The Lightstone

Chapter 6

The next morning, the Ishkans departed our castle in a flurry of pounding hooves and muffled curses – so Asaru later told me. Apparently Salmelu wanted to bring King Hadaru the news of the war's postponement as quickly as possible. Likewise, the Alonians continued on their journey toward Waas and Kaash, where they would tell King Talanu and my cousins at his court of the great quest. Despite my intention to get an early start on the road to Tria, I slept almost until noon. My father had always upbraided me for liking my bed too well, and so I did. In truth, now that the time had come for me to leave the castle that I had never regarded as home, I was reluctant to do so.

It took me most of the day to make my preparations for the journey. I went from shop to shop among the courtyards as if moving in a dream. It seemed that there were a hundred things to do. Altaru's hooves needed reshoeing, as did those of our pack horse, Tanar. I had to visit the storerooms in the various cellars to gather rations for myself: cheeses and nuts, dried venison and apples and battle biscuits so hard they would break one's teeth Jttthey weren't first dipped in a cupful of brandy or beer. These vital beverages I poured into twelve small oak casks which I carefully balanced on Tanar's back along with the waterskins. I worried that the weight would be too much for the brown gelding to carry, but Tanar was young and almost as heavily muscled as Altaru himself. He seemed to have no trouble bearing this had of consumables as well as my ground fur, cookware and other equipment that would make sleeping beneath the stars a delight rather than a misery.

He balked only when I strapped onto him my longbow and sheaves of arrows that I would use hunting in the forests between Silvassu and Tria. Once, at the Battle of Red Mountain, he had been struck in the flank by a stray arrow and had never forgotten it. I had to reassure him that we were embarking on a quest to regain a cup that would end such battles forever and not going out to war. But my appearance unfortunately, belted any soothing words I could offer him. My father had insisted that I set forth as a knight of Mesh, and to honor him, I had gathered up the necessary accoutrements By law, no knight could leave Mesh alone wearing out diamond armor; such displays would be likely to incite the envy and hatred of robbers who would murder for the gain of these priceless gems. So instead, I had donned a mail suit made of silver steel. Over its gleaming rings I had pulled a black surcoat bearing the swan and stars of Mesh. As well I bore a heavy charging lance, five lighter throwing lances, and, of course, the shining kalama that my father had given me on my thirteenth birthday. The massive war helm, with its narrow eye slits and silver wings projecting out from the sides, I would not put on until just before I was ready to leave the castle.

I spent at least two hours of the afternoon saying my farewells. I visited briefly with the master carpenter in his shop full of sawdust and riven wood. He was a thick, jowly man with an easy laugh and skillful hands that had made the frame of my grandfather's portrait. We talked about my grandfather for a while, the battles he had fought'; the dreams he had dreamed. He wished me well and warned me to be careful of the Ishkans. This advice I also received from Lansar Raasharu, my father's seneschal. This sad-faced man, whom I had always loved as one of my family, told me that I should keep a tighter watch over my own lips than I did even over the enemy.

'They're a hot-headed bunch,' he said, 'who will fashion your own words into weapons and hurl them back at you toward disastrous ends.'

'Better that,' I said, 'than poison arrows fired in the woods.'

Lord Raasharu rubbed his nigged face and cocked his head, looking at me in surprise. He asked 'Hasn't Lord Asaru spoken to you?'

'No, not since before the feast'

'Well, you should have been told: it can't be Prince Salmelu who was your assassin.

He and his friends crossed my path in the woods down by the Kurash at the time of your trouble.'

'And you're sure it was he?'

'As sure as that you're Valashu Elahad'

'That is good news!' I said. I hadn't wanted to believe that Salmelu would have tried to murder me. ' The Ishkans may be Ishkans, but they're Valari first.'

'That's true,' Lord Raasharu said. 'But the Ishkans are still Ishkans, so you be careful once you cross the mountains, all right?'

And with that he clapped his hand across my shoulder hard enough to make the rings of mail jingle, and said goodbye.

It distressed me that I could find neither Maram nor Master Juwain to tell them how much I would miss them. According to Master Tadeo who still remained in the Brothers' quarters, both Master Juwain and Maram had left the castle in great haste that morning while I had been sleeping. Apparently, there had been some sort of altercation with Lord Harsha, who had ridden off in a fury with Behira and their wagon before breakfast. But it seemed I had not been forgotten. Master Tadeo handed me a sealed letter that Maram had written; I tucked this square of white paper behind the belt girdling my surcoat, and vowed to read it later.

There remained only the farewells to be made with my family. Asaru insisted on meeting me by the east gate of the castle, as did my mother, my grandmother and my other brothers. In a courtyard full of barking dogs and children playing in the last of the day's sun, I stood by Altaru to take my leave of them. They each had presents for me, and a word or two of wisdom as well.

Mandru, the fiercest of my brothers, was the first to come forward. As usual, he carried his sword in the three remaining fingers of his left hand. It was rumored, I knew, that he slept holding this sword, and not his young wife, which might have explained his lack of children. For a moment, I thought that he intended to give me this most personal of possessions. And then I noticed that in his right hand, he held something else: his treasured sharpening stone made of pressed diamond dust. He gave this sparkling gray stone to me and said, 'Keep your sword sharp, Val. Never yield to our enemies.'

After he had embraced me, Ravar next approached to give me his favorite throwing lance. He reminded me always to set my boots in my stirrups before casting it, and then stepped aside to let Jonathay come nearer. With a faraway, dreamy look on his face, this most fatalistic of my brothers presented me with his chess set, the one with the rare ebony and ivory pieces that he loved playing with while on long campaigns.

His calm, cheerful smile suggested to me that I play at the game of finding the Lightstone – and win.

Now it was Yarashan's turn to say goodbye. He strode up to me as if everyone in the castle was watching each of his lithe, powerful motions. He was even prouder than Asaru, I thought but he lacked Asaru's kindness, innocence and essential goodness. He was a handsome, dashing man, and was considered the finest knight in Mesh – except for those who said this of Asaru. I thought that he considered he would make a better king than Asaru, although he was much too perceptive and loyal ever to say such a thing. He held in his hand a well-worn copy of the Valkariad, which was his favorite book of the SaganomElu. He gave it to me and said,

'Remember the story of Kalkamesh, little brother.'

He, too, embraced me, then stepped aside as Karshur handed me his favorite hunting arrow. I had always envied this solid, simple man because he seemed never to have a doubt as to the right thing to do or the difference between evil and good.

Then I looked up to see Asaru standing between my mother and grandmother. As I listened to the distant sound of hammered iron coming from the blacksmith's shop, I watched him step over to me.

'Please take this,' he said to me. From around his neck, he pulled loose the thong binding the lucky bear claw that he always wore. He draped it over my head and told me, 'Never lose heart -you have a great heart Val.'

Although he fell silent as he clapped me on the shoulder, the tears in his eyes said everything else there was to say.

I was sure that he thought I would be killed on some dark road in a strange kingdom far from home. My mother obviously thought this as well. Although she was a strong, brave woman, she too was weeping as she came forward to give me the traveling cloak which I knew she had been weaving as a birthday present. I guessed that she had stayed up all night finishing it; with its thick black wool trimmed out with fine silver embroidery and a magnificent silver brooch with which to fasten it, it was a work of love that would keep me warm on even the stormiest of nights.

'Come back,' was all she told me. 'Whether you find this cup or not, come home when it's time to come home.'

She kissed me then and fell sobbing against me. It took all of her will and dignity to pry herself loose and stand back so that my grandmother could give me the white, wool scarf that she had knitted for me. Ayasha Elahad, whom I had always called Nona, tied this simple garment around my neck She stood in the darkening courtyard looking up at me with her bright eyes. Then she pointed at the night's first stars and told me, 'Your grandfather would have made this quest, you know. Never forget that he is watching you.'

I hugged her tiny body against the hardness of the mail that encircled mine. Even through this steel armor with its hundreds of interlocked rings, I could feel the beating of her heart. This frail woman, I thought, was the source of love in my family, and I would take this most precious of gifts with me wherever I went.

At last I stood away from her and looked at my family one by one No one spoke; no one seemed to know any more words to say. I had hoped my father, too, would come to say goodbye, but it seemed that he was still too angry to bear the sight of me. And then, even as I turned to take Altaru's reins and mount him, I heard footsteps sounding hard against the packed earth I looked out to see my father emerge from the gateway to the castle's adjoining middle courtyard. He was dressed in black and silver tunic and he bore on his arm a shield embossed with a silver swan and seven stars against a triangular expanse of glossy, black steel.

'Val,' he said as he walked up to me, 'it's good you haven't left yet.'

'No, not yet,' I said. 'But it's time. It seemed you wouldn't come'

'It seemed that way to me, too. But farewells should be said.'

I stared at my father's sad, deep eyes and said, 'Thank you, sir. it can't be easy for you seeing me leave like this.'

'No, it's not. But you always went your own way.'

'Yes, sir.'

'And you always accepted your punishments when you did.'

'Yes,' I said, nodding my head. 'And sometimes that was hard; you were hard, sir.'

'But you never complained.'

'No – you taught me not to.'

'And you never apologized, either.'

'No, that's true.'

'Well,' he said, looking at my war lance and glistening armor, 'this time the hardships of your journey will be punishment enough.'

'Very likely they will.'

'And dangers,' he continued. ' There will be dangers aplenty on the road to Tria – and beyond.'

I nodded my head and smiled bravely to show him that I knew there would be. But inside, my belly was fluttering as before a battle.

'And so,' he said, 'it would please me if you would take this shield on your journey.'

He took another step closer to me, all the while keeping a watchful eye upon the snorting Altaru and his great hooves. Not wishing to arouse the ferocious stallion's protective instincts, he slowly held his shield out to me.

'But sir,' I said, looking at this fine piece of workmanship, this is your war shield! If there's war with Ishka, you'll need it.'

'Please take it all the same,' he told me.

For a long moment I gazed at the shield's swan and silver stars.

'Would you disobey in this, as well?'

'No sir,' I said at last, taking the shield and thrusting my forearm through its leather straps. It was slightly heavier than my own shield, but somehow seemed to fit me better. ' Thank you – it's magnificent.'

He embraced me then, and kissed me, one, on my forehead. He looked at me strangley in way that I had never seen him loooking at Karshur or Yarashan – or even Asaru. Then he told me, 'Always remember who you are.'

I bowed to him, then hoisted myself up onto Altaru's back. The great beast's entire body trembled with the excitement of setting out into the world.

I cleared my throat to say my final farewells, but just as I was about to speak, there came the sound of a horse galloping up the road beyond the open gate. A cloaked figure astride a big, panting sorrel came pounding into the courtyard. The rider wore a saber strapped to his thick black belt and bore a lance in his saddle's holster but seemed otherwise unarmed. His clothes, I saw, as his cloak pulled back, were of bright scarlet, and he wore a jeweled ring on each of the fingers of his two hands. I smiled because it was, of course, Maram.

'Val!' he called out to me as he reached forward to stroke and calm his sweating horse. 'I was afraid I'd have to intercept you on the road.'

I smiled again in appreciation of what must have been a hard ride down from the Brotherhood Sanctuary. My family all looked upon him approvingly for mis act of seeming loyalty.

'Thank you for coming to say goodbye,' I told him.

'Say goodbye?' he called out. 'No, no – I've come to say that I'd like to accompany you on your journey. That is, at least as far as Tria, if you'll have me.'

This news surprised everyone, except perhaps my father, who gazed at Maram quietly. My mother gazed at him, too, with obvious gratitude that I wouldn't be setting out at night on a dangerous journey alone.

'Will I have you?' I said to him. I felt as if the weight of my unaccustomed armor had suddenly been lifted from my shoulders. 'Gladly. But what's happened, Maram?'

'Didn't you read my letter?'

I patted the square of paper still folded into my belt 'No, my apologies, but there wasn't time.'

'Well,' he began, 'I couldn't just abandon my best friend to go out questing alone, now could I?'

'Is that all?'

Maram licked his lips as he glanced from my mother to Asaru, who was eyeing him discreetly. 'Well, no, it is not all,' he forced out. ' I suppose I should tell you the truth: Lord Harsha has threatened to cut off my, ah… head.'

As Maram went on to relate. Lord Harsha had discovered him talking with Behira early that morning and had again drawn his sword. He had chased Maram up and down the women's guest quarters, but his broken knee and Maram's greater agility, much quickened by his panic, enabled Maram to evade the threatened decapitation – or worse After Lord Harsha's temper had cooled somewhat, he had told Maram to leave Mesh that day or face his sword when they next met. Maram had fled from the castle and returned to the Brotherhood Sanctuary to gather up his belongings. And then returned as quickly as he could to join me.

'It would be an honor to have you with me,' I told him. 'But what about your schooling?'

'I've only taken a leave of absence,' he said. ' I'm not quite ready to quit the Brotherhood altogether.'

And, it seemed, the Brotherhood wasn't ready to quit him. Even as Maram started in his saddle at the sound of more horses coming up to the castle, I looked down the road to see Master Juwain riding another sorrel and leading two pack horses behind him. He made his way through the gateway and came to a halt near Maram. He glanced at the weapons that Maram bore. Maram must have persuaded him that the lance and sword would be used only for their protection and not war. He shook his head sadly at having yet again to bend the Brotherhood's rules on Maram's behalf.

Master Juwain quickly explained that the news of the quest had created a great stir among the Brothers. For three long ages they had sought the secrets of the Lightstone. And now, if the prophecy proved true, it seemed that this cup of healing might finally be found. And so the Brothers had decided to send Master Juwain to Tria to determine the veracity of the prophecy. That he also might have other, and more secret, business in the City of Light remained unsaid.

'Then it isn't your intention to make this quest?' my father asked.

'Not at this time. I'll accompany Val only as far as Tria, if that's agreeable with him.'

'Nothing could please more, sir.' I smiled, unable to hide my delight. 'But it's my intention to take the road through Ishka, and that may not prove entirely safe.'

'Where can safety be found these days?' Master Juwain said, looking up at the great iron gate and the castle walls all around us. 'Lord Salmelu has promised you safe passage, and we'll have to hope for the best.’

'Very well, then,' I told him.

And with that, I turned to look at my brothers one last time. I nodded my head to my grandmother and my mother, who was quietly weeping again. Then I smiled grimly at my father and said, 'Farewell, sir.'

'Farewell, Valashu Elahad,' he said, speaking for the rest of my family.

'May you always walk in the light of the One.'

At last I put on the great helm, whose hard steel face plates immedi-ately cut out the sight of my weeping mother, I wheeled Altaru about and nudged him forward with a gentle pressure of my heels. Then, with Master Juwain and Maram following, I rode out through the gate toward the long road that led down from the castle. And so my father finally had the satisfaction of seeing me set out as a Valari knight in all his glory.

It was a clear night with the first stars slicing open the blue-black vault of the heavens. To the west, Arakel's icy peak glowed blood-red in light of the sun lost somewhere beyond the world's edge. To the east, Mount Eluru was already sunk in darkness. The cool air sifted through the slits in my helm, carrying the scents of forest and earth and almost infinite possibilities. Soon, after perhaps half a mile of such joyous travel, I took off my helm, the better to feel the starlight on my face. I listened to the measured beat of Altaru's hooves against the hardpacked dirt as I looked out at the wonder of the world.

It seemed almost a foolish thing to begin such a long journey with night falling fast and deep all around us. But I knew that the moon would soon be up, and there would be light enough for riding along the well-made North Road that led toward Ishka. With the wind at my back and visions of golden cups blazing inside me, I thought that I might be able to ride perhaps until midnight. Certainly the seventh day of Soldru would come all too soon, and I wanted very badly to be in Tria with the knights of the free lands when King Kiritan called the great quest. Six hundred miles, as the raven flies, lay between Silvassu and Tria to the northwest. But I – we – would not be traveling as a bird flying free in the sky. There would be mountains to cross and rivers to ford, and the road toward that which the heart most desires is seldom straight.

And so we rode north through the gently rolling country of the Valley of the Swans, After an hour or so, the moon rose over the Culhadosh Range and silvered the fields and trees all about us. We rode in its soft light, which seem to fill all the valley like a marvelous shimmering liquid. The farmhouses we passed sent plumes of smoke curling up black against the luminous sky. And in the yards of each of those houses, I thought no matter how tiring the day's work had been, warriors would be practicing at arms while their wives taught their children the meditative discipline so vital to all that was Valari. Only later would they take their evening meal, perhaps of cheese and apples and black barley bread. It came to me that I would miss these simple foods, grown out of Meshian soil, rich in tastes of the star-touched earth that recalled the deepest dreams of my people. I wondered if I were seeing my homeland for the last time even while strangely beholding it as if for the first time. It came to me as well that a Valari warrior with sword and shield and a lifetime of discipline drilled into his soul, was much more than a dealer of death. For everything about me – the rocks and earth, the wind and trees and starlight – were just the things of life, and ultimately a warrior existed only to protect life and the land and people that he loved.

We made camp late that night in a fallow field by a small hill off the side of the road.

The farmer who owned it, an old man named Yushur Kaldad, came out to greet us with a pot of stew that his wife had made. Although he hadn't been present at the feast he had heard of my quest. After giving us permission to make a fire, he wished me well and walked back through the moonlight toward his little stone house.

'It's a lovely night,' I said to Maram as I tied Altaru to the wooden fence by the side of the field. There was thick grass growing all about the fence, which would make the horses happy. 'We don't really need a fire.'

Maram, working with Master Juwain, had already spread the sleeping furs across the husks of old barley that covered the cool ground. He moved off toward the rocks at the side of the road, and told me, 'I'm worried about bears.'

'But there aren't many bears in this part of the valley,' I told him. 'Not many?'

'In any case, the bears will leave us alone if we leave them alone.' 'Yes, and a fire will help encourage them to leave us alone.' 'Perhaps,' I told him. 'But perhaps it would only give them a better light to do their work in case they get really hungry.'

'Val!' Maram called out as he stood up with a large rock in either hand. ' I don't want to hear any more talk of hungry bears, all right?'

'All right,' I said, smiling. 'But please don't worry. If a bear comes close, the horses will give us warning.'

In the end, Maram had his way. In the space around which our sleeping furs were laid out, he dug a shallow pit and circled it with rocks. Then he moved off toward the hill where he found some dried twigs and branches among the deadwood beneath the trees and with great care he arrayed the tinder and kindling into a pyramid at the center of the pit. Then from his pocket he produced a flint and steel, and in only a few moments he coaxed the sparks from them into a cone of bright orange flames.

'You have a talent with fire,' Master Juwain told him. He dropped his gnarly body onto his sleeping fur and began ladling out the stew into three large bowls. Despite his years, he moved with both strength and suppleness, as if he had practiced his healing arts on himself. 'Perhaps you should study to be an alchemist.'

Maram's sensuous lips pulled back in a smile as he held his bands out toward the flames. His large eyes reflected the colors of the fire, and he said, 'It has always fascinated me. I think I made my first fire when I was four. When I was fourteen, I burned down my father's hunting lodge, for which he has never forgiven me.'

At this news, Master Juwain rubbed his lumpy face and told him, 'Perhaps you shouldn't be an alchemist.'

Maram shrugged off his comment with a good-natured smile. He clicked his fire-making stones together, and watched the sparks jump out of them.

'What is the magic in flint and steel?' he asked, speaking mostly to himself. 'Why don't flint and quartz, for instance, make such little lights? And what is the secret of the flames bound up in wood? How is it that logs will burn but not stone?'

Of course, I had no answers for him. I sat on my furs watching Master Juwain pulling at his jowls in deep thought. To Maram, I said, 'Perhaps if we find the Lightstone, you'll solve your mysteries.'

'Well, there's one mystery I'd like solved more than any other,' he confided. 'And that is this: How is it that when a man and a woman come together, they're like flint and steel throwing out sparks into the night?'

I smiled and looked straight at him. 'Isn't that one of the lines of the poem you recited to Behira?'

'Ah, Behira, Behira,' he said as he struck off another round of sparks. 'Perhaps I should never have gone to her room. But I had to know.'

'Did you…?'

I started to ask him if he had stolen Behira's virtue, as Lord Harsha feared, but then decided that it was none of my business,

'No, no, I swear I didn't,' Maram said, understanding me perfectly well. ' I only wanted to tell her the rest of my poem and -'

'Your poem, Maram?' We both knew that he had stolen it from the Book of Songs, and so perhaps did Master Juwain.

'Ah, well,' Maram said, flushing, 'I never said outright that I had writ-ten it, only that the words came to me the first moment I saw her.'

'You parse words like a courtier,' I said to him.

'Sometimes one must to get at the truth.'

I looked at the stars twinkling in the sky and said, 'My grandfather-taught me that unless one tries to get at the spirit of truth, it's no truth at all.'

'And we should honor him for that, for he was a great. Valari king.' He smiled, and his thick beard glistened in the reddish firelight. 'But I'm not Valari, am I? No, I'm just a simple man, and it's as a man that I went to Behira's room. I had to know if she was the one.' 'What one, Maram?'

'The woman with whom I could make the ineffable flame. Ah, the fire that never goes out.' He turned toward the fire, his eyes gleaming. 'If ever I held the Lightstone in my hands, I'd use it to discover the place where love blazes eternally like the stars.

That's the secret of the universe.'

For a while, no one spoke as we sat there eating our midnight meal beneath the stars.

Yushur had brought us an excellent stew full of succulent lamb, new potatoes, carrots, onions and herbs; we consumed it down to the last drop of gravy, which we mopped up with the fresh bread that Master Juwain had brought down from the Sanctuary. To celebrate our first night together on the road, I had cracked open a cask of beer. Master Juwain had taken only the smallest sip of it, but of course Maram had drunk much more. After his first serving, as his rumbling voice built castles in the air, I rationed the precious black liquid into his cup. But as the time approached for sleeping, it became apparent that I hadn't measured out the beer carefully enough,

'I simply must see Tria before I die,' Maram told me in his rumbling voice. 'As for the Quest, though, I'm afraid that from there you'll be on your own, my friend. I'm no Valari knight, after all. Ah, but if I were, and I did gain the Lightstone, there are so many things I might do.' 'Such as?'

'Well, to begin with, I would return with it to Delu in glory. Then the nobles would have to make me king. Women would flock to me like lambs to sweet grass. I would establish a great harem as did the Delian kings of old. Then famous artists and warriors from all lands would gather in my court.'

I pushed the cork stopper into the half-empty cask as I looked at him and asked,

'But what about love?'

'Ah, yes, love,' he said. He belched then sighed as he rubbed his eyes. 'The always-elusive dream. As elusive as the Lightstone itself.' In a voice full of self-pity, he declared that the Lightstone had certainly been destroyed, and that neither he nor anyone else was ever likely to find his heart's deepest desire.

Master Juwain had so far endured Maram's drinking spree in silence. But now he fixed him with his clear eyes and said, 'My heart tells me that the prophecy will prove true. Starlight amp; elusive, too, but we do not doubt that it exists.'

'Ah, well, the prophecy,' Maram muttered. 'But who are these seven brothers and sisters? And what are these seven stones?'

'That, at least should be obvious,' Master Juwain said. ' The stones must be the seven greater gelstei.'

He went on to say that although there were hundreds of types of gelstei, there were only seven of the great stones: the white, blue and green, the purple and black, the red firestones and the noble silver. Of course, there was the gold gelstei, but only one, known as the Gelstei, and that was the Lightstone itself.

'So many have sought the master stone,' he said.

'Sought it and died,' I said. 'No wonder my mother wept for me.'

I went on to tell him that I would most likely be killed far from home, perhaps brought down by a plunging rock in a mountain pass or felled by a robber's arrow in some dark woods.

'Do not speak so,' Master Juwain chastened me.

'But this whole business,' I said, 'seems such a narrow chance.'

'Perhaps it is, Val. But even a server can't see all chances. Not even Ashtoreth herself can.'

For a while we fell silent as the wind pushed through the valley and the fire crackled within its circles of stones. I thought of Morjin and his master, Angra Mainyu, one of the fallen Galadin who had once made war with Ashtoreth and the other angels and had been imprisoned on a world named Damoom; I thought of this and I shuddered.

To raise my spirits, Maram began singing the epic of Kalkamesh from the Valkariad of the Saganom Elu. Master Juwain kept time by drumming on one of the logs waiting to be burned. So I brought out my flute and took up the song's boldly defiant melody. I played to the wind and earth, and to the valor of this legendary being who had walked into the hell of Argattha to wrest the Lightstone from the Lord of Lies himself. It was a fine thing we did together, making music beneath the stars.

My thoughts of death – the stillness of Raldu's body and the coldness of my own – seemed to vanish like the flames of the fire into the night We slept soundly after that on the soft soil of Yushur Kaldad's field. No bears came to disturb us. It was a splendid night, and I lay on top of my furs wrapped only in my new cloak for warmth. When the sun rose over Mount Eluru the next morning to the crowing of Yushur's cocks, I felt ready to ride to the end of the world.

And ride we did. After breaking camp, we set out through the richest farmland of the valley. It was a fine spring day with blue sides and abundant sunshine. The road along this part of our journey was as straight and well-paved as any in thf Morning Mountains. Indeed my father had always said that good roads make good kingdoms, and he had always gone to considerable pains to maintain his. Both Master Juwain and Maram could ride well, and Maram was tougher than he looked. And so we made excellent progress through the wind rippled fields.

Around noon, after we had paused for a quick meal and the horses had filled up on some of the sweet green grass that grew along the curbs of the road, the country began to change. Toward the northern end of the Valley of the Swans, the terrain grew hillier and the soil more rocky. There were fewer farms and larger stands of trees between them. Here the road wound gently around and through these low hills; it began to rise at an easy grade toward the greater hills and mountains to the north.

But still the traveling was easy. By the time the sun had crossed the sky and began dipping down toward the Central Range, we found ourselves at the edge of the forest that blankets the northernmost districts of Mesh. A few more miles would bring us to the town of Ki high in the mountains. And a fewpniles beyond it, we would cross the pass between Mount Raaskel and Mount Korukel, and go down into Ishka. We made camp that night above a little stream running down from the mountains. The oak trees above us and the hill behind provided good cover against the wind. Master Juwain, although more knowledgeable than I in most things, allowed me to take the lead in choosing this site. As he admitted, he had little woodcraft or sense of terrain. He was very happy when I returned from the bushes along the stream with many handfuls of raspberries and some mushrooms that I had found. He sliced these last up and layered them with some cheese between slices of bread. Then he roasted the sandwiches over the fire that Maram had made. That night it was much cooler, and we were very glad for the fire as we edged dose to it and ate this delicious meal. We listened to the hooing of the owls as they called to each other from the woods, and later, to the wolves howling high in the hills around us. After drinking some of the tea that Master Juwain brewed, we gathered our cloaks around us and fell soundly asleep.

The next morning dawned cloudy and cool. The sun was no more than a pale yellow disk behind sheets of white in the sky. Since I wanted to be well through the pass by nightfall and I was afraid a hard rain might delay us, I encouraged the groggy and lazy Maram to get ready as quickly as he could. The few miles to Ki passed quickly enough, although the road began to rise more steeply as the hills built toward the mountains. Ki itself was a small city of shops, smithies and neat little chalets with steep roofs to keep out the heavy mountain snows that fell all through winter.

One of the feeder streams of the Diamond River ran through the center of the town.

Just beyond the bridge across these icy waters, where two large inns stood above the houses, the Kel Road from the east intersected the larger North Road. The Kel Road, as I knew from having traveled it, was one of the marvels of Mesh. It wound through the mountains around the entire perimeter of our kingdom connecting the kel keeps that guarded the passes. There were twenty-two of these high mountain fortresses spaced some twenty miles apart. I had spent a long, lonely winter at one of them watching for an invasion of the Mansurii tribe that never came.

Maram, citing the hard work of the morning (which in truth was mostly the horses' hard work), argued that we should stop for a few hours and bathe at one of these inns. He grumbled that the two previous nights' camps had afforded us neither the time nor the opportunity for such vital indulgence. It was almost a sacred ritual that a Valari would – wash away the world's woes at the end of a day, and I wanted a hot bath as badly as he did. But I persuaded him that we should leave Ki behind us as swiftly as possible.

Although it was late in the season, it could still snow, as I patiently explained to him.

And so, after pausing at the inn only long enough to take a quick meal of fried eggs and porridge, we continued on our journey.

For seven miles between Ki and the kel keep situated near Raaskel and Korukel, the Kel Road ran contiguous with the North Road. Here, as the horses' hooves strove for purchase against the worn paving stones, the road rose very steeply. Thick walls of oak trees, mixed with elms and birch, pressed the road from either side, forming an archway of green leaves and branches high above it. But after only a few miles, the forest began changing and giving way to stands of aspen and spruce growing at the higher elevations. The mountains rose before us like steps leading to the unseen stars. In many places, the road cut the sides of these fir-covered foothills like a long, curved scar against the swelling green, I knew that we were drawing close to the pass, although the lower peaks blocked the sight of it. As Maram complained, travel in the mountains was disorienting, and one could easily become lost. He had other fears as well. After I had recounted my conversation with Lansar Raasharu, he wondered aloud who the second assassin might be if he wasn't one of the Ishkans.

Might fe this unknown man, he asked, stalk us along the road? And if he did, what were we doing venturing into Ishka where he might more easily finish what he had begun in the woods? With every step we took closer to this unfriendly kingdom, these unanswered questions seemed to hang in the air like the cold mist sifting down from the sky.

Around noon, just as we crested a low rise marked with a red standing stone, we had our first clear view of the pass. We stood resting the horses as we gazed out at the masses of Korukel and Raaskel that rose up like great guardian towers only a few miles to the north The North Road curved closer to Raaskel, the smaller of these two mountains But with its sheer granite faces and snowfields, I thought, it was forbidding enough. Korukel, whose twin peaks and great humped shoulders gave it the appearance of a two-headed ogre, seemed all too ready to pelt us with spears of ice or roll huge boulders down upon us. If not for the diamonds buried within its bowels, it hardly seemed like a mountain worth fighting for.

'Oh, my Lord, look!' Maram said, pointing up the road. ' The Telemesh Gate. I've never seen anything like it.'

Few people had. For there, across the barren valley fust beyond the massive fortress of the kel keep, cutting the ground between the two mountains, was the great work of my ancestors and one of the wonders of Ea: it seemed that a great piece of mountain a fifth of a mile wide and a mile long had simply been sliced out of the earth as if by the hand of the Galadin themselves. In truth, as Maram seemed to know, King Telemesh had made this rectangular cut between the two mountains with a firestone that he had brought back from the War of the Stones. According to legend, he had stood upon this very hill with his red gelstei and had directed a stream of fire against the earth for most of six days. And when he had finished and the acres of ice, dirt and rock had simply boiled off into the sky, a great corridor between Mesh and Ishka had been opened. Indeed, until Telemesh had made his gate, this

'pass' between our two kingdoms had been considered unpassable, at least to armies marching along in their columns or travelers astride their weary horses.

'It's too bad the firestones have all perished,' Maram said wistfully. 'Else all the kingdoms of Ea might be so connected.'

'It's said that Morjin has a firestone,' I told him. 'It's said that he has rediscovered the secret of forging them.'

At this, Master Juwain looked at me sharply and shook his head. Many times he had warned Maram fe and me – never to speak the Red Dragon's true name. And with the utterance of these two simple tables, the wind off the icy peaks suddenly seemed to rise; either that, or I could feel it cutting me more closely. Again, as I had in the woods with Raldu and later in the castle, I shivered with an eerie sense that something was watching me. It was as if the stones themselves all about us had eyes.

It consoled me not at all that my countrymen here to the north called Raaskel and Korukel the Watchers.

For a half a mile we walked our horses down to the kel keep at the center of the valley. Maram wondered why the makers of the fortress hadn't built it flush with the Gat,-, as of a wall of stone defending it.

I explained to him that it was better sited where it was: on top of a series of springs that could keep the garrison well-watered for years. It had never been the purpose of the keeps, I told him, to stop invading armies in the passes. They were intended only to delay the enemy as long as it took for the Meshian king to gather up an army of his own and destroy them in the open field.

We stopped at the keep to pay our respects to Lord Avijan, the garri-son's commander. Lord Avijan, a serious man with a long, windburnt face, was Asaru's friend and not much older than I. He had been present at the feast, and he congratulated me on my knighthood. After seeing that we were well-fed with pork and potatoes brought up from Ki, he told me that Salmelu and the Ishkans had gone up into the pass early | that morning.

' They were riding hard for lshka,' Lord Avijan told me. 'As you had better do if you don't want to be caught in the pass at nightfall.'

After I had thanked him and he wished me well on my quest, we took his advice. We continued along the North Road where it snaked up the steeply rising slopes of the valley. About two miles from the keep, as we approached the Telemesh Gate, it grew suddenly colder. The air was thick with a moisture that wasn't quite rain nor mist nor snow. But there was still snow aplenty blanketing the ground. Here, in this bleak mountain tundra where trees wouldn't grow, the mosses and low shrubs in many places were still covered in snow. Against boulders as large as a house were gathered massive white drifts, a few of which blocked the road. If Lord Avijan hadn't sent out his warriors to cut a narrow corridor through them, the road would still have been impassable.

'It's cold,' Maram complained as his gelding drove his hooves against the road's wet stone. 'Perhaps we should return to the keep and wait for better weather.'

'No,' I said, laying my hand on Altaru's neck Despite the cold the hard work in the thin air had made him start sweating. 'Let's go on -it will be better on the other side of the pass.'

'Are you sure?'

I looked off through the gray air at the Telemesh Gate now only a hundred yards farther up the road. It was a dark cut through a wall of rock, an ice-glazed opening into the unknown.

'Yes, it will be better,' I reassured him, if not myself. 'Come on.'

I touched Altaru's flanks to urge him forward, but he nickered nervously and didn't move. As Master Juwain came up to join us, the big horse just stood there with his large nostrils opening and closing against the freezing wind.

'What is it, Val?' Master juwain asked me.

I shrugged my shoulders as I scanned the boulders and snowfields all about us. The tundra seemed as barren as it was cold. Not even a marmot or a ptarmigan moved to break the bleakness of the pass.

'Do you think it could be a bear?' Maram asked, looking about too. 'Maybe he smells a bear.'

'No, it's too early for bears to be up this high,' I told him.

In another month, the snow would be gone, and the slopes around us would teem with wildflowers and berries. But now there seemed little that was alive save for the orange and green patches of lichen that covered the cold stones.

Again, I nudged Altaru forward, and this time he whinnied and shook his head angrily at the opening to the Telemesh Gate. He began pawing at the road with his iron-shod hoof, and the harsh sound of it rang out into the mist-choked air.

'Altaru, Altaru,' I whispered to him, 'what's the matter?'

There was something, I thought, that he didn't like about this cut between the mountains. There was something I didn't like myself. I felt a sudden, deep wrongness entering my bones as from the ground beneath us. It was as if Telemesh, the great king, the grandfather of my grandfathers, in burning off the tissues of the mountain with his firestone, had wounded the land in a way that could never be healed. And now, out of this open wound of fused dirt and blackened rock, it seemed that the earth itself was still screaming in agony. What man or beast, I wondered, would ever be drawn to such a place? Well, perhaps the vultures who batten on the blood of the suffering and dying would feel at home here. And the great Beast who was called the Red Dragon – surely he would find a twisted pleasure in the world's pain.

He came for me then out of the dark mouth of the fire-scarred Gate. He was, even as Maram feared, a bear. And not merely a Meshian brown bear but one of the rare and very bad-tempered white bears of Ishka. I guessed that he must have wandered through the Gate into Mesh. And now he seemed to guard it, standing up on his stumpy hind legs to a height often feet as he sniffed the air and looked straight toward me.

'Oh, Lord!' Maram called out as he tried to steady his horse. 'Oh, Lord, oh, Lord!'

Now Altaru, seeing the bear at last, began snorting and stomping at the road. I tided to steady him as I said to Maram, 'Don't worry, the bear won't bother us. if-'

'- if we don't bother him,' he finished. 'Well, I hope you're right, my friend.' But it seemed that I couldn't leave the bear alone after all. The wind carried down from the mountain, and I smelled his rank scent which fairly reeked with an illness that I couldn't identify. I couldn't help star-ing at his small, questing eyes as my hand moved almost involuntarily to the hilt of my sword. And all the while, he kept sniffing at me with his wet black nose; I had the strange sense that even though he couldn't catch my scent, he could smell the kirax in my blood.

And then suddenly, without warning, he fell down onto all fours and charged us.

'Oh, Lord!' Maram cried out again. 'He's coming – run for your life!'

True to his instincts, he wheeled his horse about and began galloping down the road.

I might have done the same if Altaru hadn't reared just then, throwing back his head and flashing his hooves in challenge at the bear. This move, which I should have anticipated, caught me off guard. For at that moment, as Altaru rose up with a mighty surge of bunching muscles, I was reaching toward my pack horse for my bow and arrows. I was badly unbalanced, and went flying out of my saddle. Tanar, my screaming pack horse, almost trampled me in his panic to get away from the charging bear. If I hadn't rolled behind Altaru, his wildly flailing hooves would surely have brained me.

'Val!' Master Juwain called to me, 'get up and draw your sword!'

It is astonishing how quickly a bear can cover a hundred yards, particularly when running downhill. I didn't have time to draw my sword. Even as Master Juwain tried to get control of his own bucking horse and the two pack horses tied behind him, the bear bounded down the snowy slope straight toward us. Tanar, caught between them and the growling bear, screamed in terror, all the while trying to get out of the way. And then the bear closed with him, and I thought for a moment that he might tear open his throat or break his back with a blow from one of his mighty paws. But it seemed that this stout horse was not intended to be the bear's prey. The bear only rammed him with his shoulder, knocking him aside in his fury to get at me.

'Val!' I heard Maram calling me as from far away. 'Run, now – oh, Lord, oh, Lord!'

The bear would certainly have fallen upon me then if not for Altaru's courage. As I struggled to stand and regain my breath, the great horse reared again and struck a glancing blow off the bear's head. His sharp hoof cut open the bear's eye, which filled with blood. The stunned bear screamed in outrage and swiped at Altaru with his long black claws. He grunted and brayed and shook his sloping white head at me. I smelled his musty white fur and felt the growls rumbling up from deep in his throat. His good eye fixed on mine like a hook; he opened his jaws to rip me open with his long white teeth.

'Val, I'm coming!' Maram cried out to the thunder of hooves against stone. 'I'm coming!'

The bear finally closed with me, locking his jaws onto my shoulder with a crushing force. He snarled and shook his head furiously and tried to pulp me with his deadly paws. And then Maram closed with him. Unbelievably, he had managed to wheel his horse about yet again and urge him forward in a desperate charge at the bear. He had his lance drawn and couched beneath his arm like a knight. But although trained in arms, he was no knight; the point of the lance caught the bear in the shoulder instead of the throat, and the shock of steel and metal pushing into hard flesh unseated Maram and propelled him from his horse. He hit the ground with a ugly slap and whooshing of breath. But for the moment, at least he had succeeded in fighting the bear off of me. 'Val,' Maram croaked out from the blood-spattered road, 'help me!'

The bear snarled at Maram and moved to rend him with his claws in his determination to get at me. And in that moment, I finally slid my sword free. The long kalama flashed in the uneven light I swung it with all my might at the bear's exposed neck. The kalama's razor edge, hardened in the forges of Godhra, bit through fur, muscle and bone. I gasped to feel the bear's bright lifeblood spraying out into the air as his great head went rolling down the road into a drift of snow. I fell to the road in the agony of death, and I hardly noticed the bear's body falling like an avalanche on top of Maram.

'Val – get this thing off me!' I heard Maram call out weakly from beneath the mound of fur.

But as always when I had killed an animal, it took me many moments to return to myself. I slowly stood up and rubbed my throbbing shoulder. If not for my armor and the padding beneath it, I thought the bear would surely have torn off my arm.

Master Juwain, having collected and hobbled the frightened horses, came over then and helped me pull Maram free from the bear. He stood there in the driving sleet checking us for wounds.

'Oh, my Lord, I'm killed!' Maram called out when he saw the blood drenchmg his tunic. But it proved only to be the bear's blood. In truth he had suffered nothing worse than having the wind knocked out of him. .

'I think you'll be all right,' Master Juwain said as he ran his gnarly hands over him.

'I will? But what about Val? The bear had half his body in his mouth!'

He turned to ask me how I was. I told him, 'It hurts. But it seems that nothing is broken.'

Maram looked at me with accusation in his still frightened eyes. 'You told me that the bear would leave us alone. Well, he didn't did he?'

'No,' I said,'he didn'.'

Strange, I thought, that a bear should fall upon three men and six horses with such ferocious and single minded purpose. I had never heard of a bear, not even a ravenous one, attacking so boldly.

Master Juwain stepped over to the side of the road and examined the beatr's massive head. He looked at his glassy, dark eye and pulled open his jaws to gaze at his teeth.

'It's possible that he was maddened with rabies,' he said. 'But he doesn't have the look'

'No, he does't,' I agreed, examining him as well.

'What made him attack us then?' Maram demanded.

Master Juwain's face fell gray as if he had eaten bad meat. He said, 'If the beat were a man, I would say his action were those of a ghul.'

I stared at the bear, and it suddenly came to me that the illness I had sensed in him had been not of the body but the mind

'A ghul!' Maram cried out. 'Are you saying that Mot… ah, that the Lord of Lies had seized his will? I've never heard of an animal ghul.'

No one had. With the wind working at the sweat beneath my armor, a deep shiver ran through me. I wondered if Morjin – or anyone except the Dark One himself, Angra Mainyu – could have gained that much power.

As if in answer lo my question. Master Juwain sighed and said. 'It seems that his skill, if we can call it that, is growing,'

'Well,' Maram said looking about nervously, 'If he can send one bear to kill Val, he can send another. Or a wolf or a – '

'No, I think not,' Master Juwain interrupted. 'For a man or a woman to be made a ghul is a rare thing. There must be an opening through despair or hate, into the darkness. And a certain sympathy of the minds. I would think that an animal ghul, if possible at all, would, be even rarer.'

'But you don't really know, do you?' Maram pressed him.

'No I don't,' Master Juwain said. He suddenly shivered too and pulled his cloak more tightly about him. 'But I do know that we should get down from this pass before it grows dark.'

'Yes, we should,' I agreed. With some handfuls of snow, I begun cleaning the blood off me. and watched Maram do the same. After retying Tanar to Altaru, I mounted my black stallion and turned him up the road.

'You're not thinking of going on?' Maran asked me. 'Shouldn't we return to the keep?' I pointed at the opening of the Gate. Tria lies that way.'

Maram looked down at the kel keep and the road that led back to the Valley of the Swans. He must have remembered that Lord Harsha was waiting for him there; it occurred to me that he had finally witnessed at first hand the kind of work that a kalama could accomplish, for he nibbed his curly beard worriedly and muttered,

'No, we can't go back, can we?'

He mounted his trembling sorrel, as did Master Juwain his. I smiled at Maram and bowed my head to him. 'Thank you for saving my life,' I told him.

'I did save your life, didn't I?' he said. He smiled back at me as if I had personally knighted him in front of a thousand nobles. 'Well, allow me to save it again. Who really wants to go to Tria, anyway? Perhaps it's time i returned to Delu. We could all go there. You'd be welcomed at my father's court and -'

'No,' I told him. 'Thank you for such a gracious offer, but my journey lies in another direction. Will you come with me?'

Maram sat on his horse as he looked back and forth between the headless bear and me. He blinked his eyes against the stinging sleet. He licked his lips, then finally said,

'Will I come with you? Haven't I said I would? Aren't you my best friend? Of course I'm coming with you!'

And with that he clasped my arm, and I clasped his. As if Altaru and I were of one will, we started moving up the road together. Maram and Master Juwain followed close behind me. I regretted leaving the bear unburied in a shallow pond of blood, but there was nothing else to do. Tomorrow, perhaps, one of Lord Avijan's patrols would find him and dispose of him. And so we rode our horses into the dark mouth of theTelemesh Gate and steeled ourselves to go down into Ishka.