The Lightstone

' That's true,' I said, feeling the eyes of everyone near the throne fall upon me.

'Well, the Lightstone will never be found. Your ancestor gave it to a stranger in Tria when he would have done better to bring it to Loviisa.'

His thin lips pulled together in distaste as if he had eaten a lemon. I could almost feel the resentment burning inside him. It occurred to me then that love frustrated turns to hate; hope defeated becomes the bitterness of despair.

'But what if the Lightstone were found?' I asked him.

'By you?'

'Yes – why not?'

"Then I have no doubt that you would bring it back to your castle and lock it away from the world.'

'No, that would never happen,' I told him. ' The lightstone's radiance was meant to be shared by everyone. How else could we ever bring peace to the world?'

'Peace?' he snarled out. 'How can there ever be peace when there are those who would claim what is not theirs?'

At this, Salmelu traded sharp looks with Lord Nadhru, and I heard Lord Solhtar murmuring something about Korukels diamonds. Lord Mestivan, standing next to him in a bright blue tunic, nodded his head as he touched the red and white battle ribbons tied to his long black hair.

'Perhaps someday,' I said, 'all will know what is rightfully theirs.'

At this, King Hadaru let out a harsh laugh like the growl of a bear. And then he told me, 'You, Valashu Elahad, are a dreamer – like your grandfather.'

'Perhaps that's true,' I said. 'But all men have dreams. What is yours, King Hadaru?'

This question caught the King off guard, and his whole body tensed as if in anticipation of a blow. His eyes deepened with a faraway look; he seemed to be gazing through the beautiful woods of his palace out into the night-time sky. He suffered, I thought, from a stinginess of spirit in place of austerity, a brittle hardness instead of true strength. He strove for a zealous cleanliness when he should have longed for purity. If it came to war, he would fight out of pride of possessiveness rather than the protecting of that which he cherished most. And yet despite these turnings of the Valari virtues, I also sensed in him a secret desire that both he and the world could be different. He might fight against Waas or Mesh with all the cool ferocity for which he was famed, but his greatest battle would always be with himself.

'Of what do I dream?' he murmured as he pulled at the ribbons tied to his hair. His eyes seemed to grow brighter as they turned back toward me. 'I dream of diamonds,' he finally told me. 'I dream of the warriors of Ishka shining like ten thousand perfect, polished diamonds as they stand ready to fight for the riches they were born for.'

Now it was my turn to be caught off guard. My grandfather had always said that we were born to stand in the light of the One and feel its radiance growing ever brighter within ourselves, and I had always believed that he had told me the truth.

King Hadaru glanced at Lord Nadhru and asked, 'And of what do you dream, Lord Nadhru?' Lord Nadhru fingered the hilt of his sword, and without hesitation, said,

'Justice, Sire.'

'And you, Lord Solhtar?' the King said to the man next to him.

Lord Solhtar fingered his thick beard for a moment before turning to look at the woman on his left, she had the thick bones and brown skin of a Galdan, and I wondered if she had come from that conquered kingdom. Lord Solhtar smiled at her in silent understanding, and then said, ' I dream that someday we Ishkans may help all peoples regain what is rightfully theirs.'

'Very good,' Lord Issur suddenly said. Although he was Salmelu's brother, he seemed to have little of his pugnaciousness and none of his arrogance. ' That is a worthy dream.'

King Hadaru must have caught a flash of concern from his young wife, for he suddenly looked at Irisha and said, 'Do you agree?'

I noticed Maram staring at Irisha intently as she brushed back her long hair and said,

'Of course it is worthy – worthy of our noblest efforts. But shouldn't we first look to the safeguarding of our own kingdom?'

This 'safeguarding,' I thought, might well mean the eventual incorpo-ration of Anjo into Ishka. Although Irisha's father might owe allegiance to Anjo's King Danashu in Sauvo, Danashu was a king in name only. And so Adar, much to Duke Barwan's shame, had practically become a client state of Ishka. In truth, the only thing that kept Ishka from biting off pieces of Anjo one by one like a hungry bear was fear of Meshian steel.

For a while I listened as these proud nobles talked among themselves. They seemed little different, in their sentiments and concerns, from the lords and knights of Mesh.

And yet the Ishkans were different from us in other ways. They wore colors in their clothing and battle ribbons in their hair in a time of peace, something that my dour countrymen would never do. And some of them, at least, had taken foreign-born wives. But worst of all, I thought, was their habit of frequently using the pronoun 'I' in their speech, which sounded vulgar and self-glorifying.

I remembered well my father telling me about the perils of using this deceptive word.

And wasn't he right, after all? It is vain. It is a distracting mirror. It shrinks the soul and traps it inside a box of conceits, superficialities and illusions. It keeps us from looking out into the universe and sensing our greater being in the vastnlss of the. infinite and the fiery exhalations of the stars. In Mesh, one used the word in forgetfulness or almost as a curse – or, rarely, in moments of great emotion as when a man might whisper to his wife in the privacy of their house, 'I love you.'

As it grew closer to the hour appointed for dinner, King Hadaru listened patiendy to all that everyone had to say. Then finally, with a heaviness both in his body and spirit, he looked at Salmelu and asked, 'Of what do you dream, my son?'

Salmelu seemed to have been waiting for this moment. His eyes flared like a fire stoked with fresh coal as he looked at me and said, 'I dream of war. Isn't that what a Valari is born for? To stand with his brothers on the battlefield and feel his heart beating as one with theirs, to see his enemies crumble and fall before him – is there anything better than this? How else can a warrior test himself? How else can he know if he is diamond inside or only glass that can be broken and ground beneath another man's boot, to blow away like dust in the wind?'

I took these words as a challenge. While King Hadaru watched me carefully, I held my knight's ring up so that it gleamed in the candlelight.

And then I said, 'All men are diamonds inside. And all life is a series of battles. It's how we face this war that determines whether we are cut and polished like the diamonds of our rings or broken like bad stones.'

At this, Master Juwain smiled at me approvingly, as did Lord Issur and many of the Ishkans. But Salmelu only stood there glowering at me. I could feel his malice toward me rising inside him like an angry snake.

'I myself saw your father give you that ring,' he said. 'But I can hardly believe what I see now: a Valari warrior who does everything that he can to avoid war.'

I took a deep breath to cool the heat rising through my belly. Then I told him, 'If it's war you want so badly, why not unite against the Red Dragon and fight him?'

'Because I do not fear him as you seem to. No Ishkan does.'

This, I thought, was not quite true. King Hadaru paled a little at the utterance of this evil name. It occurred to me then that he might not, after all, desire a war with Mesh that would weaken his kingdom at a dangerous time. Why wage war when he could gain his heart's desire through marriage or merely making threats?

'It's no shame to be afraid,' King Hadaru said.' True courage is marching into battle in the face of fear.'

At this Salmelu traded quick looks with both Lord Nadhru and Lord Mestivan. I sensed that they were the leaders of the Ishkan faction that campaigned for war.