Black Jade

Chapter 41

My friends followed me out across the grass to a distance of twenty yards. There we waited.

Lord Mansarian and his knights, with Morjin and the priests behind them, came within a hundred yards of us, and then fifty. If they should break into a charge, or at any time draw their swords, we could beat a quick retreat back into the cottage.

At twenty yards, I called out, 'That is far enough! Come down from your horses!'

'What!' Lord Mansarian wheezed out. 'Who are you to issue commands here?'

'We are not mounted,' I told him, 'and we will not hold parlay with you speaking down to us.'

Lord Mansarian looked behind him at the man in the gray cloak. This mud-spattered traveler threw back his hood to reveal a shock of golden blond hair and a beautiful face that I knew too well. His golden eyes burned into mine. In the manner of the Grays, he had affixed to his forehead a flat, dark stone: a black gelstei. It seemed to suck at my will to resist him. He, himself, seemed to swell with an enormous will to crush anyone who stood against him. I felt a weakness run through my legs as if my body were being drained of blood.

'Lord Morjin?' Lord Mansarian said to this man.

'We will dismount,' he said. His beautiful voice pounded through the air like a great hammer. 'Let the Elahad have his way.'

His motions as he came down from his horse were sure and swift. He seemed as full of life as a young lion. I felt sure that Morjin had lost the power of illusion over me, and so he could not disguise the hideousness of his true appearance as a rotting old man — if indeed he still appeared so. I doubted this. Looking at him, I suddenly doubted all that I knew to be true. I wondered, again, if he had used the Lightstone to remake himself as he had been in his body long ago. As for his soul, I thought, nothing could ever expunge its foul, terrible stench. I could not tell if he was really Morjin. Indeed, in this hateful creature who stood glaring at me, it seemed that Morjin and his droghul might have become as one.

'We demand your surrender!' he called out to me. 'Throw down all your weapons, your gesltei, too, and your lives will be spared!'

I let my hand rest on the hilt of my sword. I wondered if I could whip free my blade and charge him, and cut him down before the six dismounted knights standing near Lord Mansarian stopped me. If I cut his cloak and tunic to bloody shreds, I wondered, would I find the Ltghtstone secreted there?

'How long will you let us live then?' I asked him. 'Long enough for your priests to nail us to crosses?'

It shouldn't have surprised me that Arch Uttam, at Morjin's right, had found the hardiness to ride with the Red Capes in our pursuit, so great was the malice that he held for us. On the other side of Morjin stood my old enemy, Salmelu. Although he called himself Haar Igasho now, and he wore a red robe instead of armor and the emblem of a prince of Ishka, his ugliness of face and spirit were the same. He smiled at me as if my plight gave him great satisfaction.

'If you don't surrender, Eiahad,' Salmelu told me, 'you will be crucified!'

Arch Uttam turned to cast him a venomous look. I sensed his jealousy that Salmelu had the privilege of accompanying their master.

'That is for Lord Morjin to decide,' he reminded Saimelu. 'Lord Morjin, the Merciful and Compassionate!'

He gazed at Morjin as if he did not suspect that this creature might be only a soulless droghul. I wondered, however, if he truly believed that Morjin could be the Maitreya.

'Surrender, Valashu Eiahad.' Morjin called to me, 'and you have my promise that you won't be crucified. You will live as long as you can.'

The command in his voice stunned me. I thought it an abom-nation that he too, possessed the gift of vaiarda. He poured all of his power into willing me to submit to him.

'You lie,' I said. I stood there sweating and fighting for breath. 'And so we will surrender only when we are dead.'

'Is it death you want so badly? Would you bring it upon your friends and everyone you encounter?' He drew in a deep breath, and then roared out: 'Ra Zahur!'

The third priest, a man as squat and hairy as an ape, struggled with the tarp that he had taken down from the packhorse. He moved with a great strength, as if he spent the hours of the day lifting stones. At last, when he had the bundle standing upright, he used a knife to slash the rope binding it. He pulled down the tarp to reveal the face and body of a boy about fourteen years old.

'Taitu!' Bemossed cried out from behind the cottage's wall.

'Why? Why.'

He came running, and although I yelled for him to go back inside, he paid me no heed. It was all I could do to catch him and hold him fast before he closed the distance toward Morjin and his filthy priests.

I stared out at Lord Mansarian, hating him as well as Morjin. Taitu, I saw, had been stripped naked, and he could not stand of his own. I thought it a miracle that the hard ride slung over the back of a bounding horse hadn't killed him outright. I sensed, though, that he didn't have long to live: the horse's backbone had crushed Taitu's organs as surely as had the mule's kick, swelling out his belly again with blood. His soft eyes had grown glassy, and he seemed to cry out silently for Bemossed to help him.

'It is said,' Arch Uttam called out, 'that the Hajarim healed this boy with a laying on of his hands. That power is the Maitreya's only, and so all who have conspired in this lie have committed an Error Mortal. The boy's father and sister have already paid the price, and even now hang on crosses in their village.'

'No!' Bemossed cried out. 'It is you who lie!'

'Be quiet, Hajarim!' Arch Uttam spat out. He moved over and drove his fist into Taitu's belly. He waited a long time for Taitu to finish screaming. Then he said, 'As you can see, the boy is not healed. But we are merciful, as always. Ra Zahur! Help him!'

While I held Bemossed fast with my arm, Ra Zahur plunged his knife into Taitu's belly, and ripped him open. A great gout of blood poured out of him, along with his ruptured organs. From the cottage behind us, I heard Liljana cry out in grief. Kane cast Morjin a look that seemed blacker than any gelstei, and wondered if he had hidden in his pocket one of his throwing knives. Nearly two hundred yards across the field, Lord Mansarian's red-caped soldiers in their quiet, mounted lines gazed upon this horror. Surely they had seen worse crimes. As for Morjin, he watched Taitu die with all the compassion he might have held for a worm. I sensed that he cared nothing for Taitu, but took great pleasure in Bemossed's

pain.

'Once,' Bemossed said to Morjin, 'I thought you were the

Maitreya. But now I see what you are.'

Bemossed stood staring at Morjin, and a terrible sadness welled up out of him. I marveled that he seemed able to suffer great anguish and sorrow and yet remain open to the deep light that filled his eyes. I could not. I felt only acid burning a hole through my heart. Bemossed seemed to sense this, and he turned his attention toward me. I thought that he feared nothing, for himself. But for me, everything. I knew that he did not want to lose me to the dark, twisting thing ripping me open. 'No,' he murmured to me. 'Not this way.'

I gripped the hilt of my sword. I sensed Alkaladur burning in its scabbard, where I had sheathed it. If it grew as hot as a fire-stone, I wondered, would it melt straight through the scabbard's thin metal?

Morjin kicked his boot into Taitu's fallen body. He smiled at me. He nodded at Bemossed and asked me, 'Well, Elahad? Will you surrender and spare your friends such agony?'

I knew then that he wanted Bemossed to live: so that he could torture out of him the secret of how the Lightstone might be used to its fullest power. He wanted, too, for me to draw my sword.

'We will never surrender to you!' I called out. 'I told you this in Argattha!'

Morjin — or his droghul — smiled at Atara, who stood next to Kane. He told her simply, 'Surrender, and I will restore what I took from you.'

But she shook her blindfolded head, and said softly, 'Liar.'

I felt a pressure filling up my belly and pressing at my brain behind my eyes. Water, I thought, builds within a cloud until the thunder sounds and the lightning flashes to let it out. I suddenly knew that I must strike out with the valarda. Morjin — Lord Mansarian and the priests, too — stood close enough that they would feel its full force.

'Surrender,' Morjin demanded of me again, pointing toward the cottage at Estrella, 'or I will do to the girl what I let Haar Igasho and my soldiers do to your mother.'

I found myself floating in empty space as if I had been abandoned on the only world left in the universe. For a moment, everything grew cold and dark, I felt only a single thing: the terrible.

fire of life that tormented me. I knew then that I loved slaying in righteousness evil men such as Morjin. I would slay him, I vowed. I would thrust the bitter sword of my malice straight through him. He would die, like a worm caught in a holocaust of flame. And then there would be light again, and an infinitude of stars — and I would find peace at last.

'Morjin!' I cried out, 'you will never harm any of my friends again!'

His smile grew wider and brighter, and I knew that he would try to turn my hate against me. He would try to seize my will and make me into a ghul. I didn't care. I wanted to howl out all the rage inside me that I could not hold. I would then live as a maddened beast or a monster, but at least Morjin would be dead.

'Look at him!' I heard Arch Uttam say to Ra Zahur as he pointed at me. 'The only heir of King Shamesh, and he can't even decide what to do.'

'It was like that in Mesh,' Salmelu said. 'But you'll see, in the end he'll betray his friends as he did his own father and mother.'

Salmelu's face soured in contempt for me, and I knew that I would kill him, too, as I should have in the red circle of honor in King Hadaru's hall. I would kill all the creatures of Morjn, in their red robes and their shining armor, in all their hundreds and their thousands, in every land of the world. All those who stood against me in mockery and evil deeds, as Salmelu did, I would destroy.

No.

Molten silustria, I thought, must burn far hotter than even white-hot steel. With it, my silver sword had been forged. And with some substance infinitely hotter than this, I had been forged, the silver of my soul — and it flowed with a hellish fury in the center of my heart.

No, Valashu — you were born for more than murder and hate.

When I listened hard enough, and deeply enough, I could hear rny mother whispering to me, for she, too, dwelled within me. She did not call for vengeance. She cried out to me only that I should live, in pride and joy, as the son whom she loved.

'Valashu,' Bemossed said to me. And once again, he held out his hand to me.

I stared at his slender palm for what seemed forever. Then finally, I took hold of it. The moment that my calloused hand touched his softer fingers, my fury to destroy brightened into a rage to live. Something dark and ugly inside me burned away in a fiery light. I felt instantly lighter, as if a great weight had been lifted from my chest. The air I breathed seemed sweet. I took a great gulp of it, and howled out, not in hate but in utter freedom: 'Morjin! I won't betray them! Not my friends! Not my father and mother, or my brothers!'

The blood cleared from my eyes, and I saw many things. I knew that if I struck Morjin dead, Lord Mansarian and the priests, too, I would only incite Lord Mansarian's men to a killing frenzy of revenge, for that was the way of the world. But there were other ways, as well. And Morjin, I suddenly sensed, could be defeated.

'I won't betray you!' I shouted at him. Kane stared at me in disbelief, for these were the strangest words that I had ever spoken. '"All men shall be as brothers" — so it is written in the Darakul Elu.'

Morjin glared at me in confusion. I did not recall ever seeing him so unsure of himself. 'What do you know about that, Elahad?'

'I know about Iojin.'

'You … what?'

'I know you stabbed him in the back with your own knife. And I know you loved him.'

The cloaked man standing less than twenty yards from me seemed unable to speak, and I wondered after all if he might be Morjin's droghul. He glared at me with a bottomless hate. Then he shouted, 'Be silent! You know not what you say!'

His face flushed bright red from the blood burning through him, and I suddenly knew that he had long ago poisoned himself with the kirax, to remind himself of what Iojin had suffered and to atone for this terrible crime.

I said to him, 'You have never gone a single day, have you, without wishing that he could live again?'

'Be silent! Damn you, Elahad!'

I remembered Kane, high on top of a mountain, telling me that there were no evil men, only evil deeds. And I said to Morjin, 'No one is damned. There is a way out.'

Now Morjin turned his terrible golden eyes and all his spite upon Bemossed.

'Let us go free,' Bemossed said to him. 'And let yourself go free.'

'Don't speak to me that way!'

Bemossed only smiled at him, in defiance, but in deep understanding, too. He fairly blazed with a deep desire that the world, and all that lived within it, should be made whole again.

'Don't look at me that way, Hajarim!'

I let go of Bemossed's hand, and grasped my sword's hilt again. And I told Morjin, 'It can all end, right here and now.'

Hot acids seemed to burn Morjin's throat, choking him, and he pointed at me as he called out to Lord Mansarian, 'Kill him! Kill the Elahad!'

Two of the knights standing near Morjin looked to Lord Mansarian in consternation. I took them as captains of the Red Capes, and I had overhead their names as Roarian and Atuan. The tall, muscular one, Atuan, nodded at Lord Mansarian. Then Lord Mansarian turned to Morjin and said, 'But, my lord, we are met here in truce!'

'How can there be truce with such as this?' Morjin said, hissing at me. 'Kill him, I say!'

He cannot bear it, I thought. That which he most desires, he cannot abide.

I saw that Morjin could withstand very well my killing fury but not my compassion. And what, after all, was true compassion, this valarda that connected men soul to soul? Only suffering with. Suffering each other's joys, or suffering agonies, but always being joined as one in the great experience of life. As with love, it was a force and not a feeling.

'Morjin!' I called out.

My eyes met his, and a shock of love ran through me. Not love for him: only a Maitreya, I thought, could possess the grace to love such a loathsome being. My love for my family, however, blazed within me like starfire. I could not contain it. I could not keep to myself the anguish of wanting to talk to them again, to cross swords with my brother, Asaru, in a friendly practice duel, and to feel my grandmother's soft, wrinkled hand on mine as we walked together through the halls of my father's castle. I wanted to smell my mother's hair again and the spice of peppermint and honey as she made for me hot tea.

'Morjin!' I cried. 'You kill too easily! Know, then, what it was like for me when you killed my family!'

I drew my sword and pointed it at him. Its silver blade flared with a brilliant flame. If the valarda was the gift of empathy, I thought, then Alkaladur was the weapon of compassion. Not this length of silustria, sharper than any razor, whose diamond-bright polish drove the sunlight into Morjin's eyes. But the true Alkaladur, wrought of a purer substance, as radiant as the stars. The Sword of Light shone within me, as yet only half-forged. All that I had suffered had gone into its making. All that my friends had suffered with me infused its essence as well. Even now, as Liljana, Master Juwain and the children looked on from behind the wall of the cottage, and Kane, Maram and Atara stood by my side, I felt all their courage, kindness and great will toward life. They seemed to pass these fundamental forces to me through their eyes and in their throbbing hearts, in flames of red, orange and yellow, green and blue, indigo and violet. The whole world seemed to pass its fire to me. Somehow, Bemossed seemed to weave it all together into a pure, white blaze that streaked through my sword and me straight up into the sky. Hotter and brighter, it built, until it flared a brilliant glorre. Then this perfect color gave way to a single, clear, indestructible light. And so at the last, Bemossed's love for me, no less Morjin's hate, had put into my hand the greatest weapon in the universe.

'Damn you, Elahad!'

All the fire and force of my soul I poured into this sword. Alkaladur blazed like the sun. Across the distance between us, it struck into Morjin's heart. He gasped and grabbed his chest; he raged and cursed and wept. He stared at me with his golden eyes, now wild and maddened with anguish. I almost couldn't bear it. He had told me once that the only way I would ever free myself from suffering would be to inflict even greater suffering upon another. It was not so. As I drove the Sword of Light deeper and deeper into Morjin, my agony burned through me, and all of Morjin's incredible pain, too. I thought that it might kill me. It killed something in Morjin. I felt him longing desperately for some impossible thing: perhaps that he and the world could somehow be different. I felt him longing for something even more. He looked at me strangely. He cringed away from me as a black, bottomless terror took hold of him. I knew then that there was one thing that he feared above all else.

'Elahad!' he screamed out to me.

He continued screaming until his voice grew hoarse. He ranted and bit his tongue, and spat out a bloody froth. He sweated; from nearly twenty yards away, I could smell his foulness and fear. He told of how he would torture me in a dozen hideous ways. The debasement of this powerful man to a snarling, suffering, craven beast stunned all of us looking on.

And then Morjin returned to himself — or perhaps he found sustenance and strength in the being of his droghul. He drew in a deep breath, and stood up straight. He wiped the blood from his mouth. He turned to Lord Mansarian, and said, 'The truce is over. You have heard the Elahad say that they will not surrender. Therefore you will attack, and kill them all.'

'All except the Hajarim,' Lord Mansarian said, looking at Bemossed.

Morjin looked at him, too. But Bemossed's bright face seemed only to drive him to a new- fury. 'Especially the Hajarim! You are to kill him outright, or deliver him, bound in chains, to me!'

'That was not what you promised!' Lord Mansarian rasped out.

Arch Uttam turned toward this grim, red-caped man in astonishment. So did Atuan and Roarian, and Lord Mansarian's other captains. It seemed that they had never dared to think that any soldier of Hesperu would openly contradict the great Red Dragon.

'You must have misunderstood me,' Morjin said to Lord Mansarian. His silver voice trembled with dismissal and undertones of threat, too.

'I misunderstood nothing,' Lord Mansarian said. 'The Hajarim was to be given to me, for whatever corrective that I might contrive.'

'He will be crucified!' Morjin snarled out. 'Alive or dead.'

'But Hajarim are never crucified!' Lord Mansarian reminded him.

'This one,' Morjin said, pointing at Bemossed, 'will be crucified. You have my promise.'

Lord Mansarian looked at me, and I sensed that some part of my suffering over my family's death called him to remember the slaughter of his own. He met eyes with Bemossed, and I felt his intense gratitude for what this man had done. And something more. As Bemossed smiled at him. Lord Mansarian's dark, doomed soul began to sparkle with hope once again.

'No,' Lord Mansarian told Morjin.

'No? You say this to me?'

Morjin's ferocious will beat down upon Lord Mansarian like a battle axe. Lord Mansarian stood there sweating. But he finally found the courage to say, 'The Hajarim saved my daughter's life. And so I owe him his life.'

'You owe him nothing! You owe me everything!'

Lord Mansarian let out a long sigh, and then traded looks with Atuan. Remorse gnawed at his eyes. He seemed suddenly unable to bear Morjin's lies and spite. Then he said to him, 'All that I have done in King Arsu's service is wrong. I will not dishonor myself, ever again.'

'You are wrong!' Morjin shouted at him. 'All honor is to be found in loyalty: to your king, and to his king!'

As the tone of command reverberating through Morjin's voice grew almost too great to resist. Lord Mansarian hesitated. And Arch Uttam warned him, 'Be careful of what you say, warrior. You speak errors. Major and Mortal.'

'I speak the truth,' Lord Mansarian said. 'And I have no king.'

At this, Morjin spat on the grass in front of Lord Mansarian and told him, 'You, and all of the Crimson Companies who are gathered upon this ground today, are under King Arsu's command! And therefore mine!'

'Are they?' Lord Mansarian said, nodding at Roarian. 'Let us see about that.'

He turned and hurried over to his horse. He quickly mounted, as did Roarian and Atuan. They pointed their horses facing away from the cottage.

Now Morjin's whole body trembled as his jaws clamped together with great enough force to break his teeth. He spat again, in a spray of blood, straight at me. His face contorted with rage as he screamed, 'Damn you, Elahad!'

Then he and his priests, with the four other captains and the banner-bearer, climbed onto their mounts. They all whipped their horses to a gallop, and began a wild race with Lord Mansarian back toward the lines of Lord Mansararian's red-caped knights.

'Ah, I suppose the truce is over,' Maram said as he looked from Kane to me. 'What do we do now?'

'Go back,' I said. 'Let us go back inside the house.'

I placed my hand on Bemossed's shoulder to urge him to haste. But he stood facing our enemies across the field as if he would not be moved.

'You have already worked one miracle today,' I said to him. 'I know what you want, and I want it, too. But as long as Morjin lives, he'll drive men to war.'

'You do not know that, Valashu. If I held the Lightstone — '

'So,' Kane growled out to him, 'you'll hold the Lightstone only if you live. Which you won't if you stand here dreaming impossible dreams, eh?'

He turned back toward the cottage. So did Maram, who took Atara's hand. Then Bemossed looked down upon Taitu's body and called out, 'Wait! Let us not leave the boy here like this to be trampled by horses.'

I nodded my head, and we quickly wrapped up Taitu again in the tarp — now his shroud. We bore him back into the cottage. Kane immediately grabbed up his bow and nocked an arrow to its string.

'They are within range,' he said as he looked out over the crumbled cottage wall.

I looked, too. Those who had come to us under the banner of truce had reached Lord Mansarian's companies. The neat lines of knights on their horses had collapsed into a chaos of men and mounts swarming around Lord Mansarian and Morjin. Angry shouts rang out across the field.

'Two hundred yards?' Atara said to Kane. 'That is too long a range. You can't be sure of hitting Morjin at that distance.'

'I'll hit someone,' Kane growled. 'And that will be one less to fight corning over these walls.'

'Why fight at all?' Maram said. He nodded at Estrella, who stood by the horses. 'Why don't we flee, while they argue?'

'No,' I said, shaking my head. 'If we do that, we might end their argument for them and force them to make common cause again. And we would expose our backs to them.'

'What shall we do then?'

And I told him, 'Wait.'

While the pasture rang out with shouts that grew louder and more numerous, Master Juwain examined Taitu's body to make sure that he really was dead. Estrella stood by my horse, feeding him some grain. Liljana, not knowing what else to do, went around with a waterskin so that we all might quench our thirst. Daj drank thankfully, then gripped his sword as he stood next to Maram behind the wall.

Then one of Red Capes near Morjin drew his sword and plunged it through the throat of a knight shouting at him. As if a trumpet had sounded, all the knights gathered around Morjin drew swords or brought their spears to bear. Dozens of them paired off, and began hacking or stabbing at each other. They fought fiercely as their enmity for each other drove them to a maddened melee.

'They'll kill each other for us!' Maram said.

He put his hand on Kane's bow as if to restrain him from loosing an arrow. But Kane had already come to the same conclusion, and he muttered, 'So they might.'

We all watched then as Lord Mansarian ripped free the crimson cape from his shoulders and cast it to the ground. He cried out: 'Captain Atuan! Captain Roarian! All my companions who would follow me! Let us be free!'

Perhaps eighty of the two hundred knights also cast off their capes. The green grass soon gleamed with a carpet of red. Those knights loyal to Lord Mansarian gathered near him, if they could. I clenched my fist to see Lord Mansarian's companions so badly outnumbered.

'Estrella!' I called out. 'Bring Altaru to the door!'

'Yes,' Maram said. 'Now we can flee.'

'No, we can't,' I told him. I nodded at Bemossed, and said, 'Our new friend might be the Maitreya, but he still can't ride well enough to escape from Morjin.'

'Then what shall we do?' Maram asked. And I told him, 'We'll fight. Kane and I will.'

'But why?'

I pointed across the grass, where hopes trampled red capes with their hooves and men clashed sword to sword, trying to murder] each other. The melee had now grown into a battle. I said simply, 'If Lord Mansarian can prevail, then we will live.'

'But what about us?' Maram said, looking at Liljana and Estrella. 'You can't just leave us undefended!'

'We won't leave you,' I told him, clapping him on the shoulder. 'Kane and I will fight better mounted. And you will guard the wall.'

I told him to fire off an arrow at any of Morjin's knights who came within thirty yards of it. After we got the horses out of the doorway, I watched as Daj helped Atara into position facing this rectangular opening. She stood with an arrow nocked to her bow's string, waiting. If anyone should try to force the doorway, Daj would direct her to loose an arrow blindly at zero range.

Then Kane and I mounted our horses. Just before we rode forward, however, I turned toward the wall in hesitation. Bemossed stood there looking at me. He told me, 'Go and do what you must, Valashu. You are a warrior. And as you have said, war is still the way of this world.'

Altaru, smelling blood and battle, drove his hoof into the earth as he let loose a great whinny. I drew my bright sword. I said to Kane, sitting on top of his big brown horse beside me, 'We've no armor, and so you will have to watch my back.'

'Ha — and you mine!'

We hardly had to touch our horses to urge them into a gallop toward the mass of men before us. Many had already fallen, and their bodies lay sprawled upon the grass, along with many bright red capes. Knights, whether fighting for Morjin or defending Lord Mansarian, called out challenges and curses to each other as they hacked and stabbed and screamed and died. In seconds we drew within a hundred yards, and then fifty, and now I too smelled blood spraying out into the air. The wind whipped at my face, and carried to me other hateful scents. I could hardly bear these men's rage to kill each other. And then Kane and I charged straight into the heart of the madness.

A red-caped soldier spurred his horse toward me as he tried to intercept me with a spear thrust through my chest. I parried the spear with my forearm, then cut right through the bronze armor covering his belly. He cried out in agony, even as one of his companions tried to impale me, too. Him I cleaved from shoulder to side. A nearby soldier, seeing this, called out, 'The musician has a sword! Such a sword!'

Many of the men riding about now looked upon Alkaladur in astonishment and terror. My sword's silustria shone with a dazzling white light. They shrank back from it, and from me. Morjin, twenty yards away, surrounded by a wall of horses and knights fighting ferociously to protect him, looked toward me as he cried out, 'It is the Elahad! Kill him — kill him now!'

A dozen knights charged forward to carry out this command. And Lord Mansarian, off toward my left, shouted to his men: 'Spare the musician, the juggler, too! Protect them, if you can!'

If any of the knights who had remained loyal to Morjin still thought of Kane as just a juggler and knife-thrower, he now gave them cause to change their minds. With three blindingly quick strokes of his sword, he cut down three knights that had come too close to us, and then whirled about in his saddle to cleave the arm off a fourth knight trying to spear me through my back. His black eyes flashed with a wild joy, and for a moment met mine. Then he struck out again and again, even as my sword sliced through fish-scaled bronze as if it was leather.

'The errants are demons!' an enemy knight cried out. 'Demons from the Dark Lands!'

'They are from Hell!' another knight shouted. 'The musician's sword blazes like the sun!'

Demons Kane and I might be, I thought. But we were also something more. We had fought together in terrible battles, side by side and sword synchronizing with sword. And now, together, striking with steel and silustria in perfect rhythm, slaying in a fury of lightning cuts and thrusts, we fought as true angels of death. Our enemies gave way before us. Although they had been trained to war, they were not Valari. A few wielded their weapons with skill, but their heavy armor weighed them down and slowed their motions. It seemed they had spent too many campaigns hunting down poorly armed errants instead of sharpening their virtues against true knights. Kane and I charged at them with a practiced passion to slay, and so they fell before us and died.

Lord Mansarian used the terror that we created to deploy his knights around the mass of men protecting Morjin. They fought fiercely, pressing Morjin's men closer together. This offset their superior numbers, for soon Morjin's knights bunched together so closely that those nearest Morjin at their center could hardly wield their spears. It was possible, I saw, that through this strategem Lord Mansarian's men might actually prevail.

And then Morjin cried out to his knights, 'Move aside! I need no protection! Move, I say!'

As he had commanded, his men tried to make room for him, whipping or spurring their horses out of his way. He pushed his mount through the gaps between the horses around him, straight toward me. Then Lord Mansarian's knights tried to close in on him. He killed two of them with two quick cuts of his sword; another he stabbed through the throat. He fought with a fearful skill nearly equal to that of Kane.

'Damn him!' Kane shouted from next to me. He shook his sword at Morjin, and drops of blood went spinning through the air. 'Let's finally kill this beast!'

We urged our horses toward Morjin, even as five of his knights pressed toward us to cover his flank. Morjin turned to stare across the field at Kane and me. The black stone stuck to his forehead began glowing with a dark light. A vast, black chasm seemed to open in the ground before me. I felt it pulling at me, down through the layers of earth into death.

'Elahad!' Morjin screamed at me. 'Valari!'

And then, without warning, he unleashed a new weapon, dreadful and terrible. From deep inside his throat he let loose a sound like nothing I had ever heard. In its ear-shattering tones was something of an eagle's scream and the hyena's hideous call — and the shrieks of millions of men and women dying in torment. This cry pierced straight to the heart and turned hot blood to ice. I grasped my chest, and clung to my saddle. And all the while, Morjin cried out in a voice of death:

'Aiyiiyariii!'

Two of Lord Mansarian's knights spurred their horses toward Morjin; He whipped about in his saddle, and directed his voice toward the first of these, who froze in terror as he gasped for breath. Then he fell from his horse, dead. Morjin now screamed at the second knight, who clutched at his throat as he choked and died, too.

'Aiyiiyariii!'

Morjin now screamed out his death voice at me. I had a sense that he could strike out this way only at one person at a time. I sensed, too, that this weapon was new to him, awkward and untested. Perhaps what I had done to him earlier had broken open his being in such a way that all his evil and hate could now be carried through the air in a hideous sound, it fell upon me like a blast of dragon fire, and nearly killed me.

'Father!' I gasped. 'Mother!'

Sweat ran from every pore on my body, and I fought back the urge to vomit up blood. My heart beat with such a hard and violent pain that I thought it would burst. I wanted to drop my sword and clasp my hands over my ears. But it was my sword, I believe, that saved me. As often when I was near to death, I drew strength from it. I felt Alkaladur's bright silustria feeding into me the very life of the sun and the earth. I raised it up just in time to block a sword from slicing off the top of my head. Then Kane came forward to kill the knight who had so nearly killed me. He, too, I sensed, fought a desperate battle against Morjin's death voice, which now fell upon him.

'Val!' Kane shouted at me. 'Keep hold of your sword!'

Perhaps Alkaladur gave me the will to resist Morjin's voice; or perhaps years of battling him had inured me to the worst of its power. Whatever the cause of the new strength pouring through me, I found myself able to keep to my saddle and fight off the men who suddenly assaulted me. Seeing this, Morjin came forward to attack me with a more mundane and substantial weapon. In a fury of motion he drove his horse against mine and thrust his sword at my chest. It would have killed me if Altaru hadn't reared back, striking air with his iron-shod hooves. Morjin worked his horse around to my side and slashed at me, again and again. I didn't know how I parried his ferocious strokes. Any one of them, without the protection of my armor, might have cut me to the death. Kane moved in from the other side to help me, but Morjin — or his droghul — nearly chopped the edge of his sword through Kane's neck. I had never seen Kane lift his sword so slowly, so desperately, as if he were fighiing his way through an icy, raging sea.

Atara had warned us that each of the droghuls we faced would be more terrible than the last, but nothing had prepared me for the power of this dreadful being. Was he truly a droghul, I wondered? All of Morjin's ferocity and malice poured out him in his furious sword and murderous voice. It seemed impossible that he might kill either Kane or me, or both of us, but I knew that in another few moments he would.

'Damn you, Elahad! Damn the Valariii — Aiyiiyariii!'

Just then Roarian and Atuan came forward with three other knights, and pressed an attack against Morjin. Two of these Morjin killed with his fell voice, but the others seemed able to bear it. They joined Kane and me in trying to cut down Morjin. This caused Morjin suddenly to alter his strategy. He shouted out: 'Haar Igasho! Ra Zahur! To me! To me! Kill the Valari for me!'

The red-robed Salmelu, who called himself by the foul name of Igasho, now rode up to us with Ra Zahur and a half dozen knights. They began slashing at us with their swords. Three of them surrounded me, and I began fighting a furious battle for my life.

'Do you see the sword I bear, Elahad?' Salmelu shouted at me. It is no kalama, but I will put it through you, even so!'

I shouted out, too, in a terrible frustration because I could not quickly get away from the men surrounding me. I had only a moment to see Morjin turn his horse and gather up a dozen enemy knights to act as his cover. Then they charged en masse straight toward the cottage.

A sword whirled toward my throat, and I parried it. Kane came up beside me, and killed the enemy knight nearest to me. Then he turned to cross swords with the blocky and bestial Ra Zahur.

'I will have my revenge!' Salmelu screamed at me. He feinted with his sword toward my face, then tried to disembowel me. 'I will have it now!'

Aiyiiyaiiii!

Morjin's death voice rang out from across the field. I stole a quick glance to my left, and saw one of Lord Mansarian's knights grasp hold of his head and plummet from his horse's back. Lord Mansarian, charging upon Morjin even as Morjin continued galloping toward the cottage, lowered his spear and aimed it at Morjin's chest.

'Valariii!'

Salmelu's horse and mine drove their hooves against the slick, reddened grass, fighting for purchase and advantaged they whinnied and snorted and pushed at each other. For a while we

exchanged blows, each of us fighting desperately to find an opening. Salmelu seemed sure of himself — sure that his defeat in our duel two years before had been just bad luck. I knew it was not. I knew, too, that I had slain many men in the time since then sword to sword, and that I could slay Salmelu now.

We clashed swords, once, twice, thrice; we feinted and thrust, parried and slashed. Desperation ate at Salmelu's inky eyes. Then, finally, he stabbed his sword at my throat in a lightning thrust. I moved my head aside just in time to keep from being torn open, then thrust my sword at his shoulder. The point of it drove in just deep enough to split the muscle and score the bone, which caused Salmelu to cry out and drop his sword. I might have finished him then if Lord Mansarian hadn't screamed out in a terrible agony. I turned to see Morjin jerk his bloody sword free from Lord Mansarian's belly. This gave Salmelu time to whip his mount about, and go galloping from the field.

'Val!' Kane shouted to me. He parried a vicious blow that Ra Zahur dealt him, then chopped his sword through Ra Zahur's neck, cutting off his head. 'We must get to the house!'

But we had no time left. Even as I drove Altaru forward and cut down the last enemy knight attacking me, Morjin resumed his charge toward the cottage. Six of his knights still covered his front. A bowstring cracked, and an arrow whined out and buried itself in one of these knight's chests — and now only five men rode with Morjin. Maram fired off another arrow with a similar result, and then there were only four. And then, before Maram could nock another arrow and aim it, the four knights and Morjin thundered right up to the cottage.

Aiyiiyariii!

'Bemossedl' I cried.

I felt Morjin's hate shriek out toward this gentle man who must be the Maitreya. I knew that he would soon kill him, either with his voice of death or with his sword. I could do nothing to stop it. I galloped back toward the cottage with Kane covering my side, and the wind burned my face. I could not believe that we had come this far only to lose Bemossed to the ravening beast who flung himself at the cottage's wall even as he continued howling out his hate.

'Val — help me!' Maram cried.

But I could not help him. I could only watch in horror as Morjin leaped off his horse and onto the top of the wall in one incredibly graceful motion. He struck down at Maram, and Maram fell, back behind the wall. Then Morjin leaped into the cottage, and the wall obscured the sight of him falling upon Bemossed and my other friends. A terrible scream split the air.

A few seconds later, Kane and I reached the cottage. We came down from our horses and ran toward the doorway. I pushed through it first, stepping over the bodies of two knights there whom Atara had killed with arrows. She stood holding her bow, with a third arrow pulled back toward her ear. I shouted at her, 'Atara,

it is me!'

She immediately lowered her bow. I turned to see Maram rising up off the body of the knight who had gone over the wall before Morjin had. Maram bled from a gash on his forehead. Morjin — impossibly — lay near the knight dead.

'What!' I cried out. I looked at Bemossed gathered with Master Juwain and Estrella over by the horses. 'What happened?'

Liljana, who stood over Morjin's body holding a sword, quickly explained things: It seemed that Maram had clashed swords with the first of the knights to assault the wall and had killed him as he tried to scale it. The second knight he had also destroyed. Morjin, though, jumping down into the cottage, had smashed the pommel of his sword into Maram's forehead, stunning him and causing him to fall. Morjin had then tried to cut down Liljana to get to Bemossed. But Daj, squatting down behind the shelter of the wall, had thrust his sword through Morjin's belly, straight up through Morjin's insides into his heart. It was nearly impossible to kill one of the great Elijin with a single blow, but it seemed that Daj had accomplished this great feat.

'I hid,' Daj told me. He proudly held up his bloody sword. 'As Lord Morjin forced me to do in Argattha, I hid, and then I killed him. He is dead, isn't he?'

I knew that he was dead, and so did everyone else. To make sure of this, however, Kane came forward and slashed down with his sword to cut off Morjin's head. He cut off the black gelstei fixed to it. He gave this stone to me. Then he clamped his fingers in Morjin's golden hair, and held up his head high above the cottage's walls for all to see.

'Death!' he roared out. 'Death to the Beast and all who follow him!'

I stood with Kane behind the wall. I looked out across the bloody, corpse-strewn field. The sight of what Kane showed everyone caused the remaining knights to cease their combats and stare at him in horror. 'It is Lord Morjin!' one of the red-caped knights cried out. 'Lord Morjin is dead!'

'Lord Morjin!' a second and a third knight cried. 'Lord Morjin!'

I took a quick count, and determined that Lord Mansarian's knights had indeed prevailed against those remaining loyal to Morjin, for only twenty-three of these red-caped knights still kept to the field on top of their horses, while some forty men now looked to Captain Atuan to command them. It seemed that Morjin's knights had no one to lead them.

'The Maitreya is dead! The Maitreya is dead!' — this call passed from one defeated knight to another.

Then Arch Uttam rode forward from as out of nowhere. He tried to rally the knights, calling out, 'Vengeance! Kill the errants, and avenge Lord Morjin!'

The red-caped knights, however, paid him no heed. Two of them turned to ride away from the cottage, and then three more. Then the rest suddenly broke, making their way across the grass toward the hills in all directions. Seeing that his cause had grown hopeless. Arch Uttam called out a curse to us, and then galloped off after them.

Captain Atuan, who had indeed now taken command, rode slowly about the field with Captain Roarian and other knights looking for survivors. He showed the vanquished mercy, for only an hour earlier, they had been his companions. Those of the wounded who wore a red cape and could still ride were put on horses, and then driven from the field; those who could not ride and would die anyway were put to the sword. Captain Atuan's own wounded he treated the same way. This proved a great problem, however, as one of these turned out to be Lord Mansarian.

'He is dying,' Atuan called out to me as he rode up to the cottage. 'He calls to the Hajarim to ease his pain before he goes on.'

Bemossed, showing no fear of Atuan's remaining knights, who had terrorized the north of Hesperu for so long, walked out of the cottage. So did we all We crossed the field, and came to the place where Lord Mansarian lay dying on the grass. Someone had taken off his armor and cut back his underpadding. It shocked Atuan and Roarian and the other former Red Capes to see Bemossed set his hands around the terrible wound splitting open Lord Mansarian's belly. Lord Mansarian shook his head at Bemossed as if to tell him that healing him would be hopeless.

'Let me be,' his heavy voice rasped out. 'Let me thank you for saving Ysanna's life. I never thanked you, did I, Hajarim?'

In answer, Bemossed only smiled and looked down at him.

'I never learned your name, either. What is it?'

'I am called Bemossed.'

'Bemossed,' Lord Mansarian said, smiling back at him. 'It is a good name.'

And then, before Bemossed could work his magic upon him, he closed his eyes and died.

'It was his time,' Bemossed said, taking his hands away from Lord Mansarian. His face shone with a strange light. He seemed not at all dismayed that he had lost the chance to heal him. 'Let us bury him.'

After that, in the remaining hours of the day and late into the evening, we worked with Captain Atuan and his men digging graves for Lord Mansarian and all those who had died there. We buried poor Taitu and the vile Ra Zahur — and even the remains of the being who had called himself Morjin.

When the moon rose over the earth and cast its silver light upon the many mounds we had made upon the field. Captain Atuan bade us farewell. He stood over the grave of Lord Mansarian, and he said to us, 'We have lingered here longer than we should have, but we must go.'

I looked through the wan light at the forty battle-weary knights standing near their horses. I said to Atuan, 'But where will you go?'

'To our homes,' Atuan said. 'To gather up our families and flee into the forests. We will be hunted now.'

'So will we be hunted,' Maram said. 'Perhaps you should ride with us as far as the mountains.'

Atuan shook his head at this. 'I do not think that any of our former companions will come after you. They will surely ride back to King Arsu's encampment and make a report of what has happened here. You have time.'

He then told us of a secret pass through the mountains into Senta that lay closer than the Khal Arrak.

'Go back to your homes,' he told us, 'or wherever you will. But go carefully, I think there will be rebellion throughout the length and breadth of Ea, now that Lord Morjin is dead.'

And with that, he mounted his horse, and so did the knights who had remained loyal to Lord Mansarian. They rode off into the night, and disappeared around the curve of the hill to the south. My friends and I stood in the moonlit graveyard in silence for a few more moments. And then Daj said to me, 'Is Lord Morjin really dead?'

I opened my hand to stare at the piece of black jade that Kane had cut from our enemy's. forehead. It seemed to pulse with a malevolence and murmur with a soft, fell voice that cursed me even as it called to me.

'No, he is not dead,' I told Daj. 'Morjin would never have risked his life coming to Hesperu, much less pursuing Bemossed and storming the house. It was a droghul you killed.'

'He whispered a strange thing to me just before he died,' Daj informed me. 'He said: "Tell Valashu I am free."'

I closed my fist around the black jade, with its sharp facets. I walked back toward the cottage, where I found two good-sized stones. I set the black jade on the flatter of these. Then I used the other stone as a hammer to smash the fragile gelstei into pieces.

'What shall we do now?' Daj asked, coming over to me.

I looked at Bemossed holding Estrella's hand in the strong light raining down from the heavens, and I smiled at Daj. I told him, 'Now we will go home.'

I turned to mount Altaru and begin the long journey back toward the lands from which we had come.