Diamond Warriors

Chapter 17

And march we did. Sonjah and Aieela were both glad to turn their steppe ponies around and to ride at the head of our armies west back toward the Wendrush. At a cup-shaped gap between two rounded mountains, later that day, we came to the pass guarding the frontier to Athar. As I had sent envoys ahead to warn King Mohan of my intention to lead my army through his realm, the Atharians stationed at the fortress overlooking the pass took no alarm from my thousands of knights and warriors. Even so, the Atharians seemed loath to let two strange Valari armies and a few battalions from Delu just march across their kingdom, no matter how noble our stated purpose. King Mohan resented our passage much more bitterly, as we discovered four days later.

Near the eastern reaches of Athar, in a rolling country of green pastures and orchards, King Mohan led the Atharian army forth from Gazu to meet mine coming up the Nar Road. His knights and warriors had donned their diamond armor and their silver ankle bells. He arrayed his cavalry and his battalions of foot in gleaming lines on either side of the road. To continue our journey as we had come, we would have to march straight between thousands of warriors pointing their long spears at us.

King Mohan sat on top of a white stallion, waiting along with his captains at the road's center. He, too, wore full battle armor, which included a great helm bearing a single black ostrakat plume. His golden surcoat gleamed with a great blue horse; a banner held by one of his knights displayed this emblem as well.

I rode forward alone to meet with him, as he did me. We stopped with our two horses facing each other across a couple of yards. King Mohan's small, compact body fairly trembled with a barely contained passion for strife. He was a hard man and sharp in his purpose, like a piece of flint chipped into the shape of an arrowhead. A terrible pride deformed his fine and noble features as he stared at me.

'King Valamesh,' his whiplike voice cracked out without pause for greetings or niceties, 'you have entered my realm without my leave, and that is an act of war.'

Some men take their measure of other men by the forcefulness with which their foes are willing to oppose even the most casual aggression. King Mohan, I thought, gave his grudging affections only to those who were willing to risk everything by standing up to him.

'It is an act of war!' I called back to him. I heard his captains behind him and his warriors lined up nearby draw in deep breaths in surprise at my words. 'As you know, we march to war against the Red Dragon and all who follow him. We cannot turn back! We cannot let anyone, not even the Valari's most fearless king, turn us back. And so it would have been dishonest to ask for your leave if we were not willing to accept your refusal. Your blessings, however, we do ask for. And even more, your warriors and their swords.'

King Mohan gripped his horse's reins in his hard, little hands as he stared at me for a long time. He finally looked away from me, at the thousands of warriors lined up for miles behind me. It would, of course, be just as disastrous for him to provoke a battle here as it would be for me.

'Any man,' he told me, 'who would go up against the Red Dragon has my blessings, for Morjin is a false king and a crucifier who should be punished for his crimes. I see that now. And so I will let you pass through Athar unhindered. I will give you grain for your army. The swords of my army, though, you may not have, for they are needed elsewhere.'

'No need in all the world, at this time, can be so urgent as defeating Morjin.'

'That has always been your will.'

'Not mine alone: it is the will of the world.'

'So you say. So you have always said, as you have always spoken of the world's fate as if it is your privilege to interpret it for others.'

'Morjin,' I half-shouted, 'has burned Tria! At this moment he marches down the Nar Road toward the Nine Kingdoms! What is your sword for, and those of your warriors, if not to fight him?'

'My sword,' he said, laying his hand on the hilt of the kalama strapped to his side, 'is for fighting my enemies. I have many.'

'No enemy is an enemy like Morjin.'

'Is Morjin my enemy? Or only yours?'

'A king might ask that question if he has been given diamonds and gold to deny the truth concerning such an enemy!'

At this, King Mohan's blood rose, and he drew his sword half an inch from its scabbard. His face knotted in fury as he shouted at me, 'Are you saying that I have taken the Crucifier's bribes?'

'Have you?'

'No! And a true king, if he be Valari, would not ask another king such a question!'

King Mohan trembled on the brink of drawing free his sword. I knew that my anger had driven me to wrong him. And so I told him, 'My apologies, King Mohan. I never thought that you, of all Valari, would accept such a tainted treasure.'

'You should not think that of any Valari. Not even King Waray would sully himself so. We know, now, who and what Morjin really is.'

'If you know this, then why not join with us?'

'You mean, join with you. Your purpose has not changed, has it, King Valamesh? You would still be warlord of the Valari.'

'I would have us make an alliance, yes. Can you not see that is our only hope?'

'I can see well enough,' he told me. He looked past me toward the knights and my friends in my army's vanguard; I turned to watch him meet eyes with Bemossed. 'Once, you put yourself forth as the Maitreya. And now, another.'

'I did not know who the Maitreya was,' I said. 'I did not know what he is. I did not know… myself.'

King Mohan looked back at me. I felt his scorn battle with deeper emotions within him. 'Again, you hint at your fate. What title, if you vanquished the Red Dragon, would you take for yourself? King Valamesh, Lord of the Valari and Emperor of Ea?'

'I would take nothing except the lightstone so that I might guard it with my life, all the days of my life, for the Maitreya!' Once more, King Mohan's eyes flicked toward Bemossed and then back at me. His voice softened as he said, 'I think you speak the truth. Still, it is one thing to purpose to vanquish Morjin and another thing to do it.'

'We can vanquish him!' I called out. 'If the Valari unite, and go out on the Wendrush to meet Morjin as he marches — '

'If we did unite,' he snapped out, cutting me off, 'we should remain behind our mountains and force Morjin to battle on bad ground for his armies. We can kill half his men coming through the passes!'

'No,' I told him, 'we must answer Sajagax's call, and meet at the Detheshaloon.'

'Unite with the Sarni savages? Why?'

'Because that is where we must face Morjin. That is where the battle must be.'

That is where it will be, I thought. That is where our children's children will say it has always been.

King Mohan, who was more perceptive than people suspected, looked at me strangely. 'Again, as always, you follow your fate, don't you? Instead of the basic principles of warfare that your father must have taught you?'

'I remember everything that my father taught me,' I told him. 'And this above all: that in the end, a king must follow his own heart.'

King Mohan tried to hold my gaze, and I felt his black eyes burning. He turned his head to look at his warriors lined up in silence at the side of the road. They looked back at him with a great weight of devotion and expectation. I knew that they must have heard of the slaughter of the Galdan and Karabuk armies at the Seredun Sands.

'It must be said,' King Mohan finally told me, 'that your father taught you well. And that no one will ever doubt the heart of King Valamesh.'

I bowed my head to him, and said, 'Join us, then! No one ever doubted King Mohan's heart or those of his men — or their swords!'

King Mohan pointed at King Viromar, wearing the white tiger of the Solaru line and sitting on his horse ten yards behind me. He said, 'Kaash, as always, joins with Mesh.'

King Mohan, of course, had no love of his neighbor to the south. It had been only eight years since King Talanu had fought King Mohan and the Atharians to a draw at the Battle of Sky Lake. And long ago, in the year 841 of the Age of Swords, Athar had met its greatest defeat when King Sarjalad led an alliance of Kaash, Mesh and Waas to crush the invading Atharians under King Saruth at the Battle of Blue Mountain.

'And now Delians,' King Mohan said, pointing at Prince Thubar, 'march with Valari.'

I did not remind him that Athar, in its bid for glory and empire during the reign of King Saruth, had conscripted Delian levies into its- army. Who knew better than an Atharian Athar's long and bloody history?

'Why must things always be so complicated?' King Mohan spat out.

And I answered him, 'What is so complicated about free men joining freely to defeat a great evil?'

'But who is really free?'

'You are,' I told him. I pointed west, back along the road behind him. 'You have only to give the command, and your warriors will gladly follow you to where they must go.'

'But my warriors,' he said, pointing toward the north, 'must go that way.'

I turned to look along the line of his finger. To the right of the Nar Road, half a mile behind him, stood a small town and a much smaller road that ran across the rounded green pastures toward King Kurshan's realm of Lagash.

'It is fate,' he said, smiling bitterly at me. 'My fate, and Athar's.'

Athar's dispute with Lagash also went back to the Age of Swords — and perhaps farther. It had continued on and on through the centuries in one bloody war after another. Only thirty years before, both Athar and Lagash had accused each other of violating the rules of Sharshan: the formal battles that we Valari waged against each other as a lesser evil than total war. More recently, after I had failed to unite the Valari in Tria two years ago. King Mohan and King Kurshan had drawn swords on each other on their journey home.

'You come too late,' King Mohan told me. 'King Kurshan and I have already agreed to meet in battle ten days hence on the field of Arantu outside of Osh.'

'You must make a new agreement, then! I have sent envoys to King Kurshan. Surely once he has learned of what Morjin intends, he will join with us to oppose him.'

King Mohan shook his head at this. 'Your envoys will not reach him. It is said that he has gone to meditate in the mountains, and will speak with no one until the day of the battle.'

'Not even myself? If I were to ride up into Lagash?'

'Can you afford to waste so much time?'

I thought about this as I felt the world beneath me whirling around the sun. 'All right — then you must send envoys to King Kurshan informing him that you have marched with us. They will reason with King Kurshan when he comes down from the mountains.'

Now King Mohan slammed his sword back into his scabbard and called out, 'But King Kurshan will not reason! He will declare that Athar has once again broken Sharshan — then he will use that as an excuse to ravage and burn Athar!'

'He will not!' I called back to him. 'He is a man of honor. And he is Valari. When he learns that you have led your warriors out to meet Morjin, and why, he will follow with Lagash's army.'

'So you dream, King Valamesh. But how can I take such a risk? For my kingdom? For my people?'

'How can you risk letting Morjin crucify your people?'

King Mohan's black eyes filled a wild ferocity, like that of a leopard trapped by hunters on all sides. Then he snapped out: 'Morjin has never made a threat against Athar — and King Kurshan has never stopped making threats!'

'Morjin's very existence is a threat — you face none worse. Come! Help me to end it!'

I nudged my horse closer to his and extended my hand to him. But he shook his head and kept his hand clamped around the hilt of his sword.

'How can you ask me to do this?' he called to me.

Because, I thought, feeling the fire of his eyes, I know what is in your heart. And you know what is in mine.

At that moment, with my hand still held open in midair, with Bemossed looking on with all the ardor of the sun, I felt something deep and irresistible rend King Mohan apart. It was, I knew, the valarda. I had always sensed that this mysterious power lay waiting to be awakened in everyone.

'Come with me!' I called to him again. 'Let us throw down Morjin!'

All my warriors lined up behind me down the road seemed to echo my plea to King Mohan; so did his warriors, waiting to either side of us, in the silence of their eyes and the drumming of thousands of hearts. How could King Mohan turn away from this terrible but beautiful force?

'What is it you want?' I said to him.

'You know what I want!' he shouted back. 'You and yours go forth to fight the battle of the ages! And what a fight you will make! The minstrels will sing of you, for ages! You will lose, but so what? Your warriors will die, but that is war. In dying for each other, though, they will feel their spirits blaze like the stars, and they will know they are alive. And that, King Valamesh, is what I truly want.'

He removed his hand from his sword, and regarded it with his fierce, dark eyes. 'But it is what I may not have. Kings, if they love their lands, do not do as they want to do, but only as they must.' And what King Mohan thought he must do, as he had said, was to protect his land by marching off to the wrong battle. And his warriors must follow his will, even as he submitted himself to his own sense of honor and duty.

Two roads, north and west, lay before him, and as with King Sandarkan, I wanted to push out with the force called Alkaladur and nudge him onto the one leading to the meeting with Morjin. But I could not bring myself to commit this violence. I could only look at him and tell him what my father had once told me: 'King Mohan — your heart is free!'

'Yes,' he said with a seething bitterness, 'free to follow this will of the world that you have spoken of, but never my own.'

'No — always your own,' I said to him. 'Don't you see? In the end, they are one and the same.'

I waited for him to apprehend this, to feel it like a fire deep in his heart. Instead, he inclined his head to me and forced out: 'I am sorry, but I have given my word. I must go where I must. I wish you well on your journey, King Valamesh.'

I did not want to believe that King Mohan had refused to join with me; why, I wondered, had I failed yet again? There seemed nothing to do now except to continue on, as King Mohan had said. I could only hope that he would change his mind and follow after me.

And so I returned to my vanguard, and then led my army up the road between the assembled lines of King Mohan's warriors. As we marched past, the Atharians began striking their spears against their shields and crying out acclamations to honor us. I did not want to think that even King Mohan would punish them for breaking discipline that day.

Later, after we had passed through Gazu, with its many build-ings of ironwood and white granite, Master Juwain rode up beside me. He must have doubted the success of what I intended to accom-plish, as many in the columns behind us now must have as well. Even more, he must have questioned Abrasax's decision that the Seven should help me to wage war. But he refused to dwell in the dark. And so he pointed up the Nar Road and said,'There are other Valari kings.'

I clenched my teeth as I squinted against the late sun. Then I said, 'I came so close.'

'King Mohan,' he said, 'is a hard man, and even more a willful one. But it may be as you said, that in the end he will see where his will should lead him. Give it time, Valashu.'

'But that is just it, sir,' I said to him. 'I have no more time.' That, however, was not quite true, for some three hundred miles and many days of hard marching still lay between my army and the plain of the Detheshaloon. We crossed over into Taron early the next afternoon. At a bone-jolting pace, we passed through a rich countryside of apple orchards and farms growning barley and rye. We bought supplies fom the Taroners who were generous with their prices. Then, nearly a week after my meeting with King Mohan, we made our way up into the Iron Hills outside of Nar. This ancient city, largest in the Nine Kingdoms, spread out on the other side of these red hills to the north and west. Its many smithies cast a bitter black smoke into the air. The stinging of my eyes and the reek of hot iron made me instantly recall the three other times that I had journeyed to Nar, where King Waray for many years had plotted to make himself the greatest king and Taron the greatest kingdom in the Morning Mountains.

King Waray arranged for my army to encamp near Nar's northern outskirts, on the Tournament Grounds laid out on a greenway of many acres. Then he invited me and my friends, though not my captains, to a meeting at his palace, which was built on the side of a hill overlooking the city's southern districts. He invited as well King Viromar. Although Taron had never been particularly friendly with Kaash, King Waray must have wished to charm Kaash's new king, as he had so many others. He would be glad to have Kaash's help against Waas. for he had long had ambitions against King Sandarkan's domain.

King Waray received us on a lawn giving out onto a stream flowing down through a wild green past the palace. Some of us sat on rocks above the stream; others stood to appreciate the view of the city below. Three of King Waray's advisors joined us: Lord Jurathar, Lord Marjun. and the very tall and very muscular Lord Stavaru. King Waray also invited his only child: a daughter named Chantaleva. Many called her beautiful, with her jet black hair and finely sculpted features. I thought her too thin and too pale, as her delicate skin seemed almost bone white. She took a quiet pleasure in pouring the coffee that King Waray's attendants brought our to us, but she had few words to offer anyone.

King Waray stood with his back against a large rock with the rest of us arrayed around him. After I had told him of what had transpired since I had become king and marched with my army out of Mesh, he rapped his king's ring with its five diamonds against his coffee cup and said, 'King Valamesh — no man could be more worthy of succeeding your father, whom I felt fortunate to call my friend. If he is looking down from the stars, he would rejoice at your great victory in Delu, as everyone who knows of it must.' King Waray, a strikingly handsome man with a broad forehead and radiant eyes, spoke as always with the steel knife of his true thoughts and intentions concealed by a handkerchief of silk. His voice spilled out through his long, high nose as through a trumpet, even as it seemed to rumble and catch deep within his throat. It could be as sweet as sugared wine — and as deadly as poison.

'But it is a pity that you failed to persuade King Mohan to ally with you,' he continued. 'War, among our people, has always been the tragedy of our people. Athar's quarrel with Lagash couldn't help but lead to war, once you failed in Tria to bring the Valari into alliance.'

King Waray, of course, knew that I hadn't come up to his palace that day just to drink a good Galdan coffee and to appreciate the view of smoky Nar from these wooded heights. He had always resisted my leadership of the Valari — as he did now.

'That war could be helped,' I told him. I stood across from him with my boot pressed up against an exposed tree root. I looked very hard for his innate nobility within his gleaming eyes. 'King Mohan wanted to make alliance. And might have, but for his fear of King Kurshan.'

And how often, I wondered, had King Waray spoken to King Mohan of King Kurshan's design to build a great fleet of ships and so strengthen his realm in order to threaten King Mohan's? And all under the guise of friendship and averting war?

'That fear,' he said to me, 'is reasonable enough. For how long has King Kurshan been readying his army for an attack against Athar?'

'Only as long as he has feared that King Mohan would attack him.'

'That concern, too,' King Waray said, 'is not without foundation. I have reasoned with King Mohan many times, trying to find a way to make a permanent peace between Athar and Lagash.'

I tried not to smile at this. I said, 'You are a reasonable man.'

'I like to think I am. And that others speak of me that way, too.'

'Then can you not reason with both King Mohan and King

Kurshan one last time? I must march west with my army tomorrow, but if you sent fast riders east to Athar and Lagash, there is still time for you to help persuade their kings to put aside war and join us at the Detheshaloon.'

'To avoid their war, you mean,' he said, tapping his cup. 'Only to join you in making a much worse war against the Red Dragon.'

'What comes is not of my making.'

'Is it not? If you hadn't put yourself forward as the Maitreya, if you hadn't lost the Lightstone to Morjin, we might have made alliance two years ago and kept the Dragon from marching on the Nine Kingdoms.'

I tried to quiet the wild, hot rush of blood through my veins. I asked him: 'Do you mean, you might have organized the alliance and led if?'

King Waray took a sip of coffee, then waved his hand at my question as if shooing away a biting fly. 'Many have spoken of me as warlord of our people, but I think that it is perhaps less important who leads us than that we are led. I would see even King Hadaru take command of our armies, if that was the only way to stop the Red Dragon.'

My heart beat hard with a sudden surge. 'Then you will support an alliance?'

King Waray flashed me a brilliant smile, and said, 'I always have. It was always just a question of how to bring it about.'

'The way to bring it about is simple: send word to Athar and Lagash that Taron will not tolerate a war just beyond her border. Inform King Hadaru that you have joined with Mesh and Kaash. When Athar marches after us. so will Lagash. Then King Hadaru will have no choice but to lead the Ishkans out against Morjin. As Ishka goes, so Anjo will have to follow. Perhaps even King Sandarkan will be persuaded to make alliance as well.'

After I finished speaking. King Waray stood gazing at me. His counselors waited near him. ready to support him in whatever line of reasoning or debate he might pursue. I hated it that so

much should depend upon this one conniving king who had always positioned himself at the center of Valari affairs. And then King Waray said to me. 'You have given this matter a great deal of thought.'

'I have thought of little except Morjin's defeat for a long time.'

King Waray, like duelist evading his opponents swoid and then circling turned his attention to Abrasax. Master Matai and the others of the Seven. He said to Abrasax: 'We of the Nine Kingdoms had long heard that secret Masters ruled the Brotherhood, but until today I had thought this a legend. I have to say that it is strange to see Brothers supporting an Elahad as the Valari's warlord. What of the Brotherhood's rule forsaking wine, women and war?'

Abrasax's corona of white hair and beard gleamed in the sunlight as he said to King Waray, 'The spirit of our rule has led us to see that forsaking war is a good thing but ending it forever would be even better.'

'I see,' King Waray said, glancing at me. 'The Elahad's dream.'

He smiled at he turned toward Maram, who sat on a fat rock imbibing his coffee with too much relish. I wondered if he had somehow persuaded one of the attendants to add a little brandy

to it.

Then King Waray asked, 'But is not fighting a war to end war something like hoping for sobriety by drinking dry every cask of wine in the world?'

Before Abrasax could answer, Maram put in, 'Ah, well — there must be a bottom to everything.'

Abrasax only smiled at this. Then he looked at King Waray. He, too, could circle around an opponent, though the sword he wielded was not one of steel. He seemed to look down deep into King Waray, and he said, 'What ails you, lord? What has made you so cynical?'

King Waray's face darkened in anger, but he could not hold the Grandmaster's kindly gaze. He turned to Master Juwain, and said to him in a sweet but pinched voice: 'Am I to understand that your order has made you its Master Healer? Was that your reward for removing gelstei from the school here without my leave?'

A couple of years ago, King Waray had closed down the Brotherhood's school in Nar, in part because of Master Juwain's necessary indiscretion. It seemed that King Waray had never forgiven him this slight defiance — and, as it happened, for other things.

'We made Master Juwain the Brotherhood's Master Healer,' Abrasax said, 'because on all of Ea there is none more worthy.'

'Is there not?' King Waray said. He held his hand out toward Bemossed, sitting on a rock with Estrella at the edge of the stream. 'But what of this one that King Valamesh, with the Brotherhood's blessing, has now put forth as the Maitreya?'

Bemossed stood up to address King Waray, saying much as he | had before: 'I am no healer, as Master Juwain is, for I know little of his art. But sometimes, a kind of light that heals passes through me, and then — '

'And then,' King Waray said, interrupting him, 'I suppose people are miraculously made well. If true, you are too modest.'

'It is true,' Master Juwain said. 'His power far exceeds my own, and he would make a better Master Healer than I if he didn't have other work to do.'

'And you,' King Waray told Master Juwain, 'aspire to modesty, too. I believe that someday you will succeed, for you have much to be modest about.'

I could almost feel Master Juwain's misshapen ears burning with shame; King Waray's daughter, Chantaleva, looked at Master Juwain as she let out a little cough. She coughed again, this time harder, and Estrella got up and went over to her. Estrella's dark, quick eyes seemed to ask permission of the princess as she laid her hand on Chantaleva's chest.

Bemossed, upon noticing this, stepped up to Chantaleva, too, and rested his hand on top of Estrella's. Then he said to King Waray, 'Your daughter is cachetic — it is the white plague, isn't it?'

At this, Lord Jurathar looked at the immense Lord Starvaru in surprise, while old Lord Marjun studied King Waray's angry face. And King Waray shook his long finger at Master Juwain as he snapped at him: 'You promised, upon your honor as a healer, to keep this confidence!'

'But I have, King Waray!' Master Juwain said. 'I have told no one — not even my order's Grandmaster.'

Abrasax nodded his head to confirm this. It now came out that Master Juwain, on his mission to Nar two years before, had attempted something more profound than purloining gelstei, and that was the healing of Princess Chantaleva. As King Waray saw things. Master Juwain had failed. Even though, in truth, he had not failed completely.

'There is no cure for the white plague that I know,' Master Juwain said. 'Morjin bred this disease with the aid of a green gelstei two thousand years ago, and I hoped to use my gelstei to undo its hold upon the princess. I am sorry that I could not.'

'But it seems you kept the disease from progressing,' Abrasax said. 'At least, from progressing too quickly. How many can live with the white plague eating at them as long as the princess has?' Chantaleva's face seemed to grow even paler. I did not think that she had made her peace with her inevitable death. And from the look of adoration and dread with which King Waray favored her, I knew that his fear for his daughter was even greater than her own.

'My apologies,' King Waray said to Master Juwain with a real warmth flowing out of him. 'We must be grateful for the time that my daughter has had. But I would give a barrel of diamonds to anyone who would give her a long and happy life.'

I said nothing to this declaration, and did not question King Waray as to where these diamonds might have come from. At least, I did not question him, with words. But I thought that King Waray sensed my doubt of him, for his belly tightened up as if he had eaten tainted meat, and he fell back upon his habit of evasion and scheming.

'My daughter is dear to me, and I possess no greater treasure,' he told me. 'I would give my own life and claim upon my kingdom to see her made well, but if she were healed, well, then I would have to see her married and leave my house. A king, a father, can take consolation in this loss only by seeing his daughter wed to the most worthy of men, and one who could make her happy.'

He smiled at me, and his handsome face seemed as bright as the sun.

'A worthy man, indeed,' he continued, repeating himself as he looked at me. 'A great warrior who will sire grandchildren great not just in their prowess at arms, but strong and bright in their spirits. Such a son-in-law I have always longed for, one who might stand by my side in accomplishing the greatest dreams of our people.'

I looked right back at King Waray. I gathered that he was offering Chantaleva to me as a wife, only I would support him as the Valari's warlord.

'Of course, it is true,' he said, 'that my daughter might not be healed, and then she would have only a few more years to live, as might I. And so the rule of Taron would have to pass to the man I called my son.'

Now I noticed Chantaleva gazing at me — not in desire of me as a husband, I thought, but only from a gnawing wish that somehow I might help her to live long enough to see her children grow up healthy and strong.

'A true treasure,' King Waray said as he regarded his daughter with what seemed a deep love. 'The greatest of all treasures.'

I did not know what to say to him. Certainly I could not consider marrying Chantaleva, sick or well. But neither did I wish to antagonize King Waray with too blunt a refusal. It was then that Liljana, who had remained quietly seated all this time, came to my rescue by drawing his aggression toward her.

'Your daughter is indeed beautiful,' Liljana said to King Waray. She had her hand buried in her pocket, and I sensed her grasping her gelstei. 'Any king would be proud to have her as a wife. Or any prince. I am sure that Prince Issur looks forward to being just the son-in-law of whom you have spoken.'

King Waray's eyes grew dark with a quick and sudden rage. He must have realized that his deepest maneuvering had been exposed. He did not, however, attribute this uncovering to its correct source, for he turned from Liljana to Master Virang, and pointed his finger at him as he called out: 'You are the Brotherhood's Meditation Master, aren't you? Have you then turned from the most profound of arts to reading minds? It is said that the Brotherhood keeps the ancient blue gelstei, once used by the accursed witches of the Maitriche Telu.'

As King Waray glowered at Master Virang, Liljana managed to keep her face as still as a mountain lake. No hint of emotion rippled upon it.

'Many things are said of the Brotherhood,' Master Virang called out with his almond eyes twinkling. 'But I had never heard that we could read minds.'

'Then you must keep spies at your schools in Ishka. You should not heed too closely the rumors they report or share them with King Valamesh's companions and confidants.'

Liljana might have smiled at this, if she had been able to smile. Instead, she looked at King Waray and said: 'It is certainly no rumor that King Hadaru made battle against Taron in response to your conspiring against him — and that you lost this battle. And that King Hadaru was pierced with a lance and the wound still festers. As many do, you wait for him to die, don't you?'

King Waray looked at Liljana with a sudden new understanding — and dread. He must have finally suspected that she might be one of the witches he had just decried. 'And what do you know of this … Lady Liljana Ashvaran of Tria?'

King Waray turned all the considerable force of his person upon her in a blaze of his black eyes. But Liljana would be cowed by no man, and so she answered his question with another: 'What did it take for you to make the peace with Ishka?'

'Only the blood of too many of my warriors!'

'And also your promise of your daughter's hand in marriage to Prince Issur — is that not so?'

'Yes!' King Waray cried out. 'And your support of King Hadaru as the warlord of the alliance?'

King Waray took a step away from his rock, and he clapped his hands across his temples as he shouted at her: 'Witch! Mindreader! Leave me alone!'

But Liljana had not finished with this vain, manipulative king. She said to him, 'King Hadaru does not know that your daughter is ill, does he? No doubt you hope that he dies before this is discovered. And then, with your daughter wedded to the new and inexperienced king of Ishka, you would use all your influence to — '

'I should lead the Valari!' King Waray cried out. 'It is what I have striven for all my life!'

In the silence that fell over the rocks around him, the rushing of the stream seemed as loud as the ocean. King Waray stared at Liljana with such a deadly intensity that he did not immediately notice Bemossed pressing his hand against Chantaleva's chest. He turned just in time to behold the radiance that passed from Bemossed's hand into Chantaleva. I might have thought that it would take some days, at least, for this healing force to work upon her. Within moments, however, the color returned to her face, and she stood breathing more easily as she stared at Bemossed in awe.

'I am well!' she cried out. She bent to kiss Bemossed's hand.

'But how do you know?' King Waray asked, going over to her.

'I know!' she said. She clasped Bemossed's hand to her chest. 'There is no more pain here.'

And upon her utterance of this word, I felt a sudden new pain come alive within King Waray's chest.

'Maitreya!' he called out to Bemossed. He bowed his head, then declared, 'I shall give you two barrels of diamonds.'

'Thank you, King Waray,' Bemossed told him. 'But I would not know what to do with such wealth.'

'What is it that you want, then?'

In answer, Bemossed looked at me in a deep and painful silence.

'That, surely, must be obvious,' King Waray continued, answering his own question. 'You would see Valashu Elahad lead the alliance.'

'To lead it, yes,' Bemossed said. 'But not to war.'

'But war is nearly upon us. What will you do?'

'I will fight,' Bemossed said mysteriously. 'As all must fight.'

'I don't understand,' King Waray said.

But Bemossed did not enlighten him. He just gazed down at the city below us, where Nar's white Tower of the Sun rose up almost as high as the surrounding hills.

'What will you do?' I asked King Waray. 'Will you support: the alliance? And not just with words, but with your warriors and your own sword?'

King Waray stood considering this. Around him gathered Abrasax and the others of the Seven, who had their hands thrust down into the pockets of their robes. Though none of them looked at King Waray, I could sense their deep concentration upon him; I sensed as well that Master Juwain, and not Abrasax, guided the Seven in directing the power of their hidden gelstei at King Waray. 'I will support it!' King Waray finally said to me. 'Good!' I called it. 'Then who is to lead?' King Waray thought about this for a few moments. Then he said, 'When we Valari first came to the Morning Mountains, we made our homes in Mesh. Mesh has always been at the forefront of our affairs. And it was a Meshian, King Aramesh, who defeated Morjin at the Sarburn.'

He paused as he looked at me, and I waited for him to say more. Once, in the silver shimmer of my sword, I had seen that one, and only one, could unite the Valari. The wind flowing across the world from the west seemed to whisper his name to me.

'And that is why,' he went on, 'that this time, the king who leads us must not be from Mesh. We Valari have failed, too many times. Even Aramesh failed to defeat Morjin once and forever. I am sorry, Valashu Elahad, but the Valari will not follow you.'

For ages, I thought, the Valari had suffered two opposing impulses: to elevate Mesh and the Elahads as exemplars of all that was most truly Valari, and to tear down my kingdom and my family out of jealousy.

'They would follow me,' I said to King Waray, 'if you did. Will you?'

He stood straight across from me looking at me deeply, and I knew that he wanted to say yes. Something, however, kept him armored inside his ambition and pride as with a breastpiece made of steel plate. I knew that within my heart I held a sword that could cut it open.

Kane waited to my right with his hand poised near a very different kind of sword. His black eyes seemed to ask me if I wanted him to draw it and slay this recalcitrant king. 'How can I follow you?' King Waray said to me. I looked past him, down across Nar, where the green, wooded plain of Taron vanished into the west of the world. King Waray had spoken truly: I did have a dream, and I saw a way to make it be. But, always, men opposed me. And not just evil ones such as Morjin and the Red Priests of the Kallimun, but foolish kings such as Sulavar Jehu Waray. He had his own ideas for the world

and for himself. I knew that if only I could eliminate such men, I could accomplish the greatest of things. That, however, was Morjin's way, and too often, Kane's. I knew that I could never allow him to put King Waray to the sword. And neither could I use the true Alkaladur to destroy King Waray's will so that he would give his consent to what I desired. If I did, with him and with others, then soon I would kill my own soul and make myself like unto Morjin.

'How can you not help me to fight our enemy?' I asked him. If I could not wield the sword within me to rule King Waray, much less to slay him, then at least I could hold it before him like a shining silver mirror. And what might he see as he stood there gazing into my eyes? I thought that he, too, had a secret dream, which was to ally the whole world as one so that Chantaleva's children might grow up to pursue meditation and music and all the higher things. He would make a better world, cleansed of hideous diseases such as the white plague. He might, too, behold himself as I sometimes could: that his immense pride concealed a haunting sense of his basic flawlessness; that his refusal to tell an outright lie suggested a long-forgotten love of truth; that all his intrigues sprang from his quest for a deeper ordering of the world. I thought, too, that he might come alive to his own compassion and open himself to all the immense suffering around him — if only I could open myself to him.

'King Waray,' I said to him, holding out my hand, 'let us join our forces together!'

I felt his urge to reach out and press his palm against mine. Then, at the last, he looked away from me, down at the ground. And he said, 'Perhaps we should first wait to see if Morjin really does march his armies toward the Morning Mountains.'

At this, Daj jumped up from his rock to face King Waray. Daj usually had a great respect for rank, even that of false kings such as Morjin. Now, however, he shook his fist at King Waray and cried out, 'If you won't help Val, Morjin will win! What is wrong with you! How can you call yourself a king?'

For what seemed a long time, I stared at my empty hand. Then I pulled my arm back and closed my fingers around the hilt of my sword.

'This council,' King Waray said, glaring at Daj as his face flushed with anger, 'is over.'

He drew in a deep breath, then looked at me and added, 'You

should consider long and well before you take this boy with you to war. You should consider taking anyone, King Valamesh.'

He paused to regard Bemossed. 'Especially this man. He might really be the Maitreya.'

After that my companions and I, with King Viromar and the Seven, rode back down from King Waray's palace into Nar. At a tree-lined curve along the winding road, Daj pushed his horse up to me and asked: 'How can the Valari kings keep spurning you? How can they, Val?'

King Viromar, riding just behind us, had remained as faithful as anyone could be. He cleared his throat as he looked at Daj and said, 'Some of them, at least, must hope that now that Morjin possess the Cup of Heaven, he will leave the Nine Kingdoms alone.'

He fell silent for a moment, then added, 'They must think that Morjin's quarrel was only with Valashu Elahad.'

I smiled at this with great bitterness. I said, 'No, that is not why the Valari refuse me.' 'Why, then?' Daj asked. 'Because,' I told him, 'I broke their hearts.' I stopped Altaru and turned my huge warhorse around in the middle of the road so that I could speak with my friends. 'In Tria, we almost made an alliance. And so in coming an inch from a great dream, the Valari kings have had to tell themselves that it would have been a nightmare.'

But Master Juwain, for one, would not accept my condemnation of myself. He told me, 'You have not failed, Val. King Waray might yet come to his senses.' 'Do you really think so?'

Master Juwain nodded his head and said to me, 'King Waray suffers from a sad malady: he experiences the world and other people as does any other man. But because his heart chakra has beef blocked, he cannot feel anything of what he experiences very deeply.'

'And so,' Abrasax explained, Looking at Master Virang, 'we employed the great crystals to open all his chakras, and particularly that of the heart.'

I thought of Master Juwain using the dead Master Okuth's green stone on King Waray, and my heart warmed, slightly.

'All that happened today,' Master Juwain told me, 'might yet work a slow magic on King Waray. Give it time, Val.'

I ground my teeth together as I saw the moments of my life running out like grains of sand through an hourglass.

And then Maram, sitting on top of his big horse, turned to Liljana and accused her: 'You opened up King Waray like popping a cork out of a bottle! But you promised that you would never, without permission, use your gelstei to look into anyone's mind!'

'How many times have you broken your promise to forsake brandy?' she countered. 'When the need is great enough, exceptions must be made. King Waray needed to be pushed by the truth of what he has done. I thought it would save Val from pushing in his way, as he is loath to push.'

I did not know whether to thank her or to take her to task for what she had done. Kane, though, could not abide her violation of King Waray. He sat on his horse glaring at her, and I did not like the look that burned through his black eyes. 'But what shall we do now?' Maram asked. 'Since we haven't the strength even to consider going up against Morjin?'

I closed my eyes as I gripped the hilt of my sword. Then I told him, 'We will march on. If the warriors consent, tomorrow we will march toward Anjo and then cross over the mountains. And we will join with Sajagax and the other Saxni tribes.'

'And then?' Maram asked.

'We will wait — and hope for the magic that Master Juwain has spoken of.'

'You mean, hope for a miracle.'

I tried not to let my terror show as I forced myself to smile. And I said to him, 'There is always hope.'

As I turned my horse back around and looked out at the cloud-darkened sky to the west, I prayed that the words I had spoken would not prove to be a lie.