David Zindell - The Lightstone

'Sar Valashu Elahad,' he said to me, 'the King sends his regrets that he is too busy to further make your acquaintance. But he has also sent his finest wine to thank you for honoring him tonight.' So saying, he showed everyone a large green bottle that he had held in the crook of his arms. 'This comes from the Kinderry vineyards of Galda. May I pour you a glass?'

'Perhaps in a moment,' I said. 'We haven't finished making the presentations.'

I told the Queeen the names of my friends, then presented Sar Yarwan and the Valari knights. She cast them, sn me a wary look. We were Valari, afterall, and she was still the daughter of a Sarni chieftain.

As the moon rose higher over the cool lawns and bubbling fountains, we stood talking about the quest. Sar Yarwan announced has plan to journey to Skule in the wilds of northern Delu. Me would search among the ruins of that once great city for any sign that Saran Odinan might have brought the Lightstone there.

'Skule lies on the other tide of the Straights of Storm,' Baron Narcavage said fo him

'If you'll be crossing them from Alonia, you'll have to pass through Arngin. Which you may do with my blessing.' 'Thank you, that would be the most direct route,'

Saw Yarwan agreed. 'And the safest – to go back down the Nar Road and skirt along the Alonian Sea would take many months. You'd have to cross through most of Delu. which is now nothing more than a dozen savage provinces practically ruled by their warlords.'

'No, you're wrong about Delu,' a strong voice called out. Here Maram stepped forward and looked Baron Narcavage in the eye. 'Delu is certainly much more than you have said.'

'Forgtve me,- Prince Maram,' the Baron said, 'but I've journeyed through what is left of your father's kingdom while you've been off learning your dead languages at the Brotherhood's school.'

'Delu has its troubles,' Maram admitted. 'But it wasn't so long ago that Alonia had worse.'

To cool their rising tempers, I came between them and said, "We live in a time of troubles.'

'We do indeed,' Baron Narcavage said, smiling at me. 'We've all heard that we can expect war between Ishka and Mesh.'

'That hasn't been decided yet,' I told him. 'We can still hope for peace.'

'How can there ever be peace in the Nine Kingdoms when each of your so-called kings insists on coveting his neighbors' lands?' 'What do mean, "so-called"?'

'Is thhe King of Anjo truly a king? Or Anjo a kingdom? And what of Mesh? My own domain is bigger than your entire realm.'

Now I felt my temper rising, too, and Maram gripped my arm to steady me. To Baron Narcavage, he said. 'That might be true, but at least his, ah, sword is longer than yours.'

Being well-pleased with his riposte, Maram grinned broadly and then winked at Queen Daryana.

Baron Narcavage shot him a dark look and then said, 'Yes, the famed Valari swords

– used mostly to cut each other to pieces.'

I wondered at the Baron's purpose in belittling Maram's and my kingdoms. Perhaps it was pride in Alonian accomplishments; perhaps it was resentment. From talk I had heard in the hall, I gathered that the Baron's grandfather had fought fiercely with King Kiritan's grandfather to keep Arngin an independent domain. But in the end, he had knelt to King Sakandar even as Baron Narcavage kneeled to King Kiritan. It was said that Baron Narcavage was now the most trusted of the King's men and his greatest general. If so, then he must have harbored deep hurts that he chose to inflict on other people.

Queen Daryana seemed to like neither the Baron nor his usurping the conversation.

To distract us all from squabbles almost as old as time -and to reclaim for herself the center of everyone's attention – she said, 'We live in a time of swords, and it's said that the Valari do have long ones. But this is a night of peace. Celebration and song.

Who knows the Song of the Swan? Who will sing it with me?'

As I touched the silver swan embroidered on my tunic, she smiled at me, and I loved her for that. Her warmth and generosity of spirit moved me: this, after all, was Sajagax's daughter, who couldn't want me ever to marry Atara. But she chose to let our natural regard for each other shine forth even so.

Atara and I both drew close to her as we all started singing the song. It was mostly a sad song, telling of a king who falls in love with a great white swan. To gain her love in return, he builds a magnificent castle in which to keep her, and feeds her delicacies even as he dresses her in the finest silks. But the swan soon sickens and starts singing her death song. The grief-stricken king then goes among the people of his realm offering a great measure of gold to anyone who can tell him the answer to the riddle of how he may heal her without letting her go.

As we worked through the verses, Maram and the Valari knights joined us, and then other knights and their ladies came over and began singing, too. One of the women caught my eye: she had iron-gray hair and a pretty, pleasant' face, and around her neck she wore the same gold medallion as did Atara and I. I remembered her earlier giving her name to King Kiritan as Liljana Ashvaran; she was one of the few Alonian woman to have vowed to make the quest. Although obviously no knight, she had an air of courage about her. She pressed in closer toward Queen Daryana, all the while singing with a measured assurance. When she thought I wasn't looking, she stole quick glances at me. Once, for a moment, we locked gazes, and I thought that her penetrating hazel eyes hid a great deal.

We stood there singing beneath the moon and stars for quite a while, for the song was a long one. When we reached the part of it where the king asks his people for advice, 1 took note of a new voice added to the chorus. Although in no way overpowering any other, it distinguished itself in subtle harmonies with its clarity and perfection of pitch. It came from a slender man whose black, curly hair gleamed in the light of the glowstones. He had the large brown eyes and the brown skin of a Galdan, those comeliest of people; his fine features seemed in perfect accord with the great beauty of his voice. His age was perhaps thirty or slightly more: the only lines I could make out on his face were the crow's-feet around his eyes – I guessed from smiling so much. He struck me as being spontaneous, witty, gifted, guileless and wild, and l liked him immediately.

I cocked my head, listening as we sang out the words to the king's terrible dilemma: How do you capture a beautiful bird without killing its spirit?

And then the answer came, from this man's perfectly formed lips and those of many others:

By letting it fly;

By becoming the sky.

The song ended happily with the king tearing down the walls of stone that he had built to imprison his beloved swan – and himself. For he realized that his true realm was not some little patch of earth, but of the heart and spirit, and was as vast as the sky itself.

The Queen took note of this man, too. When we had finished singing she called him over to her. He gave his name as Alphanderry of Galda. Although no noble, with his silk tunic trimmed in gold and elegance of carriage he managed to look more distinguished than any of the princes there. He was a minstrel, he said, exiled because his songs had offended Galda's new rulers. At the Queen's request, he lifted up his mandolet and sang one of these for us.

No bird, I thought, not even a swan, had a voice so beautiful as his. It spread out across the lawn and seemed to touch even the grasses with dewdrops of light. As we all grew quiet, it was much easier to appreciate its power and grace. His words were beautiful, too, and they told of the anguish of love and the eternal yearning for the Beloved. As with the Song of the Swan, its themes were bondage and the freedom that might be attained through the purest of love, like the ringing of a perfect golden bell his verses carried out in the night – so sweet and clear and full of longing that they were both a pain and a pleasure to hear.