David Zindell - The Lightstone - The Silver Sword - Part Two

Maram surprised us all by stopping to pull off his rings one by one and giving them to various beggars who crossed our path. After slipping his third ring into the hand of a one-legged old warrior, Kane chided him for such conspicuous largesse. And Maram chided him , saying, ‘I can always get more rings, but he’ll never get another leg. I regret that I have only ten fingers, with ten rings to give.’

The afternoon found us a few miles outside of the city, in a region of rich black earth and once-prosperous farms. But the King’s quartermasters had come here, too. Smokehouses that should have been stuffed with hanging hams were empty; barns that should have been full of dried barley and corn held only straw. Most of the grown men having been called to war, or already laid low by it, the fields of ripening wheat were tended by women, children and old men. They paused in their labor to watch us pass, obviously wondering that an armed company should ride unchallenged through their land. But there were few knights or men-at-arms left to stop and question us – or to offer us hospitality. I thought that the widows and worried wives who nodded to us would have been willing to share all they had, even if it was only a thin gruel. The Surrapamers were as generous of heart even as they were sometimes greedy, like Captain Kharald. But that day, we didn’t put it to the test: we rode along in silence, exchanging nothing more than a few kind looks with those who watched us.

When we were sure that no one had followed us out of Artram, we turned east toward the mountains. Although the great Crescent Mountains were said to be very tall, we could not see even the tallest of their peaks, even though they lay only sixty miles away. Surrapam, it seemed, was a land of clouds and mists that obscured the sky – and sometimes even the tops of the trees pushing up into it. Master Juwain told us that here the sun shone only rarely. The Surrapamers’ pale, pink skin drank up what little light there was; their thick bodies protected them from the sempiternal coolness clinging like moistened silk to its lush fields. But we were not so fortunate. That day, a thin drizzle sifted slowly down through the air. Although it was full summer, and the height of Marud at that, its chill made me draw my cloak tightly around me.

And yet, despite the gloom, it was a rich, beautiful land of evergreen forests and emerald fields glowing softly beneath the sky’s gentle light. I could see why the Hesperuks might wish to conquer it. The farther we rode across its verdant folds, the more it seemed that we were journeying in the wrong direction. But three times that day I drew Alkaladur, and each time its faint radiance pointed us east. And east we must continue, I thought, even though great battles and the call to arms lay behind us.

We camped that night in a stand of spruce trees beside a swift-running stream. Its waters were clear and sweet, and full of trout, nine of which Alphanderry and Kane managed to catch for our dinner. Maram summoned forth a fire from some moist sticks, while Liljana set to with her pots and pans. It was the first time she had cooked a full meal for us since before Varkall.

We ate our fried fish and cornbread in the silence of those soft woods. We had cheese and blackberries for dessert, for these shiny little fruits grew abundantly in thickets along the roads we had ridden. By the time Master Juwain had brewed up a pot of Sunguran tea purchased in one of Artram’s shops, we were ready to discuss the journey that still lay before us.

‘Well, I had hoped the Lightstone might have come to Artram,’ Maram said as he patted his well-filled belly. ‘Though why I should have expected to find the Cup of Heaven in that sad little city not even the Ieldra know.’

I sat by the fire with my new sword unsheathed. Just to be sure that we had traveled in the right direction, I held it pointing toward Artram to the west. But the only light in its gleaming length came from the fire’s flickering orange flames.

‘No, I’m afraid it still lies east of us,’ Master Juwain said. ‘And I think it’s more than a coincidence that Khaisham lies directly along the line which Val’s sword has shown us.’

It was not the first time he had said this. Ever since the Island of the Swans, when it became clear that our journey might take us as far as Khaisham and the great Library there, he had continually gazed off in its direction with a new excitement in his usually calm, gray eyes.

‘I still don’t see how the Lightstone could be there,’ Maram said. ‘The Library has been searched a hundred times, hasn’t it?’

‘Yes, it has,’ Master Juwain told him. ‘But it’s said to be vast, perhaps too vast ever to be searched fully. The number of books it holds is said to be thousands and thousands.’

Kane, sitting by Alphanderry who was tuning his mandolet, smiled gleefully and said, ‘So, I’ve been to the Library once, many years ago. The number of its books is thousands of thousands. Many of them have never even been read.’

A new idea had suddenly come to Master Juwain, who sat rubbing his hands together as if in anticipation of a feast. ‘Then perhaps one of them holds the Lightstone.’

‘You mean, holds knowledge about it, don’t you, sir?’ Maram asked.

‘No, I mean the Cup of Heaven itself. Perhaps one of the books has had its pages hollowed out to fit a small golden cup. And so escaped being discovered in any search.’

‘Now there’s a thought,’ Maram said.

‘It’s as I’ve always told you,’ Master Juwain said to him. ‘When you open a book, you never know what you’ll find there.’

We talked for quite a while about the Library and the great treasures it guarded: not just the books, of course, but the numerous paintings, sculptures, works of jewelry, glittering masks studded with unknown gelstei and other artifacts, many of which dated from the Age of Law – and whose purpose neither the Librarians nor anyone else had been able to fathom. For Master Juwain, a journey to the Library was an opportunity of a lifetime. And the rest of us were eager to view this wonder, too. Even Atara, who had little patience for books, seemed excited at the prospect of beholding so many of them.

‘I think there’s no other choice then,’ she said. ‘We should go to this Library, and see what we see.’

I looked at her as if to ask if she had seen us successfully completing our quest there, but she slowly shook her head.

‘There’s no other choice,’ Master Juwain said. ‘At least none better that I can think of.’

And so, despite Maram’s objections that Khaisham lay five hundred miles away across unknown lands, we decided to journey there unless my sword pointed us elsewhere or we found the Lightstone first.

To firm up our resolve, we broke out the brandy and sat sipping it by the fire. This distillation of grapes ripened in the sun far away warmed us deep inside. Alphanderry began playing, and much to everyone’s surprise, Kane joined him in song. His singing voice, which I had never heard, was much like the brandy itself: rich, dark, fiery and aged to a bittersweet perfection – and quite beautiful in its own way. He sang to the stars far above us which we could not see; he sang to the earth that gave us form and life and would someday take it away. When he had finished, I sat staring at my sword as if I might find my reflection there.

‘What do you see, Val?’ Master Juwain asked.

‘That’s hard to say,’ I told him. ‘It’s all so strange. Here we are drinking this fine brandy – and it’s as if the vintner who made it left the taste of his soul in it. In the air, there’s the sound of battle, even though it’s a quiet night. And the earth upon which we sit: can you feel her heart beating up through the ground? And not just her heart, but everyone’s and everything’s: the nightingale’s and the wood vole’s, and even that of the Lord Librarian in Khaisham half a world away. It beats and beats, and there’s a song there – the same strange song that the stars sing. And truly, it’s a cloudy night, but the stars are always there, in their spirals and sprays of light, like sea foam, like diamonds, like dreams in the mind of a child. And they never cease forming up and delighting: it’s like Flick whirling in the Lokilani’s wood. And it’s all part of one pattern. And we could see the whole of it from any part if only we opened our eyes, if only we knew how to look. Strange, strange.’