The Lightstone

Chapter 10

As the sun brightened the bluish peaks of the Aakash Range to the east, we gathered in the castle's courtyard. It was a cool, clear day, and the sounds of roosters crowing and horses snorting filled the air. After I had greeted Altaru with a handful of warm bread that I had saved from breakfast, and Master Juwain and Maram had readied their sorrels, Duke Rezu came out into the courtyard to bid us farewell. Kane and Thaman accompanied him. I soon learned that Kane would be putting off his journey to Tria for at least another day – if indeed he really intended to travel in that direction. As for Thaman, our conversation over dinner had persuaded him that it would be useless to pursue his quest in either Ishka or Mesh at this time.

And so later that morning he would continue on to Adar and then to the barony of Natesh before crossing the Culhadosh River and making his plea to the king of Taron.

'Farewell, Sar Valashu,' he said to me all stood by Altaru. 'Forgive me if I spoke hastily last night Sometimes I think the Red Dragon has poisoned my soul. But it may be that there is more than one way of fighting him. I wish you well on your quest.'

'And I wish you well on yours,' I said as we clasped hands. Kane came up to me then, but not to touch hands in friendship. He stood with his arms folded across his chest, all the while eyeing the lines of Altaru's trembling body as well as my war lance couched in the holster at his side. Kane's dark gaze took in the hunting bow and arrows that my pack horse bore and then fell upon the kalama that I always kept close at hand. He nodded once, in seeming approval of these well-tested weapons, and then told me, 'I have no apologies for you, Valashu Elahad. Rain is gladly drunk by parched soil but runs off cold stone. If you've closed your heart to me, so be it.

But please accept this last piece of advice in the spirit in which it's given. Beware the hill men west of the gap in the mountains. They're very fierce, and they don't like strangers.'

So saying, he nodded his head toward me, and I returned the gesture. Then Duke Rezu stepped over to my pack horse and patted his bulging saddlebags. He asked,

'Did my steward take care of your provisions? It's a long way to Tria from here.'

'Yes, thank you,' I told him. 'We've as much as we can carry.' 'Very well,' he said.

He sighed as he pointed toward the castle's north tower. 'You'll find it easy riding from here into Daksh. You say that Duke Gorador is a friend of your father?' 'Yes,' I said. 'He gave him this horse.'

'Altaru, you call him, yes? Well, he's a magnificent animal – in all of Daksh, I doubt if you'll find another like him, and there are no horses like those the Dakshans ride, I'll give them that. As for Duke Gorador, I'm sure he'll welcome both you and your horse. But after you leave his castle, you should avoid the wild lands to the north.

There are too many outlaws in those woods, I'm afraid. Instead, skirt around the Aakash Mountains and approach the Nar Road through the west of Jathay. Avoid Sauvo, if you can. There are plots against the King, and you won't want to be caught up in them. And stay well clear of Vishal – the Havosh River is its border. Baron Yashur has been pressing his claims against Count Atanu of Onkar, and they've been at war since last summer. But Yarvanu is safe. You should enter it from the southwest, through Jathay.

My cousin, Count Rodru, has ruled Yarvanu for twenty-three years now, and he still keeps the bridge over the Santosh open.'

Having completed this little dissertation of the geography and politics of the broken kingdom of Anjo, Duke Rezu clasped my hand and wished me well. Then he watched me climb onto Altaru's back, which was no mean feat considering that I still had trouble using my left arm. But my right arm was strong enough, and I lifted it to wave goodbye. To Altaru, I whispered, 'All right, my friend – let's see if we. can find this City of Light that everyone talks about.'

We rode down from the castle to the sound of the wind blowing across the heath. It was a high, fair country that the Duke called home, with mountains lining our way both on the east and west. There were only a few trees scattered across the green hills of Rajak's central valley, and our riding was easy, as the Duke had promised.

Most of the land near his castle was given over to pasture for the many flocks of sheep basking in the early sun; their thick winter wool was as white and puffy as the clouds floating along the blue sky. But there were farms, too. Patches of emerald green, marked off by lines of stone walls or hedgerows, covered the earth before us like a vast quilt knit of barley and oats and other crops that the Duke's people grew.

Here and there, a few fields lay fallow casting up colors of umber and gold.

Despite the pain in my side – which still cut into me like a knife whenever I moved my arm – it was good to be in the saddle again. It was good to smell grass and earth and the thick horse scent of Altaru's surging body. With neither the Ishkans nor any enemy we knew pursuing us, we set a slow pace toward Daksh and the lands that awaited us farther to the north.

Beautiful country or no, Maram could barely keep lis eyes open to behold it. All that morning, he slumped in his saddle, yawning and sighing. Finally, after we had paused by a little stream to water our horses, Master Juwain took him to task for once again breaking his vows.

'I heard you get up last night,' Master Juwain told him. 'Did you have trouble sleeping?'

'Yes, yes, I did,' Maram said as he rode beside me. 'I wanted to take a walk around the walls and look at the stars.'

' I see,' Master Juwain said, riding beside him. 'Shooting stars, they were, no doubt.

The light of the heavenly bodies.'

'Ah, it's a wonderful world, isn't it?'

'Wonderful, ye,' Master Juwain admitted to him. 'But you should be careful of these midnight walks of yours. One night you might find yourself plunging off the parapets.'

Maram smiled at this, and so did I. Then he said, 'I've never been afraid of heights or of falling. To fall in love with a woman is the sweetest of deaths.'

'As you've fallen for Chaitra?'

'Have I fallen for Chaitra?' Maram asked as he pulled at his thick brown beard. 'Ah, well, I suppose I have.'

'But she's a widow,' Master Juwain said. 'And a newly made one at that. Didn't the Duke say that her husband had been killed last month in a skirmish with Adar?'

'Yes, sir, he did say that.'

"Don't you think it's cruel, then, to take walks in the starlight with a bereaved woman and then leave her alone the next day?'

'Cruel? Cruel, you say?' Maram was wide awake now, and he seemed genuinely aggrieved. ' The wind off Arakel in Viradar is cruel. Cats are cruel to mice, and bears

– such as the one we fought at the Gate – live only to make me suffer. But a man's love for a woman, if it be true, can never be cruel.' 'No,' Master Juwain agreed, 'love can't be.' Maram rode on a few paces, all the while muttering that he was always misunderstood. And then he said,' Please listen to me a moment. I would never think to dispute with you the declensions of the pronouns in Ardik or the declinations of the constellations in Soldru. Or almost anything else.

But about women.. ah, women. Widows, especially. ' There s only one way to truly console a widow. The Brotherhood teaches us to honor our vows but that compassion is more sacred yet. Well to make a woman sing where previously she has been weeping is the soul of compassion. When I close my eyes and smell the perfume that, clings to my lips, I can hear Chaitra singing still.'

As I closed my eyes for a moment to listen to the chirping of the sparrows in the fields around us, I could almost hear Maram singing along with them. He seemed truly happy. And I had no doubt that Chaitra was doing the day's knitting with a song on her lips as well.

Maram's worldly ways obviously vexed Master Juwain, I thought that he might upbraid him in front of me or perhaps lay upon him some harsh punishment. But instead he gave up on instilling in Maram the Brotherhood's virtues – at least for the moment. He sighed as he turned to me and said, 'You young people these days do as you will, don't you?'

'Are you speaking of Kane?' I asked him.

'I'm afraid I am,' he said. 'Why did you refuse his company?'

I looked out at a nearby hill where a young shepherd stood guarding his sheep against marauding wolves; I thought a long time before giving him a truthful answer to his question.

'There's something about Kane,' I said. 'His face, his eyes – the way he moves the knife in his hands. He… burns. Raldu's accomplice put a bit of kirax in my blood, and that still burns like fire. But in Kane, there's more than a little bit of hell. He hates so utterly. It's as if he loves hating more than he could ever love a friend. How could anyone trust a man like that?'

Master Juwain rode next to me, thinking about what I had said. Then he sighed and rubbed the back of his head, which gleamed like a large brown nut in the bright sunlight. He said, 'You know that Kane has Duke Rezu's trust.'

'Yes, the Duke has need of men with quick swords,' I said. For a moment I listened to the thump of our horses' hooves against the stony soil. 'It's strange, isn't it that this Kane showed up at the Duke's castle at the same time we escaped from the bog.'

'Perhaps it's just a coincidence,' Master Juwain said.

'You taught me not to believe in coincidence, sir,' I said to him.

'What do you believe about Kane, then?'

'He hates the Lord of Lies, that much seems certain,' I said. 'But why does he hate him so much?'

'I'm afraid it's only natural to hate that which is pure hate itself 'Perhaps,' I said. 'But what if it's more than that?'

'What then?'

' There's something about Kane,' I said again. 'What if it was he who shot at me in the forest? And then somehow followed me into Anjo?' 'You think that it was Kane who tried to assassinate you?' Master Juwain asked. He seemed genuinely astonished. 'I thought we had established that it was the Lord of Lies who wished you dead. As you've observed, Kane hates him. Why should he then serve him?'

'That is what's puzzling me, sir. Perhaps the Lord of Lies has made a ghul of him. Or perhaps he has captured Kane's family and threatens them with death or worse.'

'Now that is a dark thought,' Master Juwain said. 'I'm afraid there's something dark about you, Valashu Elahad, to be thinking such thoughts on such a beautiful morning.'

I was afraid of the same thing, and I lifted up my face to let the bright sun drive away the coldness gnawing at my insides.

'Well,' Master Juwain continued, 'it's said that ghuls sometimes retain enough of their souls to hate their master. As for your other hypothesis, who knows? The Lord of Lies is certainly capable of doing as you said – and much worse.'

Master Juwain stopped to let his horse eat some grass. He began pulling at the folds of flesh beneath his chin. Then he said, 'But I don't think either hypothesis accounts for what I've seen of our mysterious Kane.' 'What do you think then, sir?'

He sat there on his horse on the middle of a gently rising hill, all the while regarding me with his large gray eyes. And then he asked, 'What do you know of the different Brotherhoods, Val?' 'Only what you taught me, sir.' And that, I thought, was not very much. I knew that early in the Age of Law, in a time of rebirth known as the Great Awakening, the Brotherhood had finally come out from behind the Morning Mountains to open schools across all of Ea. The different schools took on different names according to the colors of the gelstei that were to become the soul of that brilliant civilization; each school specialized in pursuing knowledge that related to its particular stone, and eventually became its own Brotherhood. Thus the Blue Brotherhood concerned itself with communications of all sorts, especially languages and dreams, while the Red Brotherhood sought understanding of the secret fire that blazed inside rocks and earth and all things. And so on. While each of the seven new Brotherhoods eventually opened schools of their own across the whole continen, some were much stronger in certain lands: The Silver Brotherhood predominated in far-off Surrapam while the Green Brotherhood came to its fullest flowering in the forest academies of Acadu. For two thousand years, the Brotherhoods had led civilization's rise into a golden age. And then, with the release of Morjin from his prison on the Isle of Damoom and his stealing of the Light stone, had come the fall.

All during the Age of the Dragon, the various Brotherhoods had dwindled or were destroyed by Morjin's assassin-priests. The closing of the Silver Brotherhood's school in Surrapam that Master Juwain had lamented over dinner was among the last of these. Now, only the original Brotherhood remained to spread the light of truth throughout Ea. Although its Brothers had been the first to make vows to preserve the wisdom of the stars and raise up humanity to its birthright, they called themselves the Last Brotherhood.

'All of the Brotherhoods have been destroyed' I said to Master Juwain. 'All except one.'

'Hmmm, have they indeed?' Master luwain said, 'What do you know of the Black Brotherhood?'

'Only that they were once strongest in Sakai. And that when the Kallimun priests established their fortress in Argattha, they hunted down the Brothers and razed every one of their schools to the ground. The Black Brotherhood was completely destroyed early in the Age of the Dragon.'

Maram, taking an interest in our conversation, nudged his horse forward to hear better what we were saying.

Master Juwain turned about in his saddle, left and right, scanning the empty hills around us. And then, in a much-lowered voice, he said, 'No, the Black Brotherhood was never destroyed. The Kallimun only drove them out of Sakai into Alonia.'

He went on to tell us that the Black Brotherhood, seeking to under-stand the fire-negating properties of the black gelstei and the source of all darkness, had always been different from the other Brotherhoods. Early in the Age of Law, when the Brotherhoods had renounced war, the Black Brothers had rebelled against the new rule of non-violence. Believing that there would always be darkness in the world, they began taking up knives and other weapons to fight against it. And they fought quite fiercely, for thousands of years. As the other Brotherhoods – the-Blue and the Red, the Gold and the Green – closed their schools all through the Age of the Dragon, the Black Brotherhood opened schools in secret in almost every land.

When Master Juwain had finished speaking, Maram sat very erect on his horse and said, 'I've never heard anyone speak of that.'

'We don't speak of it' Master Juwain said. 'Certainly not to novices. And not usually to any Brother before he has attained his mastership.'

At this, Maram, who was no more likely to attain a mastership than I was to become a king, slowly nodded his head as if proud to be taken into Master Juwain's confidence. And then he said, 'I didn't know there were any black gelstei left in the world for anyone to study.'

'There may not be,' Master Juwain said. 'But the Black Brothers gave up the pursuit of such knowledge long ago.' 'They have? But what is their purpose, then?'

'Their purpose,' Master Juwain said, 'is to hunt the Kallimun priests who once hunted them. And ultimately, to slay the Red Dragon.' .

Here he turned toward me and said, 'And that brings us back to Kane. I'm afraid that he might be of the Black Brotherhood. From what I've read about the Black Brothers, he has their look Certainly he has their hate.'

I looked off at the soft green hills and the purplish Aakash Mountains just beyond them. The sun poured down its warmth upon the earth, and a sweet wind rippled the acres of grass. On such a lovely day, it seemed strange to speak of dark things such as the Black Brotherhood. Almost as strange as Kane himself.

'And so you asked Kane to ride with us,' I said to Master Juwain. 'Why, sir?

Because you thought he might scare away any of the Red Dragon's men who might be hunting us? Or because you want to know more about the Black Brotherhood?'

Master Juwain laughed softly as he looked at me with his deep eyes. And then he said, 'I think you know me too well, Val. Kane was right about me, after all. I do seek knowledge, sometimes even in dark places. It's my curse.'

I looked up at the sun then as I thought about my own curse; I thought about the way that Kane's eyes had nearly sucked me down into the dark whirlpool of his soul.

Would I, I wondered, ever find that which would heal me of my terrible gift of experiencing the sufferings of others?

'If Kane is of the Black Brotherhood,' I finally said to Master Juwain, 'why would he press to accompany us?'

But Master Juwain who knew so much about so many things, only looked at me in silence as he slowly shook his head.

For the rest of the morning, as we journeyed north along the Aakash range, we talked about the Brotherhoods' role in the study and fabrica-tion of the seven greater gelstei stones. The fine day opened into the long hours of the afternoon even as the valley through which We rode opened toward the plains of Anjo. The hills about us gradually lessened in elevation and began to flatten out. Maram wanted to pause on the top of one of these to eat our midday meal and take a nap. But despite the soreness of my side, I was eager to press on, and so we did. Late in the day, with the sun arching down toward the jagged Shoshan Mountains to the west, we crossed into Daksh. No river or border stones marked off this dukedom. We knew that we had entered Duke Gorador's domain only because a shepherd whom we passed told us that we had. He also told us that we would find the Duke's castle some five miles farther up the valley at the mouth of one of the canyons leading through the Aakash Mountains. And so we did. It was almost full night as we rode up to the castle's main gate and presented ourselves to the Duke.

Duke Gorador proved to be a heavy man with a long face like a horse and long lower lip, at which he pulled with his steely fingers as we told him our story. He seemed glad to hear that I had made enemies of Lord Salmelu and the Ishkans; apparently he regarded the enemy of his enemy as his friend, for he immediately offered us his hospitality, and ordered that we be feted. But before we sat down to take dinner with him, he insisted on looking at Altaru and taking his measure. He well remembered sending him to my father, and was astonished to see me astride him.

'I never thought anyone would ride this horse,' he said to me just inside his castle's gate. Unlike my father, he had the good sense to keep well away from him. 'Now come dine with me and tell me how you managed to win his friendship. It seems that we have many stories to tell tonight.'

That evening, over a meal of roasted lamb and mint jelly, we spoke of many things: of the warlords who terrorized the wild lands to the north of Daksh and the warriors of Duke Barwan who patrolled the passes of the mountains to the east. As it happened, Duke Gorador, too, had a son who had gone off to the great gathering in Tria. He gave us his blessings and told us to look for a Sar Avador, who would be riding a black gelding that might have been Altaru's cousin. Of Kane, whom he had met, he had nothing to say. For as he told us, his father had taught him that if he couldn't speak well of a man, he shouldn't speak at all. He did, however, have words of praise for Thaman and his cause. He surprised everyone by announcing that the Valari must someday unite under a single king. But it surprised no one that he thought this king should be of Anjo: perhaps even Lord Shurador, his eldest son.

We slept well that night to the musk of the wolves howling in the hills. That is, Master Juwain and I slept well, Maram insisted on staying up until the dark hours writing a poem by candlelight. He intended to give Lord Shurador's wife his adoring words the next day since he couldn't manage to give her his love that night. But when the dawn broke its first light over the castle, both Master Juwain and I dissuaded him from this potentially disastrous act. We told him that if his verses were well-made and true, his passions would be preserved for all the ages. He could work on his poem as we journeyed north, and if he so desired, he could read it to the nobles and princes in Tria.

We said goodbye to the Duke near the gate where we had met him. Then we rode into the soft, swelling hills around his castle. The sky was as blue as cobalt glass; the soft wind smelled of dandelions and other wildflowers that grew on the grassy slopes, in the east, the sun burned with a golden fire.

It was a fine day for traveling, I thought, perhaps our finest yet. I determined that we should leave Daksh far behind us and cross well into Jathay before evening came.

Perhaps some thirty miles of rolling country lay before us. We began our journey through it to the sound of Maram bellowing out the verses of his new poem. It was a measure of the safety that Duke Gorador provided his domain that we could ride without fear of Maram's noise provoking any enemy to attack us.

As the noon hour approached, the mountains to our east grew lower and lower like great granite steps leading down into the plains of Anjo. Their forested slopes gradually gave way to grassier terrain. At the border between Daksh and Jathay, they stopped altogether. Here, where one of the feeder streams of the Havosh led northeast toward Yarvanu and Vishal, we paused to eat a meal of lamb sandwiches and take our bearings.

'Ah, Val, listen to this,' Maram said between bites of his sandwich. Which line do you think is better? "Her eyes are pools of sacred fire?" Or, "Her eyes are fire feeding fire"?'

We sat on top of a hill above the west bank of the Havosh River. The day was still clear, and we could see many miles in any direction. To the east, just across the sparkling trickle of the river, the plains of Jathay glistened like a sea of green. Only some fifteen miles from us lay the city of Sauvo and the court intrigues that Duke Rezu had spoken of. To the northeast, along the line of the Havosh, were the fields of Vishal and Yarvanu, and some miles beyond their domains, the distant blue haze of the Alonian Sea. The Shoshan Range still rose like a vast wall of rock and ice to the west, but I knew that their jagged peaks gave way to a great gap some seventy-five miles to the northwest. Forty miles due north of our hill, the raging Santosh River flowed down from these mountains into the Alonian Sea. It formed the border between Alonia and Anjo's wild lands that both Duke Rezu and Duke Gorador had warned us against. From our vantage above them, they didn't seem so wild. Long stretches of swaying grass and shrubs were cut by stands of trees in an irregular patchwork of vegetation. The ground undulated with soft swells of earth, as of the contours of a snake, but nowhere did it appear hilly or difficult to cross.

'Perhaps you don't like either line,' Maram said as I suddenly stood to gaze down at the thin, blue ribbon of the Havosh. 'How about, "Her eyes are windows to the stars"? Val, are you listening to me? What's wrong?'

I was barely listening to him. A sudden coldness struck into me as of something serpentine wrapping itself around my spine. It seemed to contract rhythmically, grinding my back-bones together even as it ate its way into my skull. Despite the dreadful chill I felt spreading through my limbs, I began to sweat. My belly tightened with a sickness that made me want to surrender up my lunch.

Now Master Juwain stood up, too, and laid his hand on my shoulder. He touched my head to see if my fever had returned. And then he asked, 'Are you ill, Val?'

'No,' 1 told him. 'It's not that'

'What is it then?'

I saw great concern on both my friends' faces. And I was concerned not to alarm either of them, especially Maram. But they had to know, so as gently as I could, 1 told them, 'Someone is following me.'

At this news, Maram leaped to his feet and began scanning the world in every direction. And so, more slowly, did Master Juwain. But the only moving things they detected were a few hawks in the sky and a rabbit startled out of the grass by Maram's darting back and forth across the top of the hill.

'We can't see anything,' Master Juwain said. 'Are you sure we're being followed?'

'Yes,' I said. 'At least someone or something is seeking me and knows where I am.

It's like they can scent out my blood.'

'Do you think it's Kane?' Maram asked. He turned south to peer more closely through the valley leading back to Duke Rezu's castle.

'It could be Kane,' I said. 'Or it could be someone waiting for us to ride into a trap.'

'Waiting where?' Maram asked. 'And who is it who's after you? The Ishkans? No, no

– they wouldn't dare ride this far into Anjo. Would they? Do you think it's your assassin who has tracked you down?'

But I had no answers for him, nor for myself. All I could do was to smile bravely so that the flames of Maram's disquiet didn't spread into a raging panic.

Master Juwain, who had an intimation of my gift nodded his head as if he trusted what I had told him. He asked, 'What should we do, Val?'

'We could try to set a trap of our own,' I said, touching the hilt of my sword.

'No, there's been enough of that already,' Master Juwain said. 'Besides, we have no idea how many might be pursuing us, do we?'

Maram nodded his head at the good sense of this, and said, 'Please, Val, let's leave this land as soon as we can,'

'All right,' I said. I pointed down at the Havosh River where it formed the border of Jathay and led toward Yarvanu and Vishal. 'If it is Kane who is after us, then he knows that Duke Rezu advised us to go in this direction. If it's someone else, then likely they'll be waiting for us along the Nar Road where it crosses through Yarvanu.'

'Of course they would,' Maram muttered. 'That's the only way over the Santosh into Alonia.'

'Perhaps not the only way,' I said.

'What do you mean?' Maram asked in alarm.

I pointed down into the wild lands that began at the base of our hill. I said, 'We could journey north, straight for the Santosh. And then into Alonia. If we keep northwest toward the Shoshan Range and then strike out north again, we should intercept the Nar Road in the Gap far from any of our pursuers.'

Maram looked at me as if I had suggested crossing the Alonian Sea on a log. Then he called out, 'But what of the wild lands we were warned against? The robbers and outlaws? Ah, perhaps the bears, too? And how will we cross the Santosh if there's no bridge? And if by some miracle we do cross it without drowning, how will we find our way through Alonia? I've heard there's nothing there but trackless forest.'

Some men are born to fear the familiar dangers that they see before their eyes; some take their greatest terror in the unknown. Maram was cursed with a sensibility that found threat everywhere in the world, from a boulder poised on the side of a hill to roll down upon him to his most wild imaginings. I knew that nothing I could say would assuage the dread rising like a flood inside him. Dangers lay before us in every direction. All we could do was to choose one way or another to go.

Even so, I grasped his hand in mine to reassure him. It was one of the times in my life that I wished my gift worked in reverse, so that some of my great hope for the future might pass into him. I fancied that some of it did.

We held council on top of that barren hill. All of us agreed that when facing an opponent, it was best to do the unexpected. And so in the end we decided on the course that I had suggested.

After packing up our food, we rode down into the wild lands with a new haste communicating into our horses. We moved at a bone-jolting trot over fields overgrown with shrubs and weeds; but upon entering the various woods that lay upon our line of travel, we had to pick our way more slowly. The country through which we rode had once been rich farmland, some of the richest in the Morning Mountains..But now all that remained of civilization were the ruins of low stone walls or an occasional house, rotting or fallen in upon itself. We saw no other sign of human beings all that long afternoon. When evening came, we made camp in a copse of stout oaks. We risked no fire that night. We ate a cold meal of cheese and bread, and then agreed to take our sleep in turns so that one of us might always remain awake to listen for our pursuers. I took the first watch, followed by Maram. When it came time for me to rest, 1 fell asleep to the sound of wolves howling far out on the plain before us.

I was awakened just before dawn by a dreadful sensation that one of these wolves was licking my throat. I sprang up from the dark, damp earth with my sword in my hand; I believe I lunged at the gray shapes of these beasts lurking in the shadows of the trees. And then, as I came truly awake and my eyes cleared, I saw nothing more threatening than a few rotting logs among the towering oaks. 'Are you all right?'

Master Juwain whispered. 'Was it a dream?' 'Yes, a dream,' I told him. 'But perhaps it's time we were off.' We roused Maram then and quickly broke camp. Upon emerging from the woods, we rode straight toward the north star over a dark and silent land. But soon the sun reddened the sky in the east and drove away the darkness. With every yard of dew-dampened ground that we covered, it seemed that the world grew a little brighter. I took courage from this golden light. By the time full day came, I could no longer feel the serpent writhing along my spine.

Even so, I pressed Altaru to cross this forsaken country as quickly as we could. The ground fell gradually before us; in places, it grew damp and almost boggy – though nothing like the Black Bog that guarded the way into Rajak. The horses found their footing surely enough, and began to quicken their pace, urged on by clouds of biting, black flies. By noon we had covered nearly fifteen miles, and by late afternoon, another ten. And in all those miles, we saw nothing more threatening than a couple of foxes and the prints of a bear by the muddy bank of a stream.

And then, as we drew nearer the Santosh and entered a broad swathe of woods, we came upon a band of ragged-looking men whom Maram immediately took to be robbers. But they proved to be only outlaws exiled from Vishal for protesting the ruthless war that Baron Yashur was prosecuting against Onkar. With their matted hair and filthy tunics, they seemed scarcely Vaiari. But Valari they were, and they offered us no hindrance, only the roasted haunch of a deer that they had just killed.

And more, when they heard that we were journeying to Tria, they offered to show us a way over the Santosh.

Meeting these 'wild' men that Maram had so feared was a great stroke of fortune.

After we had eaten the gamy-tasting venison, they led us west along a track through the woods. A few miles of tramping along the black, hard-packed earth brought us dose to the river. We heard this great surge of water through the trees before we could see it: the oaks and willows grew like a curtain right down to the bank. But then the track straightened and rose toward the causeway leading to an old bridge spanning the river. At the foot of this rickety structure, we paused to look down into the river's raging brown waters. There was no way, I knew, that we could have swum across them.

The outlaw Valari said goodbye to us there and wished us well on our quest.

Crossing the bridge proved to be an exercise in faith. We all dismounted and led our horses across the bridge one by one, the better to distribute our weight across its rotten planks. Even so, Altaru's hoof broke through one of them with a sickening crunch, and it was all I could do to extricate it without my badly startled horse breaking his leg. But Altaru trusted me as much as I trusted him. After that, we picked our way across the rest of the bridge without incident. Master Juwain and Maram, with their lighter sorrels and the packhorses, encountered no problems.

As darkness was coming on, we camped there on moist, low ground near the bridge.

Maram argued for a higher and drier campsite, but I convinced him that anyone pursuing us on horses would make a huge sound of hooves pounding against the drumlike boards of the bridge. This would alert us and allow us precious time either to flee or mount a defense.

And so we ate a joyless dinner in the damp next to the river. It was a cold, uncomfortable night. Sleep brought only torment. The season's first mosquitoes whined in my ear, bit, drew blood. After a time, I gave up slapping them and in exhaustion slipped down into the land of dreams. But there the whining grew only louder and swelled to a dreadful whimpering as of a prelude to a scream. Toward dawn I finally came screaming out of my sleep. Or so I thought. When my mind cleared, I realized that it was not I but Maram who was screaming: it turned out that a harmless garter snake had slithered across his sleeping fur and sent him hopping up from it on all fours like a badly frightened frog.

We were very glad to begin the day's journey. And very glad at last to have planted our feet on Aloniaagsoil, if only the most southern and eastern part of it. It was a land that human beings had deserted many years ago. If any habitation had ever existed on this side of the river, the forest had long since swallowed it up. The oaks and elms through which we passed were more densely clustered than those of Mesh; there were many more maples, too, as well as hickories and moss-covered chestnuts. The undergrowth of bracken and ferns was a thick, green blanket almost smothering the forest floor. It would have been difficult to force our way through it if the forest had proved as trackless as Maram had feared. But the old road leading from the bridge – as on the other side of the river – turned into a track leading northwest through the trees. It seemed that no one except a few wandering animals had used it for a thousand years.

All that day we kept to this track, and to others we found deeper in the woods. As I had intended, we traveled on a fairly straight line toward the gap in the Shoshan Range through which the Nar road passed. Not far from the river, the ground began to rise before us and became drier. We saw no sign of man, and I began to hope that our cut across the wild lands of Anjo had either confused or lost whoever was hunting us. We slept that night at a higher elevation where we saw neither mosquitoes nor snakes.

Our next day's journey took us across several rills and streams flowing down from the mountains toward the Santosh. We had no trouble crossing them. Toward evening we encountered a bear feasting on newberries; we left him alone, and he left us alone. On our third day from the bridge, we entered the Gap in the Morning Mountains, where the land became hilly again. There I had intended to turn toward the Nar Road that cut through the Gap perhaps twenty miles to our north. But the folds of the hills and the only track we could find ran to the northwest. I decided that it wouldn't hurt to keep to these wild woods for another day or two before setting foot on the Nar Road.

In truth, I loved being so far from civilization. Here the trees lifted up their branches toward the sun and breathed their great, green breaths that sweetened the air. Here I felt at once all the wildness of an animal taking my strength from the earth and the silent worship of an angel walking proud and free beneath the stars. It would have been good to wander those woods for many more than a few days. But I had friends to lead out of them and promises to keep. And so on our fifth day in Old Alonia, I began seeking a track or a cut through the hills that would take us to the Nar Road.

'Where are we?' Maram grumbled to me as we made our way beneath the great crowns of the trees high above us. Through their leaves the sun shone like light through thousands of green, glass windows.'Are you sure we're not lost?'

'Yes,' I told him for the hundredth time. 'As sure as the sun itself.'

'I hope you're right. You were sure we wouldn't get lost in the Bog, either.'

'This isn't the Black Bog,' I told him. As Altaru trod over earth nearly overgrown with ferns, 1 looked off at some lilies growing by the side of the track. 'We're only a few miles west of the Gap. We should find the Nar Road only a few miles north of here.'

'We should find it,' Maram agreed. 'But what if we don't?'

'And what if the sun doesn't rise tomorrow?' I countered. 'You can't worry about everything, you know.'

'Can't I? But it's you, with all your talk of men pursuing us, who has set me to worrying. You haven't, ah, sensed any sign of them?'

'Not for a few days.'

'Good, good. You've probably lost them in these dreadful woods. As you've probably lost us.'

'We're not lost,' I told him again.

'No? How do you know?'

An hour later, our track cut across a rocky shelf on the side of the hill. It was one of the few places we had found where trees didn't obstruct our view and we could look out at the land we were crossing. It was a rough, beautiful country we saw, with green-shrouded hills to the north and west. A soft mist, like long gray fingers, had settled down into the folds between them.

'I don't see the road,' Maram said as he stood staring out to the north. 'If it's only a few miles from here, shouldn't we see it?'

'Look,' I said, pointing at a strangely-formed hill near us. After rising at a gentle grade for a few hundred feet, it seemed to drop off abruptly as if cut with cliffs on its north face. At its top, it was barren of trees and all other vegetation except a few stunted grasses. 'If we climb it, we should be able to see the road from there.'

'All right,' Maram grumbled again. 'But I don't like the look of these hills. Didn't Kane warn of hill-men west of the Gap?' Master Juwain came up and sat on his horse looking out at the misty hills. Then he said, 'I've been through this country before, when I traveled the Nar Road toward Mesh years ago. I met these hill-men that Kane spoke of. They waylaid our party and demanded that we pay a toll.'

'But this is the King's road!' I said, outraged at such robbery. In Mesh – as in all the Nine Kingdoms – the roads are free as the air men breathe. 'No one except King Kiritan has the right to charge tolls on any road through Alonia. And a wise king will never exercise that right.'

'I'm afraid we're far from Tria hire,' Master Juwain said. 'The hill-men do as they please.'

'Well,' I said, 'perhaps we shouldn't cut toward the road just yet. Then we can't be charged for traveling upon it.'

This logic, however, did nothing to encourage Maram. He shook his head at Master Juwain and called out, 'But, sir, this is dreadful news! We don't have gold for tolls!

Why didn't you tell me about these tolls?'

'I didn't want to worry you,' Master Juwain said. 'Now why don't we climb to the top of that hill and see what we can see?'

But Maram, hoping as always to put off potential disasters as long as he could, insisted on first eating a bit of lunch. And so we walked our horses down into the trees where we found a stream that seemed a good site for a rest. We ate a meal of walnuts, cheese and battle biscuits. I even let Maram have a little brandy to inspirit him. And then I led us down into a mist-filled vale giving out onto the barren hill to our north. After riding along a little stream for perhaps half a mile, the skin at the back of my neck began to tingle and burn. I had a sickening sense of being hunted, by whom or what I did not know.

And then, as suddenly as thunder breaking through a storm, the blare of battle horns split the air. TA-ROO, TA-ROO, TA-ROO – the same two notes sounded again and again as if someone was blowing a trumpet high on the hill before us. I tightened my grip around Altaru's reins and began urging him toward the hill; it was as if the hom – or something else – were calling me to battle.

'Wait, Val!' Maram called after me. 'What are you doing?' 'Going to see what's happening,' I said simply. 'I hate to know what's happening,' he said. He pointed behind us in the opposite direction. 'Shouldn't we flee, that way, while we still have the chance?'

I listened for a moment to the din shaking the woods, and then to a deeper sound inside me. I said, 'But what if the hill-men have trapped Sar Avador – or some other traveler – on the hill?'

'What if they trap us there? Come, please, while there's still time-!' 'No,' I told him, 'I have to see.'

So saying, I pressed Altaru forward. Maram followed me reluctantly, and Master f uwain followed him trailing the pack horses. We rode along the dale and then through the woods leading up the side of the hill. As if someone had scoured the hill with fire, the trees suddenly ended in a line that curved around the hill's base. There we halted in their shelter to look out and see who was blowing the horn.

'Oh my Lord!' Maram croaked out 'Oh, my Lord!'

A hundred yards from us, ten men were advancing up the hill. They were squat and pale-skinned, nearly naked, with only the rudest covering of animal skins for clothing. They bore long oval shields, most of which had arrows sticking out of them. In their hands they clutched an irregular assortment of weapons: axes and maces and a few short, broad-bladed swords. Their leader – a thick-set and hairy man with daubs of red paint marking his face – paused once to blow a large, blood-spattered horn that looked as if it had been torn from the head of some animal. And then, pointing his sword up the hill, he began advancing again toward his quarry.

This was a single warrior who stood staring down at the men from the top of the hill.

I immediately noted the long, blond hair that spilled from beneath the warrior's conical and pointed helmet; I couldn't help staring at the warrior's double-curved bow and the studded leather armor, for these were the accoutrements of the Sarni, which tribe I couldn't tell. A ring of dead men lay in the stunted grass fifty yards from the warrior farther down the hill. Arrows stuck out of them, too. In all of Ea, there were no archers like the Sarni and no bows that pulled so powerfully as theirs.

But this warrior, I thought, would never pull a bow again because his quiver was empty and he had no more arrows to shoot. All he could do was to stand near his downed horse and wait for the hill-men to advance through the ring of their fallen countrymen and begin the butchery they so obviously intended.

'All right,' Maram murmured at me from behind his tree, 'you've seen what you came to see. Now let's get out of here!'

As quickly as I could, I nudged Altaru over to my pack horse where I untied the great helmet slung over his side. I untied as well the shield that my father had given me and thrust my arm through it. My side still hurt so badly that I could barely hold it. But I scarcely noticed this pain because I had worse wounds to bear.

'What are you doing?' Maram snapped at me. This isn't our business. That's a Sarni warrior, isn't it? A Sarni, Val!'

Master Juwani. agreed with him that the course of action on which I was setting out perhaps wasn't the wisest. But since the Brotherhood teaches showing compassion to the unfortunates of the world, neither did he suggest that we should flee. He just stood there in the trees weighing different stratagems and wondering how the three of us -and one Sarni warrior – could possibly prevail against ten fierce and vengeful hill-men.

I slipped the winged helmet over my head then. I took up my lance and couched it beneath my good arm. How could I explain why I did this? I could hardly explain it to myself. After many miles of being hunted, I couldn't bear the sight of this warrior being hunted and bravely preparing to die. For Master Juwain, compassion was a noble principle to be honored wherever possible; for me it was a terrible pain piercing my heart. For some reason I didn't understand, I found myself opening to this doomed warrior. A proud Sarni he migt be, but something inside him was calling for help, even as a child might call, and hoping that it might miraculously come.

'That man,' I told Maram, 'could have been Sar Avador. He could be my brother – he could be you.'

And with that, I touched my heels to Altaru's sides and rode out of the trees. I pressed him to a gallop; it was a measure of his immense strength that he quickly achieved this gait driving his hooves into the ground that sloped upward before us. I felt the great muscles of his rump bunching and pushing us into the air. He wheezed and snorted, and I felt his lust for battle. The hill-men had now drawn closer to the warrior, who stood waiting for them with nothing more than a saber and a little leather shield. His ten executioners, with their painted faces and bodies, advanced as a single mass, clumped foolishly close together. Their leader blew his bloody horn again and again to give them courage; they struck their weapons against their wooden shields as they screamed out obscenities and threatened fiendish tortures. This din must have drowned out the sound of Altaru pounding toward them, for they didn't see me until the last moment. But the warrior, looking downhill, did. He somehow guessed that I was charging toward the hill-men and not him; it must have mystified him why a Valari knight would ride to help him. But he left all such wonderings for a later moment. He let out a high-pitched whoop and charged the hill-men even as I lowered my lance and prepared to crash into them.

Just then, however, one of the hill-men turned toward me and let out a cry of dismay.

This alerted the others, who froze wide-eyed in astonishment, not knowing what to do. I might easily have pushed the lance's point through the first man's neck. Altaru's snorting anger, and my own, drove me to do so; the nearness of death touched me with a terrible exhilaration. But then I remembered my vow never to kill anyone again.

And so I raised the lance, and as we swept past the man, I used its steel-shod butt to strike him along the side of his head. He fell stunned to the side of the hill. One of his friends tried to unhorse me with a blow of his mace, but I caught it with my father's shield. Then the infuriated Altaru struck out with his hoof and broke through his shield and shoulder with a sickening crunch. He screamed in agony, even as I bit my lip in an effort not to scream, too.

Through the heat of the battle, I was somehow aware of the Sarni warrior closing with the hill-men's leader and opening his throat with a lightning slash of his saber. I immediately began coughing at the bubbling of blood I felt in my own throat. Then one of the hill-men swung his axe at my back, and only my Godhran forged armor kept it from chopping through my spine. I whirled about in my saddle and struck him in the face with my shield. He stumbled to one knee, and I hesitated for an endless moment as I trembled to spear him with my lance.

And in that moment, the Sarni warrior cut through to him and ruthlessly finished him as well. A mail bevor fastened to the warrior's helm hid most of his face, but I could see his blue eyes flashing like diamonds even as his saber flashed out and struck off the man's head. His prowess of arms and rare fury – and, I supposed, my own wild charge – had badly dispirited the hill-men. When an arrow came whining suddenly out of the trees below us and buried itself in the ground near one of the hill-men to my right, he pointed downhill at Maram standing by a tree with my hunting bow. And then he cried out, 'They'll kill us all – run for your lives!'

In the panic that followed, the Sarni warrior managed to kill one more of the hill-men before his comrades turned their backs to us and fled down the hill toward the east, where a slight rise in the ground provided some cover against Maram's line of fire. I believe that the warrior might have pursued them to slay a few more if I hadn't slumped off my horse just then.

'No, please – no more killing,' I said as I held my hand palm outward and shook my head. I stood by Altaru, and grasped the pommel of his saddle to keep from falling.

'Who are you, Valari?' the warrior called to me.

I looked down the hill where the seven surviving men had disappeared into the woods. I looked at Maram and Master Juwain now making their way up the hill toward us. Except for the heavy breath steaming out of Altaru's huge nostrils, and my own labored breathing, the world had grown suddenly quiet.

'My name is Valashu Elahad,' I gasped out. I felt weak and discon-nected from my body, as if my head had been cut off like the hill-man's and spent spinning into space. I pulled off my helm, then, the better to feel the wind against me. 'And who are you?'

The warrior hesitated a moment as I pressed my hand to my side. I felt the blood soaking through my armor. The battle had reopened the wound there, as well as the deeper wound that would never be healed.

'My name is Atara,' the warrior said, removing his helm as well. 'Atara Manslayer of the Kurmak. Thank you for saving my life.'

I gasped again, but not in pain. 1 stared at the long golden hair flowing down from Atara's head and the soft lines of Atara's golden face. It was now quite clear that Atara was a woman – the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. And though our enemies were either dead or dispersed, something inside her still called to me.

'Atara,' I said as if her name were an invocation to the angels who walked the stars,

'you're welcome.'

I suddenly knew that there was much more than a bond of blood between us. I looked into her eyes then, and it was like falling – not; into the nothingness where she had sent the hill-men, but into the sacred fire of two brilliant, blue stars.