David Zindell - The Lightstone

Maram ran over to the wall near the door to Morjin's chambers and began searching it for the telltale cracks that might demarcate a secret door. But the throne room's acres of walls were everywhere cracked and carved with fissures and swirls that formed the shapes of dragons and other beasts, and so it seemed that Maram had set himself a hopeless task. Master Juwain moved up in front of Atara with his varistei held over the crown of her head. A brilliant green light poured out of it as of a rain shower that has taken on the color of new spring leaves. It gave her new life.

But it failed to restore her vision.

Liljana laid her hand on Atara's shoulder as she addressed Master Juwain saying, 'If Atara can't find her way to visions of the otherworld, then perhaps you can restore her sight of this one.'

'I?' Master Juwain said 'How?'

'By growing new eyes for her.'

Master Juwain looked at his crystal as he sadly shook his head. He told her, 'As I've said before, I'm afraid my gelstei hasn't that power.'

'Not by itself, perhaps. But the Lightstone must have that power.'

She turned straight toward Kane and recited the lines from the Song o f Kalkamesh and Telemesh:

The lightning flashed, struck stone, burned clear The prince beheld through rain and tear

The hands that held the golden bowl,

The warrior's hands again were whole

'Kalkamesh,' she told him, 'had touched the Lightstone before his torture – before Telemesh freed him by cutting him away from his crucified hands. But he grew new hands, didn't he?'

'So,' Kane said as his eyes darkened. 'So the old songs say.' 'Kalkamesh,' she said again, 'gained this power thusly, didn't he?'

'How should,' know?' Kane muttered, shaking his head.

'Didn't he?'

'No,' Kane snarled, 'you're wrong – you know nothing.'

'I know what I see.' So saying, Liljana pointed at the side of Kane's head. There, during the ferocity of the battle, the bandage that Master Juwain had fixed after the earlier battle with the knights beneath Skartaru's north face had come loose. I stared through the dim light near the throne, and gasped at what I saw. For beneath Kane's white hair, where the knight's sword had sheared off his ear, a small, pink, new ear the size of a child's was growing from his head. 'Kalkamesh,' Liljana said, staring at him. 'You are he.'

'No,' Kane murmured, shaking his head. 'No.'

'Morjin spoke to you as if you'd known him long ago. As you spoke to him.'

'No, no,' Kane said.

'And the way you looked at him! Your hate. Who could ever hate him so much?'

Kane looked at Atara and then me but said nothing.

'And the way you fight!' Liljana continued. 'Who could ever fight as Kalkamesh did?'

Kane bowed his head to me and said, 'Valashu Elahad can.'

I returned his bow, then asked him, 'Are you really Kalkamesh?'

'No,' he said as he stared at the Lightstone. 'That is not my name.'

'Then what is your name? Your true name? It's not Kane, is it?' 'No, that is not my name either.'

I waited for him to say more as my heart pounded like the distant hammering that I could hear from beyond the throne room's doors. A battle a thousand times fiercer than the one we had just fought raged inside him.

'My name,' he whispered, 'is Kalkin.'

He drew himself up as straight as a king and pointed his sword at the door to Morjin's chambers. And a single, terrible cry broke from his throat like thunder and shook the hall:

'KALKIN!'

'Do you hear that, Morjin! My name is Kalkin, and I've come to return you to the stars!'

It hurt my ears to hear him shout this name; it hurt my heart. As the hall fell silent again, we all looked at him in amazement And then Master Juwain, who had a better memory than any of us, turned to him and said, 'The Damitan Elu speaks of Kalkin.

He was one of the heroes of the first Lightstone quest.'

I suddenly remembered King Kiritan telling of this in his great hall-of how Morjin had led heroes on the first quest, only to fall mad upon beholding the Lightstone and slaying Kalkin and all the others – all except the immortal Kalkamesh.

As Master Juwain began recounting this ancient tale, Kane shook his sword at him and cut him off. He said, 'I've warned you that many of these ancient histories do not tell true. Morjin never led that quest. And he did not kill Kalkin, as you can see.'

'I don't know what I see,' Master Juwain said, looking at him strangely. 'If you're not Kalkamesh, then whatever happened to him?'

'I happened to him!' Kane said. 'Do you understand? After the first quest, Kalkin became Kalkamesh. And an age later, after the Sarburn, when Kalkamesh cast Alkaladur into the sea, he became Kane, do you understand?'

As I looked down at my sword, my amazement deepened. And then I squeezed the Lightstone more tightly in my hand as I asked him, 'But if you are really Kalkin, didn't the touch of this cup bestow upon you immortality?'

Kane, or the man that I had known by that name, began pacing about like a caged tiger as he cast quick, ferocious glances at the doors of the hall. He suddenly stopped and snarled out 'Listen, damn you, and listen well – we haven't much time.'

He stared down at the blackish blood pooled on the floor as if looking far into the past. Then he looked up and said, 'Once there was a band of brothers, a sacred band.'

He nodded at Master Juwain and went on, 'We were not of any of your Brotherhoods; ours was much older. So, much older, much more glorious, I, you – you can't understand…'

From beyond the hall's western gate came a pounding as of many boots against stone. We all pressed closer to Kane to hear what he had to tell us.

'I will say their names, for they should be heard at least once in every age,' Kane said. 'There were twelve of us: Sarojin, Averin, Manjin, Balakin and Durrikin. And Iojin, Mayin, Baladin, Nurijin and Garain.' 'That's only ten,' Maram pointed out.

'The eleventh was myself,' Kane said. He pointed at the door to Morjin's chambers.

'And you know the name of the twelfth.'

Now many voices shouted from beyond the hall's eastern doors. I knew that we should be searching for the secret passage that Liljana had spoken of. But the gleam of my sword, in whose silver I saw reflected the Lightstone, gave me to understand that it was somehow more important to listen to Kane.

'We came to Tria early in the Age of Swords,' Kane told us. 'So, it was a savage time, even worse than this. Manjin was killed in a Sarni raid. Mayin was murdered on the Gray Prairies looking for clues as to where Aryu had taken the Lightstone.

Nurijin, Dunikin, Baladin, and Sarojin, Balakin, too, and then even Iojin, sweet beloved Iojin – all killed. All except Garain and Averjin, who set out with Morjin and Kalkin on a ship captained by Bramu Rologar to seek the Lightstone.'

Kane paused to stare at the cup that I held, and then continued, 'And find it we did.

The Lightstone was made to be found. But on the voyage back to Tria, Morjin enlisted the aid of Captain Rologar and his men to kill Averin and Garain. So, and Kalkin, too. But Kalkin was harder to kill, eh? So, he killed Captain Rologar and four of his men and damned himself, do you understand? He killed, in violence to his soul, killed men, before Morjin stabbed him in the back and cast him into the sea.'

Now, beyond the hall's northern door, came a clamor as of shields banging together.

I knew that I, or all of us, should begin cutting arrows out of the dead in the event that Atara miraculously regained her second sight.

Instead, I nodded at Kane and asked him, 'But how did Kalkin live to tell such a tale?'

'The dolphins saved him. They were friends with men, once upon a time.'

'But that still doesn't explain Kalkin's immortality,' I pointed out.