The Lightstone: The Silver Sword: Part Two. David Zindell
it has,’ Master Juwain told him. ‘But it’s said to be vast, perhaps too vast ever to be searched fully. The number of books it holds is said to be thousands and thousands.’
Kane, sitting by Alphanderry who was tuning his mandolet, smiled gleefully and said, ‘So, I’ve been to the Library once, many years ago. The number of its books is thousands of thousands. Many of them have never even been read.’
A new idea had suddenly come to Master Juwain, who sat rubbing his hands together as if in anticipation of a feast. ‘Then perhaps one of them holds the Lightstone.’
‘You mean, holds knowledge about it, don’t you, sir?’ Maram asked.
‘No, I mean the Cup of Heaven itself. Perhaps one of the books has had its pages hollowed out to fit a small golden cup. And so escaped being discovered in any search.’
‘Now there’s a thought,’ Maram said.
‘It’s as I’ve always told you,’ Master Juwain said to him. ‘When you open a book, you never know what you’ll find there.’
We talked for quite a while about the Library and the great treasures it guarded: not just the books, of course, but the numerous paintings, sculptures, works of jewelry, glittering masks studded with unknown gelstei and other artifacts, many of which dated from the Age of Law – and whose purpose neither the Librarians nor anyone else had been able to fathom. For Master Juwain, a journey to the Library was an opportunity of a lifetime. And the rest of us were eager to view this wonder, too. Even Atara, who had little patience for books, seemed excited at the prospect of beholding so many of them.
‘I think there’s no other choice then,’ she said. ‘We should go to this Library, and see what we see.’
I looked at her as if to ask if she had seen us successfully completing our quest there, but she slowly shook her head.
‘There’s no other choice,’ Master Juwain said. ‘At least none better that I can think of.’
And so, despite Maram’s objections that Khaisham lay five hundred miles away across unknown lands, we decided to journey there unless my sword pointed us elsewhere or we found the Lightstone first.
To firm up our resolve, we broke out the brandy and sat sipping it by the fire. This distillation of grapes ripened in the sun far away warmed us deep inside. Alphanderry began playing, and much to everyone’s surprise, Kane joined him in song. His singing voice, which I had never heard, was much like the brandy itself: rich, dark, fiery and aged to a bittersweet perfection – and quite beautiful in its own way. He sang to the stars far above us which we could not see; he sang to the earth that gave us form and life and would someday take it away. When he had finished, I sat staring at my sword as if I might find my reflection there.
‘What do you see, Val?’ Master Juwain asked.
‘That’s hard to say,’ I told him. ‘It’s all so strange. Here we are drinking this fine brandy – and it’s as if the vintner who made it left the taste of his soul in it. In the air, there’s the sound of battle, even though it’s a quiet night. And the earth upon which we sit: can you feel her heart beating up through the ground? And not just her heart, but everyone’s and everything’s: the nightingale’s and the wood vole’s, and even that of the Lord Librarian in Khaisham half a world away. It beats and beats, and there’s a song there – the same strange song that the stars sing. And truly, it’s a cloudy night, but the stars are always there, in their spirals and sprays of light, like sea foam, like diamonds, like dreams in the mind of a child. And they never cease forming up and delighting: it’s like Flick whirling in the Lokilani’s wood. And it’s all part of one pattern. And we could see the whole of it from any part if only we opened our eyes, if only we knew how to look. Strange, strange.’
Maram staggered over to me, and touched my head to see if I had a fever. He had never heard me speak like this before; neither had I.
‘Ah, my friend, you’re drunk,’ he said, looking down at Alkaladur. ‘Drunk on brandy or drunk on the fire of this sword – it’s all the same.’
Master Juwain looked back and forth between the sword and me. ‘No, I don’t think he’s quite drunk yet. I think he’s just beginning to see.’
He went on to tell us that everyone had three eyes: the eye of the senses; the eye of reason; and the eye of the soul. This third eye did not develop so easily or naturally as the others. Meditation helped open it, and so did the attunement of certain gelstei.
‘All the greater gelstei quicken the other sight,’ he said, ‘but the silver is especially the stone of the soul.’
The silustria, he said, had its most obvious effects on that part of the soul we called the mind. Like a highly polished lens, the silver crystal could reflect and magnify its powers: logic, deduction, calculation, awareness, insight and ordinary memory. In its reflective qualities, the silver gelstei might also be used as a shield against energies: vital, physical and particularly mental. Although not giving power over other minds, it could be used to quicken the working of another’s mind, and was thus a great tool for teaching. A sword made of silustria, he thought, could cut through all things material as the mind cuts through ignorance and darkness, for it was far harder than diamond. In fact, in its fundamental composition, the silver was very much like the gold gelstei, and was one of the two noble stones.
‘But its most sublime power is said to be this seeing of the soul that Val has told of. The way that all things are interconnected.’
Alphanderry, who seemed to have a song ready for any topic or occasion, sang an old one about the making of the heavens and earth. Its words, written down by some ancient minstrel long ago, told of how all of creation was woven of a single tapestry of superluminal jewels, the light of each jewel reflected in every other. Although only the One could ever perceive each of the tapestry’s shimmering emeralds, sapphires and diamonds, a man, through the power of the silver gelstei, might apprehend its unfolding pattern in all its unimaginable magnificence.
‘“For we are the eyes through which the One beholds itself and knows itself divine,”’ Alphanderry quoted.
And by ‘we’, he explained, he meant not only the men and women of Ea, but the Star People, the Elijin, and the great Galadin such as Arwe and Ashtoreth, whose eyes were said to be of purest silustria in place of flesh.
‘What wonders would we behold,’ he asked us, ‘if only we had the eyes to see them?’
‘Ah, well,’ Maram said as he yawned and drank the last of his brandy, ‘I’m afraid my eyes have seen enough of day for one day, if you know what I mean. While I don’t expect anyone’s sympathy, I must tell you that Lailaiu didn’t allow me much sleep. But I’m off to bed to replenish my store of it. And to behold her in my dreams.’
He stood up, yawned again, rubbed his eyes and then patted Alphanderry’s head. ‘And that, my friend, is the only part of this wonderful tapestry of yours I care to see tonight.’
Because we were all quite as tired as he, we lay back against our furs and wrapped ourselves with our cloaks against the chill drizzle – everyone except Kane who had the first watch. I fell asleep to the sight of Flick fluttering about the fire like a blazing butterfly, even as I rested my hand on the hilt of my sword, which I kept at my side. Although I dreaded the dreams the Lord of Lies might send me, I slept well. That night, in my dreams, when I was trapped in a cave as black as death itself, I drew forth Alkaladur. The sword’s fierce white light fell upon the dragon waiting in the darkness there, with its huge, folded wings and iron-black scales. Its radiance allowed me to see the dragon’s only vulnerability: the knotted, red heart which throbbed like a bloody sun. And in seeing my seeing of his weakness, the dragon turned his great, golden eyes away from me in fear. And then, in a thunder of wings and great claws striking sparks against stone, he vanished down a tunnel leading into the bowels of the earth.
The next morning, after a breakfast of porridge and blackberries fortified with some walnuts that Liljana had held