Lord of Lies

Chapter 22

For fifteen more miles that afternoon, we rode north along the eastern side of the Poru. Farms to the right and left of the road had been harked out of the once-open steppe. Instead of grass the Aloniana grew wheat and other grains. An intricate systems of canals carried water from the river and watered these fields, which were broken up into green rectangles and squares. Every half mile or so, we crossed a little bridge spanning one of the larger canals. Sajagax and his warriors hated being forced onto the road in order to make these, crossings — and more importantly, to keep from trampling the fields. And they had nothing but contempt for the men and women who worked stripped to the waist and bent over under the hot sun hoeing and weeding and scattering buckets of manure to feritilize their crops. As Sajagax said to me during a break to water our horses from one of the canals, 'Look at these dirt-scrapers and dung-carriers! They're practically slaves of whatever lord owns this land. They'd be better off if we ended their miserable lives by using them for target practice.'

Here he lifted up his bow and winked at me. Horrified, I placed my hand on his arm and said to him, 'Be strong and protect the weak.'

For a moment, I felt a flame of compassion ignite inside Sajagax. And then he shook his head even as he shook his bow at the tamed countryside around us. 'They're kradaks like everyone else here and they've no right to live on the Wendrush like real men. We should level all of Alonia and convert it to pasturage for our horses.'

I looked at him to see if he was serious. He was. No wonder, I thought, that we Valari had fought these savage Sarni for three long ages.

And then, just as I had given up all hope for this barbarian with his braided gray hair and fierce mustaches, he surprised me. As we were passing through a village whose name I never learned, he stopped to give a gold coin to a blind woman begging alms. When I bowed my head to acknowledge his kindness, he said to me, ' "Be strong and

protect the weak." It's a hard law you've laid upon me, Valashu Elahad. There are too many of the weak. But that woman could have have been my own granddaughter.'

The Alonians, sad to say, did not return Sajagax's largesse. We made camp that night on a fallow fold of a wealthy landowner. This was a soft and haughty young knight who it seemed had never been to war. Although he did not charge us for pitching our tents on top of his weedy field, he demanded gold for the bread and beef that he wished to sell us — extortionate prices. After Sajagax had heard him out, he nearly put an arrow through his eye. The knight retreated behind the walls of his estate. And Sajagax bent down to plough his tough old hand into the black soil beneath his boots. He held it out before me and said, 'I'd rather eat dirt than pay for that weakling's food. On the Wendrush, we either kill strangers passing through or give them so much meat and drink that they can't move.'

Our dinner that night was more of the tough, dried sagosk that we had gnawed on our journey and the inevitable biscuits that Valari called battle bread and the Sarni knew as rushk cakes. Our breakfast the following morning wasn't much more appetizing. But it was enough to sustain us on a long day's ride through the sun that baked us and a few hours of rain that drenched us and slicked the paving stones beneath our horses' clopping hooves. Late in the afternoon, we came to a place where the road turned west and crossed the Poru along a great stone bridge. On the other side was the town of Tiamar, a square assemblage of sparkling stone buildings from which Duke Malatam ruled the lands of Tarlan. The Duke, however, was not in residence in his palace above the river. With other nobles, he had fled the summer heat of these sweltering lowlands for his family's old castle in the hills twenty miles to the north.

'It's just as well,' Sajagax said to me when a passing tinker gave us this news. 'If this duke tried to charge us for his hospitality, too, I would put an arrow through him. And then King Kiritan would have to decide if he wished to make war with his own father-in-law.'

None of us wanted to delay our journey by seeking out this great duke in his castle so that we might pay our respects to him But it was he who sought us out instead. We stopped that night outside the city on a short-grassed commons used for grazing sheep. In the morning, with the sun a glowing red disc above the eastern honzon, we were preparing to break camp when a thunder of hooves sounded on the road to the northwest. I came out of my tent to see a company of thirty knights bearing down upon us. A black cross divided their leader's white shield into quarters, and each of these quadrants showed a repeating motif of red roses: the arms of Duke Malatam.

The Duke and his knights drew up their lathered horses on the commons between the Kurmak's camp and that of my men. I walked out twenty yards to greet him. followed by Lamar Raasharu, I ord Hatha, Maram, Atara and others. But Sajagax insisted on mounting his horse and riding the short distance from where his warriors sat around little fires eating their rations of dried sagosk. No Sami chieftain, I thought would bear being unhorsed and looking up to face an Alonian.

'Well, then, I see that the Sarni and the Valari do ride together, after all,' Duke Malatam said. He was a smallish man of middle years. He had a thin face like a ferret, and he sported a sleek brown beard. 'Though you do not camp together, I see. Old enmities are hard to put aside, aren't they? You've done well to come this far in peace, and I must tell you that my domain is a peaceful one where mayhem is not tolerated. But emissaries of peace arce of course welcome.'

To Sajagax's consternation, he dismounted and walked over to clasp my hand warmly. This obligated Sajagax to dismount as well. He climbed down from his horse slowly, and I could feel the aches and pains of old wounds in various parts of his body, which was stiff and cold in the morning air. But Sajagax neither grunted nor winced to give sign of any of these torments. He walked up to us and grasped the Duke's elegant hand. 'We accept your welcome,' he said.

Duke Malatam stood gazing up at Sajagax as he thoughtlessly wiped his moist hand on his white surcoat, which draped over a fine suit of mail. 1 wondered why, if Tarlan was so peaceful, he was wearing armor on such a calm, bright morning.

'We've ridden all night to reach you before you continue north,' he said to us. 'I have business in Tiamar. I'd like to invite you to join me at my estate and enjoy my hospitality. The Kurmak's greatest chieftain should feast on the finest foods before taking to the road. And so should a prince of Mesh.'

So, I thought this little duke had recognized my name where Lord Halmar had not. His soft, little eyes danced over mine as if trying to win my confidence with his obvious good will. But his charm felt hollow to me, like an egg sucked dry of its contents. And Sajagax, though flattered, was suspicious of him as well.

'We must ride, and ride quickly,' Sajagax said, 'or we might miss the conclave.'

'But surely a few more hours spent strengthening yourselves tor your journey won't matter. I can offer you bread, summer lamb and the finest beef in all of Alonia.'

At the mention of this meat taken from an animal that the Sarni regarded with disdain, Sajagax pulled out a strip of leathery sagosk and said, 'We have good food of our own — would you care to join us for breakfast?'

Duke Malatam's nose wrinkled in disgust as he eyed this piece of dried flesh. It was said that the Sarni softened such rations by stuffing them down beneath the saddles of their warm, sweating horses. I knew this to be true.

'I wouldn't want to consume supplies that you'll need on your journey,' the Duke said. 'I think we would all be happier taking breakfast at my palace.'

'My apologies,' said to him, 'but we haven't the time.'

'But we've much to discuss, Lord Valashu.'

The Duke nodded his head at a portly, fair-haired knight, whom I took to be the captain of his men. This knight dismounted, as did the thirty others of Duke Malatam's guard. They each bore various charges on their fine, fresh surcoats: a golden eaglet white roses; a black boar. Their mail was brightly polished, and I could detect in these shining, interlocked rings no mark of a sword blow or dent of a battle-axe. Their faces, too, seemed unmarked by the horror of war. How should they, in a realm that for many years had known mostly peace?

'I would speak with you about the conclave,' Duke Malatam said to me. 'And about the great Quest.'

He fingered the large medallion that hung from a chain around his neck. It showed at its center a little cup with seven rays streaming out of it — as did my own medallion that I wore over my armor. I looked at the medallions of Atara, Maram and Master Juwain shining in the morning sun.

'I had heard,' Duke Malatam continued, 'that an Elahad of Mesh had found the Lightstone. But one hears so many things these days. It's hard to know what to believe or not, isn't it?'

At this, Atara stepped forward and answered for me, 'It is hard to know, Lord Valashu stood with me and my friends in front of my father's throne to make vows to seek the Lightstone. But I don't recall seeing you there to receive your medallion.'

Her words seemed to tie the Duke's insides into knots. His fair skin flushed as he asked her, 'Could you recall seeing me, Princess, since your sight has been taken from you and you can no longer see anything at all?'

'Her second sight hasn't been taken,' I said. Duke Malatam stared at the cloth bound around her head. He coughed into his hand and told us, 'Well, in fact, there was an illness in my family, and I came late to Tria — too late to take vows with you and the others. But not too late to receive my medallion. King Kiritan gave it to me with his own hand.'

'And in what land,' Maram asked, looking at Duke Malatam's medallion, 'did you make your quest?'

The Duke's face burned an even brighter shade of red as he coughed out, 'In my own lands. Of course, I would have gone to the end of the earth for even a glimpse of the Lightstone. I wanted to go with you to Argattha. Of course, I didn't know that you and your companions would dare what must be the greatest deed of this or any other age. But I guessed that the Lightstone never left Argattha. I like to think that this guess — I should say that it was really more of a deduction based on the old legends — somehow lent spirit to the heroes who did find the Lightstone. It's said, isn't it, that all true hearts beat as one? Even across hundreds of miles or the whole of the earth? I believe that your great valor touched fire to the hearts of all who truly sought the Lightstone. Certainly it touched mine. If only I could, I would have stolen past Argattha's gates myself.'

Master Juwain turned his good ear toward him, and then pulled at it as if it wasn't quite good enough to make sense of the Duke's wild claims. He asked him, 'And why didn't you, then?'

'Well, King Kiritan asked me to remain in Tarlan. When one's king makes such a request, even the greatest of nobles must grant it, even though his heart yearns for greater adventures.'

'King Kiritan,' I said to him, 'used the Quest as a reason to send Alonia's other nobles away from their domains. Why not likewise send you?'

Duke Malatam bowed his head toward Atara. 'The Princess will have told you much about Alonia. But it's hard for one from a faraway kingdom to understand the affairs of another realm. It's hard for the Princess herself, having lived among her grandfather's people for so long, to understand. Yes, King Kiritan asked Duke Ashvar and Baron Maruth to make their quests in distant lands. One could almost say that he even shamed them into this. But this is a peaceful way, isn't it, to limit the mischief of nobles whose loyalty is in doubt? Raanan has been the most rebellious of domains ever since King Sakandar tried to reunite Alonia two generations ago. And the Aquantir has ever been a hotbed of plots and schemes against the royal house Our neighbor to the west fancies itself the greatest of Alonia's domains, and its lords have never knelt easily to any king in Tria. Is it any wonder, then, that King Kiritan should ask a loyal duke to keep watch on the Aquantir? And so yes, although I should have died from my desire to storm Argattha with you, it was perhaps my greater destiny to remain here and help keep Alonia strong. The day is coming, even as you know, Lord Valashu, when Alonia must lead an alliance against Morjin and. .'

He continued chattering on in a like vein as the sun rose higher and wanned the grassy commons. It seemed that he was trying to eat up time as the day does the sky.

'A loyal lord,' I said to him, breaking in, 'would be a strength to any king. This is a time when all free kings and lords must stand together.' Duke Malatam fairly beamed at what he took as a compliment. He said to me, to his plights and to all gathered about us: 'Everyone knows I have always stood by my king. When I first came into my possession fifteen years ago, there was rebellion in the Aquantir. I'm proud to say that I led my knights to aid King Kiritan in putting it down. We defeated Old Baron Maruth at the Battle of Angels' Crossing. I had the honor of leading the charge against the Baron's right flank, which collapsed in the face of the valor of my knights.'

Here he paused to smile at his portly captain, whose emblem was a black boar on a red field.

'A great battle, was it?' I asked him.

'A great victory. We outnumbered the Aquantirings two to one. When we outflanked them and began hacking down their infantry from the rear, they laid down their arms and surrendered. We lost only twenty-eight knights killed and fifteen wounded.'

I bowed my head to him and said, 'And has the new Baron Maruth never sought revenge?'

'He wouldn't dare to lead an army into Tarlan. We are too strong. Even brigands that bedevil other domains fear to ply their trade here.' 'Very good,' I said, 'then our journey will be a peaceful one. And now we must excuse ourselves and be on our way.'

The Duke placed his hand on my arm as if to keep me there. 'I really must insist that you join me for breakfast at my palace.'

I looked at his small, pale hand pressing down upon my diamond armor. Baltasar looked at this hand, too, as if he were trembling to whip free his sword and slice it off.

'Are you commanding us to join you?'.

'Command you?' His hand suddenly slipped off me, and he dried it again on his surcoat. 'No, no — of course not. Alonia is a free kingdom, and Tarlan is the freest of her domains. You may go where you will. It's a rare, good fortune that a Valari prince and his knights should pass through, and so I felt I should insist on offering my hospitality. but since you are in a hurry and have already offered yours so gracefully, perhaps it would be better if we took a bit of breakfast with you. We're all very hungry.'

He smiled at me warmly; if he were a dog, I thought he would have wagged his tail and licked my hand. And yet there was something greedy and rapacious in him, like a weasel driven to try to steal chickens when a farmer is sleeping. The last thing that I desired was to take breakfast with this vain and manipulative man. But Sajagax had offered him hospitality, and so there was nothing to do but sit with him and eat a quick meal.

And so sit we did, by a campfire where Master Juwain fried up a few eggs that we had bought in Tiamar. While Sunjay and other Guardians took care of Duke Malatam's knights, the Duke invited his captain, Lord Chagnan, to eat with him, as I did Maram, Atara, Karimah, Lord Raasharu and Sajagax. The eggs were devoured in only a few minutes, but that was the only part of the meal that was quick. When Sajagax then brought forth much dried sagosk, Duke Malatam insisted on partaking of this leathery, horse-scented treat. He took a very long time chewing it, as if his teeth were weak. I watched the sun slowly rising in the east.

'Yes, your deed in gaining the Lightstone will be sung for ages,' he said to me as he continued chatting between bites of meat. His little jaws worked much more quickly at speech than in getting on with the business of breakfast. 'I must tell you how I've dreamed of the Cup of Heaven. It's as if the angels themselves have put visions in my mind. And now it seems the angels have sent you, Valashu Elahad, so that I might have a vision of a more immediate nature.'

I traded quick glances with Maram and Master Juwain, and I said, 'What makes you think we have brought the Lightstone with us?'

'Come, come, Lord Valashu! Would the one who claimed the Cup of Heaven leave it with another? Why else, would you ride with so many armed knights into my domain?'

I looked about us where the Guardians were finishing breakfast or busy folding up their tents. Sunjay Naviru and Skyshan of Ki — and others — kept a close watch on Duke Malatam's knights as they, too, worked at their tough, dried meat.

'Please, young lord,' Duke Malatam said. 'Won't you allow an old and faithful quester of the Lightstone a glimpse of it once before he dies?'

He sat all hopeful and still as his medallion reflected the sun's bright rays into my eyes. How could 1 refuse such a heartfelt plea? He might be both conceited and avid for glory, but hadn't the Lightstone been made precisely to cure men of such ills? 'Sar Ianashu!' I called out This tough young knight came hurrying over to us. I asked him to bring forth the Lightstorte, and this he did. 'Splendid!' Duke Malatam cried out as Sar Ianashu held up the golden cup. It seemed almost as bright as the sun. 'May I hold it?'

I hesitated a long moment as I looked upon Sar lanashu's noble face. If I could allow a knight of Ishka to hold the Lightstone, why not a great duke of Alonia who had once vowed to seek it unless illness, wounds or death struck him down first — and above all, to seek it for all of Ea and not himself?

I nodded at Sar Ianashu, and he placed the Lightstone into the Duke's moist little hands. He sat staring at it as if peering through a portal to a finer and more beautiful world. 'Splendid, splendid — I've never seen anything so splendid. I would have died if only I could have gained this to bring others light. And I'd die right now, a thousand times, if only I could see this used to undo the Dragon's darkness. Isn't this what the Cup of Heaven is for? It's for the Shining One, who would give his life that others might have greater life. This is written in the Saganom Elu — I'm an educated man, and I know. And I know that he will come forth. He will be the bravest of men, the best of men. A Lord of Battles, perhaps. A master of war who will make war against the Great Darkness itself.'

He chattered on and on like the meadowlarks in the pasture singing their morning songs. But the morning was quickly passing, and soon the little yellow-breasted birds would fall silent. And soon we must take to the road again if we were to bring the Lightstone into Tria before it was too late

And so I gently pried the cup from Duke Malatam's sweating hands. I gave it back to Sar Ianashu. The Duke had the dazed look of one who has been struck on the helmet by a mace. I said to him, 'Thank you for the pleasure of your company, but now we really must be on our way.'

Duke Malatam slowly came to his senses. He then offered to supply us with fresh meat, flour and other provisions. I was tempted to top off our saddlebags with this food. But as we would have to return to Tiamar and spend half the day going about the butchers and millers to do this, I politely declined.

'Very well, then, Lord Valashu,' Duke Malatam said to me. After we had finished the last work of breaking camp, we all stood by our horses. The Duke clasped my hand in his and told me, 'May you go with the One.'

I wished him well, too, and mounted Altaru. Estrella, Maram, Atara and my other friends, with the Guardians, formed up behind me. Ahead, Sajagax and his blond warriors were already waiting on the road. The Kurmak nudged their horses to a quick walk, and so did we. Duke Malatam led his thirty knights in the opposite direction, back toward Tiamar.

We rode in silence for most of two miles as the air began heating up and our horses' hooves rattled the worn paving stones of the road. I looked past the green, checkerboard country behind us, and the Duke and his knights were nowhere to be seen. Ahead of us, the road seemed to curve north and west through a steaming land of canals and farms.

Sajagax confirmed this a few minutes later when he rode back to have a word with me. He pulled at the gold wire twining his mustache and said, 'I remember this from my last journey through this country, more than twenty years ago now. The kradaks built their cursed road as close to the river as they could. But it bends back to the west ahead of us, to avoid the hills to the north. If we rode straight toward the northwest, we could cut across this bend — and cut a few miles from our journey.'

He left it unsaid that we could also leave the cultivated strip along the river for the more open land of the Wendrush.

Lord Harsha's single eye surveyed the rolling country to the left of us, and he said, 'Duke Malatam seemed too keen to delay us. It won't hurt for us to take a path that he might not anticipate.'

'All right,' I said, agreeing to this proposal. 'Let us then keep a watch behind us as well as ahead.'

And so we left the road. Sajagax, almost gleefully, led the way through a cabbage field, and he didn't care if his warriors' horses kicked to pieces what the Sarni considered to be a stinking vegetable. After a few miles of trampling black dirt and splashing through shallow canals, the farms gave out, and we came to the open steppe. Even I breathed a sigh of happiness at the sight of the sea of grass opening before us.

But we had not ventured very far out upon it when a familiar feeling began eating at my spine. A sharp sensation like pinpricks horripilated the flesls at the back of my neck. I knew, with a sudden dread, that someone was following me.

Sajagax seemed to know this, too. Perhaps he possessed something of my gift of valarda. Perhaps the cries of the hawks above us alerted him to approaching dangers or the wind carried faint scents to his nostrils, for more than once he paused and sniffed the air behind him as might an old lion. His clear blue eyes fixed on me as I too often turned in my saddle to look across the undulating acres of grass behind us. He sent scouts to ride back along the line of our route. And then, once again, he urged his horse back to me and my columns of Valari knights. He suggested that we ride off a dozen yards so that we might confer together.

'You're as nervous as antelope,' he said to me as we walked our horses parallel to the columns of Guardians. 'I haven't seen you like this.'

'We're being followed,' I said to him. 'By whom remains uncertain.'

Sajagax nodded his head and glanced behind us. 'I think it is Duke Malatam. To behold the Lightstone is to love it like life itself, but he loved it more than anyone should, if you know what I mean.'

I stopped for a moment and tried to feel through Altaru's sturdy legs for any shaking of the earth; I looked behind us for any sign of a dust plume rising into the clear blue sky. To Sajagax, I said, 'Do you ever grow tired of battle?'

Sajagax seemed to swell like a bellows ready to deliver a blast of air into a furnace. 'Ask me if I grow tired of living. Should I want to give up that which stirs the greatest life within me? I love battle as all men should: as the sun loves the world, as a man does a woman.'

At this, I looked off at Atara riding next to Karimah as the columns of my knights passed by us. The beating of my heart was a deep pain inside me. Sajagax followed the line of my eyes, and he breathed out a heavy sigh.

'Sometimes I do grow tired,' he admitted. For a moment he sat slumped on his horse, deflated and spent like an old man. 'There's been so much slaughter. Eleven of my sons. Seventeen grandsons. My first wife.'

'Isn't Freyara your first wife?'

'No, when I was a young man like you, I took a bride from the Haukut clan. Her name was Aliaqa.'

Sajagax wiped the sweat stinging his eyes, and a great sadness came over him.

'Was she killed in battle, then?'

'No, a Marituk warrior stole her from my tent,' He sighed again and then forced himself to sit up straight as a red rage began building inside him. 'Torok was his name. I swam the Poru and then followed his track a hundred miles to where his family had their camp. Four days I spent waiting for my moment. And then I took my Aliaqa back.'

'And Torok, his family — they didn't follow you?'

'No, I had driven off their horses. But when Torok saw me riding off with Aliaqa, he fired an arrow into her back. To spite me. To take from me my greatest treasure. He could have fired his arrow at me.'

I reached out and clasped his hard hand in mine. Tears filled his eyes. He squeezed back with such a fierce grip that I feared my hand might break.

'After I gave Aliaqa back to the world,' he continued, 'I waited four more days. I returned to their camp. When everyone was sleeping, I cut through their tent, which belonged to Torok's brother. His name I never learned, but I put my sword through him first. I woke up Torok so that he knew who it was that killed him. The noise woke everyone else up, too. The brother's wife was like a she-wolf: she could have been a Manslayer. She came at me with a knife, and I had to cut her down, too.'

Now the old rage that had tormented him for so long turned inward and began eating at his insides like a ravening lion. I sensed that he wanted to tell me more, so I said, 'And then?'

'And then I killed the brother's children, too. The oldest boy couldn't have been more than five; the youngest was a baby, a girl with milk on her mouth. I told myself that it was a mercy, that they couldn't have survived the jackals and wolves with their elders dead, thirty miles from any other Marituk encampment. But I know not, Valashu, I know not.'

Sajagax bowed his head as he stared at the grass. It was a terrible thing that he had told me. He sat beneath the hot sun sweating and blinking his eyes. Then he looked at me. In a deep, angry voice, he forced out, 'I didn't make the world! Battles all true men must fight. We try to work our will on the world, but it may be that the world works its will on us. Who can see the end of it all?'

Again, I looked off toward Atara, who now rode a couple of hundred yards ahead of us. Seeing this, Sajagax's fierce, old face suddenly softened. 'If battle should find us here, I want you to stay by my granddaughter's side. She's a warrior, the greatest of the Manslayers, but she is still the woman you love, and you must protect her.'

He clasped hands with me yet again as if to seal an agreement. Then he dug his heels into his horse and galloped back to where his warriors made their way across the steppe. I rejoined my company, riding side by side with Atara. Thus we proceeded for perhaps an hour before one of Sajagax's scouts came pounding over a rise behind us. He galloped straight past our columns and cried out, 'The Alonians! They have betrayed us!'

At this news, Sajagax turned his warriors and waited for us to catch up to him. Then he rode forward, with Thadrak and Orox. I joined them there, on a grass-covered knoll, accompanied by Atara, Lord Raasharu, Lord Harsha, Baltasar, Maram and Master Juwain. Then the scout, nearly breathless from his dash across the steppe, gasped out: 'Duke Malatam leads a great many knights — I saw his standard with the rose flowers!'

'How far behind us?' Sajagax asked.

'Five miles.'

'How many knights?'

'Nearly five hundred. And thrice as many remounts.'

At these numbers, Maram's face paled as if a demon had drained him of blood. And Lord Raasharu said, 'Duke Malatam could not have assembled such a force this quickly, not since breakfast.'

'No,' I agreed. 'The call must have gone out when he first had word that we had passed through the Long Wall.'

'Then he did try to delay us outside of Tiamar,' Baltasar said. My hot-blooded friend's face filled with all the color that Maram's lacked. 'He would have waylaid us there — like a filthy brigand!'

'He'll waylay us here if we don't ride!' Maram called out.

Atara, who had remained silent, faced back toward the line of our march, to the southeast. We all faced that way, too. The sun was bright above the wavering, golden grasses, and hurt all our eyes. We had to squint to make out the plume of dust rising from the earth into the sky.

'Let's ride,' I said. 'We have a good lead. Perhaps we can outdistance them.'

I turned my black warhorse toward the cloudless sky in the northwest. I looked at Atara sitting so peacefully on hers. Despite my hopeful words, I feared that battle would find us here, and that soon I would have to slay many man to protect her, as she would me.