Lord of Lies

Chapter 14

I spent most of the next day in my tent with Asaru, tending his wound and recounting the events of the tournament, especially the sword competition which he had not been able to watch. With Master Juwain filling his torn body with the green gelstei's magic light, he seemed to gain strength every hour. By the time the following morning dawned clear and bright, Master Juwain felt confident of my brother's recovery.

'I've done all I can for Asaru,' he said to me as he took me outside. 'Now he'll have to heal of his own light — and by the One's grace.'

'Thank you,' I said to him as I looked off at the rising sun.

'And now we should go up to the school. With King Waray's prohibition, it might take many days to search through the thought stones.'

King Waray, even as I had feared, had forbidden Master Juwain to remove any artifact from the Brotherhood's sanctuary.

'We don't have many days,' I said to him. 'We should leave for Tria as soon as we can.'

With time pressing at us, Master Juwain and five others of his Brotherhood organized a little expedition to reopen their school in the hills above Nar. The Guardians and I joined them, for it seemed certain that the Lightstone would be needed to open any gelstei Master Juwain might find. To our numbers was added a company of Taron knights under the command of a Lord Evar. They would escort us to the school and make certain that King Waray's wishes were obeyed.

And so later that day we left Yarashan, Lord Harsha, Behira and Estrella behind with Asaru, and we rode out from the Tournament Grounds. With the fifty Taroners in the lead, we made our way through the smoky Smithy District up into the green hills overlooking the city. The Brotherhood school — a collection of old stone buildings spread out across the top of one of these broad hills — rose up before us as if the very bones of the earth had been exposed by wind and weather and the relentless wear of time. I liked the feeling of this ancient site. As with other Brotherhood schools, there was a quiet magnificence here and a harmony with heaven and earth that suggested an eternal quest for mysteries. The library formed the center part of the Brother's sanctuary. It was fronted by perfectly proportioned columns beyond which loomed its great wooden doors. Lord Evar, a tall man almost as gaunt and grim as King Sandarkan, drew forth a great iron key and made a show of formally unlocking these ancient doors.

While the five other masters went off to attend to various duties and the Guardians stood watch before the doors, Master Juwain showed Maram and me into the library. It was nothing so grand as the immense Library of Khaisham and collection of books that had perished in flames. But with its many aisles and shelves of musty, leather-bound volumes and manuscripts resting in the quiet beneath its great dome, I guessed that it held more books than all of Silvassu. Along its curved walls were many cabinets containing relics that the Brothers had rescued over the ages. Master Juwain, with a key that a Master Tavian had given him, approached one of these cabinets and unlocked one of its long, flat drawers. He slid it out halfway to reveal many opalescent stones which rested in pockets scooped into the wood. In front of each pocket was inscribed a number. Each stone ran with shifting colors that ranged from ruby to bright violet; each of them seemed nearly identical to the stone that Master Juwain had opened in my father's castle and which he now drew forth.

'Do you see?' he told Maram and me as he turned the stone between his fingers. 'It's as I said: there were too many to remove to Mesh.'

I looked deeper into the drawer and saw that there were ten rows of ten stones — or should have been, for near the back of the drawer, one stone was missing from the ninth row.

'But how did you choose this stone?' Maram asked him.

'By chance,' Master Juwain said. He tapped his finger against the three drawers below the opened one. 'These, too, contain gelstei believed to hold knowledge of the Lightstone. 1 had to pick one of them and test it.'

'Four hundred stones,' I said, shaking my head.

'Three hundred and fifty-three, to be precise,' Master Juwain told me. 'The fourth drawer is only half full.'

'Even so, to open and read all of them would be like reading as many books, wouldn't it?'

'Yes, but it may be that the knowledge in the stones is indexed and cross-referenced, as in the books of the better libraries. If so, then I might be able to follow a stream of knowledge to the: one we seek.'

'Any knowledge about the Lightstone, you should seek,' I said to him. 'About the Maitreya. Now, if you will, please begin.'

As in the great hall of my father's castle, Master Juwain used his varistei to prepare his head and heart for the task before him. Then I brought forth the Lightstone. Master Juwain set his thought stone back into its place in the drawer and removed another one. His gnarled fingers squeezed it tightly as he held it before the Lightstone. This time, he had much less trouble opening it. The Lightstone flared with a sudden radiance as the thought stone's colors seemed to catch fire. I saw these colors swirling in bright patterns in the black circles at the centers of Master Juwain's eyes. So intently did he stare at this little gelstei that it seemed he might never move again.

'I see, I see,' he whispered. And then, after some moments, while my heart beat quickly, he said, 'Brother Maram, please give me number nineteen.'

Without turning his head, he handed Maram the little stone, which Maram set back in its place before retrieving the one that Master Juwain had requested. He pressed it into Master Juwain's hand. And for what seemed a long time, Master Juwain stared at this thought stone, too.

'Number eighty-two!' Master Juwain finally called out. 'Third drawer!'

And so it went for the rest of the day and far into the night, Master Juwain calling for specific thought stones and Maram delivering them faithfully — even as I stood in front of Master Juwain holding up the brilliant Lightstone.

At last, Maram patted his rumbling belly and suggested that we should take our evening meal. Master Juwain then broke off his researches. He looked across the large, circular room at the blazing candles that he had only grudgingly permitted Maram to light. And then he told us, 'The thought stones were indexed, perhaps thousands of years ago. But the system has been lost — until today.'

He began to explicate this system but I held up my hand to stop him. 'Excuse me, sir, but we've little time. What did you discover?'

'Much less than we'd hoped, I'm afraid,' he said. 'That is, the thought stones do contain a great deal of knowledge. But most of this is recorded in the Saganom Elu.'

'Is there nothing new, then? Nothing that might be able to help us?'

'Only bits and pieces,' he said. 'Only hints.'

'Tell me, then.'

'Well, there this,' he said. 'There are passages indicating that the Maitreya is one who must make a great sacrifice.'

'Of his life?' I asked.

Master Juwain's news did not accord with the Saganom Elu's Book of Remembrance, where it was written that: 'The Maitreya will gain the greatest prize; he will reach out and take the whole world in his hands.'

Master Juwain shook his head and told me, 'No, I had no sense that the Maitreya must die for others, not exactly. Only that he must forsake some great thing.'

'Is it love, then? Marriage?'

'No, I don't think so. It has something to do, rather, with the Lightstone.'

I squeezed the golden cup that I still held In my hand. 'But the Lightstone was meant for the Maitreya. How, then, should he give it up?'

'I'm not sure he must. I'm not sure he can.'

'What do you mean?'

'Do you remember the passage from the Beginnings? ' "The Ughtstone is the perfect jewel within the lotus found inside the human heart." '

'A beautiful metaphor,' I said.

'Beautiful, yes — and perhaps something more.' Master Juwain gazed above us at the dome's clear windows that let in the light of the stars. 'You see, there are the infinities.'

'Sir?'

He looked back at me and showed me the thought stone. He said, 'This little gelstei is a finite thing, as is the knowledge it contains — as are all things. The One, of course, is infinite. But the Lightstone, somehow, is both.'

Now all of us, even Maram, stared at the golden contours of the Lightstone as if seeing it for the first time.

'And as with the Lightstone,' Master Juwain continued, 'so with the Maitreya. We know that he is the one who has a perfect resonance with it. There is a sense that in order for this to be so, he must sacrifice his finiteness — his very humanity.'

I gripped the Lightstone so tightly that it hurt my fingers. I shook my head because I did not know what Master Juwain s words could mean. I said, 'If only there was more.'

'I'm afraid that's all I gleaned from this first pass. But if I'd had more time.. '

His voice died off into the library's half-light.

'Yes?' I said to him.

'Well you see,' he said, 'there was one stream of recordings, more like a rill, actually, that I might have followed. A hint of a hint about some great store of knowledge concerning the Lightstone.'

I looked out the window at the great constellations wheeling slowly about the heavens. I said to him, 'We have all of tonight — and tomorrow, too, if need be. If you are willing, sir.'

The gleam in Master Juwain's luminous eyes told me that he was more than willing. When Maram groaned that we could not possibly go on without sustenance, I sent him to retrieve a loaf of barley bread and some goat's cheese from the stores that the Guardians had shared out for their dinner. And then, after we had eaten, Maram returned to retrieving thought stones for Master Juwain as our old friend set to work.

Thus we passed the rest of the night. As Master Juwain gained proficiency at opening and reading the stones, this strange business went more quickly. At times he called out the numbers of new stones so suddenly that Maram was hard put to replace the old one before drawing forth the new. He puffed and sweated as drawers slid open and slammed shut and the marble-like thought stones rattled in their wooden pockets. Finally, near dawn, Master Juwain gave back to Maram the last of a long sequence of stones. He looked at us and smiled. Although his eyes were red with weariness, he was almost hopping with excitement.

'I believe,' he told us, 'that there is a gelstei containing the true knowledge of the Lightstone. A gelstei unlike any other. It's called an akashic crystal.'

'That name is unfamiliar to me,' I said.

'Akashic is a word meaning "great memories". It seems that the knowledge contained in this crystal, compared to an ordinary thought stone, is as an ocean to a pond.'

I considered this as I gazed at the little stone that Maram had yet to put away.

'It may be,' Master Juwain continued, 'that the akashic crystal holds the wisdom of the Elder Ages.'

The ancient stones of which the library was made suddenly seemed small and cold. The Brotherhood school, built in the Age of the Mother, was many thousands of years old — almost as old as any building on Ea. And yet it was said that even this great span of time was really very little. As a year is to an age, so is an entire age of Ea to one of the Elder Ages, before Elahad and the Star People bore the Lightstone to earth.

'But how could it?' I asked. 'The knowledge that Elahad and his kindred brought with them perished with them. This is known. This you taught me, even when I was a boy.'

Master Juwain sighed and said, 'It would seem that some of what is known is known wrongly.'

'Then how do you know,' I asked, pointing at Maram's thought stone 'that the knowledge contained in this gelstei and the others, is true?'

'I don't,' Master Juwain said. 'It must be tested, as all knowledge and supposition must be. But it has been tested, many times, by the ancients who placed it there. And I have tested it against all that I know and have experienced, and through reason. There is a certain flavor to that which is fact and another to wild fancies.'

I bowed my head to him that this was so. I told him, 'If you believe it's true, that's good enough for me.'

'I believe that the wisdom of the Elder Ages was preserved. Somehow. And that, once a time, this akashic crystal did exist. The question is, does it still? And where might it be found?'

'Not in Khaisham, I hope,' Maram put in. 'When I think of all the books that burned there, the people, too … and the gelstei, so many, too many, too bad.'

For a moment, Maram lost himself in memories of that horrible night in which Count Ulanu the Cruel had ordered the destruction of one of Ea's greatest wonders. But Master Juwain, I saw, was looking toward the future instead of the past. His eyes were bright with dreams.

'It would seem,' I said to him, 'that you believe the akashic crystal does still exist. And that you know where it might be found.'

We smiled at each other then, and he said, 'Well, Val, I admit that here knowledge must yield to supposition. But late in the Age of Law, a Master Savon recorded that the akashic crystal was hidden away to keep it safe. There are verses that tell of this. Do you remember the famous one about Ea's vilds?'

I remembered very well the Lokilani's magic wood which Master Juwain called a vild and the verse that described it:

There is a place 'tween earth and time,

In some forgotten misty clime

Of woods and brooks and vernal glades,

Whose healing magic never fades.

An island in the greenest sea,

Abode of deeper greenery

Where giant trees and emeralds grow,

Where leaves and grass and flowers glow.

And there no bitter bloom of spite

To blight the forest's living light,

No sword, no spear, no axe, no knife

To tear the sweetest sprigs of life.

The deeper life for which we yearn,

Immortal flame that doesn't burn,

The sacred sparks, ablaze, unseen -

The children of the Galadin.

Beneath the trees they gloze and gleam,

And whirl and play and dance and dream

Of wider woods beyond the sea

Where they shall dwell eternally.

As I recited this well-known work, the words seemed to hang in the library's still air like dreams. Flick flamed brightly and whirled about to the verses' music. When I had finished, Master Juwain smiled at me and said, 'Very good. And very true, as we have seen. But someone — I couldn't determine who — rewrote these lines to tell of another Vild where the crystal must have been hidden. Listen:

There is a place 'tween earth and time,

In some secluded misty clime

Of woods and brooks and vernal glades,

Whose healing magic never fades.

An island in a grass-girt sea,

Unseen its lasting greenery

Where giant trees and emeralds grow,

Where leaves and grass and flowers glow.

And there the memory crystal dwells

Sustained by forest sentinels

Of fiery form and splendid mien:

The children of the Galadin.

And they forever long to wake,

To praise, exalt and music make,

Breathe life through sacred memories,

Recall the ancient harmonies.

Beneath the trees they rise and ring,

And whirl and play and soar and sing

Of wider woods beyond the sea

Where they shall dwell eternally.

'Do you see?' Master Juwain said. 'If Kane told true, we know that there are at least five Vilds somewhere on Ea.'

'Kane told true,' I said with sudden assurance.

'And if these verses tell true, there must be a lake somewhere in the middle of one of Ea's grasslands, and an island in the middle of it.'

'Why a lake?' Maram asked. 'The Vild we discovered in Alonia was in the middle of the forest, and yet the verses described it as "An island in the greenest sea".'

'Because the new verses,' Master Juwain said, 'tell of a grass-girt sea. That can only be a lake.'

'Metaphors,' Maram grumbled as he yawned. 'Poetic fancies.'

'No, I think not,' Master Juwain said. 'There is a certain precision here. The maker of the verse might have written of a grassy sea, mightn't he? Why grass-girt, then?'

'Ah, who could ever know?'

Master Juwain smiled at Maram's crabbiness, then said, 'I once read of an invisible island in the middle of a lake. Until tonight, I thought that story was a fancy.'

Something sounded deep within me and I looked at Master Juwain through the candles' flickering light. 'And where was this lake, then?'

'At the edge of the Wendrush. Where the grasslands come up against the curve of the Morning Mountains, above the Snake River.'

I nodded my head, for I had once seen this lake on a map. 'That's Kurmak country I perhaps Atara has finished her business in Tria and has returned there.'

I gazed out the windows at the stars in the sky to the west. It seemed that, just then, these bright bits of light could be no brighter than my eyes.

'Val!' Maram half-shouted. 'I hope you're not thinking what I think you're thinking!'

'I must know,' I said to him.

'But Val, why do we need to go looking for this Vild and some old crystal? Almost everyone already believes you to be the Maitreya. And when we reach Tria, I'm sure you'll prove this to everyone's satisfaction.'

'I must know, Maram,' I said again. 'Before we reach Tria, I must truly know.'

I drew my sword then and held it straight out toward the west. Once this bright blade of silustria had pointed me toward the Lightstone; now it pointed me toward my fate.

'This lake,' I said, 'lies along the way to Tria.'

'A way without roads,' Maram grumbled. 'A way through the Kurmak's lands and then through unknown parts of Alonia.'

'The Kurmak will give us safe passage,' I said with sudden certainty. 'Sajagax will. He is Atara's grandfather, and he'll have to offer her friends hospitality.'

For a while, as dawn's red glow brightened the windows, we stood among the books and little gelstei telling tales of Sajagax, the Kurmak's famous chieftain. We debated whether to seek the akashic crystal in his lands. Master Juwain seemed willing to risk his life — if not the Lightstone itself — in discovering what knowledge the crystal might contain. I held that we would face risks along whatever road we took, and of what use would the Lightstone ever be if we never learned its secrets?

And so in the end even Maram agreed to this new quest. Master Juwain locked the drawers containing the thought stones and returned the keys to Master Tavian. Then we rejoined the Guardians where they waited in the cool air in front of the Library's doors. It fell upon me to tell them what we had decided. Only a few of them seemed dismayed at the prospect of venturing into the Wendrush. But Baltasar — and many others — counted it as a reasonably safe journey. They reaffirmed their allegiance to me as Knight of the Swan. In the end, as Baltasar said, it was upon me to decide whither the Lightstone should go.

We rode back down to the Tournament Grounds in the quiet of a lovely morning. Dew sparkled from the blades of grass by the road, and bright birds chirped all along the way. It was good to see our familiar pavilions flapping in the breeze. The news that the Guardians would be riding through the Wendrush spread quickly through our encampment — and then through the whole of the Tournament Grounds. Lord Lansar Raasharu approached me to request that he accompany us on our way toward Tria, and I could not refuse him. Estrella, at first, clung to my waist, and then followed me about like a lost puppy for the rest of the day. Finally Lord Harsha took me aside and said to me, 'She refuses to return home with our other countrymen. The girl is half-mad, it seems, and is determined to remain with you.'

'Yes, it's impossible to dissuade her,' I said. 'And perhaps there's no need. She can ride well enough now to keep up with us.'

'You shouldn't be taking her on what might be a dangerous journey, Lord Valashu. But since you're determined, yourself, it should be said that a young girl should not go forth alone in the company of a hundred and twenty men.'

'What do you propose, sir?'

'That she rides with Behira and me, and sleeps in our tent as she did along the way to Nar.'

'Very well then,' I said. 'But would you take your daughter into dangerous lands?'

Lord Harsha sighed and rubbed his crippled leg. His single eye fastened on me like a grappling iron, and he said, 'It would seem that Behira is determined, too. We're a determined people, aren't we? The Wendrush might prove dangerous. But Tria certainly will, for Sar Maram, who seems determined to drink or dally his way to his doom. And that is why we, who still love him, must go with him to protect him.'

'Oh, it's a matter of love, is it?'

'Indeed it is. My love for my daughter and my hope for her happiness, in whatever strange soil it might take root.'

'My friend will no doubt be pleased with your devotion.'

'Well, Sar Maram has proved himself a great knight, hasn't he? Then, too, it's said that no one should die before he's seen Tria.'

In the end, I agreed to take Lord Harsha with me. I would be glad for the fellowship of this crusty old warrior, not to mention his sword. Then, too, as he had said, it would be good for Estrella to keep company with Behira, who was almost like a mother to her.

Late that afternoon, our numbers increased by five more. True to his word, King Danashu chose his finest knights to take vows as Guardians. One of these — Sar Hannu of Daksh — had won a fourth in the long lance and had done quite well in archery and the sword. The other Valari kings, seeing this, insisted that their knights should join us, too. I could not refuse them. And so by the time evening settled over Nar, our encampment swelled with these new knights: ten Lagashuns and ten from Waas, and fifteen Atharians. My uncle, Lord Viromar, found twelve Kaashans eager to ride with us, and one of these was Sar Laisu who had made his own quest to find the Lightstone. So far, this put 171 Guardians under my command. Although I felt sure of every one of them, I remembered too well that I had possessed similar confidence in Sivar of Godhra. I remembered, too, that it had been Lord Harsha who had originally proposed Sivar for the Guardians. He still suffered from the shame of this misjudg-ment. Therefore, to redeem him in the eyes of his friends, and in his own, I asked his help in approving these new knights. This he gave After some hours of grilling them and looking at them closely with his blazing eye, he found all of them worthy. And so he found himself worthy to give service to his king's son, and we were both glad for

that.

The last king to ride into our encampment with a contingent of knights was King Waray. He held his sharp nose high as he presented Sar Varald, Sar Ishadar, Lord Noldru the Bold and seventeen others. Although he didn't say it, I knew that he wished to choose at least as many Taroners as there were Ishkans for the Guardians. I was glad for these new men, and told King Waray this. But, as I had with King Hadaru, I admitted that it would not do to take more than these 191 Guardians into the Wendrush and then into Alonia.

'Sajagax will have to welcome Master Juwain, Maram and me,' I said to him. 'It's to be hoped that he'll also welcome knights who ride with me — but certainly there is a number beyond which even he will grow wary.'

'Your concern for the concerns of our enemies is touching,' King Waray said.

'Sajagax is no enemy of the Valari.'

'Is he not? He has fought two battles with the Ishkans and has thrice tried to invade Anjo.'

'Yes, but there has been peace between them these last ten years.'

'Even so, he would not welcome King Hadaru or King Danashu on his lands. And likely not King Sandarkan, King Mohan or myself. Neither King Kurshan. And so we all must take the Nar road to Tria.'

'It's likely to be the safer road.'

'It is. And that is the point. We believe that the Lightstone should take the safest route.'

'The Lightstone,' I said, 'will be safe enough with the Guardians. You have my promise that we'll bring it into Tria.'

'By yourselves. As you'll bring yourself, Lord Valashu. But you should know that some of the other kings believe your place is with us.'

'Does King Mohan say this, then? King Hadaru?'

'Well, no, not yet. They're inclined to ride with their own retinues, by themselves, to Tria. But if the Maitreya — the man who would be proclaimed as such — if he were to take the Nar road, then all of us might be persuaded to ride with him.'

It was a grand thing that King Waray proposed: the kings of the Valari riding together into Tria, their helms and armor shining brightly, their emblems bold beneath the sun — and with me and the Lightstone in the lead. For a moment, I was tempted to abandon my quest to recover the akashic crystal. But then I shook my head and said to King Waray, 'You know why I must journey into the Wendrush.'

'Yes, I do know why,' he said; 'And you must be honored for this. Just as you must be honored for another thing.'

Beneath the noise of our encampment, King Waray's shining eyes grew quiet with a sad sincerity. For moment, I trusted him. I saw that he was truly a man of aspirations who had never been able to live up to his ideals.

'Lord Valashu,' he told me, 'it's said that you have the power to make others feel what is in your heart.'

'Sometimes, that is true.'

'Then you must also have the power not to persuade others this way. You must know how I, of all men, appreciate your restraint in this with me.'

I did know this, and I bowed my head to him. I said, 'You speak of honor, King Waray. But how can one honor anyone while doing violence to his soul?'

'How indeed, my young friend? Perhaps you should ride with us to Tria. But since you can't, perhaps I can keep the spirit of your dreams alive among the other kings.'

'Thank you,' I said, bowing my head again. 'You honor me.'

'Excellent,' he said. 'Now I must excuse myself and wish you well on your journey. Until we meet in Tria.'

And with that, he clasped my hand in his and rode off into the night.

The following morning, the Guardians assembled along the road outside our encampment. With hundreds of horses pawing the earth and men laughing in the early light, I arranged for the new knights to ride among the old, as I had with the Ishkans. I left Baltasar to see that this was accomplished. And then I went inside Asaru's pavilion, where my brother had been moved, to say goodbye to him. For in a few moments I would be traveling north and east, while he must recuperate here before returning to Mesh.

'This farewell,' he said, 'pains me almost more than when you set out to find the Lightstone. And it truly pains me more than my shoulder.'

He winced as he sat up in his bed and looked at me. Yarashan, who had hardly moved from his side for most of two days, handed him a cup of steaming tea, and said, 'All right, then, we'll remain here until Asaru is well enough to ride. Another week, and we can — '

'Two weeks would be better,' I broke in. 'As Master Juwain has prescribed.'

'All right, two weeks, then,' Yarashan muttered. 'Long enough that we'll miss the conclave, even if we start out after you.'

Asaru smiled at him and said, 'We'll have to hope our little brother can conclude this affair without us.'

His eyes were like two stars as he looked at me. He seemed to sense that my becoming champion had changed something in me. He grasped my hand and pulled me closer to him so that he could embrace me. 'Farewell, Valashu,' he said to me. 'Return home soon.'

After I had embraced Yarashan as well I went outside and climbed on my horse. And so I led the Guardians out of Nar along the King's Road as we had come. As in our entrance into the city, many people lined the way to cheer us along. And to cheer me. Cries of 'Champion!' 'Lord of Light!' rang out into the air and almost drowned out the thunderous clopping of the horses' hooves. The gold medallion that King Waray had given me pulled heavily at my neck even as the Lightstone (now borne by Sar Hannu) impelled me down the road toward the west, where I might finally learn its secrets.

It was good to go forth with friends and companions into the fresh summer breeze blowing across the land; soon we reached the rippling wheatfields outside the city. I remained alert for sign of discord among the Guardians, for now it wasn't just Meshians and Ishkans riding together, but Anjoris, Kaashans, Atharians, Taroners, Waashians and Lagashuns. Now there were many more possibilities for knight falling out against knight and renewing old hatreds. But these knights, it seemed, during the week of the tournament, had grown tired of fighting — at least of fighting each other. In their easy laughter and recounting of feats, I sensed a camaraderie growing as it often did with men who suffered dangers together. Then, too, they were men of honor who strove to honor their vows and their charge to guard the Lightstone. They could not do this as quarrelsome individuals loyal to their kings, but only as Valari knights who rode with me. My gaining of the championship, I knew, had been vital in gaining the devotion of these proud men. For no Valari warrior likes to be led by one of unproven prowess, and in my victory they saw the possibility of their own achievements and the realization of their deepest dreams.

That day I rode at the head of our three long columns, and Estrella rode beside me. She had a calm and gentle touch with her little gelding; I had never seen anyone learn a horse's ways so quickly. Riding in the open air seemed to please her immensely, as did the wind and sun and smell of the summer flowers in the rolling fields about us. Her. slender body was stronger than it looked. She had good stamina for continuing on mile after mile and taking only a few breaks, to water and feed the horses and to feed ourselves. Thirty miles we covered on that first day of our journey out from Nar and as many the next. The unaccustomed abrasion of sitting in a saddle all day must have pained her, but she made no complaint — neither with her ever-silent lips nor with her dark, expressive eyes. Often she would brush aside the soft curls from her face and look at me happily. She seemed always to want to be near me, to serve me, to remind me of the best parts ot myself. It made her happy to make me happy, and I loved her for that. And yet, beneath her radiant smiles and quicksilver expressions of delight, something dark and heavy seemed to pull at her heart like a great weight. I felt this most keenly on the evening of our third day of travel, when we reached Loviisa. We made camp by a stream in the hills overlooking the city; above us on the nearby hill loomed the old Aradar castle, abandoned when King Hadaru had built his wooden palace. As the sun set in the west beyond it, this huge pile of stone changed colors, from bone white to an almost glowing and blood-filled red. Estrella sat with me and my friends around our campfire, and she flitted about refilling my bowl with some succulent lamb stew and pouring water into my cup. And in the middle of tendering these little devotions, something about the castle caught her eye. She froze like a fawn caught in a snow tiger's icy stare. As she stared at the castle's keep, at its flaming western wall, fear rushed through her little chest like poison, and her bright and dreamy face fell ashen with nightmare. She began shivering violently. Was she recalling the murder of her sister servants in my father's castle and her helplessness at being trapped outside on its pitch-black wall? Or was she reliving some hideous torment visited upon her in Argattha? She couldn't tell me. All I could do was to cover her with my cloak and hold her next to me until this evil spell had passed. But the immense sorrow that welled up out of her was too much for me to bear. It was like listening to the cries of a million children who had lost their mothers. I found myself suddenly bowing down my head and weeping into Estrella's thick hair even as she broke open and wept as well.

Later, after Behira had taken her off to bed, I walked alone up toward the castle. I stood beneath its towering battlements and looked up at the stars. Why, 1 wondered, were there so many black spaces between these brilliant islands of light? Why must darkness descend every night upon the world, and inevitably, upon men's souls? Was there no help for suffering, then? Men called me the Maitreya, but the cold wind falling down from the sky made me shiver and doubt this, for I couldn't even ease the anguish of a single little girl. As the wolves howled in the hills around me, I wanted to throw back my head and howl, too: at the lights in the heavens, at the pain of the world, at the fire that ignited inside me and made me burn for deeper life.

The next day wag one of bright sun and skies as clear and blue as sapphire. Our way for the next forty or fifty miles, until we reached the mountains, was through a rolling and gradually rising country of rich farms and even richer pastures where countless sheep covered the green hillsides like blankets of white wool. No good roads led to this way, only dirt tracks winding around wheatfields and occasionally cutting straight through acres of rye or barley. The Gaurdians, however had no trouble negotiating such terrain. Upon abandoning our baggage train in Loviisa, we moved even morequickly and easily, though along

somewhat less straight a path. In many places, our three columns had to be consolidated to two or even to one, a single long line of Valari knights strung out like glittering diamonds on a necklace. Late that morning Maram suggested that we ride together behind the rear of the columns so that we might have a space to talk. 'You take too much to heart,' he said to me.

'No in truth, too little.'

'You can't help what you can't help, Val.'

'But it must be helped,' I said. 'Everything must be.'

'But the world is the way it is. The way the One made it to be.'

I thought about this as I tried not to choke on the dust that the hundreds of horses ahead of us kicked up into the air. I thought of the letter Salmelu had delivered to me, and I said, 'Sometimes it seems that Morjin was right, after all.'

Maram always seemed to know what I was thinking. he asked, 'Do you mean, that we should hate the One? Do you. . hate, then?'

'Sometimes. I almost do,' I said. 'When I remember Khaisham, when I think of Atara. And now, when Estrella can't even tell me what she suffers.'

'Morjin wrote that such suffering ultimately leads to our salvation — as I remember, through torturing innocents and rising above them.'

'Yes, and there he errs. In this lies much of his evil. But he is surely right that we were meant to rise, to be as angels. The world it the way the One made it to be, you say. And so are we. Surely the One made us to make a better world.'

'Well ending war is one thing. But you can't end suffering itself.'

'Perhaps not. But what is the meaning of the Maitreya, then? What would the meaning of my life be if I didn't at least try?'

For much of the morning, as we rode through the pretty country of Ishka. we discussed the prophecies about the Maitreya recorded in the Saganom Elu and Master Juwain's hope of discovering much more to the akashic crystal. By noon we had put ten miles behind us, and by the end of the day, another ten. When we made camp in a fallow field that evening, our talk finally turned to more immediate things: to the fine weather we were enjoying; to the high spirits of the knights of eight kingdoms riding as brothers; to the lofty, white peaks of the Morning Mountains rising up before us to the west. As always, Maram feared encountering bears in these wooded heights, His fear increased mile after mile the following day and did not abate, not even when we began digging the fortifications for our nightly camp in the forest below Ishka's largest lake. For he remembered that just to the north of this lake lay the Black Bog.

'There are worse things than bears there,' he said. 'Dark creatures and dragons, I think.'

'But we encountered none on our passage of it.' 'Did we not? What was that ugly thing that flew across the sky?' The Black Bog, it was said, was a portal to the Dark Worlds. On our nightmare journey through it, we had walked on one or more of these worlds before miraculously finding our way back home. It worried Maram that if we could wander out of the bog onto the familiar soil of Ea, so could other things from other places.

'What of the Grays?' he said to me. 'And what if there are worse things than those Soul-Suckers? What of the Dark One himself?'

To the sound of the Guardians digging a moat in the black earth around our encampment, I thought of Angra Mainyu, once the greatest of the Galadin — and now, if Master Juwain was right, the greatest of ghuls who would bring evil to all worlds. What shape had this once-bright being taken on? Was he still fair of form and wondrous in aspect? Or had the vile work of ages twisted him like a blackened worm so that he was hideous to behold?

'Angra Mainyu,' I reassured Maram, 'is bound on Damoom.'

'So Kane says — but what if he's wrong? And what if Morjin finds a way to free him?'

'He won't,' I said, 'as long as we guard the Lightstone. Now, why don't we finish making camp and raise a glass of beer — and forget all this talk of dark creatures and such?'

That night Maram raised more than one glass of thick, dark Ishkan beer. But he did not quite forget his dread of things that might come for him out of the night. And neither did I. Although the Black Bog lay a good twenty-five miles to the north of us, a hint of its terrors wafted across the lake in the faint fetor of rotting vegetation and mires that could suck a man down into the earth. It seemed to ding to our garments and to work its way inside us, even as we broke camp early the next morning and began climbing into the clearer and sweeter air of the mountains. A sense of overwhelming wrongness pervaded me I felt something pursuing me, not necessarily from behind us or from any direction in space, but rather in time, from the past — or perhaps the future. It had the feel of Morjin. But in it also was Angra Mainyu's hatred of life, and all life's cruelty to life; it reeked of blood and screams and the sickness of the soul in surrendering to its worst nightmares. Didn't all evil, like decaying flesh, have the same foul odor? Didn't suffering too? It came to me then that the terrible pain Estrella carried inside her might not have its source in Argattha after all. For if all things took their being from the One — fallen angels and swords no less flowers and trees and bright, singing birds — then might not the blame for Estrella's suffering be laid at the workings and will of this terrible One? For the next two days, this realization oppressed me. I did not speak of it to Maram or Master Juwain, for they had trials of their own. Our passage through the mountains was difficult. The roads over these great peaks of the Shoshan range were slanted and bad. Fierce summer rains found us working our way up or down steep tracks of stone and dirt, which turned to streams of slippery mud beneath our horses' driving hooves. On one of the numerous switchbacks snaking up the sides of the slopes, Sar Jarlath's horse lost its footing and fell against some rocks near a spruce tree, breaking its leg with a sharp crack and ripping open its belly. Sar Jarlath plunged into these rocks as well; miraculously, he suffered only a broken arm. It was not a bad break, and Master Juwain mended it quickly. But the horse had to be put to death. This mercy killing saddened all of us, for he was a great-spirited warhorse that Sar Jarlath had ridden to an honorable seventh place in the long lance competition.

On the last day in the mountains, we passed by the Ishkan fortress of Karkallu and came down into the narrow valley of the Snake River. Beneath gray, heavy skies, we followed its bends and rapids toward the west. It was drier in this broken land, and the silver maples and oaks around us soon gave way to cottonwoods and hawthorn that grew along the watercourses of the Wendrush. We had our first view of the great grasslands late in the afternoon on the fifth of Marud. I led our company up a rocky hill at the mouth of the valley, and there before us for many miles lay a sea of green. Far out to the curving horizon — west, north and south — these dark plains lit up with flashes of lightning from the even darker clouds pressing down upon them. Their oppressive flatness was broken only by a few hummocks and the blue-gray track of the Snake River winding its way toward the much greater Poru a hundred miles farther on. To the south of the Snake, the Adirii tribe of the Sarni held sway; they were allied with the Kurmak, whose lands stretched out north of the river and west of the mountains. Into this open country of antelope, sagosk and lions, I sent three knights: Sar Avram, Lord Noldru the Bold and Baltasar. They were to seek out the headmen of the Kurmak's clans, and if possible, Sajagax himself. For I did not want to lead a force of nearly two hundred knights into unknown country without the permission of those who possessed it. We made camp on a little triangle of land at the confluence of the Snake and a mountain stream that flowed into it. We fortified it heavily. It would be a bad place to be caught in the event of a thunderstorm and a flood. But there, at the gateway to the Wendrush, I feared raging Sarni warriors on horses more than I did raging waters.

And so we waited there for four days, resting, repairing ripped tents and other gear, polishing our armor and sharpening our swords. I took to spending part of each morning with Estrella. She gave signs that she wanted me to teach her to play my flute, and this I did. She learned its ways even more quickly than had riding her horse. In her long, tapering fingers, this slip of wood came alive with bright, happy sounds. She seemed to speak with music, with her beautiful hands, with the expressions of her lively face. And most of all, as her notes trilled sweetly to — harmonize with the piping of the birds and the rushing of the river, the flames of her being seemed to pour forth like liquid fire from her lovely eyes, and that was the most marvelous music of all.

And yet there were moments, as at the monstrous Aradar castle, when her songs swelled with an unutterable sadness. It seemed that some black and bottomless chasm opened inside her and cut her off from that which she most desired. Then her music became a plaint and a plea that hurt me to hear and filled my heart with an unbearable pain. Listening to her play this way one morning, I knew that I must find a way to help her. I had no power to straighten crooked limbs or mend torn flesh, as Joakim the blacksmith's son, was said to do; this I had proved in my failure to cure a cripple I had encountered along the road to Nar and again with Asaru at the tournament. But might I, somehow, be able to heal a broken soul? Baltasar would say I could; so would his father, Lansar Raasharu, and many others. The words of Kasandra's prophecy sounded inside me like trumpets then. It came to me that Estrella would show me the Maitreya: but only in the art of my easing her long, deep and terrible suffering.

On the last morning of our sojourn, I found a spot on some rocks by the stream to sit with her. The air was sweet with spray and the song of two bluebirds warbling at each other: cheer cheer-lee churr. Estrella brought forth my flute, and I brought forth the Lightstone. All along the way from Mesh she had shown little interest in the golden cup. But now she held out her hand for me to give it to her. This I did. If I expected it to flare brightly and bathe her in its magical light, I was disappointed. The cup remained quiescent and shone no more brightly than did ordinary gold. She sat for a long while gazing at it with her deep, wild eyes. Then she smiled and dipped the cup into the stream. She held it to her lips, drinking down the clear water in three quick swallows. It seemed that she was only thirsty.

'The Lightstone holds more than water,' I said to her as I took back the cup. 'Here, let me show you.'

As she breathed lightly on the end of my flute, her bright eyes were like mirrors showing me the deepest parts of myself And calling me to bring forth the music inside me. She sat watching me and waiting as she played my flute and looked into my eyes. She looked at the Lightstone, too. The sun's rays streamed down from the sky and filled it with a golden radiance. I felt some part of this heavenly fire pass through my hands into me. It warmed my blood with an unbearably sweet pressure that broke open my heart. Everything that was there came pouring out of me and into her. Her face lit up like the sun itself then. She put aside my flute and laughed in her sweet, silent way until her eyes glistened with tears. She stared at the Lightstone, now shining with a numinous intensity. Its brilliance dazzled her; she sat frozen by the stream, her eyes wide open to the clear, blue sky and the shimmering cottonwood trees. I had a strange sense that she was seeing not just their billowing canopies but millions of separate silver-green leaves. It was as if she was aware of the One pouring out its light through all things. And shining with its greatest splendor in her. For a moment, it seemed, she was swept away by both these outer and inner luminosities, and there was no difference. She seemed to remain in this river of light forever. At last, her eyes blazed into mine as she returned to the world. The smile on her face made my heart sing. I sensed that, at least for a time, the ground of her being had knitted itself together and she was made whole again.

Something changed in me, too. Some of the terrible doubt that had oppressed me for many miles suddenly left me, like a wound lanced and emptied of poison. Estrella and I returned to our encampment to take our midday meal, and it seemed I stood straighter and walked with a lighter step. Sunjay Naviru, Lord Raasharu and others looked at me strangely, as if I had donned a magical garment woven of light.

And then later that afternoon, my happiness swelled like the sea, for out of the steppe to the west, three riders crested a knoll and galloped toward us. I recognized the blue rose of Baltasar's emblem and those of Sar Avram and Lord Noldru. They brought straight to me two pieces of great, good news: the lake told of in Master Juwain's verses had been located near the Snake River only thirty miles to the west And Trahadak the Elder of the Zakut clan had invited us, in the name of Sajagax, to cross his lands freely on our way to seek out Sajagax and Alonia.