The Lightstone

'The Lord of Lies,' Master Juwain said, 'will never be defeated by the force of arms alone.'

'Then you think to defeat him by finding this golden cup that your legends tell of?'

'Does knowledge defeat ignorance? Does truth defeat a lie?'

'But not all the legends in your book can be true,' Thaman said.

'No,' Master Juwain agreed, 'but one of them might be. The trick is in discovering the right one.'

'But what if the Lightstone has been destroyed?'

'The Lightstone,' Master Juwain said, 'was wrought of gold gelstei by the Star People themselves. It can't be destroyed.'

'Well, then, what if it's lost forever?'

'But how can we know that?' Master Juwain asked. 'We can only say that it is lost forever if we stop seeking it and declare that it is forever lost.'

At this fencing of words, Thaman finally gave up and returned to his beer. He took a long drink of it and then asked, 'What do you think, Sar Kane?'

'Just Kane, please,' Kane said gruffly. 'I'm no knight'

'Well,' Thaman asked him, 'will the Lightstone ever be found?'

Kane's eyes flashed just then, and I was reminded of lightning bolts lighting up the sky on a hot summer night. 'The Lightstone must be found,' he said. 'Or else the Red Dragon will never be defeated.'

'But defeated how?' Thaman asked, pressing him. 'Through knowledge or through the sword?'

'Knowledge is dangerous,' Kane said with a grim smile. 'Swords are, too. Who has the wisdom to use either, eh?'

'There's still wisdom in the world,' Master Juwain said stubbornly. 'There's still knowledge aplenty for those who open their minds to it.'

'Dangerous, I say,' Kane repeated, looking at Master Juwain. 'Long ago, Morjin opened his mind to the knowledge bestowed by the Lightstone, and he gained immortality, so it's said. So – who on Ea has benefited from this precious knowledge?'

As Duke Rezu's grooms arrived to bring out fresh pitchers of beer, Master Juwain sipped from the cup of tea that he had ordered. He regarded Kane with his large, gray eyes, obviously considering how to respond to his arguments.

'The Lord of Lies is the Lord of Lies,' he finally said. 'If he's truly the same tyrant who crucified Kalkamesh so long ago, then he makes a mockery of the immortality that is the province of the Elijin and Galadin.'

At this mention of the names of the angelic orders. Kane's eyes grew as empty as black space. I felt myself falling into them; it was like falling into a bottomless black pit.

'So,' Kane finally said, pinning Master Juwain with the daggers of his eyes, 'it's knowledge of the angels that you ultimately seek, isn't it?'

'Isn't that what the One created us to seek?'

'How would I know about that, damn it!' Kane growled out.

His vehemence startled all of us, and Master Juwain's voice softened as he said,

'Knowledge is power. The power to be more than animals or men of the sword. And the power to do great good in the world.'

'So you say,' Kane told him. 'Is that why you seek the Lightstone?'

Master Juwain forced a smile to his lips and looked at Kane with all the kindness he could muster. 'It's said that the Lightstone will bring infinite knowledge to him who drinks its golden light.'

'Is it really?' Kane said, showing his long white teeth in another grim smile. 'Isn't the true prophecy that the Lightstone will bring knowledge of the infinite?'

For a moment, I thought that the puzzled look on Master Juwain's face indicated that he had misremembered this particular bit of knowledge. Then, with a slow and measured motion, he removed a small copy of the Saganom Elu from the pocket of his robe and began thumbing through its dog-eared pages.

'Aha!' he finally said. From his other pocket, he had produced a magnifying glass, which he held over the pages of the opened book. 'The lines are here, in the seventy-seventh of the Trian Prophecies. And also, in the Visions, chapter five, verse forty-five. And if my memory serves, we'll find it written as well in the Book of Stars. Would you like to see?'

'No,' Kane told him. 'I try not to read such books.'

Kane might as well have told him that he tried not to smell the perfume of flowers or took no joy in the light of the sun. It was one of the few times I had ever seen Master Juwain moved to want to humble an opponent. He looked straight into Kane's unmoving eyes as he said, 'It would seem that you're wrong, wouldn't it?'

'So it seems,' Kane said. Although his words were agreeable enough, nothing in his tense, large-boned body suggested that he was yielding the point The Duke was used to battles, but not in his own hall. After lifting up his goblet and making a toast to the courage of Telemesh and Kalkamesh, he nodded at Kane. 'I think we're all agreed, at least, that we must oppose Morjin, however we can.'

'That I will agree to,' Kane said. 'I'll oppose Morjin even if it means seeking the Lightstone myself, and if I find it, letting the Brotherhoods take from it what knowledge they can.'

It was a noble thing for him to say, and his words warmed Master Juwain's heart.

But not mine. I found that I could no more trust Kane than I could a tiger who purred softly one moment and then stared at me with hungry eyes the next.

'As it happens,' he told Master Juwain, 'I've business in Tria myself. If you'll let me, I'll accompfny you there.'

Master Juwain sat sipping his tea as he slowly nodded his head. I sensed that he relished the opportunity to reopen his arguments with Kane, and he said, 'I would be honored. But the decision is not mine to make alone. What do you think, Brother Maram?'

Maram, who was busy making eyes with Chaitra, tore his gaze away from this lovely woman and looked at Master Juwain. He was more than a little drunk, and he said,

'Eh? What do I think? I think that even four is too few to face the dangers ahead that I don't even want to think about. The more the merrier!'

So saying, he turned back to Duke Rezu's widowed niece and flashed her a winning smile.

Master Juwain smiled too, in exasperation at the task of taming. Maram. Then he said to me, 'What about you, Val?'

I turned toward Kane, who was staring at me with his unflinching gaze. It hurt to look at him too long, and so instead I glanced at the dagger that he still held in his large hands. And then I asked, 'What is your business in Tria?'

'My business is my business,' he growled at me. 'And your business, it would seem, is in reaching Tria without being killed. I'd think that you'd welcome the opportunity to increase your chances.'

Truly, I would, but did that mean welcoming this stranger to our company? I glanced at the sword sheathed at his side; it looked like a kalama. I tought that we might all welcome its sharp edges in fighting the unknown dangers that Maram was so afraid of. But a sword, as my grandfather used to say, can always cut two ways.

'We've come this far by ourselves,' I said to Kane. 'Perhaps it would be best if we continued on as we have.'

'So,' Kane said, 'if Morjin's men hunt you down in the forest of Alonia, you think to make it easy for them, eh?'

How, I wondered, had Kane sensed that Morjin might be pursuing me? Had Maram, in his drunken murmurings, blurted out clues that Kane had pieced together? Had the story of Raldu nearly murdering me somehow reached this little duchy of Rajak ahead of us? 'There's no reason,' I said, 'for the Lord of Lies to be hunting us.' 'You think not, eh? You're a prince of Mesh – King Shamesh's seventh son. Do you think Morjin needs any more reason than that to kill you?'

Kane spoke Morjin's name with so much hate that if words were steel, Morjin would now be dead. Watching Kane's neck tendons popping as he ground his teeth together, I couldn't doubt that he was Morjin's bitter enemy. But the enemy of my enemy, as my father liked to say, was not necessarily my friend.

'My apologies,' I said to him, 'but perhaps you can find other company.'