Lord of Lies

Chapter 31

It was two days later when we finally turned off the North Road and wound our way up the steep hill to my father's castle. I looked upon its stark granite walls with a new eye, for I saw in its towers and battlements not just a cold, enclosing hardness but the strength to protect people and things that were dear to me. Carts full of grain and shepherds driving flocks of baahing sheep impeded our way up to the north gate, for Morjin's army had been sighted approaching Mesh only two days before, and already the castle was laying in extra stores against invasion. On our ride down from Ishka, we had heard talk of little else. The call to arms had gone out to all men of the kingdom able to wield a sword. From the Culhadosh River to the kel keeps in the west, from Ki in the north to Godhra in the south, farmers were setting down their hoes, and blacksmiths their hammers, and strapping on their kalamas instead. The first of these warriors, in their tens and twenties, were arriving in Silvassu from across the Valley of the Swans. The castle could not shelter them all, and so the army gath-ered in the fields along the Kurash River, below the city. Some of the knights called up, however, had business at the castle, and these, too, crowded the road ahead of us. Maram insisted that they should make way for the Lightstone's Guardians, but I counseled patience. During the days to come, I thought, all of Mesh would need the patience of the mountains.

Our entrance to the castle was heralded by the blowing of horns and shouts of gladness. As we drew up in the north ward, packed with creaking carts, squawking chickens and dogs barking and darting about, young squires went running to summon my father and brothers. Three of these — Yarashan, Mandru and Ravar — were gone for the day, but Jonathay and Karshur came hurrying out of the gateway leading to the middle ward. 'Val, you've come home!' Jonathay called out to me. I dismounted and gave Altaru over to one of squires who gathered around our horses. I clasped Jonathan's wiry body to me, and then Karshur's blockier form. Then Asaru came into the ward, too, and strode up me. After embracing me and kissing my forehead, he stood back to regard me with his warm, dark eyes.

'It's good to see you,' he said, smiling at me. 'But you look tired.'

'And you look. well,' I told him. I laid my hand on him and asked, 'How is your shoulder?'

'Healed but still sore. But it's not so bad that I can't grip a lance. As it seems that every knight in Mesh must soon do. Have you heard the news?'

'There's been little else to hear all the way down the North Road.' I did not tell him of Atara's vision or of Kane's warning me of Morjin's march. Too many people were standing about, and it was not the time to hold council.

Just as I was presenting Atara and my other companions to my brothers, my father walked into the ward. He was tall and grave in his long black tunic, embroidered with the swan and stars of the Elahads. He wore on his thick, black belt the sword that my grandfather had given him. Although he was strong and graceful in all his motions, as always, there was about him a heaviness, as if he wore a suit of mail made of lead. He came up to me and embraced me. And then he said, 'Valashu, welcome. It's good chance that has brought you home at this time — good chance for us, thought perhaps not for you.'

'It wasn't really chance at all, sir,' I told him. 'Perhaps we could speak of this in private, with my friends.'

My father looked at Atara, standing next to me, and at Kane. Then his bright gaze took in the Guardians behind us. I could feel his surprise at seeing so many knights from the other Nine Kingdoms in our company. I was sure as well that he noticed Baltasar's absence and descried the grief written across Lansar Raasharu's face.

'Very well,' he said to me. 'Go and get yourself something to eat. Wash the dust from your face. Then let's meet, in an hour, in the library.'

We did as he had commanded us. I led everyone into the middle ward, and then into the great hall. There we were served a hastily prepared feast of ham and eggs, wheat bread with butter and jellies, quince pies, strawberries, blackberries, peaches and plums. It was good to tuck in so much delicious food. I wondered how much longer such meals would be forthcoming. After we could eat no more, I set the Lightstone back on its stand on the dais beneath the black banner and the portraits of my ancestors. I gave the quartering and command of the Guardians over to Sunjay Naviru. Daj and Estrella were set free to explore the castle. Then I walked with Atara and Liljana down the corridor connecting the great hall to the keep. Kane, Maram and Master Juwain, with Lansar Raasharu, followed behind us.

We made our way past the kitchens and the empty infirmary to the library where my father sometimes held council. My father and Asaru were waiting for us there. So were my mother and grand-mother. The moment that we entered this rectangular room, lined on each of its four walls with shelves of books, my mother came up and kissed me, and then so did my grandmother. Nona, I thought, seemed even older and frailer than, when I had left for the Tournament at Nar. But her whole being was somehow brighter, as if she were gathering into herself stores of hope and courage that might be needed in the days to come. My mother, too, was in brave spirits. In truth, I had never seen her look so radiant and beautiful. In her bearing was an assurance that she, and everyone around her, would find the will needed to face even the darkest of times. But then she was the daugter of a strong king and the queen of an even stronger one.

We all sat around a large table in the center of the room, my father at one end and Asaru at the other. The dark cherrywood, smelling of rosemary and beeswax, was covered with books. Fresh quills and sheets of paper, along with inkpots, had been set out for the writing of letters. One might have expected to see maps of Mesh spread out across the table's gleaming surface, but my father disdained such when it came to planning the movements of armies. Reliance on maps, he claimed, weakened the mind and made less clear the image of terrain that a good commander should always hold inside his head.

'It's good to meet the rest of Valashu's companions,' he said to Atara, Liljana and Kane. 'One of the measures of a man is his friends. And by that ruler, my son stands tall, indeed.'

Coming from another, this might have seemed flattery, but my father never said anything that he didn't mean.

'Now then,' he went on in a strong, clear voice, 'let us hear what has happened, and we will discuss what must be done.'

For a few moments I gazed around the room at the stands of candles casting their soft light on the many books stacked from the floor to the ceiling. I breathed in the smells of old leather and new ink. And then I told of all that had happened since I had parted company with Asaru and Yarashan after the Tournament. My father's eyes widened slightly at the story of the misty island in the middle of the Wendrush and the single-horned asherahs that wandered its magical woods. He smiled as I recounted Maram's feat in drinking down the mighty Braggod; I sensed his approval — and surprise — of my friendship with Sajagax. But when I turned to telling of the Skakaman who had nearly murdered me, and my murdering of Ravik Kirriland and ruin of the conclave, his face fell grim. At the news of King Kiritan's death, he shook his head and said to Atara, 'It's a terrible thing when one king connives to assassinate another — and leaves nothing of him even to bury. But then Morjin, although he claims the sovereignty of Sakai and much else, is no true king.'

He sat gazing at Atara, and there was kindness and compassion in his eyes. In all his life, I thought, he had never looked upon one of the Sarni so closely, except in battle. And never a Sarni woman. Her golden hair seemed to hold great wonder for him, as It did for my mother. That Atara was blind and yet somehow could still see amazed him even more.

Then my father nodded at Lansar Raasharu. 'All of Mesh will grieve for Baltasar. It seems like only yesterday when he played along the battlements with Ravar and Val. He'll be missed, as would one of my own sons.'

Pain welled in Lansar's eyes as he clamped his jaws shut. Then he grabbed at his sword and said, 'Thank you, my lord. There's no help for grief, but there is the cold solace of revenge. It may be the worst of things for Mesh that Morjin has marched upon us, but it is not bad tidings for me.'

My father sat regarding him calmly, but with great perceptivity, as if he could look into his heart and soul — even as he often looked at me. I felt the weight of my father's concern for him as he said, 'Peace, Lansar. Peace to you, and to Mesh if we can find the way to it.'

Now he turned to me and said, 'Even before your last journey, you'd had adventures enough for three lifetimes. And now. A first in the sword and a second in the long lance. Champion. Victor of two battles. Vanquisher of this evil thing called a Skakaman.'

'And slayer of an innocent man!' I cried out. 'I brought ruin upon the conclave — and perhaps upon Mesh!'

'You judge yourself more harshly than Count Dario did — or any man should,' my father told me. 'Ruin, you say, you brought to the conclave. But it was you who brought the Valari kings there in the first place, to sit at one table together, and this is a great thing.'

'Surely they sit there no more,' I said. 'You should have seen their faces when they learned that I was not the Maitreya.'

'That is still not proven!' Lansar Raasharu called out slamming his hand down on the table. 'All we've had are some old verses out of an old gelstei that is now in pieces. Who knows if they really told true? Val must have faith! Perhaps he'll regain it after we've smashed the Dragon.'

My father looked down the table at Lansar, and then at me. Many things stirred inside him: sorrow, pride, doubt, love. The light of his eyes filled my own like fire. And then he said, 'We must assume that Val is not the Maitreya, unless by some miracle it is proven otherwise. Certainly few now will perceive him as such. Certainly the Valari kings do not.'

He paused to take a breath, then asked me, 'You say that King Hadaru and the others have left Tria?'

'They must have,' I said. 'But we rode ahead of them, so it is hard to be sure.'

My father ran his finger along his jaw, and then said, 'It may be, then, that they have already reached their domains, or soon will. Very well. It was not known how things would go in Tria, and so messengers have already been sent to them, requesting aid. It will take some days for them to return with their answers.'

'It would be folly,' I said to him, and to myself, 'to place too great a hope on what these answers will be.'

'Perhaps,' he told me. 'But it would equally be folly to place too little. You say that the Valari kings are cold toward you now. But things build inside men like layers of snow. And even a whisper, at the right moment, can set off an avalanche. Maitreya or no, Valashu, who knows what you've set to whispering in others' hearts?'

Kane, sitting next to Asaru at the other end of the table, kneaded his hands together as if they ached to grip a sword. Then he growled out, 'So, even if Ishka or Kaash do march to aid Mesh, they might march too late. What if Morjin moves first?'

Asaru eyed Kane as if he didn't quite like his look. 'The Sakayans sit on the steppe, at the mouth of the Eshur Pass. We've counted seven of the Urtuk clans waiting with them. We don't know what they are waiting for.'

At the mention of the Urtuk clans, Kane, Maram and I all looked at Atara. It finally came time for her to tell of the battle that she had seen from afar, and this she did.

'It may be,' she said, 'that Morjin pauses to care for his wounded — the Niuriu's arrows struck down many.'

'We've had no news of this battle,' my father said. He regarded Atara with that kind off creeping dread that people often feel toward scryers.

'It may also be,' she said, 'that Morjin awaits reinforcement from the Adirii clans.'

'That would be bad news, indeed,' my father said. 'We've counted twenty-five thousand Sakayans under Morjin's command, and two thousand Urtuk.'

'And how many can we field?' I asked.

'We're hoping that sixteen thousand will answer the call. Perhaps seventeen.'

At this, Maram began drumming his fingers on the table as he said, 'Then even if Morjin is not reinforced, he would still outnumber us nearly two to one.'

'One Valari,' Asaru said to him, pointing at Maram's ring, 'is the equal of any two Sakayans who ever lived. Don't forget that you are a Valari knight, now.'

'In spirit ah, yes I am,' Maram said. 'And it's to be hoped that the Valari fighting spirit will hold off the Red Dragon and keep him from fighting. Why else would he wait before the gateway to Mesh?'

'We cannot overlook the possibility,' Master Juwain said, 'that he awaits the right moment. Surely he would look to the heavens before so great an undertaking. With Argald conjuncting Siraj in only another ten days, and the Wolf on the ascendent, then …'

For a while, he went on to speak of omens and stellar configurations. And then my mother, who was always practical in a way that reminded me of Liljana, brought matters back to earth. 'Perhaps he only waits to bring up more rations and arms. He must be at the end of a very vulnerable and long line of his supplies.'

My mother, I thought, a woman given by nature to love poetry, music and meditation, had spent too much of her life in the company of warriors and kings.

My father sighed as he steepled his fingers beneath his chin. Then he told us, 'Any or all of what has been said are good enough reasons. But we must also consider the letter that Morjin sent to my son. He threatened to destroy Mesh if the Lightstone was not returned to him. Well, the Lightstone has now returned to Mesh. Perhaps Morjin had news of this — or deduced this, and has only been awaiting his chance.'

'But what sort of chance is this?' Asaru said. 'We're agreed that he cannot defeat us.'

'Are we?' my father said to him. 'Your confidence and courage befit a king, and yet a king should never forget the uncertainty of battle.'

'Morjin faces the same uncertainty. Perhaps now that he has come this far, he hesitates to come the final miles. Perhaps he hopes that glowing us his army will make us give him what he wants.'

'Now, it seems, we come closer to the truth of things,' my father said. 'Morjin made a threat to us, and may have made it known to others. He may have marched, in part, to keep true to his word.'

At this, Kane threw back his head and let loose a howl of laughter so loud that not even the books along the walls could soften the savage sound of it: 'Morjin, a man of his word — ha! The Lord of Lies, he is. So. So. King Shamesh. You know that Morjin hates the truth as the night does the sun. But you are right that he wants to be seen as keeping his word. A dragon that threatens a village with fire is scorned if he fails to burn it.'

My father studied Kane for a few moments, and then said, 'You seem to know a lot about the Red Dragon.'

'That I do. I've fought him in Yarkona and in Argattha. And in other places.'

'And what places would those be?'

'Faraway places,' Kane said. 'Dark places.'

Kane, I thought, was an even greater mystery to my father than he was to me. At Kane's request, I had said nothing of his origins to my family, or to anyone. My father knew of him only as a matchless old warrior who had fought with me side by side in Argattha, cutting and slaying without mercy to face down Morjin and seek his revenge.

'Very well,' my father said to Kane, and to everyone. 'The Red Dragon has made his threats. Asaru is right that his marching on us may only be another. Therefore it follows that he may send envoys demanding the Lightstone's return.'

'But you can't gamble on that!' Kane snarled out. 'You can't wait upon these envoys and leave your realm open to invasion!'

My father cast Kane a cold, hard look. He did not tolerate presumption, and Kane could be the most presumptuous of men.

'No one is suggesting that we do,' my father told him. 'The kel keep at Eshur Pass has already been reinforced from the garrison at Lashku. They could hold back Morjin's army for a day, possibly two. As soon as my warriors and knights are assembled, we'll make forced march to the pass. And there intercept Morjin's envoys — or his army.'

Neither Asaru, Lord Raasharu or I could fault my father's plan. But Atara sat in silence, twisting her scryer's sphere around and around in her long hands. And Kane glared at a brazier full of coals near his corner of the table. His black eyes seemed as hot as coals as his jaw muscles worked beneath his taut skin.

'Do you have an objection to make?' my father asked him.

'So, there's something here that we do not see.'

'And what is that then?'

'How should I know? How can anyone see. . what he cannot see?'

'But you have a sense of things, yes?'

'So, a sense. I smell a trap. The Red Dragon has set many such before.'

My father sat drawing in deep breaths of air, and then releasing them slowly. He finally said, 'If you perceive the nature of this trap please inform me. But until then, there's much to be done. Now, if no one has anything to add, let us all go about our duties.'

After we left the library, I took Maram aside and told him, 'I'm sorry I led you to this. You might have returned home to marry Behira instead of making war.'

And he told me: 'Ah, well, don't distress yourself, my friend. It's sad, in a way, that the events in Tria have postponed my plans. And now this. But the truth is, I'm still not fit to be anyone's husband. If you had claimed the Lightstone and learned to wield it, I had hoped. . ah, that things might have been different. And some day they might be. But until then, I'll need to claim my own sword and wield it more wisely, if you know what I mean.'

Maram seemed almost relieved that the urgency of the situation might occupy his other talents and keep him out of trouble. For my father had been right in what he had told us: thousands of tasks must be accomplished, and soon, to make the castle and kingdom ready for war. My mother took charge of the castle's domestic affairs, finding rooms or sleeping space for the many new people taking shelter there. Asaru rode off to see to the assembly of the army. His would be the critical command of the right wing of heavy cavalry, if my father kept to the usual order of battle. Lansar Raasharu, as my father's seneschal, would act as his closest counselor in all matters of strategy as well as logistics. Since Kane, Atara, Master Juwain and Liljana were guests of Mesh, my father required nothing of them. But he expected a great deal. They did not disappoint him. Master Juwain went to work with the other healers to prepare the army's field infirmary to care for the wounded. As at Khaisham, Liljana would assist him, along with Behira and others. Kane, prowling the castle like a caged tiger, threw himself into whatever work came to hand: drawing water, helping the blacksmiths pound hot iron into extra shoes for the horses, giving newly arrived knights lessons with the sword. My father asked me, and Maram, to make sure that the castle was ready to withstand siege. We were to report on how many hundreds of bushels of wheat had been added to the already considerable stores of food in the great vaults beneath the keep. And more importantly: how many sheaves of arrows had the fletchers sent up from Silvassu and how many barrels of oil ready to be heated to boiling and poured down upon any poor Sakayans assaulting the castle's walls? As for these great sweeps of granite, I was to walk along every inch of the battlements, testing mortar and stone, making sure that the archers knew their places and the warriors stood ready to repel ladders or fight off the enemy's siege towers.

For three days we thus busied ourselves. Each night at the end of our work, I climbed the Swan Tower and looked out to the south of the city where the army gathered along the river. Their cooking fires grew night by night from hundreds into thousands of flickering orange lights. On the morning of the fourth day since my return home, my father announced that sixteen thousand warriors had answered his call to battle, with more trickling in from the faroff mountain fastnesses. He strapped on his armor, and prepared to ride down from the castle to join them. But then, toward noon, there came a commotion from the West Gate. Ten knights rode into the west ward escorting two Sarni warriors under heavy guard. The knights' captain, Sar Barshan of Lashku, asked to speak with my father. After my father was summoned and heard what Sar Barshan had to say, he called for an immediate council in his library.

When I entered the library, I was amazed to see Atara standing and talking familiarly with the two Sarni warriors. For she knew them well, as did I. They were Aieela and Sonjah, two of the Manslayers of the Urtuk who had aided us in crossing the Wendrush the year before. It was they, with their sister warriors, who had made Atara's lionskin cloak. Accoutered in their studded leather armor and golden torques, with their quick blue eyes looking wildly about the library at the books and chairs and other objects that they had never seen before, they seemed agitated and out of place My father did not ease their disquiet. He presented them with cold formality to Asaru and Lord Raasharu. And then he left them standing next to Sar Barshan as he invited everyone else to sit at the table.

'Sar Barshan,' my father announced, nodding at this grim, young knight guarding the Manslayers, 'has hurried here at Lord Manthanus command. Three days ago, these women presented themselves at his keep with tidings that we all should hear.'

So saying, he nodded at Sonjah, who was the taller and older of the two women. She had an air of gravity, which was enhanced by her considerable substance: heavy arms and jowls and great, wide hips that a Sarni pony might have had troubling holding up. Her voice was heavy, too, with anger, as she looked at my father and said 'Well tell our tidings, King Shamesh, for Atara's sake if not yours. But it is hard to speak in the face of so little hospitality.'

'Forgive me,' my father said, swallowing the anger in his own voice.

'But when I was a boy, my brother, Ramshan, was sent to the Urtuks on a mission of peace. Your people showed their hospitality by sending back his head.'

'That was not the doing of the Manslayers or of my clan,' Sonjah said. 'Itwas the Yarkuts who did this. Always they have shamed themselves, even as they do now.'

Lansar Raasharu slapped his hand on the table and broke in: 'Why should we believe anything these women say? They are Sarni.'

'You may believe what you wish to believe,' Sonjah said. 'Men always do. I care not. I've come here to speak with the imaklan, Atara.'

'How did you know that she had come among us?' Lansar asked her.

In answer, Sonjah gave back his dark gaze with an evil look of her own.

'Let her speak,' my father said to Lansar. 'Then we will judge and decide what must be done.'

Again, he nodded at Sonjah. She gripped her unstrung bow and said to Atara: 'Our Kurmak sisters have sent word that there is war between the Marituk and the Kurmak. They told us, too, that we would find you in Mesh. You are needed, Atara. All the Manslayers, from all the tribes, are uniting against Morjin — and against any tribe or clan that would ally with him. You are called to speak at council. Many speak of you as Chiefess of all the Manslayers'

I had never heard that the Manslayers had ever had a single chiefess before. Neither, it seemed, had Atara. She sat facing across the room toward Sonjah and Aieela as she said, 'It would be a great thing for the Manslayers to unite this way, and those are truly great tidings. But that is not why Lord Manthanu has sent you here under guard, nor why King Shamesh has called this meeting, is it?'

'No, it is not,' Sonjah said as she looked from Atara to my father.

'Then,' Atara said, 'why don't you tell us the rest of your news?'

Sonjah stared straight at my father, and then with the savagery for which the Sarni are famous, she fired these words like flaming arrows at him: 'A Galdan army marches upon Mesh. They are commanded by one of Morjin's priests, a man named Radomil Makan. In five or six more days, they will be upon you.'

'The Galdans!' Asaru cried out. 'Here, in Mesh? Impossible!'

In truth, what Sonjah had told us did seem impossible. Galda was still in chaos after the wars fought to otherthrow her king. And it was nearly four hundred miles from Ar to Mesh, with the most impassable terrain of the Morning Mountains to cross. And half of those miles lay in the sere, cruel country of the Mansurii, who would kill Galdans as gladly as they would Meshians or Kaashans or any other peoples.

When Atara questioned Sonjah about this, Sonjah shrugged her shoulders and said, 'The Red Dragon has sent chests of gold to the Mansurii. He has bought safe passage for the Galdans.'

'But he has not bought the Mansurii's bows and arrows?'

'Not as far as we've heard.'

'How many are the Galdans, then?'

'Forty thousand, it's said.'

'Forty thousand!' Maram cried out. 'Oh, my lord — it will be like Khaisham!'

My father sat regarding Sonjah and Aieela. His face seemed to have taken on the color of the old, leatherbound books all around him.

'If true,' Lansar Raasharu said, 'this will be very bad. But why should we believe it is true? Why should these women risk so much to aid their enemy?'

Sonjah brushed back her thick, blonde hair and said, 'We care not what befalls Mesh. We came here to warn Atara and take her away from what will surely be slaughter.'

I rubbed the seven diamonds set into the black jade of the hilt of my sword. I said, 'Slaughter is not certain. You speak of the Manslayers uniting against the Red Dragon. Why not ask your sisters to fight with us?'

'Ally with men?' Sonjah said to me. 'We slay men.'

'But the Manslayers rode with us against the Adirii clans, who were bought by the Red Dragon.'

'True, but we are Urtuk, not Kurmak. We are too few, and we will not waste ourselves in a hopeless battle — not to aid Valari.'

'But all of the Manslayers,' I persisted, 'would not be too few.'

Sonjah shrugged her shoulders again. 'Even if the Manslayers will unite, it would take a month to gather all of us together.'

'Too late to be of any help to us,' Lansar said.

Sonjah smiled at him, and her eyes were as sharp as knife points. 'You will help us. You Valari will not die cheaply, this we know. You will weaken the Red Dragon. And then we will harry him along his retreat to the Black Mountain. Perhaps we will slay him, and burn his liver in memory of you.'

Kane glared at her and snapped out, 'Fool! If you think you can so easily outmaneuver Morjin, then you're a fool.'

Sonjah tried to ignore him, but that was something like ignoring a mountain of fire about to erupt. Finally, she managed to turn toward Atara. 'Will you come with us, my imakla one?'

'No,' Atara said without hesitation. 'Not now. I will fight along with Val, and his people.'

Sonjah looked atme sadly and said, 'You are the one Valari I would ride with. Perhaps another time.'

Lansar glowered at her as he fingered the hilt of his sword. Then he said to us, 'At best, this woman hopes to slay Morjin and claim the Lightstone for herself — after he has plundered it from us. At worst, she is a spy. She is Urtuk, and we have seen the Urtuk clans gathering to Morjin's standard.'

'True,' Asaru said, 'but we haven't seen the Manslayers.'

Lansar waved his hand toward Asaru as if sweeping away the voice of reason. 'Even if the Manslayers haven't been bought by Morjin's gold, these women might have been. Or bought by pain: what if Morjin holds hostage their families and threatens them with torture?'

'Toward what end?' Asaru asked.

'Toward deceiving us about the Galdans. If we believe that they are marching against Mesh, then we might be led to fear taking the field against Morjin.'

'Our Mansurii sisters told us of the Galdans!' Sonjah called out, shaking her bow at Lansar. 'Do you call everyone a liar?'

'The truth is sometimes hard to bring forth,' he said. 'Perhaps a heated iron, held to your face, would help sort the truth from the lies.'

For as long as it took for my heart to beat five times, no one said anything. Master Juwain touched his ruined ear; Atara readjusted her blindfold. The rest of us all looked at Lansar in horror.

And then my father called out, 'Lansar! You forget yourself!'

Lansar's face filled with blood, and he rubbed his eyes. He bowed his head and stared at the edge of the table. Then he looked at my father and said, 'Forgive me, my lord, but since Baltasar died, by another of Morjin's deceptions … you see, how can we let such things happen again? And now, not just my son but all the sons of Mesh, our daughters, too — it would be madness to trust the word of these manslaying women.'

Sonjah clasped her hand to her cheek as if Lansar's words, if not a hot iron, had burned her. Then she looked at Aieela and said, 'Come, my sister, it's time we went home Unless King Shamesh would shackle us and keep us in his dungeons.'

In truth, my father's castle held neither shackles nor dungeons. Freely these women had come to us, and freely they would be allowed to leave. My father said to Sar Barshan, 'See that they are well cared tor, and escort them from Mesh.'

After Sar Barshan and the two Manslayers had left us, my father turned to Atara and said, 'What do you make of their tidings?'

Atara pulled her black-maned cloak more tightly around her shoulders. Then she said, 'Sonjah tells truly.'

'Are you speaking as a scryer or as a Sarni who knows these people?' 'I'm speaking as Val's friend,' Atara said to him. Some of the room's coldness seemed to have seeped into her voice. 'And as yours.'

'Much may depend upon whether or not we believe them.'

'You must believe them,' Atara told him. Her words, even to my ears, seemed less an affirmation than a demand.

My father stared at her and said, 'Must the fate of Mesh turn on the word of outlanders, and Sarni at that? Are you a truthsayer, then?'

At this, my mother grasped his arm, and leaned closer to him as she whispered something in his ear.

'Forgive me,' my father said to Atara. He let loose a long sigh. 'These are bad times, but that is no cause for unkindness. And Elianora reminds me that she, too, was once a stranger in this land.'

Liljana brought out her little blue gelstei and said, 'I am a truthsayer, my lord. At least, this stone often gives me to hear truth or lies in what others say. And I agree with Atara: the Manslayer told truly.'

Lansar shook his head as he called out to my father, 'You cannot rely on this!'

'Perhaps not,' my father said, 'But the Manslayer's tidings cannot be ignored, either. If we march to the pass and engage Morjin m battle, the Galdans might fall upon our rear and destroy us.'

Who, I wondered, would ever wish to be a king? Terrible it is to have to make decisions, based on incomplete knowledge, that will determine the life or death of one's people.

'I doubt,' Lansar said, 'that there are any Galdans within a hundred leagues of Mesh.'

'We shall see,' my father said to him. 'We shall send out riders, into the Wendrush.'

'But, my lord, it will take them days to return — if they do return. What if this is a ruse, as I believe, and Morjin moves first?'

My father closed his eyes as he breathed in deeply. Then he looked at Lansar and spoke words that gave him much pain; 'From the Eshur Pass, it's hardly two days' march to the Lake Country. We might have to abandon it. Send word that my people are to take refuge in Lashku or flee to the mountain fastnesses.'

'Very well, my lord. But what if the Red Dragon ravages up and down the Sawash Valley?'

'He won't,' my father said. 'But if he does disperse his army, then we will march — and destroy him.'

That was the end of our council. Lansar Raasharu hurried off to carry out my father's commands. The rest of us tired to go about our business without letting the terror of this new threat undo us.

Later that afternoon, I walked with Atara in my father's garden, which adjoined his rooms to the west of the keep. Walls surrounded us on all sides, giving us a space of quiet and privacy. We paused beneath a cherry tree, and I said to her, 'Perhaps you should leave Mesh, while you still can.'

'Leave for where?' she asked me.

'To the gathering of the Manslayers. To be chosen Chiefess — that would be a great thing.' 'It would,' Atara agreed. 'But the time for that is not now.'

'Then perhaps you should return home. If there is war between the Marituk and Kurmak..'

'Are you concerned for my safety?'

'Yes, of course.'

'Then you think to send me into the face of another war?'

I bit my lip as I looked at the butterflies flitting among the honeysuckle that grew over the garden's walls.

'It's all right,' Atara said, squeezing my hand as she smiled at me. 'I would be safer there. Likely the war would be over by the time I crossed the Snake. And even if it wasn't, we Sarni rarely war to the death of any tribe.'

The pressure of her fingers against mine told me that we both knew that in the coming war with Morjin, there would be neither quarter nor mercy.

'But the Kurmak,' I said to her, 'are your people.'

'Yes, they are But so are the Alonians. Your mother and brothers, even your father, and everyone else in Mesh — everyone, don't you see? All of Ea's peoples are mine, now.'

'Even the Galdans? Even they of Sakai?'

'Yes, Val, even they. We must set them free.' So saying, she brought out a doeskin and unwrapped her two red arrows. She held them pointing west, toward the Wendrush where Morjin was encamped. 'Here is where the critical battle will be.'

In the days after that, I thought about what she told me. It was a dark time for all of us and although we tried to keep busy, our work could not distract us from our dread. As promised, my father sent riders into the country of the Mansurii: seven knights, on the swiftest horses. Waiting for their return was a torment. So was life inside the castle. As each day passed, Meshians fleeing their homes poured into it. I gave up my room to old Lord Rathald and his family, and moved in with Yarashan. Jonathay and Ravar likewise surrendered their quarters to other families and joined us in spreading our mats and sleeping furs on Yarashan's floor. But our accommodations remained luxurious compared with that of the sea of women and children who filled the castle's wards. It got so crowded that it was nearly impossible to cross from the Great. Hall to the Swan Tower without trampling the sleeping mat or possessions of some poor farmer's wife cooking porridge over a little woodfire. It seemed that the castle could hold no more, but my mother couldn't bear to turn anyone away.

And then on the last day of Soal, one of the riders returned to tell the worst of tidings: an army of Galdans was indeed nearing the mountains of Mesh. He placed their numbers at forty-one thousand. They were making toward the very wide Sky Pass, he said, and should be encamped at its mouth within two days.

I was with my father, in the armory, when he learned of this. I felt the doubt that tore through him like a knife ripping open his belly. After the knight had gone, he stood beneath the racks of spears and swords lining the room's walls, and he told me, 'In what I said after you read Morjin's letter in my rooms, I was both right and wrong. I did not think that he could move in full force so soon. And these two armies are not his full force. But they might prove great enough to defeat Mesh.'

Even as he spoke, however, his face hardened with resolve and a fierceness lit up his eyes. And he said to me, 'No, Valashu, we mustn't let that be. There is a way to defeat the Dragon. There is always a way.'

My father did not believe in needlessly alarming people. But neither would he keep from them the terrible truth that they all must face. He announced the coming of the Galdan army that evening in his hall. Some of Mesh's greatest lords — Lord Tanu, Lord Tomavar and Lansar Raasharu — favored sending a force against both the passes and trying to keep the enemy's armies from invading Mesh. But my father would not divide his army. As he said, 'If either half were defeated, the other half would face annihilation from an attack against their rear.'

He said that Morjin's main objective was surely the recapture of the Lightstone. In order to besiege the Elahad castle, Morjin would first have to destroy Mesh's army. Therefore my father determined to maneuver for good ground on which intercept both of Morjin's armies, and there give battle.

The first of Ioj dawned clear and warm. By noon, the sun was like a glowing coal in the sky. The castle's wards heated up like ovens; thousands of boots and horses' hooves pulverized the dried-out ground and sent up choking clouds of dust. I could scarcely breathe. Although the time hadn't quite come to don my battle armor and ride forth to face Morjin, my long tunic, emblazoned with swan and stars, was hot enough. And the robe of fire pulled ever tighter around me, crushing my limbs and burning through my flesh into my blood.

For the next two days, we all prayed for rain. But the sky remained as clear as a sheet of blue steel. And then, on the third of Ioj, storm clouds moved in from the west: in the form of Morjin's envoys pounding up to the castle on their large, lathered horses. Their leader was the Red Priest who called himself Igasho. But I still called him by his given name, Salmelu, and 1 could not believe that this murderer of old women and young girls had dared to show his face once again in Mesh.

When my father learned of his arrival, he called for him to be brought to the Great Hall. I stood next to my father beneath the dais, with my brothers and friends. Lansar Raasharu came hurrying into the room, along with Lord Harsha and Lord Tanu. Even my mother and grandmother came to hear what Salmelu would say..

The company of knights that had escorted him and the other Red Priests across Mesh brought him into the room. According to my father's orders, Salmelu's hands had been bound behind his back. A length of rope had been tied around his neck. One of the knights pulled at it, as on a dog's lead, practically dragging him before my father.

'King Shamesh!' Salmelu choked out, 'is this how you treat Lord Morjin's emissary!'

Salmelu's ugly face was beet-red, whether from the constriction of the rope or his rage, it was hard to telll. The rutilant color nearly obscured the scarlet dragon tattooed onto his forehead. He wore his yellow priest's robe, emblazoned with a much larger dragon. His eyes were small, black marbles, sheeny with hate, and they rolled first toward my father and then toward me.

'You,' my father said, pointing at him, 'are no emissary and have not been accepted as such into Mesh.'

'I am Lord Morjin's emissary!' Salmelu said again. 'I speak for the King of Sakai!'

'You may be Morjin's mouth — and eyes — but that is all you are.'

'Remove these ropes, King Shamesh!'

My father pointed at the braided hemp tied around Salmelu's wrists, and he said, 'Thus do we bind condemned men in Mesh.'

'Condemned! For what crime?'

'For the murder of the scryer named Kasandra and your own servants.'

Salmelu smiled then, first at my father, and then at Atara. 'Was it a crime to put an old woman who had seen too much out of her misery? And as for the girls, they were slaves, mine to do with as I wished.'

I looked around the hall, with its many empty tables, and I was glad that Estrella wasn't present to hear such lies.

'You brought blood into my house,' my father told him. 'Your death shall wash it clean.'

'You wouldn't dare to harm me!'

In answer, my father whipped out his sword and took a step toward Salmelu. It seemed that he might behead him then and there.

'Slay me,' Salmelu cried out, 'and when Lord Morjin has defeated you, all your warriors will themselves, be slain!'

My father froze, with his gleaming kalama held back behind his head.

'Put me to the sword, and all your people shall be put to the sword,' Salmelu added. Against the pull of the rope, he turned his head to stare straight at my mother. 'Those of you, that is, who aren't put upon crosses of wood.'

At this, the swords of my brothers flew out of their sheaths. So did mine. But my father lowered his kalama, and held out his hand to stay us. To Salmelu, he said, 'Speak your master's demands.'

Again, Salmelu smiled.. He looked up at the dais where Sunjay Naviru and Lord Noldru and fifty other Guardians stood ringed around the stand holding up the Lightstone.

'My king's demands are simple,' he said, pointing past Sunjay. 'Surrender the golden bowl that your son stole from Lord Morjin, and he shall withdraw from Mesh — the Galdans, too. Between our realms, there shall be peace.'

My father stood tall and straight, and so bright did his eyes blaze then that the two priests to either side of Salmelu cringed and looked away from him.

'Go,' my father said to Salmelu, pointing toward the door. 'Go tell your master that the sons of Elahad will surrender the Lightstone to the Maitreya and no other. If it is war he wants, war he shall have.'

'War is it? You are outnumbered more than four to one!'

'That is true,' my father said to him. I felt him struggling to control his rising wrath. 'But you forget one thing.'

'And what is that?'

The look of scorn on my father's face would have wilted a brass flower. And then he told Salmelu: 'We are Valari.'

And with that he turned his back on Salmelu, and did not look at him again. But Samelu looked at me, turning his spite on me as his small eyes promised me torment and death. He said, 'I do not see your reckless friend here. Please give Baltasar my regards when you see him again. . soon.'

At this, I had to grab Lansar Raasharu's arm to keep him from drawing his sword and killing Salmelu. Then the knight holding fast to Salmelu's rope pulled on it and dragged him from the room.

After the Red Priests had gone, we all stood in silence considering Salmelu's words. Old Lard Tanu, whose family had taken refuge in the keep, gazed upon the lightstone, and there was great doubt m him. He said to my father, 'It will take at least two days for the priests to return to Morjin, and more for Morjin to march upon us. Kaash and Ishka, at least, might march to our aid first.'

His was a hope that we all shared; but later that afternoon, one of the messengers that my father had sent out came galloping up to the castle with more bad news: King Talanu Solaru, my mother's own father, could not send even a company of knights to aid us. It seemed that King Sandarkan had indeed returned from Tria, and threatened Kaash with war over the Arjan land.

The next day — the fourth of Ioj — more messengers returned to the castle and gave my father their tidings. After my father had heard them out, he sent word that Kane, Maram, Atara and I should meet with him and Lansar Raasharu in the library.

Despite the heat outside, it was cool in that quiet space of flaming candles and musty books. My father bade us all to sit at the table. Then, without wasting a moment, he told us: 'There will be no help from any of the Nine Kingdoms.'

I stared down at a copy of the Saganom Elu lying on the table as my heart drummed inside my chest Then Maram, next to me, said, 'No help even from Ishka?'

'No,' my father said. 'King Hadaru tells me that Ishka must move to punish King Waray for conspiring against him. He has already sent emissaries to Taron to arrange a time and place for battle.'

'Fools!' Kane snarled out. 'They fight over honor at a time where the only honor lies in fighting the Red Dragon!'

'And what of Athar, then?' Maram asked. 'And Lagash?'

'The messengers sent there have not returned,' my father said. 'But it's told in Ishka that on the road home from Tria, King Mohan and King Kurshan drew on each other. It's likely that they will carry their dispute back to their realms and arrange for battle, too.'

'And if they don't?'

'Even so, there is no more time. Morjin will probably march tomorrow or the day after. Likewise the Galdans.'

So, I thought, that was that. Mesh would battle alone against two armies, and the Sarni clans, with a combined strength of nearly seventy thousand men.

'Later today,' my father said to me, 'your brothers will ride down with me and join the army. You will remain here and take charge of the castle's defenses.'

'No!' I cried out. 'My place is with them, and with you!'

'Your place,' my father told me, 'is here, guarding the Lightstone. You are Lord Guardian, and it is upon you to command the knights who have sworn to protect it.'

'But Sunjay Naviru could command them equally well! Besides, we all know that there will be no assault upon the castle. You'll need my sword, when it comes to battle.'

So saying, I stood up and drew Alkaladur. Its long blade filled the library with a fierce brightness.

'Sit down,' my father said to me.

'But Morjin will take the battlefield!' I called out to him. 'What he did to Atara, what he did to me … you cannot know! He and I — it must be this way, don't you see?'

'Enough!' he shouted at me. His black eyes burned into mine. Then he looked down the table at Atara, and his voice grew more gentle. 'I am not just your father but your king, and so it is upon me to see to Mesh's needs and not your own. There is more to be protected here than just a little golden cup: the wives of Mesh's greatest lords, as well as the children of simple warriors. Your own mother and grandmother. And you have had experience, at Khaisham, in repelling a siege.'

He turned to regard Maram, Atara and Kane. 'All of you — you fought off the Dragon's army under Count Ulanu, and so that is why you will remain here to guard the castle.'

'No, I won't,' Kane growled out, grasping the hilt of his kalama.

'What?' my father said to him.

'I won't remain behind these walls while Morjin finally comes out of that dungheap of a city of his and exposes himself to my sword.'

'As long as you are in my service, you'll do as you're ordered!

'But I am not in your service, King Shamesh. Freely I've ridden here, and freely I'll ride into battle.'

'Under whose command?'

'Under my own. Where the fighting is thickest, where Morjin stands, there I shall be.'

'And if my knights keep you from this revenge?'

'Then you shall lose both my sword and your knights.' My father and Kane stared at each other with equal savagery. Finally my father said, 'And what if Morjin has a firestone? It's told that you possess one of the black gelstei. With it you could keep Morjin from burning the castle's walls.'

Kane took out his dark crystal, which looked like a teardrop of obsidian. He squeezed it in his fist and said, 'Morjin does not have a firestone. But even if he did, it would take him a day to burn through the castle's walls. First he would turn its flame upon your army, that none would be left to stop him. And so you would do better to let me take the field, with my gelstei as well as my sword.'

My father nodded his head to Kane, bowing to his logic, no less his fierce will. Then Atara unwrapped her two red arrows and said to my father, 'I, too, shall ride to the battle with Kane.'

'Very well,' my father sighed out. Then he turned to Maram. 'You, at least, are under my command. And so you'll remain here, with Val.'

It surprised no one at the table when Maram fought off a smile of relief and gladly assented to what my father had said: 'You wish me to stay by Val's side? I shall! I shall! We'll keep the castle safe!'

After that my father dismissed everyone except me. He rose from his chair and laid his hand on my shoulder, saying, 'Let's take a walk outside the walls, shall we?'

I followed him out of the keep and then through the throngs of people in the west ward as he made his way to the castle's gates. The great iron doors were still open, and we went outside and stood upon the band of ground between the castle and the drawbridge spanning the Kurash River. In the event of an assault the bridge's entire end section could be pulled up to cover the castle's gates and break the bridge in two.

'Have you seen that the chains have been oiled?' he said, pointing at the black links of iron that worked the bridge.

'You asked me to, didn't you?'

'Good,' he told me.

He took me by the arm and led me along the narrow ground above the river. We had to step carefully lest we stumble into its churning waters. We rounded the great gate tower and came out on the castles southern side. A steep, rocky slope led down toward the houses of Silvassu below. It would be impossible, I knew, for any siege tower to be rolled up it to assault the wails — and difficult unto the death for warriors to bring up ladders or grappling hooks. I set my hand upon the warm granite of the wall, looking up at the overhanging parapets high above. I could almost feel burning oil raining down upon me and sizzling into my flesh. Not even a monkey, I thought, could find a handhold in the wall's smooth stone.

'The masonry looks sound,' he said, craning his neck as he looked up.

'It is,' I said. 'Every inch of it.'

'Good. Our ancestors built it well. And we've kept it well.' He rapped his knuckles against the white granite and smiled. 'Even with all our guests, we've food enough to last two years. And the wells will never run dry. Our castle will never be taken.'

'No,' I promised him, 'it won't be.'

'So many Elahads have lived here,' he said to me. 'Going back to the first Shavashar, and Elkasar, for whom your grandfather was named.'

My father must have forgotten that he had told me this before, more than once. His thoughts seemed to be far away, dwelling with the dead.

'A great battle we'll fight soon,' he said to me. 'The greatest ever fought in Mesh.'

As he gazed off at Silvassu and the Valley of the Swans below, glowing a deep green in the late sun, he shifted his weight suddenly and had to fight to keep from plunging down the slope. I clasped onto his arm to steady him.

'Are you all right, sir?'

'I nearly fell,' he said, gripping my hand. And then his eyes darkened as with storm clouds as he told me, 'If I should fall in battle, Asaru will make a fine king. You must help him, Val. You, of all your brothers, he trusts the most.'

'You won't fall, sir. This battle can be won — you said so yourself.'

But he seemed not to be listening to me. His eyes grew bright and clear as he gazed out upon Mount Eluru shining white with snow across the valley.

'All of my sons,' he said, 'would make good kings. Even Yarashan.'

'You think so?' I said to him.

'Yes, even he. He is full of vainglory. But in the end, he would overcome it and find his greatness in his love of his people instead of himself. After you won the championship, do you know what he said to me?'

'No, what?'

He said: "Better Val than me."'

'Yarashan said that?'

'Truly, he did. He loves you, you know.'

'Yes,' I told him,' Iknow.'

'And Karshur. My second son is so strong, if not possessing the quickest of minds. But he is wise enough to call upon the counsel of others — if he were king, he would need to call upon you.' 'Do not speak so,' I said, gripping his hand. But he didn't listen to me. He smiled to himself as he affirmed the various virtues of my brothers. Jonathay, he said, seemed too full of whimsy to be a king, and yet he had a way of bringing his dreams down to earth and inspiriting people. Mandru was as fierce as a wolverine, and difficult — and in this very irritation at others, he often found the will to be gentle toward them and protect them. As he had protected me from Yarashan's bullying when I was a boy.

'All of my sons,' he said again, 'it's our weaknesses that make us strong — the way we overcome them. The way we overcome ourselves.' He turned toward me then, and eyes were like two stars shining with a deep light.

'But you have no weaknesses!' I said to him. 'You think not?' he said, smiling at me.

'Not as a king. No king has ever given more of himself to his people. You cannot know how they love you. All your warriors — they would die for you.'

'And I would die for them,' he said. 'And I love them as I love the mountains and rivers of my home. And yet…'

'Yes?'

He gripped my hand so hard that it hurt, and I could hardly bear the way that he looked at me.

'And yet, ' he told me, resting his other hand against the castle's great walls, 'if my whole army were lost, it would not be as dear to me as what I know will remain safe inside here.'

'But my brothers,' I said, swallowing back the pain in my throat, 'if they were lost too, then …'

My rather gazed at me for what seemed a thousand years as my heart pounded inside me. And he said to me, 'As long as one of us lives, Valashu, we all live.'

We went back inside the castle after that. An hour later, my father called for his warhorse, Karkhad, to be brought into the west ward. The crowds of women and children there moved aside to make way for this great, snorting beast. Karkhad's face, neck and chest, as well as his hindquarters, had been fitted with curving sweeps of steel plate. And so it was with the mounts of my brothers, for they gathered there, too. They wore their diamond battle armor and black surcoats emblazoned with the silver swan and the stars of the Elahads. Their shields showed identical charges, except that each one bore a distinguishing mark of cadence on its point. Ravar's was a sunburst, and he was the first of my brothers to embrace me and bid me farewell. Then Jonathay laughed as he embraced me to assure me that we would meet again, and soon. Next 1 said goodbye to Mandru, and then Karshur, who nearly squeezed me in half with his thick, hard arms. Yarashan, resplendent in all his polished diamonds and steel, stepped up to me and said, 'It would have been a great contest, wouldn't it, to see who could slay more of the enemy? Well, perhaps in another battle.' Asaru took his leave of me in silence. The hope in his eyes, no less his concern for me, was so strong and bright it made me weep.

For a while, the six of them stood there on the hardpacked dirt saying farewell to my mother and grandmother. Lansar Raasharu and a company of knights assembled behind them, back near the Adami Tower. So did Kane and Atara. Then my father pulled on his helm, crested by a white swan plume, and it was time to go. They all mounted their horses. And my father led them pounding through the gateway and they rode out to war.