Lord of Lies

Chapter 26

The Guardians posted behind the stockade would not let them pass. After being summoned, I hurried out of my pavilion and down the rows of tents to see two figures dressed in traveling cloaks and standing by their horses outside the stockade in the swishing wheat. Twilight was darkening the world, but I could still make out Liljana's pretty, round face and Dajarian's sharper features. The months since the Quest had wrought changes upon them. Liljana's once-plump form had thinned, and her cheeks seemed gaunt and hollowed. Daj, however, stood half a head taller and had filled out, probably from Liljana's sumptuous cooking. In his fine tunic, cleaned up as he was, he seemed almost a different boy. From beneath a mop of black hair, his almond eyes looked out at me and met mine with great gladness.

'Val!' he called to me. And then, impulsive as always, he blurted out, 'Your armor really is made of diamons!'

Liljana nodded at him in a kindly way, then turned to me. 'Well — are you going to keep an old woman waiting all night in the dark?'

Liljana, I thought, was hardly old. Although her hair was gray as iron and her skin deeply creased, she was only of middling years and still robust. She possessed a strength of body and spirit that a much younger woman might have envied. Indeed, many did, for she was the Materix of that secret Sisterhood known as the Maitriche Telu.

'Sar Avram! Sar Tavar!' I called out to the sentries. 'These are my friends — let them through!'

Sar Tavar, a long-faced knight, stared past the thin logs of the stockade and shook his head doubtfully. 'What if the thing from the amphitheater has taken on this woman's form?'

Liljana's forhead creased with puzzlement. I felt her bristling with anger at being kept waiting for what must have seemed no good reason. But I sensed her resolve to control this impulse and sort things out in a calm, careful and even relentless way. The flames of her being blazed with a bright will toward goodness, truth and beauty, and if she were realty a skulking murderer in disguise, then I might as well give up all hope, for the world had ended and the sun would not rise on the morrow.

'Let her pass,' I said to Sar Tavar again.

Sar Tavar and Sar Avram reluctantly pulled open the stockade's rudi-mentary gate, and Liljana and Daj stepped inside. Just then, Master Juwain, Maram and Atara came hurrying up behind us. Liljana greeted them warmly, then told me, 'I can see that my identity is questioned, though I really can't imagine why. You have stories to tell me, as I have you. Very well. But I'm the tome Liljana who cooked your meals and darned your socks across the length of Ea.. Of course I am.'

She bowed her head toward Atara, and then stared at me. 'Don't you rememher what I said to you in the White Mountains about what a woman truly desires?'

'Do you rememher?' I asked her.

'Of course I do.' She stepped closer to me, which caused Sar Tavar to grip the hilt of his sword. Then, as I leaned down, she cupped her hands over my ear and whispered, 'To be someone's beloved.'

If Atara had still possessed eyes, they would have filled with anguish just then. Somehow, she must have known what Liljana told me. She stood tall and still as one of the sculptures that the Frost Giants carve out of ice. I didn't want to look at her.

And then Liljana rushed forward and threw her arms around Atara. She kissed the cloth binding her face, and stroked her long hair. Tears streamed from her soft large eyes as she said, 'It's good to see you again, my dear.'

I felt Atara weeping inside as she embraced Liljana and kissed her. And then, in a quavering voice, with only a little irony, Atara said, 'It's good to see you, too.'

Daj ran up to me, and I grabbed his sides and raised him up in the air. He laughed as he looked at me eye to eye. Once, his lively face had held the aspect of one much older than his nine or ten years. But under Liljana's care much of the boy had returned to him. I set him down, and rumpled his hair. And he ran his finger over the diamonds encrusting my chest. He told me, 'Liljana taught me my letters, Ten times, maybe more I've read the story of how Aramesh and the Valari defeated Lord Morjin at the Sarburn, I didn't know anyone had ever defeated him before. . before you did in the hall. They call the Valari the "Diamond Warriors." But I never really believed your armor was made of diamonds,'

His words caused Sar Tavar and Sar Avram to beam with pride. Other knights had broken away from their meals to get a look at these two companions from the great Quest. Baltasar and Lord Raasharu crowded in close next to Skyshan of Ki, Sar Kimball and Sunjay Naviru. And then Lord Harsha and Behira, with Estrella, made their way down the lane between the tents. When Daj met eyes with Estrella, a smile as bright as the sun broke upon his face. He pushed past the tall knights nearby and ran straight up to her. 'Estrella!' he cried out. 'Estrella! Estrella!'

He hugged her to him and then stood back as they both fairly danced with delight. And Liljana called to him: 'You know this girl?'

'Yes, from the Dark City where she served one of the priests.' he said. 'She's my sister.'

We were all astonished to hear this, for during the many miles of our flight from Argattha, Daj had never spokeen of any relation that he might have left behind. Upon questioning, however. Daj now admitted that Estrella was his sister in spirit only.

'Her mother was a slave, too,' Daj said. 'She belonged to a weaver on the fourth level. That's where Estrella was born.' I stepped closer to these two mysterious children. I looked at Daj and asked. 'But how could you know that? Was there a time when Estrella could speak?'

'Of course there was,' he said. 'I mean, there is. She speaks so me now.'

I turned to Liljana, who held in her hand what seemed a little piece of driftglass cast into the shape of a whale. But I knew it to be of blue gelstei the stones that quickened the powers of truthsaying and listening to the whisperings of the mind. I looked into her wise, old eyes, and asked, 'Have you …?'

Have you taught him how to speak mind to mind?

Liljana had once promised me — and our other companions — that she would never look into another's mind without his leave. But she didn't need to exercise this power now to understand my unfinished question. She shook her head slightly as she said to me, 'No, I haven't.'

'Then what does Daj mean?' I asked.

I watched as he looked at Estrella, widening his eyes and pursing his lips. Estrella nodded as she gestured with her hand back toward the road. Then she slashed her finger across her throat. Her face darkened with a frown. I didn't need the gift of valarda to perceive the sadness that fell over her.

For a while the two children stood there facing each other, flashing hands, smiles or knowing looks at each other. It seemed they were talking to each other in a secret language much deeper than words. Then Daj broke off his silent communications. He looked at me and said simply, 'It's after you.'

'What is?' I said to him.

'The Skakaman,' he told me.

Baltasar, Skyshan and other knights moved in closer. Their eyes filled with dread as they regarded Daj warily. Dread seized my innards with cold claws, and I looked at Daj with amazement, for I had spoken this evil-sounding word to no one except Master Juwain. 'And what is that?' I asked Daj.

Daj held up his hands and shook his head. 'I don't really know. But I heard Lord Morjin speak of the Skakaman once. I think it's something he sends to hunt people down when they're asleep. It… steals their faces.'

Baltasar muttered something to Sunjay then, and Lansar Raasharu's hand tightened around the hilt of his sword. Other knights looked at each other as if seeking to confirm their worst fears. Seeing this, Master Juwain stepped over to me and said, 'Perhaps we should return to your pavilion. I'm sure our friends would welcome a little dinner.'

At the mention of food, Daj's eyes lit up. In Argattha, he had often had only rats to eat — that is, when he'd had anything at all.

And so I bade the Guardians to return to their meals or posts. I led Liljana and Daj back to my pavilion, where they joined Atara, Maram and Master Juwain inside. Since Daj and Estrella seemed inseparable, I invited the girl as well. In the soft light of the oil lamps that I meant to keep burning all night, we sat in a circle and shared our simple meal of roasted pork loin and some fresh bread and onions that we had bought in the village. The walls of my tent, lined with white silk, danced with shadows. Because they were so thin, we kept our voices low as we discussed all that had happened along the way from my father's castle toward Tria — and what had occurred in that great city over the last few days.

'A tinker traveling up the road,' Liljana said to me, 'passed your knights earlier today. When he reached Tria, he told of a company of Valari a few miles outside the walls. The word has spread quickly. Ever since King Waray and King Mohan arrived, everyone has been expecting you, myself most of all. I had to hurry to leave the city before they closed the gates for the night. And so here I am.'

'Why the urgency?' I asked her. 'Don't tell me that it's just because you're glad to see an old friend?'

'I am glad to see an old friend, my young friend,' she said, reaching out to squeeze my hands. 'But there are things I must tell you before you go into the conclave tomorrow.'

'Then has it already begun?' I asked.

'It has,' she said. 'King Kiritan wouldn't wait upon your arrival. Your Valari kings, of course, objected to that, since, as they said, it was your father who called for the conclave in the first place. But King Kiritan shouted them down. There has been much shouting in his hall. For two days, that's all these glorious kings have done, shout and argue with each other.'

Between bites of bread and pork, she told of some of these disputes. The sovereigns of the Free Kingdoms, it seemed, could not even agree upon the nature of what they were supposed to agree upon. Were they met to make an alliance against Morjin or only to discuss means to forestall his aggressions? Old King Hanniban of Eanna, for one, professed little fear of Morjin. He claimed that the southern kingdoms had fallen to Morjin's perfidies and plots because they were weak. But the Free Kingdoms, he said, were strong. He boasted that the combined navies of Eanna, Thalu and Nedu could easily blockade the Dragon Channel against Morjin's warships. And if Morjin's armies tried to attack Eanna by way of the much more arduous land route through Surrapam, then Eanna, with aid from Thalu alone, could easily beat back the invaders.

'King Hanniban,' I said, upon listening to this, 'is shortsighted. He thinks only of his own kingdom.'

'So it is with each king, I'm afraid,' Liijana said.

'And he underestimates his enemy,' I said. 'Morjin will soon fall against the Ymanir and destroy Elivagar. He'll reinforce Yarkona from Sakai, then order Count Ulanu to attack Eanna from its soft underbelly in the southeast, even as his Hesperuk armies move up through Surrapam. He'll crush Eanna between these two jaws. King Hanniban must be blind not to see this.'

As I said this, Atara's lips tightened. But she sat across from me in silence.

'Well,' Liijana said, 'other kings do favor an alliance.'

'Which kings?' Maram asked from beside her.

'Well, your father,' she said. 'I think he's very eager to make alliance with Alonia and the Nine Kingdoms. He fears that Delu will be attacked from Galda across the Terror Bay, as in ancient times.'

'Ah, well, he's a fearful man,' Maram said 'But in this case with good reason.'

'Too true,' Liijana said. 'And if reason alone prevailed, Alonia would promise aid to Delu. But King Kiritan doesn't want to commit forces that might be needed in defense of his own kingdom — unless others first commit to him. They're selfish men, these kings.'

'Then all must commit as one,' Master Juwain said. 'There simply must be an alliance.'

'And that is precisely what King Theodor Jardan has said. Of course, being of the Elyssu, he's a reasonable man.'

'Of course,' Master Juwain said. He, who had been born on this island kingdom, smiled at Liljana. But she did not smile back.

'But I'm sorry to say,' she told him, 'that King Theodor favors an alliance only with Alonia and Delu — and possibly with the Nine Kingdoms. The western kingdoms he doesn't trust. It's been only twelve years since the Elyssu warred against Nedu.'

She watched as Master Juwain's ugly face fell into a frown. From the moment these two luminaries of their respective Brotherhood and Sisterhood had met, they had taken to sparring verbally with each other.

And then Maram put in, 'Is there anyone besides my father who favors an alliance of all the Free Kingdoms?'

'Well, there is Atara's father,' Liljana said, looking at Atara. 'King Kiritan has almost persuaded King Tal and King Aryaman of the need — King Theodor, too. If he succeeds, King Hanniban will likely go along with them. But it seems he won't succeed.'

'But why not?' Atara asked, breaking her silence.

'Because the kings dispute everything,' Liljana said. 'Are the Free Kingdoms merely to make a pact to come to each other's defense in case of invasion? Or are they to form an army and navy of their own, and themselves invade the lands held by the Red Dragon? And if so, how many battalions of foot is each kingdom to contribute? How many archers and knights? How many warships? What should be the Alliance's strategy?'

'Fourteen kings,' I said, 'will likely offer fourteen different strategies.'

'Of course they would,' Liljana said, brushing bread crumbs from her lap. 'Of course they have. And that is why everyone realizes, even if they won't admit it, that only one of them can lead the Alliance. King Kiritan is exercising all his power to ensure that he is that king.'

'That,' I told her, 'can never be. The Valari kings would never accept any but a Valari to command the Alliance.'

She nodded her head as she wiped her hands on a moistened cloth. 'King Hadaru has made this clear to everyone. King Waray, too. And King Mohan has said that the only one of Valari who could be Lord of the Alliance would be the Lord of Light himself.' Liljana, having finished eating, turned to look at me with clear eyes that missed very little. I sensed her searching for something deep inside me. I could almost feel her congratulating herself that any noble qualities she found there were at least partly due to her cherishing my soul.

I wiped my hands, too, then broke out a bottle of brandy, which pleased Maram greatly. After filling all our cups, I turned to Liljana and said, 'Then have the Valari kings spoken much of the Maitreya?'

'All the kings have spoken of him,' she told me. 'And throughout the whole of the city, there is talk of little else. You can't know how much we Trians have awaited the fulfillment of the ancient prophecies.'

I noticed Atara holding her head utterly still. She seemed to be looking at something outside my tent, past the shadowed, silken walls of time. To Liljana, I said, 'Then is it possible they would entertain the thought of the Maitreya being of the Valari?'

'If that Valari lord was he who had brought the Lightstone out of Argattha,' she said, squeezing my hand again, 'they would welcome him with open hearts and trumpets blowing.'

'And you, Liljana?'

'Why, the questions you ask!' she said, squeezing my hand even more tightly. 'I'd be overjoyed for you to claim the Lightstone — if that is truly your fate.'

She paused to take a sip of brandy as she looked at first Atara and then Estrella. And then she said, 'Of course, I'd always hoped that the Maitreya promised to bring in the Age of Light would be a woman.'

We all smiled at this, except Liljana herself. She had never been one to take herself or her own words lightly. But more to the point, ever since she had looked into Morjin's mind in Argattha, she had lost her ability to smile, even as Atara had warned her.

Now it was my turn to squeeze her hand. I said to her, 'But what of the kings at the conclave, then?'

'Some are almost ready to accept Valashu Elahad as the Maitreya,' she told me. 'Most of your Valari kings, of course. King Marshayk. And, I think, King Theodor. Even King Aryaman.'

'Ah,' Maram said, staring at his cup, which he had already emptied, 'it is one thing to accept Val as the Maitreya but quite another to make the Maitreya the Lord of the Alliance.'

'True, true,' Liljana said. 'But better the Maitreya as Lord, many say, than King Kiritan himself. Few except Lord Kirriland and the nobles closest to King Kiritan want to see him as a King of Kings.'

'But would they want Val any more?' Maram asked.

'It is to Val's advantage,' Liljana said, 'that he is not a king, nor ever likely to be.'

Master Juwain sighed as he rubbed the back of his shiny head. 'From what I remember of Val's last meeting with King Kiritan, it seems unlikely that he will ever accept Val as the Maitreya, much less as Lord of the Alliance.'

'Not unless the other kings accept him first,' Liljana said. 'Then King Kiritan will be forced to bow to their will — either that or to stand alone.'

'My father,' Atara said suddenly, clenching her hands, 'will not suffer anyone's will, not even that of thirteen other kings.'

'But he can't want to oppose all the Free Kingdoms!' Maram said.

'No, of course he doesn't,' Liljana told us. 'Which is why he also won't suffer anyone calling Val the Maitreya. And that is why I've come here tonight — one of the reasons.'

She put down her cup and brought out her little whale figurine. For a few moments she stared at this bit of blue gelstei. Then she looked at me and said, 'King Kiritan means to challenge you, Val.'

I noticed that Maram and Master Juwain were also staring at me intently. To Liljana, I said, 'To challenge me … as man or Maitreya?'

'Perhaps both,' she told me. 'But he will certainly try to discredit your claim to the Lightstone.'

'But how?' I asked her. 'And how do you know?' I glanced down at her figurine, and so then did Maram. He had always feared that she might peer into his mind as easily as she might open the pages of a book, regardless of all her promises.

'As for how I know,' she said to me, 'that is easy to tell. One of my cousins is one of King Kiritan's tasters. She's sniffed out his intentions, so to speak.'

'You mean, one of your sisters of the Maitriche Telu,' Maram said. 'And you mean, she's spied on him.'

Liljana reached out to tap Maram's empty cup as if blaming the brandy for loosening his tongue. 'You should be careful of what you say, young man, and where you say it.'

She looked at Estrella, who sat across from her limned against the tent's thin walls.

'The girl has all our trust,' Maram told her. 'Besides, she's unlettered, and she couldn't tell anyone of what she hears.'

This last, of course, had proved not to be true. All this time, Estrella had sat next to Daj, flashing bright smiles at him, speaking to him in their private way and seemingly ignoring the conversation of her elders.

'Estrella,' I told Liljana, 'is one of us now. 'Her fate is tied to my own.'

'Do you trust her?' Liljana asked me.

Estrella's dark, wild eyes, found mine just then, and I said, 'With all my heart. With my life.'

No sooner had these words left my lips then Daj looked me and laughed out, 'Estrella trusts you, too, Val. She even trusts Liljana.'

He turned to smile at Liljana, but she just sat across from him regarding him sternly. And she muttered, 'Impertinent boy.'

Daj, in Argattha, had faced a fire-breathing dragon bravely, but he now fairly wilted beneath Liljana's disapproval. Seeing this, Liljana leaned over and touched his arm. Her voice softened as she said, 'These are matters of life and death, Daj. And not just our lives, either.'

Most other boys, and even men, would have looked away from Liljana's relentless gaze. But Daj met her eye to eye. His love for her, I thought, was as deep as his desire to please her. And she obviously loved him as a son. During their months together, it seemed that she had lavished her care and ideals upon him — and forged new chains even harder than the iron shackles that had once encircled his limbs.

After a few moments, Liljana turned toward Estrella and said, 'I'm delighted that you trust me, young lady. But would you trust me with all your heart? And with your life?'

Estrella cocked her head as if to ask, 'What do you mean?'

In answer, Liljana held up her blue gelstei and told her, 'I would speak to you with this, in the privacy of our minds, if you'll allow me.'

As we all waited to see how Estrella would respond, she looked deep into Liljana's eyes. She seemed utterly without fear of this powerful woman. Quick as a bird, she nodded her head and smiled at Liljana.

'Very well,' Liljana said, closing her eyes. 'Then listen, listen.'

As my heart beat slowly in my chest like a drum stroke measuring out time, Estrella closed her eyes, too. Liljana sat facing her in silence. She remained utterly still. Not even a jog of her head indicated that she might be hearing anything inside Estrella's mind. Estrella's breaths fell and rose, steady and deep, like my own.

And then, after what seemed an hour, Liljana opened her eyes and sighed. She looked at Master Juwain and then at me. 'It's no use. I can speak to her, but she cannot speak to me.'

Then her muteness,' Master Juwain said, 'is of the mind as well as the mouth?'

'I think it is only of the mind,' Liljana said, gazing at Estrella. 'She has a beautiful mind: most of it is perfectly clear. Like a diamond. Thus she is able to understand others' words. But the part of it that makes words of her own and tells her tongue to speak them has been darkened. By Morjin — damn his soul to burn in dragon fire! I saw this in her memories! When she was very young, he used a green gelstei to make her mute, as I presume he did the other slaves that he gave to his priests.'

Every abomination, I thought. Every twisting of that which is beautiful and good.

Master Juwain drew out his varistei and regarded it with his sad, gray eyes. How many times, I wondered, had he tried to heal Estrella of her wordless silence?

Liljana reached out to take Estrella's hand in her own. 'Poor girl!' she told her, 'You poor girl!'

Estrella pulled away from her and sat staring at her hand as if grateful that she still had the ability to move her long, expressive fingers as she willed. Her lovely smile told of her delight in her own being, just as it was. Having no pity for herself, she did not welcome Liljana's.

To turn Liljana's attention from her, I looked at her and asked, 'Liljana, you said that King Kiritan would challenge me — do you know how?'

'No, I'm sorry, I don't. I only have my suspicions.' I took a sip of brandy, then nodded at her to say more. Liljana's suspicions were often more valuable than most people's certainties.

'The one who claims the Lightstone,' she said, 'must also be able to wield it, yes? But wield it how? This is the key to everything, I think.'

I brought out the Lightstone then and sat holding it in my hands. For a while, as the little noises of the camp outside my tent quieted and the night deepened, we talked of the ways that it might be used. Liljana hoped to find within its golden hollows the power to grow more gelstei, particularly the green and the blue. With other blue crystals similar to her own, she said, she might speak mind to mind with her sisters in other lands and so coordinate a secret alliance against Morjin. Then, after the great Red Dragon was finally overthrown, new green gelstei could be made to pour out their healing light and restore Ea to the glories of the Age of the Mother. Master Juwain reminded us that Yrniru and his people hoped to use the Lightstone to forge more gold gelstei. He pointed out, too, that the gold gelstei might open doors to other worlds: whether for ill, as in freeing Angra Mainyu from Damoom, or for the great good of inviting angels to walk once again on Ea.

'I don't believe,' Liljana said, 'that King Kiritan will challenge Val to summon Ashtoreth into his hall. Nor to stamp out new gelstei as his mint does coins. No, the power of the Maitreya that most people speak of is the power to heal.'

He will be a healer, I thought, recalling the words of 'The Irian Prophecies.' From his eyes will pour a healing light.

I looked at Liljana and said. 'To heal yes — but heal how? To take away people's hatred? To end war?'

Master Juwain nodded toward me and said, 'In the amphitheater, the ghost spoke of healing Angra Mainyu of his fear of death. What great beings we all would be if this evil were lifted from our hearts!'

I felt my own heart beating hard and quick. And then Liljana told me, 'People are saying that the Maitreya will heal the crippled and the ill.'

I glanced at Atara, but if she was aware that I was looking at her, she gave no sign of if.

'King Kiritan,' Liljana said, 'has invited the blacksmith's son, Joakim, to stay at the palace. No one knows why.'

'We heard a story,' Maram said, 'that this Joakim had healed the blind.'

Now we all looked at Atara. She pulled at the cloth binding her face but said nothing.

'That story,' Liljana said, 'has been embellished. In Joakim's village, they claim only that he healed an old man of an eye catarrh and straightened the legs of a girl with rickets. But this might be enough for King Kiritan to put him forth as the Maitreya.'

I squeezed the Cup of Heaven between my hands and watched its golden contours catch the lamp's flickering light. I asked, 'What sort of man is Joakim?'

'I should hardly call him a man,' Liljana said. 'He's still a beardless boy, really, and simple like his fellow villagers. Some say simple-minded.'

'Then he would not be one to be considered to lead the Alliance?'

'Hardly.'

Maram picked up the brandy bottle and refilled his cup. He said, 'How convenient for King Kiritan.'

Master Juwain nodded his head, then asked Liljana, 'Then is King Kiritan to use this story to discredit Val? His own emissary has witnessed Val's healing of Baltasar's spirit. Surely this miracle should weigh against any mere healing of the flesh.'

As he spoke, he turned his green gelstei between his rough, old fingers. I had seen him use this crystal to mend a fatal wound that an arrow had drilled into Atara's lung — all in a matter of moments. But how many times, I wondered, had he failed to heal her of her blindness?

'I don't know what the King intends,' Liljana said. 'But stories are only stories. King Kiritan — and all the kings — might want it proved to their eyes that Val is who he claims to be.'

'So far,' I said, gazing at the Lightstone, 'nothing is claimed.'

'So far,' she said wryly. Then she searched my face and asked, 'What is it you intend, Val?'

I took a deep breath and held it a moment before saying, 'The Lightstone holds the powers of all the other gelstei, yes? Thus it has the power to heal. I know that it does.'

'Go on,' Liljana said, fixing her large eyes upon me. I looked at Estrella, who was smiling at Daj, and then at Atara sitting so still and grave as she waited for fate to unfold. I said, 'It's not a question of bending King Kiritan to my will, or to anyone's. He must be won. It must be proven to him that I am the Maitreya.' 'Go on,' Liljana said again.

'If I could make Estrella speak again or Atara to see, then — ' 'No, Val!' Atara said suddenly, cutting me off. 'Not this way! Not in my father's hall!'

'I must know,' I said to her as gently as I could. I felt the Lightstone giving a soft, warm radiance into my hands. If I had touched a piece of coal just then, I thought, it would light up like the sun. 'Everyone must know. Surely the time has come.'

It nearly broke my heart to see Atara clenching her hands as she silently shook her head.

'It may be,' I said, 'that King Kiritan thinks to bring forth this blacksmith's boy as a sort of champion to make his challenge. But what if it were I who first challenged him?'

'That's it, Val,' Maram said after gulping down some more brandy. 'Take the battle to the enemy!'

I did not like thinking of King Kiritan as the 'enemy.' But the principle that Maram espoused was sound enough. If I were the one to issue the challenge, then it would take much of wind out of King Kiritan's sails.

Master Juwain tapped his fingernail against his green crystal. He bowed his head toward Atara. 'What you propose is dangerous! To give eyes once more to Atara might be beyond the ability of even the Maitreya.'

'Perhaps,' I said. Then I turned toward Estrella. 'But Liljana has told that Morjin has darkened a part of this girl's mind. I know that the Lightstone can be used to brighten it again.'

Master Juwain rubbed his smooth head and frowned at me. 'Even if you're right, Val, even if you are the Maitreya, which I believe with all my heart, I'm afraid it will take time to learn to use the Lightstone once you've claimed it. There is still much we have to learn.'

So saying, he put away his varistei and took out the akashic crystal instead. Its swirls of gold and glorre, I knew, contained much wisdom. But surely the Lightstone held the very secrets of the universe.

'What if you fail?' he asked me.

I looked into the gleaming surface of the Lightstone and saw a bright being of adamantine resolve looking back at me 'I won't fail,' I said.

'But what if you do?'

'If I fail. I fail. Then the kings, will have to choose another to lead the Alliance.'

Master Juwain gazed at me. Finally, he said, 'There are still some hours between now and tomorrow. Will you at least reconsider your plan?'

And Liljana added, 'Please do think about this carefully.'

Atara's cold, beautiful face, as I looked across our circle, reminded me that no one could see all the consequences of an act. Eveen Estrella seemed unsure whether she wished to be made whole again. Daj assured me that she desired with all her heart to be able to talk to birds and sing songs to the sunrise. But then he added that she could do that, in her own way, already. As I gazed at this luminous and happy child, playing with the curls of her dark hair. I wondered, who was I to think of taking her from her secret silent garden into the wider world where people might twist her utterances to their own ends and ensnare her in webs of words and yet more words?

'I wish Kane were here,' I said, turning to Liljana, 'He, of all men, would know about the Maitreya. Have you seen him, then?'

'Not since Viradar, when he left Tria without warning me,' she told me. 'But that brings me to the second reason I've come here tonight. I have a letter for you.'

She reached into the pocket of her cloak and removed a square of ivory paper, sealed with a bubble of blood-red wax. She handed it to me and said. 'This arrived two weeks ago. The man who delivered it said that I was to give it to you before you entered the conclave. He said it was urgent that you read it as soon as possible.'

'This man,' I said, pressing my finger against the letter's hard seal 'was he of the Black Brotherhood?'

'I believe so. But he wasn't any more eager to tell me about himself than I was to tell him about myself, if you know what I mean.'

She drummed her fingers against her palm, waiting for me to open it, I sensed that she was near the end of her patience. The letter was addressed to me in a bold, clear hand. I drew out my dagger and broke the seal. The letter was a single sheet of paper dated the 30th of Ashte, 2813 — barely a week before Salmelu and the Red Priest had defiled my father's hall and I had set out for the tournament at Nar. The words set into the paper in black ink, on both sides, were also bold, but less clear, as if Kane had written them in great haste. This is what I read:

Valashu,

I am sending copies of this to Liljana in Tria and to your father's castle, for it is vital that you know why I have taken to the road agian. I am not sure where this letter will find you, but find you it must. For you are in great danger. Morjin has recovered from the wound that you dealt him, as I said he would. He seeks his revenge. I have learned that he has summoned three assassins from the world of Khutar. You must know their nature, for they are not human — not just human. They are called the Skakamen. You may think of them as the Half-Elijin: they who have gained some of the virtues of greater beings but have been denied immortality due to a sickness of the soul. Even so, they possess great hardiness, strength, cunning and the ability to heal their flesh of almost any wound. So, they have the power to shape their own flesh as they will. Thus they can take on the shape of the victims that they hunt and slay — or any shape at all.

The first of these assassins, Elman, I have hunted, and I have sent him back to the stars. I have found the trail of the second assassin, Urman, and him I will pursue as well. The third assassin has eluded me. His name is Noman. Beware this Skakaman, for he will use all his wiles to murder you and steal the Lightstone. Trust no one! Watch your back! Look into the hearts of everyone, even those closest to you! If any bear you ill will, slay him out of hand before he slays you!

I will help you execute this Skamman, too. I expect that you will make the journey to Tria, with all the others who would join against Morjin. Look for me there. Look to the Lightstone and guard it for the Maitreya. Morjin must not gain it back! That he has summoned three Skakamen from Khutar without its aid bodes ill. So, he must be close, very close, to being able to open a portal to Damoom and freeing Angra Mainyu as well.

Know that if he succeeds, it will be the end of everything. I may have led you to believe that with the Baaloch's defeat, the War of the Stone was concluded. It was not. The war goes on, and has been fought on other worlds all during the ages of Ea. I believe that it will be won — or lost — here on our world within the next few years. You cannot know the peril. You have been told of the Dark Worlds. But the Ieldra will never allow the whole of Eluru to darken. Just as the universe was created in the progression of Galadin into the Ieldra, the Ieldra will be forced to destroy their handiwork if the Galadin fail to lead a great progression into the Age of Light.

And so the Lightstone must be placed in the Maitreya's hands, and soon. And so we must bring Morjin down at any cost.

At any cost!

Kane

'Well,' Maram said to me when I looked up from the sheet of paper that I was clenching, 'another letter. Aren't you going to read it to us?' I took a sip of brandy to moisten my throat. And then I did as Maram had requested. After I had finished, I sat gazing at the lamp's little light.

'Dark worlds, indeed!' he cried out. 'The end of all things! Too much! Too much!'

Again, he refilled his cup with brandy, and downed it in nearly a single gulp. He wiped the tears from his eyes and coughed out, 'A Skakaman, too! Well, now we know what killed our poor knights. A shape-shifter, as in the old tales! Ah, well I suppose that's better than a ghost.'

Daj and Estrella sat holding hands as they stared at each other in dread of this new horror that had been unleashed upon their world. Atara stared off into a dark landscape of her own that I did not wish to behold. And Master Juwain tapped his finger against Kane's letter and said to me, 'I see, I see. It's all made clear now. All that has happened for ill since that night in your father's castle was wrought by this Noman.'

He went on to say that Noman must have entered Mesh disguised as one of Salmelu's emissaries. No doubt Salmelu murdered Kasandra and the scryers, in part to keep them from explaining their prophecy that a man with no face would show me my own, and so give Noman away. It was certainly Noman, he said, who used a sleep stone to incapacitate the Guardians; only my timely arrival kept him from stealing the Lightstone from my father's hall that very night. And it was Noman who had nearly assassinated me outside of Nar.

'The Skakaman,' Master Juwain said to me, 'must have followed us from Silvassu. And when we made camp, he must have followed Sivar of Godhra into the copse where he went to collect firewood. And there murdered him. And there mimed him, taking on his form. And then returned to camp to murder you.'

I looked at the Lightstone where I had set it down in front of me. I rubbed my head where Noman, disguised as Sivar, had nearly brained me with his mace. Then I looked up and said, 'Then I wasn't wrong about Sivar! He was no ghul!'

'No, he was not,' Master Juwain agreed. 'He was just another knight whose face Noman stole. As he stole your face, Val. He must have followed us to the amphitheater and tricked Baltasar and the Guardians away from their post. And then followed us. It wouldn't have been hard for him to lure Sar Varald and the others into the woods, to their doom, if they thought he was you.'

Maram poured some more brandy into my cup, then asked the question on all our minds: 'Do you think he's still miming you? And if he's not, who is he now?'

None of us wished to venture a guess. But Atara suddenly turned toward me and said, 'He'll murder and mime someone in my father's palace.'

'Have you seen this, Atara?' I asked.

'Only with the eye of reason,' she said with a grim smile. 'Morjin will want to keep you from claiming the Lightstone — at any cost. And so he'll want Noman to strike you down before you can unite the kings against him. Where better to murder you except in the palace, or in its grounds?'

Where, indeed, I wondered as I looked at the blindfold encircling her head? And then I asked her, 'But what does this Noman look like when he's not miming another?'

'I don't know,' she told me. 'I can almost see him. Almost.' We all fell quiet for a few moments and sat sipping our brandy. And then Maram muttered, 'Ah, this is too much, too much.'

'Courage, my friend,' I said, clapping him on his shoulder. 'Three times Noman has failed to murder me and steal the Lightstone. I know that he will fail again.'

I smiled at him, and felt all my bright hope for the future passing into him and warming his insides with a fire more sustaining than that of the brandy.

'All right, all right' he said, 'courage I shall have, or at least act as if I have. What else is there to do?'

He smiled back at me and clasped my hand with his fat, strong fingers.

'It's late,' Liljana announced, looking at us. 'We should all go to bed and get some rest for tomorrow.'

As it seemed there was nothing more to say, we took Liljana's words to heart and bade each other goodnight. Atara kissed Liljana, and went out to rejoin Karimah. An extra tent was found for Liljana and Daj, while Estrella went off to sleep next to Lord Harsha and Behira. Master Juwain and Maram spread out their sleeping furs inside my pavilion. Despite the need, I slept poorly that night. I mourned Sar Hannu and Sar Varald, and the other fallen Guardians. I wondered whose face Noman would take on next? And most of all, I lay awake looking out at the stars and dreaming of the fulfillment of all my plans in Ea's most ancient city. Kings were waiting for me there All of time and history, it seemed, was waiting for me to enter Tria and finally claim the Lightstone.