David Zindell - The Lightstone - The Ninth Kingdom - Part One

‘You must be Valashu Elahad,’ he said.

Just then Maram’s face reddened in anger on my behalf. I knew that he didn’t approve of the Valari system of honors and rank. It must have galled him that an old man of no noble blood, a mere farmer, could outrank a prince.

I looked down at the ring I wore around my finger. In it was set neither the four diamonds of a lord nor the three of a master – nor even the two sparkling stones of a full knight. A single diamond stood out against the silver: the ring of a simple warrior. In truth, I was lucky to have won it. If not for some skills with the sword and bow that my father had taught me, I never would have. What kind of warrior hates war? How is it that a Valari knight – or rather, a man who only dreamed of being a knight – should prefer playing the flute and writing poetry to trials of arms with his brothers and countrymen?

Lord Harsha smiled grimly at me and said, ‘It’s been a long time since you’ve come to these woods, hasn’t it?’

‘Yes, sir, it has,’ I said.

‘Well, you should have paid your respects before trampling over my fields. Young people have no manners these days.’

‘My apologies, sir, but we were in a hurry. You see, we got a late start.’

I didn’t explain that our hunting expedition had been delayed for an hour while I searched the castle for Maram – only to find him in bed with one of my father’s chambermaids.

‘Yes, very late,’ Lord Harsha said, looking up at the sun. ‘The Ishkans have already been here before you.’

“Which Ishkans?’ I asked in alarm. I noticed that Asaru was now staring off into the woods intently.

‘They didn’t stop to present themselves either,’ Lord Harsha said. ‘But there were five of them – I heard them bragging they were going to take a bear.’

At this news, Maram gripped his bow even more tightly. Beads of sweat formed up among the brown curls of hair across his forehead. He said, ‘Well, then – I suppose we should leave these woods to them.’

But Asaru only smiled as if Maram had suggested abandoning all of Mesh to the enemy. He said, ‘The Ishkans like to hunt bears. Well, it’s a big wood, and they’ve had more than an hour to become lost in it.’

‘Please see to it that you don’t become lost as well,’ Lord Harsha said.

‘My brother,’ Asaru said, looking at me strangely, ‘is more at home in the woods than in his own castle. We won’t get lost.’

‘Good. Then good luck hunting.’ Lord Harsha nodded his head at me in a curt bow. ‘Are you after a bear this time, too?’

‘No, a deer,’ I said. ‘As we were the last time we came here.’

‘But you found a bear all the same.’

‘It might be more accurate to say the bear found us.’

Now Maram’s knuckles grew white around his bow, and he looked at me with wide-open eyes. ‘What do you mean a bear found you?’

Because I didn’t want to tell him the story, I stood there looking off into the woods in silence. And so Lord Harsha answered for me.

‘It was ten years ago,’ he said. ‘Lord Asaru had just received his knight’s ring, and Val must have been what – eleven? Ten?’

‘Ten,’ I told him.

‘That’s right,’ Lord Harsha said, nodding his head. ‘And so the lads went into the woods alone after their deer. And then the bear –’

‘Was it a large bear?’ Maram interrupted.

Lord Harsha’s single eye narrowed as he admonished Maram to silence as he might a child. And then he continued the story: ‘And so the bear attacked them. It broke Lord Asaru’s arm and some ribs. And mauled Valashu, as you can see.’

Here he paused to point his old finger at the scar on my forehead.

‘But you told me that you were born with that scar!’ Maram said, turning to me.

‘Yes,’ I said. That’s right.’

Truly, I had been. My mother’s labor in bringing me into the world was so hard and long that everyone had said I wanted to remain inside her in darkness. And so, finally, the midwife had had to use tongs to pull me out. The tongs had cut me, and the wound had healed raggedly, in the shape of a lightning bolt.

‘The bear,’ Asaru explained, ‘opened up the scar again and cut it deeper.’

‘He was lucky the bear didn’t break his skull,’ Lord Harsha said to Maram. ‘And both of them were lucky that my son, may he abide in peace, was walking through the woods that day. He found these lads half-dead in the moss and killed the bear with his spear before it could kill them.’

Andaru Harsha – I knew the name of my rescuer very well. At the Battle of Red Mountain, I had taken a wound in my thigh protecting him from the Waashians’ spears. And later, at the same battle, I had frozen up and been unable to kill one of our enemy who stood shieldless and helpless before me. Because of my hesitation, many still whispered that I was a coward. But Asaru never called me that.

‘Then your son saved their lives,’ Maram said to Lord Harsha.

‘He always said it was the best thing he ever did.’

Maram came up to me and grabbed my arm. ‘And you think to repay the courage of this man’s son by going back into these woods?’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ I said.

‘Ah,’ he said, looking at me with his soft brown eyes. ‘I see.’

And he did see, which was why I loved him. Without being told, he understood that I had come back to these woods today not to seek vengeance by shooting arrows in some strange bear, but only because there are other monsters that must be faced.

‘Well, then,’ Lord Harsha said. ‘Enough of bear stories. Would you like a bite to eat before your hunt?’

Due to Maram’s peccadilloes, we had missed lunch and we were all of us hungry. Of course, that wouldn’t have dismayed Asaru, but rejecting Lord Harsha’s hospitality would. And so Asaru, speaking for all of us as if he were already king, bowed his head and said, ‘We’d be honored.’

While Lord Harsha opened his horse’s saddlebags, our horses stamped the earth impatiently and bent their heads to munch the sweet green grass growing between the field’s stone wall and the forest. I glanced off across the field to study Lord Asaru’s house. I liked its square lines and size and the cedar-shingled roof, which was almost as steeply gabled as the chalets you see higher in the mountains. It was built of oak and stone: austere, clean, quietly beautiful – very Valari. I remembered Andaru Harsha bringing me to this house, where I had lain in delirium for half a day while his father tended my wound.

‘Here, now,’ Lord Harsha said as he laid a cloth on the wall. ‘Sit with me, and let’s talk about the war.’

While we took our places along the wall, he set out two loaves of black, barley bread, a tub of goat cheese and some freshly pulled green onions. We cut the bread for sandwiches and ate them. I liked the tang of the onions against the saltiness of the cheese; I liked it even more when Lord Harsha drew out four silver goblets and filled them with brown beer that he poured from a small, wooden cask.

‘This was brewed last fall,’ Lord Harsha said. In turn, he handed goblets to Asaru, me and Joshu. Then he picked up his own goblet. ‘It was a good harvest, and a better brew. Shall we make a toast?’

I saw Maram licking his lips as if he’d been stricken dumb with grief, and I said, ‘Lord Harsha, you’ve forgotten Maram.’

‘Indeed,’ he said, smiling. ‘But you said he’s with the Brothers – hasn’t he taken vows?’

‘Ah, well, yes, I have,’ Maram admitted. ‘I’ve forsworn wine, women and war.’

‘Well, then?’

‘I never vowed not to drink beer.’

‘You quibble, Prince Maram.’

‘Yes, I do, don’t I? But only when vital matters are at stake.’