The Lightstone: The Ninth Kingdom: Part One. David Zindell

friend, looked up at my father and said, ‘Ah, King Shamesh – I suppose this isn’t the best time to finish my poem?’

      My father ignored him. ‘The time for making toasts is at an end. Lord Harsha, would you please take your seat so that we might move on to more important matters?’

      Again Lord Harsha bowed, and he walked slowly back through the rows of tables to his chair. He sat down next to his greatly relieved daughter, whom he looked at sternly but with an obvious love. And then a silence fell over the room as all eyes turned toward my father.

      ‘We have before us tonight the emissaries of two kings,’ he said, nodding his head at Salmelu and then Count Dario. ‘And two requests will be made of us here tonight; we should listen well to both and neither let our hearts shout down the wisdom of our heads nor our heads mock what our hearts know to be true. Why don’t we have Prince Salmelu speak first, for it may be that in deciding upon his request, the answer to Count Dario’s will become obvious.’

      Without smiling, he then nodded at Salmelu, who eagerly sprang to his feet.

      ‘King Shamesh,’ he said in a voice that snapped out like a whip, ‘the request of King Hadaru is simple: that the border of our kingdoms be clearly established according to the agreement of our ancestors. Either that, or the King asks that we set a time and place for battle.’

      So, I thought, the ultimatum that we had all been awaiting had finally been set before us. I felt the hands of three hundred Meshian warriors almost aching to grip the hilts of their swords.

      ‘The border of our kingdoms is established thusly,’ my father told Salmelu. ‘The first Shavashar gave your people all the lands from Mount Korukel to the Aru River.’

      This was true. Long, long ago in the Lost Ages before the millennia of recorded history, it was said that the first Shavashar Elahad had claimed most of the lands of the Morning Mountains for his kingdom. But his seventh son, Ishkavar, wanting lands of his own to rule, had despaired of ever coming into this great possession. And so he had rebelled against his own father. Because Shavashar refused to spill the blood of his favorite son, he had given him all the lands from Korukel to the Aru, and from the Culhadosh River to the grassy plains of the Wendrush. Such was the origin of the kingdom that came to be called Ishka.

      ‘From Mount Korukel,’ Salmelu snapped at my father. “Which you now claim for your own!’

      My father stared down at him with a face as cold as stone. Then he said, ‘If a man gives his son all his fields from his house to a river, he has given him only his fields – not the house or the river.’

      ‘But mountains,’ Salmelu said, repeating the old argument, ‘aren’t houses. There’s no clearly marked boundary where one begins and ends.’

      ‘This is true,’ my father said. ‘But surely you can’t think a mountain’s boundary should be a line running through the center of its highest peak?’

      ‘Given the spirit of the agreement, it’s only the way to think.’

      ‘There are many ways of thinking,’ my father said, ‘and we’re here tonight to determine what is most fair.’

      ‘You speak of fairness?’ Salmelu half-shouted. ‘You who keep the richest lands of the Morning Mountains for yourselves? You who kept the Lightstone locked in your castle for an entire age when all the Valari should have shared in its possession?’

      Some of what he said was true. After the Battle of Sarburn, when the combined might of the Valari had overthrown Morjin and he had been imprisoned in a great fortress on the Isle of Damoom, Aramesh had brought the Lightstone back to Silvassu. And it had resided in my family’s castle for most of the Age of Law. But it had never been locked away. I turned to look at the white granite pedestal against the banner-covered wall behind my father’s chair. There, on this dusty, old stand, now dark and empty, the Lightstone had sat in plain view for nearly three thousand years.

      ‘All the Valari did share of its radiance,’ my father told Salmelu. ‘Although it was deemed unwise to move it about among the kingdoms, our castle was always open to any and all who came to see it. Especially to the Ishkans.’

      ‘Yes, and we had to enter your castle as beggars hoping for a glimpse of gold.’

      ‘Is that why you invaded our lands with no formal declaration and tried to steal the Lightstone from us? If not for the valor of King Yaravar at the Raaswash, who knows how many would have been killed?’

      At this, Salmelu’s small mouth set tightly with anger. Then he said, ‘You speak of warriors being killed? As your people killed Elsu Maruth, who was a very great king.’

      Although my father kept his face calm, his eyes flashed with fire as he said, ‘Was he a greater king than Elkasar Elahad, whom you killed at the Diamond River twelve years ago?’

      At the mention of my grandfather’s name, I stared at Salmelu and the flames of vengeance began eating at me, too.

      ‘Warriors die,’ Salmelu said, shrugging off my father’s grief with an air of unconcern. ‘And warriors kill – as King Elkamesh killed my uncle, Lord Dorje. Duels are duels, and war is war.’

      ‘War is war, as you say,’ my father told Salmelu. ‘And murder is murder, is it not?’

      Salmelu’s hand moved an inch closer to the hilt of his sword as his fingers began to twitch. Then he called out, ‘Do you make an accusation, King Shamesh?’

      ‘An accusation?’ my father said. ‘No, merely a statement of truth. There are some who say that my father’s death was planned and call it murder. But you’ll never hear me say this. War is war, and even kings are killed on the field of battle. No matter the intent, this can’t be called murder. But the hunting of a king’s son in his own woods – that is murder.’

      For a long time, perhaps as many as twenty beats of my racing heart, my father sat staring at Salmelu. His eyes were like bright swords cutting away at Salmelu’s outward hauteur to reveal the man within. And Salmelu stared at him: with defiance and a jealous hatred coloring his face. While this duel of the eyes took place before hundreds of men and women stunned into silence, I noticed Asaru exchange a brief look with Ravar. Then Asaru nodded toward a groom standing off to the side of the hall near the door that led to the kitchens. The groom bowed back and disappeared through the doorway. And Asaru stood up from the table, causing Salmelu to break eyes with my father and look at him instead.

      ‘My lords and ladies,’ Asaru called out to the room, ‘it has come to my attention that the cooks have finally prepared a proper ending to the feast. If you’ll abide with me a moment, they have a surprise for you.’

      Now my father looked at Asaru with puzzlement furrowing his forehead. As did Lord Harsha, Count Dario, Lord Tomavar, and many others.

      ‘But what does all this have to do with murder?’ Salmelu demanded.

      And Asaru replied, ‘Only this: that all this talk of killing and murder must have made everyone hungry again. It wouldn’t do to end a feast with everyone still hungry.’

      Upon these curious words, the doors to the kitchen opened, and four grooms wheeled out one of the great serving carts usually reserved for the display of whole roasted boars or other large game. It seemed that one knight or another must have indeed speared a boar earlier that day in the woods, for a voluminous white cloth was draped over what appeared to be the largest of boars. Apparently it had taken all these many hours to finish cooking. The grooms wheeled the cart right out toward the front of the room, where they left it sitting just in front of the Ishkans’ table.

      ‘Is that really a boar?’ I heard Maram ask one of the grooms. ‘I haven’t had a taste of a good boar in two years.’

      Despite himself, he licked his lips in anticipation of this most succulent of meats. How anyone could still be hungry after all the food consumed earlier, I didn’t know. But if any man could, Maram was certainly that man, and he eyed the bulging white cloth