Diamond Warriors

Chapter 16

Later that day, we buried King Talanu at the north end of the beach between the black rocks called the Pillars of Heaven. I never learned if King Darrum the Great's bones lay interred there, too. But in consideration of the fallen Valari that we placed beneath the ground nearby and the blood that they had shed, we would always regard the Seredun Sands as Valari soil.

The Karabukers and the Galdans we did not bury, for there were too many of them and we were too exhausted. My warriors and I watched their ships sail away with the remnants of their army. Perhaps, I thought, once we had marched off, they would return and make proper graves for their countrymen.

Although I wanted to leave that place of death as soon as possible, I had matters to attend to, and so did the warriors of my army. We kept our encampment behind the three hills, which blocked the sight — and smell — of the beach. Within an hour, I sent envoys riding northeast up the coast toward Delarid to tell King Santoval Marshayk of what had happened here. I sent envoys to the west, as well: to Athar, Lagash and Taron, and all the Nine Kingdoms. I wanted the whole world to know that a handful of brave Valari had utterly destroyed one of the Red Dragon's great armies.

I spent most of that evening with the wounded in the healing pavilion speaking with them and learning of their deeds. I gritted my teeth as I watched twelve warriors lose their hold on life and make the journey to the stars. The healers stood helpless to keep them from going over. Even Master Juwain could do nothing for them.

'I dare not use my gelstei,' he said to me much later outside the healing pavilion. He gripped his green crystal as he gazed off to the east. The moonlight showed three peaceful hills covered with bushes and dark trees, but no hint of the beach beyond them. 'With Bemossed fallen ill all of us should keep our crystals quiet.'

Master Juwain then led the way into Bemossed's tent, lit with candles. Kane, Daj, Estrella, Liljana and Alphanderry all gathered around his still form. Abrasax and the other masters of the Seven stood above them. Bemossed lay on his sleeping furs with his eyes open; he seemed to be staring up at the flickering flame shadows dancing across the tent's ceiling. But I sensed that he stared at nothing,

'Has he spoken yet?' Master Juwain asked Liljana.

Liljana shook her head. In her hands she held a cup of soup that she had been unable to get Bemossed to swallow.

'He won't speak,' Liljana said. 'He won't eat and he won't drink.'

'He just lies there,' Daj added. 'It's as if something has sucked out his soul.'

Something has, I thought. Someone has.

'Some men,' Kane said as he rested his hand on Bemossed's curly hair, 'cannot bear battle.'

'You mean slaughter,' Liljana snapped at him. She bent down to kiss Bemossed's forehead. 'This man has battled Morjin night and day for months. And for all we know, battles him still, even at this moment.'

Master Juwain held his gelstei over Bemossed's chest. Then he sighed and said, 'We can only hope that is so. I fear that he might be lost in the gray land between worlds. Until we do know, however, we must assume that Morjin has gained the freedom to use the Lightstone — and therefore that we cannot use our stones.'

'We cannot not use them,' Kane growled out as he stroked Bemossed's hair. 'At least not for long. And we cannot allow Bemossed to remain half-dead, not unless we are willing to throw our victory away and watch Morjin set fire to the world.'

Abrasax, his white hair nearly brushing against the top of the tent, held out the clear stone of the seven Great Gelstei entrusted to his keeping. 'That fire might take a while to ignite. We might yet have time.'

'And we might not!' Kane said. 'How long, when the moment comes, will it take for Morjin to open the gates to Damoom? So, less than a flash of an instant.'

'But what can we do?' Abrasax asked him. 'Other than that which we are doing?'

'I don't know!' Kane half-shouted. 'That's the hell of it: not knowing what to do!'

After that, I went inside my pavilion to write a letter to the grandfather of Sar Dovaru Andar, who had died protecting Lord Avijan from the Galdan pikemen. I knew old Lord Andar well for he had been friends with my grandfather.

I sat for a long while at my council table, staring at the sheets of white paper laid out before me. A bottle of black ink seemed to wait for me to pick up my quill and dip it down into the dark liquid. But what should I say to the crippled Lord Andru, who had already lost two sons and a daughter in Morjin's invasion of Mesh? That Sar Dovaru had died a good death, fighting his enemy lance to spear and recklessly throwing himself forward against three Galdan pikemen? And that in dying he had been spared becoming the executioner of their nearly unarmed countrymen?

I should have known better than to immerse myself in the darkness that waited always inside me. For just as I allowed myself a moment of despair at the depravity of man, the Ahrim found me. This greater darkness seemed to come out of nowhere and fall upon me like an ice-fog. It concentrated all its essence in my right hand. I felt my flesh freezing, my fingers curling into my palm in agony. Arrows of ice drove up my arm, through my shoulder and deep into my chest. I gasped for breath. Then there came a tingling and a fierce burning, as of a limb being thawed after suffering frostbite. A terrible fire burned my muscles and blood. The heat of it seared into my nerves and then seized hold of them.

My hand, of its own will it seemed, gripped the quill and pushed its point down into the ink bottle. And then pressed the quill to the first sheet of paper. My fingers moved, and I began to scratch out words that were not of my making. I knew then whose will it really was that caused me to write a message to myself so full of lies and hate:

My Dearest Valashu,

This will be my last letter to you. Time, as you must know, is running out. The world turns, and carries us both toward that moment in time that the diviners have long told of. Soon, all debts will be settled and justice meted out. The Great One, the Marudin, will rule the stars. The golden future will open before us.

You still must wonder at your part in the new ordering of the world. You have proved yourself many times, a murderer. How few months has it been since you took the life of my son? And then burned my beloved daughter to her death?And now the blood of Karabuk's and Galda's finest soldiers, in all their thousands, stains your hands. What shall be the fate of the one who led his henchmen to murder them?

Shall I mete out murder in recompense? I shall, I shall: every one of the men you incited to wreak such slaughter upon my dutiful soldiers shall be put to the sword or crucified. The other Valari will not come to your rescue. I have given them diamonds that they might reflect upon my unbreakable word of friendship — and my adamantine resolve to punish my enemies. Do you think King Waray, or even King Mohan or King Hadaru, will risk seeing the children of their lands mounted on crosses? Did you really hope that they paid heed to the desperate dreams of Valashu Elahad?

Know that, on your account, I have already punished the Trians. The city fell to my armies five days ago; but too many of its subjects took up swords in secret against me. The blame for their rebellion and their chastening falls upon you. You, who brought the Lightstone into their city and claimed to be the Maitreya. You incited their illicit hope and turned their sight away from the true Maitreya. Lord Morjin, they should address me, the Lord of Light. After today, they shall. For I have burned Tria to the ground, and the light of this conflagration shall be seen across Ea as a signal of the future: those who stand against me shall be utterly destroyed, along with all they possess. And their ashes shall be the fertile soil out of which will grow a new civilization and a new order for all who remain alive.

Many, however, in all righteousness, must be sacrificed to bring about this new world. The grandfather of the woman you think you love has called for the Sarni tribes to take up arms against me. I shall tear out Sajagax's liver with my own hands and feed it to my hounds; his head I shall mount on a pole. Thus to those who have let Valashu Elahad incite them to defy me! Atara Ars Narmada, you will want to know, has taken on the title of Chiefess of the Manslayers. She shall soon be slain by one who is much more than a man. The last time I had this vixen under my thumb, I took her eyes; this time I will flay her alive and make a cloak of her skin. Tell me, Valashu, will you want to clasp her close to you then?

As for the Hajarim stave whom you harbor, he is a false Maitreya and an abomination who keeps the true Shining One from using the Lightstone — and therefore keeps the world in darkness. I shall punish him above all others, except yourself. I swear to you that you will live to see him crucified. And his agony shall become yours, multiplied a thousandfold.

Even as my fingers forced the quill to form these hateful words, I tried to command myself to stop writing. I could not. I sweated and ground my teeth and fought against the burning spasms of my muscles. The Ahrim now seemed to have seized control of my arm and most of my body. I could not stand up away from the table, even though I trembled to flee from my tent. I could not even draw my sword to cut off my own hand and the stream of lies that poured from the quill in swirls of black ink. All I could do was to stare down in horror at what I wrote:

Do not think that what I have done and still must do has not caused me infinite suffering. But it is you who have made me do it. Have I not said before that our fates are bound together as one? And that you and I are as brothers?

True, we are brothers who have come to hate each other. But joined to hate, as left hand to right, is always its opposite; can you deny that we have developed a terrible affection for each other, as well? Row much poorer would the world be, I wonder, if Valashu Elahad had not come forth as the greatest of evils that gives birth, in bitter opposition and war, to the greatest of good? And how much less a man would you have been, you should wonder, if I hadn't sought to end your cursed life at every turn?

And so it is from my great affection for you that I will make this pledge: when at last you are defeated in battle and you are brought before me, I shall not have you crucified. A murderer you are, and you do deserve death, no man more so. But since you have already murdered your own soul, what more can the Red Dragon do? Only this: you will live, even as you live at this moment, transcribing my message to you. You shall serve me, all the days of your life. I shall not permit you to take your own life. Is it not fitting that he who has opposed me the most strenuously should be made to write down my words and then to proclaim them to all the world? You shall be my herald, Valashu. My most beloved ghul. Men will listen to you. And they will fear you, even as they do me, for you will take up the hammer and nails and crucify my enemies as if they were your own. And together we shall bring peace to the world.

Please reflect on this as you write on and on into the night. Do not lament that you once possessed a will of your own; it has only betrayed you and all those you loved. Your fate is to serve, as we all must. The world has far more need of you as its subject than as a would-be Maitreya and a King of Kings,

Faithfully, Morjin, King of Sakai, Lord of Ea and Lord of Light

In coming to the end of this despicable letter, I hoped that the Ahrim — or Morjin — would let go its hold upon my hand. But then I gripped the quill even more tightly. With my left hand, I reached out to pull another sheet of paper from the stack before me.. I did not know what additional words Morjin might wish me to transcribe. A confession of my guilt as to the butchery of the Galdans and Karabukers? Denunciations of my friends and the captains of my army, accompanied with their death sentences? Or perhaps a credo proclaiming a new purpose for the Valari people in pledging their swords to the true Maitreya? Whatever Morjin wished me to write, I fought against his distant hand with every nerve fiber in my body and all the strength of my own. Sweat poured in rivulets down my face and neck and soaked into my tunic, and every muscle in my body quivered as with an over-tightened bowstring. I could not lift my finger a hair's-breadth away from the quill; I could scarcely keep my mind thinking those thoughts that I wished it to think.

And then I heard someone enter my tent and come up beside me. Although I could not turn my head to see who it was, I felt his presence as a fresh, sea wind that drives away the stench of death after a battle. A hand, long of palm and with delicate, tapering fingers, laid itself down on top of my hand. Immediately, I felt the cold burning through my muscles leave me. The Ahrim seemed to vanish along with it, like smoke into the sky. I finally looked up to see Bemossed gazing at me.

I would never know how he had managed to arise out of the catalepsy sickening him. Had it been, I wondered, through the Master Juwain's healing arts or the strengthening virtue of the Great Gelstei that the other masters of the Seven wielded? Had the goodness of Liljana's soup finally found its way deep into his body or one of Alphanderry's songs called to his soul? Or had Estrella's quiet but fierce love awakened him? He did not speak of this to me. Although he seemed weaker and more tired than ever in his flesh, a fire had come into his soft eyes. I sensed a terrible resolve burning through him and a vast will to make this be. 'Valashu,' he said to me, 'I must speak with you.'

I drew my hand out from beneath his and stared at it. I said to him, 'You have driven away the Ahrim!'

With great sadness, Bemossed shook his head. 'No, it was not I–I have no power over that thing.'

'But it id gone!' I said, flexing my flngers. 'You do have power over it!'

'No,' he told me with a shake of his head. 'Only power over you.'

He smiled at me, but there was no joy in him, only oceans of pain. Then he added, 'No, that isn't right, either. I have no power over you. But I can help you to be free.'

At this, I dropped the quill onto the new sheet of paper. It left scrapes of black against white.

'I am free,' I told him. 'Free from that evil thing.'

Bemossed bowed his head at this, and his smile grew deeper, 'That is good, friend. But the question that we should ask ourselves is not what we are free from. Rather, it is what are we free for?'

'Surely,' I said, reaching out to grasp the hilt of my sword, 'we are free to make our fate. Or, at least, to meet it bravely.'

'You would meet Morjin, wouldn't you? And his army?'

'They have burned Tria!' I told him, looking down at the letter that I had been forced to write. 'If Morjin tells true, they have done this terrible thing. Now he will march on the Nine Kingdoms to do the most evil work of all!'

'Then you will not turn back from the road that you march down?'

'You know what I dream — how can I?'

'And you know what I dream, too,' he told me. 'And so how can I watch men slaughter men ever again? How can I, Valashu?'

That was all he said to me that night, and for many days after that. In the morning, while everyone went about the business of breaking camp, he took up his post on the east slopes of Magda overlooking the sea. He stood watching as I led the Meshian vanguard out from between the hills onto the corpse-strewn beach. Then came Lord Tanu at the head of our foot warriors, and Lord Tomavar, and then the Kaashans in their masses of knights and glittering columns. True to King Talanu's wishes, the Kaashans had acclaimed Prince Viromar as their new king. That morning he rode beside me so that we might hold council as we marched north up the great highway of the beach. His standard, showing a white eagle against a blue field, flapped and cracked in the stiff wind blowing off the sea. The great noise of our army — the snorting horses, creaking wagons and jingling bells — drove away most of the gulls working at the fallen Galdans and Karabukers. I did not know until the last if Bemossed could bring himself to join us on our march. But as I led my thousands of men toward the Pillars of Heaven to the north of the beach, I looked back to see Bemossed come down from his post and mount his horse. Then he galloped forward to rejoin Liljana, Daj, Estrella and Alphanderry riding behind the vanguard.

I was the first of the Valari to pass between the great black monoliths rising up toward the sky. Then came Viromar Solaru, now King Viromar, and the rest of our army. I did not know if these strange rocks held any magic or if marching across King Talanu's grave might inspirit my warriors. I prayed, however, that my army might somehow gain invincibility and go forth toward the greatest of victories.

Abrasax, looking back at the devastation of the beach, his face all gray and grave, spoke only these words to me from the Book of Battles: '"From out of the darkest dark, the brightest light. From the worst of evil, the greatest of good."

For all that day and part of the next we journeyed north across the hardpacked sands of the beaches of Delu's southern coast. Then, at a point where the coast slanted off northeast toward Delarid, we turned northwest to cross Delu's lowlands and cut the Nar Road some fifty miles away. Morjin, I thought, would leave a burning Tria behind him and march down the Nar Road from the opposite direction, perhaps to attack the Nine Kingdoms through Anjo and Taron. Our journey to the Seredun Sands had taken the Meshian and Kaashan armies far afield, and we had need of haste if we were to keep Morjin's soldiers from ravaging across the Morning Mountains and destroying the Valari armies one by one. My hope was that when we passed into Athar, the Valari kings would begin to join us, one by one. And then inevitably, somewhere, we would meet Morjin in a great battle where the Valari would once again fight together as one.

It took us three days of tramping through some rich farmland to reach the city of Nagida astride the Nar Road. The umber foothills of the eastern ranges of the Morning Mountains rose up ten miles to the west of Nagida's red brick buildings. To the east, a hundred and seventy miles down the Nar Road, lay the white stone city of Delarid and King Santoval's magnificent palace, said to be the second grandest on all of Ea. I had sent an invitation to King Santoval, requesting that he lead his army forth and meet up with mine at Nagida. As his men would have a longer distance to cover than would mine, I was prepared to wait some days to welcome Delu's eighty thousand soldiers to our great purpose of defeating Morjin.

'He won't come,' Maram told me for the twentieth time as we made camp. 'He hates to leave the company of his concubines.' 'He must come,' I told him. 'I know he will come.' King Santoval's army, however, true to Maram's prediction, never made the journey from Delarid, nor did King Santoval himself. In his place, he sent an envoy, Prince Adamad, a cousin of Maram. Prince Adamad, a large, florid-faced man wearing jeweled rings on seven of his fingers, rode up to our encampment along with half a dozen others of his retinue. He dismounted in front of my pavilion, and made a great show of bowing to me and my battle-hardened captains. In a voice as smooth and sweet as orange oiljtee called out to me: 'King Valamesh the Victorious, Champion of the Tournament at Nar, Hero of the Great Quest, Guardian of the Lightstone! — know that my lord, King Santoval Marshayk, sends his greetings! And his everlasting gratitude for your valor and that of your men in defeating the invaders from Galda and Karabuk! You have done Delu a great service! It shall never be forgotten! In recognition of your deeds, King Santoval has created a new honor just for you: that Valashu Elahad shall ever after be known as the Friend of Delu and Savior of the Realm!'

So saying, he presented me with a golden wand set with emeralds fend topped with a cut diamond as large as a horse's eye. Wings, like those of an eagle and covered with diamond dust, projected out from the sides of the wand. It was a gaudy thing of great value but little beauty. I stood holding it and looking at Prince Adamad.

'Please convey my thanks to your lord for this,' I said, squeezing the wand. 'But it would be an even greater honor to see King Santoval again — and to march with the king and his men to war.'

Prince Adamad's face seemed to lose a little of its color. His smile lacked warmth as he said to me: 'War is upon now, and all free men from all the Free Kingdoms must do all that men can do to throw back our enemy.'

'Good!' I called out. 'Then when can I expect King Santoval to join us here?'

'Unfortunately, he is ill, and so he had to send me in his place.'

I looked at Master Juwain, waiting nearby, and I said, 'What ails your king? Perhaps we can be of help.'

'Oh, it is just the flux, and nothing that our own healers can't cure. But it will keep my lord from taking the field for some time.'

'But we haven't much time!' told him. 'The Red Dragon has burned Tria! We must march west to meet him, and soon. If King Santoval is too ill, is there another who would lead the army here?'

Prince Adamad cast me a long, hard look from beneath his heavily-lidded eyes. He looked even harder at Maram, standing next to me.

'Prince Tymon commands the army in the king's absence,' Prince Adamad said. 'But I must tell you that he has been forced, from strategic necessity, to keep the army close to Delarid.' I stared right back at him and said, 'Please tell me why.' 'Why, in case the Galdans and Karabukers return. Our diviners believe that more armies might be summoned from Galda.'

At this, Kane stepped forward. I felt him restraining himself from grabbing Prince Adamad's jeweled tunic and shaking him. 'Return, ha! There's no one left to return. We destroyed our enemy nearly down to the last man!'

'So it is said,' Prince Adamad coughed out. He looked at Kane as he might an uncaged tiger. 'But the Red Dragon seems always able to summon up new armies. King Santoval has determined that Delu can be of greatest service to the Free Kingdoms — and of course, to the Valari — if we guard the gateway to the west and prevent any of the Red Dragon's armies from marching on your rear.'

He looked at Lord Avijan and then Lord Harsha, whose single eye seemed to shine upon Prince Adamad like a star. The prince smiled with much nervousness at Lord Tomavar, Lord Tanu and King Viromar, who watched him with the concentration of a falcon. Now it came Maram's turn to confront Prince Adamad. He said to him, 'If you believe what you just told me, you are even more a fool than my father — and he is more a coward than I had thought possible!'

Maram's words failed to chasten Prince Adamad, or even embarrass him. He drew himself up stiffly, and with the relish of nastiness declared to Maram: 'You have no father, now. You wear diamond armor and the sword of a Valari knight; you have given your allegiance to a Valari king. Where the Valari march, you will march as well. And where they fall, so will you. King Santoval will make no prayers over your grave.'

'So be it,' Maram said. I could feel him holding back tears — of anguish and rage. 'But at least I will lie in the company of men.' Prince Adamad made no response to this, nor did any of the other Delians in his retinue. Then Maram shouted at them: 'Is there no one of our land who will fight?'

Prince Adamad said nothing to this, either. Then he bowed to me and told me, 'My lord and all of Delu wish you well on your journey. King Santoval will send provisions to speed you upon it. The Savior of the Realm will always have Delu's blessings.'

He bowed once again, then mounted his horse and rode off with the others of his embassy. I stood watching them disappear down the road to the east. I gripped the golden wand of victory that King Santoval had sent to me. Then I turned in the opposite direction and said to King Viromar: 'It seems that those who should have been our allies have abandoned us. Will Kaash still march with Mesh?'

Prince Viromar. whose face seemed harsher than that of an eagle, smiled and told me: 'To the end of the earth, if that ts our fate. It will be as that fat prince said: we Valari will march together.'

I, too, smiled grimly. Then I cast the golden wand down to the dirt at my feet and clasped King Viromar's hand.

It was our fate, however, that the Delians did not completely desert us in our time of need. Just before nightfall from the north, a renowned Deilan warrior known as Prince Thubar led five hundred mounted knights and three thousand foot soldiers into our encampment. Prince Thubar, a great bull of a man and yet another of Maram's innumerable cousins, met with King Viromar and my captains and me outside my pavilion, where the wand of triumph still lay on the ground. Prince Thubar looked down at it, and said, 'I had heard that King Santoval ordered a victory baton made. And that he has betrayed you, King Valamesh. But you might, even so, wish to keep the baton in recognition of your men's sacrifice for Delu and your great victory. My countrymen, across our land, know of what you did, and we do honor you. Those who would not be made cowards by their king have come here with me in proof of this honor, that we might pledge our swords to your cause.'

So saying, he drew out his single-edged sword, only slightly less long than a kalama. I bowed my head to him, and pressed my hand to the flat of his blade. I picked up the golden wand. Then I walked with Prince Thubar out to the edge of the encampment where he had ordered the Deilan cavalry and infantry to draw up in neat ranks and columns. The Deiian knights wore a good mail armor reinforced with steel plate; the infantry, though, had only thin sheets of bronze sewn to padded leather to protect them. I wondered at the fighting quality of these men. But I could not doubt their spirits, for they stood here not only in defiance of Morjin but of their own king.

'You must know where we march,' I told him, 'and how desperate is our hope of victory.'

Prince Thubar only smiled at this as if I had suggested to him a particularly challenging game. His hand swept out toward his small army, and he said, 'We are all desperate men — as are all who know what the Red Dragon will do to Delu if you fail.'

'We must not fail,' I told him. 'But even if we defeat our enemy, will you not find it dangerous to march back down this road again? Will not King Santoval regard your pledge to me as treachery and rebellion?'

'It is no treachery,' he told me, 'to serve one's lord by fighting that lord's enemy, even if he has foolishly forbidden it. And as for rebellion, if ever my men and I do return home, King Santoval would incite open revolt in trying to punish those who risked their lives for Delu.'

I nodded my head at this, then smiled. 'All right then — you shall march with the Valari, and let no one say that the Delians are afraid of Morjin!'

We clasped hands at this, and then invited Prince Thubar to take dinner with my captains and me in my tent. As we made our way back toward the center of our encampment, with its many cooking fires sending up smoke plumes into the sky, Kane took me aside. And he said to me, 'Three thousand foot and half a thousand knights this Delian prince brings us — some will count us fortunate for adding to our army, eh? But how many of them have made secret vows to the Order of the Dragon?'

'None, we must hope,' I told him. 'I trust Prince Thubar — and his judgment of his men.'

'Would you stake everything on such trust? If an assassin fell upon you or Bemossed, then. .'

He lapsed into silence. His black eyes seemed to gather up the darkness of the falling night.

'Once,' I said to him, clapping my hand against his shoulder, 'you told me that you were an assassin of assassins. With you by my side, I will have no cause to fear any of Prince Thubar's men. Nor even Morjin's.'

Kane smiled, showing his long, white teeth. 'Still, it is a chance.'

'It is,' I agreed. 'But too much caution, now, will be worse than too much audacity.'

Kane, I sensed, must have agreed with this, for he turned to stare at Prince Thubar's soldiers as if defying any of them to move against me.

In the morning, we began the march across the eastern range of the Morning Mountains. The white peaks pushing into the sky ahead of us did not rise so high as those of the White or even the Crescent Mountains. Even so, they were steep and rugged, blanketed in thick forests, and the passage through them might have proved arduous if not for the ancients who had built the Nar Road. This band of brick and stone wound through valleys and around the sides of mountains at an easy grade for most of its miles; it spanned gorges and rivers in great, arched bridge, that still stood in good repair after many centuries. It made me wonder at the glories of the past ages; what would it be like, I asked the wind blowing off the glaciers above me, if all roads on Ea could be made as well as this one, and connect every realm to every other in a free passage of people, goods and knowledge?

For ten days, the men of Mesh, Kaash and Delu and our thousands of horses pounded up the road while our wagons' iron-rimmed wheels ground on and on. Little of Soal's heat found its way into these heights. It rained often, and twice great storms seemed to come out of nowhere and shake the very mountains in lightning flashes and earsplitting cracks of thunder.

My warriors' spirits held good and true. At night over blazing campfires, Meshians mingled with the Kaashans without quarrel and both armies of Valari welcomed Prince Thubar's Delian soldiers with politeness if not a quick and easy warmth. Too many times in the past, when Delu had been strong, we Valari had had to throw back the invading forces of one ambitious Deilan king or another. Memories could no more easily be expunged than ink set into white paper. Still I thought, new memories could be written. Toward this end, I invited Prince Thubar to sit at my table during our councils, and for my Valari warriors to share food and song with the Delians. I marveled at the capacity of these strangers for feasting and drinking, laughing at crude jokes and weeping at sentimental stories — and then being able to rouse themselves from their beds after staying up half the night throwing dice. Master Juwain reminded me that different peoples practice different ways, and I thought that two peoples could hardly be as different from each other as the Delians and the Valari. The ways of these effusive, sensual men were completely at odds with those of the Morning Mountains, but we would march together with a single purpose — and fight side by side when the time came for battle.

Just before we reached the frontier to Athar, smallest of the Nine Kingdoms in size if not in deeds, two envoys sent from afar intercepted my army. Many of my men shook their heads in wonder at them, for they were Sarni warriors and women at that: Sonjah and Aieela of the Manslayer society. I had met them once in Mesh nearly two years previously: just before Morjin's armies ravaged my homeland. Now, as then, they had been sent bearing tidings.

I dismounted and walked with them away from the vanguard through a pasture at the side of the road. Kane came with me, and King Viromar and Prince Thubar — and others. Sonjah, dressed in steel-studded leather and wearing gold bangles about her heavy, naked limbs, seemed as barbaric as any Sarni man. So did Aieela, who was younger and slighter of build, though more fearsome in her aspect, for she glowered at men from out of a scarred face and would not deign to speak to them. Both she and Sonjah wore quivers full of arrows and gripped double-curved bows in their hands. They seemed awkward on foot, away from their horses.

Sonjah, tall and serious, stood before me and looked me straight in the eye without bowing. As with Liljana, she seemed to have been robbed of the ability to smile.

'Valashu Elahad,' she said to me. 'King Valamesh, as they call you now — greetings once again. We have ridden a long way to find you.'

'Greetings,' I told her. 'But how did you find me here? You must have set out on your journey before we turned north and west on ours.'

Sonjah's blue eyes danced with lights even if her mouth remained as stiff as an old piece of leather. Then she said to me. 'Atara, the imakla one, told that you would be coming up this road on this day. We Manslayers have chosen her Chiefess, She asked us to inform you of this.'

I inclined my head to acknowledge her service in making such a dangerous journey — for it is always a great chance for a Sarni warrior to brave the lands of the Valari. I did not, however, admit that I already had news of Atara's new honor. I thought it unwise to tell anyone except my friends of Morjin's letter to me.

'Is Atara well?' I asked.

'She is well enough.' Sonjah said. 'She recovers from a saber wound gained in battle with the Marituk.'

I fought to keep my heart from racing and the blood from draining from my face. I said, 'Then are the Manslayers at war with the Marituk?'

'Not yet. It was a skirmish only. The Marituk test the Manslayers' strength — and that of the Kurmak with whom we have allied.'

'Brave women,' I said, looking from her to Aieela. 'If you have allied with the Kurmak, then you have pitted yourself against Morjin.'

At this, Sonjah spat on the ground then shrugged her shoul-ders. 'It had to go one way or the other. Morjin has sent gold to each of the tribes or tried to. He will buy what allies he can, or win them through fear. But some remain unafraid.'

'The Manslayers,' I said.

Although Sonjah held her face expressionless, Aieela smiled savagely in her place.

'We, yes,' Sonjah told me. 'And Sajagax. He is a great warrior and a greater chieftain, perhaps the greatest Sarni since Tulumar — and I thought I would never say such a thing of a Kurmak. I might have hoped that we Urtuk would take the lead against Morjin, but my tribe remains divided, and so the honor falls to Sajagax and all those who would answer his call.'

'Then his call has been answered?'

Sonjah strummed her thumb across her bowstring, and nodded her head. 'It has, and the tribes gather to his standard.'

'Which tribes, then?'

'So far, the Adirii and the Niuriu. We expect the Danladi to ride soon. Perhaps the Urtuk beyond the Poru. And perhaps my people as well.'

It seemed strange to hear Sonjah speak of the eastern Urtuk this way, for I knew that her first allegiance must lie with the Manslayers and only secondly with the clans and kin of her homeland.

Lord Tanu, who stood next to me, cast his suspicious old eyes on Sonjah. He had led his warriors in more than one battle with the eastern Urtuk, and was not inclined to trust anyone from this tribe so readily.

'If the Sarni gather openly against Morjin,' Lord Tanu said, 'then Sajagax invites Morjin to move against him.'

Sonjah shrugged her shoulders again. 'What must be, must be.'

'But Sajagax,' I said, 'has no hope of winning such a contest! Most of the Sarni will side with Morjin. And the Red Dragon already marches at the head of an army hundreds of thousands strong.'

Sonjah pointed at the long line of warriors strung out on the road behind us. 'There march three armies, not so strong in numbers, but they are mostly Valari. And more Valari you will find in the lands through which we have ridden. Atara has spoken of this.'

Again, I felt my blood rushing through me. 'Has she foreseen an alliance of my people, then?'

'Who has not foreseen this. King Valamesh? But it is one thing to see it, and another to make it be. This, Atara says, lies in your hands. And in your heart.'

I stood breathing in the scent of grass as I gazed off across the pasture to the west. I said, 'We will make an alliance — and then we will march across the Nine Kingdoms to where Sajagax and the Sarni gather!'

My words caused Sonjah finally to smile. Her even, white teeth gleamed in the sunlight as she laughed out, 'Atara told that you would say that. Sajagax, too, has declared that you would not fail him. He has sent the call to every free kingdom in your name.'

'In my name!' I called out.

'In the name of King Valamesh. Sajagax knows that the Free Kingdoms will not come to the aid of the Kurmak and their allies, for the sake of Sajagax.'

'But will they come for my sake?'

'Sajagax says yes. That once, you nearly forged an alliance of the Free Kingdoms. And that now, if Sajagax believes in you, the free kings and all their peoples will have to, as well.'

I looked toward the west as the wind blew across my face. Sonjah turned that way, too, and when she gazed upon Bemossed standing in close on the grass nearby, her smile widened.

'Sajagax also says,' she added, 'that warriors from across the world will come to honor the true Maitreya.'

I heard the awe in her voice as she said this, and so must have Bemossed. After looking long and deeply at the deadly bow that she held, he walked off by himself farther into the pasture.

'A great battle we will fight, King Valamesh!' Sonjah said to me. 'You are the rightful Guardian of the Lightstone, and you will cut it from Morjin's hand! And then give it to the Shining One! It is said that the light of the Cup of Heaven will resurrect the dead!'

I felt sure that Bemossed overheard her speak these words, and that he doubted if the Maitreya, even wielding the Lightstone, could have such power. And that he remained resolved that no one should ever die for his sake, not even in one inevitable and final battle.

'Where,' I asked Sonjah, 'does Sajagax wait for the Sarni to gather?'

'Where the Rune River turns south toward the Snake. On the plain beneath the rocks of the Detheshaloon.'

Upon her pronouncement of this name, something inside me seemed to darken as of a sky during a storm. I felt a whirlwind tear through me and lightning split me open.

'The Detheshaloon,' I murmured. I gripped hold of my sword to give me strength. I knew then that this must be the place that Atara had seen in her terrible visions.

'We are to take you there, if you are willing,' Sonjah told me. 'Sajagax will be waiting for you there. And, I hope, Atara.'

The whole world, I thought, waited for the Valari to march to this killing plain in the middle of the Wendrush. I remembered Alphanderry's warning to me in the wood where the Ahrim had first struck; I thought again of Master Matai's calculation of a great alignment of planets and stars on the eighth of Valte. The whole universe, it seemed, waited upon a single, fiery moment when all time and history would be fulfilled.

'We are willing,' I told Sonjah, speaking for my captains and my warriors looking on from the road. 'Let us march to this Detheshaloon!'

At this, Sonjah clasped hold of my hand and smiled at me again. But her sunburnt face held no mirth or humor, only a grim acceptance of what the Sarni allied with Sajagax and the Valari must try to accomplish against the armies of the Red Dragon.