Lord of Lies

Chapter 24

The next morning, we rode away from that blood-drenched place. The Tarlaners were too ashamed to put a name to the terrible defeat that: had befallen them, but it would ever after be known among the Valari and the Kurmak as the Battle of Shurkar's Notch. King Shurkar Eriades, I thought, would have been appalled that the stone taken from the quarry there had failed to protect his realm from this small force of Sarni who rode with us. I, too, was appalled by the slaughter that we had wrought together. It occurred to me that with these splendid warriors on our side, working with the Valari at a man's thumb might coordinate with his fingers, I might at last reunite the two estranged kindreds of the tribe of Elahad and forge a weapon of terrible power, efficiency and deadliness.

Our pace away from the escarpment was slow, for we were all tired, and 1 did not want to press my wounded knights. One of these was Sar Kandjun. It seemed that a Tarlan knight, while Sar Kandjun had been playing dead, had used him for target practice, sticking his lance into Sar Kandjan's thigh. Sar Marjay and Sar Jaldru had testified that Sar Kandjun had borne this insult without uttering a sound. But after the Duke's host had passed, Sar Kandjun had arisen from the grass, bound his leg with some cloth torn from his surcoat and had whis-tled for his horse. Then he led the others toward the notch. These three brave knights thus came late to the battle, but with Sajagax's warriors,

they had fallen upon the Tarlaners' rear with a vengeance that brought honor to their names.

Our flight across the Duke's lands had taken us too far west almost all the way to the Aquantir. And so, to cut the road leading to Tria, we had to journey north and slightly east, toward the hills that glowed golden-orange beneath the sun. I did not think that Duke Malatam was mad enough to try to gather his scattered horses and mount a pursuit. And doubted if his beaten men would follow him if he did. Even so, we kept a watch behind us. Sajagax sent outriders to patrol in that direction as well as ahead.

The steppe stretched before us, a sea of long swishing grasses that seemed as endless as the sky. But according to Atara, who had been this way before, we were approaching its northern bounds. After about eight miles of easy travel, we saw single trees pushing up out of the turf like lonely sentinels. A few miles further on they were joined by a sprinkling of their cousins. And then suddenly, after we had crested a rise, we came upon a line of trees stretching from east to west for as far as the eye could see. Alonia's Great Northern Forest stood before us like a wall of green. Sajagax and his warriors seemed even more loathe to enter it than they had been to cross the Long Wall.

'Trees,' Sajagax said to me as we sat side by side in front of our companies surveying the country ahead of us. 'So many trees.'

I pointed at a band of stone about a quarter mile ahead of us and to our right. I said, 'Look, there's the road. From here, if Atara is right, it's scarcely more than a hundred miles to Tria.'

'About such things, Atara is always right,' he said. 'Though I passed this way once, before she was born, and it seemed like much more than a hundred miles.'

We made our way onto the road, with Sajagax riding foremost and his guard strung out behind him. I led my knights in three columns following them. After the soft ground of the Wend rush, the road's paving stones seemed too hard and the sound of our horses iron-shod hooves against it too loud. And then we passed into the archway of trees before us, and their fluttering green canopies suddenly blocked out the sun. It grew cooler, and the air thickened with the moist breath of the forest. Several of the Sarni warriors ahead of us made signs as if to ward off evil.

We ambled up the road for several more miles. This dosed country of wooden pillars and shrubby ramparts seemed to chasten our yellow-haired allies. Many of Sajagax's men, I thought, had never seen more than a scattering of trees in all their lives. Although Thadrak and a few others had ridden on raids into Anjo, that broken kingdom's patchwork of woods was nothing like this expanse of vegetation that went on a hundred miles to the north and more than twice that to the east and west. The forest's gloom fell over them like a dark, green blanket and smothered their easy laughter, which I had come to relish as I did the wind and sun. Even I, who had grown to manhood among the great oaks and elms of the Morning Mountains, found myself wishing to come upon an open field or a crag that might give a good view of the sky. But the only high ground nearby was the hill land along the Poru to the east of us and these old, rounded mounds of earth were covered in trees as thick and tall as those towering above

us.

Late that afternoon, however, we came upon a great clearing to the side of the road. It seemed large enough to encamp an army. Indeed although we were still in Tarlan, King Kiritan had ordered it cut out of the forest in order to accommodate his armies, should he have need to march this way. It was one of many such sites along the roads leading through Alonia. We decided to spend the night there. When we were finished laying out our firepits and pitching our tents acres of sweet green grass surrounded us, and this made Sajagax's warriors happy and all our horses even happier.

During the night, a thick shroud of clouds came up to cover the stars. It began raining hard before dawn and continued all the next day. Big drops of water and occasional bursts of hail pelted us in millions of silver, streaking missiles. My wounded knights felt this assault most grievously, although they did not complain of it I gave my cloak to Sar Kandjun to keep out this wet, driving cold. It helped him, a little, I thought. I wished I had two hundred cloaks, for all of us who had fought the Tarlaners suffered from aching limbs and a stiffness that penetrated to the bone.

Atara, wrapped in her lion skin, kept warmer than most — at least in her body. Her soul, however, remained as cold as the little bits of hail that fell down from the dark clouds above us and broke against the diamonds of my armor. It was like a wall of ice between us. I wanted to melt it and heal her of her deepest anguish as badly as I wanted the sun to return. I knew that she pushed me away only to drive me into myself, to learn the truth of who I really was. It cost her a great deal to maintain her aloofness. In her heart was a deep hurt that choked her and would not go away. I wanted to weep at this strange and terrible compassion of hers, as cold and hard as the crystal of her gelstei.

As we trod down the road and our horses kicked up a muddy spray, I brooded over what she had told me about the world's fate hanging balanced upon the edge of a sword. I felt my own fate, pulling me on toward Tria. I felt, too, something dark and too-familiar pursuing me from behind. Then the road led us past the last of the hills to the east and a sense of dread and doom fastened its claws into the bones of my back and would not let go. That night, lying on ground so sodden that my sleeping furs soaked-through, I dreamed that I was trying to ride away from my own shadow. But the faster I rode, the stronger and more defined it grew. When I told Master Juwain ot this the next morning, he interpreted it to mean that I was afraid of my fate of being the Maitreya.

'All men,' he said to me as he pressed a cup of hot tea into my hand, 'fear the great shining thing inside themselves and try to flee from it-How much worse this must be for the Lord of Light.'

I gulped the tea and scalded my throat. I said, 'But this is no shining thing. 'It is dark. It is cold, like death.'

'As I've said many times,' he told me, 'there is an identity of opposites. The light that is too bright burns and blinds. And is it not written that the silver swan is born anew from the ashes of its own funeral pyre?'

"To live, I die," ' I said, quoting from the Valkariad. ' "Out of the deepest darkness, the brightest light." '

'Do you see, Val? Do you see?'

'Perhaps,' I said to him. 'You know a great deal about dreams. But whatever it is that's after me feels as real as this rain that won't stop.'

After that we broke camp and set out into the wet morning. We crossed into Old Alonia, and the rain seemed to grow only stronger as did my sense of something following me. At last, I felt obliged to take Sajagax into my confidence. I told him of my fears.

He looked at me strangely and said, 'Sometimes, Valashu, I think that you are like the imakil who ride in another world. They have senses that we of this world lack. You say that something hunts us. I sense this not — and I have the eyes of an eagle, the nose of a wolf, the ears of a horse. But this is not my country; these cursed trees devour the wind and sky. Very well then, I will send out riders again to look for signs.'

I sent out riders, too: Sar Avram and Sar Elkad, Sunjay Naviru and Skyshan of Ki. They galloped back down the road and beat through the forest to either side of it searching for anything that went on two legs or rode on top of anything with four. With Sajagax's scouts, they returned to report that they had seen nothing more suspicious than five deer, a black bear with her cubs, a woodcutter and a merchant making his way up the road toward Adavam with a cart full of silks to sell.

It occurred to me that Estrella, as a seard, might be able to find whatever my men could not. She rode beside me, now covered in Atara's lion skin, which Atara had draped over her shivering body to protect her from the rain. When I tried to describe my sense of being steeped in shadow, she just looked at me as she always did and smiled mysteriously.

As we made our way north, the road bent back toward the Poru and took us through a rich farmland mostly cleared of trees. The huts of peasants stood out against misty, emerald fields. The rain eased and then softened into a drizzle that sifted down from the gray sky. So time after noon, we came to Adavam, second largest of Alonia's cities. It had been built on marshy ground where the Istas river flows in from the west and meets the Poru in a great joining of waters We spent a few hours riding along its crowded streets, buying meat and bread for my hungry men and oats for the horses. We might have found accommodations for the night with one of the nobles who had estates outside the city — or with a Lord Palandan, who dwelled in the great, ancient castle rising up at the city's center. But after our encounter with Duke Malatam, we'd had enough of Alonia's nobility for the time being. And so we pressed our tired mounts onward, and we crossed the great Delikan Bridge that spanned the Istas. We made camp that night five miles to the north, in the fields of a peasant who owned his own lands. Although he was too poor to feed us, he surprised everyone by producing a cask of beer, which he and his eldest son helped us drain to the last drop.

We awoke the following morning to skies as blue as a robin's egg. The sun came out to dry the sodden lands through which we rode, and a rainbow arched across the horizion. Its vivid colors seemed to drive back the chill of dread clinging to me. We passed along a stretch of road where the farmland gave out into forest again. I smiled to see the millions of leaves above us letting through a lovely, green light. Estrella, riding to my left, smiled her bright smile as if to show me this radiance inside myself. Master Juwain, on my right, sat on top of his horse holding the akashic crystal in his gnarly hands. He softly sang out words in the angels' language that he called Galadik. He had come to understand at least a part of this musical tongue, and he worked very hard to unlock the knowledge stored in his glowing disc.

Late in the afternoon, just as we crossed a stream flowing down to the Poru, Master Juwain's crystal began shimmering more brightly than any rainbow. Hues of scarlet, viridian and sapphire blue spun about its center and seemed to whirl right off the disc and fill the air with a brilliant sheen.

'Hold!' I called out, raising up my hand. I reined-in Altaru, while behind me, Maram, Karimah and Atara brought their mounts to a halt as well — along with the tens of Guardians behind them. 'What is this?'

'I don't know,' Master Juwain said as he gazed at the crystal. 'Look how it flares!'

Even as he spoke, the entire crystal filled with glorre, as it had in the Lokilani's wood in the presence of the Lightstone. But the Cup of Heaven now resided with Sar Hannu, who sat on his horse in the middle of our columns nearly a fifty yards behind us.

'Look Val, look!'

Now the glorre spilled out and enveloped us in a shimmering clouds. Seeing this, Sajagax galloped back down the road straight toward us. He called out, 'What magic do you summon now, wizard?'

'I don't know,' Master Juwain said again. 'But this gelstei — it's as if it's seeking something. It wants something of me.'

'How can that be?' I asked him.

'I wish I knew.'

Maram came forward to get a better look at the crystal. 'But how do you know it wants something of you?'

'I wish I knew that, too.'

Just then Flick appeared like a comet falling out of the sky. in a swirl of sparkling lights, he turned circles around the crystal in Master Juwain's hand. Then he shot off into the woods. His luminous form paused between two maple trees as if he waited for us to follow him.

'Flick wants something of us too,' I said. 'Perhaps the same thing.'

'What?' Maram said. 'To go wandering about these wild woods?'

I looked off through the trees. Then I turned to Atara. 'Is there anything unusual nearby?'

But Atara only shook her head. Even when she could 'see,' she could not do so perfectly.

'Let's go with Flick,' I suggested. I smiled at Maram. 'These woods are a tangle, but nothing so bad as the Vardaloon.'

I nodded at Sajagax and Lord Raasharu, and they seemed almost as eager as I was to solve this new mystery. And so 1 led off into the trees, toward Flick. My knights trailed after me at a walk, followed by Sajagax and his warriors. Our hundreds of horses let loose snorts of unease as their hooves cracked the deadwood littering the forest floor. The undergrowth was mostly bracken and maidenhair, which Altaru pushed past or trampled down. But patches of it were cinnamon fern and royal lady growing four feet high, and this I chopped through with my sword Flick seemed to have no sense that such vegetation might impede us. He streaked around stem, leaf and tree trunk with the ease of sparkling water and all the impatience of a child.

Thus we continued for perhaps an hour. Flick led us on a course that seemed as straight as the flight of a blazing arrow. And all the while, with every furlong deeper into the woods that we rode, Master Juwain's crystal flared brighter and brighter.

Without warning I came to a break in the trees through which I could see a wall of sandstone before us. Altaru pushed through the last of the bracken, and we came out onto a wide strip of shingled ground that fronted an unusual rock formation. It rose up perhaps three hundred feet and curved around toward the right and left. The mound seemed circular in shape; I guessed it might be a quarter of a mile in diameter. Baltasar and rest of my knights joined me there between the mound and the trees. So did Sajagax and to warriors. We watched with amusement — and amazement — as flick rose straight up the rockface like a flaming bird that could simply soar over the barrier in front of us.

'There must be something at the top,' Maram said, looking up at the smooth rock above us. 'If I had wings, I'd follow him.'

'If you had wings, they'd break,' Sajagax said as he nudged his horse closer to Maram and poked his finger into his big belly. Then he looked at me and asked, 'How are we to follow this imp of yours?'

Long cracks ran vertically in many places through the mound's sandstone and sprays of ivy covered much of it but it was otherwise as smooth as a girl's cheeks. I looked at this rock doubtfully, and I said, 'It might he scaled.'

Sajagax examined the wall with even more doubt written across his florid face. 'You Valari may be men of the mountains, but even a goat would have a hard time of such a climb. There must be another way.'

Master Juwain held the akashic crystal toward the mound, and the gelstei blazed like a little sun in his hands.

'Let's ride around this,' I said, pointing at the wall. 'Lets see what we can see.'

Carefully, for the ground was broken with many splinters of sandstone, I led forth in a slow walk around this great bubble of rock. Everyone followed me. So did Flick. Although his form remained free of anything resembling a face, he seemed somehow frustrated with me and the limitations of my all-too-human body.

Suddenly, before we had rounded less than half the mound's circumference, I came up a much larger crack splitting the rock from ground to summit. The sandstone to either side of it draped in more ivy, was carved into great pillar-like figures that might have been Elijin or Galadin. Wind and water and the slow work of time had worn smooth the details of their faces. The opening beckoned like an entrance to a great building. I watched with smile as Flick shot through it and disappeared from sight.

'Let's follow him,' I said to Maram. I peered inside the crack, which was wide enough for two horses to navigate side by side. I looked at Master Juwain, who sat on his horse clutching the akashic ctystal. 'Will you come, too, sir?'

'If a dragon guarded this gate,' he said, pointing at the crack, 'it couldn't stop me.'

Atara said that she wanted to accompany us, and so then did Karimah and Sajagax. Estrella gave signs that she would not be separated from me. Her bright eyes reminded me that she might help us find inside whatever it was that excited both the akashic crystal and Flick.

Then Lansar Raasharu nudged his horse forward and said, 'Let me come with you, Lord Valashu. We don't know what lies within, and you might need my sword.'

Baltasar likewise shared his father's concern and volunteered to ride before me as a single knight acting as my vanguard. I smiled at him and said, 'Thank you, my friend, but you would best serve me if you would remain here in command of the Guardians.'

'Very well,' Baltasar said, peering through the dark crack, 'but at least send five knights into this, that they might report back to you that the way is safe.'

This seemed prudent, and so I chose out Sar Shevan, Sar Varald, Sar Ishadar, Juradan the Younger and Sar Hannu to make this little mission. Sar Hannu gave the Lightstone into my keeping, and then led the others into the crack. I listened as the sound of their horses' hooves clacking against rock died into echoes.

And so we waited there between this great, mysterious mound and the darkening forest. We did not wait very long. Soon Sar Hannu returned by himself and told me, 'The way is safe, Lord Valashu. And it leads to a great open area that you must see! Come, come!'

His enthusiasm communicated to Maram, Master Juwain and Lansar Raasharu, no less than Sajagax, Atara, Karimah and Estrella, whom I now led into the crack. Its walls, I saw, were smooth as glass, as if a red gelstei had melted this corridor through the sandstone The day's fading sunlight filtered down to illuminate the many fallen rocks, which our horses had to step over with care lest they turn a leg. The corridor was not straight, but bent first right and then left, like the length of a snake. Sar Hannu and I rode side by side, followed by the others. The sound of his breath steaming out into this dim, closed space added to the creaking of diamond armor and iron-shod hooves striking stone like the hammers of miners delving for hidden ores.

And then the corridor straightened and gave out into the open area that Sar Hannu had told of. We rode out toward the four other knights who waited near its center, looking about themselves with awe coloring their faces. For the mound, as we all could see, was hollow. Its insides seemed to have been scooped out of the rock — or melted — in the shape of a perfect cylinder. Above us, above the mound's curving sandstone rim three hundred feet high, the twilight sky was a circle of dark blue showing the night's first stars. Our horses stood within a lower circle, the eastern half of which was given over to rounded, rising rows of stone benches like those of the great amphitheater at Nar. In its western half, which seemed like a staging space, a few elms grew out of cracks in the ground. This might once have been solid rock, but now was covered by layers of old leaves, mosses and dirt that must have blown in over the years. But the circle that caught my gaze and held it was formed by the cylinder's walls. At first, in the deepening gloom, I had thought that they were of fused glass, like the walls of the corridor leading into this strange place. Now, however, as Master Juwain dismounted and brought forth his akashic crystal, these hollowed sweeps of rock began to scintillate and glow. 'Look, Val, look!' he called out.

I dismounted, then, and so did everyone else. I stood gazing at the rock, which now swirled with colors like those of the akashic crystal before it had fallen full of glorre. 'What is this place?' Maram said.

Sajagax and Karimah both made warding signs, even as Atara stood quietly holding Estrella's hand. Lansar Raasharu, with Sar Hannu and the other knights, waited nearby gripping the hilts of their swords.

'In all the books I've ever read,' Master Juwain murmured, 'I've never come across mention of anything like this.'

Atara smiled coldly and said, 'Some scryers can look backward into time as well as ahead. Although I've never had this gift, my sense of things here is that no server who ever lived could look far enough back to see its making.'

'It feels old,' Maram agreed. 'If Ymiru told us right, Argattha is at least six thousand years old, but this feels older still — much older.'

I drew my sword, and its long length of silver gelstei reflected a bit of the heavens' light into my eyes. Without quite knowing how, I suddenly knew that Maram was right. I said, 'Surely, then, this must be some wonder from the Elder Ages.'

But this did not ease Maram's anxiety. He looked at me and said, 'Something from before the Star People came to earth? Who, then, built it? Who, then, sat on those seats?' He pointed at the eastern half of the amphitheater, with its many

benches carved out of stone.

'Others must have visited Ea before Elahad,' Master Juwain said. 'Perhaps the Elijin. Perhaps, as the little people thought, the Galadin themselves.'

At his mention of these great, inextinguishable beings, Estrella clapped her hands together and smiled as if she had found a fireflower in some lightless wood. But Maram's disquiet only deepened. He looked about the amphitheater and muttered, 'Angels, you say, and we can only hope you are right. But wha if other things came here? Dark things out of the Dark Worlds? Or worse, ghosts? I must confess, this place feels haunted to me. Can't anyone else feel this? There's a presence here.'

He waved his hand in front of his face as if to feel for hidden entities. Although it was a summer evening and not at all cold, he shuddered and drew his cloak about himself.

'I'm less concerned with ghosts,' Master Juwain said, pointing ahead of him, 'than with the miracle of those walls. They seem to be of the same substance as this gelstei.'

He rapped his knuckle against the akashic crystal. It was now sending out pulses of glorre as with ripples of water from a stone tossed into a quiet pool.

'I need to get a better look,' he said.

He strode off to examine the jackets of opalescent crystal now pulsing with soft lights all around the amphitheater. Maram accompanied him. Estrella started to dance off by herself toward the benches, but Atara did not approve of her being alone anywhere in this mysterious place at the fall of night, and so she went with her, I swept Alkaladur up toward the stars as if my shining sword might slice open the very heavens to reveal their secrets. Sajagax and Karimah made more warding signs, while Lansar Raasharu and the five Guardians stood ready to draw their kalamas. The night grew darker.

And then, near the benches, out of the wavering air, a figure of a man appeared. His whole being glowed with a soft light. I could not see his face, but he was tall, with long, black hair draping down upon a blue tunic embroidered with silver and gold. Estrella, upon perceiving this man, clapped her hands so loudly that the sudden crack drew Maram's attention. He turned away from the crystal of the wall, and shouted, 'Oh, my Lord! If that isn't a ghost, then I never hope to see one!'

This 'ghost,' or whatever he was, took a step toward Estrella and Atara, who were sitting on the first and lowest of the benches. Seeing this, almost quicker than thought, Sajagax whipped an arrow from his quiver and fitted it to the string of his great bow. Before I could cry out for him to stop, he drew back the arrow and fired it at the man. The arrow shrieked forth and seemed to streak right through his ethereal body in a shimmer of little lights. It slammed into one of the higher benches, and its steel point broke against the stone and sent up a spray of chips.

'Hold, Sajagax!' I called out as he drew another arrow. 'A ghost!' Maram shouted again from across the amphitheater. 'Surely he must be a ghost!'

The ghost now turned to look at Maram, and then at Sajagax and me. His face was of noble mien, with a long nose like an exquisitely sculpted pillar and a broad forehead. His eyes, black and bright as the sky above us, were like the eyes of my father and grandfather and many other Valari. He smiled at us and beckoned with his long, strong-looking hand toward the benches as if inviting us to sit down. 'Come!' I called out. 'Let's sit then. What else is there to do?' At that moment, Flick fell out of the air and turned flaming spirals around the ghost. This being's otherworldly face glowed with a smile as if he were greeting an old friend.

'Come, Sajagax, put down your bow! Come, Maram, Master Juwain, and everyone, and let us sit!'

I led the way toward the sandstone benches where Atara and Estrella sat watching the ghost. Everyone converged there and joined them on the first bench — except for Lansar Raasharu, who insisted on standing behind me to guard my back.

Then the ghost faced us and astonished us by singing out in a deep, lovely voice: 'Aulara, Auliama,'

The words echoed from the amphitheater's walls, now sparkling even more strongly with bright colors.

'It sounds like the language of the angels,' Maram said. 'Perhaps he is an angel,' Sajagax said, aiming his sharp eyes at the being before us. 'Pray that he is not a demon or other evil spirit, as I feared.'

'Aulara, Auliama,' the ghost said again.

'But what does that mean?' Maram asked. He turned to Master Juwain. 'Sir, do you know?'

'Yes,' Master Juwain said with a happy smile. 'It is an invitation: "Ask. and be answered."'

'Ask what?' Sar Hannu said, pulling at his heavy chin. 'Is this some sort of ancient oracle, then?'

'If it is,' Sar Varald said, 'then we should beware.This ghost could twist words and our understanding of them as might a scryer.'

At his careless words, Atara shot him a frosty look and said, 'You know little of scryers, it seems, and even less of what we've found here.'

Sar Varald, who did not want to dispute with the woman I loved, bowed his head and stared down at the old leaves upon which the ghost stood.

'It seems to me', Maram said, 'that none of us understands anytime about this place.'

Master Juwain sat gazing at the discus-like crystal in his hands. Then he rubbed his head as if it ached and looked at me. 'The voices inside this — they sing to the walls here. And the walls sing, too. Can't anyone hear them?'

I stared at the curved, colored expanse of gelstei glimmering beyond the ghost. I shook my head. Master Juwain might have learned to read the akashic crystal and perhaps its much greater cousin spread across the walls surrounding us, but I lacked the art.

'Whom do the walls sing to?' Maram asked Master Juwain. At this question, the ghost smiled as if he could understand Maram. He lifted back his head and looked up at the stars.

Atara said to Maram, 'If this is an oracle, you should be careful of what you ask. We might have only three questions — or one.'

As she said this, the ghost looked straight at her and repeated again, 'Aulara, Auliama,'

Master Juwain nodded at me and said, 'Ask him your question, Val.' 'All right,' I said as the ghost now looked at me. I drew in a quick breath and asked, 'Who is the Maitreya?'

My heart drummed hard inside my chest as the ghost stood there staring at me. His eyes, made of light or some shimmering substance, looked right through me. And then he spoke what seemed a single word: 'Laravari.'

'But what does that mean?' Maram asked. 'I think it means: "wait",' Master Juwain said. 'Wait for what? It's already past dinner time.'

Again the ghost looked skyward, and then he let loose a torrent of music as he sang out, 'Lanila eli la Ieldara lumiara ar Ininasuni. .'

Thus he continued for quite a while before finally falling silent. And Maram asked Master Juwain, 'Do you understand what he said, sir?'

'Some of it, I think. I believe he is waiting for a certain star, or stars, to rise. Our name for this would be Ninsun.'

I looked up at the black circle of sky, studded with many stars as bright as the diamonds of my armor. Various constellations edged the sandstone rim high above us. I made out the splendid Firwe and Salwe, the Eyes of the Tiger, and other points of light. I watched and waited as the world slowly turned its dark face to the heavens.

'Ninsun,' I whispered. I knew this name out of legend only, as the dwelling place of the Ieldra.

And then, just as the first of the stars forming the necklace of the Mother appeared, my heart seemed to stop and I could not breathe. For this brilliant iar poured its light straight down into the amphitheater like a stream of glorre. The numinous color touched the walls, which blazed with a sudden surge of radiance, giving back the light a thousandfold. Master Juwain's crystal flared brightly, too. The air filled with a strange song, and then ten thousand songs as voices both beautiful and terrible made a music that I could hardly bear. I wanted to stop my ears with my fingers and cover my eyes. But the music, bright as dreams of angels, compelled me to listen and look.

'Aulara, Auliama', the ghost said yet again.

What happened then was hard to understand. My consciousness seemed to divide in two like a silk cloth torn by the wind. All the while, I remained aware of the amphitheater and all it contained: the rustling leaves of the elms, the ghost talking to me, the hard stone bench beneath the even harder stones that encased my legs. And yet I found myself in other places, too: soaring through the sky like an eagle above primeval forests, standing on a burning plain, floating in the dark sea of space that envelops other worlds. All that I experienced occurred within time, like grains of sand falling through an hourglass one by one, but time itself seemed to open into a bright infinity that contained all things. I smelled flowers whose scents were utterly strange to me. I felt the earth of distant worlds through the paws of animals for which I had no name.

I listened to the moans of women giving birth and the clash of steel against steel and the rapture of a silver swan singing its death song. I heard a great deal and saw much more.

And this is what I saw: by the shore of a blue ocean on some watery world, a great host of men and women gathered. There must have been a million of them. They were raimented in garments finer than silk, and fillets of silver encrusted with emeralds and diamonds shimmered against their dark hair. The music that poured from their lips gave me to know that they were of the Galadin. Their eyes and hands, shining from within, told me this, too.

They interlocked hands as they danced in ever-widening circles around a golden cup that floated in the air. And as they danced, they sang and the cup gleamed and grew ever brighter. Time passed, perhaps a day, perhaps a thousand years, and then their voices joined into one and filled the world with a single, heartpiercing chord. The flames of their beings suddenly brightened beyond belief and passed around their circles from man to woman as quick as breath — and passed into the shimmering cup, back and forth, from them to it and it to them. The little cup flared so brightly that it outshone the sun. Then a ball of fire exploded outward from its center into space and consumed the Galadin and their world. The light of the great event filled all the universe.

And out of this pure and infinite light, the first gelstei crystallized like the colors of the rainbow falling out of the sky. They were seven in kind, and they sparkled more splendidly than rubies, sapphires and diamonds. And as they poured out great pulses of violet or red, yellow or blue, they vibrated like a mandolet's strings in seven fundamental notes. This music of creation, almost too bright and too beautiful, fell upon the expanding sphere of fire and interfused every part of it. And so the Galadin, who had now become much more, sang the new universe into being.

And out of this angel fire, stars were born. There were millions of millions of them. And from the substance of these luminous orbs, countless worlds formed in this lovely new universe that as yet had no name. And still the Ieldra sang, and from the world's blue oceans and rich, fecund earth arose the fishes and flowers, the whales and butterflies and trees, and all the other forms of life. And finally, men and women, who possessed minds to wonder at the mystery of themselves and to find their purpose in the great play of creation.

And so they planted seeds in the ground and harvested and made flour into bread, as men do; they dug up iron from the same ground and forged it into hoes and ploughshares. They quarreled over who owned this ground, and then made swords instead, and they slew each other in great numbers until their various earths ran red with rivers of blood.

But they were strong, these first men and the women they took as wives. The great song of life fired their beings; the music of memory carried them forward into the brilliant future. Out of the red, roaring oceans inside them came children and their children's children, in numbers too great for swords to cut down. They built cities in which to live and walls around their palaces and great, soaring towers.

And then to the greatest of these worlds, Erathe, the leldra sent the Lightstone. It found its way into the hands of a man with fire in his eyes and a great, blazing heart. People called him Maitreya, the Lord of Light.

He journeyed from city to city and land to land, bringing light wherever he went. And men put down their gleaming swords and polished their souls instead. And glorious cities greater even than Tria filled all the lands until all of the world shined with the splendor of a great civilization and peace at last reigned on Erathe. Then men, tall men with bright, black eyes, looked toward the stars. The boldest of them walked from world to world bearing the Lightstone and giving it into the hands of other great-hearted beings who arose from their various earths. These, too, filled with cities as true civilization spread across the heavens.

At last, after many millions of years, the Lightstone returned to Erathe. There, one of the Shining Ones claimed it and brought it before the throne of a great king, a Starwalker who had journeyed to the center of the universe where the great geistei were kept and had gained great powers of the body, mind and soul. And this mighty warrior came down from his golden throne and knelt before this one. The radiance that poured from the Cup of Heaven washed away the last of the king's ephemerality and quickened the flames of his being so that his lifefire could never die of its own. And when he straightened yet again, the stars themselves crowned him in light, and there stood the first of the universe's immortals.

The king then gave up his throne to visit other worlds and help others prepare to make the same journey as had he. And the Lightstone followed him, always borne by the sons and grandsons of the tall, bright-eyed men. And the Cup of Heaven was given to other Shining Ones, who raised up other kings and queens to the order of the Elijin. And the greatest of these — Ashtoreth, Valoreth, Arwe, Urwe, Artu, Mainyu, Arkoth, Varkoth and Ahura — came to preserve the Lightstone's radiance inside themselves so that they shone and no particle of their beings could be harmed in any way.

And so the great Galadin went forth and summoned others of their kind to the world of Agathad, also known as Skol. And there they waited to fulfill their destiny. At the end of the ages, they would gather by the shores of a silver lake, and sing, and set free the bright infinity within themselves in an explosion into light. They would become beings of pure light: the Ieldra of the new universe to which they would give birth. And life would continue on its journey toward the One: ageless, indestructible, indwelling deep inside the depths of all things.

And all this, as the stars poured down their radiance into the amphitheater and I sat frozen to the bench beneath me, I saw and sensed and tried to understand.

The Maitreyas truly are Bringers of Light, I thought. And they are the Makers of Angels.

And then, like two pieces of silk knitted into a whole cloth again, my consciousness was made one, and I returned to staring out at the amphitheater's layers of leaves and glittering walls — and at the ghost who stared right back at me.

'Ah, that was like a drunkard's dreams,' Maram said as he rubbed his eyes. Where before he had shivered, now beads of sweat formed up on his fat forehead. 'Did everyone else see what I did?'

For a while, as the constellations turned slowly above us, we sat there exchanging accounts of what we had seen. They were much the same. Our understanding of them, however, was not.

'The men who guarded the Lightstone,' Sajagax said to me, 'seemed much like you Valari. But why? Who chose them for this glory?'

Maram nodded at me and said, 'And what of the king, then? Certainly he must have been Valari. He looked like you, my friend.'

The king still stood out in my mind's eye, at once as strange as the distant world of Erathe and utterly familiar: he might have been my brother, my father, myself.

'It was the first Shining One who bore Valashu's aspect,' Lord Raasharu said. 'For surely it is not the cast of a man's face or the color of his eyes that contains his essence, but his heart and soul.'

This provoked yet more comment, from Sar Hannu and Sar Varald and the other knights, who were inclined to believe that the ghost's sole purpose in giving us these visions was to show me my destiny as the Maitreya.

There is much that we still don't comprehend,' Master Juwain said. 'The movement of man is always toward the One, even as we of the Brotherhoods have always taught. But it seems that this rise can be hindered, or even forestalled altogether. From other sources, we know of Angra Mainyu's fall and the War of the Stone. But we were told nothing of this tonight. How is the Lightstone to be used and why did the ancient Maitreyas fail with the Dark One?'

No sooner had this question left his lips than the ghost stepped forward and said, 'Aulara, Auliama.' Then he began singing out a song that filled all the amphitheater and shook the very stone surrounding us.

'No, wait!' Master Juwain called out, glancing up at the sky. 'That may not be the question that would be best to ask. It is growing late, and there are other things of vital importance that must be.. '

His voice died before the vastly greater voice of the ghost as it became clear that this mysterious being intended to answer Master Juwain's question whether he liked it or not. I listened to the ghost, enraptured, even though I could understand little of what he was saying. For a single word repeated again and again, and that was Alkaladur.

Again I drew my sword and held it pointed toward the stars. Its silustria rang out like a bell and seemed to sing in harmony with the ghost's music.

'What is he saying?' Maram called out in a voice nearly as big as the ghost's. 'I don't understand any of it.'

Master Juwain, gazing at the ghost said to him. 'There's too much, too fast, for me to understand either. But I believe that he is telling the story of Angra Mainyu's fall and the attempt of the Galadin and Eltjin to heal him of his madness.'

'Then why doesn't he tell it in words that make sense?' Maram bellowed out.

At this, the ghost suddenly ceased singing and stared at Maram. Then he smiled and began reciting:

When first the Dragon ruled the land.

The ancient warrior came to Skol.

He sought for healing with his hand,

And healing fire burned his soul.

The sacred spark of hope he held,

It glowed like leaves an emerald green;

In heart and hand it brightly dwelled:

The fire of the Galadin.

He brought this flame into a world

Where flowers blazed like stellulars,

Where secret colors flowed and swirled

And angels walked beneath the stars.

To Star-Home thus the warrior came,

Beside the ancient silver lake.

By hope of heart, by fire and flame,

A sacred sword he vowed to make.

Alkaladur! ABtaladur!

The Sword of Love, the Sword of Light,

Which men have named Awakener

From darkest dreams and fear-filled night.

No noble metal, gem or stone -

Its blade of finer substance wrought,

Of essence pure as love alone,

As Strong as hope, as quick as thought.

Valarda, like molten steel,

Like tears, like waves of singing light,

Which angel fire has set its seal

And breath of angels polished bright.

Ten thousand years it took to make

Beneath their planet's shining sun;

Ten thousand angels by the lake:

Their souls poured forth their fire as one.

In strength surpassing adamant,

Its perfect beauty diamond-bright,

No gelstei shone more radiant:

The sacred sword was purest light. .

As the ghost continued reciting verses that reminded me of others that Alphanderry had once spoken to me, I gazed at my shining sword. The one who forged it, I thought, had named it after another sword, made many ages ago not of silustria but valarda — a sword of the soul. The true Alkaladur. A hundred questions sprang into my mind. Why couldn't one of the Maitreyas heal Angra Mainyu? And was the ancient warrior of whom the ghost spoke the same as the warrior mentioned in Alphanderry's epic: Kalkin, the immortal Elijin who had somehow become Kane, my companion and friend? And if so, why had Kalkin taken the lead in this quest over the much greater Galadin such as Ashtoreth and Valoreth?

I listened as the ghost told of the great war between the Amshahs, who sought to preserve the Law of the One, and the Daevas who followed Angra Mainyu:

In ruth the warrior went to war,

A host of angels in his train:

Ten thousand Amshahs, all who swore

To heal the Dark One's bitter pain.

With Kalkin, splendid Solajin

And Varkoth, Set and Ashtoreth -

The greatest of the Galadin

Went forth to vanquish fear of death.

And Urukin and Baradin,

In all their pity, pomp and pride:

The brightest of the Elijin

In many thousands fought and died.

Their gift, valarda, opened them:

Into their hearts a fell hate poured;

This turned the warrior's stratagem

For none could wield the sacred sword.

Alkaladur! Alkaladur!

The Brightest Blade, the Sword that Shone,

Which men have named the Opener,

Was meant for one and one alone.

As the night deepened and the wind fell down from the stars, the ghost went on singing for a long time, for his tale was a long one. He told of how Marsul had called a great crusade to wrest the Lightstone from Angra Mainyu by force of arms. Half of the Amshahs had joined Ashtoreth and Valoreth in seeking Angra Mainyu's defeat through finding a way to wield the Sword of Light; but half of them betrayed the One's injunction that the Elijin and Galadin may not take life, and they had gathered to Marsul's standard. And not just angels, it seemed, but the Star People who were my ancestors.

And by their side Valari knights

Like stars a hundred thousand strong,

Their diamond armor gleamed like lights;

Their shields were hard, their swords were long.

What followed then, as the ghost finished his account of the War of the Stone, saddened me for he told of my friend's wrath and near-fall into evil:

At last the faithful Kalkin broke:

With sword in hand, with bitter breath

Upon his soul an oath he spoke:

He vowed to bring the Dragon's death.

Then Mainyu fled across the stars

With Yama, Kadaklan and Zun,

The Daevas with their soul-dark scars -

They hid beneath a silver moon.

On Erathe, oldest world of Man,

The Amshahs found their ancient foe.

With Marsul, Kalkin. in the van,

Their helms on high, their swords aglow.

The armies met in summers heat

Upon Tharharra's sun-seared plain;

No pity, quarter or retreat

No breath of wind nor drop of rain.

Alkaladur! Alkaladur!

The Sword of Love, the Sword of Life,

Which men have named the Quickener

Of dreams of death, of peace and strife.

All day the angels' armies clashed

Across the blazing, grassy sea,

Where steel and gelstei cruelly flashed

In deeds of dreadful savagery.

The sky burned black, the sea ran red -

At last the warrior seized his foe

Who stood as dead among the dead

By might of empathy laid low.

For Kalkin, with black stone in hand,

Now touched upon the depthless dark;

He brought him to that lightless land

And dimmed the Dragon's sacred spark.

And Marsul seized the golden bowl

While Manwe worked the Dragons doom:

With aid of angels sent from Skol

He bound the Dragon on Damoom.

Alkaladur! Alkaladur!

Triumphant Sword, the Righteous Blade,

Which men have named the Vanquisher

Of woe and evil men have made.

Then Marsul, mad with long-held lust,

Beheld the golden bowl that shone.

He broke the Amshahs' sacred trust,

And claimed the Lightstone for his own.

But Kalkin fought him sword to sword

Across Tharharra's blood-soaked field,

Contending for the ancient hoard,

He forced his furied friend to yield.

Bereft of that which maddened him,

Brave Marsul's ageless eyes grew clear,

He found that place of grace and glim,

And faced his fate without a fear.

And now this Galadin so bright,

Atoning for his killing pride,

Vanished in a cloud of light -

Thus Marsul, mighty Marsul, died.

Alkaladur! Alkaladur!

The Blade of Grace, Mysterious Sword,

Which men have named the Deepener -

To ruthless ruth will be restored.

The Amshahs then grew cold with dread

At setting of the bloody sun;

On ground where so much life was shed

They saw an even Darker One.

But he who'd touched the Sword of Light

Perceived the Lightsword had touched him.

While angels watched, his heart blazed bright,

His eyes, his hands and every limb.

The warrior gave to Valakand

To guard the ancient golden bowl;

He set the vessel in his hand,

Thus cooled the fire of his soul.

And though the dark was not undone,

A light within the darkness hides;

While Star-Home turns around its sun

The Sword of Light, and Love, abides.

Alkaladur! Alkaladur!

The Sword of Fate, the Sword of Sight,

Which men have named Deliverer,

Awaits the promised Lord of Light.

As the ghost finished chanting, other beings appeared in the staging area. All were men, or something more, and all wore armor of various kinds: plate or steel mail or rings of silvery silustria — and not a few, diamond armor like my own. Many gripped swords or maces dripping with blood. They gathered among the bodies of the dead, who lay fallen all across the amphitheater's ground. One man, whose bright eyes shone like the diamonds he wore, stood tall and straight as another placed the Lightstone in his hand. This other man smiled a savage smile at me. I gasped to see Kane, or some apparition of him, gazing out at us through the darkness of the ages: He had the same cropped white hair, bold face and blazing, black eyes that I knew so well.

And then, as quickly as these new ghosts had come into the amphitheater, they were gone.

'Ah, that was worse than any dream,' Maram said. 'I hope never to see another battlefield, even one from the Elder Ages. If that is indeed what we saw.'

He looked at me to make sense of the ghost's verses and the haunting tableaux that had appeared before us. But where before I'd had a hundred questions about the past and future, now a thousand tormented me.

Master Juwain, sitting beside me, rubbed the back of his smooth head as he looked up at the sky. There were clouds in the east, and the stars of the Mother were falling toward the amphitheater's western rim. 'It's growing late, Val,' he told me. 'We've learned much, but I'm afraid you still don't know what you must, do you?'

'No, not yet,' I told him. I turned to look at Sajagax and Lansar Raasharu, who were watching me.

'If our need to journey on wasn't so great,' Master Juwain said, 'we could return here tomorrow night, and for the next year of nights, until we had our answers.'

Hearing this, the ghost again said, 'Aulara, Auliama,'

I gazed at his wavering form, and I murmured, 'It is late. The others will be worrying about us.'

I turned to Sar Varald and said to him, 'Will you go back out and inform Sar Baltasar of what we've found here? And that we will be delayed yet a short while longer?'

Sar Varald bowed his head to me. Then he stood and began walking toward the crack in wall by which we had entered the amphitheater.

'Aulara, Auliama' the ghost said to me.

And then, because I could bear it no longer, I stood and asked the question that I, like all men, most wanted answered: 'Who am I?'

I did not know what to expert. Perhaps, I thought, the ghost would begin reciting more verses or tell me that such a mystery was impossible ever to apprehend. So it surprised me when he beckoned for me to come forward and stand within the staging area. He likewise beckoned Maram, Master Juwain, Atara and Estrella. There was nothing to do but walk out and position ourselves in front of the benches as he indicated.

'Agalastii!' the ghost said, pointing at my chest, where I had tucked the Lightstone down beneath my armor. I sheathed my sword and drew forth the golden Cup of Heaven. 'Agalastii!'

And trail, as quick as a breath, the amphitheater again filled with luminous figures. Many of them, it seemed, were kings: I recognized King Waray's fine, dignified face and the much-scarred King Kurshan, who bore the white Tree of Life on his blue surcoat. Other Valari lords stood nearby, next to a man who could only be King Hanniban Dujar of Eanna, for his shield showed blue lions rampant on each of its gold quadrants. King Aryaman looked at me with eyes as blue as Sajagax's, while King Tal of Nedu watched me, too. And so did the kings of the lands ruled by Morjin or who had made alliance with him: a lithe man wearing the bronze, fish-scaled armor of the Hesperuks regarded me with awe, as did another with soft, almond eyes, whom I knew as King Angand of Sunguru from his unique emblem of a white heart with wings. Many chieftains of the Sarni gathered there, too. And then, one by one, as the Lightstone flared brighter in my hand, they bowed their heads to me and knelt down, touching their knees to the crunching leaves upon the ground.

And then I looked behind me toward Estrella, who was looking back at me, and through me, as if she had at last found what she had been seeking all her life. And the sun rose over the world. The sun was inside me, shining with a light that I knew could never die. I knew, too, that I could bring it forth and share it with others.

'Auliama!' the ghost chanted.

'Lord of Light!' the kings called out as one. And then, from farther away, another voice: 'Lord Valashu!'

It seemed that I had my answer. Surely I would never be more certain of my fate than I was at that moment. And yet And yet I stood there watching the bright star of the necklace of the Mother set, and I longed to ask still one more question.

'Lord Valashu!' Sar Varald called out again. I turned to see this thick-thewed knight enter the amphitheater and run toward me. 'They are all gone!'

'What?' I felt stunned as if by the blow of a mace. 'What is it, Sar Varald?'

He came panting up to me with his sword drawn, and said yet again, 'They are all gone!'

At that moment, the star fell behind the amphitheater's dark rock and all the kings kneeling before me returned whence they had come. 'Who is gone?' I said to Sar Varald.

'Baltasar! Sunjay Naviru! All the Guardians — the Sarni, as well!'

Hearing this, Sajagax leaped up from his bench and charged toward us gripping his great bow in his hand. Lansar Raasharu and the other knights followed closely behind him. So did Karimah. And I said to the sweating Sar Varald, 'Are you sure they're gone?'

'Yes, Lord Valashu. I searched the woods outside the amphitheater, calling out their names. And no one answered back.'

'That's impossible!' Sajagax said. His heavy face furrowed with anger.

'Perhaps they grew tired of waiting and decided to make camp deeper in the woods,' Maram said. 'Or perhaps something scared them off.'

'That's impossible,' Sajagax said again.

'Yes, truly it is,' I said, agreeing with him. 'The Guardians were posted by the entrance pillars. They would have died to a man before yielding to anyone or being driven off.'

'And so with my warriors,' Sajagax said.

'But what if it were ghosts they faced?' Maram said. 'Or something worse?'

As everyone looked at him, I bent down and put my finger to the moss beneath me. it was wet with fresh blood. I quickly straightened and stepped over to Sar Varald, who was trembling. I gripped his arm to steady him. 'You didn't see any signs of battle?'

'No, none.'

I rubbed the scar on my aching forehead, utterly bewildered by what he had reported.

'Come!' Sajagax said to me as he started for his horse, which he had tethered to one of the elms along with the other horses.

I turned toward the ghost, who cast me one last, deep, piercing look as he said, 'Aulara, Aulara, Aulara.' Then he, too, winked into unbeing and vanished into the neverness of the night.

'All right,' I said to Sajagax. I began running toward Altaru, who pawed the ground in his eagerness to leave this haunted place. 'Let s find out if men can disappear from the earth as easily as ghosts.'

For the moment, at least, this was the greatest mystery of my life.