Lord of Lies

Chapter 25

When we came out through the crack leading from the amphitheater, we found the shingled ground surrounding the rock formation deserted, as Sar Varald had said. The starlight falling down from above like luminous rain showed nothing except chips of sandstone strewn about. I asked Atara if she could perceive anyone in the woods around us or beyond, but she couldn't. I cupped my hand over my mouth and called out as loud as I could, 'Baltasar! Sunjay! Guardians of the Lightstone!' No one answered back, neither from the right or left, or from straight ahead, where the dark woods were quiet except for the clicking of the katydids. I bade Maram and Sajagax, with their battle-horn voices, to call out as well, to no good end.

'We should be quiet now,' Atara said to me as she stood holding the reins of her horse. 'Why announce ourselves to whatever drove them off?'

'But what could have driven them off?' Maram said. 'Nothing that I'd like to imagine.'

'Nothing could have driven them off,' I said with certainty.

'Not even the Grays?'

At the mention of these dreadful men who had once nearly devoured our souls, both Atara and Master Juwain shuddered while Sajagax and Karimah made signs to ward off evil. And I said, The Grays might have frozen them with fear, though from what Kane told us, probably not so many. 'They could not have compelled them to abandon us.'

'Then what did?' Maram asked.

'That we must discover,' I said. 'But whyever Baltasar led the Guardians away from here, he must have had a good reason.'

My faith in him was unshakable. And after what I had experienced in the amphitheater, so was my faith in my fate.

'Let's look for sign of them,' I said.

Of all of us, Sajagax had the greatest craft at hunting and tracking, and the sharpest eyes. And so he took the lead in retracing our steps around the rock formation. We walked our horses slowly across the treacherous, rattling shingle, all the while searching the wall of trees that rose up before us. Soon we came to the place where the trampled ferns and broken deadwood showed where we had come through the forest, from the southeast. Sajagax dropped to his hands and knees, peering through the near-blackness as he traced his fingers around the divots the horses' hooves had left in the earth. Then he straightened and said, 'I don't think they passed back this way. Let's go on.'

We continued our journey around the great bubble of rock, which loomed in the starlight like the bald head of a giant. After about a hundred yards, Sajagax stopped suddenly. I stared so hard through the darkness that my eyes burned, and I could just make out the broken vegetation between the trees. Then Sajagax again entered the woods and dropped to the ground. A few moments later, he came back to me and said, 'They did pass this way. The track seems straight and leads northeast.'

'Back to the road,' I said. 'But by a different direction.'

'So it would seem.'

'Then it would seem we have choice. We might return to the amphitheater for the night. Or go on.'

There were good reasons, I said, for spending the night in the amphitheater: its entrance was narrow and easy to defend, and we were all too tired to go bushwhacking through the dark forest. But the prospect of returning to that place of ghosts disquieted Sajagax and Karimah — and Maram most of all.

'I'm hungry and thirsty, and we have little food or water,' he said as he patted his horse's saddlebags. 'And more to the point, I don't like that place. What if there are secret entrances to it that we can't guard? There's some secret about it that we haven't learned. And that might have something to do with why the Guardians abandoned us.'

Sar Hannu looked toward the rock formation, and I felt a shuddering beneath his armor. Then he said to me, 'We would be immobilized inside there. In any case, the Lightstone should not be separated from its Guardians.'

'Nor the chieftain of the Kurmak,' Sajagax said, 'from his warriors.'

'All right then, let's follow them,' I said. 'Perhaps we'll come across them farther up the road.'

It was too dark to ride through the trackless woods, and so Sajagax strode forth at a slow walk, leading his horse through the bracken. I followed him, pulling gently on Altaru's reins; Estrella, Atara, Karimah, Maram and Master Juwain came next, and then Sar Hannu and the other knights, while Lansar Raasharu brought up the rear. It was hard work, pushing through the ferns and trying not to trip over the old, downed trees and rotting splinters of wood almost impossible to see. We made too much noise, gasping as we stubbed our feet against half-buried rocks or snapped dry branches. Maram worried that bears might be hiding behind the shadowed oaks; certainly, he said, there would be snakes slithering across the dark mosses and poison ivy leaving its flesh-eating oils all over our garments. But he reserved his greatest fear for things not of the earth: 'What if the amphitheater also contains malevolent spirits?' he whispered. 'And what if they can take form and follow us?'

I touched my finger to my tongue and tasted the iron tang of blood. Then I pressed my finger to my lips and whispered, 'Shhh! You'll frighten Estrella. You'll frighten yourself.'

'Ah, you're right, my friend, I don't have to be afraid,do I?' He fell silent for a moment as he puffed and pushed his way through the swishing ferns. And then I heard him muttering to himself, '"Act as if you have courage, and courage you shall have." Well, whoever wrote that never saw a ghost.'

We continued on thusly for more than an hour, making our way through the towering trees. It was well past midnight when they finally gave out onto the road. Sajagax led his horse onto this dark, smooth band, and so did I. The striking of Altaru's iron-shod hoof against the naked paving stones was like the sounding of a gong announcing us to anyone who might have been hiding in the woods to either side of the road.

'Ah, here we are at last,' Maram said, looking right and then left. 'The question is, which way did they go?'

'Surely toward Tria,' Master Juwain said, coming up behind him. Sajagax walked his horse toward the north, sniffing at the air and staring down at the nearly black stones of the road. After about ten yards, he espied a pile of dung, most likely, as he said, left by one of the Guardians' or his Kurmak's horses.

'They went this way,' he announced. Then he motioned toward Karimah and pointed down as he told her, 'Test it, woman.'

Quick as the flash of a shooting star, Karimah drew her knife and hissed at him, 'Test it yourself, mighty chieftain.'

It was too dark to make out the features of Sajagax's face, but I sensed that he was smiling. I sensed as well his sudden affection for this handsome woman. The Sarni are a sudden people, and he said to her, 'If you weren't a Manslayer, I'd take you as a wife.'

'If I weren't a Manslayer,' she told him, 'I'd let you. But since I am if ever I kill my hundred, I'll take you as a husband.'

By tradition, any Manslayer completing her vow was free to chose among the men of her tribe a mate, who was then assured of siring great warriors.

We all had a good laugh at her besting of Sajagax, Sajagax most of all. I liked it that he could laugh at himself. And I liked it even more that he wasn't too proud to stoop down and test the dung with his finger, even as he had suggested to Karimah.

'They passed this way two hours ago,' he said. 'Or perhaps three.'

'Then we will have to ride hard to overtake them,' I said.

Without another word, I mounted Altaru, and so did the others their horses. I urged Altaru to a canter. The rhythmic, three-beat tempo of his hooves against the road was like a stately dance that the other's horses joined in, too.

Soon, however, it became apparent that we could not keep up this gait. The clouds drifting in from the east thickened and smothered the faint flickers of the stars. It grew nearly pitch black. We slowed our horses to a jolting trot and then a fast walk. I could barely see the road in front of us. Maram kept yawning and complaining that he couldn't keep his eyes open to see the road. Master Juwain rode stiffly as if each one of his old bones and joints pained him. We were all exhausted, from the battle four days before and all our hard riding and everything that had happened since. Twice, Estrella fell asleep and nearly slid from her little horse. The third time this happened, Atara stopped me and said, 'We can't go on this way, Val. She's only a girl, and needs rest. We all do.'

Even Sajagax, who was used to spending whole days and nights in the saddle, agreed with this. He came up to me and said, 'We passed a clearing off the side of the road a few hundred yards back. Let us camp there for the night and continue on in the morning.'

Maram held out his hand in the dark air and said, 'I do believe I felt a raindrop — it would be madness to ride through such a night in the rain.'

At last, I bowed my head to the inevitable. 'All right, then, we'll stop for a few hours. But we must be on our way by dawn, if we can.'

By the time we found the small clearing that Sajagax had spoken of, more drops of rain were splatting down, pinging from our helms and soaking into our garments. It was too late and we were all too tired to gather wood or dig trenches to fortify our encampment. It was all we could do to set up our only two tents in the deepening rain. Each tent could sleep four comfortably and six at a squeeze. Sajagax ordered Estrella, Atara and Karimah to take the first tent for them selves, and not even Karimah disputed this. He insisted on wrapping himself in his cloak and lying down on the wet ground outside its entrance flap. Maram needed no encouragement to spread out inside the second tent, nor did Master Juwain. But Lansar Raasharu balked when I suggested that he join them. And Sar Hannu — with Sar Varald and Juradan the Younger — rebelled altogether against my command that they should rest.

'It is you, Lord Valashu, who must take some sleep,' Sar Hannu said. 'Who knows what tomorrow, or even the rest of this night, will bring? the Lord Guardian of the Lightstone must be of a fresh mind to face it.'

'The Lord Guardian,' I reminded him, 'must sometimes make sacrifices for the sake of that which he guards and the others who help him guard it.'

'Truly spoken,' Sar Hannu said. 'Thus surely the Lord Guardian must be willing to put aside his compassion for a few hours, if not his pride.'

In the end, I was forced to relent, as was Lord Raasharu. While Sar Hannu, with Sar Varald, Sar Shevan, Sar Ishadar and Juradan the Younger, posted themselves around our encampment, we went inside the tent. I lay down next to Master Juwain, who had taken out his akashic crystal and seemed to be meditating on it. It took only a few minutes for Maram to fall asleep, and not much longer for Lansar Raasharu. Alter a while, in a near-whisper, I told Master Juwain, 'You should sleep yourself, sir.'

'In moment,' he murmured. The disc in his hands glowed with a soft glorre that lit the tent faintly. 'This crystal seems to be alive now in a way that it wasn't before we found the amphitheater. The voices — so strong, so strong!'

'Is Kane's voice one of them?'

'I'm not sure,' he said. 'I'm not sure I've yet found the way to go where I must inside this. There are whole worlds there — a universe full of worlds.'

'If Kane were here,' I aaid, 'then surely he could show us the way to them. If the ghost spoke truly, then Kane was involved with the War of the Stone from the first.'

'Yes — and it's strange that he was the one to lead in the forging of the first Alkaladur, this Sword of Light.'

'It would be good to know more about that,' I said. 'Why did it take so long to forge it? And why did the Amshahs fail to heal Angra Mainyu?'

Master Juwain sighed as he slid his knotted old hand across the smooth crystal. 'I think the answer to both those questions is dear enough. The Sword of Light was made of the collective compassion of ten thousand Elijin and Galadin. Surely it must have been difficult beyond our comprehension to achieve the attunement of so many. And as for their failure the valarda is a double-edged sword, even as you've discovered. At the moment they struck out to touch Angra Mainyu with their love, when they were most open, he must have struck back in hate.'

'To kill this way with hate,' I murmured, 'could anything be more evil?'

At this, Master Juwain fell silent as he rolled over on his side and looked at me. I drew my sword from its sheath and watched as its silustria took on the tones of glorre. I said, 'Then Kane named this in mockery of the true Alkaladur.'

'Perhaps, Val, perhaps,' he said mysteriously. 'But there is much that we don't know about either sword.'

'And much that we still don't know about Kane.'

'True enough. It seems that he resisted breaking the Law of the One for the longest time. But finally he followed Marsul to war.'

'Our friend ever finds hate inside himself,' I said. 'But ever the opposite, too.'

'Yes — and it took great faith for him, at the last, to surrender the Lightstone to Valakand. Even as in Argattha, he gave it back to you.' I sheathed my sword and brought out the Cup of Heaven instead. The small golden bowl was warm against my hand. 'The touch of this, it seems, drove Marsul mad — as it had Angra Mainyu. But why?'

'Because the Lightstone was made for the hand of the Maitreya, and no other,' he said. 'This much I have discovered. The Elijin, even the Galadin, are not permitted to use it.'

'But why?' I said again. 'What is the secret of this gelstei?'

'That I don't yet know, Val. But it's clear that during the Elijin Satra, all the angels who tried to use the Lightstone failed — and fell.'

The word 'satra,' I remembered, meant 'true age': the great and very long ages of the universe As the rain pattered against the fabric of the tent above us and its interior filled with the sounds of Maram snoring and Lansar Raasharu's heavy breath, Master Juwain told me more about the history of these elder ages. The first of them, he said, in the immense span of time after the creation of our universe, Eluru, was called the Dark Satra. Over ten billion years, on countless worlds, life came forth and strove always towards the highest at last attaining to Mind when the first human beings appeared. These men and women of the earth, the Ardun, gave their name to a new satra that saw all the worlds of Eluru flower with people. The Ardun Satra progressed more quickly than the first, lasting only a tenth as long. But it was long enough to achieve a great civilization on Erathe. On that world, the first Maitreya used the Lightstone to raise up the Ardun to a new order: that of the Valari. This name had originally meant, simply, the 'Star People'; and now, during a glorious age called the Valari Satra, men and women of the stars learned to walk from world to world, bringing to the Ardun peoples the seeds of Civilization. And bringing the Lightstone as well. It became a sacred tradition that the best way to use this golden cup was to give it into the hands of a Maitreya who would then help quicken a world's peoples to a higher order. As there were very many worlds in the universe, however, the whole process progressed rather slowly over a hundred million years.

By the end of the age, when many had achieved World-Mind, it seemed that the design of the One — and the Ieldra — was unfolding much as it should. As time went on and knowledge of all manifestations of the One gradually accumulated, men and women began to gain great powers of body and mind. Finally, on Erathe, oldest of Civilization's worlds, a great king was raised up to the order of the Elijin. His first charge, according to the Law of the One, was to vow never to take human life. His second charge was to help others gain his high estate. And so he journeyed across Erathe and then out into the stars to carry out this noble mission. After thousands of years, as the Elijin Satra progressed, this first immortal was joined by many others. These angels, as they were called, acted as messengers of the Ieldra, visiting troubled worlds and helping them toward Civilization.

But not without a struggle. The Elijin, enjoined never to kill, had to work by the power of persuasion and teaching, as well as touching people's hearts with their great, golden auras. From time to time, one or more of the Elijin would break the Law of the One and fall into murder. Many, too, tried to use the Lightstone to gain still greater powers and become greater beings. But for some mysterious reason, all who tried failed and fell — even as Master Juwain had said. It was only after a great many years that the Elijin laid down a law that only the Guardians of the Lightstone and the various Maitreyas were allowed to touch it.

'If we could learn why the higher orders may not use the Lightstone,' Master Juwain said, pointing at the cup in my hands, 'we might understand how the Maitreya can.'

I squeezed the Lightstone's smooth, glowing gelstei, said to be the hardest and most impenetrable of substances. I whispered to Master Juwain, 'I must know this, sir. Keep searching in your crystal, if you will.'

'I certainly will Val. But I must tell you the search might last years.'

'Years,' I whispered. 'I'm no Immortal, you know.'

Master Juwain looked at ase strangely and said. 'Perhaps not.'

'And the world won't wait forever.'

'That it certainly will not,' he said. His face fell troubled and grave. 'The Cosmic Maitreya, the Great Shining One, must come forth and soon. The age is ending, Val. Not just the Age of the Dragon, here on Ea, but the Galadin Satra itself. There must be a progression, a great progression.'

'What do you mean, sir?'

He sighed and held his hands out from his chest. 'When a man, with the aid of the great gelstei that we call the seven openers, becomes an Elijin, that is a progression. And so with the passage of the Galadin, as when Marsul freed the light inside himself in transcending his human form. But once in every universe there comes a moment toward which all time and history has pointed. This is a Great Progression. The word for this has been carried down as the Valkariad.'

I thought about this name, which was one and the same as the epic preceding the penultimate book of the Saganom Elu. I said, 'I thought that meant "the passage of the stars" '

'That is one translation. A better one might be. "the creation of the stars." For at the moment of the Valkariad, all the Ardun of the universe are raised up to the Valari order, even as the Valari become Elijin and the Elijin advance as Galadin. And the Galadin, as we saw in the amphitheater, transcend themselves in creating a new universe.'

'We did see that,' I said. 'But how can that be possible? The Galadin are only finite beings, yes?'

'True, true. But just as all beings and all things arise from the infinite One, all things contain the seed of the Infinite inside themselves.'

I thought of the bag of timana seeds that Ninana had given me. Each one. if planted in the right soil would magically burst forth into a great astor tree. But even these golden glories were as nothing against the splendor of the stars.

'The Valkariad is coming,' he said to me. 'Angra Mainyu and the War of the Stone have delayed this moment, but it must come, and soon.'

'And then?' I asked.

'And then.' he said simply,'the Age of Light shall begin.'

I lay back against the earth, trying to ignore the discomfort of my armor's diamonds grinding into my back. The tent's air steamed with the smells of wet wool and Maram's beery breath, but I paid this no mind. For inside myself, I felt quickening a bright, silver seed. There were stars there, a whole universe of stars. When I closed my eyes for a moment, I walked the heavens' incandescent heights.

And then, even as I looked out into the tent again. Flick appeared in a swirl of gold and glorre. I smiled at him and said, 'Well, little Flick, what do you think about this business of men becoming angels?'

I didn't really expect any kind of an answer. And so it surprised me, and Master Juwain, when a sweet voice like the piping of a bird issued from Flick's sparkling form, and he told me, 'Beware the Skakaman!'

I blinked my eyes in incomprehension, and then he was gone.

' "Beware the Skakaman," ' I whispered. I turned to Master Juwain, 'Do you know what that means?'

But he only shook his head as he patted his colored crystal. 'Perhaps I'll find that word in here.'

'Perhaps you will,' I said to him. 'But not now. We both must sleep, or else go out and stand watch in place of Sar Hannu and Sar Varald.' Master Juwain put away his crystal then, and the tent fell dark as a cavern deep inside the earth. Sleep claimed him first while I listened to the rain breaking against the tent roof and the quieter beating of my heart. Then I passed into a lightless land that wasn't quite life and wasn't quite death. Nightmares tormented me. A black shape, as indistinct as a shadow, seemed to take hold of me and pull me down in to a dreadful coldness. There was a gurgling, like rain running off the tent and being sucked down a hole. I couldn't breathe. I knew, somehow, that I lay sweating and writhing on the ground, unable to wake up.

And then, at last, I did come awake, to the sound of a long, deep scream. It took me a moment to realize that I had cried out in my sleep with a terrible pain that ripped open my throat.

'Val, what is it?' Maram said. He knelt next to me, shaking my shoulder. It seemed that my cry had awakened him — and everyone else.

'Valashu!' A voice like that of a sagosk bull bellowed from outside our tent. 1 tried to shake the sleep from my head as Sajagax called out yet again: 'Valashu! Atara! Everyone! Weapons ready! We are attacked!' I whipped Alkaladur from its sheath and leaped up as I practically tore through the opening of the tent. Outside, the day's first light pushed through sodden grayness still smothering the world. Sajagax I saw, was standing off in the trees, staring down at something as he gripped the hilt of his saber. I began running toward him. I was only dimly aware of Lansar Raasharu, Master Juwain and Maram bursting from our tent even as Atara, Karimah and Estrella hurried out of theirs. I drew up beside Sajagax. Although it was hard to see through the twilight, I made out the form of Sar Shevan sprawled on the wet, rotting leaves. I knew without looking that he was dead. The gorget had been ripped away from his throat, which was slashed open. His eyes were as empty as balls of glass.

'Oh, my Lord!' Maram cried out as he joined us. 'Oh, my Lord!'

He gripped a drawn kalama, as did Lansar Raasharu, who stood beside him. Karimah came up clutching her bow while Atara had a saber, as did her grandfather. Master Juwain held nothing more deadly than a wet stick that wouldn't serve to drive off a dog. But it was he, with his clear, gray eyes, who espied Juradan the Younger lying dead in a pool of blood a dozen paces deeper into the woods. A quick search through the bracken nearby turned up the bodies of Sar Ishadar and Sar Varald, who had likewise been murdered.

And then Estrella came running up to me. She grabbed my arm and pulled at me, all the while pointing at the woods on the opposite side of the clearing. I turned, dreading what I would see. But there was nothing there, it seemed, except trees. And then Estrella broke away from me. Before I could catch her, she bound off like a young doe and sprinted across the clearing. I followed her as quickly as I could; so did everyone else. She led us straight to the last of my fallen Guardians. Sar Hannu lay in a clump of bloodstained lilies. But he was still alive, and his dark, haunted eyes found mine and would not let go.

'Sar Hannu!' I cried. I dropped to my knee, and lay my hand on him. His throat, too, had been cut, but along the windpipe and not across it. 'Who did this to you?'

With the last of his strength, his bloody hand locked onto mine. And he gasped out, 'You. . did.'

And then he died. Not even Master Juwain's green gelstei or Estrella's frantic, pounding hands could bring him back to life.

'What did he mean?' Maram asked me as he stood over us. The falling rain beat against Sar Hannu's dosed eyes and washed his blood into the earth. 'Does he blame you for leading him here, to his death?'

'Yes, that must be it,' I said. And I thought: As he should.

'But what killed him then? An assassin? No, no — how could any assassin lure five Valari knights into the woods and slit their throats?'

Sajagax and Karimah looked at each other as they made warding circles with their fingers. Nearby, Atara stood in the rainy dawn with her blindfolded face turned toward the woods as if looking for something that no one could see.

'Something,' Maram said, 'from the amphitheater must have taken form and followed us here. If you hadn't awakened when you did, surely it would have murdered you — and maybe all of us.'

Beware the Skakaman, Flick had said to me. I did not want to believe that any of the beings who had lit up the amphitheater could be evil. Nor did I want to believe that they could take form and go stalking about the earth, even as Maram had suggested.

'If it was a ghost that murdered them,' I said to Maram, 'it seems unlikely that it would have refrained from entering our tent to murder me just because I screamed.' 'Then what did murder them?' he asked.

But I had no answer for him, neither did Master Juwain or anyone else. We stood there in the pouring rain staring down at Sar Hannu's torn body in the cold, gray light of the dawn.

'We should ride now, as quickly as we can,' Sajagax said. 'Whatever did this might return.'

I pointed my sword toward the looming trees and said, 'I pray that he does.'

'Come Valashu,' he said, taking my arm. 'Let's leave this cursed place.'

'No, we can't leave our friends unburied.'

'Let us then strip off their armor and bury them as we Sarni do.'

'No,' I said again. 'They are Valari knights and will be buried in their armor, with their swords over their hearts.'

It took us all morning to do as I had said, for we only had two shovels among us and I would not consent to making shallow graves that some scavenger might easily dig up. As it was, the task that I had appointed us would have been impossible if the ground of the clearing hadn't been free of tree roots and softened by the rain. I regretted only that we had no headstones to mark the places on earth where these five Guardians of the Lightstone would rest in eternity.

We broke camp with rain beating against our covered heads. We rode away from that place of slaughter as quickly as we could. The gurgling of water running down the road's gutters reminded me how terrible it was to have one's throat cut and die.

For most of four hours we kept up a quick pace. Baltasar and the Guardians, if they had fled for Tria, were likely halfway to the city by now and might be impossible to overtake. I didn't care. I wanted to charge up the road, sweeping from my path any impossibilities or obstacles. I couldn't help hoping that whatever murdered my knights would try to waylay us for in the clear light of the day, I wouldi draw Alkaladur and cleave him in two, whatever dread substance he was made of.

Late in the afternoon we came to a village straddling both sides of the road. There wasn't much of it: blacksmith's forge, a carpenter's shop, and a mill above a swift-running stream — and perhaps thirty little stone houses. As we slowed to a walk, one of the villagers cam out of her house with some cakes to sell. She called out to a man blowing glass over a glowing kiln inside: 'Look, Amman, more Valari — Sarni, too!'

I halted before her doorway, and the others drew up behind me. I called down a greeting to this little woman, whose fine wool tunic and silver bracelets suggested that she and her husband made a excellent living selling their goods to wayfarers. I asked her, 'Have you seen our friends? Did they pass this way?'

'Early this morning, my lord,' the woman said. 'But they've not yet left Silver Glade, which is what we call our village. They've set up in Harbannan's wheat field by the river.'

She pointed up the road where a little bridge spanned the silver water that she called a river. The mill stood to the right of the road on the water's far bank. If there was a wheat field to the left, the curve of the road and the houses obscured it.

I thanked the woman and gave her a coin for her cakes. Then I urged Altaru forward, and we cantered down the village's main street, followed by Sajagax and the others. A few moments later, we pounded across the bridge. There the road turned to the left, and the houses gave out onto an expanse of ripening wheat. And there, on a triangular field between the road and the river, my scores of Guardians were drawn up on their horses in a long line as if for battle. Across the road, in an apple orchard, Orox and Thadrak and all of Sajagax's warriors gathered beneath the trees with their bows strung and their sharp, blue eyes fixed on the road.

'Baltasar!' I called out as I crossed the field. I could easily make out the blue rose that stood out from the gold of his surcoat. He waited on top of his horse at the center of the line. Sunjay Naviru sat nearby, and so did Sar Kimball, Lord Noldru, Lord Harsha and many others whom I was glad to see. 'What are you doing here?'

I pulled up in front of my Valari knights, with Sajagax and Lansar Raasharu, who looked at Baltasar as if afraid his son had taken leave of his senses. Atara and Karimah joined us there, too, and a few moments later, Thadrak and Zekii galloped in from across the road and greeted Sajagax with puzzled looks.

'What are we doing here?' Baltasar said to me. 'What are you doing here, Lord Valashu?'

'What do mean?' I asked him. I didn't know whether to be dumb founded or furious with the actions of my hot-headed friend, 'Why did you desert us?'

Now it was Baltasar's turn to regard me as if I had fallen mad. He blurted out, 'But you commanded me to!'

'What do you mean?' I said again.

'Outside the bald rock in the woods, you commanded me to lead the Guardians and the Kurmak here!'

'Never!' I told him. 'Why would I do such a thing.'

'Because, you said that you had discovered inside a great treachery.'

'What treachery, then?'

'That Duke Malatam had gathered a new army and was pursuing us again.' Baltasar looked back and forth between me and Sajagax, who was glaring at him. 'You commanded me to intercept the Duke's army here, in this village. You were to take the Lightstone into Tria by a different route. That's what you said.'

'Someone might have said that,' I told him. 'But it was not I.'

'But it was you!' Baltasar said. 'You came up to me outside the rock. I saw you. So did Sunjay, Skyshan, Adamar — everyone. You stood two feet from me, face to face!'

Along the line of my knights, Sunjay Naviru and Lord Noldru nodded their heads gravely in affirmation of what Baltasar had said. They all stared at me as if to assure themselves that I really was Valashu Elahad.

'But how could I have come up to you outside the amphitheater?' I asked Baltasar. 'Since the Guardians were posted across the entranceway?'

'Well, you said that you had found a secret entrance.'

At this, Maram shot me a swift, knowing look and muttered, 'Ah, what did I say? What did I say?'

'You told me,' Baltasar went on, 'that you had come out on the side of the rock opposite us. And then you circled the rock and approached us from the woods. And commanded us to ride toward Silver Glade immediately.'

'No, it was not I,' I said again. 'It was something else.'

I motioned for the Guardians to break their formation and gather around me. Then I told them everything that had happened inside the amphitheater and since then.

'But this is terrible!' Baltasar said to me. 'What if Sar Maram is right? What if some ghost from the amphitheater took on your form and commanded me to desert you? And then followed to slay you and steal the Lightstone?'

Beware the Skakaman! I thought. I was almost convinced that Maram's fear had somehow been made real.

'Perhaps,' Sunjay said, 'it was only an illusion sent by the Lord of Illusions himself.'

He touched the warder stone that hung from his neck, and so did many other knights around us. And Master Juwain said, 'I don't think these gelstei failed to protect you.'

'No,' I said agreeing with him. 'What happened to Sar Hannu and the others was no work of illusion. Someone struck cold steel into them.'

At the mention of the murdered Guardians, the men around me bowed down their heads. Lord Noldru, I saw, was weeping, for Sar Varald had been his friend.

'What are we to do, then?' Baltasar asked me.

Although the rain had stopped and the sky was clearing, soon it would be dark. I looked about the wheat field and the orchard across the road. I said, 'It's late, and so we shall camp here for the night — after we've paid Farmer Harbannan for trampling his wheat. Tomorrow, we'll ride into Tria.'

The camp we made then was the strongest of our entire journey. Deep moats we dug in poor Harbannan's field, and we gathered wood from a nearby stand of oaks to build up a stockade around our rows of tents. I issued a password, Alumit, that anyone approaching my pavilion must know. I gave orders that anyone resembling me should be examined to make sure he was wearing the gold medallion of the Quest and that of the Tournament Champion. Master Juwain and Maram volunteered to act as my safe-keepers, that everyone might see that I had not left their presence — and that they had not left mine

I dined with them and Atara inside my pavilion that evening. I desired only the companionship of those who had borne the uncertainties of the Quest with me. And so I regarded it as the working of fate when I heard a faint clopping of hooves along the road and then two visitors announced themselves at the perimeter of our encampment. For they proved to be friends I loved as mother and brother Liljana Ashvaran and a little boy named Daj, whom we had brought out of Argattha.