Lord of Lies

Chapter 30

We broke camp early the next day before first light. We rode, if not quite as quickly as the wind, quick enough to feel the morning mist whipping back our hair and moistening our eyelashes. In truth, we could not keep up such a punishing pace for long without ruining our horses. As it was our beasts were already thin from our journey, and we had scant fodder for them and few enough rations for ourselves. When we came to Suma around midafternoon the day following that, we stopped in this ancient city to replenish both. I purchased two stout wagons and filled them with bags of oats, wheels of cheese, dried apples, rye flour and other foods we would need to fuel our flight from Alonia. Not even Maram suggested trying to find an inn for the night. We took to the road again as soon as we could. When darkness came, we camped in a great clearing beneath a starry sky. The forest before us stretched on to the south and east for hundreds of miles.

And in the days that dawned after that, with each mile that we trod, as the iron wheels of the wagons ground against the paving stones and our horses' hooves beat against the road, I tried to sense in wind, earth and aether any sign that we were being followed. In four hard days of travel from Tria, we put some hundred and thirty miles behind us. We passed from Old Alonia into that wild country of forest and hills claimed by no duke, baron or other lord. I felt sure that no battalion of knights or marauders pursued us. And yet something did. Baltasar's death hung heavy upon my soul like an iron shroud that had not been buried with him. So did that of Ravik Kirriland. The dying shrieks of many others, from the past and future, filled the air whenever I listened deeply enough or drew my sword. Each morning we rode east into the sun, and this fiery orb cast a long shadow behind me. The faster I rode, the faster it moved after me, like my black cloak with its swan and stars billowing out behind me. Could any man, I wondered, ever escape his fate? With the earth spinning beneath me and turning day into night, and night into day, I felt myself only hunying toward mine. On the sixth of Soal, we found ourselves winding through the misty tors where Atara and I had once fought off the fierce hill men trying to rob and ravish her. Perhaps the memory of the violence that we had visited upon those barbaric men stirred Atara to memories of the future — or visions of faraway things. For just as we were passing a bald prominence above the swathe of oaks to the south of us, Atara froze in her saddle and faced in that direction. I drew in beside her, and the columns of knights behind us came to a halt.

And Atara clapped her hand to her blindfold and cried out, 'Oh, Val, there's been a battle! There is a battle, it's being fought now, or soon will be. On the Wendrush. Just east of the Red Hills, between the Two Rivers. The Niuriu warriors, the arrow storm, so many dead, so many dying. Morjin! I see him! He does lead his army. On a great white stallion. I count nearly thirty thousand spears behind him. And the Urtuk ride with them! I count seven standards: bear, hawk, badger, lion, wolf, otter and eagle. Seven clans of the eastern Urtuk! Damn them! Damn them for going over to Morjin!'

As quickly as it had come, her vision seemed to leave her. She slumped in her saddle and seemed to collapse like a bellows emptied of air. And she murmured, 'The victory is to the Dragon! The way to Mesh stands open before him.'

I reached out my hand to grasp hers and squeeze some courage into her. But I had little to spare. I hated the brittleness in my voice as I said, 'Will the Urtuk ride with Morjin to Mesh? Are they riding with him?'

'I don't know,' she to,ld me. 'I can't see that. I can't… see.'

With the sudden failing of her second sight, the panic that always accompanied her helplessness seeped into me. Dread filled all my limbs like cold, stagnant water. That evening, when we made camp in the tall trees off the side of the road, Estrella helped Atara hunt in the underbrush for some madder. They found a few of these plants growing beside a stream, and dug them out of the ground. With Liljana's help, Atara boiled their roots in an iron kettle and rendered out of them a dark, red dye. She then rubbed this foul-smelling liquid over the shafts, feathers and points of two of her arrows. And when she had finished staining them, as with blood, she held up one in either hand and said, 'This is for Morjin's right eye. And this is for his left.'

The day after that we passed through the gap in Morning Mountains, and for the next four days we rode through a wild country of tangled forest that had long ago been emptied of people. Nothing, it seemed, could halt our charge homeward or even impede us. In several places great trees had fallen across the road; we brought out axes and chopped through them. For three days straight, it rained driving sheets of water from dark clouds blown in from the Alonian Sea to the east. We rode straight through this cold, shivering misery. When we came to the lowlands near the border of Anjo and the road flooded out we abandoned the wagons and forced our way around the flood through the dense forest.

On the 12th of Soai we crossed the Santosh River into Anjo. I had worried that some of my Anjori knights, upon seeing their home again, might wish to abjure their vows and remain in this land of rolling plains, pastures and green hills leading up into the snowy heights of the Morning Mountains. But no one did. These men who had ridden with me for so many miles and had stood by me as we fought our enemies together sensed that something was troubling me. How could they not when my heart leaked my dread as if pierced with spears? When we made camp that night in an abandoned field in the domain of Yarvanu, ruled by Count Rodru, Sar Valkald came up to me and told me, 'It's good to walk this soil again, and it would be even better to see my lather and mother, too. But they are of Daksh, and we will not be passing their way. No matter. My vows were made gladly, and will gladly be kept — all the way to Mesh, or anywhere the Lightstone goes.'

Sunjay Naviru, upon overhearing Sar Valkald's pledge, took me aside and reassured me: 'All the Guardians feel as he does, Val. No one blames you for what happened in Tria.'

'Do they not hate me for striking down Lord Ravik?'

'Hate you? It is just the opposite. They are sad that you slew an innocent man, it is true. But that is war. They grieve your loss of glory. In the end, though, it doesn't matter to them if you are the Maitreya. They know who you really are.'

As I looked into Sun jay's face, so faithful and bright I gave thanks for having such a good friend, and I missed Baltasar all the more And I wanted to reassure Sun jay as he had me. But how could If What could I say to this sweet vital man who seemed marked out for suffering and death? What could I say to anyone?

Although Master fuwain had warned against bringing the Lightstone into any of the Nine Kingdoms, we had no difficulty passing through Anjo. We had ridden ahead of King Danashu, King Hadaru and the other kings, and so we preceded the news of the debacle in King Kiritan's hall. We told little of this to any of the travelers that we encountered on our way, nor even to a company of Count Rodru's knights whose task it was to patrol the road. I said only that the Red Dragon threatened invasion and that my father had called me home to Mesh. I asked for aid, and I received it: in oats for our horses and supplies for my men, if not in stout-hearted knights girded for war. So it was when we passed into Vishal, ruled by Baron Yashur, and in

Onkar whose lord was Count Atanu. If either of these great nobles had been tempted by Morjin's million-weight of gold, they did not betray themselves — or me. Perhaps they simply did not have time to summon a force great enough to wrest the Lightstone from my knights. In any case, we came to the juncture of the Nar Road and the North Road without incident. There we turned toward King Danashu's domain of Jathay. It took us two and a half days to put the rest of Anjo behind us. Late in the morning of the 16th of Soal, we crossed the Aru-Adar bridge into Ishka.

Ninety miles as the raven flies it was across this beautiful land to the border of Mesh — and more for us because the road bent far to the east toward Loviisa. After passing through a hilly country between Lake Osh and a spur of mountains to our left, and then through some rich farmland glowing green in the strong Soal sun, we came to Ishka's greatest city two days later. Sar Jarlath galloped ahead of us to ask for supplies and tell of our need for haste. Prince Issur, whom King Hadaru had appointed as regent, rode out with Lord Mestivan and ten knights to meet us. We held quick counsel on horseback by a clear stream running down to the Tushur River. We told Prince Issur that Morjin and his army were likely marching upon Mesh even as we spoke. This was news to him. As he told us, none of the sentries who kept watch over the Wendrush had sighted any armies, be they Sami or of Sakai.

'If you're right about the Red Dragon,' Prince Issur said to me, 'then please excuse my abruptness, but there's much to be done Messengers need to be sent to the fortresses, and our battle lords must be alerted and knights called up. Morjin might just as easily be marching on Ishka.'

'That is unlikely,' I said. 'His quarrel, for the present is with Mesh.'

'Yes, but what if Mesh is defeated?' he said. He rubbed between his large nose and his eyes, which were as black as coal.

'Mesh would be less likely to be defeated,' I told him, 'if you have battalions to spare reinforcing us. Do you?'

The suggestion that Ishka might ride to Mesh's aid seemed to astonish Prince Issur. His eyes widened, and he looked at me as if to make sure that my adventures in strange lands hadn't whittled away my good sense. Then he told me, 'Even if we did have such forces, it is not upon me to commit them. My father, you say, still remains in Tria?'

'He was there when we departed,' I said.'It may be that he is returning home.'

I began to tell him of the conclave's evil happenings, but it seemed that Sar Jarlath already had. Prince Issur cast me a cold, penetrating look as if he had never really believed that I could be the Maitreya. 'It is upon me to prepare Ishka for the worst. That cannot include weakening our forces. My father, I believe, would want things so.'

'Your father,' Lord Mestivan said to him, 'would want the Lightstone to remain here, where it would be safe.'

Then Lord Mestivan turned to stare at me. His hand, I saw, hovered almost casually near the hilt of his sword. So did Sar Jarlath's hand and Sar Ianashu's and those of the other Ishkans who had taken vows as Guardians. But it was toward Lord Mestivan and the ten knights with him that they directed their ire. It brought tears to my eyes to think that they might be willing to fight their own countrymen in the Lightstone's defense — and in mine.

'Sometimes it's hard to know my father's wishes,' Prince Issur said to Lord Mestivan. 'Certainly if the Lightstone remained here, it might tempt the Red Dragon to turn north. Therefore let Lord Valashu take it to the Elahad castle as quickly as he can.'

Prince Issur and many of the Ishkans, I thought, would not be sorry to see Mesh humbled or even beaten in battle. And as for me, they seemed secretly glad that the disaster in Tria had brought me down from the heavenly heights into the realm where mere mortals were forced to live.

We hurried on our way then. From Loviisa, the road wound west through some more farmland and then turned south toward the mountains separating Ishka and Mesh. We pressed our horses all the harder now, for I felt time pressing at me like a great, lead weight. I led my friends and the Guardians, in their three sparkling columns, pounding down the road. On the 20th of Soal we began the steep climb up toward the pass between Raaskel and Korukel. The forest about us gradually changed from oak and elm to towering spruce trees pointed I like great, green spears up toward the sky. When I saw that we could not make it through the pais by dusk, I called for a halt. We made camp just below treeline between two rocky ridges. There a swift, clear stream ran over rounded stones. As my men set to pitching the tents and making the fortifications, I took a few moments to sit alone beside the stream. I stared up through the trees at the pass: a great cleft rut through solid rock. It was thus that Kane found me, with mv sword drawn and pointing toward it.

May I join you?' he said as he sat on a large boulder across from me. He followed my gaze, and said, — You're wondering what you'll find on the other side, eh?'

I nodded my head as my sword flared brighter.

'So, you'll find what you'll find; he said to me. 'And then you'll do what you must do.'

'Yes, but what is that? As you said, I've been so wrong, I don't ever want to be wrong again.'

'Then guard the Lightstone for the Maitreya. That will be enough.' All right, but who is he, then? How will we ever find him?'

'By three things,' he told me, 'the Maitreya is known: steady abidance in the One; looking upon all with an equal eye. And unshakable courage at all times.'

I smiled sadly and shook my head as I murmured, 'Courage.'

He reached out to grasp my shoulder. 'Don't let yours fail you now'

I smiled again as I tapped my sword's hilt against my chest and said, 'I'm afraid it already has. Something flutters inside here now, and it's not an eagle.'

'Be strong,' he told me as he looked at me.

'Be strong,' I repeated, 'and protect the weak — you should have seen Sajagax's face the first time he heard the whole of the Law,'

'That is not the whole of it,' he said. Although it was falling dark, his eyes began to brighten. "Be strong and protect the weak — and help them to become strong.'

Even as he said this, his hand grew tighter around my shoulder

'Strength, yes,' I said, shaking off his hand. I picked up a pebble and cast it against a nearby tree. It hit the rough bark with a little 'tonic' then bounced off it and plopped into the stream. 'But even the strongest tree will fail to fire.'

Kane's eyes grew hot and pained as he watched me, waiting for me to say more.

'It's my fate,' I finally told him.

'What is your fate?'

'That's just it — I don't know,' I gazed at my sword's silustria, gleaming in the day's last light. 'Alkaladur is named the Sword of Fate The Sword of Sight. That is the power of the silver gelstei yes? Not to enable one to descry events as a scryer does, but to see if one's life is in accord with a higher will,'

'Ananke, this is called,' Kane told me. 'The universal fate to which all must submit — even the Galadin and the Ieldra. Perhaps even the One.'

'Yes,' I said, 'but I looked away from it. This was my will. When I found the Lightstone, I saw my fate, so bright — like the sun rising to touch all the world. Then everyone started calling me the Maitreya, and I believed this. I wanted to believe. But now. .'

'Go on,' he told me.

'Now I feel my fate as fire. Do you remember the story of the robe of fire?'

He slowly nodded his head as he stared at me. It was said that once a time, in the Lost Ages, a great hero named Arshan had slain a dragon who terrorized the land, rending and destroying in the service of Angra Mainyu. And Angra Mainyu, from far away on Damoom, had caused one of his priests in secret to dip a robe of white lamb's wool into the dragon's blood. The priest then presented the red robe to Arshan to wear as a sign of his great deed. But the moment that Arshan donned this bright garment, it burst into flame. It welded to his skin and burnt down to his bones, driving him mad before he killed himself in agony.

'It's that way for me now,' I said to Kane. 'Everything burns. It's as if I've fashioned my own robe of fire, with the blood of Baltasar, Ravik Kirriland — even Morjin.'

I went on to say that I felt the flames enveloping me, consuming me, and sweeping forth in an irresistible holocaust to burn everything away.

'So,' Kane told me as his black eyes caught up the brightness of my sword, 'there is the fire that torments and kills. But there is also the refining fire, the angel fire that burns the world clean and makes new all things to bring in a new age.'

'A new age,' I said, shaking my head. 'I must know what awaits me tomorrow, or next week. The not knowing is driving me mad.'

'But we can never know our fate,' he told me. 'All we can do is to accept it when it comes.'

'Must we accept all that is hateful and dark then?'

'Listen to me, Valashu, and listen well.' He took my hand in his and squeezed it as if greeting me for the first time. 'Each man has but one fate. You must love yours as you do life itself. You must greet it every morning, and every moment, with all your heart. You must clasp it to you, fiercely, with joy, and never let go. You must keep faith with it and cherish it so completely that you would wish it to come again and again, a million times a million times, through the fires of eternity and all the cycles of creation.'

I pulled my hand away from his and sat looking at it in the waning light. It seemed that there was neither blood nor bones inside, but only a cold, red jelly that quivered with every thought of the future. I said to Kane, 'Yes, perhaps I should do as you say. But who has the strength for that?'

'Strength is given to each of us equal to what we must bear. That is the design of the One.'

I looked with awe upon this fearsome man who had once been crucified to the naked rock of Skartaru, there to endure the torture of Morjin tearing at his insides every day for ten years.

'Perhaps,' I said, wiping away the cold, slick of sweat on my hand 'But surely the One looked away from me when I thought to claim the Lightstone for myself And when I killed Ravik.'

'So, you don't want to be overlooked, do you?' he growled out as he gazed at me. 'Then have faith! When we have faith, we become more visible to the One.'

So saying, he grasped the mandolet that he had slung on his back. He tapped his finger against its polished wood and plucked its strings, tuning it. I was glad that he had taken this lovely instrument after Alphanderry had died.

For a while, as the campfires below us sent plumes of smoke into the air and night darkened the woods, he played an old song that was one of Alphanderry's favorites. It had no words that I knew, but each of the notes that Kane called forth was as clear and full of meaning as an entire poem. There was mourning in the music that he made, and yet great praise and exaltation, too. It rang out with an immense will simply to be. The sweet, sad melody breathed new life into me and raised up my spirits toward the sky's shimmering stars.

Kane's eyes shone like stars themselves. The fierceness of his face gradually fell away from him. His whole being seemed to open like a great, golden flower with infinitely many layers of petals. There was a part of him at its center, a precious jewel, that he kept always to himself. And within this secret heart gathered a song that was all beauty, fire and grace.

I gasped in wonder when Flick suddenly appeared above the stream and took on Alphanderry's form. I saw Kane smiling as this luminous Alphanderry began singing to the music in a voice so beautiful that I could hardly bear it. It seemed that the constellations above us and all the earth were singing along with him, in fire and in joy, giving answer to the essential anguish of life.

And then Kane finished his song, and Alphanderry vanished back into neveness. And Kane murmured, 'My friend, my little friend.'

'What was it he said?' I asked him. 'This language of the angels — I'm still not able to understand it.'

'Nor I,' Kane told me, staring off at the stars.

'What?' I said. 'But you are — '

'I am who I am,' he told me. 'And I have forgotten this language. Or been denied it. In the end, it amounts to the same thing.'

I listened to the tinkling stream as it rushed over the moon-silvered rocks. I said, 'But how? How is this possible?'

He gazed at me as a sad smile played upon his lips. And then he told me, 'It is strange. The One looks out from my eyes, and yours — and so with a squirrel and a butterfly and all things that see. The One feels the earth through my fingers and yours, the rain upon the face of a child, the wind through an oak tree's leaves. All things have just one taste and blaze with a single flame, infinite and inextinguishable, that is their source and true being. And yet, I forget. So, I forget who I really am, and that's the hell of it — I forget, and then all that is lovely and light falls ugly and dark.'

From somewhere in the mountains around us, a wolf called in his immense loneliness to the moon. I thought I heard an eagle cry out, too, but that seemed impossible since eagles do not fly at night.

Kane strapped the mandolet back over his shoulder, then said to me, 'You must take to heart what I'll tell you now: the One moves all things for a purpose, even if we do not see it. And so we must move, ourselves, with this purpose, even if it brings our doom.'

I knew that what he had told me was true. And yet I also believed what my grandfather had once told me: that some men are born to make their own fate. Hope blazed inside me then. I looked toward the dark mountains looming on the horizon like great, humped monsters. Would I find Morjin on the other side of them? I vowed that if I did, this time I would close with him in battle and kill him, even if it killed me, too, as Atara had once warned. How else to deal with this Great Beast who had finally overreached himself? How could I turn away from such a fate?

'Thank you for the song,' I said to Kane, bowing my head to him. I lifted Alkaladur up toward the sky and added, 'Thank you for the sword, too.'

He bowed back to me, then smiled his savage smile. He sniffed the air, which was smoky with the smell of roasting meat 'So, then, let s go and eat some of that lamb that Liljana is cooking us and replenish our strength, eh? I'm fairly starved.'

He stood up and held out his hand to pull me up to my feet. We walked back to our camp together. After we had our feast, I retired to my pavilion and lay awake almost all night trying to descry the pattern and purpose of the stars.

The next morning I led my columns of knights through the pass and down into Mesh.