he again broke free, the last of the guards fled into the passageway, and the door slammed shut in our faces.

MORJ1NNN!

Kane screamed out his great enemy's name as he leaped forward to pound the pommel of his sword against the heavy, locked door. Then he whirled about facing me. There was blood in his eyes and dripping from his sword.

'What's wrong with you!' he shouted at me, pointing at the door. 'We might have killed them all!'

From across the hall to the east, from on top of the throne, Atara's clear voice called out, 'No – if we had pursued them there, they would have killed all of us.'

'So you say, scryer,' Kane snarled out.

I looked over at the throne to behold Atara. But she, who had seen clearly enough to shoot her arrows across the dim hall into our enemy's throats or eyes, seemed now to be suddenly and completely blind. She fumbled and groped about with her hands as she tried to climb down from the throne. I ran across the hall to help her. Kane ran after me. And then a few moments later, Maram, Liljana and the others joined us there as well, and we gathered beneath the steps to the throne. 'We're trapped!'

Maram cried as he turned about to look at the room's locked gates. 'We kill a hundred men, and we're still trapped!'

I stood with my arm around Atara's back, helping her stand. She had spent nearly the last of her strength. Her bloody, beautiful head rested heavily on my shoulder.

'So, not quite a hundred,' Kane said. He stood looking toward the standing stones and the carnage that we had wrought. Across the blood-soaked ritual circle, the hacked and torn bodies of our enemies lay everywhere. 'And not quite enough – never enough death for them.'

But it was more than enough death for me. As I gazed at those whom I had slain, only my grip on Alkaladur's diamond-set hilt kept me from falling down and joining them.

'I'm sorry,' Atara said to Kane. She managed to lift up her head and orient her face toward him. 'But I saw… that is, I knew that Val needed to remain alive. You, too, Kane, and myself- all of us. We all must live to guard the Lightstone for the Maitreya.'

Upon these words I removed the Lightstone from beneath my armor. It seemed more than a lifetime ago that I had put it there. And it seemed almost a dream that I had finally found it after all. Only the warm hard ness of the little golden cup in my hand reassured me that it was real. 'So,' Kane muttered. His black eyes were bright as moons as they drank in the cup's golden sheen. His thirst for its light, I thought was nearly infinite. 'So.'

He broke his gaze and turned toward Atara. He said, 'Morjin and others have killed every Maitreya born on Ea. Killing him was the best hope we had of putting this cup in the next Maitreya's hands.'

'Hrope,' Ymiru said bitterly. He leaned over his bloody war club as he turned his attention from the wonder of the Lightstone to the room's great bronze gates. 'How long will it be before more guards are summoned? Or before the Red Priests call up the whrole army from the first level?'

Maram, tearing his eyes from the Lightstone, looked at me and asked, 'Is there no way out of here, then?'

'There is a way out,' Liljana said staring at the Lightstone. She wiped her sword on a tunic torn from one of the dead and sheathed it. 'A secret passage leading from the throne room – I saw this to Morjin's mind.'

'Where is it then?' Maram shouted at her.

'I saw that it is,' t=she told him, 'but not where it is.'

I looked at Daj, who was standing slightly behing Liljana. He still held his killing spear in his little hands. 'Do you know where this passage is?' I asked him

'No, Lord Morin never spoke of it,' he said. Then his courage finally failed him, and he began trembling and said, 'I want to go home!'

As Liljana put her arm around him and pulled him closer, she said to Atara, 'Have you seen the door to thst passage, my dear?'

'No, I… can see nothing now,' Atara murmured, shaking her head.