The Lightstone

Chapter 17

A little later, when we were ready to set out, Kane sat atop his big brown horse and told us, 'We still must be careful. One of the Grays escaped us, and he may have gone to find reinforcements.'

This news dismayed all of us, Maram especially. 'Escaped?' he said to Kane. 'Are you sure?'

Kane nodded his head as he looked into the meadow. 'The Grays always hunt in companies of thirteen. I counted only twelve bodies. One of them must have run off into the woods in the heat of the battle.'

'Ah, this is very bad,' Maram said.

'No, it's not that bad,' Kane told him. 'The Gray won't be able to find any more of his kind – and almost certainly, no assassins of the Kallimun, either. At least not between here and Tria. But for the next few days, we should still keep our eyes open.'

And so we did. We quickly found our way through the woods back to the great road. I took the lead, keeping open much more than my eyes as I felt through the forested countryside for anyone who might be lying in wait for us. Atara, her bow at the ready, rode beside me, followed by Maram and Master Juwain. Kane insisted on taking the rear post. He was wise to the ways of ambuscade, he said, and he wouldn't let anyone steal upon us and attack us from behind.

After an hour of easy travel along the straight road, the forest gave out onto broad swaths of farmland, and we all relaxed a little. The ground here was flat, allowing a view across the fields for miles in any direction. It was a rich land of oats, barley and wheat – and cattle fattening in fallow fields next to little, wooden houses. I was surprised to find that we had fought our battle with the Grays so close to such intensely cultivated land. Later, when we had stopped for lunch and f remarked that I had never seen so many people packed so closely together outside of a city, Kane just laughed at me. He told me that the domains along the Nar Road were barren compared to the true centers of Alonian civilization, which lay along the Istas and Poru rivers.

'And as for true cities, you've never seen one,' he said. 'No one has until he's seen Tria.'

Since he had seen so much of the world and seemed to know so much about it, I asked him if he had learned the identity of the assassin who had shot at me that day in the woods outside my father's castle.

'No – it might've been anyone,' he told us. 'But most likely, a Kallimun priest or someone serving them. Master Juwain is right that they're the only ones to use the kirax.'

At the mention of this poison that would always drag its clawed fingers along my veins, I shuddered. 'It's strange, but it seemed that the Grays could smell the kirax in my blood. It seemed that the Red Dragon could – and still can.'

'So,' Kane said, 'the kirax is also known as the Great Opener – it opens one to death.

But those it doesn't kill, it opens to worse things.'

I remembered my dream of Morjin, and ground my teeth together. I said, 'Could it be that the Red Dragon used it to torment me? To try to make me into a ghul?'

Kane favored me with one of his savage smiles. 'The kirax is designed to kill, quickly and horribly. The amount needed is tiny, eh? The amount you took inside is tinier still – it would be impossible to use it this way to make men into ghuls.'

I smiled in relief, which lasted no more than a moment as Kane told me, 'However, for you, who bears the gift of the valarda, it would seem that the kirax is especially dangerous. If Morjin tries to make a ghul of you, you'll have to fight very hard to stop him.'

'It's not easy to understand,' I said, 'why he doesn't just make ghuls of everyone and be done with it.'

'Ha!' Kane laughed out harshly. 'It's hard enough for him to make a ghul of anyone.

And harder still to control him. It requires almost all his will, all his concentration.

And that, we can thank the One, is why ghuls are very rare.'

As we resumed our journey, I tried not to think about Morjin or terrible poisons that might turn men into ghuls. It was a beautiful day of blue skies and sunshine, and it seemed almost a crime to dwell on dark things. As Master Juwain had warned me, the surest way to bring about that which we fear is to live in terror of it. And so I tried to open myself to other things: to the robins singing out their songs, cheery-up, cheery-me; to the farmers working hard in their fields; to the light that I poured down from the sky and touched the whole earth with its golden radiance.

That night, in a town called Manarind, we found lodging at an inn, where we had a hot bath, a good meal and a sound sleep. We awoke the next morning feeling greatly refreshed and ready to push on toward Tria. The innkeeper, who looked something like a shorter Maram, patted his round belly and said to us, 'Learing already, then?

Well, I shouldn't he surprised -it's good fifty miles to the city. You'll have to press hard to teach it by tomorrow.'

He went on to say that other companies of knights had stopped at his inn, but not for many days.

'You're the last,' he told us. 'I'm afraid you'll find all the respectable inns in Tria already full. No one wants to miss the King's celebration or the calling of the quest, I'd go myself, if I didn't have other duties.'

In the clear light of the morning, he looked at us more closely as he stroked his curly heard.

'Now where did you say you were from?' he asked us. He looked especially long at Atara. 'Two Valari knights and their friends. Well, for my friends, I can recommend an inn on the River Road not far from the Star Bridge. My brother-in-law owns it – he always keeps a room open for those I send on to him. For a small consideration, for my friends, of course, I could -'

'No, thank you,' Kane growled out. His eyes flashed, and for a moment, I thought he was ready to send this fat innkeeper on.. 'We won't be staying in the city.'

This was news to all of us. Kane's insistence on secrecy disturbed me. It seemed that, at need, he could slide from truth into falsehood as easily as a fish changing currents in a stream.

'Well, then,' the innkeeper said, presenting Kane with the bill for our stay. 'I'll hope to see you on your return journey.'

Kane studied the bill for a moment as his face pulled into a scowl. Then he fixed his fierce eyes on the innkeeper and said, 'The oats you gave our horses we'll pay for, though not at the rate that you'd charge for serving men porridge. But the water they drank we won't pay for at-all. This isn't the Red Desert – it rains every third day here, eh? Now fetch our horses, if you please.'

The innkeeper appeared inclined to argue with Kane. He started to say something about the great labor involved in drawing water from his well and hauling it to his stables. But the look on Kane's face silenced him, and he went off to do as Kane had told him.

The innkeeper's cupidity was my first experience of the Alonians' hunger for money but far from the last. (1 didn't count the hill-men who had tried to rob Atara as Alonians.) As we rode out from the inn that morning, we passed the estates of great knights. In the fields surrounding their palatial houses, ragged-looking men and women worked with hoes beneath the hot sun. Kane called them peasants. They slept in hovels away from their masters' houses; Kane said that the knights permitted them to till their fields and let them keep a portion of the crops they cultivated. Such injustice infuriated me. Even the poorest Valari, I thought, lived on his own land in a stout, if small, stone house – and possessed as well a sword, suit of armor and the right to fight for his king when called to war.

'It's this way almost everywhere,' Kane told us. 'Ha, the lands ruled by Morjin are much worse. There he makes his people into slaves.'

'On the Wendrush,' Atara said, 'there are neither peasants nor slaves. Everyone is truly free.'

'That may be. Still, it's said that the Alonians are better off than most peoples and that Kiritan Narmada is a better king.'

Atara fell silent, and the clopping of the horses' hooves against the road seemed very loud. I felt in her a great disquiet whether over the plight of the Alonians or something else, it was hard to say. I guessed that she felt ill at ease to be traveling through the lands of the Sarni's ancient enemy. And the closer we drew to Tria, the more apprehensive she became.

Around noon, we came to a village called Sarabrunan. There was little more there than a blacksmith's shop, a few houses and a mill above a swift stream grinding grain into flour. I wouldn't have thought of stopping there any longer than it took to water our horses and buy a few loaves of bread from the villagers. But then I chanced to look upon the hill to the north of the village: it was a low hump of earth topped with a unique rock formation that looked like an old woman's face. Its granite countenance froze me in my tracks and called me to remember.

'Sarabrunan,' I said softly. 'Sarburn – this is the place of the great battle.'

While Kane stared silendy up at the Crone's Hill, as it was called, I found a villager who confirmed that indeed Morjin had met his defeat here. For a small fee, he offered to guide us around the battlefield. 'No, thank you,' I told him. 'We'll find our way ourselves.' So saying, I turned Altaru toward the wheatfields to the north of the village. Maram protested that we had little enough time to reach Tria before the celebration the next night But 1 wouldn't hear his arguments. I looked at him and said, 'This won't take long, but it must be seen.'

We followed the stream straight through the estate of some knight who had no doubt gone off to Tria. No one stopped us. After perrhaps a mile of riding through the new wheat – and through fallow fields and occasional patches of woods – we came to a place where another stream joined the one flowing back toward the village I pointed along these sparkling waters and said, 'This was once called the Sarburn. Here Aramesh led a charge against Morjin's center. He beat back his army across the stream. It's said that it turned red with the blood of the slain.'

We rode up this stream for a half mile and stopped. Five miles to the east, the Crone's Hill rose up overlooking the peaceful countryside. Other than a small knoll half a mile to our west – I remembered that it had once been called the Hill of the Dead – the land in every direction was level as the skin of a drum.

'The armies met in Valte, just after the harvest,' I said. 'The wheat had all been cut, and the chaff still lay in the fields when the battle began.'

I turned to ride toward the knoll, then. I found its slopes overgrown with thick woods where once meadows had been. While the others followed slowly behind me, I dismounted Altaru and walked him through the oak trees. Near one of them, I began rooting about in the bracken as I listened to a crow cawing out from somewhere ahead of me. I searched among old tree roots and the dense undergrowth for twenty yards before I found what I was looking for.

'Look,' I said to the others as I held up a long, flat stone for them to see. It was of white granite and covered with orange and brown splotches of lichen. Two long ages had weathered the stone so that the grooves cut into it were blurred and almost impossible to read.

'It looks like the writing might be ancient Ardik,' Master Juwain said as he traced his finger along one of the smooth letters. 'But I can't make out what it says.'

'It says this,' I told him. "Here lies a Valari warrior."

I handed the stone to him; it was the first time in my life I had ever given him a reading lesson.

'Ten thousand Valari fell that day,' I said. 'They were buried on this knoll. Aramesh ordered as many stones cut from a quarry near Tria and brought here to mark this place.'

At this, Maram and Kane began searching the woods for other death stones, and so did I. After half an hour, however, we had found only two more.

'Where are they all? 7 Maram asked. 'There should be thousands of them.'

'Likely the woods have swallowed them up,' Kane said. 'Likely the peasants have taken them to use as foundation stones to build their huts.'

'Have they no respect for the dead, then?' Maram asked.

'They were Valari dead,' I said, opening my hands toward the forest floor. 'And the army they fought was mostly Alonian.'

This was true. In ten terrible years toward the end of the Age of Swords, Morjin had conquered all of Alonia and pressed her peoples into his service. And in the end, he had led them to defeat and death here on this very ground upon which we stood.

And so Aramesh had finally freed the Alonians from their enslavement – but at a great cost. Who could blame them for any bitterness or lack of gratitude they might feel toward the Valari?

For a long while, I stood with my eyes closed listening to the voices that spoke to me. Men might die, I thought but their voices lingered on almost forever: in the rattling of the oak leaves, in the groaning of the swaying trees, in the whisper of the wind. The dead didn't demand vengeance. They made no complaint against death's everlasting cold. They asked only that their sons and grandsons of the farthermost generations not be cut down in the flush of life as they had.

All this time, Atara had remained as quiet as the stone that Master Juwain still held in his rough, old hands. She kept staring at it as if trying to decipher much more than its worn letters.

'You don't like to dwell in the past, do you?' I said to her.

She smiled sadly as she shook her head. She took my arm and pulled me deeper into the woods where we might have a bit of privacy.

'Surely you know that many Sarni warriors died in the battle, too,' she told me. 'But the past is the past. Can I change one moment of it? Truly, I can't. But the future!

It's like a tapestry yet to be woven. And each moment of our lives, a thread. Each beautiful moment everything we do. I have to believe that we can weave a different world than this. Truly, truly, we can.'

It was a strange thing for her to say, and I couldn't help thinking of the spider she had seen weaving its web in her father's house – and of the Grays walking toward us across the moonlit meadow before they actually had. I wondered, then, if she might be gifted with seeing visions of the future. But when I asked her about this, she just laughed in her easy, spirited way as her blue eyes sparkled.

'I'm no server,' she told me. 'Twice, only, I've seen these thing. Surely it's just chance. Or perhaps for a couple of moments, Ashtoreth herself has given her sight directly into my eyes.'

It was neither the time nor the place to dispute what she said. I looked up at the sun, and led her back toward the others.

'It's growing late,' I told them. I bowed my head toward the stone that Maram held in his hand. 'There's nothing more here to see.'

'What should we do with this, then?' Maram asked.

I took the stone from him, and then used my knife to dig a trench i the leaf-covered ground. I planted the stone there; after a little more work with my knife, I set the other two stones back in the earth as well.

'Here lie ten thousand VaJari warriors,' I said, looking about the knoll. 'Now come – there's nothing more we can do for them.'

After that we returned to the road as we had come. We rode in silence for a good few miles, west toward Tria, even as Aramesh had once ridden following his great victory.

That night we found another inn where we took our rest. We set out very early the next morning, and rode hard all that day. It was the seventh of Soldru – a day of clear skies and crisp air, perfect weather for riding. The miles passed quickly as a measure of the hours we spent cantering through the ever-more populated land. But measured by our anticipation of attending King Kiritan's birthday celebration, the time passed very slowly indeed.

Around noon, we entered a hilly country. I would have thought to find there fewer fields, but the Alonians had cut them out of the very land. Except on the steepest slopes, terraces of wheat and barley like green steps ran in contours around the hills.

White stone walls supported each terrace and set one level off from another. It was a beautiful thing to see, and a hint of the Alonians' great skill at building things.

A few hours later, the proof of their genius was laid before us. The Nar Road cut between two of these hills; at the notch, where the road rose to its greatest elevation before winding down into lower and flatter lands, we had our first view of Tria. I could hardly believe what my eyes told me must be true. For there, to the northwest across some miles of gende farmland, great white towers rose high above the highest wall I had ever seen. They sparkled as if covered with diamond dust, catching and scattering the brilliant sunlight, and cut like spears a quarter mile high into the blue dome of the sky. Other, lesser buildings – though still very great – formed a jagged line beneath them. Master Juwain told us that ail these structures had been cast of living stone during the Age of Law, a marvelous substance of great beauty and strength. Although the secret of its making had long been lost, its splendor remained to remind men of the glories to which they might attain.

The City of light, Tria was called. It stood before us in the late after-noon sun shimmering like a great jewel cut with thousands of facets.

It was sited at the mouth of the Poru River where it widened and flowed into the Bay of Belen. I saw these blue waters gleaming along the horizon beyond the city. It was my first glimpse of the Great Northern Sea. Jutting out of the bay were the dark shapes of many islands. The largest of these – it looked almost like a skull made of black rock – was called Damoom. Master Juwain said that it had been named after the world where the Dark Angel Angra Mainyu, was bound. For on this ominous-looking island, Aramesh had imprisoned Morjin after his defeat.

We rode down to the city, approaching it from the southeast. To our right was the Bay of Belen; to our left, the mighty Poru wound like a brown snake through the gentle, green countryside. We crossed fields and estates that led nearly up to the great walls themselves. Three thousand years ago, Master Juwain said, the city had overflowed for miles beyond the walls, encompassing the very ground over which we now rode. But, like Silvassu and other cities, it had diminished in size and greatness all during the Age of the Dragon. Only a few scattered houses, smithies and such remained outside the walls to hint of its former dimensions.

The Poru divided Tria into two unequal halves, west and east. East Tria, the older part of the city, was the smaller of the two – though still very much greater than any other city I had ever seen. The wall protecting it began at the banks of the bay and curved around it for a good four miles to the southwest, where it ended in a stout tower abutting the river. A mile to the west, across the river, the wall began again and ran almost straight for another four miles, before turning back toward the bay to form the defenses of the western part of the city. Nine gates, named after the nine Galadin who had defeated Angra Mainyu, were set into this great wall. The Nar Road led straight up to the Ashtoreth Gate, which opened upon the southern districts of East Tria. We rode past its iron doors unchallenged. And so we entered the City of Light late on the day that Count Dario had appointed as the date that his king would call the great quest.

'We'll still have to hurry if we're to be on time,' Kane said. 'We've the whole city still to cross.'

The King's Palace, he said, lay a good five miles across the river in West Tria. The Nar Road led almost straight towards it, and so we would keep to it for nearly the whole distance. It was hard to hurry, however, on such a crowded thoroughfare.

With our cloaks pulled tightly around us to hide our faces, we rode in a line as quickly as we could, with Kane taking the lead. But carts drawn by tired horses and laden with wheat grain – and with barrels of beer, bolts of cloth and a hundred other things – blocked our way. Many hundreds of people crowded the street, too. Most were dressed poorly in homespun woolens, but there were also merchants wearing fine silks and not a few mercenaries clad in mail, even as Kane and I were. The din of horses whinnying, men shouting and iron|-shod wheels rolling along the paving stones nearly deafened me. I had never heard such a noise other than on a battlefield.

It came to me then that cities such as Tria, however beautiful, were dangerous places where men had to fight for a few feet of space or to keep themselves from being trampled – if not worse.

I should have kept my mind on forcing my way through the crowds and not allowing Altaru to strike out with his deadly hooves at anyone who drew too close. Instead, I stared at the many sights, even as Maram and the others did. Along the street were many stalls selling various viands: roasted breads, sausages, hams, apple pies and hot cakes sizzling in sesame oil. The smells of all these foods hung in the air and set our mouths watering. Maram eyed the stands of the beer sellers and almost stopped at a shop which advertised wines from Galda and Karabuk. I stared at a diamond seller, whose sparkling wares might have been looted from the dead Valari at the Sarburn and reset into brooches and rings. Other shops sold pottery from the Elyssu, Sunguru cotton as white as snow, glasswork handblown by the Delian masters of that art -almost anything made by the hand of man. And, in truth, the Trians sold many other things less substantial. Would-be servers offered to read our futures for a few bronze coins while the astrologers did a brisk business casting horoscopes and drawing for their clients maps of the stars.

Everyone seemed eager to take our money. Hawkers shouted at us to enter shops selling fine jewelry; beautifully dressed – and beautiful -women came up to us and pulled insistently on our cloaks. Swarms of ragged children bravely darted in between our horses, holding out their hands as they stared at us with their big, sad eyes. Kane called them beggars. I had never seen such poor, gaunt-faced people before. Every few yards, it seemed, I reached into my purse to give one of them a silver coin. Kane cast a dark look at them, shooing them away as if they were flies.

He told me that not even King Kiritan had enough money to feed all the poor of the world. But I couldn't help myself. I could feel the aching of their empty bellies. My coins couldn't feed everyone, but perhaps they would put bread into the mouths of these hungry people for a few days.

Atara, too, gave them coins: gold coins, of which she seemed to have many. She was a Sarni warrior, after all, and it was said that gold flows down to the Wendrush like the waters of the rivers to the sea. Kane chided her for attracting attention to us and wasting her money. He said that the Beggar King would likely rob the children of their new-found riches. Atara, however, met his hardened stare with an icy one of her own. She drew herself up straight in her saddle and told him, 'They're children. Have you no heart?'

Kane muttered something about the softness of women, and turned to gaze upon a great tower near the city's wall The Tur-Tisander, he said it was called. To distract us from the beggars, he told us more about Morjin's defeat. He said that following the Battle of Sarburn Morjin had fled to the city and tried to hide behind its walls.

But Aramesh had pursued him there; he had fought sword to sword with Morjin along the top of the great walls themselves. There, near the Tur-Tisander, between the Valoreth and Arwe Gates, Aramesh finally wounded and disabled Morjin, who laid down his sword and pleaded for his life. The kings and knights who had fought with Aramesh clamored for Morjin's death. But according to the Valari warrior codes, Aramesh was obliged to spare Morjin, although he hated to do so. Then, too, the scryer Katura Hastar had prophesied that 'the death of Morjin would be the death of Ea.'

And so, after Morjin surrendered the Lightstone to Aramesh, he had Morjin bound in chains. He ordered an impregnable fortress built on a small island, which he renamed Damoom. There Morjin was to be imprisoned until 'all the earth grew green again and the people of all the lands returned to the stars.'

'Morjin should never have been freed,' Kane said, pointing north toward the dark island in the bay. 'But that's another story.'

He turned his horse and pressed on toward the river. We followed him through this crowded, old district. The Nar Road cut through it along a straight enough line, but most of the nearby streets curved and twisted like snakes. There were many small houses and tenements among the great towers, and many buildings where events of great moment had taken place. We passed the Old Sanctuary of the Maitriche Telu – or rather its ruins. I learned that in the year 2284 of the Age of Swords, six years before Morjin's downfall, he had tried to annihilate this Sisterhood of scryers and mind readers who oppposed him. And so he had ordered their sanctuaries across Alonia torn down and the Sisters crucified. It was said that he had utterly destroyed their ancient order. But it was also said, by Kane and others, that the Sisters of Maitriche Telu still existed, dreaming their impossible dreams and plotting to remake the world from secret sanctuaries, perhaps even in Tria itself.

A couple of miles from the Astoreth Gate, the great boulevard led down to the river.

Here the look of the city changed, giving way to many taverns, crumbling tenements and warehouses. There were shops making rope and sail, and others where hot pitch was poured into fat, wooden barrels. The air grew moist, and smelled of the faint salt tang of the sea. We crossed a broad road just to the east of the river; along its muddy banks were many docks, at which great ships were anchored. I had never seen a real ship before, and the sight of them lined up along the quay – and pointed out into the river under full sail – made me think of storms whipping up raging seas and pirates venturing after treasure. Many of the men working on the ships even looked like pirates: there were sailors from Thalu with their sun-reddened skin and gold rings dangling from their ears. They wore bright bolts of cloth wrapped around their yellow hair and thick-bladed swords at their sides. Other sailors I took to be from the Elyssu, for their appearance was more like that of Master Juwain, except that most of them had a full head of hair. Master Juwain told me that when he had first come to Tria on a galley as a young man, he had had all his hair, too.

The Nar Road gave onto a great bridge named after an angel called Sarojin. With its huge stone pylons sunk down into the muddy waters of the Poru, 1 thought it the most magnificent such structure I had ever seen. But then, after we had progressed some hundred yards across it, the curve of the river allowed a view of a still greater bridge half a mile to the north. This was the famous Star Bridge. No pylons supported its immense mass. It seemed cast of a single piece of living stone that spanned the river in a great, sweeping, mile-long arch. All golden it was in the light of the setting sun, and Master Juwain called it by its more common name, which was the Golden Band. He said that the High King, Eluli Ashtoreth, had built it to remind his people of the leldra's sacred light that fell upon the earth at the end of every age.

'There's another light that I'd like to be reminded of,' Maram said as he looked at the bridge. 'Has anyone seen Flick since we entered the city?'

None of us had. We were all afraid that he had finally perished amidst the tumult of so many thousands of people and acres of stone – either that or simply evanesced into nothingness. But there was nothing we could do except to ride on and hope that he might soon reappear.

When we reached the Poru's west bank, just past the dockyards on that side of the river, we found a broad, tree-lined street leading straight up to a hill with a great tower and two palaces at the top. I supposed all this magnificence to be the residence of King Kiritan, but I was wrong. The tower, though not the city's largest, was the Tower of the Sun: the first such ever to be built in Tria or anywhere else.

The southernmost palace was the abode of the ancient Marshan clan while the other one was named after the Hastars. After we passed from the shadow of a rectangular temple blocking our view, Kane directed my attention to a still greater hill a mile to the north of them. The palace rising from the top of it was larger than my father's entire castle. Built of living stone that gleamed like marble and with nine golden domes surmounting its various sections, it was the most impressive thing I had ever seen.

We made our way toward it along a broad street that cut the Nar Road at an angle.

In this district of the city, along a line of hills above the river, were the houses of the rich and powerful. They were mostly made of marble on three stories, and any one of them was greater than any lord's house in Mesh. Soon we came to a wall that surrounded the palace grounds. The guards at the gate blocked our way with spears until I told them that I was Sar Valashu Elahad of Mesh and that Count Dario had invited me and my friends to the King's celebration. As it was now growing dark, the guards' captain, a burly graybeard dressed in a fine new tunic, hesitated a moment as he studied my stained cloak and the long sword I wore beneath it. He stared even more dubiously at Kane, and cast Atara a long look as if deciding whether she was truly a Sarni warrior or only a serving girl whom we had dressed to play the part.

'You're an odd lot,' he said to us with the arrogance the Alonians hold for all other peoples. 'The oddest yet to pass this gate today. And, I hope, the last. You should have arrived an hour ago so that you might have been properly presented. Now you'll have to hurry if you're to be graced with the King's welcome.'

So saying, he waved us through the gate. Inside it we found a city within a city. The palace itself faced east overlooking the harbor and the Bay of Belen beyond. The grounds were laid out with many other great buildings and residences, a temple and two cemeteries, a guards' barracks, stables and a smithy. Between them a road lined with magnificent oak trees led up to the palace gates. We passed through great lawns of some of the lushest grass I had ever seen. There were gardens, fountains and long, still pools of water decked with white marble and reflecting the light of the rising moon.

Over them all loomed King Kiritan's palace, the most magnificent building I had ever seen. Grooms waited to take our horses. Kane didn't like it that I had so openly presented myself to the guards; he insisted that we now keep our cloaks pulled tightly around ourselves and make no mention of our names. He seemed more wary of the nobles waiting inside than he had been of the crowds of dangerous-looking men on the streets. As he put it, 'The Gray who escaped us must have known we'd come here. There'll be Kallimun priests among the knights here tonight – we can be sure of that. So let's watch each other's backs.'

With his dark cloak covering his face, he led the way up the steps to the colannaded portico. We passed between thick white pillars and through the doorway into the palace proper. There the guards waved us on, and we walked quietly through a magnificent hall. Its white walls shone like mirrors and the high ceiling was inlaid with squares of lapis and gold; it was so large that for a moment I wondered if we hadn't come too late after all and missed the entire gathering. But this proved to be only the entrance hall. Beyond it, through great wooden doors trimmed out in silver and bronze, was the King's great hall. The guards in front of the doors seemed put out that they should have to open them again for us. They did their duty, however, and we passed one by one into King Kiritan's immense throne room.

Three thousand people stood there beneath a great dome. From a distance, this dome had appeared golden; now, looking up at it past walls of a particularly bright living stone, I could see that it was as clear as glass. It let in the starlight, which fell like a shower of silver among the many people awaiting the King. Kane's dark eyes swept the room, which could easily have held three halls the size of my father's. In a low voice, he identified for us various princes from Eanna, Yarkona, Nedu, and the islands of the Elyssu. He pointed out the exiled knights of Galda, Hesperu, Uskudar, Sunguru and Karabuk. There were a dozen Sarni warriors, too, with their long blonde hair and drooping mustaches, and a few Valari from the kingdoms of Anjo, Taron, Waas, Lagash, Athar and Kaash. I was proud, of course, to stand for Mesh as Maram was for Delu. But most of those present that evening were Alonians: knights and nobles of the Five Families; barons from Alonia's every domain; and not a few adventurers and rogues. Not all of them would be making the quest, of course, but they wanted to be present at its calling. King Kiritan had invited his people to the greatest celebration in living memory, and the boldest and most powerful of them had taken advantage of his magnanimity.

We crowded into the very rear of the room, which was circular in shape. An aisle bisected it and was lined on both sides with guards in full armor and bearing both spears and brightly polished shields. Another aisle, also guarded, cut the room crosswise, thus dividing the crowd of people into four quadrants. Where the aisles gave out at the center of the room, under the apex of the star-washed dome, stood the King's throne. Mounted on a large pedestal, it was a massive construction, all covered in gold and encrusted with precious gems. Six great, deep steps led up to it.

On each step, at either side, stood sculptures of various animals. Master Juwain explained to us that each pair symbolized the various spiritual and material forces that man must reconcile within himself.

To climb to his throne, the King had to pass first between a golden lion and a silver ox. These represented the sun and the moon, or the active and passive principles of life. On the next step awaited a lamb and a wolf, symbols of the pure heart and the devouring passions. A hawk and a sparrow framed the third step while on the fourth stood a goat and a great leopard, cast in bronze. The goat, I guessed, embodied the need for self-sacrifice, a calling that a king must never forget. The fifth step held both a falcon and a cock, reminders of obedience to the highest and the opposing gratification of lust. On the last step, across ten feet of a worn red carpet, there perched a golden eagle facing a peacock, cast of silver but completely covered in various gemstones so as to look like brightly-colored feathers. The eagle spoke of man's striving toward transcendence as Elijin and Galadin where the peacock represented the earthbound vanity and pride of the self. Set into the very top of the throne, beneath which the King would sit, was a golden dove, the great symbol of the peace to be attained at the end of this ascension. The final symbol, Master Juwain said, which wasn't really a symbol at all, was the starlight that fell upon the throne and called everyone to remember that shimmering place from which men had once come and to which they would someday return,

After we had stood pressed back against the wall for a bare few moments, the doors to our left opened, and heralds stationed there blew their trumpets to quiet us. Then the King, accompanied by a tall, handsome woman whom I took to be his wife, strode into the room. King Kiritan was himself a tall man; his golden crown, set with a large emerald on the front point, brought him up to about my height. Although his neatly trimmed beard was reddish-gray, his hair was all of silver and gold, and fell down to the shoulders of a magnificent, white ermine mantle. Beneath this he wore a blue velvet tunic showing the golden caduceus of the royal house. He wore a long sword at his side while in his hand he carried a very real caduceus of power and peace.

He made his way slowly down the aisle toward the throne. Although he walked with a slight limp, there was power yet in his stately gait and not a little pride. His face, cut with an unusual circular scar on his cheek, was as stern and unmoving as a stone; yet the glimpse I caught of his bright, blue eyes revealed a fierce devotion to lofty ideals and a strict moral order. He turned his head neither to the left nor right. His barons and the princes from the island kingdoms stood the nearest to the throne. There Count Dario and other nobles of the House Narmada waited as well for him to mount its six broad steps.

The King, however, paused before the first step while a herald came forward. The Alonians, as I would discover, loved their rituals, especially ancient ones. And the most ancient of all rituals in Tria was reminding the King of his duties and from where his power ultimately came. As the King's foot fell upon the first step, the herald called out to him, and to us, the first law for kings: 'You shall not multiply wives to yourself, nor shall you multiply lands, nor silver or gold.'

The next step brought the following injunction from the herald, who would never think to speak to the king so boldly on any other occasion: 'You shall not suffer your people to live in hunger or want.'

Upon the third step, the herald told him: 'You shall not suffer any enemy to slay your people or make slaves of them.'

And so it went, step after step, until the king passed between the eagle and the peacock and drew up before his throne. Then, as the King lifted up his eyes toward the great dome, the herald cried out the final law: 'Know the One before whom you stand!'

Only then did King Kiritan sit upon his throne and prepare himself to act as judge and lord of his people.

'Welcome,' he called out to us in a strong rich voice. He allowed himself a broad smile that hinted of warmth but failed to convey it. 'We welcome you with open heart and ail the hospitality that we can command. As well, we thank you for gracing our house tonight, whether your journeys took you from only across the river or from as far away as the islands of the west or the southernmost steppes of the Wendrush.'

Here he paused to nod at a Sarni chieftain and at the gold-bearded giant standing next to him who proved to be Prince Aryaman of Thalu.

'Thirty years now,' King Kiritan said, 'we have sat upon this throne. And in all that time, there has never been an occasion like this. Truth to tell, Tria hasn't seen a gathering of such illustrious personages for an entire age. Now, it would be flattering to suppose that you've come here tonight to help us celebrate our birthday. That, however, would be more flattery than is good for any king to bear. Still, celebration is the essence of why we are here tonight. What is a birthday but the marking of a soul's coming into life? And what is this Quest that we've called you to answer but the coming of all of Ea into a new age and a new life?'

While the King went on about the great dangers and possibilities of the times in which we lived, I noticed Atara tensing her jaw muscles as she stood next to me watching him. I recalled that the Kurmak and Alonians had often been great enemies, and I sensed in her a great struggle to like or even trust this vain and arrogant king.

Kane watched him closely, as well. We stood together with Maram and Master Juwain, pressed almost to the wall by a group of Alonian knights.

'Now, we must speak of this Quest,' King Kiritan told us. 'The Quest for the Cup of Heaven that has been lost for three thousand years.'

His square, handsome face fairly shone in the radiance falling down from the walls.

There, set into curved recesses around the room, blazed at least fifty glowstones.

These were regarded as only lesser gelstei – though to my mind, they were still marvelous enough. It was said that they drank in the light of the sun, held it, and gave it back at night. Master Juwain whispered time that these same stones had illuminated this hall for more than three thousand years.

'Now, if you're all standing comfortably,' the King said, 'we'll tell you a story. Many of you already know parts of it; much of it is recorded in the Saganom Elu and other books. The whole of it, we suspect, is known to few. To these learned men and women, we beg your indulgence. After all, this is the King's birthday, and the finest gift we could receive would be all your attention and enthusiasm.'

So saying, he drew in a deep breath and favored us with another calculated smile.

And then, as the stars poured down their light through the dome, as he sat on his immense and glittering throne beneath the golden dove of peace, he told us of the whole long and immensely bloody history of the Lightstone.