Lord of Lies

Book Two of the Ea Cycle

DAVID ZINDELL

COPYRIGHT

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperVoyager An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2003

Copyright © David Zindell 2003

The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780006486213

Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2016 ISBN 9780008222321

Version: 2016-09-01

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Maps

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

Keep Reading

Appendices

Heraldry

The Gelstei

The Greater Gelstei

The Lesser Gelstei

Books of the Saganom Elu

The Ages of Ea

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

Maps

1

A man’s fate, the scryers say, is written in the stars. Beneath these fiery points of light, we come forth from our mother earth to live and gaze up at the sky in wonder, to dance and dream and die. Some are born to be tillers of the soil or huntsmen; others to be weavers or minstrels or kings. Murderers might find the bright Dragon constellation pulling at their souls while saints seek in the Seven Sisters for the source of their goodness. A few turn away from the heavens altogether and look to the fire of their own hearts to forge their fate. But I believe that there is one – and one only – who is chosen to bear the golden cup that the angels sent to earth long ago. Even as a sword is made for the hard grip of a warrior, only the Shining One was meant to take the Lightstone in his hands and bring forth its secret light for all to behold.

Others, however, believe other things. In the year 2813 of the Age of the Dragon, the Lightstone having been wrested from the hall of Morjin the Liar, the Great Red Dragon himself, word that the quest to find the Cup of Heaven had been fulfilled spread like a wildfire to each of Ea’s lands. In far-off Hesperu, the slaves in the fields gripped their hoes in bitterness and prayed that some hero might wield the Lightstone to free them from their bondage; in conquered Surrapam, starving youths took up their bows and dreamed of hunting the true gold instead of meat. The priests of Morjin’s Kallimun wove their plots to regain the Lightstone while minstrels from fallen Galda and Yarkona made their way across burning plains to sing its wonders and hear new songs. Even the kings of realms still free – great men such as King Kiritan Narmada and King Waray of Taron – sent out emissaries to demand that the Lightstone be brought to them. From north and south, east and west, they joined a whole army of lordless knights, exiles, scryers, seekers and rogues who journeyed to Mesh. To the castle of my father, Shavashar Elahad, they came to view the wonder of the Lightstone. For there, behind the castle’s white granite walls, my friends and I had brought it to be guarded against the world’s evil and greed.

On a warm Sunday afternoon in late spring, with the cherry trees in the foothills in full bloom, I joined Master Juwain Zadoran and Sar Maram Marshayk at the top of the castle’s great Adami tower. It was our first gathering in nearly half a year – and our first in Master Juwain’s guest chamber since we had set out on the great Quest half a year before that. Master Juwain had recently returned from Taron in great haste, and had called this meeting to discuss matters pertaining to the Lightstone – and other things.

The room in which he resided when visiting my father’s castle was large and well-lit. Four arched windows looked out upon the white-capped peaks of Arakel and Telshar and the other mountains to the west. Four more windows gave a good view of the rest of the castle below us: the round and graceful Swan Tower and the Tower of the Stars; the courtyards full of wagons and knights on panting horses arriving for the evening’s feast; the great shield wall cut with crenels along its top like a giant’s teeth. Largest of all the castle’s structures was the massive keep, a huge cube of granite, and the adjoining great hall where the Lightstone was displayed for all to see. I might rather that it had been brought into the fastness of Master Juwain’s chamber, with its comforts of thick Galdan carpets, bright tapestries and many cases full of books, but I reminded myself that the golden cup was not meant to be kept in private by Master Juwain or Maram – or even me.

As I closed the door behind me and crossed the chamber’s tiled floor, Master Juwain of the Great White Brotherhood called out to me with a disquieting formality: ‘Greetings, Lord Valashu Elahad, Knight of the Swan, Guardian of the Lightstone, Prince of Mesh.’

He stood with my best friend, Maram, by the chamber’s west windows, looking at me strangely as if trying to peer beneath the mantle of these newly-won titles to apprehend a deeper thing inside me. His silver-gray eyes, large and luminous as moons, were full of wisdom and his great regard for me. Although some called him an ugly man, with his brown, squashlike nose and head as bald and lumpy as walnut, the light of kindness seemed to burn through these surface features and show only a being of great beauty.

‘Sir,’ I called back to him. I had addressed him thus for ten years, since the day that I had begun my studies at the age of eleven at the Brotherhood’s sanctuary in the mountains nearby. Although that happier time had long passed and we had been companions on the great Quest, he was still a Master Healer and Ea’s greatest scholar, and he deserved no less. ‘It’s good to see you!’

I rushed forward to embrace him. Despite being well into his middle years, his short, stocky body was still hard from the various disciplines to which he subjected it. A long, brown tunic of homespun wool covered him from neck to knee. From a chain, over his heart, dangled a gold medallion showing a sunburst and plain cup in relief. Seven rays streaked out of this cup to fall upon the medallion’s rim. King Kiritan had bestowed such gifts upon all who had vowed to make the quest to find the Lightstone. Maram and I wore our medallions as did Master Juwain: in bittersweet memory and pride.

‘It’s good to see you, Val,’ Master Juwain said, smiling at me. ‘Thank you for coming.’

Maram, dressed in a bright scarlet tunic emblazoned with two gold lions facing each other, did not like being left out of the greetings. He stepped up to me and threw his arms around me, a feat made difficult by his big, hard belly, which pushed out ahead of him like a boulder. He was a big man with a great, blazing heart of fire, and he drummed his hamlike hands against my back with such force that they threatened to stave-in my ribs.

‘Val, my brother,’ he said in his booming voice.

When he had finished pummeling me, we stood apart regarding each other. We were true brothers, I thought, and yet our lineages were as different as the river country of gentler climes and the highlands of Mesh. We were different, too. Although he was tall, for an outlander, I looked down upon him. He had his people’s curly chestnut hair, while mine was that of my father and mother: long, straight and black, more like a horse’s mane than the hair that covered the heads of most human beings. His face was of mounds of earth and rounded knolls, soft, pliable as red river clay; mine was all clefts and crags, cut as with walls of rock: too stark, too hard. He had a big, bear’s nose while mine was that of an eagle. And where his eyes were brown and sweet like alfalfa honey, my eyes, it was said, were black and bright as the nighttime sky above the winter mountains.

‘Ah, Val,’ he said, ‘it’s good to see you again, too.’

I smiled because we had taken breakfast together that very morning. Although Maram had been born a prince of Delu, he had resided in my father’s kingdom for half a dozen years. Once a novice of the Brotherhood under Master Juwain, he had renounced his vows and was now a sort of permanent guest in the castle. I looked at the jeweled rings on the fingers of his left hand and the single silver ring encircling the second finger of his right hand. It was set with two large diamonds: the ring of a Valari knight. Thus my father had honored him upon the fulfillment of the quest, declaring that Maram, in spirit at least, now belonged to my people.

Master Juwain invited us to sit at his tea table, inlaid with mother of pearl and precious woods, and years ago imported from Galda at great cost. He bent over one of the chamber’s fireplaces and retrieved a black iron pot. After heaping some green leaves into it, he brought it to the table and set it down on a square tile, along with three blue cups.

‘Ah, I think I’d rather have a bit of beer,’ Maram said, eyeing his empty cup. ‘I don’t suppose –’

‘I’m afraid it’s time for tea, Brother Maram,’ Master Juwain said. He, at least, remained true to his vows to renounce wine, women and war. ‘We’ve need for clear heads today – and tonight.’

Maram regarded the tea pot as he sat pulling at his thick, curly beard. I looked at Master Juwain and said, ‘What is troubling you, sir? It’s said that you nearly killed your horse returning from Taron.’

‘My poor horse,’ Master Juwain murmured, shaking his head. ‘But I had heard that King Kiritan’s emissaries were on the road toward Mesh, and I wanted to be here when they arrived. Have they?’

‘Only an hour after yourself,’ I told him. ‘Count Dario Narmada and a small army of knights. It will be hard to find rooms for so many.’

‘And the emissaries from Sakai? I had heard that the Red Dragon has sent seven of his priests to treat with your father.’

‘That is true,’ I said. ‘They’ve remained sequestered in their chamber since their arrival three days ago.’

I listened to the distant echoes and sounds that seemed to emanate from the stone walls around me. A wrongness pervaded the castle, like a child’s scream, and a sense of dread clawed at my insides. I thought of the five Kallimun priests and the cowled yellow robes that hid their faces; I prayed that none of them had been among the priests that had tortured my friends in Morjin’s throne room in Argattha.

‘They should never have been allowed into Mesh,’ Master Juwain said. He touched the enlarged opening of his ear that one of Morjin’s priests had torn with a heated iron. ‘That’s almost as dangerous as allowing the Red Dragon’s poisonous dreams into our minds.’

‘Dangerous, yes,’ I agreed. ‘But my father wishes to hear what they have to say. And he wishes it to be known that all are welcome in Mesh to view the Lightstone.’

I looked out the east windows where the city of Silvassu was spread out beneath the castle. It was a small city, whose winding streets and sturdy stone houses gave way after about a mile to the farmland and forest of the Valley of the Swans. And every inn and stable, I thought, was full with pilgrims who hoped to stand before the Lightstone. Even the fields at Silvassu’s edge were dotted with the brightly colored pavilions of nobles and knights who could not find rooms in the castle, and who disdained sleeping in a common inn with exiles, adventurers, soothsayers and all the others who had flocked to Mesh.

‘We can guess what the Red Priests will say: lies and more lies,’ Master Juwain told us. ‘But what of King Kiritan’s emissaries? Could he have agreed to the conclave?’

My father, King Shamesh, upon the deliverance of the Lightstone to Mesh, had sent emissaries of his own to Alonia and Delu, to the Elyssu and Thalu at the edge of the world. And to Eanna and Nedu, too, and of course, to the Nine Kingdoms of the Valari: to all of Ea’s Free Kingdoms my father had sent a call for a conclave to be held in Mesh, that an alliance might be made to oppose Morjin and his rampaging armies.

‘Ah, now that the Lightstone has been found,’ Maram said, ‘King Kiritan will have to agree to the conclave. And everyone else will follow Alonia’s lead – won’t they, Val?’

In truth, it had been I who had asked my father to call the conclave. For it had been I – and my friends – who had seen with our own eyes the great evil that Morjin was working upon the world.

‘The Valari kings,’ I said, ‘will never follow the lead of an outland king, not even Kiritan. We’ll have to find other means of persuading them.’

‘Indeed, but persuading them toward what end?’ Master Juwain asked. ‘Merely meeting in conclave? Making an alliance? Or making war?’

This word, dreadful and dark, stabbed into my heart like the long sword I wore at my side. It was as heavy and burdensome as the steel rings of the mail that encased my limbs and pulled me down toward the earth. Once, in my father’s castle, in my home, I had dressed otherwise, in simple tunics or even in my hunting greens. But now that I was Lord Guardian of the Lightstone, I went about armored at all times – especially with the Red Dragon’s priests waiting to get close to a small golden cup.

‘If we make an alliance,’ I told Master Juwain, ‘then perhaps we won’t have to make war.’

It was my deepest dream, I told myself, to end war – forever.

‘An alliance,’ Master Juwain said, shaking his head. ‘I’m afraid that the Red Dragon will never be defeated this way.’

‘It is not necessary to defeat him,’ I said. ‘At least not outright, in battle. It will be enough if we secure the Free Kingdoms. Then, with the Brotherhoods working at the Dragon Kingdoms from within, and the Alliance doing the same from without, the realms Morjin has conquered can be won back one by one.’

‘I see how your thinking has progressed since I went away.’

‘It is not just my thinking, sir. It’s that of my father and brothers.’

‘But what of the Lightstone, then?’

‘It is the Lightstone,’ I said, ‘that makes all this possible.’

‘But what of the one for whom the Lightstone was meant? Have you given thought, as I’ve asked, to this Shining One?’

Master Juwain poured our tea then. Through the steaming liquid, I watched the little bits of leaves swirl about and then settle into my cup.

‘There’s been thought of little else,’ I told him. ‘But the Free Kingdoms should be strengthened so that the Shining One can come forth without fear. Then Morjin will have much to fear.’

‘Indeed, he would,’ Master Juwain said. ‘But will the Red Dragon be content while you make alliance against him? Your way, I’m afraid, is that of the sword.’

‘Perhaps,’ I said, letting my hand rest on the seven diamonds set into the swan-carved hilt of my sword.

‘We’ve all seen enough evil for one lifetime, Val.’

I drew my sword then, and held it so that it caught the sunlight streaming in through the western window. Its long blade, wrought of silustria, shimmered like a silver mirror. Its edges were keen enough to cut steel even as the power of the silustria cut through darkness and gave me to see, sometimes, the truth of things. The sword’s maker had named it Alkaladur. In all the history of Ea, no greater work of gelstei had ever been accomplished, and none more beautiful.

‘This sword,’ I said to Master Juwain, ‘is not evil.’

‘No, perhaps not. But it can do evil things.’

Maram took a sip of his tea and grimaced at its bitterness.

Then he said, ‘There can’t be enough evil for Morjin and all his kind.’

‘Do not speak so,’ Master Juwain said, holding up his hand. ‘Please, Brother Maram, I ask you to –’

‘Sar Maram, I’m called now,’ Maram said, patting the sword that he wore sheathed at his side. It was a Valari kalama, like unto length and symmetry as my sword, only forged of the finest Godhran steel.

‘Sar Maram, then,’ Master Juwain murmured, bowing his bald head. ‘You mustn’t wish evil upon anyone – not even the Red Dragon himself.’

‘You say that? After he blinded Atara with his own hands? After what he did to you?’

‘I have another ear,’ Master Juwain told him, tapping his large, knotty finger against the side of his head. ‘And if I could, I’d wish to hear no talk of revenge.’

‘And that,’ Maram said, ‘is why you’re a master of the Brotherhood and I am, ah, what I am. Evil deserves evil, I say. Evil should be opposed by any means.’

‘By any means virtuous.’

‘But surely virtue is to be seen in the end to be accomplished. And what could be a greater good than the end of Morjin?’

‘The Red Dragon, I’m afraid, would agree with the first part of your argument. And that is why, Brother Maram, I must tell you that –’

‘Please, sir, call me Maram.’

‘All right,’ Master Juwain said with a troubled smile. Then he looked deep into Maram’s eyes and said, ‘To use evil, even in the battle against evil, is to become utterly consumed by it.’

I held my sword pointing north toward the castle’s great hall where the Lightstone was kept. Alkaladur’s silver gelstei flared white in resonance with the greater gold gelstei of which the cup was wrought. Its bright light drove back the hate that threatened to annihilate me whenever I thought of Morjin and how he had torn out the eyes of the woman I loved.

‘It is … not evil to guard the Lightstone for the Maitreya,’ I forced out, speaking the ancient name for the Shining One. In Ardik, Maitreya meant Lord of Light. ‘Can we not agree that this is our best means of fighting Morjin?’

I sheathed my sword and took a sip of tea. It was indeed bitter, but it cleared my head and cooled the wrath poisoning my heart.

‘Very well,’ Master Juwain said, ‘but I’m afraid we’ve little time for making alliances or battles. We must find the Maitreya before Morjin does. We must seek him out in whatever land has given him birth.’

At this, Maram took another sip of tea and smiled to try to hide the dread building inside him. ‘Ah, sir, it almost sounds as if you’re proposing another quest to find this Maitreya. Please tell me that you’re thinking of no such thing?’

‘A moment ago,’ Master Juwain reminded him, ‘you were ready to oppose Morjin in any way you could.’

‘I? I? No, no – you misunderstand me,’ Maram said. ‘I have already done my part in fighting Morjin. More than my part. We all have.’

I said nothing as I took a long sip of tea and gazed into Maram’s eyes.

‘Don’t look at me that way, Val!’ he said. He drained his cup in a sudden gulp, and banged it down upon the table. Then he stood up and began pacing about the room. ‘I don’t have your courage and devotion to truth. Ah, your faith in these great dreams of yours. I am just a man. And a rather delicate one at that. I’ve been bludgeoned by one of Morjin’s assassins, and nearly eaten by bears. And in the Vardaloon, I was eaten by every mosquito, leech and verminous thing in that accursed forest. I’ve been frozen, burnt, starved and nearly drained of blood. And the Stonefaces, ah, I don’t even want to speak of them! I’ve been shot with arrows …’

Here he paused to rub his fat rump, each half of which had been transfixed by a feathered shaft during the siege of Khaisham. To this day, he claimed, it pained him to sit on top of a horse – or on chairs.

‘Isn’t all this enough?’ he asked us. ‘No, no, my friends, if there’s another quest to be made, let someone else make it.’

I felt the ache in my side where one of Morjin’s assassins had run me through with a sword. In my veins stilled burned, and always would burn, the kirax poison that he had fired into me with an evil arrow shot out of the darkness of the woods. ‘We’ve all suffered, Maram,’ I said softly. ‘No one should ask that you suffer more.’

‘Ah, but you ask when you speak to me like that. When you look at me with those damn Valari eyes of yours.’

‘My apologies,’ I said, glancing down at the floor.

‘I just want to drink a little beer and write a few poems for Behira – what’s wrong with that?’

In truth, Maram liked to consume much more than a ‘little’ beer. Ever since we had returned to Mesh with the Lightstone, he had devoted his considerable passions toward savoring life. My brother, Asaru, often accused him of sloth, but he really worked very hard in his pursuit of pleasure, filling up each day of the week. Sunday nights, for instance, were for drinking, and sacred Oneday brought more beer and brandy. Moonday was equally holy, and Arday was needed to recover from so much holiness. Then came Eaday, which he reserved for walks in the mountains and rides through the forest – usually with his betrothed, Behira, or another beautiful young woman – so that he could worship the glories of the earth. Valday nights were for singing and stargazing in similar company, while on Asturday he wrote love poems, and on Sunday he rested yet again in preparation for the evening’s drinkfest.

I smiled at Maram’s peccadilloes, and so did Master Juwain, with curiosity as much as concern. Then he asked Maram, ‘And what of Behira, then? Have you set a date for the wedding?’

‘Ah, I’ve set at least three dates.’

He explained that he had kept postponing the wedding, offering one excuse or another. Most recently, he had argued that he and Behira should have news of the conclave before deciding anything so private and permanent as a wedding.

‘I did not think Lord Harsha,’ Master Juwain said, ‘could be put off so easily in matters concerning his daughter’s happiness.’

‘Did I say there was anything easy about all this? You should have seen Lord Harsha’s face when I told him I couldn’t possibly make vows in Ashte because the auguries were unfavorable.’

Master Juwain pushed back his chair, stood and went over to Maram. He rested his hand on his arm and asked, ‘What’s wrong? I thought you loved Behira?’

‘Ah, I do love her – I’m certain I do. More than I’ve ever loved any woman. In fact, I’m nearly certain that she’s the one I’ve been seeking all my life. It’s just that …’

His voice trailed off as he reached into a deep pocket of his tunic and removed a red crystal nearly a foot in length. It was six-sided and pointed at either end; a large crack ran down its center, and a webwork of smaller ones radiated out from it so that no part of the crystal remained untouched. With this great gelstei, Maram had wounded the dragon, Angraboda, in the deeps of Argattha. But the great blast of fire had broken the crystal so that it would unleash fire no more.

‘My poor firestone,’ he lamented, squeezing the red crystal. ‘I had hoped to find, in the Cup of Heaven, the secret of how it might be mended or forged anew. But I’ve failed.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t understand,’ Master Juwain said.

Maram gazed at the crystal and said, ‘As with this firestone, so with my heart. There’s a crack there, you see. Some fundamental flaw in my being. Every time I look at Behira, love flows into me like fire. But I can’t quite hold it. I had hoped to find in the Lightstone a way that I could. The way to make love last: that’s the secret of the universe.’

Maram, I thought, was no different to anyone else. Everyone who stood before the Lightstone sought the realization of his deepest desire. But no one, it seemed, knew how to unlock the secrets of this blessed, golden vessel.

‘I see, I see,’ Master Juwain said. Then he reached into the pocket of his tunic. He brought out an emerald crystal, much smaller than Maram’s, and stood looking at it. He said, ‘Don’t give up hope just yet.’

‘Why, do you propose to heal my heart with that?’

Master Juwain studied the green gelstei that he had gained on our quest. With it, he had healed Atara of a mortal wound, as he had more minor ones torn into Maram’s and my flesh. But too often the gelstei failed him. I knew that he dreamed the Lightstone might infinitely magnify the power of his healing crystal.

‘I wish I could,’ Master Juwain told Maram. ‘But you see, I’ve little more knowledge of how the Lightstone might be used than you do.’

‘Then your journey was unsuccessful?’

‘No, I wouldn’t quite say that. In fact, I discovered several things of great interest in Nar.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘Well, to begin with, it’s becoming ever clearer that only the Maitreya will show what the Lightstone is really for.’

Here he turned toward me, and his large eyes filled with a soft, silver radiance. ‘And you, Val – what have you found in the Lightstone?’

‘More than I ever dreamed,’ I said. ‘But less than I hoped.’

Maram had said that love is the secret of the universe. But why did the One, in love, give us life only to take it away in the bitterness of death?

‘I have looked for the secret of life,’ I admitted.

‘And what have you found?’

‘That it’s a mystery no man will ever solve.’

‘Nothing else?’

I stood up and walked over to look out the window. Above Silvassu – above all the world – Telshar’s white diamond peak was gleaming in the light of the late sun.

‘There have been moments,’ I said at last. ‘Once or twice, while I stood looking at the Lightstone, meditating – these bright moments. When the gold of the cup turns clear as diamond. And inside it, there is … everything. All the stars in the universe. I can’t tell you how bright is their light. It fell upon me like the stroke of a shining sword that brought joy instead of death. I was alive as I’ve never been alive before, and every particle of my being seemed to blaze like the sun. And then, for a moment, the light, myself – there was no difference. It was all as one.’

As Maram pulled at his beard, Master Juwain listened quietly and waited for me to say more. Then he spoke with a strange gravity: ‘You should mark well the miracle of these moments. We all should.’

‘Why, sir? Others have experienced similar things. I’m no different to anyone else.’

‘Aren’t you?’

He stepped closer to me and studied the scar cut into my forehead. It was shaped like a lightning bolt, the result of a wound to my flesh during the violence of my birth.

‘It was you,’ he said, ‘who found the Lightstone in the darkness of Argattha when it was invisible to everyone else. As it had remained invisible for all of an age.’

‘Please, sir – we shouldn’t speak of this again.’

‘No, I’m afraid we must speak of it, before it’s too late. You see, Master Sebastian –’

‘He’s a great astrologer,’ I admitted. I hated interrupting Master Juwain, or anyone, but I had gone too far to stop. ‘His knowledge is very great, but a man’s fate can’t be set by the stars.’

‘No, perhaps not set, as a chisel’s mark in stone,’ Master Juwain said. ‘It is more like a jeweled tapestry. All that is, or ever will be, is part of it. And each golden thread, each diamond woven into it, reflects the light of all the others. There is only one pattern, one master pattern, as I’ve said a hundred times. As above, so below. The stars, from where we came, mark the place we will return to. And mark it in patterns within the one pattern resonant with the patterns of our lives. Your life, Val, has already been marked out from all others. Everyone has seen this, in who you are, in what you’ve done. But Master Sebastian has seen it in the stars.’

He motioned for Maram and me to follow him across the room to where a large desk stood facing the wall. Many old books were heaped on top of it. One was a genealogy of the noble Valari families; another was entitled, simply: The Lesser Gelstei. The largest book was Master Juwain’s prized copy of the Saganom Elu, bound in ancient leather. He had placed it, and other books, so that they weighted down the corners of a scroll of parchment. Inked onto its yellow-white surface was a great wheel of a circle, divided by lines like slices of a pie. Other lines formed squares within the circle, and there was a single, equal-sided triangle, too. Around the circle’s edge were written various arcane symbols which I took to represent other worlds or the greatest of the heavens’ constellations.

‘Before I left for Nar,’ Master Juwain said to me, ‘I asked Master Sebastian to work up this horoscope from the reported hour of your birth.’ Here he stabbed his finger at a cluster of symbols at the top of the circle. ‘Do you see how your sun is at the midheaven in the constellation of the Archer? This is the sign of a soul that streaks out like an arrow of light to touch the stars. At the midheaven also is Aos, and this is an indication of a great spiritual teacher. And there also, Niran, which portends a spiritual master or great king. Their conjunction is striking and very strong.’

As the afternoon deepened toward evening, and Maram bent over the desk with me, breathing in my ear, Master Juwain went on to point out other features of my horoscope: the grand trine formed by Elad, Tyra and my moon; my moon, itself, in the Crab Constellation, indicating deep and powerful passions for life that I kept hidden inside to protect myself and avoid hurting others; my Siraj in the castle of service in the sign of the Ram, which marked me out as a man who blazed new paths for others to follow. Directly across the circle from it was to be found my Shahar, planet of vision and transcendence. Its opposition with Siraj, according to Master Juwain, told of the great war that I waged inside myself – and with the world.

‘We see here the paradox of your life, Val. That you, who love others so deeply, have been forced to slay so many.’

The sword I wore at my side suddenly felt unbearably heavy. The silustria of its blade was so hard and smooth that blood would not cling to it or stain it. I wished the same were true of my soul.

‘And this conflict runs even deeper,’ Master Juwain continued. ‘It would be as if your soul is pulled in two directions, between the glories of the earth and the still light at the center of all things. In a sense, between life and death.’

As Master Juwain paused to take a deep breath, I felt my heart beating hard and painfully inside me. And then he said, ‘For one born beneath stars such as yours, it is necessary to die in order to be reborn – as the Silver Swan emerges with wings of light from the flames of its own funeral pyre. Such a one is rare, indeed. A master astrologer, and many men, might call him the Shining One.’

Sweat was now running down my sides in hot streams beneath my armor. I could scarcely breathe, so I pushed back from the desk and moved over to the window for some fresh air. I fairly drank in the wind pouring down from the mountains. Then I turned to Master Juwain and said, ‘What did you mean he might be called the Shining One?’

‘You see, your horoscope is certainly that of a great man, and almost that of a Maitreya.’

‘Almost? Then –’

Before I could say more, the faint fall of footsteps sounded in the hall outside the door, punctuated by the sound of wood striking stone. Master Juwain, who had a mind like the gears of a clock, smiled as if satisfied by the result of some secret calculation.

‘You see,’ he said by way of explanation, ‘I’ve asked for help in deciding this matter.’

There came a soft rapping at the door. Master Juwain crossed the room and opened it. Then he invited inside a small, old woman who stepped carefully as she tapped a wooden cane ahead of her.

‘Nona!’ I cried out. It was my grandmother, Ayasha Elahad. I rushed across the room to embrace her frail body. Then I placed her arm around mine, and led her over to one of the chairs at the tea table. ‘Where is Chaya? You shouldn’t go walking about by yourself.’

I spoke the name of the maidservant who had volunteered to help my grandmother negotiate the castle’s numerous corridors and treacherous stone stairs. For during the half year of my journey, my grandmother had lost her sight almost overnight: now the white frost of cataracts iced over both her eyes. But strangely, although the cataracts kept out the light of the world, they could not quite keep within a deeper and sweeter light. Her essential goodness set my heart to hurting with the sweetest of pains, as it always did. I had often thought of her as the source of love in my family – as the sun is the source of life on earth.

While Maram and I sat at the table on either side of her, Master Juwain made her tea, peppermint with honey, as she requested. He set a new pot and cup before her and made sure that she could reach it easily. I knew that he lamented being unable to heal her of her affliction.

My grandmother held herself with great dignity as she carefully moved her hand from the edge of the table toward her cup. Then she said to me, ‘I sent Chaya away. There is no reason to burden her, and I must learn to get about by myself. Sixty-two years I’ve lived here, ever since your grandfather captured my heart and asked me to marry him. I think I know this castle as well as anyone. Now if you please, may we speak of more important things?’

She slowly turned her head as if looking for Master Juwain. Then, to Maram and me, Master Juwain said, ‘I’ve asked the Queen Mother to come here so that she might tell of Val’s birth.’

As far as I knew, three woman had attended my entrance to the world: my grandmother and the midwife, Amorah – and, of course, my mother, who had nearly died giving me life.

My grandmother breathed on the hot tea before taking a long sip of it. Then she said, ‘Six sons Queen Elianora had already borne for my son, the king. Val was the last, and so he should have been the easiest, but he was the hardest. The biggest, too. Amorah, may she abide with the One, said that he’d baked too long in the oven. She finally had to use the tongs to pull Val out. They cut his forehead, as you can see.’

Although she could no longer see, she tilted her head as if listening for the sound of my breath. Then, with only slight hesitation, she leaned forward, and her hand found the top of my head. Her palm moved slowly down my forehead as she found the scar there, then she traced the cold zags with her warm and trembling finger.

‘But what can you tell us,’ Master Juwain said, ‘about the hour of Val’s birth?’

My grandmother hesitated a little longer this time before touching my cheek, then withdrawing her hand to pull at the soft folds of skin around her neck. ‘He was born with the sun high in the sky, at the noon hour, as was recorded.’

Both Master Juwain and I turned to glance at the parchment still spread across the nearby desk. Then the heat of Master Juwain’s gaze fell upon my grandmother as he asked her, ‘Then it was at this hour that Val drew his first breath?’

Master Juwain’s eyes gleamed as if he were about to solve an ancient puzzle. He watched my grandmother, who sat in silence as my heart beat ten times. Finally, she said, ‘No, Val drew his first breath an hour before that. You see, the birth was so hard, he had trouble breathing at all. He was so cold and blue it made me weep. For an hour, Amorah and I thought that he would go over to the other world. At last, though, at noon, his little life quickened. When we knew the fire wouldn’t go out, we announced his birth.’

In the sudden quiet of Master Juwain’s chamber, twenty-one years after the day that my grandmother had told of, my breathing had stopped yet again. Master Juwain and Maram were staring at me. My grandmother seemed to be staring at me, too.

‘The Morning Star burned brightly that day,’ she continued. ‘It shone almost like a second sun from before dawn all through the morning, as it does once every hundred years. And so my grandson was named Valashu, after that beautiful star.’

Master Juwain stood up and marched over to the desk. He gathered up the parchment and a similar one that had lain concealed beneath it. After tucking a large, musty book beneath his arm, he marched back toward us.

‘Maram,’ he called, ‘please clear the table for me.’

I helped Maram clear the pots and cups from the tea table. Then Master Juwain spread both parchments on top of it, side by side. He stepped back over to the desk and returned with a few more books to hold them down.

‘Look,’ he said, pointing at the first horoscope that we had already studied. Then he traced his finger around the circle and symbols of the second parchment. As we could see, the array was nearly the same. ‘I confess that I guessed what the Queen Mother has just disclosed today. And so before I left for Nar, I asked Master Sebastian to work up this second horoscope.’

Now his finger trembled with excitement as he touched two small symbols written at the edge of the circle described upon the second parchment. ‘Here, of course, is the Morning Star, as on the first horoscope. But here, too – look closely – the stars of the Swan are rising in the east at Val’s earlier and true hour of birth.’

Master Juwain straightened and stood like a warrior who has vanquished a foe. He said, ‘There are other changes to the horoscope, but this is the critical one. Master Sebastian has advised me that the effect of the Swan rising would be to exalt and raise the purity of Val’s entire horoscope. He has said that these are certainly the stars of a Maitreya.’

I couldn’t help staring at the two parchments. The late sun through the windows glared off their whitish surface and stabbed into my eyes.

‘It’s possible, isn’t it,’ I said, ‘that many men, at many times, would have a similar horoscope?’

‘No, not many men, Val.’

Master Juwain now brought forth the book from beneath his arm. As he opened it and began turning its yellow pages with great care, I noticed the title, written in ancient Ardik: The Coming Of The Shining One. At last, he reached the page he had been seeking. He smiled as he set down the book next to the second parchment.

‘I found this in the library of the Brotherhood’s sanctuary at Nar. It was always a rare book, and with the burning of Khaisham’s Library, it might be the last copy remaining in the world.’ He tapped his finger against the symbol-written circle inscribed on the book’s open page. ‘This is the horoscope of Godavanni the Glorious. Look, Val, look!’

Godavanni had been the greatest of Ea’s Maitreyas, born at the end of the great Age of Law three thousand years before. He had also been, as I remembered, a great King of Kings. I gasped in wonder because the two horoscopes, Godavanni’s and mine, were exactly the same.

‘No,’ I murmured, ‘it cannot be.’

For my grandmother’s sake, Master Juwain explained again the features of my horoscope – and Godavanni’s. Then he turned to Maram and said, ‘You see, our quest to find the new Maitreya might already be completed.’

‘Ah, Val,’ Maram said as he pulled at his beard and gazed at me. ‘Ah, Val, Val.’

My grandmother reached out her hand and squeezed mine. Then she set it on top of the parchments, fumbling to feel the lines of the symbols written on them.

‘Here,’ I said, gently pressing her fingertip against the rays denoting the Morning Star. ‘Is this what you wanted?’

There was both joy and sadness in her smile as she turned to face me. Her ivory skin was so worn and old that it seemed almost transparent. The smell of lilacs emanated from her wispy white hair. The cataracts over her eyes clouded their deep sable color, but could not conceal the bright thing inside her, almost too bright to bear. Her breath poured like a warm wind from her lips, and I could feel the way that she had breathed it into me at my birth, pressing her lips over mine. I could feel the beating of her heart. There was a sharp pain there. It hurt me to feel her hurting so, with sorrow because she was blind and could not look upon me in what seemed my hour of glory. My eyes filled with water and burning salt a moment before hers did, too. And then, as if she knew well enough what had passed between us, she reached out her hand to touch away the tears on my cheek that she could not see.

‘It was this way with your grandfather, too,’ she said. ‘You have his gift.’

She gave voice to a thing that we had never spoken of before. For many years it had remained our secret. During the quest, however, Master Juwain and Maram – and my other companions – had discovered what my grandmother called my gift: that what others feel, I feel as well. If I let myself, their joy became my joy, their love flowed into me like the warm, onstreaming rays of the sun. But I was open to darker passions as well: hatred, pain, fury, fear. For my gift was also a curse. How many times on the journey to Argattha, I wondered, had Master Juwain and Maram watched me nearly die with every enemy I had sent on to the otherworld in the screaming agony of death?

My grandmother, as if explaining to Master Juwain and Maram something that she thought it was time for them to know, smiled sadly and said, ‘It was this way with Valashu from his first breath: it was as if he were breathing in all the pain in the world. It was why, at first, he failed to quicken and almost died.’

For what seemed an hour, I sat next to her in silence holding her hand in mine. And then, to Master Juwain and Maram, to me – to the whole world – she cried out: ‘He’s my grandson and has the heart of an angel – shouldn’t this be enough?’

My gift, this mysterious soul force within me, had a name, an ancient name, and that was valarda. I remembered that this meant ‘the heart of the stars’.

As Master Juwain looked down at the two parchments, and Maram’s soft, brown eyes searched in mine, I kissed my grandmother’s forehead, then excused myself. I stood up and moved over to the open window. The warm wind brought the smell of pine trees and earth into the room. It called me to remember who I really was. And that could not be, I thought, the Maitreya. Was I a great healer? No, I was a knight of the sword, a great slayer of men. Who knew as well as I did the realm of death where I had sent so many? In the last moment of life, each of my enemies had grasped at me and pulled me down toward that lightless land. I remembered lines of the poem that had tormented me since the day I had killed Morjin’s assassin in the woods below the castle:

The stealing of the gold, The evil knife, the cold – The cold that freezes breath, The nothingness of death. And down into the dark, No eyes, no lips, no spark. The dying of the light, The neverness of night.

Even now, in the warmth of a fine spring day, I felt this everlasting cold chilling my limbs and filling me with dread. The night that knows no end called to me, even as the voices of the dead carried along the wind. They spoke to me in grave tones, telling me that I waited to be one of them – and that I could not be the Shining One, for he was of the sun and earth and all the things of life. A deeper voice, like the fire of the far-off stars, whispered this inside me, too. I did not listen. For just then, with my quick breath burning my lips and Telshar’s diamond peak so beautiful against the sky, I recalled the words to another poem, about the Maitreya:

To mortal men on planets bound Who dream and die on darkened ground, To bold and bright Valari knights Who cross the starry heavens’ heights, To all: immortal Elijin As well the quenchless Galadin, He brings the light that slays the Lie: The light of love makes death to die.

‘“It is said that the Maitreya shall have eternal life”,’ I whispered, quoting from the Book of Ages of the Saganom Elu.

It was also said that he would show this way to others. How else, I wondered, did men gain the long lives of the Star People and learn to sail the glittering heavens? And how did the Star People advance to the order of the immortal Elijin, and the Elijin become the great Galadin, they who could not be killed or harmed in any way? Men called these beings angels, but they were of flesh and blood – and perhaps something more. Once, in the depths of the black mountain called Skartaru, I had seen a great Elijin lord unveiled in all his glory. Had the hand of a Maitreya once touched him and passed on the inextinguishable flame?

Master Juwain stood up and came over to me, laying his hand on my arm. I turned to him and asked, ‘If I were the Maitreya, wouldn’t I know this?’

He smiled as he hefted his copy of the Saganom Elu and began thumbing through its pages. Whether by chance or intuition, he came upon words that were close to the questioning of my heart:

The Shining One In innocence sleeps Inside his heart Angel fire sleeps And when he wakes The fire leaps About the Maitreya One thing is known: That to himself He always is known When the moment comes To claim the Lightstone.

‘But that’s just it, sir,’ I said to him. ‘I don’t know this.’

He closed his book and looked deep into my eyes. He said, ‘In you, Val, there is such a fire. And such an innocence that you’ve never seen it.’

‘But, sir, I –’

‘I think we do know,’ he told me. ‘The evidence is overwhelming. First, there is your horoscope, the Swan rising, which purifies – wasn’t it only by purifying yourself that you were able to find the Lightstone? And you are the seventh son of a king of the most noble and ancient line. And there is the mark.’ He paused to touch the lightning bolt scar above my eye. ‘The mark of Valoreth – the mark of the Galadin.’

Just then a swirl of little, twinkling lights fell out of the air as of a storm of shooting stars. In its spiraling patterns were colors of silver, cerulean and scarlet. It hovered near my forehead as if studying the scar there. Joy and faith and other fiery emotions seemed to pour from its center in bursts of radiance. This strange being was one of the Timpum, and Maram had named him Flick. He had attached himself to me in a magical wood deep in the wild forest of Alonia. It was said that once, many ages ago, the bright Galadin had walked there, perhaps looking for the greatest and last of Ea’s Maitreyas: the Cosmic Maitreya who might lead all the worlds across the stars into the Age of Light. It was also said that the Galadin had left part of their essence shimmering among the wood’s flowers and great trees. Whatever the origins of the Timpum truly were, they did indeed seem to possess the fire of the angels.

‘And of course,’ Master Juwain said, pointing at the space above my forehead, ‘there is Flick. Of all the Timpum, only he has ever made such friends with a man. And only he left the Lokilani’s wood – to follow you.’

I looked over toward the tea table, where Maram sat squeezing my grandmother’s hand. Then I turned back to Master Juwain and said, ‘There is evidence, yes, but it’s not known … how the Maitreya will be known.’

‘I believe,’ Master Juwain said, ‘that the Maitreya, alone of all those on earth, will have a true resonance with the Lightstone.’

‘But how is this resonance to be accomplished?’

‘That is one mystery I am trying to solve. As you must, too.’

‘But when will I solve it?’

In answer, he pointed out the window at the clouds glowing with colors in the slanting rays of the sun. ‘Soon, you will. This is the time, Valashu. The Golden Band grows stronger.’

As men such as he and I lived out our lives on far-flung worlds like Ea, the Star People built their great, glittering cities on other worlds closer to the center of the universe. And the Elijin walked on worlds closer still, while the Galadin – Ashtoreth and Valoreth and others – dwelled nearest the stellar heart, on Agathad, which they called Star Home. It was said that they made their abode by an ancient lake, the source of the great river, Ar. The lake was a perfect silver, like liquid silustria, and it reflected the image of the ageless astor tree, Irdrasil, that grew above it. Irdrasil’s golden leaves never fell, and they shone even through the night.

For beyond Agathad, at the center of all things, lay Ninsun, a black and utter emptiness out of which eternally poured a brilliant and beautiful light. It was the light of the Ieldra, beings of pure light who dwelled there. This numinous radiance streamed out like the rays of the sun toward all of creation. The Golden Band, it was called, and it fell most strongly on Agathad, there to touch all living things with a glory that never failed.

But other worlds around other stars, on their slow turn through the universe, moved into its splendor more rarely: with Ea, only once every three thousand years, at the end of old ages or the beginning of new ones. The Brotherhood’s astrologers had divined that, some twenty years before, Ea had entered the Golden Band. And it was waxing ever stronger, like the wind before a storm, like a river in late spring gathering waters to nourish the land. Now men and women, if they listened, might hear the voices of the Ieldra calling them closer to their source, even as they called to the Star People on their worlds and to the Elijin on theirs – and called eternally to the angels on Agathad to free the light of their beings and return home as newly created Ieldra themselves.

‘The Golden Band,’ Master Juwain explained, ‘is like a river of light that men do not usually see. It shimmers, the scryers say. There are eddies and currents, and a place where it swells and flows most deeply.’

He gazed out the window for a moment, then shook his head as if all that he could see was the blazing sun and the drifting clouds – and two golden eagles that soared among them.

‘The constellations,’ he said to me, ‘somehow affect the Band’s strength – and direct it, too. It’s known that the Band flared with great intensity on the ninth of Triolet, at the time of your birth.’

I, too, looked out the window for this angel fire that remained invisible to me.

‘I believe,’ Master Juwain said, ‘that a Maitreya is chosen. By the One’s grace, through the light of the Ieldra where it falls most brightly.’

I looked back to the tea table to see that Maram and my grandmother were attending his every word.

‘The Maitreya is made, Val. Made to come forth and take his place in the world. And he must come soon, don’t you see?’

Soon, he said, the Golden Band would begin to weaken, and a great chance might be lost. For men’s hearts, now open to the light that the Maitreya would bring, would soon close and harden their wills yet again toward evil and war.

‘You see,’ he said, ‘all the other Maitreyas failed. Of those of the Lost Ages, of course, we know almost nothing. But at the end of the Age of the Mother, it’s said that Alesar Tal entered the Brotherhood and grew old and died without ever setting eyes upon the Lightstone. And at the end of the Age of Swords, Issayu was enslaved by Morjin and the Lightstone kept from him. Godavanni was murdered at the moment that the Lightstone was placed into his hands. Now we are in the last years of the Age of the Dragon. This terrible time, the darkest of ages. How will it end, Val? In even greater darkness or in light?’

Out of the window I saw cloud shadows dappling the courtyard below and darkening the white stone walls of the castle. The foothills rising above them were marked with indentations and undulations, their northern slopes invisible to the eye, lost in shadow and perhaps concealing eagles’ aeries and bears’ caves and the secret powers of the earth. I marveled at the way the sunlight caught the rocky faces of these hills: half standing out clearly in the strong Soldru light, half darkened into the deeper shades of green and gray and black. I saw that there was always a vivid line between the dark and the light, but strangely this line shifted and moved across the naked rock even as the sun moved slowly on its arc across the sky from east to west.

‘Val? Are you all right?’

Master Juwain’s voice brought me back to his comfortable room high in the Adami tower. I bowed my head to him, then asked if I could borrow his copy of the Saganom Elu. It took me only a moment to flip through its pages and find the passage I was seeking. I read it aloud word by word, even though I knew it by heart:

‘“If men look upon the stars and see only cinders, if the sun should be seen to set in the east – if a man comes forth in falseness as the Shining One concealing darkness in his heart, if he claims the Lightstone for his own, then he shall become a new Red Dragon, only mightier and more terrible. Then red will burn black and all colors die; the heavens’ lights will be veiled as if by smoke, and the sun will rise no more.”’

I closed the book and gave it back to him. I said, ‘I must know, sir. If I am truly this one who shines, I must know.’

We returned to the table to rejoin Maram and my grandmother. Master Juwain made us more tea, which we sat drinking as the sun fell behind the mountains and twilight stole across the world. Master Juwain reasserted his wish that I might come forth as Maitreya in sight of the emissaries who had assembled in my father’s castle; it was why, he said, he had hurried home to Mesh. As much as I might need to know if I were really the Lord of Light foreseen in the prophecies, the world needed to be told of this miracle even more.

At last, as it grew dark and the hour deepened into full night, I went over to the window one last time. The sky was now almost clear. The dying of the sun had revealed the stars that always blazed there, against the immense black vault of the heavens. The constellations that my grandfather had first named for me many years before shimmered like ancient signposts: the Great Bear, the Archer, the Dragon, with its sinuous form and two great, red stars for eyes. I searched a long time in these glittering arrays for any certainty that I was the one whom Master Juwain hoped me to be. I did not find it. There was only light and stars, infinite in number and nearly as old as time.

Then Maram came up to me and clapped me on the shoulder. ‘It’s time for the feast, my friend. You might very well be this Maitreya, but you’re a man first, and you have to eat.’

We walked back across the room, where I helped my grandmother out of her chair and took her arm in mine. Then we all went down to the great hall to take food and wine with many others and view the wonder of the Lightstone.

2

The great hall adjoined the castle’s keep where my father and most of his guests resided. By the time we had gone outside and made our way through the dark middle ward, past the Tower of the Moon and the Tower of the Earth, and entered the hall through its great southern doors, it was almost full of people. Brothers from the sanctuary near Silvassu stood wearing their brown robes and drinking apple cider in place of wine or beer; nobles from Alonia gathered in a group next to their table. I immediately recognized Count Dario Narmada, King Kiritan’s cousin and the chief of his emissaries. With his flaming red hair and bright blue tunic emblazoned with the gold caduceus of the House Narmada, he was hard to miss. In this large room, opening out beneath its vaulted ceiling of stone, were many Valari: simple warriors and knights as well as great princes and even kings. Lord Issur, son of King Hadaru of Ishka, seemed to be discussing something of great importance with a tall man who displayed many battle ribbons in his long, gray hair and great longing on his much-scarred face. This was King Kurshan of Lagash, whose ferocious countenance hid a kind and faithful heart. I knew that he had journeyed to Mesh to make a marriage for his daughter, Chandria – and to stand before the Lightstone like everyone else.

On a long dais at the north end of the room, beneath a wall hung with a black banner showing the swan and stars of the House of Elahad, was an ancient white granite pedestal. On top of it sat a plain, golden cup. It was small enough to fit the palm of a man’s hand; indeed, it had been my hand that had placed it there some months before. At first glance, it did not seem an impressive thing. No gem adorned it. No handles were welded onto its sides, nor did it rest upon a long and gracefully shaped base, as with a chalice. It did not, except at rare moments, even radiate much light. But its beauty stole away the breath, and in its golden shimmer was something lovely that drew the eye and called to the soul. Not a few of those gathered in the hall were staring at it with tears streaming down their cheeks. Even the oldest and hardest of warriors seemed to melt in its presence, like winter’s ice beneath the warm spring sun.

Standing to either side of the pedestal were fifteen knights, each of whom wore a long sword at his side, even as did I. They wore as well suits of mail like my own; to the various blazons on their surcoats had been added a unique mark of cadence: a small, golden cup. For these were thirty of the Guardians of the Lightstone who had sworn to die in its defense. I had chosen them – and seventy others not presently on duty – from among the finest knights of Mesh. They, too, seemed in awe of that which they protected. Their noble faces, I thought, had been touched by the Lightstone’s splendor, and their bright, black eyes remained ever watchful, ever awake, ever aware.

Before we had crossed ten paces into the hall, a stout, handsome woman wearing a black gown came up to us, with her dark eyes fixed on Maram. He presented her as Dasha Ambar, Lord Ambar’s widow. After bowing to my grandmother, she smiled at Maram and asked, ‘Will we go riding tomorrow, Sar Maram?’

‘Tomorrow?’ Maram said, glancing about the hall as he began to sweat. ‘Ah, tomorrow is Moonday, my lady. Why don’t we wait until Eaday, when we’ve recovered from the feast?’

‘Very well,’ Dasha said. ‘In the morning or the afternoon?’

‘Ah, I must tell you that the morning, for me, quite often begins in the afternoon.’

Dasha smiled at this, as did my grandmother and I. Then Dasha excused herself and moved off toward the throng of knights who had gathered around Lord Tomavar’s table.

‘You’re playing a dangerous game,’ I told Maram as his eyes drank in Dasha’s voluptuous form.

‘What am I to do?’ Maram said, turning toward me. ‘Your Valari women are so beautiful, so bold. The widows especially. And there are so many of them.’

‘Just be careful that Lord Harsha doesn’t make Behira a widow before you even have the chance to marry her.’

‘All right, all right,’ Maram muttered. He gazed across the hall toward the Lightstone as if hoping its radiance might bestow upon him fidelity and other virtues. Then he seemed to forget his resolve as he looked away and said, ‘But someone must console these poor women!’

Again, my grandmother smiled, and she told Maram, ‘When the Ishkans made me a widow, it was not possible for me to marry again. But had it been, it would have been my wish to marry for love, not just for my husband’s renown.’

‘Then you are different from your countrywomen, my lady.’

‘No, not so different, Sar Maram.’ My grandmother turned her sightless eyes toward his face. Her smile radiated warmth. ‘Perhaps in you they hope to find both.’

‘Do you see?’ Maram said to me as he held his hands toward the ceiling. ‘Even in your own grandmother, this damn Valari boldness!’

We all had a good laugh at this, my grandmother especially. She let go of my arm and took Maram’s as if grateful for his strength. And strong he truly was, growing more so by the day. Now that he wore in his silver ring the two diamonds of a Valari knight, he was obliged to practise with his sword at least once each day. His body, I thought, was a sort of compromise between this fierce discipline and self-indulgence: the layers of fat, which fooled the undiscerning, covered great mounds of muscle and battle-tempered bone. There was about him a growing certainty of his prowess and physical splendor, and this attracted women like flowers to the sun.

Just then Jasmina Ashur, who had lost her husband in the war against Waas, espied Maram and hurried over to him. She was graceful and slender as a stem, barely eighteen, and her adoring eyes fell upon Maram with an almost smothering desire. After greeting us, she began discussing with Maram the poetry-writing session he had promised her.

‘Someone,’ she told Maram, ‘must put the account of your quest to verse. Since you are too modest to hoist your own banner.’

‘Ah,’ Maram said, the blood rushing to his face, ‘I am too modest, aren’t I?’

‘Yes, you are. Even so, the world needs to be told of your feats, before others make free with your story.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, I overheard Count Dario claiming that you are really Alonian.’

‘Why, that’s not true! My grandmother was the daughter of the old Baron Monteer of Iviendenhall before King Kiritan’s father conquered it and added it to his realm. Does that make me Alonian?’

‘They’re saying other things, too. About the Maitreya.’

Maram fell silent as my grandmother squeezed his arm and Master Juwain looked at me. Then Master Juwain rubbed the back of his bald head and asked Jasmina, ‘And what are they saying about the Shining One?’

‘That he has almost certainly been found. In a village near Adavam. They say that he’s the son of a blacksmith and has made miracles: healing the blind and turning lead into gold.’

Adavam, I remembered, lay only fifty miles from Tria, and was clearly within the bounds of Old Alonia.

‘But have these miracles been verified?’ Master Juwain asked. ‘In Galda, before it fell, came stories of a shepherd removing growths from people’s bodies with his bare hands. We sent Brother Alexander to investigate. It turned out that the shepherd was showing his poor patients sheep offal through sleight of hand.’

Jasmina grimaced as if such trickery disgusted her. Then she said, ‘Who can trust the Galdans? Or the Alonians? It seems to me more likely that the Maitreya would be one of those who found the Lightstone.’

Here she smiled at Maram, and again his face flushed bright red. He coughed out, ‘No, no – I’m no Maitreya! Do diamonds bleed? Can you make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear?’

‘Only in Alonia,’ Jasmina said with a little laugh. Then she bowed her head to me and laid her hand on my arm. ‘But if not Sar Maram, then perhaps you, Lord Valashu. Many are saying this, that you were the first to touch the golden cup, and much of its light passed into you.’

Maram removed Jasmina’s hand from my arm and stood holding her questing fingers in his. ‘Val, the Maitreya? No, no – he can’t be!’

‘But why not?’

‘Why, ah, because he just can’t’. Maram paused to take a deep breath as he looked at me. ‘The one you speak of, my lady, would be more like the wind than the mountains and rivers over which it blows. He would have fire in his veins, not blood. And it would be a cold fire, I think, like that of the stars. Too pure, too … evanescent. How could such a one ever bring himself to slay his enemies or love a woman? I’ve seen Val’s blood, you know, too many times, too bad. It’s as red and hot as mine.’

At that moment, Maram’s face fell rigid, and he dropped Jasmina’s hand as if it were a hot coal. I turned to see Lord Harsha and Behira enter the hall. They made their way straight toward us with surprising speed, considering the lameness of Lord Harsha’s smashed leg, which caused him to limp badly. Despite his age, he was still straight and sturdy, and as hard as the rocks in the fields he still plowed with his own hands. A black eye patch stood out against the long white hair that flowed from his square head; his single eye, like a black diamond, gleamed at Maram, upon whom he advanced with his hand gripping the hilt of his kalama.

‘Oh, no!’ Maram muttered. And then, as Lord Harsha and his daughter drew up to us, Maram called out, ‘Good evening, my lord. Behira, I’ve never seen you look so beautiful.’

Behira, who was as plump and pretty as a well-fed swan, was dressed in a white silk gown that failed to conceal her large breasts and even larger hips. Her raven-black hair spilled over her shoulders nearly down to her waist. Her oval face, usually quite pleasant to look at, was now marred by some of the darker passions. I knew her to be generous of heart and sweet as the honey that Maram loved, but she was also quite spirited, and there was within her more than a little of her father’s steel, sharpened to a razor edge.

‘Jasmina,’ she said, ‘has Maram invited you yet to our wedding? We were considering making vows at the end of Soal – what do you think?’

Valari women wield weapons only at times of life and death, but at that moment Behira’s black eyes were daggers that tore Jasmina open. Jasmina allowed that Soal would indeed be a good month for marriage. Then she excused herself and moved off toward a table of young knights.

‘Ah, Behira,’ Maram said as she turned her cutting gaze on him. ‘We were just discussing the Maitreya.’ He coughed into his hand, twice, and then extended it toward Behira as if to present her to me. Then he said, ‘Do you see, Val? Why should one look to the stars when there is such beauty on earth? Do you want heaven? Then I say you’d be more likely to find it in a woman’s kiss – at least a woman such as my beloved.’

‘Here now,’ Lord Harsha said, moving forward between his daughter and Maram. ‘We’ll not speak of that until we’ve spoken of a date. What about Soal, Sar Maram?’

‘Ah, Soal is a good month,’ Maram said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. ‘Of course, Ioj might be even better, with the aspen leaves going gold, or even Valte after the harvest is –’

‘The question must be asked,’ Lord Harsha said, ‘are you looking for a better match than my daughter?’

‘No, no – of course not!’

‘Then why all these flirtations of yours?’

‘My flirtations? Ah, Lord Harsha, you don’t understand – it is they who flirt with me.’

‘Well it must stop.’ Lord Harsha was as blunt as a river stone. ‘Do you wish to wound my daughter’s heart beyond all repair?’

Maram turned to look at Behira, whose bright eyes were fixed upon him. ‘I would rather,’ he said, ‘that my own heart were torn out.’

‘That can be accomplished,’ Lord Harsha said, his fist tightening around the hilt of his sword.

Seeing this, Maram blanched and blurted out, ‘I love Behira!’

‘Perhaps – but how is she to know that?’

‘But Lord Harsha, don’t you see? It is the very extravagance of the attentions of the widows of your realm that is the measure of my love and devotion to your daughter. It is that way with women, isn’t it? That the more a man loves one woman, the more others will see seducing him as a challenge?’

Lord Harsha, who was steady and true of mind, was not especially quick or clever. He stuck to his main point, saying, ‘Then the sooner you are wed, the better. Today is the sixth of Soldru. The sixth of Marud will not be too soon for the wedding. One month, Sar Maram.’

The look in Maram’s eyes just then was that of an animal caught in a trap. He pulled at the collar of his red tunic as if struggling to breathe, then gasped out, ‘One month! But Lord Harsha, with the news I’ve just had and all my duties, that is far too little –’

‘What duties? Trying to outdrink any man in Mesh? And what news are you speaking of?’

Maram’s eyes fell upon me and brightened as if seeing a way out of such sudden – and final – matrimony. He said, ‘Why, the news about Val. Master Juwain believes that he is likely the Maitreya.’

Lord Harsha had a great respect for authority, and great regard for the Brotherhood and Master Juwain. He listened quietly as Master Juwain recounted the evidence cited earlier in the Adami tower. Master Juwain admitted that his hope for me was not yet proven beyond doubt, and he asked Lord Harsha not to speak of my horoscope to anyone. Like a warrior receiving battle orders from his king, Lord Harsha agreed to this. Then he nodded his hoary head toward me, saying, ‘It’s always been clear that there is something remarkable about Val.’

‘Yes, there is,’ Maram said, laying his hand on my shoulder. ‘And that is why, my lord, we should not be too quick to set a date. You see, I’ve allegiance to Val, and who knows where fate might take us if he truly is the Maitreya?’

In his relief in possibly postponing his wedding yet again, and in his pride for me, his big voice boomed out into the hall a little too loudly. It drew the attention of two off-duty Guardians: my friends, Sunjay Naviru and Baltasar Raasharu. They smiled and walked toward us, followed by a tall, dignified man whose long face and white teeth reminded me of a warhorse. This was Lord Lansar Raasharu, Baltasar’s father – and my father’s trusted seneschal. I knew of no warrior braver in battle or more loyal to my family than he. Although the deepest of passions sometimes gloomed his heart, he had resolved to carry himself at all times as if his essentially melancholic nature would never master him.

‘Lord Raasharu!’ I said as he came up to me. ‘Sunjay! Baltasar!’

Lansar Raasharu bowed his head to me, but Sunjay and Baltasar took turns in embracing me. Sunjay was bright of manner and expression, like a shooting star; from his well-formed mouth poured forth a steady stream of friendly words and smiles. Baltasar was a more difficult man. His lively, black eyes spoke of intelligence and restlessness of the soul; his ruddy cheeks gave evidence of his fiery blood. He was quick to take insult and even quicker to forgive – as quick as he was to love and be loved. All my life, it seemed, he had been like a seventh brother to me. He had all of Asaru’s grace and Karshur’s strength of purpose; while his quicksilver laughter reminded me of Jonathay, his pride burned hotter than did even Yarashan’s.

After Maram had blurted out the topic of conversation, Baltasar flashed a bright smile at me and said, ‘It was hard enough to get used to calling you “Lord Valashu” – and now it seems you’re to be called “Lord of Light” as well?’

‘Please,’ I told him, ‘it will be enough if you call me “friend”.’

Baltasar’s hand darted out to clasp mine. For a moment, our eyes locked together, and in the light of recognition that passed between us, I relived the Battle of Red Mountain against Waas. On that broken and bloody field, Baltasar had recklessly attacked three knights trying to impale me with their lances – and had taken a grievous wound to his neck in driving them off. His valor had saved my life. After the battle, my father had honored him with the double-diamond ring of a full knight. And his father, the noble Lord Raasharu, had looked upon him as if Baltasar was the great joy of his life. Even as he looked upon him now.

‘All right, friend,’ Baltasar said to me in the warm glow of his father’s countenance. ‘But can it really be true that you’re this Maitreya that everyone is talking about?’

His hand gripped mine more tightly as if trying to squeeze the answer to this question out of me. I squeezed back, not in affirmation, but only to keep him from breaking my finger bones.

‘It’s said,’ Baltasar continued, gazing at me, ‘that the Maitreya will be a bringer of peace. But how can there ever be peace in this world?’

‘There must be peace,’ I told him. ‘Godavanni the Glorious –’

‘Godavanni was High King in an age when people thought that war had ended forever. It’s said that he never lifted his sword against any man. But in the end, Morjin murdered him, and war began again.’

As Baltasar formed the sounds of the Red Dragon’s name, he let go of my hand to touch the gem he wore over his heart. Dangling from a steel chain around his neck was a small stone, blood-red in color like a carnelian. It was called a warder, and it bore the power to deflect poisonous thoughts or curses directed at its wearer. It also rendered one invisible to scryers and mindspeakers; most especially, it was proof against the illusions that the Lord of Lies sent to madden his enemies. As one of the lesser gelstei, it was both powerful and rare, but even so, all of the Guardians wore one.

‘If war can begin,’ I told Baltasar, ‘it can end.’

‘Never,’ he said. ‘Never so long as Morjin is left undefeated – all his evil, all his lies.’

‘But evil can’t be vanquished with a sword, Baltasar.’

‘You say that, who have vanquished so many with your sword?’

My hand fell down upon my sword’s hilt, with its diamond pommel and swan-carved hilt of black jade. I swallowed against the pain in my throat as I said, ‘Darkness can’t be defeated in battle but only by shining a bright enough light.’

‘Are these the words of the Lord of Light, then?’

They were, in fact, words that Master Juwain had spoken to me on the night when I had vowed to recover the Lightstone. Now he stood near me beaming his approval that I had taken to heart the deepest of his lessons. Maram, Behira, Lord Harsha and Lord Raasharu – and others – pressed in close to hear what we might say next.

‘You should know, Val,’ Baltasar confided to me, ‘that many are saying the Maitreya would be a great warlord. Like Aramesh. That he would unite the Valari and lead us to victory over the Red Dragon. Then this Age of Light of which you dream might begin.’

Red flames seemed to dance in his eyes as he glanced at the knights and warriors gathered around us. I remembered the words from the Trian Prophecies: ‘He shall be the greatest warrior in the world.’

I said to him, ‘You love war too much, Baltasar.’

‘As I love life itself, dear friend. What else calls to life so deeply as the duty to surrender it in protecting family and friends?’

I might have agreed with him – with the qualification that the Valari were meant to be warriors of the spirit only. But just then, to the sound of trumpets announcing the beginning of the feast, my father, mother and brothers entered the hall from its western portal.

Lord Harsha cried out, ‘The King!’ as hundreds of people turned to watch Shavashar Elahad make his way toward the front of the room where my family’s table was set. My father was a tall man whose black tunic, showing the swan and stars of our house, draped in clean lines about his large and powerful frame. Despite his years, he moved with a flowing grace that even a young knight might envy; his black eyes seemed filled with starlight and blazed with that fearlessness to which all Valari aspired. Many there were who could not bear the brilliance of his gaze and said that he was too hard on men: whether they be his enemies or those who had sworn him allegiance. But many more loved him precisely because he called them to find the best part of themselves and polish their souls until they sparkled like diamonds.

As he and my mother, with my brothers, took their places at table, ten warriors escorting a group of yellow-robed men appeared in the western portal. A silence befell the hall. All eyes turned toward these men, for they were Morjin’s emissaries: the hated Red Priests of the Kallimun. I, and many others, struggled to get a good look at these seven priests who had been locked in their rooms in the keep for the last three days. But the great cowls of their robes hid their faces. The warriors led them to the table next to that of the Alonians. There, scarcely twenty feet from my father’s withering gaze, they were seated.

And then the silence was suddenly broken as one of the knights near me cried out, ‘Must we take meat with them? Send them back to Sakai!’

And then Vikadar of Godhra, one of the fiercest knights in Mesh, shouted, ‘Send them back to the stars!’

His call for the priests to be executed out of hand gained the immediate approval of the more bloodthirsty in the hall. Next to me, Baltasar stood staring at the priests, and I could almost feel the heat of his ire beating through his veins. Many others burned for vengeance as well. But my father cooled the passions running through the hall with a sudden lifting of his hand. His bright eyes caught up Vikadar in reproach to remind him of one of Mesh’s most sacred laws: that anyone who willfully killed an emissary should himself be put to death.

‘It is said,’ my father called out in his strong, clear voice, ‘that these emissaries have been sent by Morjin to sue for peace. Very well – we shall hear what they have to say. But only after we’ve all taken meat.’

This was a signal that everyone still standing should take their seats. While Maram went off to join Lord Harsha and Behira at their table with Lord Tanu and Lord Tomavar, Master Juwain made his way toward his fellows of the Brotherhood. Sunjay and Baltasar sat with the other off-duty Guardians in the second tier of tables from the front of the hall. Upon taking my grandmother’s arm in mine, I walked with her to our family’s table where I pulled out her chair next to my father. I sat at the right end of the table next to my brother, Ravar. He had the face of a fox, and his dark, quick eyes flickered from my father to the cowled faces of the Red Priests at their table before us. His sharp and secretive smile reminded me that our father would not be moved by fear of Morjin’s men, which would be the same as admitting to fear of the Red Dragon himself.

It was strange eating our supper beneath the dais on which stood the Lightstone, guarded by thirty Knights of the Swan. Nevertheless, eat we all did: fishes and fowls, joints of mutton and whole suckling pigs roasted brown and sheeny with fat. There were loaves of black barley bread, too, and pies and puddings – and much else. The feast began with talk of war on the Wendrush. A minstrel from Eanna brought rumor that Yarkona had finally fallen, conquered in Morjin’s name by Count Ulanu the Cruel, who had been made that tormented realm’s new king. From the various tables lined up through the hall came the buzz of many voices. Although it was impossible to follow so many streams of conversation, I heard more than one person speak of the Maitreya. Some feared that unless the Shining One came forth soon to lay hands upon the Lightstone, its radiance would fade and it might even turn invisible again. Others, citing verses from the Saganom Elu, gave voice to forebodings of some great disaster that would befall Ea if the Maitreya wasn’t found and united with the golden cup. Too many of those present, I thought, cast quick, longing looks toward me before turning back to their neighbors to speak in hushed tones or taking up knives again to cut their meat.

Finally, after the last bit of gravy had been mopped up with the last crust of bread and every belly was full, brandy and beer were poured, and it came time for the many rounds of toasting. I watched Maram, sitting between Behira and the dour, old Lord Tanu, down glass after glass of thick, black beer. At our table, my family drank with less abandon. Next to me, Ravar nursed his single brandy, while next to him, the dashing Yarashan, who had once boasted that he could outdrink any man in Mesh, contented himself with two slow beers. Karshur, Jonathay and Mandru did likewise. Asaru, his fine and noble face alert for the verbal sparring with the emissaries that soon must come, drank only a single glass. And my father joined Nona and my mother, the beautiful Elianora wi Solaru, in taking only one small sip of beer with each toast.

After all honors and compliments had been made, it came time for that part of the feast that was less a gathering in good company than it was like battle and war. And so my father again held up his hand for silence. Then he called out into the hall: ‘We will now hear from the emissaries and all who wish to voice their concerns.’

The first to speak that night would be Prince Issur. As he pushed back his chair and stood to address my father, everyone turned toward the Ishkan table to hear what he would say.

3

Prince Issur was a rather homely-looking man with a narrow forehead and a nose too big for his face. But he was spirited and prudent, and I knew him to be capable of a sort of harsh justice, and even kindness. His long hair, tied with five battle ribbons, hung down over his bright red surcoat showing the great white bear of the Ishkan royal house.

‘King Shamesh,’ he said to my father, ‘King Hadaru bids me to remind you of your promise made on the field of the Raaswash: that the Lightstone is to be shared among all the Valari. More than half a year now the Cup of Heaven has resided here in Silvassu. King Hadaru bids me to ask you when it might be brought to Ishka?’

Despite the reasonableness of the man’s voice, some of King Hadaru’s arrogance and demanding ways shaded the words of his emissary. A murmur of discontent rumbled from the warriors and knights in the hall. Almost all of them had stood upon the field of the Raaswash when the delicate peace between Ishka and Mesh had been made. They must have recalled, as I did, how King Hadaru’s eldest son, Salmelu, had been exposed there as a betrayer of all the Valari and had been driven off forever from the Nine Kingdoms. If Prince Issur, however, suffered from the shame of his brother’s treason, he gave no sign of it.

Finally, my father nodded at Prince Issur and said, ‘The Lightstone shall be brought into Ishka, and the other kingdoms, soon.’

‘Soon,’ Prince Issur repeated as if the word had a sour taste. ‘Do you mean within a month, King Shamesh? Another half a year? Or might “soon” mean another century or even an age lasting three thousand years?’

Once, at the end of the Age of Swords, the great Aramesh had wrested the Lightstone from Morjin and had brought it back to this very castle, where my ancestors had kept it all during the long Age of Law.

‘Soon means soon,’ my father said to Prince Issur with a soft smile. ‘Arrangements are being made for that which you desire. May a little more patience be asked of King Hadaru?’

My father, I thought, was a wise man and deep. He knew very well, as did I, that the Ishkans had come to Mesh seeking to set a date for the Lightstone to be brought to King Hadaru’s palace in Loviisa. He knew, too, that the Ishkans expected to be put off with all the forcefulness for which my father was famed. Thus his gentle manner disarmed Prince Issur.

‘Perhaps a little more patience, then,’ Prince Issur said, flushing from the intensity of my father’s gaze. ‘Shall we say before autumn’s first snow?’

‘Autumn is less than half a year away,’ my father said. ‘With the Red Dragon on the march again and kingdoms going up in flames, it will come soon enough – all too soon.’

He motioned for Prince Issur to take his seat; despite himself, Prince Issur did so. Although he must have been aware that my father had made no real commitment, he would take back to Ishka the impression that my father desired the same thing as did King Hadaru. And, truly, my father did. The duties of kingship might demand that he remain flexible in his strategies, but he would never stoop to deception or outright lies.

Even so, I knew that he hated having to make such oblique responses, that it went against his honest nature. He turned toward me then, and flashed me a quick look as if to say, ‘Do you think it is hard being King? What must it be like, then, to be the Maitreya?’

As I sat pondering this mystery, I became aware of the many people covertly watching me, as they had all through the feast. I felt as well a smoldering malevolence directed at me; it stirred me to memory of another night just before the quest when Prince Issur’s brother, Salmelu, had sat with the Ishkans silently beating me to death with his hateful heart. I hadn’t known then that he had gone over to Morjin, that he was the assassin who had fired a kirax-tipped arrow at me in a dark wood. Despite the sensitivity of my gift, I hadn’t been able to determine which of the hundreds of faces concealed the wish to make me dead.

My father’s eyes now fell upon the Alonian table, and he called out, ‘Count Dario – will you speak for Alonia?’

Count Dario, a small, dapper man, stood up quickly as his fingers smoothed the red hairs of his moustache and goatee. Then he bowed his head to my father. ‘King Shamesh, you have sent emissaries to all the Free Kingdoms to call for a conclave here in Silvassu that we might make alliance to oppose Morjin. But King Kiritan bids me to inform you that this cannot be. The conclave must be held in Tria. King Kiritan has sent word to each of the Free Kingdoms that the conclave will commence on the twenty-eighth of Marud. What do you say to this?’

I felt anger surge through my father’s chest as he said, ‘That your king must have a great grievance against me that he would insult me so.’

Lord Harsha and Lord Tanu – and many others across the hall – angrily nodded their heads in support of my father’s outrage.

Count Dario now shot me a quick, sharp look. Then he stabbed his short finger toward the Lightstone as he turned back to my father and said, ‘Last year, on the seventh of Soldru in Tria, on the night that King Kiritan called the Quest, all the knights who would recover the Lightstone vowed to seek it for all of Ea and not themselves. The Cup of Heaven was to be brought into Tria, from where the questers went forth. King Kiritan would ask King Shamesh why this has not been done?’

While Count Dario awaited my father’s answer, Maram suddenly arose and wobbled on his beer-weakened legs. He was drunk enough to forget all protocol – but not so drunk that he was willing to let Count Dario’s words stand unchallenged.

‘King Shamesh!’ he called out, ‘may I speak?’ Without waiting for permission, he turned toward Count Dario and continued, ‘I stood with the knights who made vows at your king’s birthday party; I stood with Master Juwain Zadoran and Lord Valashu Elahad, who are here this night. I remember vowing that our quest to find the Lightstone would not end unless illness, wounds or death struck us down first. Well, illness of the soul anyone will suffer if they go into Argattha. Of wounds we had many, and death struck down the fairest of us in the Kul Moroth. Even so, our quest didn’t end, as all can see. We did vow to seek the Lightstone for all of Ea. But we never said that we would deliver it to King Kiritan, who remained safe behind his kingdom’s walls.’

Maram, puffing and sweating from his little speech, suddenly dropped back into his chair. I thought that he was rather pleased that he had slurred only a few of his words.

Count Dario seemed to be fighting back a smile as he bowed his head toward Maram. ‘All the questers must be honored, especially those who went into Argattha and returned. I would not presume to gainsay Prince Maram. But I must strongly declare that it was understood the Lightstone was to be brought to Tria. This was the spirit of the questers’ vows.’

From the dais above our table, where the thirty Guardians stood glaring at Count Dario, the Lightstone’s radiance poured down upon my father’s black and silver hair. He calmly regarded Count Dario, and there was steel in his voice as he said, ‘Surely those who made vows are best able to interpret their spirit. Even so, we are all agreed that the Lightstone is for all of Ea, even as you have heard. Soon it will be brought to Ishka – soon.’

‘Then are we also agreed that it will be brought to Tria soon after?’

‘That may be.’

‘King Kiritan would ask you to agree that the Lightstone should be kept in Tria, where it will be safest.’

My father’s face was grave as he said, ‘Where is safety to be found in this world? Wasn’t it only last year, at King Kiritan’s birthday celebration, that one of his own barons nearly assassinated him?’

‘Baron Narcavage, as you must know,’ Count Dario said, glancing at the priests at table next to him, ‘had gone over to Morjin. The plot was crushed – you can be sure that my king’s other nobles remain loyal to him.’

‘That is good. There’s little enough of surety in this world, either.’

Count Dario’s cool blue eyes tried to hold the brilliance of my father’s gaze as he said, ‘Come, King Shamesh, what do you say as to my king’s request?’

‘That it is not mine, alone, to grant.’

‘No? Whose is it, then?’

My father shifted about in his chair to regard the Lightstone for a long few moments. He bowed his head to the Guardians who protected it. Then he turned back to Count Dario. ‘You speak of a permanent residence for that which was meant to reside in one place, and one place only.’

‘In this hall, do you mean?’

Count Dario stood bristling with insult while Prince Issur seemed ready to leap out of his chair to speak again.

And then my father said, ‘The Lightstone was meant to reside in the hands of the Maitreya. Only he can decide its home – and its fate.’

Count Dario’s face brightened as if he had been given the keenest of weapons to wield. ‘You will be glad to know then that it is almost certain that the Maitreya has been found: in a village near Adavam. His name is Joakim.’

‘Is this the blacksmith of which we have heard?’

‘Yes – but he has been taken to Tria to prepare for a higher calling.’

Count Dario went on to say that Joakim now resided at the King’s palace where Ea’s greatest scholars, healers and alchemists were refining his talents and preparing him to take his place in history.

Here Master Juwain stood clutching the much-worn traveling volume of the Saganom Elu that he always carried. He called out, ‘King Shamesh, may I speak?’

‘Please do, Master Juwain.’

After flipping through the pages of his book, Master Juwain called out even more strongly as he read a passage from Beginnings: ‘“Grace cannot be gained like diamonds or gold. By the hand of the One, and not the knowledge of men, the Maitreya is made.”’ He closed his book and held it out toward Count Dario as if challenging him to read it, too.

‘Those are curious words for a master of the Brotherhood to give us,’ Count Dario said. ‘Who reveres knowledge more than Master Juwain?’

‘Perhaps one who knows the limits of knowledge.’

‘Excuse me, but doesn’t the Brotherhood teach that men must use all possible knowledge to perfect themselves? That, ultimately, it is their destiny to gain the glory of the Elijin and the Galadin?’

Just then Flick appeared in the space near my head and soared out into the hall in a spiral of silver lights. He swept past the table of the Red Priests, who appeared not to see him. It was strange, I thought, that perhaps only one person out of ten was able to apprehend his fiery form.

‘What you say is true,’ Master Juwain told Count Dario. ‘But I’m afraid that one cannot become the Maitreya this way.’

‘Do you deny then the wisdom of King Kiritan’s decision to instruct the blacksmith’s boy?’

‘No – only that he wasn’t brought to the Brotherhood to be taught.’

It was plain that Count Dario and Master Juwain might continue such an argument for hours. And so my father finally held up his hand for silence. He regarded Count Dario and said, ‘If King Kiritan truly believes this Joakim to be the Maitreya, then why wasn’t he brought here with you, that he might stand before the Lightstone? That we all might see if he can hold its radiance and give it back to us, in his eyes, hands and heart?’

Count Dario gazed up at the golden bowl upon its stand. Then he looked at my father and said, ‘You have your treasure, King Shamesh, and we Alonians have ours, which we must keep safe behind Tria’s walls.’

He went on to tell of the great passions that Joakim had aroused throughout his land. Many of Alonia’s greatest barons, he said, were demanding of King Kiritan that the Lightstone be delivered into Joakim’s hands. He hinted that they were actually calling for a war to liberate the golden cup from Mesh. Only King Kiritan stood between them and what would be the greatest of tragedies. If Count Dario could be believed, King Kiritan was a noble figure trying to control his bellicose barons for the sake of Mesh – and all of Ea.

After he had finished speaking, my father stared at him as he said, ‘You must thank your king for his forbearance on our behalf.’

‘That I shall do, but it is not your thanks he requires.’

As my father’s stare grew cold and clear as diamonds in deep winter, Count Dario pulled at his goatee and said, ‘King Kiritan knows what a sacrifice it would be to send the Lightstone to a distant land. Therefore he offers a gift, a very great gift, in return.’

Here he turned toward me and said, ‘On the night the Quest was called, almost every noble in Alonia heard Lord Valashu Elahad ask for Princess Atara’s hand in marriage. If the Lightstone is brought to Tria, King Kiritan would bless this marriage. And our two kingdoms might unite in strength against Morjin.’

A thrill of excitement shot through me as if I had been struck by a lightning bolt. Count Dario had spoken of King Kiritan’s approval of the one thing I most desired. King Kiritan, who had once denigrated Mesh as a savage little kingdom and me as a ragged adventurer, must have thought that he was granting both the greatest of boons.

I stood up then, and to Count Dario I said, ‘King Kiritan’s generosity is famous, but even he cannot give away Atara’s heart.’

It was the greatest torment I had ever known that Atara could not look at me in love – and would never consent to marry me so long as she couldn’t.

‘If my king can rule the greatest of Ea’s kingdoms,’ Count Dario said to me, ‘then surely he can rule his own daughter.’

As I recalled the deep and lovely light that had once filled Atara’s eyes before Morjin had torn them out, a terrible pain lanced through my head. I gasped out, ‘Can one rule starfire?’

‘You ask that, Lord Valashu? You, whom it’s said would be Lord of Light itself?’

And with this rebuke he sat back down in his chair. So did I. Many people were looking at me. As before, I felt the red-hot nails of someone’s hate pounding through me. It was not Count Dario, however, who drove this deadly emotion into me. I was as sure of this as I was the direction of my mother’s loving gaze or the compassion in my father’s eyes. For my gift of valarda had quickened since the gaining of the Lightstone, and it flared stronger in its presence. Now, as I sat looking out at the hundreds of men and women in the hall, my heart beat most quickly when I turned toward the table next to that of the Alonians. There sat the seven Red Priests of the Kallimun. I could not make out any of their faces, for they sat with their heads hung low and their yellow cowls concealing them. I dreaded discovering that one of them might have been among the priests who had tortured Master Juwain – and Atara – in Argattha.

My father nodded at Count Dario, and said, ‘You must thank King Kiritan for the offer of his daughter in marriage. It must be difficult to trade so great a treasure for a little gold bowl.’

A donkey, eyeing an apple dangling in front of his nose, might be impelled in its direction, especially if whipped in its hindquarters by a stick. But my father was no donkey. He would not be tempted by a marriage alliance with Alonia, much less moved by King Kiritan’s badly veiled threat of war.

‘Surely,’ my father added, staring at Count Dario, ‘King Kiritan will succeed in controlling his barons, whether or not the Lightstone is brought into Tria. As you have said, they will remain loyal to him, won’t they?’

Having rather neatly finessed Count Dario and his king’s demand for the Lightstone, my father said, ‘As for the conclave being held in Tria, it will be difficult to persuade the Valari kings to meet there.’

And with that, he turned toward one of these kings. This was King Kurshan of Lagash, who now stood on his long legs to address my father and all gathered in the hall. His blue tunic, embroidered with the white Tree of Life, fell about his long form as he turned his much-scarred visage toward my father and said, ‘Tria is far from the Nine Kingdoms, as is Sakai. We Valari need not fear invasions from outland kings, be they the Lord of Lies or those who should be allies against him. No, our worst enemy will remain ourselves.’

King Kurshan, I thought, had the good grace not to publicly reveal his desire to make a marriage for his daughter: to Asaru or me. I waited for him to say more.

‘For far too long,’ he continued, ‘we Valari have made war against other Valari … because we have forgotten who we really are.’

He stared up at the Lightstone, and for a moment he seemed transported to another world. As he looked back at my father and resumed his speech, his words, too, seemed those of another world: ‘It is said that once we Valari sailed the heavens from star to star. Why can’t we do so again? In two weeks, lords and kings from Lagash to Mesh will meet in Nar at the great Tournament. Why can’t we agree there, as one people, to build a fleet of ships such has never been seen in Ea? For it is said, too, that the waters of all worlds in the universe flow together. If we were to sail across the Alonian sea and into the ocean, we might find at last the Northern Passage to the worlds where the angels walk. The Lightstone will show the way. It was meant for the hands of the Maitreya, yes – but surely not only for his hands.’

So saying, he sat back down in his chair. The hall was so quiet that I could almost hear the quick burn of his breath. No one seemed to know if he were more than a little mad – or touched with great dreams.

For once my father seemed at a loss for words. Finally, he smiled at King Kurshan and forced out, ‘That … is a beautiful idea. Perhaps we will build ships to sail the heavens’ starry sea. You are a man of vision.’

The ferocious-seeming King Kurshan returned his smile like a little boy praised for a painting he has made. Then my father’s gaze swept out into the hall. His eyes fixed upon a table near its far end where three women dressed in white robes sat with other outlanders and exiles. And my father called out, ‘It seems that it is time that we heard of other visions, as well. Kasandra of Ar would speak to us tonight.’

Kasandra was a tiny woman who seemed as ancient as the cracked stone of the walls. As she struggled to rise out of her chair, Lord Tanu stood up at his table and called out, ‘Sire, it might be best if this scryer were made to hold her tongue. We should not have to hear the words of distant oracles, most of which are corrupt.’

His hand swept out toward Kasandra and the two women who accompanied her. ‘More to the point, these scryers are from Galda, and so who knows if they are Morjin’s agents or spies?’

Lord Tanu, I thought, was a crabby and suspicious man. He would mistrust the sun itself because it rose first over the mountains of another land. I sensed that his words wounded Kasandra. There she stood, old and nearly bent double with the weight of some prophecy that she had traveled many miles to deliver – and her shame at Lord Tanu’s loathing of scryers burned through her, as it did me.

And so I stood up and tried to make light of his insult. I, who had too often listened uncomprehending as Atara spoke of her visions, called out to Lord Tanu and the others in the hall: ‘The real difficulty is in understanding the words of any scryer. It’s like trying to grasp fish bare-handed in the middle of a rushing stream.’

But if I had hoped to cool Kasandra’s rising anger, I hoped in vain. Kasandra looked across the hall toward me, and her sharp, old voice cracked out like thunder: ‘I must tell you, Valashu Elahad, I have brought words that you will want to hold onto with all the strength you can summon.’

From the pocket of her robe, she took out a small, clear scryer’s crystal that sparkled in the sudden radiance pouring from the Lightstone.

‘This is the vision that I and my sisters have seen: that you, Valashu Elahad, will find the Maitreya in the darkest of places; that the blood of the innocent will stain your hands; that a ghul will undo your dreams; that a man with no face will show you your own.’

She stared at me as my heart beat three times, hard, behind the bones of my chest. And then, without waiting for Lord Tanu or others to question her, she gathered up her sister scryers and stormed past the rows of tables and out through the western portal.

A dreadful silence fell upon the hall. No one moved; no one said anything. Her words seemed to hang in the air like black clouds. I knew, with a shiver that chilled my soul, that she had spoken truly. I wanted to leap up and follow her, to ask her the meaning of her prophecy. But just then a blast of hatred drove into my belly and left me gasping for breath.

While my father and family sat nearly frozen in their chairs, I struggled to turn toward the table of the Red Priests. The red dragons emblazoned on their yellow robes seemed to burn my eyes like fire. These seven men, I thought, were the descendants in spirit of others who had once crucified a thousand Valari warriors along the road to Argattha and had drunk their blood. And now one of them, I thought, perhaps incited by Kasandra’s words, was crucifying me with his eyes and sucking at my soul. I looked for his face beneath the drooping cowls, but all I could see were shadows. And then I looked with a different sense.

All men and women burn with passions such as hatred and love, exuberance, envy and fear. These flames of their beings gather inside each person in a unique pattern that blazes with various colors: the red twists of rage, the yellow tint of cowardice, the bright blue bands of impossible dreams. And now the flames of one of these priests – the tall one hunched over his glass of brandy – came roaring out of the black cavern of memory and burned me with their fiery signature. With a sudden certainty that made my hand close around the hilt of my sword, I knew that I knew this man all too well.

And he knew it, too. For he raised up his head in a pride beyond mere arrogance and threw back his robe’s yellow cowl. As he stood up to face me, one of the warriors called out, ‘It’s the traitor! It’s Salmelu Aradar!’

‘He’s been banished from Mesh!’ someone else shouted. ‘On pain of death, he’s been banished!’

‘Send him back to the stars!’ a familiar voice cried out.

I looked across the hall to see Baltasar standing with his sword half-drawn as he trembled to advance upon Salmelu.

‘Hold!’ my father called to him. To Salmelu, he said, ‘You have been denied fire, bread and salt while on Meshian soil. Yet here you stand, having taken much more than bread with us tonight!’

‘It is true that Salmelu of Ishka has been banished,’ Salmelu said. He was an ugly man, with a great bear-snout of a nose and a scar that seamed his face from his low hairline to his weak chin. His small eyes, black as pools of pitch, smoldered with spite for my father and me. ‘But you should know, I am Salmelu no longer, for he is dead. You may call me Igasho, which is the new name Lord Morjin has given me.’

On the middle of his forehead was tattooed Morjin’s mark: a coiled, red dragon. Some months before, by the banks of the Raaswash, I had exposed this mark for all to behold – and exposed Salmelu as a traitor and aspiring priest of the Kallimun. In the time since then, Salmelu must have travelled to Sakai to be confirmed in Morjin’s evil priesthood. And returned here as the chief of Morjin’s emissaries.

‘It doesn’t matter if he’s called Igasho or Salmelu … or the Dark One himself!’ Baltasar cried out, sliding out his sword another inch. ‘A corpse by any other name would smell as foul. Let us put this one in the ground!’

‘No, hold!’ my father commanded. ‘Whatever this Igasho is, he is Morjin’s lawful emissary and may not be harmed. On pain of death, Baltasar – on pain of death.’

It cost my father much to deliver these words, especially in sight of Lansar Raasharu, who was not only his seneschal, but his oldest friend. Lord Raasharu sat at his table frozen to his seat; he stared at Baltasar and silently implored his son to put away his sword. As Baltasar’s kalama slid back into its sheath with a loud click, Lord Raasharu breathed a heavy sigh of thanks.

‘You,’ my father said to Salmelu, ‘defile the sacred calling of the emissary. But an emissary you still are, and you have come here to speak for Morjin. So then, speak.’

Salmelu – or Igasho – lifted up his head in triumph. He moved toward the center of the room so that he stood directly in front of the Lightstone, and he fairly whipped out these words: ‘Tonight you have heard one scryer’s prophecy. I bring you another, from Sakai: that the Day of the Dragon is at hand. For it has been foretold that Lord Morjin will regain the Cup of Heaven that was stolen from him.’

Here his hand pointed like a sword straight past my father’s head at the Lightstone. ‘Your son, King Shamesh, stole this from Lord Morjin’s throne room, and my king demands that it be returned!’

‘That’s a lie!’ Maram roared out, rising from his chair. ‘How can Morjin claim as stolen that which he himself stole long ago?’

Salmelu cast Maram a look of scorn as if to ask why he – or anyone – should listen to the words of a drunkard. Then he turned and pointed his finger at me.

‘You broke into the sacred city of Argattha – and broke into Lord Morjin’s private rooms themselves. You are a thief who took gelstei from my lord: a bloodstone and the very Lightstone that now shines above you. You are a liar who has told false as to how you came by these things. And you are a murderer: how many, Valashu Elahad, did you put to the sword in making your escape? You even butchered a poor beast, the dragon, Angraboda, who was only trying to guard her eggs from you.’

Salmelu paced back and forth in front of my family’s table, here pausing to stab his finger at me as he made a point, there sneering at me as he spat out his filthy accusations. He was all of Morjin’s rage and hate, which bubbled up in his blood like poison and transformed him from a once-proud Valari warrior into a snarling, vengeful mockery of a man.

Once before, in King Hadaru’s palace, Salmelu’s lies had nearly driven me mad. And so I had challenged him to a duel that left him with terrible wounds – and had nearly killed me. Now, in the heart of my father’s castle, I placed my hands flat upon the cool wood of the table before me where I could see them. I commanded them not to move.

‘You,’ Samelu said, pointing at me again, ‘are also an assassin who tried to murder Lord Morjin. Is any crime so great as regicide?’

Once, in a dark wood not far from this place, Salmelu had fired into my body an arrow tipped with kirax in which Morjin had set his spite. The poison would always burn through my veins and connect me heart to heart with Morjin. His Red Priest, Salmelu who was now Igasho, continued firing poison into me in the form of his hateful words.

‘And now you,’ he continued, ‘pose as the Lord of Light when you know that it is Lord Morjin who has been called to lead Ea into the new age.’

My hands, welded to the table by the stickiness of some spilt beer, no less my will, remained motionless. But I could not keep my lips from forming these words: ‘If the Maitreya is Morjin, then light is dark, love is hate, and good has become evil.’

‘You speak of evil, Lord Valashu? You speak that of one who is famed for his forgivingness?’

So saying, he removed from his pocket a small, gilded box. He stepped forward and laid it on the table just beyond the tips of my fingers.

‘What is this?’ I asked.

‘A gift from Lord Morjin.’

‘I want nothing from him!’ I said, staring at the box. ‘It cannot be accepted.’

‘But it belongs to you. Or, I should say, to one of your friends.’

I looked across the hall to see Maram craning his neck to get a glimpse of what the box might hold. Baltasar, too, had half risen out of his seat.

‘Don’t open it, Val!’ Master Juwain called from his table. ‘Give it back to him!’

At last, as if my hands had a life and will of their own, they moved to grasp the box and open it. I threw back its lid and gasped to see inside two small spheres that looked like chunks of charred meat. They stank of hemlock and sumac and acids used to tan flesh. I coughed and choked and swallowed hard against the bile rising up from my belly. For I knew with a sudden and great bitterness what these two spheres were: Atara’s eyes that Morjin had clawed out with his own fingers and cast into a brazier full of red-hot coals.

Every abomination, I thought. Every degradation of the human spirit.

‘Do you see?’ Samelu said to me. His mocking voice beat at me like a war drum. ‘Lord Morjin would return this treasure to your woman by your hand. And now the Cup of Heaven must be returned to him.’

Despite myself, I moved my fingers to touch these blackened orbs that I had once touched with my lips; it was as if I had touched the blackness at the very center of Morjin’s heart. I felt myself falling into a bottomless abyss. I leapt up as I whipped out my sword and pointed it at Salmelu.

‘I’ll return you to the stars!’ I shouted at him.

‘Hold!’ my father called out. ‘Hold him, Ravar!’

Quick as an arrow, Ravar flew out of his chair and grabbed hold of me. So did Asaru and Karshur, who came up behind me and locked their arms around me as they clasped me close to their strong bodies.

‘Do you see?’ Salmelu cried out again as he backed away from my table. ‘Do you see what a murderer this Elahad is?’

Truly, I thought, I was a murderer of men. And now I struggled like a madman against my brothers in a rage to stab my sword through Salmelu’s vile mouth. I almost broke free. For my rage was like a poison that my brothers absorbed through their skin and which weakened their will to keep me from slaying Salmelu.

‘Val!’ Asaru gasped in my ear as his hand closed like an iron manacle around my arm. ‘Be still!’

But I could not be still. For something bright and terrible was moving inside me. Once, in the lightless depths of Argattha, Morjin had told me that my gift of valarda was like a double-edged sword: as well as being opened by others’ emotions, I might wield mine against men to cut and control. Master Juwain had taught me that I must learn to use the valarda, for good, as I might my hands or eyes. But my hands trembled to grasp the hilt of my sword and make murder; my eyes were as blind and blackened with hate as Atara’s.

‘Val!’ a familiar voice cried out from across the hall. ‘Oh, Val!’

A black, blazing hatred for Salmelu and Morjin built hotter and hotter inside me. As the valarda opened me to the men and women in the hall, and them to me, they felt this, too. They looked at me in loathing and awe. But a hundred feet away, Baltasar Raasharu arose from his chair and looked toward me as if awaiting my command.

‘Do you see?’ Salmelu cried out again as he began walking down the rows of tables toward Baltasar. He was that curious type of coward who must continually prove his bravery by goading others. ‘Valashu Elahad would even have his friends murder for him. And so he would throw their lives away – as he did with the minstrel in the Kul Moroth.’

At last, I could hold the agony no longer. My eyes found Baltasar’s, and the burning steel of my fury for Salmelu struck straight into my young friend’s heart. His sword flashed forth as he cried out and leapt toward Salmelu. Probably Salmelu had calculated that the knights at the nearby tables would grab hold of him. But Baltasar moved too quickly to be so easily stopped.

It was the Lightstone that saved Salmelu’s life – and Baltasar’s. (And perhaps my own.) As I twisted and turned against my brothers’ frantic hands, the little cup began shining more brightly from its stand behind me. In its sudden, clear radiance, I saw many things: that Baltasar would truly die for me, not because I wished it, but because he loved me even more than he hated Salmelu or his dreadful lord. And so he would not let me be the one to slay Salmelu. The Lightstone cast its splendor on his noble face, and I saw in him the finest flower of Valari knighthood about to cut down Salmelu – and thus be cut down by the failing of my heart.

Baltasar.

The One’s creations, I saw, were so beautiful. The promise of life was so sweet and good and great. And yet, in the world, so much evil, so much pain. I couldn’t understand it; I knew I never would. And yet I would give anything, tear out my own heart, to keep the promise for Baltasar, and for everyone: to see them become the great beings we were born to be.

‘Baltasar!’ I cried out.

The Lightstone blazed with a sudden brilliance like a star. As it burned brighter and brighter, its radiance worked in me a miracle much greater than the transmutation of lead into gold. For, in one magical moment, it turned my hatred of Salmelu and Morjin into an overpowering love for Baltasar. How could I hold such a beautiful thing? And how could my brothers now hold me? My whole being filled with a force that gave me the strength of ten men. It poured through me like a golden fire. As I broke free from Asaru’s grasp, I raised up my silver sword and pointed it at Baltasar. He had finally closed with Salmelu, and his sword lifted high above his head to cut him in two.

‘Baltasar!’ I cried out again.

But this was no sound from my throat nor name made by my lips, but only the peal of the bright and beautiful thing inside me. Like a lightning bolt directed by my sword, it suddenly flashed forth from me and streaked across the room. I felt it break open Baltasar’s heart. Everyone in the hall, my father and brothers, my mother and grandmother – even Salmelu himself – felt this, too. Baltasar felt it most deeply of all. The steel mask of fury melted from him. He hesitated as he turned toward me, and his face was all golden in the Lightstone’s overpowering radiance. We regarded each other in wonder, and something more.

‘The Sword of Light!’ a woman called out, pointing toward me.

I looked down to see that the silustria of my sword was flaring brightly – almost as brightly as the sword of valarda inside me. But soon, even as the wildly gleaming Lightstone began to fade, so did both swords, in my hand and heart.

‘The Sword of Love!’

I lowered my sword called Alkaladur and sheathed it at the same moment that Baltasar put away his. His smile fell upon me like the rising of the sun.

‘Oh, Val!’ he whispered.

Everyone in the hall was staring at me. From Lord Harsha’s table, Maram and Behira regarded me proudly, and even old Lord Tanu seemed to have forgotten his mistrust of all things. Master Juwain quietly bowed his head to me, and so did Asaru, Karshur and my father. My mother’s gaze held only adoration for me, while Count Dario looked at me in fear. The faces of too many knights and nobles were full of awe – as was Salmelu’s. For a moment, his whole being seemed wiped clean of the spite that poisoned him. He stared at me as if he couldn’t quite believe what had happened. But then, as the Lightstone faded back to its appearance as a small, golden cup, Salmelu returned to his hateful self. His ugly face took on its familiar lines of envy, arrogance and malice.

‘You,’ he said to me with a shame that burned his face, ‘have drawn on one who no longer bears a sword of his own. But perhaps some day I will again, and then we’ll see whose sword is quicker.’

He marched through the hall straight up to my table. From another pocket in his yellow robes, he removed a sealed letter and slammed it down on the table before me. ‘This is for you! From Lord Morjin!’

And with that, he gathered together his fellow priests and stormed out of the hall.

In that great room, with its many great personages, there was a silence that lasted many long moments. And then Lansar Raasharu, the foremost lord in Mesh, stood up.

‘You have saved my son from a terrible dishonor,’ he said as he bowed his head to me. Then he glanced at my father’s stern face and added, ‘And death.’

He went on to say that what he had witnessed, and felt, that night was nothing less than a miracle.

‘Baltasar has always been too wild, too quick with his sword – and you have stayed his hand.’ Lord Raasharu now turned away from me so that his words might carry out into the hall. ‘Has it not been told in the ancient prophecies that the Maitreya will be known by just such miracles? What could be greater than the healing of the hatred in a man’s heart?’

Not hating at all, I thought as I recalled the sword that I had put into Baltasar’s hand.

Lord Raasharu’s strong voice called out to the hundreds in the hall who listened raptly: ‘Only a short while ago, we have had another prophecy, from the Galdan scryer: that Valashu would find the Maitreya in the darkest of places. What could be darker than finding this Lord of Light inside the dark cavern of one’s own heart?’

He turned back to me, and bowed his head again, this time more deeply. ‘Lord Valashu – Lord of Light. You are he. You must be. The way the Lightstone flared when you called to it, so bright, almost impossible.’

He looked up at the Lightstone shimmering on its stand and I heard him whisper, ‘I never knew, I never knew.’

Awe colored the faces of many men and women turned toward me. I heard Lord Tanu’s wife, Dashira, call out, ‘Lord of Light!’ while three of the Guardians standing near the Lightstone on the dais above me spoke as one, saying, ‘Maitreya!’ Others took up this call, too, and through the hall rang shouts of, ‘Maitreya! Maitreya! Maitreya!’

This single name, repeated again and again, was sweeter than honey and more intoxicating than whole barrels of brandy.

‘Lord Valashu, claim the Lightstone!’ Lord Raasharu said to me. Many loud voices, and Lord Raasharu’s the loudest of all, began urging me on toward what seemed my fate. They almost drowned out a much quieter voice whispering inside me. How could I be the Maitreya, I asked myself? I, who had trembled with murderous wrath only moments before? My father, his bright eyes fixed on me, seemed to be asking me this same question.

And then Master Juwain smiled at me with the happiness of hope fulfilled even as Baltasar came forward and stood at the end of my table. He pulled me up from my chair and embraced me; he kissed my forehead and said, ‘My life is yours – thank you, friend.’

‘Thank you,’ I said to him. If not for his wild charge toward Salmelu, I might have charged instead. And my father would have had to order my death. ‘My life is yours, again. How can it be repaid?’

He smiled and didn’t hesitate as he said, ‘Claim the Lightstone.’

I smiled, too, as I slowly nodded my head. Then I clasped his hand in mine. To the acclaim of Lord Raasharu and Lord Tomavar – and many others – I turned and mounted the dais behind me. The Guardians in their gleaming suits of mail made two rows on either side of the Lightstone. I stepped straight toward the stand holding up the golden bowl. I felt Alkaladur, at my side, resonating with it. I felt inside for a like resonance of my heart, which it was said was the endowment of the Maitreya – and the Maitreya alone.

All my life, I whispered to myself.

All my life I had longed for one thing above all else. But it was the greatest of ironies that I, whose heart was so open to others, was forced by fate to stand apart from them. For if I did not, their lusts and passions would burn through me and annihilate me utterly. And so I had to climb through a stark and terrible inner landscape to the top of the highest mountain in the world. There the air was cold and thin and bitter. There I breathed the pain of being ever alone. All my life I had known that there must be a cure for the gift that afflicted me, if only I had the courage to find it.

And now, as I stood upon the hard stone dais in my father’s hall, I gazed at a little bowl that seemed to hold within its golden hollows all the secrets of life. I knew that it might be used to touch into life the infinite seeds of brotherhood waiting to burst forth inside all men – and so to touch that infinite tree that shone with the light of the One. And then the pain of being would vanish in a deeper flame, and the promise of life would at last be fulfilled. And no man or woman would ever stand alone again.

‘Lord of Light!’ someone called out as if from far away. Another voice joined his, and then two, ten and a hundred more. In the rawness of their throats was an aching to come together as a great and beautiful force. ‘Lord of Light! Lord of Light! Lord of Light!’

To want to see men and women standing tall as oaks, the sun rising warm upon their faces, whole, happy and unafraid; to see them healed of suffering in the light of that deep joy which pours itself out through their hearts and unites them in glory with all things; to want this for myself and all those I loved, and for everyone – was this so wrong?

‘Claim it, Valashu!’ someone else called to me. ‘Claim the Lightstone!’

Five feet in front of me, on its white granite stand, the little cup of gold gelstei was waiting for me to lay my hands upon it. The thirty Guardians to either side of me were waiting with their eyes grown bright as stars; in the hall behind me, my father and friends and hundreds of others were gazing at me in silent expectation. Even the portraits of my ancestors along the cold stone walls seemed to be looking down at me and demanding that I fulfill my fate.

About the Maitreya one thing is known, I suddenly remembered. That to himself, the Maitreya always is known.

‘I must be he,’ I whispered to myself. ‘I must be.’

And then fear struck me to the core as my hands began to sweat and I remembered other words from the Saganom Elu: If a man comes forth in falseness as the Shining One concealing darkness in his heart, if he claims the Lightstone for his own, then he shall become a new Red Dragon, only mightier and more terrible.

‘So much evil in the world,’ I whispered. ‘So much pain.’

At last, I stepped forward and placed my hands around the curve of the bowl. Its cool golden surface seemed instantly to sear my flesh. It was like trying to grasp the fiery substance of a star. The pain was so great I could hardly hold it. But beneath the pain, a deeper and more beautiful thing.

I turned as I lifted the Lightstone high for all to see. And then I called out into the hall: ‘It is not yet determined who the Maitreya really is. There are tests still to be made. As far as I know, I am only the Lightstone’s Guardian, a Knight of the Swan.’

So saying, I set the Lightstone back on its stand. I looked down at my hands to see if they had been charred black. But the flesh of my palms and fingers showed only its familiar ivory tones and remained untouched.

‘Lord of Light!’ someone below me cried out. ‘Lord of Light!’

Sounds of disappointment and protest now rumbled through the hall. It came to me then that the more I denied that I was the Maitreya, the more that others might interpret this as humility and so be even more inclined to acclaim me as the Shining One.

‘Lord of Light! Lord of Light! Lord of Light!’

I was keenly aware, however, that while I hadn’t claimed to be the Maitreya, I hadn’t denied it, either. It tormented me to remember that Morjin had struck a similar pose before his evil priests in Argattha.

After that, my father announced that the feast had come to an end. The various knights, ladies and lords began standing up from their tables and exited the hall to repair to their chambers. The thirty Guardians remained at their post, the steel rings of their mail reflecting the Lightstone’s abiding radiance. Their bright, black eyes remained ever watchful, ever awake, ever aware – and now aware of me in a way that they hadn’t been before.

So it was with Lansar Raasharu, who was one of last to say goodnight. He seemed not to want to leave my side. The wonder with which he now regarded me filled me with a gnawing disquiet.

I returned to my family’s table, where I retrieved the box that Salmelu had set before me. I resolved to bury its contents deep within the earth. Morjin’s letter I picked up with fevered hands and tucked down inside my armor. I didn’t know how I would find the courage to open it.

I stood for a long time staring up at the Lightstone as the words of Kasandra’s prophecy burned themselves deeper and deeper into my mind: that I would find the Maitreya in the darkest of places; that the blood of an innocent would stain my hands; that a ghul would undo my dreams; that a man with no face would show me my own.

4

My father, before he left the hall, informed me that there was to be a gathering in his rooms. While he walked on ahead with Asaru, Nona and my mother, I proceeded more slowly with Master Juwain and Maram, who had also been invited to this unusual midnight meeting. Maram was in his cups, and in no condition to hurry. I offered my arm around his back to steady him, but he shook me off, saying, ‘Thank you my friend, but I’m not that drunk – not yet. Of course, your father has promised me some of his best brandy. Otherwise, I would have been tempted to find Dasha and recite a few lines that I composed during the feast.’

‘Dasha?’ I said, shaking my head. ‘You mean Behira, don’t you?’

‘Ah, Behira – yes, yes, Behira.’

We made our way down the short corridor connecting the hall to the castle’s keep. There we found another corridor leading straight to my father’s rooms. Most of his guests had already retired for the night, but from the deeps of this great building came sounds of low voices and heavy oak doors creaking and closing. We passed by the infirmary, which was quiet enough, though a stench of medicines and bitter herbs emanated from it, as well as a more ancient odor of anguish of all the sick and dying who had ever lain inside. To me, carrying Salmelu’s wooden box, brooding upon Kasandra’s warning, it seemed to be the very essence of the castle itself, and it overlay other odors of burnt flesh from the kitchens and the centuries of candle smoke that darkened the stone ceiling and walls. I was glad to pass by the empty library and the servants’ quarters and so to come to the great door to my parents’ rooms. For inside, there had always been happier scents: of soap and wax from the well-scrubbed floors; of flowers that my mother arranged in vases and the honey-cakes that she liked to serve with tea and cream; and most of all, the air of safety and steadfastness with which my father ordered all things within his realm.

Asaru opened the door for us and invited us inside. There we removed our boots and joined my father, mother and grandmother, who were sitting around the edge of a fine Galdan carpet. My father disdained chairs, claiming that they weakened one’s back and encouraged poor posture; to suit convention, he filled his hall with many tables and chairs but would allow none in his rooms. I looked around this large chamber as I drank in its familiar contents: the two fireplaces filled with fresh white logs and the six braziers heaped with the coals of fragrant woods that helped drive away the castle’s omnipresent chill; a cherrywood chest that had once belonged to my grandfather and a painting of him, hung on the west wall, that my grandmother had once made; another carpet on which rested a chess board with its gleaming ivory and ebony pieces; a loom where my mother wove colored threads into tapestries. And at the room’s north end, framed by a massive, carved headboard, stood my parents’ bed where twenty-one years before I had come into the world on a warm winter day, with the sun at the midheaven in that bright and fiery constellation of stars that called me ever on toward my fate.

I sat straight across from my father, who poured me a glass of brandy. Maram and Master Juwain sat to my right, while Asaru took his place next to my mother and grandmother on my left. Asaru, it was said, favored my mother, his face cut with the same clean and symmetrical lines in which many found a great beauty. His faithfulness to her, and to all those he honored, could make one cry. He was that rarest of beings: a very intelligent man who saw things simply without ever being simple-minded. His love for me was simple, too – and as strong and bright as a diamond.

‘That was a close thing that happened tonight,’ he said to me as my father passed him a glass of brandy. ‘That traitor nearly got you killed.’

Everyone turned toward my father, who held his face stern. No one seemed to have the courage to ask him if he really would have ordered my death, should I have murdered Salmelu.

‘We’ll speak of the emissary in a moment,’ my father said. ‘But we’ve other things to discuss first.’

‘But what of Karshur and Yarashan?’ I asked. ‘And Jonathay, Ravar and Mandru? Shouldn’t we wait for them?’

‘No, let them sleep. It will be best if we keep this council small.’

‘Ah, sleep,’ Maram said as he yawned, then took a sip of his brandy. ‘Don’t you think we’d all do better, King Shamesh, with a little sleep before discussing anything of importance?’

‘Certainly, we would do better, Sar Maram,’ my father said. ‘But the world won’t always wait while we retreat into sleep, will it?’

I shifted on top of the carpet, with its thick and clean-smelling wool. Sitting on it in my steel armor was almost a comfort. I looked at my father and said, ‘What is troubling you, sir?’

He looked straight back at me, and his eyes fell dark with a terrible sadness. I knew that had he been forced to order my death, he might as well have ordered his own.

‘Many … things are on my mind,’ he said to me. ‘Which is why my family has been called to council at such a late hour – and those who are like unto family.’

He smiled at Master Juwain and Maram, then continued: ‘We’ll begin with the demands of the Alonian emissary. Asaru, what do you think?’

Asaru, sitting straight as the mast of a ship, nodded at my father and said, ‘Like it or not, King Kiritan has finessed us. It seems that the conclave will have to be held in Tria, if anywhere.’

‘Yes, it does.’

‘But the Valari kings will never agree to journey there.’

‘No, not as things stand now,’ my father said.

‘And there would be great trouble in the Nine Kingdoms if the Lightstone were brought into Tria, as King Kiritan has asked.’

‘That is true,’ my father said. ‘Especially if the Lightstone were given into the hands of the blacksmith boy. The Ishkans would make war against us immediately for such a betrayal.’

I again shifted about as I thought of the young Alonian healer named Joakim. And I heard Asaru say to my father, ‘Count Dario hinted that King Kiritan’s barons are calling for war against us – does this concern you?’

‘Do you think it should?’

‘That’s hard to say. It seems impossible that the Alonians would march against us across such a distance. Not over a little piece of gold.’

Although the Lightstone remained on its stand in the great hall, it seemed that its shimmering presence filled the room and added to the soft radiance of its many flickering candles.

‘No, you’re right, we need fear no such invasion,’ my father said. ‘But that Count Dario spoke freely of King Kiritan’s problems with his barons – that does concern me.’

He went on to say that such strife could weaken any kingdom, even Alonia. And with Morjin gathering armies to his bloody red banner, it would not do for any of the Free Kingdoms to fall into disorder – especially Alonia.

‘It would seem,’ my father said to Asaru, ‘that strengthening his realm is the real reason that King Kiritan has demanded your “little piece of gold”. It is probably why he called the Quest in the first place.’

‘To strengthen Alonia or to strengthen himself?’

‘He would think there is no difference,’ my father said.

My mother, sitting next to him, brushed the long, black hair away from her face as she said, ‘King Kiritan’s offer of his daughter’s hand must be considered in this light. And like it or not, it must be considered.’

Her voice was as clear and sweet as the music of a flute, and it seemed to carry out straight toward me. As she smiled at me, I couldn’t help remembering how she had taught me to play that most magical of instruments and had sung me songs of Ramsun and Asha, and the other great lovers who had died for each other in ages past.

‘It’s said that Atara Ars Narmada is very beautiful,’ my mother told me. ‘With hair as gold as your cup. With eyes as blue as stars.’

‘Once they were,’ I said bitterly, squeezing the box that I had set by my side. In barely three heartbeats’ worth of time, Morjin had utterly transformed Atara’s face from one that was open, bright and alive into something other. For now shadows gathered in the dark hollows beneath her brows, and her lips would have frozen the breath of any man who dared try to kiss her.

It might have been thought that my mother, who was the kindest of women, would have done anything to avoid a topic that caused me so much pain. Compassion, I thought, should be like a soft, warm blanket wrapped around those we love to comfort them, and hers usually was. But sometimes, it was like a steel needle that plunges straight into the heart of a boil to relieve the pressure there. My mother seemed always to know what I needed most.

‘You should remember her as she was when you first saw her,’ my mother told me. ‘Don’t you think that is what she would want?’

‘Yes … she would,’ I forced out. And then I added, ‘And as she might be again.’

My mother’s face softened as she searched for something in mine. ‘You’ve never said much about her, you know.’

‘What is there to say, then?’

‘Well, nothing, really – nothing that your eyes haven’t shouted a hundred times.’

I turned to wipe at my eyes as I remembered the way that Atara had once looked at me. Not so long ago, in the flash of her smile, in beholding the boldness of her gaze, my eyes must have filled with the light of that faraway star that fed the fire of our souls.

My mother’s smile reminded me of Atara’s in its promise that she would only ever wish all good things for me. She said to me, ‘You’d never marry another, would you?’

‘Never,’ I said, shaking my head.

She turned to regard my father a moment, and a silent understanding passed between them. My father sighed and said, ‘Then King Kurshan will have to look elsewhere if he wants a match for his daughter.’

He spoke of this fierce king from Lagash who would sail the stars – after first marrying off his daughter, Chandria. Then Asaru nodded at my father and asked him, ‘Do you wish me to make marriage with her, sir?’

‘Possibly,’ my father said to him. ‘Do you think you might ever come to love her?’

‘Possibly,’ Asaru said, smiling at him. ‘By the grace of the One.’

We Valari do not, as a rule, marry for love. But my grandfather had chosen out my grandmother, a simple woodcutter’s daughter, for no other reason. And my father had always said that his love for my mother, and hers for him, was proof of life’s essential goodness. For until the moment of his betrothal to Elianora wi Solaru, daughter of King Talanu of Kaash, my father had never set eyes upon her. And now, thirty years later, his heart still leaped with fire whenever he looked her way.

‘Well,’ he said, taking a sip of brandy, ‘we can speak of marriage another time. We have other kings to worry about now.’

He glanced at Master Juwain and said, ‘There’s an ugly rumor going around that you quarreled with King Waray on your journey to Taron.’

‘I’m afraid that is true,’ Master Juwain said. His lumpy face pulled into a frown as he rubbed the back of his bald head. ‘I’m afraid I have bad news: King Waray has closed our school outside Nar.’

The story that Master Juwain now told, as the logs in the fireplaces burnt down and we all sipped our brandy, was rather long, for Master Juwain strived for completeness in all things. But its essence was this: Master Juwain had indeed gone to Nar to make researches into the horoscope of an ancient Maitreya, as I had discovered earlier that evening. He had also wanted to retrieve relics that the Brothers kept in their collection in the Nar sanctuary. These were thought stones, he said, and therefore lesser gelstei – but still of great value.

‘King Waray allowed me to remove a book about the Shining One from the library, as Val will tell,’ Master Juwain said. ‘But he forbade the removal of any thought stone or gelstei.’

‘A king’s forbiddance does not make a quarrel,’ my father said.

‘No, it does not,’ Master Juwain agreed. ‘But when a certain master of the Brotherhoods very testily reminds that king that his realm ends at the door of the Brotherhood sanctuary, that is the beginning of a quarrel.’

‘Indeed it is, Master Juwain.’

‘And when that king orders all the Brothers to leave the sanctuary and the doors to be locked, some would say that is only the quarrel’s natural development and should have been anticipated.’

‘Some would say that very thing,’ my father said, smiling. ‘And they would be surprised that such an otherwise reasonable and non-quarrelsome master would risk such a disaster over some old gelstei.’

‘Over a principle, you mean, King Shamesh.’

‘Very well, then, but to lose one’s temper and court the failure of one’s mission over the continuation of what is really an ancient quarrel cannot be counted as the act of a wise man.’

‘Did I say I failed?’ Master Juwain asked. Now he smiled as he drew out of his pocket a stone the size of a walnut. Its colors of ruby, turquoise and auramine swirled about in the most beguiling of patterns. ‘Well, I didn’t fail completely. I managed to spirit this away before King Waray locked the doors.’

‘Spirit it away!’ Maram called out, leaning over to examine the thought stone. ‘You mean, stole it, don’t you?’

‘Can one steal from one’s own house?’

‘King Waray,’ my father said, ‘might feel that since it was his ancestors who built the sanctuary and his knights who defend it still, that the house is his – or at least the treasures gathered inside.’

‘You do not feel that way, King Shamesh. You have always honored the ancient laws.’

This was true. My father would never have thought to act as tyrannically as had King Waray. In truth, he honored the Brotherhood even as he did old laws that others had long since repudiated. And so half a year before, when Master Juwain had returned with me bearing the Lightstone, my father had ordered a new building to be raised up at the Brotherhood’s sanctuary in the mountains outside our castle. Master Juwain – and the other masters – were to gather gelstei from across Ea that they might be studied. Master Juwain must have seen that King Waray’s envy of Mesh and the much greater treasure in my father’s hall was the deeper reason that he had closed the sanctuary in Nar.

‘Knowledge must be honored before pride of possession,’ my father said. His bright eyes fixed on the thought stone. ‘Let us hope that this gelstei holds knowledge that justifies incurring King Waray’s ill will.’

‘I believe it to hold knowledge about the Lightstone,’ Master Juwain said. ‘And possibly about the Maitreya.’

My father’s eyes grew even brighter – and so, I imagine, did mine. Everyone except my grandmother now turned toward Master Juwain to regard the little stone in his hand.

‘You believe it to hold this knowledge?’ my father said. ‘Then you haven’t – what is the right word – opened it?’

‘Not yet,’ Master Juwain said. ‘You see, there are difficulties.’

What I knew about the thought stones was little: they belonged to the same family of gelstei as did the song stones and the touch stones. It was said that a thought stone, upon the closing of a man’s hand, could absorb and hold the contents of his mind as a sponge does water. It was also said that in ages past, the stones could be opened and ‘read’ by anyone trained in their use. But few now possessed this art.

‘One would have thought that a master of the Brotherhood would have overcome any difficulties,’ my father said to Master Juwain.

‘One would have thought so,’ Master Juwain agreed with a sigh. ‘But you see, this is not just any thought stone.’

He went on to say that in the Age of Law, the ancients had used the Lightstone to fill certain thought stones with a rarefied knowledge: that of the secrets of the Lightstone itself.

‘If this stone contains such knowledge,’ Master Juwain said to my father, holding up his opalescent little marble, ‘it may be that the only way to open it would be with the aid of the Lightstone.’

‘Do you wish my permission to use the Lightstone this way?’

Master Juwain’s face tightened with dismay. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know how. Perhaps no one now living does.’

My father swirled the brandy around in his glass and watched the little waves of the amber liquor break against the clear crystal. Then he looked at Master Juwain and said, ‘Then you need the Lightstone to open the thought stone, and the thought stone to understand the secrets of how the Lightstone might be used. How are we to solve this conundrum?’

‘I had hoped,’ Master Juwain said, ‘that if I stood before the Lightstone, the answer might come to me.’

He turned toward me and added, ‘I had hoped, too, that the thought stone might tell us more about the Maitreya. About how he is to be recognized and how he might use the Lightstone.’

Now I, too, looked down at the swirls of brandy in my glass. For a long few moments, I said nothing – and neither did anyone else.

And then my father said to Master Juwain, ‘You may certainly make your trial whenever you wish. It’s too bad that you brought back only one such stone. But you say that others remain in Nar?’

‘Hundreds of others, King Shamesh.’

My father smiled at him reassuringly and then nodded at Asaru. He said to him, ‘Do you still plan to journey to the tournament?’

‘If that is still your wish, sir,’ Asaru said. ‘Yarashan will accompany me to Nar next week.’

‘Very good. Then perhaps you can prevail upon King Waray to reopen the Brotherhood’s school.’

‘Can one prevail upon the sun to shine at night?’

‘Does the task daunt you?’

‘No more than Master Juwain’s conundrum must daunt him,’ Asaru said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘In either case, there must be a solution.’

‘Good,’ my father said, smiling at him. ‘Problems we’ll always have many, and solutions too few. But there’s always a way.’

His gaze now fell upon me, and I couldn’t help feeling that he regarded me as both a puzzle to be solved and its solution.

‘Always a way,’ I said to him, thinking of my own conundrum. ‘Sometimes that is hard to believe, sir.’

My father’s gaze grew brighter and harder to bear as he said, ‘But we must believe it. For believing in a thing, we make it be. As you, of all men, must believe this now.’

Strangely, what had happened earlier in the hall with Baltasar had so far gone unremarked, like some family secret or crime, instead of the miracle that Lansar Raasharu proclaimed it to be. But my family and friends knew me too well. Master Juwain and Maram, on our quest, had seen me sweat and weep and bleed. When I was a child, my mother had wiped the milk from my chin, and once, my father had pulled me off Yarashan when I had tried to bite off his ear in one of our brotherly scuffles. They might or might not believe that I was the Maitreya of ancient legend and prophecy – but it was clear that they did not intend to speak of me in hushed tones or to forget that whatever mantle I might claim, I would always remain Valashu Elahad.

‘It is not upon me,’ my father said, ‘to determine if you are this Shining One that many hope you to be. But you are my son, and that is my concern. The brightest flower is the one that is most often picked; the elk with the greatest rack of antlers draws the most arrows. You are a target now, Valashu. Even before this thing passed between you and Baltasar, it was so. Consider the way that the traitor nearly brought about your doom – and my own.’

The quiet of the room was broken only by the hissing from the fireplace and my father’s measured words. We all listened to him tell of what a great tragedy it would have been for Mesh if I had murdered Salmelu. For then my father would have been faced with an excruciating choice: either for the king himself to break the law of the land in sparing my life or to order the death of that which gave his life purpose – and the death of one who might possibly be the Maitreya.

‘The Red Dragon,’ he said, ‘set a terrible trap for us. By the grace of the One, we found a way out. You did, Valashu. A way – there’s always a way.’

‘I … hated Salmelu as I’ve only hated one other,’ I said. I picked up the box containing the two broken windows to Atara’s soul, and gripped it so hard that it hurt my hand. ‘And when he gave me this, the hate, like fire in my eyes, like madness … this is what Morjin must have calculated would make me kill Salmelu. But how could Morjin have been sure?’

‘Go on,’ my father said as everyone looked at me.

‘This trap of Morjin’s – it wouldn’t have caught another. And it shouldn’t have caught me.’

‘No, it shouldn’t have,’ my father agreed. ‘And from this, what do you conclude?’

‘That there will be other traps that we haven’t yet seen.’

Across the circle from me, my mother’s breath seemed to have been choked-off as if by an invisible hand. I heard Maram muttering in his brandy, even as my father nodded his head and said, ‘Yes, just so. This is why we’ve all been kept from our beds tonight, that we might see these other traps before it’s too late.’

Asaru, it seemed, had been making calculations of his own. He eyed the familiar chess set for a moment before turning to my father. ‘The Red Dragon was willing to throw away Salmelu’s life, like a pawn.’

‘No, rather like a knight that must be sacrificed to checkmate an opponent,’ my father said.

‘Very well, a knight, then. But did Salmelu know that he was to be sacrificed?’

My father smiled grimly and shook his head. ‘Few men have such devotion for their king.’

‘Morjin is no king,’ I said, thinking of the whips I had heard cracking in the darkened tunnels of Argattha. ‘Men do not follow him out of love.’

‘Then shouldn’t we consider the Galdan scryer’s prophecy?’ Asaru asked. ‘She spoke of a ghul, didn’t she?’

Could Salmelu truly be a ghul, I wondered? Had he given up his soul to Morjin so that Morjin breathed his fell words into Salmelu’s mouth and moved his lips and limbs from afar like a puppeteer pulling on strings? The living-dead, ghuls were called: they who were as corpses inside and were forced to think the very thoughts of their masters.

‘No,’ I said at last, ‘Salmelu is no ghul.’

‘But, Val, how can you be sure?’

Because the flames of his being burn with different colors than do Morjin’s.

I stared off at the candles in their stands as I said, ‘In Salmelu and Morjin, so much malice, so much hate. But the fire that eats away at Salmelu is different from that which consumes Morjin. Its source is different. I … can feel Salmelu’s will to destroy me. It’s as unique to him as a knight’s emblem or a man’s face.’

Asaru thought about this for a moment as a sudden dread came over him. ‘But, Val, if Salmelu isn’t this ghul, who is?’

Master Juwain, now sitting utterly still, cleared his throat and said, ‘A scryer’s prophecies are famously difficult to interpret, even those that prove true. But we should all give much thought to this one.’

His large, gray eyes fell upon me with the weight of worlds as he continued, ‘We see at least one of the Red Dragon’s traps within the trap: if Salmelu had failed to goad you into murder, what he brought here out of Argattha could not have failed to make you want to murder him.’

‘Many wish to murder Morjin,’ I said. ‘And his priests.’

‘But do they wish it as you do, Val? A fire, you spoke of, a raging fire that blinded you – like one of his illusions.’

‘In Argattha,’ I said, ‘the Lord of Lies lost the power to make me behold his illusions.’

‘Yes, but it seems he still has the power to make you hate.’

The brandy in my glass burned my tongue as I sipped it. ‘Are you saying, then, that Morjin is trying to make me into a ghul?’

‘Trying, yes, with all his might. But your heart is free. And your soul is the gift of the One. It can never be taken, only surrendered.’

‘That,’ I said, ‘will never happen.’

‘No, the Lord of Lies has no power to seize your will directly. But how much of your will do you think will remain if you destroy yourself with this terrible hate?’

I had no answer for him. I knew that he was right. For a few moments, I tried to practise one of the light meditations that he had once taught me. But the two blackened orbs inside the box that Salmelu had given me darkened my eyes; and the letter that I had placed down inside my armor was like a crushing weight upon my heart.

I finally brought forth this thick square of folded paper. I held it up toward the candles in their stand. No ray of light pierced the bone-white envelope to show what words Morjin might have written to me. It was sealed with red wax bearing the stamp of the Dragon.

‘Is this, then,’ I asked, ‘another of Morjin’s traps?’

‘I’m afraid it is,’ Master Juwain said.

‘Then the trap must be sprung.’

I drew my knife to open it, but Master Juwain held out his hand and shook his head. ‘No, do not – burn it instead.’

‘But the letter must be read. If Morjin has set traps for me, then his words might betray what these are.’

‘I’m afraid his words are the trap. Like the kirax, Val. Only this poison will work at your mind.’

‘My father,’ I said, looking across the circle at the great man who had sired me, ‘taught me that an enemy’s mind must be studied and known.’

‘Not this enemy,’ Master Juwain said. ‘Liljana merged minds with the Dragon in Argattha. It nearly destroyed her.’

I thought of this brave woman with her round, pleasant face and her will of steel. Atara had once warned her that the day she looked into Morjin’s mind would be the last day she ever smiled. And yet, if she hadn’t dared this dreadful feat, none of us would have escaped from Argattha and the Lightstone would remain in Morjin’s possession.

I squeezed the letter between my fingers, and said to Master Juwain, ‘“Lord of Light,” everyone called me. If this is true, how, then, should this Dark Lord called Morjin have power over me with his words?’

‘Is this the pride of a prince?’

‘It might seem like pride, sir. But I don’t think it really is. You see, after being forced to watch what Morjin did to Atara, no help for it and nothing I could do, nothing … after that, there wasn’t very much to be proud of, ever again. No, it is something else.’

Master Juwain’s Juwain’s eyes grew bright and sad as he finally understood. ‘No, Val – don’t do this.’

‘Earlier tonight, you made a test of things with your horoscopes. But there are other tests to be made.’

‘No, not this way.’

‘I must know, sir.’

Master Juwain pointed his gnarled finger at the letter and said, ‘I think this is an evil thing.’

I nodded my head to him. ‘But didn’t you once tell me that light would always defeat the darkness? Either one has faith in this or one does not, yes?’

Master Juwain sighed as he rubbed his eyes. He rubbed the back of his head. He sighed, his troubled eyes on the letter. Then he turned toward my father and asked, ‘And what, King Shamesh, do you advise your son to do?’

My father’s eyes were like coals as he said simply, ‘Open the letter.’

‘And you, Queen Elianora?’ Master Juwain asked my mother.

Her concern for me hurt my heart as she said, ‘Burn it, please.’

Master Juwain asked everyone’s counsel. Nona joined my mother and Master Juwain in their desire to see the letter destroyed, while Asaru and Maram agreed with my father that it should be opened and read. And so Master Juwain looked at me and said, ‘You must decide, Val.’

I nodded my head, then moved my knife toward the letter.

‘Wait!’ Master Juwain called out. ‘If you don’t fear the poison of the Lord of Lies’ words, then at least consider that he might have written this letter with a poisoned ink. Do not touch it with your bare hands!’

Again, I nodded toward him. I laid down both the letter and the knife, then removed the riding gloves folded around my belt. I put these on. Then I picked up the knife again and used its sharp steel tip to break the seal of the letter.

‘Do you have enough light?’ my mother said to me. ‘Shall I bring you a candle?’

I shook my head as I drew out the sheets of paper and unfolded them. It was awkward working this way, with my fingers covered in slips of leather. But the gloves kept my sweat from the paper, and the ink from my flesh, even as the small, neat lettering of Morjin’s hand leaped like fire into my eyes:

My Dearest Valashu,

I trust this letter finds you in good health, which my friends in your little kingdom assure me has never been better. You will want to know that I have made what could be called a miraculous recovery from the wound to my neck that you must have hoped was mortal. The wound to my heart, however, remains more grievous. For you have taken from me that which is dearer than life itself.

‘Well?’ Maram called out from next to me. ‘What does it say? Read it out loud.’

I nodded my head and took another sip of brandy. I began reading again from the letter’s beginning, for Maram’s sake and everyone else’s. As I intoned the words that Morjin had set to paper, I had to fight to keep my voice from becoming his voice: smooth, suasive, seductive and strong. An image of Morjin as I had first seen him came into my mind: his fine, intelligent face that was radiant with an almost unearthly beauty; his hair like spun gold and his golden eyes. They were the eyes of an angel, and they seemed to know all things. They looked at me out of the black ink of his words as I continued to read:

I know that you keep the Cup of Heaven locked and guarded in your castle as in ancient times. It is a beautiful thing, is it not? The most beautiful in all the world. And so I know that you will see in its golden depths the most beautiful of all temptations: to believe that you are its master, the Lord of Light – the Maitreya. How could it be otherwise? For you, Valashu Elahad, who feels so keenly the suffering of others, must long quite terribly for the suffering to end. This is a noble impulse. But it is misguided, and for the sake of the world, and your own, I must try to make you understand why.

All beings yearn for one thing above all else: the light and love of the One. For this is our source and substance, and we long to return there. But this ecstasy of completion and deep peace is denied to us, and the proof of this is our suffering. Men suffer many things: dread of death and wounds and dashed dreams, but nothing so terrible as the desire that burns our beings to feel ourselves at one with our source. We suffer most of all because we do not understand why we must suffer: why the One, which is said to be all goodness itself, would wish all the agonies of the body and soul upon us. Have you not, Valashu, as you listened to the cries of the children being torn apart at Khaisham, as you cursed life itself, asked yourself the simple question, ‘Why?’

The answer, I must tell you, is as simple as it is terrible: because of the One’s nature, which is the nature of all things. Can you not yet see that good and evil are the two sides of the One’s face, and his two hands, right and left? In one hand he holds the golden gelstei and makes the cosmos and all its creatures from the substance of his own being; with the other he casts them from the light and torments them. He builds walls of flesh around our souls to separate us from our source and from each other; he makes us rot with age, and crucifies us to the cross of life in the most hideous of anguish. He makes us to die. And so, at the end of all things, we must suffer the greatest ignominy: that of being erased. And then, forever, there is only nothingness and the darkness of night.

Who has not raged that the One should make things so? Do you think that I, Valashu, have not wept bitter tears like any other man? Have not known love and loss? To fear that the beautiful light that is my soul will simply die like a candle flame snuffed out by cold wind – do you think I haven’t, ten thousand times, shaken my fist at the heavens over the cruelty of such a fate? Should I not, then, hate the One and all the works of his hand? Shouldn’t we all?

Indeed, we should, for this too is the nature and design of the One. Hate, Valashu, is that singular force that separates. We are born as separate selves, and it is our right and duty to strengthen ourselves so that we might live our lives. But since life lives off life, whether beasts or men, we must strengthen ourselves against others, even as they would strengthen themselves against us. Hate gives us great courage in this war of all against all; it breathes fire into our will to become greater beings, and so to succeed in the quest for greater life itself. And so, like dragons, we might stride the earth in our power and pride, rather than cowering behind a rock and wailing at the injustice of life. And it is indeed cruel, as it must always be: for if you do not have the courage to become a predator, you must have the resignation to be prey. As night will follow day, the strong will devour the weak, on and on through all of eternity.

It is just this success that gives us joy. It is measured by the degree of our dominion over others. In many individuals seeking their advantage, the world gains its greatest advantage as the hidden hand of the One raises up the strongest and bestows upon them the only true wealth. Then the accumulation of the riches of power gained, if invested in our bodies and beings, leads to ever greater riches. Thus does a man, training at arms, become a knight; thus do knights go on to become lords and kings. And the greatest kings of men use the great gelstei to turn their sight to the heavens for new conquests, and so learn to walk the stars. Then comes the greatest conquest of all as mortal men strengthen the flame of life so that it cannot be blown out. And so are born the immortal Elijin, and the strongest of these angels gain the power of the quenchless Galadin: they who can not be harmed in any way.

And yet, still they do suffer: terribly, terribly, terribly. For our journey toward the ultimate becomes more, not less, painful at every step. Man is a very small vessel that contains only a small amount of life’s bitter poison; the great Galadin hold inside entire oceans. And as their suffering increases without measure, so must their means to bear it.

You know in your heart, Valashu, what this must be: that one’s own pain can only be ended by inflicting equal pain upon another. For the power of life and death over the weak is ultimately the power of life over death itself. Can you deny that this is so? Doesn’t the scream of another make you give thanks that you are healthy and whole? Doesn’t the flesh of animals quicken your own? Do you not feel, like a lion, exalted at the moment when you kill?

This is the secret of the valarda, the secret of life itself. The deepest part of the Law of the One is this: that there is an affinity of opposites. We hate most those we love most deeply. We love: terribly, terribly, terribly. In our love and longing for the One, we feel too keenly the longing of others. If we are not to be overwhelmed by it, what are we to do? Strike fire into their souls! Rend them with our claws! Devour their entrails and take joy in the agony of their eyes! Then they will cry out to be relieved of their suffering. But since it is our hand, the One acting through us, which creates this torment, it is to us they cry for relief. And so, for a moment, we are reminded of our divine nature and why we were created. We touch upon the One’s true purpose, and the One itself, and in that light of ecstasy, how should any suffering remain?

Do you not see the terrible beauty of the One’s design? As the One is infinite, so is the One’s pain – and so must be the means to end it. In the torment of innocents, infinite in number, the One realizes his invulnerability. And the tormented innocents, the strongest of them, raise themselves up as angels to grasp the divine light itself. And so the true magnificence of the One is revealed: for the One’s two faces are also love and hate. Our hate of the One for making us suffer leads, in the end, to love of the One for impelling us back to our source. And so the One uses evil to work the greatest possible good. And isn’t this, Valashu, true compassion?

I paused for a moment in reading Morjin’s letter. Because my mouth was dry, I took a drink of brandy. My hands were sweating inside their casings of slick leather. My eyes burned. The whoosh of Maram breathing heavily beside me merged with the other sounds of the room: the crackle of the fire, the rustle of paper, the grinding of my brother’s jaws. Asaru’s anger was no greater than mine. True compassion, Morjin had spoken of! But it was a twisted compassion. Another image of Morjin, the true image that he did not wish men to see, appeared in my mind: The once-lovely Elijin lord whose very body had rotted as if from the inside out. His ghoulish-gray flesh hung in folds from the sharp bones of his face. His gray hair, stringy and limp, grew in patches as if he had once suffered terrible burns. His eyes, his ancient eyes, were as cold and cruel as iron, rusted red and filled with blood. In them raged a terrible will to suck the life out of others. And they cried out with a terrible hunger. For he spent much of his vital force trying to maintain the illusion of his beauty in order to deceive men – and perhaps himself.

‘Read on!’ Maram called out beside me. ‘Let’s finish this, Val!’

I noticed my father studying my face, as my grandmother turned toward me and my mother watched me intently. Even Master Juwain, now caught in his curiosity to hear what Morjin had written next, nodded for me to continue. And so I read on:

The Maitreya is called the Compassionate One. He is said to be a healer of the world’s suffering and the anguish that all men know. If this be true, then how could you be he? You, who have killed and maimed so many and caused so much agony? Do you truly wish the ending of war and the forgiving of your foes? Then ask yourself this question, Valashu: if you were this Shining One who bears the light of the divine, would you hold out your healing hand to me?

The Maitreya, it is also said, will show man the world just as it is. For man, faced with the horror of existence, is liable to long for a world without evil that can never be. And to give up under the crushing burden of life and its torment of fire. And so the One, in mercy, in true compassion, sends into the world the Lightstone, all the One’s power, so that the Maitreya might seize it and show men the truth. And so the Maitreya eases their suffering, for all then know their place in the natural order and the path of returning to their source. But can you, Valashu, show the world this terrible truth? Can you bear to show it to yourself? No, we both know that you do not have the heart for this. And so you cannot be this Maitreya, either.

But if you aren’t he, who are you? You are a Valari of an ancient line of adventurers who are never Maitreyas. You are a warrior who professes to hate war. A murderer of men who justifies his crimes by castigating his foes as evil. A prince … of thieves. You are he who steals the light of truth from the world so that darkness will prevail. You are he who opposes the establishment of a natural order where the strong might rise without the waste of war. You are a Lord of Lies, for you tell yourself that you will somehow be redeemed from your dreadful deeds in your suffering of others’ pain.

You believe that you have experienced the most bitter of suffering, but I promise you that you have known only the barest twinge of its beginning. You think, too, that what I have done to you is evil. It is just the opposite. Consider this: would you have ever developed the strength to steal the Lightstone if I hadn’t opposed you at every step of your journey? What is evil? All that weakens and diminishes a man. What is good? All that strengthens him and drives him toward divinity. Can you deny that you – and the woman you think you love – are now both greater beings as a result of the torments that I have visited upon you? Lord Valashu, Knight Swan, Guardian of the Lightstone – can you deny that it is I who has made you?

And so you are in my debt. And doubly and triply so since you have wounded me and taken the Cup of Heaven. And yet, upon you I wish no vengeance. I must believe that you did what you did out of error and not malice. You are young and full of fanciful dreams, as I was once. Inside you there blazes a truly beautiful light. Who has seen this as I have, Valashu? Open your eyes, and you might see it yourself.

The debt must be repaid. One day, I hope, you will swear allegiance to me. You will serve me – in life or in death. The Lightstone, however, must be returned immediately. If it is, I shall reward you with a million-weight of gold and a kingdom of your own to rule. If it is not, I shall so reward any man who delivers the Lightstone into my hands. And the kingdom of Mesh shall be taken away from you, and you and your family destroyed. My ally, King Angand of Sunguru, stands ready to march by my side that the crime you have committed might be redressed. And the kings of Uskudar, Karabuk, Hesperu and Galda, who owe me allegiance, will march as well. And King Ulanu of Yarkona, whose acquaintance you have already made. Upon this sacred crusade, I pledge my kingdom, my honor and my life.

Faithfully, Morjin, King of Sakai and Lord of Ea

P.S. I have returned with this letter the personal belongings of Atara Ars Narmada. I can only hope that you, or she, might find some use for them. Of course, Atara might find it more useful if she were given new eyes with which to behold you. Return the Lightstone to me, and I shall make it so. It would give me great pleasure.

P.P.S. One day, if you live long enough, you will use the valarda to strike death into another – as you tried to strike it into me. And on that day, I shall be there by your side, smiling upon you as I would my own son.

My parents’ room was deathly quiet as I finished reading. My family and friends were all staring at me. Without a word, I crushed the pages of the letter inside my fist. I stood up and walked over to the far fireplace. There I cast the letter into the flames. It took only a moment for these writhing orange tendrils to begin blackening the white paper and consuming the letter. As I watched the pages curl into char, I thought of all the millions of books that Count Ulanu had burned at Khaisham. But Morjin’s words, I knew, would not be lost, for they were now burned into my brain.

‘The gloves, too, Valashu!’ Master Juwain called to me. ‘Cast them into the fire!’

I did as he advised, and then walked back to the carpet to rejoin those who would give me counsel.

‘Lies, such terrible lies,’ Master Juwain said.

‘Yes – and even more terrible truths,’ I said. ‘But which is which?’

‘How could you hope to sort the truth from the lies of the Lord of Lies?’

‘But I must. I must learn to. Everything depends upon it.’

Asaru refilled my glass and pressed it into my hand. He said, ‘Morjin feeds you poisoned meat and you still seek to take sustenance from it? You did the right thing burning it. Now forget about the letter.’

‘How can I? He said –’

‘He said many evil things. Predators and prey, indeed.’ He nodded at our father, and continued, ‘We Valari are taught to protect the weak, not eat them.’

I smiled at this, and so did everyone else. It was one of the rare moments when my serious brother made a joke. But too much had happened that night for us to sustain a mood of levity.

‘It may be,’ my father told me, ‘that the real purpose in Morjin’s writing this letter was to confuse you.’

‘Then it seems he has succeeded.’

My grandmother, who knew me very well, turned her cataract-clouded eyes toward me and said, ‘You are not as confused as he.’

‘Thank you for saying that, Nona. If only it were true.’

‘It is true!’ she said. Her back stiffened as she sat up very straight. I knew that if Morjin had managed to invade this very room, she would have thrown her frail, old body upon him to defend me. ‘This Red Dragon speaks of love and power. Well, he may know everything about the love of power. But he’ll never understand anything about the power of love.’

Her smile as she nodded at me warmed my heart.

‘There’s only one love that Morjin could be capable of,’ my mother added, looking at me. ‘And that is that he loves to hate. And how he hates you, my son!’

‘Even as I hate him.’

‘And such passion has always been your greatest vulnerability,’ she went on. Her soft, graceful face fell heavy with concern. ‘You’ve always loved others too ardently – and so you hate Morjin too fiercely. But your hatred for each other binds you together more surely than marriage vows.’

My mother’s soft, dark eyes melted into mine and then she said an astonishing thing: ‘Morjin uses hate to try to compel your love, Valashu. He hates all things but himself most of all. He wishes that you were the Maitreya so that you might heal him of this terrible hate.’

My confusion grew only deeper and murkier, like a mining pit filled with sediments and sludge. ‘But he has said that I cannot be the Maitreya!’

‘Yes, but this must be only another of his lies.’

Master Juwain nodded his head as he sighed out: ‘There’s a certain logic to his letter. It indicates that he believes becoming the Maitreya is open to superior beings who wield the Lightstone with power. Certainly he fears Val wielding it this way. It seems that he has written his whole letter toward the end of convincing Val that he cannot be the Maitreya.’

I touched Master Juwain’s arm and said, ‘But what if I cannot?’

‘No, Val, you mustn’t believe this. I’m afraid that the Lord of Lies is only trying to discourage you from your fate.’

As the candles burned lower, we talked far into the night. Each of us had our own fears and dreams, and so we each felt drawn by different conclusions as to what my fate might truly be. Asaru, I thought, was proud merely to see me become a lord at such a young age and would have been happy if my title remained only Guardian of the Lightstone. My father looked at me as if to ask whether I was one of those rare men who made their own fate. Nona, her voice reaching out like a gentle hand to shake me awake, asked me the most poignant of questions: ‘If you weren’t born to be the Maitreya, who were you born to be?’

It was Maram who made the keenest comment about Morjin and his letter. Although not as deep as my father, he was perhaps more cunning. And it seemed that his two slow glasses of brandy had done little to cloud his wits.

‘Ah, Val, my friend,’ he said to me as he lay his arm around my shoulders. The heavy bouquet of brandy fell over my face. ‘What if Morjin is playing a deep game? The “Lord of Lies”, he’s called – and so everyone expects him to manipulate others with lies. But what if, this one time, he’s telling you the truth?’

‘Do you think he is?’

‘Do I think he is? Does it matter what I think? Ah, well, we’re best friends, so I suppose it does. All right, then, what I think is that Morjin could use the truth as readily as a lie to poison your mind. Do you see what I mean? The truth denied acts as a lie.’

‘Go on,’ I said, looking at him.

‘All right – Morjin has said that you cannot be the Maitreya. Perhaps he knows that you could never accept such a truth, even if it is the truth, and so you’d think it must be a lie. And so you’d be tempted to believe just the opposite. Therefore, isn’t it possible that Morjin is trying to lead you into falsely believing that you’re the Maitreya?’

‘But why would he do that?’

‘Ah, well, that is simple. If you believe yourself to be the Maitreya – never mind the prophecies – you would neglect to find and protect the true Maitreya. And then Morjin might more easily murder him.’

What Maram had said disturbed me deeply. That he might have great insight into Morjin’s twisted mind disturbed me even more. It came to me then that I would never find the answers I sought in trying to parse Morjin’s words and motives – or anyone else’s. And so, at last, I drew my sword from its sheath. I held it pointing upwards, and sat looking at its mirrored surface. The Sword of Truth, men called it. In Alkaladur’s silver gelstei, I should have been able to perceive patterns and true purposes. But the light of the candles was too little, and I couldn’t even see myself – only the shadowed face of a troubled man.

‘Valashu,’ my grandmother called to me.

I looked away from the sword to see her smiling at me. Her desire to ease my torment was itself a torment that I could hardly bear.

‘Valashu,’ she said again, with great gentleness. ‘You must remember that it is one thing to take on the mantle of the Maitreya. But it is quite another being this man. You’ll always be just who you are. And that will be as it should.’

‘Thank you, Nona,’ I said, bowing my head to her.

My father had always looked to her for her wisdom, without shame, as he was looking at her now. And then he turned to me and said, ‘Nona is right. But soon enough, you will have to either claim this mantle or not. If you are the Maitreya and fail to take the Lightstone, then, as has been prophesied, as has happened before, a Bringer of Darkness will.’

My hands were sweating as I squeezed the black jade hilt of my sword. I felt trapped as if in a deep and lightless crevasse, with immense black boulders rolling down upon me from either end.

I looked at my father and said, ‘Morjin spoke of great consequences if the Lightstone is not returned to him. Do you think he could mount an invasion of Mesh?’

‘No, not in full force, not this month or even this summer. He would have to gather armies from one end of Ea to the other and then march them across the Wendrush, fighting five tribes of the Sarni along the way. We have time, Valashu. Not much, but we have time.’

‘Time to unite the Valari,’ I said. ‘Time even to journey to Tria and meet in conclave with the kings of the Free Kingdoms.’

Asaru shook his head at this. ‘Who but Aramesh ever united the Valari? Who ever could?’

My father’s bright eyes found mine as he said, ‘The Maitreya could.’

Because I could not bear to look at him just then, I stared at my two hands, right and left, wrapped around my sword. I said, ‘No one really knows, sir, what the Maitreya is.’

‘Many believe that he would be the greatest warlord the Valari has ever known.’

‘No one knows who he is,’ I said.

‘Many believe him to be you.’

A single flicker of light fell off from my sword like a shard of silver. It stabbed into my eyes; it pierced cold and clean straight down to my heart. There, it seemed, in the silence between its quick and violent beats, I heard someone whispering to me.

‘I must know,’ I suddenly called out. I slipped my sword back into its sheath and picked up the box that Morjin had sent to me. I bowed my head to my father and said, ‘Sir, may I be excused?’

Even as he nodded and gave his consent, I pushed myself to stand up.

‘It is very late,’ he said. ‘It seems we’ll accomplish little more tonight. But where are you going?’

‘To the scryers’ room,’ I said.

‘At this hour? Kasandra is an old woman, Val.’

‘She … is not sleeping, sir. She is waiting for me.’

She is calling to me, I thought as my heart pounded against the bones of my chest. She wants to tell me something.

I said to my father, to my mother and to Maram and everyone, ‘Kasandra said that I would find the Maitreya in the darkest of places. If Morjin has set traps for me, she might have seen them. I must know before it’s too late.’

And with that, I tucked the box beneath my arm and moved off toward the door.

5

Maram and Master Juwain hastened to catch up to me as I made my way out into the quiet hallway. They had begun this long night’s quest for knowledge with me, they said, and they would end it by my side as well. I was glad for their company, for the long hallway seemed too empty and too dark. Only a few oily torches remained burning. The sound of our boots striking cold stone echoed off the walls. We passed between the servants’ quarters and the kitchens, as we had come; when we reached the infirmary, we turned down another hallway. There, the pungent smell of medicines mingled with a deeper odor of sickness, sweat and blood. As we moved past the classroom and Nona’s empty room, this odor grew only stronger. It seemed not to emanate from the sanctuary to the right, or the guest quarters to the left where King Kurshan and his daughter had taken up residence. I was afraid to discover its source, even as I pushed my way through a moat of fear and pain that chilled my limbs like icy water.

At last, we came to the stairwell at the keep’s southwest corner. We entered, one by one, this dark tube of stone that twisted up toward the higher floors. My father had told me that the scryers had been given rooms on the third floor. We climbed up and up into the dark silence, turning always toward the left as the narrow steps spiraled upward. It was cold and close in that dim space; the smell of Maram’s sweat and brandy-sweetened breath fairly nauseated me. He was puffing and grunting behind me, moving as quickly as he could. But he was not quite quick enough, for the fear now pierced through to my heart and drove me up the stairs two and then three at a time.

‘Slow down!’ he gasped out. ‘You’re killing me! Ah, have mercy, my friend!’

I did not slow down. We passed by the exit to the second floor, where the Alonians and the Ishkans had taken quarters. We climbed ever higher. We finally reached the arched doorway that gave out onto the third floor. As I pushed out into the quiet hallway, the mortared stones along the walls seemed to be screaming at me. A sharp pain, with the savagery of cold steel, ripped into my belly. I drew my sword and began running past the closed doors of my father’s guests.

‘Come!’ I gasped. Maram and Master Juwain were close behind me, and began running, too. ‘It’s this door – it must be!’

At the end of the hallway, we came to a door darkened with torch-smoke and reinforced with bands of black iron. I rapped the diamond pommel of my sword against the dense wood and waited. My heart beat ten times, quick as a frightened bird’s, before I knocked at the door again, this time louder. I waited another few moments, and then tried turning the doorknob, but it was locked.

‘Come!’ I said to Maram. I rammed my shoulder against the door with such force that the hard wood drove the rings of my mail armor into my flesh almost down to the bone. ‘Help me break this open!’

‘But, Val – they’re old women!’ Maram said.

‘They might have taken a draught to help them sleep,’ Master Juwain added.

‘Come!’ I said again. ‘They’re not sleeping! Help me!’

Maram finally sighed his consent, and added his great bulk in battering at the door. On our second attempt, it burst inward in a scream of splinters and tormented iron. It was nothing against the scream in my eyes, in my belly and lungs. For the hall’s dim torchlight showed a small, simple room filled with carnage. The iron-sick smell of blood drove like a hammer against my head. Sprays of blood moistened one wall; the red imprints of boots darkened the floorstones. On one of the beds sprawled two of the scryers, whose names I had not learned. Their throats had been cut, and rivers of blood had flowed out over their white robes and white wool blankets. On the other bed was Kasandra. Someone had cut open her belly. She lay on her back with her eyes staring up at the ceiling, and it seemed that she was dead.

Master Juwain hurried to her side and placed his rough old fingers against her throat to feel for a pulse.

‘Ah, too bad,’ Maram gasped out. He held his hands over his own belly as if to protect this massive, food-filled outswelling – or to keep from vomiting. ‘Ah, I’d thought we were through with this kind of thing, too bad, too bad.’

My heart throbbed inside me as I gripped my sword and cast my eyes about the room’s sparse furnishings, looking for any sign of the men who had worked such an evil deed.

‘These poor women!’ Maram said. ‘Ah, but what kind of scryers could they have been if they let themselves be murdered in their sleep?’

‘They’re not all murdered,’ Master Juwain said, touching Kasandra’s withered face. ‘Not yet. This one is still alive.’

I knew that she was. I could feel her faint breathing as a whisper deep inside my throat.

‘Can you help her, sir?’

Master Juwain gently prodded the wound to her belly. Someone, like a ravening wolf, had ripped out most of its contents, which lay strewn upon the blankets beneath her like bloody white snakes. ‘Help her live through this, Val?’

‘No, help her live … a while longer. I must speak with her.’

Master Juwain nodded his head grimly and said, ‘I’ll try.’

He wiped his hands on the hem of Kasandra’s robes. From his pocket, he removed the green gelstei crystal that looked so much like a long and bright emerald. With its magic, he had once healed Atara of a mortal arrow wound to her lungs. But he had never been able to mend such terrible mutilations as the one that would soon kill Kasandra.

While Master Juwain positioned the varistei over Kasandra’s heart, I knelt by the other side of the bed and took Kasandra’s hand in mine. Her skin was as soft as fine leather and still warm.

‘Maram!’ I called out softly. ‘Guard the door! Whoever did this might return.’

With a grumble, Maram drew his sword and positioned himself by the door. But he turned his gaze toward the crystal in Master Juwain’s skilled hands. So he must have perceived the clean light that streamed out of the crystal and fell upon Kasandra’s chest like a shower of tiny, shimmering emeralds.

‘Ah,’ Maram said. ‘Ah, poor, poor woman.’

A terrible shiver tore through Kasandra’s body, and she coughed, once, as her breath rattled in her throat. A faint light filled her eyes. She had no strength to turn her head, nor even to cry out against the agony that I had called her back from the door of death to suffer. But I knew that she could see me, even so. She had been looking for me to come to her rooms, watching and waiting.

‘Valashu Elahad,’ she gasped out.

I leaned closer to her and asked, ‘Who did this to you?’

‘The one … called Salmelu.’

‘But why? You said that a ghul would undo my dreams. Who is this ghul? Did Salmelu kill you to keep you from telling me?’

‘Because … he is … he killed my sisters and …’

Her voice died off into a burning exhalation as her frail old body shuddered with another wave of anguish. And Master Juwain said to me, ‘Too much, Val. For mercy’s sake, ask her one question at a time!’

I swallowed hard against the anguish in my throat. I asked, ‘Who is this ghul, then?’

‘His name … I don’t know,’ Kasandra said. ‘His face, though, is as noble as yours.’

‘But what about the last part of your prophecy? You said that a man with no face would show me my own. Who is this man?’

‘Who is anyone?’

‘Does he have a name?’

‘He is no man … I know …’

Although her voice died off into nothingness, it seemed that she was trying to scream something at me. I asked, ‘Will this man show me the face of the Maitreya?’

‘No, the slave girl will show you the Maitreya.’

‘What slave girl? What is her name?’

‘Estrella.’

This strange name seemed to hang in the air like a star in the midst of blackness. I gripped Kasandra’s hand in mine as tightly as I dared. And then I asked her, ‘But am I the Maitreya?’

Kasandra’s lips did not move, nor did breath warm her lips. I knew that she was ready to walk through the door to that lightless land even the bravest of warriors feared to tread. I gripped the hilt of my sword in my right hand. And then Kasandra drew in a long breath as if gathering the last of her strength. And she gasped out, ‘You are …’

These words, too, seemed to hang in the air. You are, I thought. I am. I looked down at Kasandra to ask her to finish her sentence, if indeed she already hadn’t. But the light in her tormented eyes suddenly died, and she would speak no more, ever again. Where, I wondered, did the light go when the light went out?

Master Juwain shook his head at me, and put away his green crystal. He reached out and closed Kasandra’s eyes.

‘Val,’ he said, ‘there’s nothing –’

‘No,’ I said softly. ‘No, no, no.’

Because Kasandra was pulling me down into death with her, I let go her hand. I retreated inside the walls of the castle of aloneness that had protected me for so long. I stood away from the bed, and held out my sword. Its dark silver flashed with a sudden light.

He killed my sisters, Kasandra had said to me. His face is as noble as your own. He is no man …

On the floor beneath me were the bloody bootprints of a man, or men. The pattern of these red defilements seemed burned into the stone.

I know that you keep the Cup of Heaven locked and guarded in your castle as in ancient times, Morjin had written me. It is a beautiful thing, is it not? The most beautiful in all the world.

My sword flared again, this time more brightly. I held it pointing down toward the east in the direction of the great hall where the Guardians stood protecting the Lightstone. Alkaladur blazed with a wild radiance that burned deep into my eyes.

‘Master Juwain!’ I cried out. ‘Go back to my father’s room! Ask the King – Asaru, too, my brothers – to come to the great hall!’

‘Val, what is it?’ Master Juwain asked me.

But I was already running for the door. I paused there only a moment to call out to Maram, ‘Go to the Guardians’ barracks! Rouse Baltasar! Tell him that a ghul has been sent to steal the Lightstone!’

I had no breath to say more. I sprinted out into the hallway. Our noise of broken doors and shouts must have roused this floor’s guests. Two of them – old Lord Garvar’s widow and a minstrel from Thalu – had opened their doors halfway to see if the castle might be under attack. I told them to lock themselves inside their rooms. And then, sword in hand, I ran past them toward the stairwell.

I fairly bounced down the twisting stairs like a suddenly released stone. It was a miracle that I negotiated the worn granite slabs without stumbling and breaking my neck. Only seconds, it seemed, sufficed for me to reach the archway into the first floor’s hallway. I ran down this deserted corridor as quickly as I could. At the kitchens, I turned right, and sprinted down the shorter corridor connecting the keep to the great hall. Its doors were open, and so I had no trouble passing inside.

There, in this vast, dim space still smelling of beer and roasted meat, I saw an astonishing thing: the thirty Guardians lay in various positions about the dais at the front of the room. Their faces were peaceful, and they all appeared to be sleeping. The Lightstone remained on its stand above them. Its shimmering presence seemed to call forth a new surge of radiance from my sword.

The debt must be repaid, Morjin had written me. You will serve me – in life or in death.

‘Adamar! Viku! Skyshan!’ I called out to three of the Guardians, to no effect. I ran toward the dais and then bounded up its steps. I picked my way around the splayed arms and legs of the downed Guardians. The hand of the Guardian nearest the Lightstone seemed to beckon me – or someone – closer.

‘Skyshan!’ I called out again as I knelt and tried to shake this large, young man awake. ‘Skyshan!’

After a few moments, I gave up and rose to my feet. I stood with my sword held ready as I steeled myself to guard the Lightstone – in life or in death.

I waited for the faint sound of boots along the corridor or the creak of doors being opened. Hot sweat trickled down my sides beneath my armor. My breath came in quick bursts, and my heart beat like a war drum. I looked out into the hall at the rows of tables and empty chairs. I glanced up at the portraits of my ancestors along the walls; their grave faces looked down at me as if to take my measure. My grandfather, Elkasar Elahad and his father, Aradam, and his grandfather – all the kings of Mesh going back many generations seemed to be waiting with me in the hall. One of the oldest of the portraits was of Julamar Elahad, who had been King of Mesh when last the Lightstone had resided on this stand three thousand years before. His ancient eyes, brilliant as stars, seemed to fix upon me and to ask me if I would give the Lightstone into the Maitreya’s hands, even as he had. He asked me if I would die trying to wrest the Lightstone back from Morjin and his murderous priests, even as he had, too.

As my heart beat out the moments of my life in quick, hot surges that tore through my veins, the whole world seemed to wait with me there in the quiet hall. I felt someone watching me. It seemed that he was far away – or perhaps very near. In all that large space, with its smooth walls of stone, there were few places to hide: behind the pillars holding up the ceiling or in the darkened recesses of the south doors. I listened for the rustle of clothing or mail armor from these places; I felt for the beating of another’s heart or the quiet steaming of his breath.

All at once, an overpowering desire to sleep flooded into me. My arms felt unbelievably heavy, as if they were encased not in steel but in lead. I had to fight to keep my eyes open. My head was like a great weight that kept falling toward my chest.

I must not, I may not, I silently prayed. Please don’t let me fall asleep.

A glint of silver sliced the air above me. Flick appeared in a shower of sparks. This mysterious being began looping through the air, around and around both me and the Lightstone, as if weaving a fence of light. Or trying to paint a beguiling pattern of scarlet and silver streaks that might keep me awake.

I raised high my long and brilliant sword and cried out. ‘Alkaladur!’ The Awakener, men called it. Through its silver gelstei ran a secret pulse that beat in rhythm to my own true pulse. It reminded me that the deepest part of myself remained always awake and always aware, and would remain standing even when I died.

At last, from faroff in the depths of the castle, came the sound of footsteps that I had been dreading. I turned toward the open doorway by which I had entered the hall. My eyes burned as I waited to see who would appear in the rectangular darkness there. My hands seemed fused with the hilt of my sword.

‘Valashu!’ a strong voice called to me. ‘Valashu Elahad!’

My heart surged with joy to see my father charge into the room. He had his shining kalama in hand. Asaru, Karshur and my other brothers, with Lansar Raasharu, followed closely behind him. A few moments later, even as my father hurried up the steps of the dais to join me, Master Juwain appeared in the doorway, too.

‘What is this?’ Master Juwain cried out when he saw the forms of the sleeping Guardians. ‘What poison? What potion?’

‘What sorcery, you mean?’ Asaru said as he gained the dais and tried to rouse his friends.

Just then came a much louder sound of pounding boots and jangling steel from outside the hall to the east. Suddenly, with a crash of wood, the doors were thrown open, and Baltasar and Maram led seventy mail-clad knights into the room. I smiled to see the grim faces of Shivathar and Artanu of Godhra and others who were like brothers to me. They started straight for the dais. But then I held out my hand and shouted, ‘Stay, Baltasar! Guard the doors and stand your distance until we discover the nature of this sorcery!’

While Master Juwain knelt among the fallen Guardians looking for sign of what might have stricken them, Karshur stood like a mountain above him. He yawned and said, ‘Perhaps Master Juwain is right – it’s some sleeping potion.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘it cannot be.’

I explained that it was one of my rules that the Guardians on duty should never all eat of the same food together nor take the same drink.

Ravar, my cleverest brother, rubbed his fox-like face as he said, ‘Then it must be something else. Let us search the hall.’

And so it was done. My brothers and the Guardians still on their feet spread out through the hall as if beating through grass to flush a rabbit. They picked through the rows of tables but paid closest attention to the dais itself. In the end, it was Ravar who discovered the source of what had stricken the Guardians. With a flick of his knife, he wedged out a piece of loose mortar between two of the dais’ floorstones. And in the recess between them, his quick fingers found a small, glassy sphere like an agate or a child’s marble.

‘I see, I see,’ Master Juwain said as Ravar gave it to him. He rolled it between his rough old hands as his gray eyes came alive with a new light. ‘This is surely a sleep stone. One of the lesser gelstei, and quite rare. Whoever hid it here must have remained close by, or else it could not have been used to so great an effect.’

His hand swept out and down toward the sleeping Guardians.

‘The traitor,’ Asaru said. ‘Salmelu – it must have been he.’

‘Damn him!’ Lord Raasharu cried out as he came up upon the dais. ‘We had word that he and the other priests left the castle only half an hour ago. In the middle of the night! We thought that he was fleeing only out of shame.’

My father stepped forward and shook his head. He pointed his sword at the Lightstone. ‘Why flee at all before gaining that which he had come to steal?’

I traded glances with Maram and Master Juwain, and then told my father and everyone else what had happened in the scryers’ chamber. ‘He fled to avoid your justice, sir.’

My father’s eyes flashed with a dark fire as the flames of wrath built inside him.

‘Ah, well,’ Maram said, ‘it seems that Salmelu couldn’t count on his position to shield him from punishment.’

‘An emissary who murders old women is no emissary,’ my father said. I felt him willing his heart to cool down. ‘But what was Salmelu, then? A priest who has defiled my house? A thief? Was it he who used the sleep stone?’

‘No, it was not,’ I said. ‘The scryer spoke of a ghul with a noble face. That cannot have been Salmelu.’

I looked at my father as he traded glances with Asaru, and Lansar Raasharu nodded at Ravar. And then suddenly everyone gathered there was regarding everyone else with questioning eyes. Who, I wondered, had more noble faces than did my friends and family?

‘No, none of us is this ghul,’ I said. I had gazed upon the flames of being of each man in the hall, and I was as sure of this as I was that the sun would rise in the east in a couple more hours. ‘It must be another.’

‘But who, then?’ Ravar asked. He pointed down at the crack in the dais. ‘Someone hid the sleep stone here. Was it a groom bringing drink to the Guardians? Or a knight friendly to them whom they allowed to approach too close?’

I shook my head. Neither I nor anyone else had answers to his questions. ‘It’s not to be believed that any Meshian could ever so betray his people.’

‘No, it is not,’ Lord Raasharu agreed. His long face seemed to darken with a sudden shadow. ‘And yet Salmelu betrayed his people – and of his own free will.’

My father, standing above the sleeping Guardians with his sword in hand, suddenly swept it in a broad arc from east to west. ‘We’ll search the castle, then. Let us see if anyone is where he shouldn’t be, or if an intruder hides close to the hall.’

As he commanded, so it was done. My father summoned his private guard, and they joined his knights in searching not only the castle’s keep, but the Swan Tower and the other towers, too, as well as north, middle and west wards. The sleep stone was given into the charge of three Guardians, who removed it for safekeeping to Master Juwain’s rooms in the Adami Tower. The remaining Guardians joined my father and me – and all the rest of us – in watching as Master Juwain tried to rouse the thirty knights who remained sleeping.

After perhaps a half hour had elapsed, one of my father’s men entered the hall bearing more dreadful news. This sad-faced squire, whose name was Amadu Sankar, hurried up to my father and gasped out, ‘The servants of the Red Priests – they’ve all been murdered! They lie dead in Lord Salmelu’s rooms!’

‘More defilement!’ my father called out. ‘Is there no end to this man’s crimes?’

Karshur, the thickest of my brothers in body as well as mind, rubbed his solid jaw and cried out, ‘But why would he do such a thing?’

My father, who had already sent knights in pursuit of Salmelu and the other priests, said to him, ‘His servants would have slowed him. If my knights ride him down before he escapes from Mesh …’

My father did not finish his sentence. There was death in his dark eyes as he slowly shook his head.

I suddenly remembered Kasandra’s last words to me: The slave girl will show you the Maitreya. Could she have meant, I wondered, one of Salmelu’s slaves?

I turned to Amadu Sankar and asked, ‘Are you sure all the servants were dead?’

‘They … must have been, Lord Valashu,’ Amadu said. His young face was full of horror. ‘They were all gutted like rabbits.’

A dreadful hope surged inside me. I stepped over to Master Juwain and said, ‘It may be with the servants as it was with Kasandra. Will you come with me to their rooms, sir?’

‘If I must,’ Master Juwain agreed, nodding his head.

‘And you, Maram?’ I said, turning to my best friend.

‘Must I?’ he said as he looked at me. And then, upon perceiving the fire in my eyes, he grumbled, ‘Ah, well, then – I suppose I must.’

I took my leave of my father, and led Master Juwain and Maram back into the keep. Salmelu and his party had been given rooms on the fifth floor. We hurried as quickly as we could back up the stairs to this great height. Maram complained that his heart hurt from such an exertion, while Master Juwain saved his breath and worked at the spiral of steps in quiet determination.

Two doors down from the large room at the fifth floor’s northwest corner and the smaller one adjoining it, where Salmelu and the six other priests had taken residence, we found the room of their servants. There were eight of them, all girls, ranging in age from about nine to thirteen. And, even as Amadu had told us, they were all dead. It looked as if they had been roused off their straw pallets and driven into the corner of the room, and there slaughtered. They lay almost in a heap, some of them on top of others, their arms stretched this way and that, their long hair – black and brown and blonde – soaked in the blood that had been torn from their young bodies. Screams had been torn from their throats, too, and this desperate sound of the dying still hung in the air.

While Master Juwain went among the girls’ bodies with his green crystal, Maram stood by the door questioning the guards posted there. I walked about the room, careful not to step in the pools of blood staining the cold stone floor. I stepped over the stand of an overturned brazier; I gazed at a tapestry that one of the girls must have pulled off the wall in a frantic effort to find escape from Salmelu and his murderous priests. But in this room of death, stark and narrow, there was nowhere to hide.

‘The squire was right,’ Master Juwain said, kneeling over one of the girls. With great weariness, he shook his head. ‘There’s nothing to be done here, Val.’

Maram walked over to me and laid his hand upon my shoulder. ‘Let’s leave these poor lambs to be buried, my friend.’

‘Wait,’ I told him, shaking my head. It seemed that I could still hear one of the girls screaming in agony – or rather, crying out for help.

I turned toward the room’s only window, along the north wall. It was small and square, and open to the night wind blowing down from the mountains. I hurried over to it. Outside, the great, dark shape of Telshar stood outlined against the black and starry sky. I grasped the window’s sill, and stuck my head out into the cool air to look out over it. Along the north side, the keep was built flush with the castle’s great walls; it was a straight drop down more than a hundred feet to the rocks forming the steep slope upon which the castle was built. No one, I thought, could survive a fall from such a height. And no one, not even a young girl frantic to escape from a priest’s evil knife, could climb so far down the castle’s smooth granite walls.

‘Here, Val,’ Maram said to me as he joined me by the window. ‘Such a sight would make any man sick.’

He placed his hand on my shoulder again. When he saw that I was in no danger of losing my dinner, he said, ‘Let’s get away from here.’

‘Wait!’ I said again. ‘Give me a moment.’

The smell of pine trees and fear stirred something inside me. A soft voice, urgent yet sweet, seemed to be calling me as if from the stars. I pushed my head outside the window again, and twisted about to gaze up through the darkness. And there, some twenty feet higher up toward the tooth-like battlements, a small shape seemed fastened to the wall.

‘A torch!’ I cried out. ‘Someone bring me a torch!’

One of the guards went out into the hallway and returned a few moments later bearing a torch in his hand. He gave this oily, flaring length of wood to me, and I thrust it out the window as I again craned my neck about to gaze up the castle’s wall. And now I could see, faintly, what my heart had known to be true: by some miracle, a young girl had managed to climb out the window and claw her way up the windswept wall.

‘What is it, Val?’ Maram said to me. ‘What do you see?’

The girl, perhaps nine years old, stood with her bare, bloody feet wedged into a narrow joint between the wall’s white stones. Her hands had found a vertical crack and were jammed inside it. It seemed unbelievable that she had remained stuck to the wall thus for more than an hour. She was trembling, from cold and exhaustion, and was near the end of her strength. She looked straight down at me, the black curls of her hair falling about her frightened face. Through the dark, her eyes found mine and called to me with the last desperate fire of hope. Her certainty that I would not leave her to die here touched me deep inside and brought the burn of tears to my eyes. The wild beating of her heart was a sharp pain that stabbed into my own.

‘The priests are gone!’ I called up to her. ‘Can you climb down?’

She shook her head slowly as if fearful that a more strenuous motion would loosen her precarious hold upon the wall. I felt the cold, rough knurls of the cracked granite through her sweating hands; I felt the slight muscles along her forearms bunching and burning and growing weaker with each of her quick, painful breaths. I knew that she could not climb back down toward the window, not even an inch.

‘Let me see!’ Maram called to me. He pulled me back into the room and tore the torch from my hand. And then it was his turn to look outside. I heard him mutter, ‘Ah, poor little lamb – too bad, too bad.’

He pushed back from the window, careful not to let the wind blow the torch’s flames into his face. He turned to look at me as he shook his head. ‘Ah, Val, what can we do?’

Master Juwain and the two guards had now joined us by the window. I looked at them, and at Maram, and said, ‘We have to bring her down.’

‘Ah, Val – but how?’

One of the guards suggested sending for a rope and lowering it to the girl from the battlements high above.

‘No, there is no time,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to climb up to her.’

‘Climb this wall?’ Maram said. ‘Who will climb it?’

In answer, I unbuckled my sword and pressed it into his hand. It was the first time since it had been given to me that I allowed it out of my reach.

‘Are you mad?’ Maram said to me. ‘Let us at least search for a rope first before you –’

‘No, there is no time!’ I said again. I knew that the girl outside who had looked straight into my soul would soon lose her hold. ‘Help me, Maram.’

I reached to pull at the rings of steel encasing me, but the sudden and silent plaint that sounded inside me told me that I didn’t even have time to remove my armor. I moved over to the window again and gripped the cold sill.

‘But, Val!’ Maram protested, ‘she’s a slave. And you are … who you are.’

But who was I, really? While the guard held the torch for me, I again stuck my head out the window to descry my route up to the girl. She gazed down at me. And her dark, wild eyes showed me that I was a man who couldn’t let a young girl simply fall to her death.

With everyone’s help, I backed up and out the window, gripping the edge of the casement above it as I pushed my feet against the sill. The darkness of night fell upon me; the cold wind rattled my hair against the wall’s ancient stone. Through empty space I stared down at the rocks far below. My belly tightened, and for a moment it seemed I might lose my dinner after all. How could I climb this naked wall? How could any man? Once each spring, I knew, my father walked around the entire castle inspecting it for any crack or exposed joint in its stones. Such flaws in the masonry were always mended, making it impossible for an enemy to scale the walls. But here, a hundred feet up, it seemed that no such repairs had been made for a hundred years. Who could have thought to prevent a simple slave girl, in blinding fear, from climbing out a window upon cold, cracked stone?

I drew in a quick breath and turned my gaze upward. The guard held the torch out the window, and its fluttering yellow light revealed a crack above my head. I reached up and thrust my fingers into it. I found another crack with my left hand. And then, as I fit the toe of my boot into a narrow joint in the stone to the right of the window, I slowly pulled myself up. Two feet I gained this way, and then a couple more as I pulled and pushed against other cracks and other joints.

It was desperate hard work in the dead of the night, and a single slip would kill me. My hands were slick with sweat; the rough granite soon abraded the flesh from my knuckles and left them bloody. I suddenly remembered the story of how Telemesh had fought his way up the face of Skartaru, the black mountain, to rescue an ancient warrior bound there. Lines of verse came unbidden into my mind:

Through rain and hail he climbed the wall Still wet with bile, blood and gall …

I fought my way up another foot and then another. The torch’s light soon weakened so that I could barely make out the features of the stonework above me. I nearly slipped, and tore my fingernails to the quick on a little lip of granite. The immense black weight of the sky seemed to lie upon my shoulders and push me back toward the earth.

Where dread and dark devour light, He climbed alone into the night.

But I was not alone. As if in answer to my silent supplication, Flick joined me there beneath the stars. His whirling, fiery form showed a crack about three feet above me that I would have missed. And the girl kept looking at me with wild hope. She called no encouragement, with her lips. But her eyes, clear and deep, kept calling me and urging me upward. They reminded me that I had a greater strength than I ever knew. This connection of sight and soul was like an invisible rope tied between us and joining our fates together as one.

At last I drew up by her side. My fingers clawed a little crack; the tips of my boots had bare purchase on a broken joint of stone. The trembling of my body was almost as great as the girl’s. I felt her heart beating wildly a couple of feet from mine. The wind carried her scent of fear and freshly-soaped hair over my face. Through the dark I looked at her and said, ‘Grab onto me!’

She shook her head. I knew that she didn’t have the strength to let go her hold without falling.

‘Wait a moment!’ I said.

I looked about and espied a wider and deeper crack a little above me. I jammed my whole hand into it. Its sharp knurls bruised my bones. When I was sure of my hold, I reached out with my other hand to wrap it around the girl’s narrow waist. Then, in one carefully coordinated motion, I helped her up and onto my back, even as she threw her arms around my neck and locked her bare legs around my waist. In this way, carrying her piggyback like the little sister I had never had, I began climbing back toward the window.

‘Val!’ Maram called up to me as he stuck his head out the window and held the torch high. ‘Careful now! Only a little farther and I’ll have you!’

It was much harder climbing downward. I had trouble seeing where to put my feet and finding holds for my hands. Although the girl was as slight as a swan, her weight, added to that of my armor, was a crushing force that burned my tormented muscles and pulled me ever down toward the hard and waiting earth. Twice, I nearly slipped. If not for Flick’s guiding light, I would never have found holds in time to keep us from plunging to our deaths.

‘Val! Val!’

And yet there was something about the girl that was not a grief but a grace. Her breath, quick and sweet, was like a whisper of warm wind in my ear. In it was all the hope and immense goodness of life. It poured out of her depths like a fountain of fire that connected both of us to the luminous exhalations of the stars. In the face of such a strong and beautiful will to live, how could I ever lose my own strength and let us fall? And so there, beneath the black vault of the heavens, for many moments that seemed to have no end, we hung suspended in space like two tiny particles of light.

As promised, when we reached the window Maram grabbed onto us, and he and the others helped us back into the room. The girl stood facing me as we regarded each other in triumph. Then she cast a long look at her murdered friends in the corner of the room. She burst into tears, and buried her face against my chest. I wrapped one arm around her back as I covered her eyes with my other hand, and I began weeping, too.

Master Juwain touched my shoulder and said, ‘Val, this is no place to linger.’

I nodded my head. I was now trembling as badly as the girl. I looked down at her and asked, ‘What is your name?’

But she didn’t answer me. She just stood there looking at me with her sad, beautiful eyes.

One of the guards came up to me as I was buckling on my sword. He said, ‘It seems that the Red Priests’ servants were all mute, Lord Valashu.’

‘No doubt so that they couldn’t tell of their masters’ filthy crimes,’ Maram added.

I bit my lip, then asked the girl, ‘Was it Salmelu – Igasho – who did all this?’

The sudden dread that seized her heart told me that it was.

‘Do you know if Salmelu kept company with a ghul? Might he have secreted such a man in the castle to steal the Lightstone?’

But in answer, she only shrugged her shoulders.

‘Come, Val,’ Master Juwain said to me again.

I started moving the girl toward the door, but then stopped suddenly. I said to her, ‘Your name is Estrella, isn’t it?’

She smiled brightly at me, and nodded her head.

‘I must ask you something.’ I bent over and whispered in her ear, ‘Do you know who the Maitreya is? Is it I?’

It seemed a senseless thing to ask a nine-year-old slave girl who could not even speak. And she looked at me with her dark, almond eyes as if my words indeed made no sense.

Master Juwain cast me a sharp look as if to ask me why I still doubted what was almost certainly proven. And I said to him, ‘I must know, sir.’

‘Very well, but do you have to know it right now?’

The sight of the murdered girls was like a poisoned knife cutting open my belly. Around my neck I felt an invisible noose, fashioned by Morjin, inexorably tightening. My whole being burned with the desire to have answered a single question.

‘There’s so little time,’ I said to him. ‘Will you come with me, now, sir, to see what wisdom your gelstei might hold?’

Master Juwain nodded his assent, and so I went out into the hall. The guards remained behind to wait for those who would prepare the dead girls for burial. I did not know what to do with Estrella. When I mentioned giving her over to the care of a nurse, she threw her arms around my waist and would not let go until I promised not to leave her.

‘All right then,’ I said to her. ‘If you’re to show me the Maitreya, perhaps you can show me other things as well.’

And so I took her hand in mine, and led her and my friends back down to the great hall to stand before the Lightstone.

6

When we reached this room of feasts and councils, more people were gathered there. The sleeping Guardians had been moved off the dais and laid beneath it on the cold stone floor. Baltasar had deployed forty of the new Guardians to posts near the steps at either end of the dais. The remaining Guardians stood watch on the dais as usual, fifteen of them to either side of the Lightstone. Their hands gripped their swords, and they showed no sign of wanting to fall asleep.

My mother, hastily dressed in a simple tunic and shawl, stood over the sleeping Guardians talking with my father. Lord Tanu prowled about with his hand on his sword and looked very crabby from the loss of sleep. It seemed that the night’s events had roused the entire castle.

I presented Estrella and gave a quick account of how she had escaped from Salmelu and his priests. My mother began weeping, whether from relief that I was still alive or from her sorrow for Estrella it was hard to tell. She came over to us and smiled at Estrella. She gently laid her hand on her shoulder.

But Lord Raasharu was not so kind. He came over to us and looked at Estrella, saying, ‘Could this be the ghul, then?’

His question outraged me. I held out my hand to warn him back as I said, ‘She’s just a girl!’

‘Forgive me, Lord Valashu, but might not the Lord of Lies make use of one so young even more easily?’

‘No!’ I said. And then, ‘Yes, perhaps he could – but not this one, Lord Raasharu. She’s no more a ghul than you are.’

The fire in my eyes just then must have convinced him of what my heart knew to be true. He bowed and took a step back, even as the awe with which he had earlier regarded me returned to his face. He seemed ashamed to have doubted me. ‘Forgive me, Lord Valashu, but it was my duty as your father’s seneschal to ask.’

‘It’s all right, Lord Raasharu,’ I said, clapping him on his arm. ‘This has been a long night, and we’re all very tired.’

But this, it seemed, was not good enough for Lord Tanu. He marched straight up to us as his suspicious old eyes fixed on Estrella. ‘If she’s not a ghul, then perhaps she’s a spy that Salmelu left behind. She came out of Argattha! How do we know that her true loyalties won’t always lie with the Kallimun priests and the Red Dragon?’

My mother slipped her shawl around Estrella’s bare shoulders. Then she gathered her closer, and stood holding her protectively. ‘If this girl is a spy, then fair is foul and I’m as blind as a bat.’

Lord Tanu opened his mouth as if to gainsay her, but my father suddenly stepped forward and called out, ‘Enough! The Red Dragon has set traps for us tonight, but it’s not to be believed that this girl is one of them. Now, haven’t we other concerns?’

We did have. For it seemed that there was still a ghul hiding somewhere in the castle. The thirty Guardians continued their unnatural sleep. And I still struggled to solve the great mystery of my life.

While the search continued, my father sent one of his fastest riders to the Brotherhood’s sanctuary to retrieve a book about the lesser gelstei that Master Juwain requested. Master Juwain believed the sleeping men sprawled below the dais would awaken naturally in good time. But if they did not, he wanted to search in his book for mention of some tonic or tea that would rouse them.

‘There must be some specific that will counteract the effects of the sleep stone,’ he said. ‘Just as there must be some specific sequence of thoughts that will open this.’

So saying, he drew out the opalescent little thought stone that he had brought from Nar. In the presence of the Lightstone, its colors seemed to swirl more vividly.

‘Try, sir,’ I said, urging him toward the dais.

He yawned and said, ‘I’m afraid I would have a fresher mind if we waited until tomorrow.’

‘Tonight is nearly tomorrow,’ I told him. ‘Haven’t we waited long enough?’

Master Juwain’s eyes flared with a new light. He loved nothing in life so much as delving into the mysteries of the mind.

And so we both went up upon the dais. The Guardians there made room for us. Master Juwain stepped straight up to the Lightstone, holding the little gelstei in the open bowl of his hands. I stood by his side as he closed his eyes. He fell so still that it seemed he was sleeping, too.

And so I waited to see if Master Juwain might discover some proof of my fate. What a great mystery the gelstei were! The secret of their making had been almost completely lost. But why, since there were still many ancient books describing how naked matter – the base elements of the earth – might be transmuted into these glorious crystals?

I remembered Master Juwain once explaining the answer to this puzzle: ‘Because the gelstei are living crystals, and the knowledge that goes into their forging is individual and spiritual and alive.’

They could not, he had told me, be forged as if by recipe. And they could not be used that way, either.

And as it was with the lesser gelstei, so it was even more with the greater gelstei: the silustria of my sword, the healing varistei, the blazing firestones. And most of all, the Lightstone itself. It was said that the golden cup gleaming on its stand three feet away from me had been forged by the Galadin around a distant star many ages ago – but no one really knew. Certainly no one on Ea, for twice ten thousand years, had succeeded in creating another like it, for almost everything about the gold gelstei remained a mystery. All through the Age of Law, the Brotherhoods had tried to unlock its secrets, with only partial success. As Master Juwain had said to me, it was one thing to hold the Lightstone in one’s hands, but quite another to wield it.

It was near the first hour of the new day – Moonday, I thought – when Master Juwain finally opened his eyes. He sighed as he squeezed the little gelstei in his hand. ‘I’m afraid I’ve failed, Val. The conundrum remains: this crystal might contain knowledge about the Lightstone. But it seems we still need the Lightstone to open it.’

I gazed at the golden cup that we had fought through hell to bring to this place. It quickened the powers of each of our gelstei – and so quickened our individual gifts that enabled us to use them.

Master Juwain went on, ‘I’ve tried all the formulae and incantations, in ancient Ardik, in Lorranda and Uskul, even the Songlines, but nothing has availed.’

My father’s words rang in my head: that we must believe, for believing in a thing, we make it be. Then an old verse flashed in my mind:

The deeper dance of head and heart, The angels’ grace, mysterious art, To weave light’s thread so lucidly: True mind’s resplendent tapestry. The sacred fire of heart and head Where sense and thought are sweetly wed, Through ancient alchemy is wrought A higher sense, a deeper thought.

After I had recited these lines, Master Juwain looked at me and asked, ‘Where did you learn that?’

‘From a book in your library, years ago,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you might find these thoughts that are deeper than words, since as you say, none of your words has availed.’

‘But, Val, thoughts are words. Language is.’ He held up his little crystal. ‘And this is called a thought stone – not a heart stone.’

I gazed off at our family’s table, where my mother sat with Estrella tending her bruised and bloodied feet. Something about this mute girl, so wild and free, called forth the grace of an animal. An animal, I was sure, had thoughts and mind, ordered not with words, but with the deeper logic of life. Estrella, not being able to talk to others, had somehow learned to communicate a blazing intelligence as if unfolding a fireflower from out of the depths of her being. The smile on her face as my mother finished her work and kissed her spoke more clearly and purely than words ever could.

‘But, sir,’ I said to Master Juwain, ‘doesn’t thought arise from the deeper intelligence of the heart? Doesn’t mind merely translate this intelligence into words, and then manipulate it and permute it?’

Master Juwain remained silent as he looked at me.

‘And didn’t you once teach me,’ I went on, ‘that the head and heart are two horses that draw the same chariot? And that the ancients made no such war between mind and body as do we?’

Master Juwain sighed as he nodded his head. ‘Yes, yes, I know very well what you say is true. But, you see, sometimes I don’t know … what I know.’

I pointed at the pocket of his robes and said, ‘The varistei is a healing stone, yes? What if it could heal this rent in the soul? Why don’t you try using it on yourself?’

He looked appalled as if what I had suggested to him was more painful than taking a knife to his own chest to perform a surgery. But he slowly nodded his head as he removed the emerald crystal from his pocket. He stood holding it in his hand in front of him.

The deeper dance of head and heart …

The healing stones, the green gelstei were called. And yet their powers ran much deeper than merely mending flesh together. Used in harmony with the natural forces of the earth, the varistei could awaken and strengthen the very fires of life itself.

The sacred fire of heart and head

Where sense and thought are sweetly wed …

Again, Master Juwain closed his eyes. I felt my heart beating in a quick but steady rhythm with his. The sounds of the room – jangling steel and creaking chairs and low voices – faded into a distant hum. I seemed to wait forever, all the while expecting Master Juwain to look at me and tell me that he had failed yet again. And then suddenly, the varistei came alive with a deep viridian light. The hall fell eerily silent as this lovely radiance enveloped Master Juwain’s hand, his arm and then his entire body; it seemed to course through his body and illumine it as from within. I gasped, then, to see his heart pulsing inside his chest like a great, living jewel. It sent shoots of emerald light through his arms and his legs, and up in a great shimmering fountain through his head.

When at last he opened his eyes, I had never seen these twin gray orbs so luminous and clear. He smiled as he tucked his varistei back into his pocket. Then he looked upon the Lightstone. The golden cup overflowed with a clear light, which he seemed to drink in through his eyes. He stood thusly for a long time. At last he turned his attention to the thought stone that he still held in his other hand. He stood gazing at it, nearly lost in rapture, even as the first rays of the morning sun fell upon the great hall’s windows and carried colors of crimson, gold and blue into the silent room.

‘I see, I see,’ he whispered to himself.

Now some of the sleeping Guardians began stirring and opening their eyes, bewildered. My father led Asaru and my brothers up upon the dais. Lansar Raasharu and Lord Tanu followed, and my mother, her arm covering Estrella’s shoulders, slowly climbed the steps to hear what Master Juwain might say.

‘You were right, Val,’ he said, holding up the thought stone for all to see. ‘Words were not the key to open this, though its contents were recorded in words. In High East Ardik, no less, which, then as now, was a language that only the Brotherhoods used.’

A fleeting look of triumph swept over Master Juwain’s face as he continued,

‘And I was also right. There is knowledge of the Lightstone in this gelstei. And knowledge of the Maitreya, too.’

‘Go on,’ I said as my eyes burned into his.

‘I’m afraid it won’t be as much as you hoped for.’

‘Go on,’ I said again.

Master Juwain sighed as he held his hand out toward the Lightstone. ‘It seems that the Cup of Heaven may be used by anyone, each according to his virtue and understanding. But if a man is flawed in any way, the light leaks out from his deeds like water from a cracked cup.’

‘Are you saying, then, that a man needs to be perfect in order to use the Lightstone?’

‘No – only to use it perfectly.’

‘And the Maitreya?’

‘The words concerning him, at least, are clear enough,’ Master Juwain said. ‘The Lightstone is meant for the Maitreya.’

‘But how is he to use it?’

‘Only he will ever know.’

I turned toward the Lightstone, now pouring out a golden radiance as if it had caught the rays of the morning sun and was giving them back a thousandfold. Around the dais the last of the stricken Guardians were waking.

‘But who is the Maitreya, then?’ I asked Master Juwain. ‘What does your stone say about that?’

‘Very little, I’m afraid.’ Master Juwain sighed again as he looked at me with all the kindness that he could find. ‘This is the relevant passage, listen: “Just as the Lightstone is the source of the radiance that holds all things together, so the Maitreya is the light that draws all peoples and all kingdoms together toward a single source and fate.”’

I looked at Master Juwain and said, ‘Is there no more?’

‘I’m certain that there is more recorded in the other thought stones in Nar.’

I drew Alkaladur and held it before the Lightstone. The Sword of Truth, it was called, the Sword of Fate. Its silver gelstei, gleaming as bright as a mirror, gave me to see a frightful thing: that I stood at the center of the whirlwind of forces that drew all the people of Ea toward a singular fate.

Lansar Raasharu suddenly cried out, ‘Claim the Lightstone, Lord Valashu!’

‘Claim it, Val!’ Baltasar, his faithful son, repeated.

I looked around at my father and my mother, at my brothers and friends and all these people who were so close to my heart. Only hours before, Kasandra had warned of a ghul who would undo my dreams. I was sure that none of those present could be this evil being. And yet, in the deepest sense, I could be sure only of myself. Shouldn’t I then claim the Lightstone, here and now, if for no other reason than to keep it safe within my grasp and guarded by my sword?

‘Claim it, Val!’ my fierce brother, Mandru, said to me.

The golden cup gleamed before me. If I were a false Maitreya and yet claimed it for my own, I would crack apart like a cup of clay and bring great evil to the world. But if I were the true Maitreya and failed to claim it, another would – and then the evil that he wrought with the gold gelstei would be just as great.

‘Come, Val,’ my brother Jonathay laughed out. His face, both playful and calm, was lit up with his faith in me. ‘If you’re not the Lord of Light, then who is?’

At last I turned toward Estrella. She stood in the shelter of my mother’s bosom silently sipping from the cup of warm milk and nutmeg that my mother had given her. Kasandra had said that this girl would show me the Maitreya. Without words to mar the way she saw the world and interpreted it to others, her whole being was a beautiful mirror like the silustria of my sword. This, I thought, was her gift. She smiled at me with her innocent and beautiful face, and in the quick, clear brightness there, it seemed that she was showing me myself just as I was.

Then I remembered the words of Morjin’s letter: You cannot be this Maitreya, either. But Morjin was the Lord of Lies. I suddenly knew that he truly did fear that I was the Maitreya. And so, it seemed, I must truly be.

‘All right,’ I finally said, holding up my sword. I smiled at my good friends, at Sunjay Naviru, and at Skyshan of Ki and at others. ‘All right. In eleven days, the tournament in Nar will begin. All the kings of the Valari or their seneschals will be there. Let this be the test of things, then: if I can persuade them to journey to Tria, there to meet in conclave with the kings of the Free Kingdoms and make alliance against Morjin, I will claim the Lightstone.’

At this news, Baltasar and Sunjay – Jonathay, too, and others – let loose a cheer. Asaru smiled at me and told me that he was glad that I would be accompanying Yarashan and him to Nar. But Lord Tanu remained skeptical. He pulled at his sour face and asked, ‘And just how will you accomplish this miracle?’

‘With all the force of my heart, sir.’ I went on to explain that I would compete at sword and at bow, and at all the tournament’s other competitions. ‘If I do well enough, or am even declared champion, then the kings will have to listen to me.’

‘If you’re declared champion,’ Asaru said with a smile, ‘you’ll have to defeat me first, little brother.’

‘And me,’ Yarashan put in as pride stiffened his handsome face.

I smiled at both of them as I bowed my head. Then I turned to Master Juwain. ‘The tournament’s champion, whoever he is, may ask of King Waray a boon. If fortune should favor me, I would ask that the Brotherhood school might be reopened.’

Master Juwain squeezed the thought stone in his hand. He was nearly as eager as I to enter the Brotherhood school and discover what knowledge its companion stones might hold.

‘Very well,’ Lord Tanu said to me. ‘You young knights always want to go to tournaments. But is it fitting that the Knight of the Swan and the Guardian of the Lightstone himself should abandon his charge to go off seeking glory?’

‘No, it is not,’ I said to him. I held my hand out toward the Lightstone. ‘And that is why we will have to take it with us.’

As I now explained to Lord Tanu, no less my father and Lansar Raasharu and everyone else, there were good reasons for risking the Lightstone by taking it on the road. First, I had vowed that all the Valari kingdoms would share in its radiance. Second, if King Waray should grant me or another Meshian knight the boon of entering the Brotherhood’s school, the Lightstone would be needed to open any thought stones. Third, although there was obvious danger in taking the Lightstone out of the Elahad castle, there was perhaps an equal danger in keeping it here, as the night’s events had proved. And fourth, if it should be proven that I was the Maitreya, the Lightstone must be close at hand for me to claim.

When I had completed my argument, everyone remained silent and looked at my father to see what he might say. He gazed at me for many moments before he finally spoke: ‘It is hard to imagine losing this great light that has come into our castle so soon after gaining it.’

‘We have each of us given our word, sir. Shouldn’t we honor this?’

‘Are you asking my permission to remove from my hall the greatest treasure in the world? And to take from my kingdom a hundred of its finest knights?’

He nodded at Baltasar as his radiant eyes looked past the Lightstone at the Guardians who stood around it. And then he turned back toward me.

‘Yes, your permission, sir,’ I said to him.

‘Is that truly mine to give?’

‘Should not a king command his own son?’

‘His son, yes,’ he said as he regarded me strangely. He bowed his head to me, slightly, then continued, ‘A king is charged with the safeguarding of his kingdom and ordering its affairs – and so commanding those who follow him. But he has a greater charge as well, and that is to the kingdom of the earth and all of life. This realm, however, he does not rule. If he should lose his son to this higher realm, how then should he presume to command him?’

A sharp pain filled my throat as I looked at my father. The great passages of life were always sad. I could find no words to say to him.

‘Very well, then, Valashu,’ he finally forced out. ‘Take the Lightstone with you to Nar, if you must. But be careful, my son.’

He leaned forward to embrace me and then kissed my forehead.

‘Will you come, too, sir?’ I asked him.

He glanced at the Lightstone and shook his head. ‘No, that’s impossible, now. The Red Dragon has spoken of marching armies into Mesh. There’s much to be done if these armies are to be kept away.’

I bowed to him deeply and then met his bright gaze.

‘And now,’ my father said to everyone, ‘it is more than late. Let us retire to our rooms or take breakfast, as we will. Later there will be much to do.’

And with that, he put his arm around my mother to escort her and Estrella from the hall. Everyone else except the Guardians who would stand near the Lightstone through the morning prepared to leave as well. I remained for a few moments staring at this sacred cup that had caused so many to sully themselves and make murder. Then I went off to take a few hours of rest.

7

That afternoon the bodies of the scryers and the slave girls were laid to earth on a grassy knoll on the slopes of Telshar above the castle. There I buried as well the box that Salmelu had given me. I stood with my family and friends beneath a cloudy sky and listened to my father vow vengeance toward the one who had so defiled his kingdom. Never again, I thought, would he extend hospitality toward the emissaries of Morjin.

Late the next day, a messenger brought word of the Red Priests. It seemed that they had managed to keep ahead of the knights that my father had sent in pursuit of them; they had ridden straight across Mesh and into Waas before the kel keep that guarded the frontier could be alerted. Thus they made their escape. For the Waashians would allow no knight of Mesh into their realm, nor even suffer them to tell of Salmelu’s infamy. This was according to King Sandarkan’s command. Only a few years before, at the Battle of Red Mountain, we of the Swan and Stars had badly defeated the Waashians, and King Sandarkan still held great bitterness toward Mesh.

Neither did the search of the castle uncover the ghul. But then, that is a ghul’s nature, to remain hidden inside another’s mind or dwell deep within the flesh of a faithful nurse or a groom or even a friend. Now that it had come time to prepare for the Nar tournament, I was relieved to be putting behind me the castle’s many residents and the many more town-dwellers who journeyed back and forth from Silvassu every day. It gave me some small comfort that I could choose my companions from those I was certain could not be a ghul. Baltasar and the hundred Guardians I trusted with my life – and more importantly, with the Lightstone. Lansar Raasharu, of course, was beyond reproach, as were my brothers, Asaru and Yarashan. Master Juwain would be riding at my side, as he had on the great Quest. And it turned out that Maram would be coming with us, too.

‘Well, Val,’ he said to me after a long day of laying in supplies and attending to the many details of organizing an expedition, ‘you didn’t really think I’d let you go off alone on another adventure, did you?’

‘You’re the most faithful of friends,’ I said, clasping his hand. ‘But your decision wouldn’t have anything to do with another wedding postponement, would it?’

He smiled at me knowingly and said, ‘Well, perhaps just a little. Let’s just say that a journey to Nar will give me a little more time to make sure that Behira is truly the one meant for me.’

‘But what did she say when you told her you were going away?’

‘Ah, well, she wept, of course, too bad. But I believe that I was able to make her understand that duty called me to your side in your time of need. I promised her that if I were to win any of the competitions, I would bring back the gold medal and give it to her.’

I nearly coughed in astonishment. ‘Are you really thinking of entering the tournament?’

‘I? I? Go galloping about trying to cross lances with Valari knights? Do you think I’m mad? The point is, Behira believes I will be competing. This will soothe her. If I’m kept busy, you see, I’ll have less time for dalliances. But when we actually reach Nar, I can always, ah, be incapacitated with a bad back or the flux, do you understand?’

I did understand, and I promised Maram that I would keep secret this little dishonesty. He seemed very happy with his plan, and gave thanks that fate always seemed to rescue him from Lord Harsha’s wrath just when things looked darkest for him. But this one time, fate betrayed him. At the evening feast, when it came time for the rounds of toasting, Lord Harsha stood upon his game, old leg and called out, ‘Tomorrow Lord Valashu and Mesh’s finest knights will leave for the tournament in Nar. My daughter has just told me that Sar Maram Marshayk will be joining them and competing as an honorary Valari knight! We should all honor his courage! Let us all drink his health!’

Maram, sitting at Lord Harsha’s table beneath Lord Harsha’s upraised goblet, cast me a quick, sharp look from across the room as if to ask me if I had divulged his plan after all. I shook my head at him. And he shook his head at me in silent resignation and drank his beer even as two hundred lords and knights cheered him and wished him well.

Lord Harsha had yet another surprise for him. He was not an especially clever or imaginative man – except perhaps when it came to protecting his daughter. So it vexed Maram greatly when Lord Harsha clapped him on the back and announced, ‘As many of you know, Sar Maram is to be my son-in-law. Since it is distressful for my daughter and me to see him ride off at this time, we’ve decided to journey to the tournament as well. We’ll see to it that no harm befalls this brave knight!’

At this, Maram choked on his beer. His fat face reddened as he groaned and looked across the room at me for help. But it was all I could do to keep from laughing at this much-deserved plight that he had brought upon himself.

And so it seemed that all preparations for the expedition to Nar and our roster were complete. Yet one more addition remained to be made. Later that night, I met with my father and my family in his rooms. Estrella, whom my mother had practically adopted, took warm milk while the rest of us had brandy. When I told her that I would not be returning to Mesh for perhaps several months, she threw her arms around my legs and would not let go. She wept and seemed disconsolate, even when my mother promised to teach her the art of weaving and my grandmother sang her a comforting song. I knew then that I must take her with me, for our fates were somehow joined together. If I left her here in Mesh, I was afraid that the beautiful thing that had come alive inside her upon our meeting would wither and die.

‘She’s like a sister to me,’ I said as I laid my hand upon her dark, curly hair. Her little triangle of a face, all quicksilver and wild, brightened to see me smiling down at her.

‘Yes,’ my father said, looking at us, ‘but would you take your sister, and one so young, upon a dangerous journey?’

‘She will have a hundred Valari knights to protect her,’ I said. I placed my hand on the hilt of my sword. ‘And myself.’

‘Even so, she would be safer here.’

‘Would she truly? With a ghul still on the loose? How do we know that this man wouldn’t seek to complete Salmelu’s evil work?’

My father thought about this as he studied Estrella’s lively face. Then he said, ‘But, Valashu, it’s a hundred and fifty miles to Nar. And four times that distance to Tria.’

‘Estrella,’ I said, ‘has come out of Argattha, and that is the greatest distance of all, for the road from hell is endless.’

I went on to tell of my sense that Estrella still carried much of this hell inside her, in her nightmares of memory, if not in her soul.

‘You cannot know what an abomination Morjin has worked upon that place,’ I said, to my father and to my family. ‘Morjin has made children … to do unspeakable things. I would make for this child, at least, happier memories.’

My father’s eyes grew deep as oceans. It sometimes seemed that he had the power to look straight through me. ‘You wish to heal her of her affliction, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I said, touching Estrella’s long, delicate neck. ‘There’s nothing wrong with her that she shouldn’t speak. Nothing wrong that Morjin hasn’t somehow made wrong. If I am the one … whom many think I am, then with the aid of the Lightstone, it may be that I can give her back her voice – and perhaps much else as well.’

My father nodded his head at this, then said, ‘And if you could work this miracle, then your healing of her would be that which showed you the Maitreya – is that right?’

‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘But even if she doesn’t show me what it seems she must, she might show me another. Whoever the Lord of Light truly is, he must be found for the sake of all Ea.’

‘For the sake of Ea and not your own?’

‘One can only hope so, sir.’

In the end, it was decided that such a journey, on good horses over good roads, under the escort of a hundred knights, should not prove too arduous for this tough and resourceful girl. She wanted to come with me so badly that she locked the tips of her long, tapering fingers through the rings of my mail. If fate was moving us along the same road together, who was I to go against it?

One last matter regarding our expedition still had to be decided. By law, no knight or warrior of Mesh was allowed to leave the Nine Kingdoms wearing the marvelous diamond battle armor of the Valari – except on expeditions of war. This was meant to protect a lone knight against brigands who might murder him in order to divest him of the glittering treasure that encased him. So it was that I had journeyed across Ea and back wearing only my steel mail. But not all knights could afford two suits of armor; at least half of the Guardians were not so fortunate. Therefore, they must leave Mesh either unarmored or raimented in diamonds.

‘It won’t do to leave my knights unprotected,’ my father said to me. ‘The Red Dragon has spoken of sending armies against Mesh and has brought murder into my house. Very well, then – let it be as if you are riding to war.’

Early the next morning, on the 9th of Soal, all who would journey to Nar assembled in the castle’s north ward. It was a day of drizzle and low, gray clouds that smothered the sky and promised only more rain. This stole some of the sheen from the knights’ usually-resplendent diamond armor. At least, I thought as we all formed up, diamonds do not rust. I ran my finger across the misted, white stones affixed to the hardened leather along my arm. Diamond being lighter than steel, it was joy to move about unburdened, with nearly as much freedom as had a man wearing only woolens or a leather doublet.

I sat astride my great, black warhorse, Altaru, and I urged him past some squawking chickens toward the front of the formation. There, Asaru and Yarashan gathered, too. They wore, as did I, great helms with curving steel face plates and silver wings sweeping up from the sides. Black surcoats showing the silver swan and the seven stars of the Elahads draped cleanly over their shoulders and chests. Their triangular shields were embossed with the same emblem. These bore as well, near the point, marks of cadence that distinguished my brothers and me from each other. Asaru had chosen a small, gold bear while Yarashan displayed a white rose. My mark was that of a lightning bolt. It was burned into the black steel of my shield as it was into the flesh of my forehead.

Lord Harsha and Behira, with Maram, Master Juwain and Lansar Raasharu, took their places immediately behind us. Lord Harsha’s emblem was a gold lion rampant on a field of bright blue. It covered nearly all his shield, except that the bordure around its rim showed a repeating motif of silver swans and stars against a narrow black field, for he had sworn allegiance to my father and must bear sign of it. So it was with Lord Raasharu, his family’s emblem of a blue rose against a gold field being surrounded by the same bordure, and with all the other knights lining up behind him.

Baltasar, who would be that day’s bearer of the Lightstone, had the position of honor at the center of the middle column of Guardians. Our small baggage train trailed this main body of our expedition, followed by strings of our snorting remounts and a rear-guard of twenty knights commanded by Sunjay Naviru. Estrella, I discovered, could not ride and had been brought to Mesh with her sister slaves locked inside a cart. And so the prospect of sitting all day by herself in one of the wagons distressed her. I decided that she should begin our journey riding with me. My mother escorted her through the courtyard, treading carefully through the squishing mud right up to the front of our assemblage. She helped her up onto Altaru’s back, and the small girl seemed happy to sit in front of me dangling her feet over Altaru’s sides.

‘Neither of you will be comfortable this way for long,’ my mother said to me as she stood there in the courtyard’s churned-up mud. ‘Please mind that she doesn’t grow too tired or sore.’

I promised that I would take as good care of Estrella as she would herself.

‘Goodbye, Valashu,’ she said as she bent forward to kiss my knee. ‘Whether you return as a Maitreya or just a man, make sure you do return.’

In the north ward that morning, lined up along the walls from the Aramesh Tower to the Telemesh Gate, blacksmiths and carpenters mingled with great lords such as Lord Tanu, and midwives waited in the rain with princes and even kings. Almost all the castle had turned out to see us off. At the front of this throng stood my father and grandmother, with my brothers Karshur, Mandru and Ravar. When it came time for us to ride forth, they braved the mud and joined my mother in making their goodbyes. Karshur made me promise to return with the gold plaque in swordsmanship. Mandru, adding a twist to my mother’s theme, advised me to return with the gold gelstei – or not at all. This was meant to be a joke, of course, but there was a painful truth in his otherwise tender parting with me.

On this journey, my father had no gifts to give me other than the reassurance of his smile and the fire of his eyes. He spoke the same farewell as he had a year before. This time, in the light of what I sought, his words had an even deeper poignancy: ‘Always remember who you are, Valashu. May you always walk in the light of the One.’

I nudged Altaru forward, and my powerful horse whinnied with excitement, glad to set out into the world again. And so I led the rest of my company through the castle’s gate. A thousand iron-shod hooves struck wet paving stones, sending spray and a great noise into the air. The road wound down from the castle through an apple grove and turned into the North Road that led all the way toward Ishka and beyond.

It was not a pleasant day for travel. And yet the land through which we passed was still lovely. The fields around Silvassu showed the emerald sheen of new shoots of barley and rye; the wildflowers along the road were alive with bees and butterflies undaunted by the soft rain. To the left of us, the peaks of the mountains – Vayu, Arakel and Telshar – vanished into folds of silver mist. Soon we entered the forest filling the Valley of the Swans. With the oaks and elms in full leaf and the songbirds chirping gaily, it seemed churlish to chafe at a little moisture working its way into our garments or to long for the sun to burn its way through the clouds.

We rode all day at an easy pace so as not to tire the horses. That night we camped in the hilly country toward the northern end of the valley. On some nearly level pasturage well-watered by a swift stream, we laid out our rows of tents. Upon considering the warcraft I had learned from my mysterious friend, Kane, and from my father, I insisted that our little camp be fortified by a moat and a stockade. This rudimentary fence was little more than some sharpened stakes pounded into the moist earth and logs and brush piled up to form a breastwork. Nevertheless, with Guardians stationed every twenty paces, we would be well protected against any thieves or murderers who might try to steal upon us in the middle of the night.

My tent, a large pavilion of black and silver silk in which the Lightstone would reside each night, covered a patch of moist grass in the middle of the camp. It was large enough to accommodate numerous people, and Estrella gave signs of wanting to lay out her sleeping furs inside and share it with me. But that would have been unseemly. For however much I thought of her as my sister, she remained a young girl of no true relation. And so I arranged a compromise: Lord Harsha and Behira would have the tent next to mine, and Estrella would sleep with them. We would take our meals, with Master Juwain and Maram, around a common campfire. If Estrella should cry out in the darkness, in her soundless way, her plaint might awaken me so that I could go to her and lead her out of the land of nightmare.

Our dinner that first night on the road to Nar was plentiful and good: beef and barley soup mopped up with a black rye bread thick with butter; roasted lamb and mushrooms; asparagus shoots picked from the shoulders along the road; apple pie that my mother had packed with a block of aged, yellow cheese. All this provender gave us good cheer against the fine, misting rain. The beer and brandy poured into our cups helped raise our spirits, too. I sipped this fine liquor by our fire, with Master Juwain and Maram on my right, while Estrella, Behira and Lord Harsha sat in a half-circle to my left. My two brothers, at the fire nearest us, held a little war council as they discussed their strategies for excelling at the tournament. Between the rows of tents around us, Baltasar, Sunjay Naviru, Sivar of Godhra, and all the other Guardians except the sentries, gathered around fires of their own.

For a couple of hours, I talked with Lord Harsha and Maram about the tournament and other worldly affairs. And all this time, I couldn’t help stealing quick glances at Estrella. She seemed to pay no attention to these matters of great moment which so concerned me and my friends; perhaps she didn’t understand our talk of statecraft or just didn’t care. During dinner, she ate with abandon as if she had been starved and couldn’t get enough of food, and of life itself. Later she played with a little doll sewn out of some bright bits of cloth. Behira, that truly kind young woman whom Maram so foolishly declined to marry, had given it to her as a present. It seemed the only possession that Estrella had ever been allowed to keep as her own. It drew all of her attention. For this, too, was her gift, the way that a picked flower or a brightly colored bird and all the things of life absorbed her utterly. I watched as her dark, almond eyes seemed to melt into the doll’s silken substance. I wondered at her origins. With her light brown skin and finely-boned face, she might have been Hesperuk, Galdan or Sung – or some marrying of all three. She was less pretty than beautiful. Her body was as slender as a willow; her slightly crooked nose suggested that someone had once broken it. What a mystery she was! What a mystery all human beings were! Argattha, I knew, had broken men as strong as bulls and yet here this little sprig of humanity sat in a soft spring mist happily playing with her doll as if none of the world’s horrors could touch her.

After Lord Harsha and Behira had taken her off to bed, I remarked this inextinguishable quality of hers.

‘Her soul … is so free,’ I marveled. ‘After a life in bondage, she’s still so wild at heart. Like a sparrowhawk – like the wind.’

‘People survive slavery in different ways,’ Master Juwain said to me. ‘I think that she retreats inside herself.’

‘No, it is more than that,’ I said. I told him, and Maram, that Estrella seemed able to look into a thing and perceive some part of its fiery essence as her own, and so to take refuge there. ‘She sees things, sir. And what she sees, she reflects in her eyes, in her soul.’

‘You’re quite taken with her, aren’t you?’

‘She has a gift,’ I said. ‘Whether it’s to show me the Maitreya or simply show the sun on a sunless day, who could know?’

‘Yes, a gift,’ Master Juwain agreed as he scratched his bald head. Soft lights began dancing in his eyes as if I had just given him a key piece to a puzzle. ‘There is something about her. Consider how she found her way up the castle’s wall in pitch blackness.’

I thought about this as I gazed through the fire’s flames at the blue and yellow tent into which Estrella had retired for the night. I said, ‘Perhaps she felt for the cracks in the stone.’

‘Yes, but felt with her hands or with a different sense? Perhaps she has the second sight.’

‘Like a scryer?’

‘No, not exactly. A scryer’s gift is to perceive things hidden in time.’

‘Some scryers,’ I said, thinking of Atara, ‘can also see things hidden in space.’

‘Yes, and there clairvoyance is wed with prophecy. But I’m thinking that perhaps Estrella is gifted otherwise.’

He went on to tell of a talent so rare that it had only an ancient name little used any more: that of a seard. A seard, he said, had a knack for finding lost things – by becoming, in spirit, that very thing.

I gazed at the sparks in the flames before me. They reminded me of Flick’s fiery form whirling about nearby. I said, ‘A curious thing happened this morning, sir: When I was packing my chess set, I discovered that one of the white knights was missing. I couldn’t imagine how I’d lost it. But Estrella found it for me in Yarashan’s room. It seems that he had borrowed it without telling me to replace a missing piece in his set. But how did Estrella even know to look there?’

Maram took a sip of brandy and said, ‘Curious, indeed, my friend. But it’s even more curious to think of a seard becoming a piece of carved ivory – or anything else. If she’s to find the Maitreya for us, is she to become him as well, then?’

‘Only in spirit, as I’ve said,’ Master Juwain told Maram. He eyed Maram’s glass of vanishing brandy as if to admonish him that such strong drink could cloud both memory and the wits. ‘I would think that a seard might find the Maitreya through a transparency of the soul that nobody else would possess. By seeing him in a way that nobody else could.’

‘Ah, you’re speculating, sir,’ Maram said, needling him.

‘That I am. But how else is one to make sense of Kasandra’s prophecy?’

I poked the fire with a charred stick, and this sent up even more sparks. I said, ‘The true miracle is that Argattha didn’t crush this gift from her. And that Morjin – or his priests – didn’t discover it and use her as a sort of living lodestone to point the way to the Maitreya.’

‘As you would use her?’ Maram said, now needling me.

‘It is different,’ I told him. ‘As different as slavery and freedom. If Estrella follows me, this is her will and not mine.’

‘One can only hope so,’ Maram said to me.

Master Juwain pulled at his lumpy chin and said, ‘I’m afraid it isn’t always so easy to distinguish slavery from freedom. Or to tell a slave from one who is free.’

‘How so, sir?’ I asked.

‘Consider Estrella, then,’ Master Juwain said. ‘She is starved her whole life of the one thing that a young girl most needs. And then you save her from death, but even more, you give her the sweetest thing in life. You, who loves so freely and fiercely, as your mother has said. You never count the cost, do you, Val, when you give your heart to a friend?’

‘Are you saying that what is between Estrella and me, this thing that is so pure and good, this love, enslaves her?’

‘No, love can never enslave – it is just the opposite. But our need for love, burning us up like a fever, that can enslave. For that which we most desire pulls at us and captures us, like moths around a flame.’

‘But Estrella doesn’t seem … captured.’

‘No, I admit that she does not. She has great strength. She still retains her freedom, as she did in Argattha.’

‘What do you mean?’ Maram asked. ‘The filthy priests captured her and forced her to their will.’

‘Yes, they captured her body which is the least part of ourselves that we might lose,’ Master Juwain said. ‘Far worse it is to let another master your mind. And it is truly damning to give up your soul.’

He went on to say that slaves were the least useful of Morjin’s servants, for a slave must constantly be controlled by whips and chains and the threat of being put to death. And that was because a slave’s mind, while compromised by fear, often retained enough free will to plot revolt and the murder of his master, and to dream always of freedom.

‘And that is why,’ Master Juwain said, ‘that the Lord of Lies would rather make men into true believers of his lies, for then, having surrendered their minds, they will do his bidding without question. Such men we do not call slaves, but they are less free than a mine-thrall.’

‘Some of Morjin’s men would march off a cliff for him,’ Maram said. ‘Remember the Blues at Khaisham? They’re the perfect soldiers.’

‘No, not so perfect as you might think,’ Master Juwain said. ‘For what a man believes, he might come not to believe. Men often change their allegiances to ideals like snakes shedding one skin and growing another.’

‘Morjin,’ I said, with a sudden certainty, ‘would fear this.’

Master Juwain slowly nodded his head. ‘Which is why he seeks to steal men’s souls above all else. As the mind embraces the body, so the soul enfolds the mind. Control a man’s soul, and you are the master of all that he feels, thinks and does.’

‘It seems as if you’re speaking of a ghul,’ I said.

‘I’m speaking of the path toward losing one’s freedom,’ Master Juwain said. ‘This is not a simple thing. No one is completely free, just as no one is completely a slave.’

‘But what about a ghul, then?’

‘A ghul, Val, is only an extreme case of what we’ve been discussing. He is that certain kind of slave that not only surrenders his soul to one such as Morjin, but then becomes possessed by him body, mind and soul.’

I thought about this as I listened to the crickets chirping in the pasture beyond our rows of tents. Near the fire, Flick’s luminous substance streaked up toward the sky like a fountain of little silver lights. He seemed to point the way toward a break in the clouds, where a single star shone out of the night’s blackness.

I looked over at Master Juwain. ‘Sir, you said that no one is ever truly free. But what about the Star People? What about the angels?’

Master Juwain considered this a moment, then said, ‘Just as there is a path toward slavery, there is one toward freedom. A man begins this path by learning the Law of the One and strengthening his soul. If he is wise, if he is pure of heart, he will go on to walk other worlds as one of the Star People. And the Star People, the most virtuous, gain freedom from aging and so become Elijin. And the Elijin advance as Galadin, who are free from death. The Ieldra, it is said, being of light, are free even from the burden of bearing bodies. And the One – ageless, changeless, indestructible and infinitely creative in bringing forth new forms – is pure freedom itself.’

‘Then Morjin,’ I said, ‘as one of the Elijin, should be more free than you or I.’

‘He should be,’ Master Juwain said. ‘But an angel can lose his soul as surely as a man. And when he does, having a greater soul to lose, his fall is more terrible.’

He went on to speak of the fall of Morjin’s master, Angra Mainyu, the greatest of the Galadin. Very little of this tragic tale was recorded in the Saganom Elu. But Master Juwain, in an old book discovered in the Library at Khaisham, had come across some passages concerning Angra Mainyu’s seduction into evil and the cataclysm that had followed. Long, long before the ages of Ea when men had first come to earth, Angra Mainyu had been chief of the Galadin on their home of Agathad in the numinous and eternal light of Ninsun. But he had coveted the Lightstone for his own, and so his gaze had turned toward the world of Mylene, where the Lightstone was kept. After journeying there, through deceit, treachery and the fire of great red gelstei that had nearly destroyed Mylene, he had slain the Lightstone’s guardian and had stolen the Cup of Heaven. He persuaded a great host of angels to his purpose, for there are always those who will challenge the will of the One. Among the Galadin who followed him were Yama, Gashur, Lokir, Kadaklan, Yurlunggur and Zun. And among the Elijin: Zarin, Ashalin, Shaitin, Nayin, Warkin and Duryin. They called themselves the Daevas, and they fled to the world of Damoom.

Then befell a great and terrible war, the War of the Stone, that was fought on thousands of worlds across the universe and lasted tens of thousands of years. Ashtoreth and Valoreth had led those angels still faithful to the Law of the One against Angra Mainyu. Master Juwain could tell us very little of this war. But it seemed that somehow Ashtoreth and the faithful Amshahs had finally prevailed. The Lightstone had been regained, and Angra Mainyu and his dark angels had been bound on Damoom.

‘And there, on this darkest of the Dark Worlds, Angra Mainyu still dwells to this day,’ Master Juwain said. He looked up at the clouds that hid the night’s stars. ‘And now he is master only of his own doom.’

I wasn’t so sure of this. One of the reasons that Morjin wished to regain the Lightstone was to use it to free Angra Mainyu from his prison.

‘In a way,’ Master Juwain went on, ‘we may think of Angra Mainyu and Morjin as ghuls themselves.’

‘Morjin, a ghul?’ Maram said.

‘Certainly. For it is part of the Law of the One that you cannot harm another without harming yourself. All the evil that the Red Dragon has done has possessed him with evil. And so now his own evil purpose enslaves him.’

I couldn’t help thinking of Kane, he of the black eyes like burning coals and a soul as deep and troubled as time itself. Kane, who was once Kalkin, one of the immortal Elijin sent to Ea with Morjin and other angels who had been killed long ago. Kane, I knew, had slain thousands, and he burned with a terrible purpose that consumed him with hate. And yet he still held within his savage heart a bright and beautiful thing that was hate’s very opposite. By what grace, I wondered, did he retain his essential humanity and the freedom of his soul?

I spoke of this to Master Juwain and Maram, and then I said, ‘It’s hard to understand why one man falls and another does not.’

‘Surely there always remains for each of us a choice.’

‘Yes – but why does one man choose evil and another good?’

‘That, in the end, will always remain a mystery. But the path toward bondage and evil is well known.’

He went on to say that just as Morjin had enslaved others through greed, lust, envy and wrath, these evils had captured him as well.

‘Fear and hate are even worse,’ he said. ‘Hate is like a tunnel of fire. It burns away all the beauty of creation. It concentrates and attaches the will to one thing, and one thing only: the object that is to be destroyed. Is there any slavery more abject than this?’

‘Kane,’ I said, staring at the fire, ‘hates so utterly.’

‘Yes, and if he does not let go of it, one day it will destroy him – utterly.’

In the fire’s hot orange flames, I saw Atara’s beautiful eyes all torn and bloody – and burning, burning, burning. To Master Juwain, I said, ‘It is not so easy … to let go.’

‘Do you see? Do you see? But we must turn away from these dark things if we are ever to be free.’

‘Is that possible?’ I wondered aloud. ‘To be truly free?’

‘It must be possible,’ Master Juwain said. ‘But if the One is the essence of freedom, then it follows that only a man completely open to the will of the One could be completely free.’

‘Ah, the will of the One, indeed!’ Maram put in after taking a pull at his brandy. ‘That still sounds like slavery to me.’

While Flick spun by the fire and the Guardians stood watch over us, I pondered this deep and paradoxical mystery. How, I asked myself, could any man know and work the will of the One?

‘Is this what a Maitreya is, then?’ I asked.

‘I wish I could tell you,’ Master Juwain said.

I wished that Estrella were awake and sitting by the fire with me so that I might see the answers that I sought somehow reflected in her eyes.

‘Was there nothing about this,’ I asked Master Juwain, ‘in your gelstei?’

Master Juwain brought out the thought stone and held it up to the fire. ‘There was only a hint that the Maitreya has some vital part to play in man’s journey toward the One.’

I wished that Kane hadn’t gone off on some secret mission to uncover the plans of the Red Dragon. If he were sitting here now, I thought, he might simply tell me what the Maitreya was meant for. And more, being of the Elijin and having lived long enough to know other Maitreyas in other ages, he might tell me if I could be this Shining One.

After that we went off to our beds. I slept fitfully, being disturbed by dreams of Kane stalking the Red Priests in darkness and killing them with his quick and savage knife. I was very glad when the new day dawned all clear and bright. The meadowlarks singing in the hills around us cheered me; the silvery spheres of dew on the grass caught the sky’s blueness and the rays of the golden sun.

We traveled all that day up the North Road through the steadily rising hills. Toward noon it grew quite warm, but the sun did not heat up our armor as much as it would mail, for steel drinks in heat and light, while diamond scatters it in a resplendent fire of many colors. It was a glorious sight to see the hundred Guardians of the Lightstone formed up into three columns and riding forth all with the same bright purpose. The miles vanished beneath the clopping of the horses’ hooves. In the late afternoon, we entered the thicker forest that covers the mountains to the north. We passed through the pretty town of Ki, and made camp outside it near a stand of oaks.

On our next day’s journey, the road rose steeply toward the pass between Ishka and Mesh. The horses drawing the wagons had hard work to keep driving themselves against the ancient paving stones; the horses that bore us snorted and sweated, and were grateful when we stopped to give them rest and exchange them for our remounts. Finally we came to that great cut of rock called the Telemesh Gate. One of my ancestors, using a great firestone, had melted it out of the granite in the saddle between Mount Raaskel and Mount Korukel. On my last journey into Ishka, Maram, Master Juwain and I had been attacked here. Out the dark mouth of the Gate, a great, white bear had charged down upon us and had nearly torn us to pieces. It remained still unclear as to whether this bear was an animal ghul made by Morjin to murder us. Altaru, remembering his battle with the bear, let loose a tremendous whinny as we drew nearer the Gate. I had to pat his sweating black neck and reassure him that any bear mad enough to charge our company would be impaled on the Guardians’ long lances.

I was less sure of what we would find on the other side of the Gate, for King Hadaru’s knights had lances of their own, and many more than did we. And so I commanded my men to keep tight their columns, and keep even tighter their lips, and I led them straight into the den of an even greater bear.

8

And so we crossed into Ishka. We wound our way down from the pass through fir forests smelling of flowers and fresh spring sap. A few miles farther, on a hill beside the road, we came upon the great fortress that guarded this approach into Ishka. Lord Shadru was its commander. When his lookouts in their towers espied our company advancing into his king’s realm, he alerted his trumpeters to sound the alarm and rode out to meet us in force.

This proved to be two hundred Ishkan knights, part of the garrison stationed at this important fortress. Lord Shadru, a stout old man whose face had once been burnt with red-hot sand in the siege of a castle in Anjo, led his knights straight up to us. He called his men to halt, even as I did mine. Then he raised his hand in salute, even as I did mine.

‘Lord Valashu!’ he called to me. His words came out stiffly, as his lips were thick with scar. ‘It is good to see you again, though I must ask why you have entered our land uninvited and without permission?’

His hand swept out toward the knights behind me. From the grim look on Lord Shadru’s seamed and pitted face, one might have thought that I led an invasion force into Ishka.

‘These are the Guardians of the Lightstone,’ I told him. ‘And we wish nothing more than to cross Ishka in peace.’

Lord Shadru’s eyes widened as if he didn’t believe me. He called out gruffly, ‘You speak of peace, and yet you ride forth in battle armor! You speak of the Lightstone, and yet Lord Issur has told me that it is your father’s intention to keep it in Silvassu for as long as it pleases him. Where is this Cup of Heaven, then, that you claim to guard?’

I motioned for Baltasar to join us, and my fiery young friend rode up from between the columns of knights behind me. I asked him to show Lord Shadru the Lightstone. When he brought forth the golden cup and held it high for all to see, Lord Shadru’s eyes widened even more.

‘Well, well, it seems I was too hasty in my judgments, Lord Valashu.’ I motioned for Baltasar to place the Lightstone in Lord Shadru’s hands, and this he did. For a moment, it seemed that Lord Shadru was holding the sun itself. ‘Well, well, well, King Hadaru will be very pleased, indeed.’

I told Lord Shadru that we were on our way to the great tournament, and hoped to see King Hadaru there.

‘I’ve had word that the king will lead a company of knights to Nar, so you certainly will see him there,’ Lord Shadru said as he handed the Lightstone back to Baltasar. ‘But first, you will see him in Loviisa.’

‘Then he hasn’t set out yet?’

‘No, I had word that he would leave in a few more days.’

I exchanged quick looks with Baltasar, and then nodded at Asaru who came up beside him. We had been hoping to ride straight to Nar, but now it seemed that there was no graceful way to avoid a meeting with King Hadaru.

Lord Shadru confirmed this when he said, ‘Very well, you will require an escort to the King’s palace.’

He motioned at the knight beside him, a long, lean man with six battle ribbons tied to his long, gray hair. He presented him as Lord Jehu and said, ‘He will ride with you to Loviisa.’

Lord Shadru gave the command of the Ishkan knights over to Lord Jehu. He wished us a pleasant journey. And then he looked at Baltasar and said, ‘May I see the Lightstone one last time?’

Again Baltasar drew out the Cup of Heaven, and Lord Shadru sighed out, ‘Remarkable, remarkable – who would have thought I would live to see such a thing?’

We said farewell to Lord Shadru and watched him ride back up to the huge stack of stones that was the Ishkan’s fortress. Then Lord Jehu formed up his knights: a hundred ahead of us as in a vanguard and a hundred following behind. In this way, like a small army, we continued down the road through the most rugged part of the mountains. We of Mesh did not mingle with the Ishkans, for we had fought too many wars with them to make friends so easily. But neither did we quarrel with them. When we made camp that night in a fallow field that a generous farmer lent us, only a little brook separated our rows of tents from those of the Ishkans. There was to be no going back and forth over this little water. But the songs we sang around our campfires were the same that the Ishkans sang around theirs; as the night deepened, we made a single music that winged its way up toward the stars.

We set out very early the next morning with the intention of reaching Loviisa by dusk. After some hours of working our way down through a series of gradually descending mountains and foothills, we broke out into the broad valley of the Tushur River. Here the forests and farms spread out in a patchwork of different shades of green for as far as the eye could see. The Tushur itself was a hazy blue band in the distance. Loviisa had been built around the point where the North Road bridged the river. We spent the rest of the day riding toward it at an easy pace. The gently rolling country was kind to our mounts and to the horses drawing the wagons; the hours melted away into the abundant sunshine of a long and warm afternoon. We stopped only twice, to water the horses. At our second break, I watched Estrella picking wildflowers in a field buzzing with bees, and Lord Jehu, standing with his horse on the road above, watched us both.

It was just past dusk when we crested a palisade on the south side of the river and rode up to King Hadaru’s palace. The fountains and gardens fronting it seemed to invite us closer. In all the Morning Mountains, there was nothing like King Hadaru’s Wooden Palace. Its pagodas were exquisitely carved and arrayed on many levels, to delight the eye with its perfect proportions as much as to provide protection from wind and rain and the assault of enemy men.

Lord Jehu insisted that the hundred Guardians were far too many armed knights to be allowed into the palace. I insisted that if the Lightstone was to be brought before King Hadaru, the Guardians must accompany that which they guarded at all times, for this they had sworn upon their lives. King Hadaru broke this deadlock by sending a herald to invite all of us into his throne room. The King of Ishka, it seemed, would not deign to show fear of a hundred Meshian knights.

And so, leaving our horses and baggage train to the care of the Ishkans, I led my brothers and the Guardians into the palace. The main hall was a splendid affair of great cherrywood and ebony columns carved like the pieces of my chess set. Its panels of shatterwood were as black and beautiful as jade. All this darkness contrasted with the room’s floor, an almost unbroken expanse of white oak waxed and polished to a high gloss. The massive throne, at the center of the hall, had also been carved out of this wood which was as common as it was strong. King Hadaru sat upon it waiting for us to take our places before him. He seemed to disdain surrounding himself with a private guard. Instead, some of the greatest lords of Ishka stood by the sides of his throne.

I nodded my head toward Prince Issur and Lord Nadhru, a dark and difficult man who had once threatened to bind me with ropes and drag me out of Ishka. Lord Mestivan attended King Hadaru as well, and next to him stood Lord Solhtar who pulled at his thick black beard as he eyed us with a fierce pride of protectiveness of his king and his land. Devora, the King’s sister, was not in attendance this evening, but his beautiful young wife, Irisha, stood near the very foot of the throne. Her hair was raven-black like Behira’s and her skin was as fair as hers, too. But she had a fineness of face and form that the plump Behira lacked. Maram stared at her with a barely-concealed lust heating up his red face. And Behira, holding tightly onto Lord Harsha’s arm, stared at Maram.

‘Welcome to my house,’ King Hadaru said as his black eyes caught Maram up in their cold light. He was a big, burly man – bigger even than Maram – and his large head and face reminded one of a bear. Many battle ribbons were tied to his thick, white hair. ‘Prince Maram Marshayk, Lord Valashu, Lord Asaru, Lord Raasharu, and everyone – welcome all.’

I stood directly in front of the throne with my arm covering Estrella. Asaru, Yarashan and Lansar Raasharu took their places to my left with Maram, Master Juwain, Lord Harsha and Behira on my right. Baltasar and the Guardians were arrayed behind us. I made the presentations while King Hadaru nodded his head and smiled cordially. He regarded us as might a bear eyeing a herd of deer who had presented themselves as a meal.

Then he raised his hand, and Lord Jehu and his two hundred knights marched into the room and stationed themselves between the Guardians and the main doors. At the same time, the hall’s side doors opened to let in another hundred knights. They crossed the room at speed to take their places near the throne. If King Hadaru didn’t usually keep a private guard, he certainly had one now.

‘Val!’ Maram whispered to me as he nudged my side, ‘we’ve walked into a trap!’

To my left, Asaru’s hand came to rest on the hilt of his sword, and so it was with my brothers. I didn’t turn to see if the Guardians behind me were also prepared to fight for their charge, any more than I would doubt the rising of the sun. King Hadaru gripped the hilt of his own sword, the famed kalama with which he had once beheaded Mukaval the Red of the Adirii tribe. And then he smiled his cold smile and demanded that I deliver into his outstretched hand the golden cup called the Lightstone.

As calmly as I could, I asked Sivar of Godhra to step forward. He was a diligent man who held his rather short body rigidly erect at all times. His face, steely and serious, was now lit up with pride because it was his turn to bear the Lightstone. He brought it forth and gave it to King Hadaru, even as I asked him. Then he stepped back and waited to see what King Hadaru would say – and what he would do.

‘Very good, very good,’ King Hadaru murmured. His fingers closed around the golden cup as his eyes drank in its light. He fairly trembled with lust, envy and greed at last fulfilled. ‘Very good, indeed.’

‘We have walked into a trap,’ I whispered back at Maram. ‘Let us hope that King Hadaru cannot escape it.’

King Hadaru, who missed little of what occurred in his palace, or in his realm, shot me a swift, hard look. His thin lips broke into another smile. ‘Valashu Elahad, you must be honored for keeping your promise, after all.’

‘My father said that the Lightstone would be brought into Ishka.’

‘Yes,’ King Hadaru said, nodding at Prince Issur, ‘we had word of this. But no one thought it would be so soon.’

‘Soon means soon,’ I said, echoing my father’s words.

‘I confess you’ve caught us unawares. We’ve no stand on which to set the Lightstone, as your father keeps in his hall.’

Now my hand, which had never left the hilt of my sword, gripped its black jade and the seven set diamonds tightly. It had come time to dash King Hadaru’s hopes, and I did not know what he would do.

‘That’s just as well,’ I said, ‘for no stand will be needed.’

The frostiness of King Hadaru’s stare nearly froze my heart. ‘What do you mean, Lord Valashu?’

‘The Lightstone,’ I told him, ‘is on its way to Nar, even as are we.’

I turned to nod at the Guardians behind me, and I saw that Lord Jehu and his two hundred knights lined up behind them were ready to draw their swords at their king’s command.

‘What?’ King Hadaru snarled out. ‘What treachery is this?’

‘No treachery at all, King Hadaru, but only need.’ I explained that the events in my father’s hall had impelled the decision to take the Lightstone on the road. ‘As Prince Issur has reminded my father, the Lightstone is to be shared among all the Valari.’

‘Yes, but first it was to be shared among the Ishkans!’ King Hadaru thundered. ‘This was the promise made on the field of the Raaswash!’

‘And it was shared there,’ I said, ‘on the day that my companions and I returned from Argattha. Every warrior and knight in your army held it in his hands.’

To the side of the throne, Prince Issur’s plain face lit up with wonder as if he well-remembered the feel of the Lightstone’s gold gelstei. So it was with Lord Nadhru and Lord Solhtar and the many other Ishkans in King Hadaru’s hall.

‘And still it is being shared,’ I continued. I pointed at the golden bowl that King Hadaru now gripped in both hands. ‘Its light now graces your hall.’

‘For a night? For two? You promised that the Lightstone was to reside in Loviisa as it did in Silvassu.’

‘No, that promise was never made.’

‘It was made in spirit.’

‘No, not even in spirit, King Hadaru. If you search your heart, you will know this is true.’

King Hadaru glared at me with his cold, dark eyes. I knew him to be an honest man, with others if not himself.

‘Am I to be made to accept then,’ he said to me, ‘that you intend to take the Lightstone from my hall tomorrow? You promise me a birthday cake and leave me with only crumbs. I had hoped, I had hoped …’

It was the great sorrow of his life, I thought, that so many of his hopes and dreams had turned to despair.

‘The Lightstone,’ I reminded him, ‘was made to be possessed by no man.’

‘No, possessed by none,’ he muttered. His eyes stabbed into me like cold swords. ‘But claimed by one.’

‘No one has claimed the Lightstone yet.’

‘No, not yet,’ he said as he gripped the cup even more tightly.

‘I’m only the Lightstone’s Guardian,’ I said. ‘And as its Guardian, I’m charged with deciding –’

‘Who decides matters in this hall?’ King Hadaru broke in. ‘Who is king in my kingdom? Who must protect all its treasures?’

‘The Lightstone belongs to no kingdom on earth. Its first Guardian brought it from the stars only to –’

‘The Elahad,’ he interrupted me again, ‘was the ancestor of the Ishkans, too. But even he did not claim to be the Maitreya.’

The bitterness in King Hadaru’s voice was a poison in my veins. He stared at me with a strange mixture of loathing and longing. All kings wish for their sons great virtues and great deeds that prove them worthy of inheriting their realms. But on the Raaswash and six nights ago in my father’s hall, I had proved his firstborn, Salmelu, to be nothing more than a murderer and a traitor. And more, it had been I who had brought the Lightstone out of Argattha and not Salmelu or Prince Issur. And so I brought great shame to King Hadaru and all his line; my very existence and presence in his hall was an insult that tore his heart with an anguish almost too great for him to bear.

‘Do you remember standing in that ring?’ King Hadaru asked me.

He pointed past my shoulder at the floor, where a great circle of red rosewood had been set into the white oak. The Guardians formed their lines behind it. I remembered too well standing in this ring of honor where the Ishkans fought their duels. There Salmelu’s sword had pierced my side; there I had wounded him nearly to the death.

‘You spared the life of him whose name we no longer speak in this house,’ King Hadaru said to me. ‘You should have slain him. Is this the compassion of a Maitreya?’

I stood with my hand on my sword as I remembered the faces of the dead scryers and the slave girls; I found myself wishing that I had slain Salmelu.

‘Of course, it’s also said,’ King Hadaru continued, ‘that the Maitreya will be a great warlord. Have you ever led men into battle, Lord Valashu?’

I looked at the rigid faces of Lord Issur and Lord Nadhru and those of the hundred Ishkans positioned near the throne. Behind me, lined up by the main doors, stood Lord Jehu and his knights, and their hearts beat with bloodlust and wrath. The Guardians I had led into Ishka trembled to test their swords against these men and take back the Lightstone from King Hadaru’s clutching hand. It was possible, I knew, that a battle would break out in this room in another moment. King Hadaru desired this. Some shame burns so deeply that it seems only blood can wash it clean.

‘It’s my hope,’ I said to him, ‘that we will fight no more battles.’

He laughed his brittle, humorless laugh and said, ‘You would end war, so I’ve been told.’

‘Yes – we Valari were meant to be warriors of the spirit only.’

‘Is that so? Then whom are we to war against? And how are we to war against them?’

With the valarda, I thought. With all the force of our souls.

‘An alliance,’ I said to him, ‘must be made to oppose the Red Dragon. This is why we’re journeying to the tournament.’

I felt the coldness of King Hadaru’s eyes touching mine. And he must have felt a little of the fire of the dream that blazed inside me. ‘An alliance?’ he asked. ‘Waashians stand with Taroners? Ishkans stand with warriors of Mesh?’

‘Even as we stand together in this room, King Hadaru. Even as we stood at the Sarburn three thousand years ago.’

King Hadaru gazed at the little bowl. A soft radiance flowed out of it and spilled over him in a golden sheen. There was a burning in his eyes, and in my own. It came to me then that shame was only a bitter reminder of our instinct to be restored to our inborn nobility. King Hadaru, I knew, might long for death in battle and the slaying of all his foes. But there was something he desired even more.

‘Help me,’ I said to him. ‘Help me make this alliance.’

‘Help you? How?’

‘Journey with us to Nar. If the Valari see the Ishkans and Meshians riding together, they’ll believe any miracle is possible.’

‘If I saw that myself, I would believe in miracles, too,’ King Hadaru said. He paused to look down into the soft, golden curves of the Lightstone. ‘You speak of riding together, of sharing this cup. But those who guard it are all of Mesh. Are we of Ishka to follow in your train like dogs hoping for leavings from your plates?’

I exchanged glances with several of the knights framing King Hadaru’s throne. Then I said to him, ‘All right, then. Choose ten of your finest men, and they will take oaths as Guardians, too.’

These words had scarcely left my lips when a great sigh of surprise blew through the room. Some of the knights about me grumbled their disapproval of my suggestion, but many more seemed pleased.

‘Ten knights?’ King Hadaru said. ‘Why not a hundred? Do you think that Ishka is so poor in spirit that we cannot spare so many?’

‘No one will ever say that of Ishka, King Hadaru. But it is my intention to journey from Nar into Tria. A hundred knights will be quite enough to alarm the Alonians, as they alarmed Lord Shadru. Two hundred Valari will begin to look like an invasion.’

King Hadaru thought about this as he studied the cup in his hand. Then he said, ‘Yes, perhaps you’re right. Fifty knights would be better.’

‘That is still too many,’ I said. ‘Warders must be found for each of them so that Morjin’s illusions won’t touch them. And I must be sure of every Guardian.’

‘Are you saying that you’ll doubt the knights I choose?’

‘No, King Hadaru. But the Guardians’ first loyalty must be to the Lightstone, and to me. I must know the men I lead.’

‘How long, then, would it take you to become acquainted with thirty of my knights?’

‘Twice as long,’ I said, ‘as it would half that number.’

‘Fifteen knights,’ he muttered, shaking his head. ‘Of course, all this is only speculation. Who could think that even fifteen Ishkan knights could ride with Meshians all the way to Tria?’

‘Is it easier,’ I asked him, ‘to imagine twenty knights making this journey?’

‘Perhaps. Surely you can understand that my knights would long for the company of their countrymen.’

‘Then why don’t you choose these knights now, since they stand with their companions?’

‘Why don’t I? Why, I don’t because it hasn’t been decided yet that the Ishkans will join the Guardians as you propose.’

He gazed at the Lightstone for what seemed an hour. Then he announced, ‘It’s said that the Gelstei is able to find all other gelstei and have power over them. It’s also said to give immortality.’

He held out his old, scarred hand and studied it for a long few moments. And then again his fingers closed around the golden cup as if he were loathe to let it go. I, of all men, knew how he felt. To surrender the Lightstone to another was like giving up one’s heart.

My eyes found his then, and he snapped out, ‘What are you looking at? Don’t look at me that way!’

All Valari, I remembered, aspired to polish their souls until they shone with the fire of flawless diamonds.

‘Maybe you are the Maitreya,’ King Hadaru said to me. He stared at the Lightstone for a moment before looking back at me. ‘Maybe you aren’t. But your hope of making an alliance is a good one. I have come to see that Morjin must be opposed, after all. He is like a spider who weaves his webs in dark places to ensnare the innocent.’

He leaned forward from his massive wooden throne as if to stand and give the Lightstone to Prince Issur. Then he seemed to think better of this impulse. He settled back into his seat as he pointed at Estrella. ‘Others have suffered worse insults at the hands of the Red Dragon than have I. This girl, perhaps, who has lost her power of speech. And yet I have lost a son to him; it is like losing one’s life. The one whose name I will no longer speak was not always a creature of Morjin’s. He was hot-headed, yes, and proud – well, we all knew how proud he could be. But he was not born evil. Morjin made him so. Morjin is a stealer of souls, and I will do all that is in my power to make him pay for his crimes.’

So saying, King Hadaru finally rose from his throne. He stepped over to a tall, young knight with a noble face, whose long nose was like a pillar holding up his finely-boned brow. He extended the Lightstone to him and said, ‘Sar Jarlath, will you guard this with your life? Will you swear to slay all enemies who would steal this cup from its rightful master?’

Asaru turned to look at me just then, and so did Maram and Lord Raasharu. Their faces seethed with anger and pride. As Guardian of the Lightstone, it was upon me to ask of Sar Jarlath the very questions that King Hadaru was now putting to him. But I did not gainsay him. I stood in silence watching the little miracle that unfolded before me.

And so King Hadaru continued, ‘Will you agree to ride forth under Lord Valashu’s command, and yet never forget that you are a knight of Ishka and carry with you the honor of your king and countrymen?’

Sar Jarlath gave his assent, and we watched with gladness as King Hadaru pressed the Lightstone into his hands. So it went with other knights, King Hadaru walking about the room and choosing out the finest of the men who followed him. Now, it seemed, they would follow me. When all twenty had been selected, they joined the hundred Guardians near the ring of honor. Then Sivar of Godhra gave over the charge of the Lightstone to Sar Jarlath, who would be its next bearer on the road to Nar and Tria.

After that, King Hadaru called for a feast. We all ate much meat and drank much beer. King Hadaru regaled us with accounts of valor of the twenty new Guardians whom he had chosen. Years seemed to fall away from his worn, old face. It was the first time I had seen him happy. I gave thanks yet again that it had been my fate to find the Lightstone. For a great king had touched the golden cup, and it had touched him.

When it came time for bed, Asaru took me aside and said to me, ‘You gambled greatly in bringing the Lightstone here, little brother.’

‘Yes – but all the other gambles seemed worse.’

‘But how did you know that King Hadaru wouldn’t try to take it?’

‘I didn’t. But one either believes in men or not.’ I smiled to reassure Asaru and continued, ‘King Hadaru is presumptuous, arrogant and vain. But he has the soul of a Valari.’

That night I took my rest in a richly furnished room reserved for princes and kings. I slept well, knowing that the new Guardians who stood watch outside my door would lay down their lives to protect me and the Lightstone.

9

In the morning, everyone assembled in the lane in front of the palace. King Hadaru, wearing a red tunic emblazoned with the great white bear of the Aradars, sat astride a big gelding. His standard-bearer held aloft a fluttering banner with the same charge. Prince Issur and Lord Nadhru rode next to the king. Fifty knights, King Hadaru’s private guard, took their places behind them, followed by a considerable baggage train. Asaru and Yarashan chafed at having to trail after this company, but protocol demanded that we yield precedence to a king in his own realm. And so the Guardians and I lined up much as before, only now there were twenty more of us. I went among these Ishkan knights learning their names and those of their fathers. In appearance, they were little different than the knights of Mesh. They wore diamond battle armor glittering in the morning light. Their surcoats and shields, bordered with white bears, showed their various charges. I noted the black lion against the white field of Sar Kimball and the gold sunburst of Sar Ianashu, a slender and hirsute young man, who was Lord Solhtar’s second son. As marks of cadence, to each of their charges, had been added a small golden cup. I considered letting the new Guardians ride together as a single squadron within our company. But they must become used to us, and we to them, and the sooner the better. And so I positioned Sunjay Naviru next to a Sar Avram and Sivar of Godhra next to Sar Jarlath, and so on. It would be many long miles, I thought, before these proud knights accepted each other in companionship, much less love. In truth, we would be lucky if we didn’t tear into each other with mistrustful eyes and words – or even our swords.

The first hour of our journey took us down through the houses and shops of Loviisa, the largest of Ishka’s cities, though still quite small. The cool air smelled of baking bread and coal smoke from the many smithies. The armorers here made good steel – though not quite so fine, I thought, as did my countrymen in Godhra. Our route led through winding streets back to the North Road, which gave onto a stout bridge spanning the raging Tushur river. Just beyond this dangerous water, in a square lined with several inns, we came to the intersection of the King’s Road. This was a well-paved band of stone wide enough for six horses to ride down it side by side. It curved east through Ishka into Taron, all the way to Nar. King Hadaru led his knights onto it. And we who guarded the Lightstone followed them.

We had a fine day for travel, with many drifting white clouds to steal some of the heat from the bright spring sun. It was noisier than I would have liked, however, as the hooves of so many horses sounded a continual percussion of iron against stone, and the wagons’ iron-shod wheels ground particles of grit into dust. It pleased me to hear the knights in my company keeping up a low hum of conversation or even singing one of the battle songs that all the Valari know. In truth, there were moments when both Meshians and Ishkans became too intoxicated with the passion of these old verses, and then their voices seemed to vie with each other in loudness and stridency rather than harmonizing. There were moments, too, when I thought I caught a rumble of discord or a brief flurry of heated words from the knights behind me. But that was the worst of things, and I gave thanks for that. The hours and miles passed uneventfully as we all kept the peace.

But later that afternoon, a quarrel broke out and threatened to turn into a brawl. We had stopped to water the horses at one of the little rivers that flowed down from the low range of mountains to the north of Loviisa. As I watched Altaru drinking his fill of the icy water, a shout rang out behind me; I turned to see Skyshan push the heel of his hand against Sar Ianashu’s chest and nearly knock him off his feet. Then Sar Ianashu reached for his sword even as Tavar Amadan grabbed his arm to restrain him and Sar Jarlath knocked his shoulder into Tavar.

‘Hold!’ I cried out. I saw, all in an instant, that the Ishkans of King Hadaru’s guard on the road ahead of us were all gripping the hilts of their swords. And so were Baltasar, Sunjay Naviru and other knights of Mesh. ‘Hold, now, before it’s too late!’

I ran down the road and threw my body between Sar Ianashu and Skyshan. I pulled them apart and shouted, ‘Are you Valari knights? Are you Guardians of the Lightstone?’

My fury, if not my words, cut into them like a sword and seemed to empty them of breath. Tempers cooled, then. I stood listening to these men’s explanations. It turned out that their quarrel was ancient. The ancestors of both of them had lived along the Diamond River, on opposite sides. Once a time – 939 years ago to be precise – one of Skyshan’s great-grandsires had fought a duel with one of Sar Ianashu’s over a woman who had both Meshian and Ishkan blood. Both men had been killed. The resulting feud had lasted a hundred years, until the Diamond shifted its course, and Sar Ianashu’s ancestors had been forced to move to another site higher in the Shoshan range of mountains. For reasons that I was not able to determine, both Sar Ianashu and Skyshan had decided to renew this feud after all these many centuries.

‘But this cannot be,’ I said to them. ‘Your grievances are ancient. The very mountains have changed their faces in this time, but you have not. How are we to ride together this way? Is there an Ishkan knight who can’t tell of sorrows more recent at the Meshians’ hands or a man of Mesh who hasn’t suffered the loss of kinsmen in one of our wars? My own grandfather was killed along that very same river scarcely ten years ago, and so were many others.’

Sar Ianashu, a violent man whose cheek muscles were popping beneath his taut ivory skin, finally opened his mouth as if to gainsay me. But then he thought better of such rashness and bit his lip. I was now his lord. He had made vows and would not break them. He bowed his head in shame, and so did Skyshan.

By this time, King Hadaru had walked down the road to see what trouble had befallen us. He watched in silence, both jealous that I should so address one of his knights and glad to see that I had calmed this little dispute even as he might have done. Then he returned to his place at the head of our columns. When it came time to get back on our horses, Asaru walked up to me and said, ‘This cannot go on. Ishkans and Meshians, together – this is impossible.’

And I said to him, ‘No, it will be all right.’

‘But, Val, how can you be sure?’

‘Because,’ I said, ‘either one believes in men or one does not.’

Despite my brave words, I kept a wary watch upon my men as we resumed our journey. But Sar Ianashu’s and Skyshan’s outburst seemed to let the bad blood between them rather than inflaming it. That night, we had a happy camp within sight of the mighty Culhadosh river. I gave the Lightstone into Sar Ianashu’s keeping; Sar Ianashu surprised everyone by lending Skyshan his sharpening stone, which was a very fine one made of pressed diamond dust. After that they clasped hands and pledged their companionship. They both knew that, although I had made no threats, any more fighting would result in their expulsion from the Guardians. What would it avail for them to satisfy some point of honor a thousand years old if they must suffer such shame?

While our dinner of fresh lamb was sizzling over our cooking fires, I gave Estrella what was to become the first of a series of riding lessons. She hated sitting all day by herself in a creaking wagon. With a few motions of her hands and her eager eyes, she indicated that she wished to ride next to me. And so I chose out a gentle mare from our string of remounts and sat Estrella upon her. With her skinny legs gripping the mare’s brown sides, she seemed almost too small to ride a full-sized horse. And she could not speak to this fine animal as others might, with soft words and comforting tones that found resonance in the mare’s easy nickers. Estrella, however, spoke to her in other ways. Her graceful hands caressed the mare’s mane and communicated her faith that the mare would not hurt her. It seemed to me, watching how Estrella’s quick, dark eyes met the dark eye of the mare’s great turned head, that she immediately loved this beast and that the mare knew this with an animal’s instinct. As I led both horse and girl about the fields along the river, I thought that it wouldn’t be long before Estrella could ride with the knights and others of our company.

After dinner, I discovered that King Hadaru was a fine storyteller. He invited Asaru and me, and several others, over to his campfire to share some very good and very rare Galdan brandy. He recounted the deeds of the Ishkans’ ancestors at the Battle of Rainbow Pass in the year 37 of the Age of Swords, which marked the first time that the Valari had defeated an invading Sarni army and had fought with a people other than themselves. Then, to the nightly ritual of warriors running their sharpening stones along their swords, he recited some ancient verses that were close to every Valari’s heart:

A sword becomes a warrior’s soul, Its shining steel through pains made keen, His strength and valor keep it whole, His faith and honor keep it clean. A warrior’s soul becomes his sword: It cuts through darkness, pain and fright; Its diamond-brilliance points him toward The brilliant, pure and single light.

When he finished, he raised his glass to me and told me, ‘Some day, I would know more about this sword it’s said you carry inside you, Valashu Elahad.’

Early the next morning we crossed the Culhadosh River, greatest of the waters that drain the Morning Mountains. And so we passed into Taron, the most populous of the Nine Kingdoms. It was a fair country with many farms spread along the Culhadosh. Out of this rich black soil, the Taroners grew barley and oats, wheat and rye – and not a few warriors and knights who had pledged their swords to King Waray in Nar. We met a small squadron of these who were on their way to the tournament. Their shields showed blue boars and black ravens and other devices unfamiliar to me. If the Taroners were chagrined to see such a large body of outland knights riding free through their land, they gave no sign of it. But their leader, a Lord Eladaru, remarked the strangeness of Ishkans accompanying Meshians, saying, ‘If this is truly the end of the age, as has been prophesied, then this must be the first of its miracles.’

After King Hadaru proudly called up Sar Marjay, one of his nephews, to bring forth the Lightstone, Lord Eladaru blinked his eyes and said, ‘It seems I misspoke. Meshians surrendering the guardianship of the Lightstone to an Ishkan – surely this must be the greatest of miracles. The next thing you know, maybe King Kurshan really will find a way to sail the stars.’

Lord Eladaru bid us a safe journey, then gathered up his men and rode on ahead of us. I watched them disappear along the road that wound up and around the low, green hills to the east.

We, with our heavy baggage train, followed them more slowly. We passed through fields of sunflowers and apple orchards, and then some miles of rolling pasturage given over to the grazing of goats and sheep. Toward the end of our first day in Taron, the finely paved road turned into a track of packed dirt. As there had been no rain for the past few days, the hot sun had dried out its surface. The horses’ hooves, no less the wheels of the wagons, pulverized the dirt and sent up thick clouds of dust. Trailing behind King Hadaru and his Ishkan knights became a torment of stinging eyes and grit coating our lips and teeth. We had to cover our faces with our scarves so as not to choke. Maram complained about riding behind King Hadaru. As he wiped at his beard and blinked his powdered eyes, he said, ‘Now that we’re in Taron, the Ishkans should trail us. Let them eat our dust.’

On our second day in Taron, Maram had good cause to wish for the previous day’s dust: toward noon, some thick, dark clouds came out of the west and let loose a downpour lasting for hours. The rain turned the road into a bog of sticky mud and potholes like little brown ponds. Twice, one of the wagons got stuck in this mire. Our pace slowed as the horses slogged along; I listened to the squish and suck of their hooves against the mud as I blinked my eyes against the slanting rain. The gray sky seemed too low, too heavy. The air was too moist and nearly smothered me. I felt something cold, wet and dark sniffing at my insides like the snout of some fell beast. I felt a pulling there, in my belly, as if sharp teeth were tearing into me while long claws hooked into my back. This odious sensation seemed to emanate from somewhere behind me; it reminded me of the time that the dreadful Grays had pursued Maram, Master Juwain, Atara and me through the wilds of Alonia. Only now, on this muddy road in the open country, whatever was pursuing me seemed to have no hate for me, but only a fierce will to rend and destroy.

We made camp that night in well-drained meadow above the road. After Estrella’s riding lesson, I held council in my tent with Maram and Master Juwain – and with my brothers, too. I told them of my misgivings. And Maram immediately sighed out, ‘Oh, no, not the Stonefaces! I’d rather face Morjin himself again than them. If it is them, too bad for us.’

‘It will be all right,’ I said to him. I remembered too well the unclean sense of how the Grays wanted to suck out my soul and torment me. ‘This didn’t feel like them.’

‘Well, what did it feel like?’

‘Like someone behind me wanted to murder me.’

Yarashan, who had little liking for the new Guardians, didn’t hesitate to say, ‘One of the Ishkans, then?’

‘It can’t be,’ I said. ‘Whoever is pursuing me, in his wish to slay … there is so much power.’

Yarashan shook his handsome head skeptically. This strange gift I had of sensing others’ emotions disturbed him, the more so because he seemed to lack it. ‘It could be one of the Ishkans, Val. King Hadaru chose them himself, didn’t he? What if he’s set one of them to murder you?’

He went on to say that King Hadaru could not want me to be the Maitreya. Even though King Hadaru had spoken nobly about uniting the Valari, very likely he himself wished to be the one to lead an alliance against Morjin. If I were killed, then King Hadaru might contrive a way to use the new Guardians to give him control of the Lightstone.

‘You’ve a keen mind for plots and strategies,’ I said to Yarashan. My brother beamed as if he had just beaten me in another game of chess and was proud to explicate my mistakes. ‘What you say makes good sense – except for one thing.’

‘And what is that?’

‘King Hadaru is no murderer who would set an assassin upon me.’

‘Can you be sure of that?’

‘As sure as I am of Ianashu and the new Guardians. As sure as I am of Skyshan and Sunjay and the Guardians that I chose myself.’

Yarashan looked at Asaru as if in frustration of my naivete. And Asaru said, ‘There is another possibility. The ghul may have followed us from Mesh.’

I shuddered at this suggestion as I looked out the flap of my tent at the darkening hills around us. If a ghul was hiding in the pastures or woods nearby, I could not sense him.

‘We should post extra guards tonight,’ Asaru continued. ‘And we should post guards around your tent, Val. Men we can trust beyond doubt in case one of the Ishkans is an assassin.’

Each night, since we had set out on the road, it had become our custom that the Lightstone return to my hand and be kept in my tent at the center of our camp.

‘No, there will be no guards around my tent,’ I told Asaru. ‘What would we tell them? That we mistrust the Ishkans, who are now their companions? And what would the Ishkans think of their calling as Guardians when they discovered that we of Mesh sought to guard ourselves against them?’

Master Juwain, who had been silent until now, sighed as he rubbed the back of his head. ‘Very well, then, since the rain has stopped, I’ll sit outside my tent as if taking a bit of fresh air. If anyone approaches your

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.