David Zindell - The Lightstone

'Will I insult you,' Maram asked as he rode by my side, 'if I observe that this is a beautiful country? Almost as beautiful as Mesh.'

'Beauty can never be an insult,' I told him. I looked at him and tried to smile. 'Does it distress you that you might have remained to appreciate it if you hadn't ogled King Hadaru's wife?'

'Ogle, you say?' Maram's flushed beet-red with resentment 'But I wasn't ogling her!'

'What were you doing, then?'

'Ah, I was only appreciating her. You have to be grateful to a world that could bring such beauty into life.' I smiled again and said, 'You sound as if you're in love with her.' 'Well, I am.'

'But you only just met her – you weren't even properly presented. How could you love her?'

'Does a fish need an introduction to love the water? Does a flower need more than a moment to love the sun?'

'But Irisha,' I said, 'is a woman.'

'Ah, yes, a woman indeed – just so. When you touch a woman's eyes with your own, you touch her soul. And then you know.'

'Do you think it's always so simple, then?'

'Of course it is – what could be simpler than love?'

What, indeed? Because I had no answer for him, I just rubbed my tired eyes and smiled.

Then Maram continue, 'How old do you think Irisha is – eighteen? Nineteen? King Hadaru has set himself to planting very old seed in some very fertile earth. I predict that nothing will grow from it. He won't live forever, either. And then someday I'll return for her.'

'But what about Behira?' I asked him. 'I thought you loved her.'

'Ah, sweet Behira. Well, I do love her – I think. But I'm sure I love Irisha even more.'

I wondered if Maram would ever return for either of these women -or even return at all. Even as the sparrows chirped in the fields around us and the sun began its climb into the sky, King Hadaru was still very much alive in his palace, and his knights were still pursuing us. A couple of hundred yards behind us, their brightly colored surcoats flapped in the early wind as they urged their horses forward.

We rode, too, as hard and steadily as we dared. More than once we stopped to feed and water the horses. The Ishkans made no complaint against these brief breaks.

They might press us until we dropped from exhaustion, but being knights, they would have no wish to kill our horses. The morning deepened around us as the sun grew ever brighter. It heated up my armor, and I was grateful for the surcoat that covered most of its searing, steel rings. The warmth of the day made me drowsy and I scarcely noticed the rocky slabs of the mountains to the east or the higher peaks that lay ahead of us. By noon, we had passed well beyond Yarwan, a pretty little town that reminded me of Lashku in Mesh. I guessed that the border to Anjo – and the Aru-Adar Bridge – lay only ten or twelve miles farther up the road. And so I eased Altaru to a halt, and turned to talk with Maram and Master Juwain. 'It would be best,' I told them, 'if you go on from here without me.' 'What do you mean?' Maram asked. I pointed up the road, which led north like a ribbon of gleaming stone. 'The Ishkans won't follow you across the bridge.'

'But where are you going?'

Now I pointed west to the hilly country that lay between Lake Osh and the mountains to the north.

'If what my father's minstrel once told me is true,' I said, 'there's a way through the mountains farther to the west. We'll part company for a few days and meet in Sauvo.'

In Sauvo, I explained, King Danashu would give us shelter, and there the Ishkans would not go.

Now Master Juwain nudged his horse over to me and touched his cool hand to my forehead. 'You're very hot, Val – you have a fever, and that might kill you before the Ishkans do. You need rest, and soon.'

'That might be,' I said. I closed my eyes for a moment as I tried to remember why I had set out on this endless journey. 'The world needs peace, too, but must go on all the same.' 'We won't leave you alone,' Master Juwain said. 'No, we won't,' Maram told me. Then, as he realized what he had committed himself to, doubt began to eat at his face, and he summoned up the bravado to bluster his way through it. We'll follow even through the gates of hell, my friend.' 'How did you know,' I said with a smile, 'where we were going?' And with that, I turned Altaru toward the west and left the road. We began riding easily through the soft, green hills. The Ishkans, obviously alarmed at our new tack, tightened their ranks and followed us more closely. The soil beneath our horses' trampling hooves was too poor for crops, and so there were few farms about. Few trees grew, either, having been cut long ago for firewood or the Ishkans' wasteful building projects. I had hoped for more cover than this from Lord Issur's and Lord Nadhru's unrelenting vigilance. In truth, I had hoped for a thick forest into which we might dash wildly trying to make our escape.

There were forests in this part of Ishka, but only on the steep slopes or the mountains rising up to the north. I considered riding straight into them, but thought the better of it. I doubted if I or the horses, even Altaru, had any strength left for negotiating such rocky terrain. And even if we evaded Lord Issur and his knights, we would still have to make our way through one of the three passes along this part of the border. I was afraid that any of the garrisons guarding them might hold us up until Lord Issur tracked us down. The only unguarded pass – if it could be called that – still lay some miles ahead across these bare, undulating foothills. It took all my will to keep Altaru moving toward it, but I could think of nothing else to do.

And so I followed the sua and Maram and Master Juwain followed me. It was the longest day of my life. My side felt as if Salmelu's sword was still stuck there, and every bone in my body, particularly those of my trembling legs, hurt. After some hours, the country around us seemed to dissolve into a sea of blazing green. I dozed in my saddle and I dreamed feverish dreams. More than once, I almost toppled off Altaru's back; but each time he moved with a knowing grace to check my fall. I marveled at the trust he had in me, leading him on toward a destination that none of us had ever seen. My trust in him – his surefootedness and his plain good sense – grew with every mile we put behind us; it seemed even more solid than the earth over which we rode.

Nightfall made our journey no easier. Indeed, if not for the full moon that rose over the hills about us, we wouldn't have been able to journey at all. I tried to set my gaze on a great, white-capped peak that swelled against the black sky straight ahead; there the lesser mountains to the north met the Shoshan Range like a great hinge of rock.

But my eyes were dry as stones, and I could hardly keep them open. I was so tired that I couldn't even eat the pieces of bread that Master Juwain kept trying to urge into my mouth like a mother bird. It was all I could do to gulp down a few swallows of water. Soon, I knew, I would slip from Altaru's back no matter the great horse's agility and love for me. I would find oblivion in the sweet heather that blanketed the hills. And then Lord Nadhru would have to come for me with his ropes.

It was the Lightstone, I believe, that kept me going. I held the image of this golden cup close to my heart. From its deep hollows welled a cool, clear liquid that seemed to flow into me and give my body a new strength. It woke me up, at least enough so that my eyes didn't close in darkness.

It awakened me, too, to the sorry state of my friends, for they were nearly as tired as I was. And they were even more fearful of the unknown lands ahead. Their plight struck to my heart, and I vowed to do all that I could for them so long as any strength remained to me.

I rode side by side with them over the silver hills. And then, around midnight, just as we topped a hill crowned with many sharp rocks, I caught a moist, disturbing scent that jolted me wide awake. I stopped Altaru as I gazed at a depression in the generally rising terrain that seemed out of place. Patches of mist hung over it as of cotton balls floating in a great bowl. On the east side of it, the range of mountains along which we had been riding came to a sudden end. On the west side farther ahead of this dark scoop in the earth was the mountainous wall of the great Shoshan Range. Here, at last, was the hinge in the mountains that I had been seeking. And as I had hoped, the hinge was broken at its very joint, and the way into Anjo lay open before us.