The Lightstone

Chapter 30

The moon that night was just past full and tinged a glowing red. It hung low in conjunction with a blazing twist of stars that some called the Snake Constellation and others the

Dragon.

'Blood Moon in the Dragon,' Master Juwain said. He sat sipping his tea and looking up at the sky. 'I haven't seen suchlike in many years.'

He brought out his book then, and sat reading quietly by the firelight, perhaps looking for some passage that would comfort him and turn his attentions away from the stars. And then Liljana, who had gone off to wash the dishes in a small stream that led back to the Parth, returned holding some stones in her hand. They were black and shiny like Kane's gelstei but had more the look of melted glass. Liljana called them Angels' Tears; she said that wherever they were found, the earth would weep with the sorrow of the heavens. Atara gazed at these three, droplike stones as she might her much clearer crystal. Although her eyes darkened and I felt a great heaviness descend upon her heart like a stormcloud, she, too, sat quietly sipping her tea and saying nothing.

We slept uneasily that night, and Kane didn't sleep at all. He stood for hours keeping watch, looking for lions in the shadows of the moon-reddened rocks or enemies approaching across the darkling plain. Alphanderry, who couldn't sleep either, brought out his mandolet and sang to keep him company. And unseen by him, Flick spun only desultorily to his music. He seemed to want to hide from the bloody moon above us.

And so the hours of night passed, and the heavens turned slowly about the rutilant earth. When morning came, we had a better look at this harsher country into which we had ventured. Yarkona, Master Juwain said, meant the 'Green Land,' but there was little of this hue about it. Neither true steppe nor quite desert, the sparse grass here was burnt brown by a much hotter sun. The yusage had been joined by its even tougher cousin: ursage and spiny sage, whose spiked leaves discouraged the brush voles and deer from browsing upon them. We saw a few of these cautious animals in the early light, framed by some blackish cliffs to the east. These sharp prominences had a charred looked about them, as if the sun had set fire to the very stone. But Kane said their color came from the basalt that formed them; the rocks, he told us, were the very bones of the earth, which the hot winds blowing up from the south had laid bare.

He also told us that we had made camp in Sagaram, a domain that some local lord had carved out of this once-great realm perhaps a century before. We looked to him for knowledge that might help us cross it. But as he admitted, he had come this way many years ago, in more peaceful times. Since then, he said, the boundaries of Yarkona's little baronies and possessions had no doubt shifted like a desert's sands, perhaps some of them having been blown away by war altogether.

'Aigul lies some sixty miles from here to the north and east,' he told us. 'Unless it has grown since then, and its counts have annexed lands to the south.'

These lands we set out to cross on that dry, windy morning. Sagaram proved to be little more than a thin strip of shrubs and sere grasses running seventy or so miles along the Parth. By early afternoon, we had made our way clear into the next domain, although no river or stone marked the border, and we didn't realize it at the time. It took some more miles of plodding across the hot, rising plain before we found anyone who could give us directions. This was a goatherd who lived in a little stone house by a well in sight of a rather striking rock formation to the east of us.

'You've come to Karkut,' he told us as he shared a little cheese and bread with us.

He was a short man, neither young nor old, with a great flowing tunic pulled over his spare frame and tied at the waist with a bit of dirty rope. 'To the north of us lies Hansh and Aigul; to the south is the Nashthalan. That's mostly desert now, and you'll want to stay well to the north of it if you're to come to Khaisham safely.'

While his two young sons watered our horses, he advised us to make our way directly east along the hills above the Nashthalan; after crossing through Sarad, he said, we should turn north along the dip in the White Mountains and so come to Khaisham that way.

But even as we were sharing a cup of brandy with him and eating some dried figs, a knight wearing a green and white surcoat over his gleaming mail came riding down from the rock formation above us. He had the same browned skin and dark beard as the goatherd, but he rode with an air of confidence as if his lord commanded the lands hereabouts. He presented himself as Rinald, son of Omar the Quiet; he said that he was in the service of Lord Nicolaym, who had a castle hidden in the rocks above us.

'We saw you ride up to the well,' he told us, looking from me to my friends. 'We were afraid that you would pass this way unheralded.'

He came down from his horse and broke bread with us. He was only too happy to share some of our brandy, too, which was the nearly the last of the vintage we had carried from Tria.

'Lord Nicolaym,' he said to us, 'would like to offer his hospitality, for the night or as many nights as you wish.'

I thought of the golden cup that likely awaited us in Khaisham. An image sprang into my mind of time running out of it like the sands from an hourglass. If we came to Khaisham too late, I thought, we might find the Library emptied of the Lightstone, perhaps carried away by another.

'Sar Valashu?'

I looked up at the sun, still high in the cloudless sky. We had many hours left that day that we might travel, and I told Rinald this.

'Of course, you're free to ride on as you please,' Rinald said to us. 'Lord Nicolaym doesn't order the comings and goings of pilgrims or charge them tolls as some do.

But you should be careful of where you go. Not everyone welcomes pilgrims these days.'

With an apology to the goatherd, he went on to dispute his advice that we should journey east through Sarad.

'Baron Jadur's knights are jealous of their borders there,' Rinald told us. 'Although they hate Count Ulanu, they've no love of Khaisham and the Librarians, either. It's said that for many years they've turned pilgrims away from their domain – those they haven't plundered or imprisoned.'

At this news, the goatherd took a drink of brandy and shrugged his shoulders. His business, he said, was keeping his goats fat and healthy, not in keeping apprised of the injustices of distant lords.

As for injustice, Rinald informed us sadly that there was too much of that in his own domain. 'Duke Rasham is a good enough man, but some of his lords have gone over to the Kallimun – we're not quite sure which ones. But there have been murders of those who speak for joining arms with Khaisham. We caught an assassin trying to murder Lord Nicolaym just last month. You should be careful in Karkut, I'm sorry to say, Sar Valashu. These are evil times.'

'It would seem that we must take care wherever we go in Yarkona,' I told him.

'That is true,' he said. 'But there are some domains you must avoid at all costs.

Aigul, of course. And to the west of those crucifiers, Brahamdur, whose baron and lords are practically Count Ulanu's slaves. And Sagaram – you were lucky to cross it unmolested, for they've been forced into an alliance with Aigul. To the north of us, between here and Aigul, Hansh has nearly lost its freedom as well. It's said that soon Count Ulanu will press Hansh levies into his army.'

Maram, of course, didn't like the news that he was hearing. He looked at me a long moment before asking Rinald, 'How are we to reach Khaisham, then?'

'The route through Madhvam would be the safest,' Rinald said, naming the domain just east of us. 'There's strength there for opposing Count Ulanu; their knights would join Khaisham in arms but for their bad blood with Sarad. That feud occupies all their attentions, I'm afraid. I haven't heard, though, that they have any quarrel with pilgrims.'

But Madhvam, as Maram learned, adjoined Aigul to its north, and that was too close for him. 'What if this Ulanu the Handsome attacks Madhvam while we're crossing it?'

'No, that's impossible,' Rinald said. 'We've just had word that Count Ulanu has marched against Sikar. The fortifications of that city are the strongest in all Yarkona.

He'll be at least a month reducing them.'

Sikar, he said, lay a good sixty miles north of Madhvam up against the White Mountains, with the domain of Virad partially squeezed in between. He told us then what Duke Rasham and Lord Nicolaym sup-posed would be Count Ulanu's strategy for the conquest of Yarkona.

'Khaisham is the key to everything that Count Ulanu desires,' Rinald told us. 'Other than Aigul, it's the strongest domain in Yarkona, and Virad, Sikar and Inyam all look to the Librarians to lead the opposition against the Count. If Khaisham falls, the whole of the north will fall as well. Count Ulanu already has the west under his thumb. Hansh, too. The middle domains – Madhvam and Sarad, even Karkut – can't stand alone. And once Aigul has swallowed us all up, it will be nothing for the Count's army to take the Nashthalan.'

His words encouraged us to finish our brandy in quick swallows. And then Maram said, 'Ah, well, I should think that the Count's invasion of Sikar would lead all the free domains to join against him.'

'That is my lord's hope, too,' Rinald said. 'But I'm afraid that many lords think otherwise. They say that if Count Ulanu's conquest is inevitable, they should join with him rather than wind up nailed to crosses.'

'Nothing's inevitable,' Kane growled out, 'except such cowardly talk.'

'That is so,' Rinald said. 'Even Sikar's fall is uncertain. If only Khaisham's knights would ride to its aid…'

'Will they?' I asked.

'No one knows. The Librarians are brave enough, and none better at arms. But for a thousand years, they've used them only in defense of their books.'

'Then what about Virad? What about Inyam?' I asked, naming the domain north of Virad and between Sikar and Khaisham.

'I think they'll wait to see what Khaisham does,' Rinald says. 'If the Librarians stay behind their walls and Sikar falls, then likely they'll sue for peace.'

'You mean, surrender,' Kane snarled.

'Better that than crucifixion, many would say.'

Because Kane's flashing eyes were difficult to behold just then, I turned toward Maram, who was looking for reasons to abandon his courage.

'If the Red Dragon desires the conquest of Yarkona so badly,' he said, 'I don't see why he doesn't just smd an army to reduce it. Sakai isn't so far from here, is it?

What could stop him?'

'Niggardliness could,' Atara said perceptively. 'I think the Lord of Lies is very careful: he hoards his forces like a miser does gold.'

'Just so,' Rinald said. 'For him such a conquest would be an expensive campaign.'

'How so?' Maram asked.

'If I had a map, I would show you,' Rinald said. 'But there's no good route from Sakai to Yarkona. If a Sakayan army tried the Red Desert, the heat would kill them like flies if the Ravirii didn't first.'

'What about the direct route through the mountains?'

'That would be even more dangerous,' Rinald said. 'The White Moun-tains, at least the stretch of that range between Yarkona and Sakai, is the land of the Ymanir. They are much worse than the Ravirii.'

He went on to say that the Ymanir were also called the Frost Giants; they were savage men nearly eight feet tall and covered with white fur, who were known to kill all who entered their country and eat them. 'Frost Giants,' is it now?' Maram exclaimed as he shuddered. 'Oh, too much, too much.'

I felt my own insides churning as I looked at the war-torn landscape to the east and tried to make out the great White Mountains beyond. In the haze of the burning distances, I saw a golden room whose great iron door was slowly closing like that of a vault. We had to enter the room safely and get out again before we were trapped inside.

'Val,' Maram said to me, 'I don't have a very good feeling about this land. Perhaps we should turn back before it's too late.'

I looked at him then, and the fire in my eyes told him that I wasn't about to come within inches of fulfilling the quest simply to turn back. This same fire blazed inside Kane and Atara, and in Liljana, Alphanderry and Master Juwain. It smoldered, too, beneath the damp leaves of Maram's fear, even if he didn't know it.

'All right, all right, don't look at me like that,' Maram said to me. 'if we must go on, we must. But let's go soon, okay?'

And with that, we finished our little meal and thanked the goatherd for his hospitality.

Then Rinald helped us finally decide our route: we would cut through Karkut and Madhvam toward the northeast along the line of the Nashbrum River. And then turn southeast through Virad's canyon lands, coming eventually to a little spur running down from the White Mountains that separated Virad and Inyam from Khaisham.

There we would find a pass called the Kul Joram, and beyond that, Khaisham.

'I wish you well,' Rinald said to us as he mounted his horse. 'I'll remind Lord Nicolaym to keep a few rooms empty for your return.'

We watched him ride off toward the rocks above us and the castle that we couldn't see. And then we turned to mount our horses as well.

All that hot afternoon we rode along the line that Rinald had advised. We found the Nashbrum, a smallish river that ran down from the mountains and seemed to narrow and lose substance to the burning earth as it flowed toward the Nashthalan.

Cottonwood trees grew along its course, and we kept their shimmering leaves in sight as we paralleled it almost all the way to Madhvam. We were lucky to come across none of the traitorous lords or knights who had gone over to the Kallimun.

We made camp along the Nashbrum's sandy banks, keeping a careful watch.

But the night passed peacefully enough; only the howling of some wolves pointing their snouts toward the moon reminded us that we were not alone in this desolate country. When morning came, dear and blue and hinting of a sweltering heat later in the day, we set out early and rode quickly through what coolness we could find. It was good, I thought, that we kept close to the river; the sweating horses made free with its water and so did we. By the time the sun crested the sky, we decided to break for our midday meal beneath the shade of a great, gnarled cottonwood. No one was hungry enough to eat but at least we had some cover from the blistering sun.

But soon enough, we had to set out again. Toward mid-afternoon, some big clouds formed up and let loose a quick burst of thunder and rain. It lasted only long enough to wet the ursage and dried grasses and the sharp rocks that tore at our horses' hooves. It was a measure of our desire to reach Khaisham that we still made a good distance that day. By the time the sun had left its fierceness behind it in the waves of heat radiating off the glowing land we found ourselves in the domain of Virad. To the north of us, and to the east, too, the knifelike peaks of the White Mountains caught the red fire of the setting sun.

'Well, that was a day,' Maram said. He wiped the sweat from his dripping brown curls and dismounted to look for some wood for the night's fire. 'I'm hot, I'm thirsty, I'm tired. And what's worse,' he said, pressing his nose to his armpit, 'I stink. This heat is much worse than the rain in the Crescent Mountains.'

'Hmmph,' Atara said to him, 'it's only worse because you're suffering from it now.

Just wait until our return.'

'If we do return,' he muttered. He scratched at some beads of sweat in the thick beard along his neck as he looked about. 'Val, are you sure this is Virad?'

I pointed along the river where it abruptly turned north about five miles across the rocky ground ahead of us. I said, 'Rinald told us to look for that turning. There, we're to set our course to the southeast and so come to the pass after another forty miles.'

Directly to the east of us, I saw, was a large swelling of black rock impossible to cross on horses. And so, at the river's turning, we would ride up and around it.

'Well, then, we must have ridden nearly forty miles today.'

'Too far,' Kane said, coming over to us and studying the terrain around us. 'We pressed the horses too hard. Tomorrow we'll have to satisfy ourselves with half that distanced.'

'I don't like the look of this country,' Maram said. 'I don't want to remain here any longer than we have to.'

'If we cripple the horses, we'll be here even longer,' Kane told him. 'Do you want to walk to Khaisham?'

That night, we fortified our camp with some of the logs and branches we found down by the river. The moon, when it rose over the black hills, was clearly waning though still nearly full. It set the wolves farther out on the plain to howling: a high-pitched, plaintive sound that had always unnerved Maram – and Liljana and Master Juwain, as well. To soothe them, Alphanderry plucked the strings of his mandolet and sang of ages past and brighter times to come when the Galadin and Elijin would walk the earth again. His clear voice rang out across the river, echoing from the ominous-looking rocks. It brought cheer to all, though it also touched Kane with deep dread I felt pulling at his insides like the teeth of something much worse than wolves.

'Too loud,' Kane muttered at Alphanderry. 'This isn't Alonia, eh? Nor even Surrapam.'

After that Alphanderry sang more quietly, and the golden tones pouring from his throat seemed to harmonize with the wolves' howls, softening them and rendering them less haunting. But then, above his beautiful voice and those of the wolves, from the north of us where the river turned into some low hills, came a distant keening sound that was terrible to hear.

'Shhh,' Maram said, tapping Alphanderry's knee, 'what was that?'

Alphanderry now put down his mandolet and listened with the rest of us. Again came the far-off keening, and then an answering sound, much closer, from the hills to the east. It was like the shrieking of a cat and the scream of a wounded horse and the cries of the damned all bound up into a single, piercing howl.

'That's no wolf!' Maram called out. 'What is it?'

Again came the howl, closer, and this time it had something of a crow's cawing and a bear's growl about it: OWRRRUULLL!

Kane jumped to his feet and drew his sword. It seemed to point of its own toward the terrible sound.

'Do you know what that is?' Maram asked him, also drawing his sword.

OWRRULLLLL!

Now all of us, except Master Juwain, took up weapons and stood staring at the moonlit rocks across the river.

'Ah, for the love of woman, Kane, please tell us if you know what we're facing!'

But Kane remained silent, staring off into the dark. The cry came again, but it seemed to be moving away from us. After a while, it faded and then vanished into the night.

'This is too too much,' Maram said. He turned toward Kane accusingly as if it was he who had called forth the hideous voices. 'Wolves don't howl like that.'

'No,' Kane muttered, 'but the Blues do.'

'The Blues!' Maram said. 'Who or what are the Blues?'

But it was Master Juwain who answered him. He knelt by the fire, reading from his book as he quoted from the Visions: '"Then came the blue men, the half-dead whose cries will wake the dead. They are the heralds of the Red Dragon, and the ghosts of battle follow them to war."'

He closed his book and said, 'I've always wondered what those lines meant.'

'They mean this,' Kane said. 'None of us will sleep tonight.'

He told us then what he knew of the Blues. He said that they were a short, immensely squat and powerful people, a race of warriors bred by Morjin during the Age of Swords. It was their gift – or curse – to have few nerves in their bodies and so to feel little pain. This gift was deepened by their eating the berries of the kirque plant, which enabled them to march into battle in a frenzy of unfeeling wrath toward their foes. The berries also stained their skin a pale shade of blue; most of their men accentuated this color by rubbing berry juice across their skin so that the whole of their bodies were blemished a deep blue the color of a bruise. Most of them, as well displayed many scabs, open cuts and running sores across their arms and legs, for in their nearly nerveless immunity to pain, they were wont to wound themselves and take no notice of the injury. But others couldn't help noticing them: they went into battle naked wielding huge, terrible, steel axes. They howled like maddened wolves.

They killed without pity or feeling as if their souls had died. Because of this, they were called the Soulless Ones of the Half-Dead.

'But if the Beast created these warriors during the Age of Swords for battle,' Master luwain asked, thumping his book, 'why isn't more told of their feats in here?'

'There are other books,' Kane said, scanning the gleaming terrain about us. 'If we ever reach the Library, maybe you'll read them.'

As if realizing that he had spoken too harshly to a man he had come to respect, he softened his voice and said, 'As for their feats, they were almost too terrible to record. Great axes they wielded, remember, and they had even less care for others' flesh than they did their own.'

He went on to say that Morjin had employed the Blues in his initial conquest of Alonia. They had left almost no one alive to tell of their terror. They had also proved almost impossible to control. And so after one particularly vicious battle, Morjin – the Lord of lies, the Treacherous One – had invited the entire host of Blues to a victory celebration. There, with his own hand, he had poured into their cups a poisoned wine.

'It's said that all the Blues perished in a single night,' Kane told us, looking toward the mountains to the north. 'But I think that some must have escaped to take refuge here. I've long heard it rumored that there was some terror hidden in the White Mountains – other than the Frost Giants, of course.'

In silence, we all looked at the great, snow-capped peaks glistering in the moonlight.

And then Maram said, 'But we're still a good forty miles from the mountains. If it is the Blues we heard, what are they doing in the hills of Yarkona?'

'That I would like to know,' Kane told him. Then he clapped him on the arm and smiled his savage smile. 'But not too badly. And not tonight. Now why don't we at least try to sleep? Alphanderry and I will take the first watch. If the Blues come back to sing for us, we'll be sure to wake you.'

But the Half-Dead, if such they really were, did not return that night. Even so, none of us got much sleep. By the time morning came, we were all red-eyed and crabby, almost too tired to pull ourselves on top of our footsore horses. We prayed for a few clouds to soften the sun. Each hour, however, it waxed hotter and hotter so that it threatened to set all the sky on fire.

We rode through a land devoid of people. After we turned southeast at the bend in the river, we sought out the few scattered huts along the rock-humped plain to gather knowledge of the country through which we passed. But the huts were all empty, deserted it seemed in great haste. Perhaps, I thought, the cries of the Soulless Ones had driven their owners away. Perhaps they had fled for protection to a nearby castle of some local lord.

Late that morning, we saw some vultures circling in the sky ahead of us. As we rode closer, the air thickened with a terrible smell. Maram wanted to turn aside from whatever lay in that direction, but Kane was eager as always to see what must be seen. And so we pressed on until we crested a low rise. And there before us, growing out of the sage and grass like trees, were three wooden crosses from which hung the blackened bodies of three naked men. Vultures, perched on the arms of the crosses, bent their beaks downward, working at them. When Kane saw these death birds, his face darkened and his heart filled with wrath. He charged forward, waving his sword and growling like a wolf himself. At first, the vultures managed to ignore him. But such was his fury that when his sword leapt out to impale one of the vultures in the chest, the others sprang into the air and began circling warily about, waiting for the maddened Kane to leave them to their feast.

'How I hate these damn birds!' Kane raged as he dismounted to wipe his sword on the grass. 'They make a mockery of the One's noblest creation.'

We rode up to him, holding our cloaks over our noses against the awful smell. I forced myself to look up at these husks of once-proud men, which iron nails and the iron-hard beaks of the vultures had reduced so pitifully. To Kane, I said, 'You didn't tell us that the Blues learned the defilements of the Crucifier.'

'I never heard that they did,' he said, looking at the crosses. 'This may be the work of some lord who has gone over to the Kallimun.'

'What lord?' Liljana asked, nudging her horse closer to Kane. 'Rinald said that the lords of Virad looked to Khaisham for leadership.'

'So, it seems that some of them may look to Aigul.'

I dismounted Altaru and walked over to the center cross. I reached out and touched the foot of the man who had been nailed to it. His flesh was soft swollen and hot – as hot as the burning air itself.

'We should bury these men,' I said.

Kane stuck his sword down into the rock-hard earth. 'We should bury them, Val.

But it would take us a day of digging, eh? Whoever put them here may come back and find us.'

Maram, whose hand was trembling as he held his cloak tightly covering his face, said, 'Come, please, let's go before it's too late!'

And then Kane, always a man of oppositions, snarled out, 'He's right, we should go.

Let's leave these birds their meal. Even vultures must eat.'

And so, after a saying a prayer for the three men who had ended their lives in this desolate place, we mounted our horses and resumed our journey. But as we rode over the hot, tormented earth, Alphanderry wet his throat with a little blood from his cracked lips and gave us a song to hearten us. He made a hauntingly beautiful music in remembrance of the dead men, singing their souls up to the stars behind the deep blue sky. Despite the terrible thing we had just seen, his words were in praise of life: Sing ye songs of glory, Sing ye songs of glory, That the light of the One Will shine upon the world.

'Too loud,' Kane muttered as he scanned the low hills about us.

But Alphanderry, perhaps concentrating on an image of the Lightstone that lay somewhere before us, raised up his voice even louder. He sang strongly and bravely, with a reckless abandon, and his voice filled the countryside. Even the grasses, I thought, sere and stunted here, would want to weep at the sound of it.

'Too damn loud, I say!' Kane barked out, flashing an angry look at Alphanderry. 'Do you want to announce us to the whole world?'

Alphanderry, however, seemed drunk on the beauty of his own sing-ing. He ignored Kane. After a while, strange and wonderful words began pouring from his lips in a torrent that seemed impossible to stop.

'Damn you, Alphanderry, come to your senses, will you?'

As Kane glowered at Alphanderry, he finally fell quiet. The look on his face was that of a scolded puppy. To Kane, he said, 'I'm sorry, but I was so dose. So very close to finding the words of the angels.'

'If the crucifiers come upon us here,' Kane said, 'not even the angels will be able to help us.'

Even as he said this, Atara pointed at a far-off hill. I looked there and thought I saw a hazy figure vanish behind it.

'What is it?' Kane asked, squinting.

Atara, who had the best eyes of any of us, said, 'It was a man – he seemed dressed in blue.'

At this news, Maram sat swallowing against the fear in his throat as if he could so easily make it go away.

'I'm sorry,' Alphanderry said again. 'But maybe the blue man didn't see us.'

'Foolish minstrel,' Kane said softly. 'Let's ride now, and hope he didn't.'

And so we set out again, riding as swiftly as we dared for half an hour. And with each mile we covered, the air grew hotter so that it fairly roiled, and the stench of death stayed with us. We entered a country of; rolling swells of earth like the waves of the sea; some were a hundred feet high and broken with rocky outcroppings. We kept a reasonably straight course, winding our way down their troughs. After a while, I felt a sick sensation along the back of my neck as if the vultures were watching me.

I stopped and turned toward the left; I looked toward the top of the rise even as Atara did, too.

'What is it?' Maram said, reining up behind us. 'What do you see?'

We had been told to avoid Aigul, and so we had. But Aigul hadn't avoided us. Just as Maram swallowed another mouthful of air and belched in disquiet, a company of cavalry broke over the rise and thundered down the slope straight toward us. There were twenty-three of them, as I saw at a glance. Their mail and helms gleamed in the sun. And holstered and upraised from a horse near their leader was a long pole from which streamed their standard: a bright yellow banner showing the coils and fiery tongue of a great red dragon.

'Oh, my Lord!' Maram cried out. 'Oh, my Lord!'

Liljana, who had drawn her sword, looked about with her calm, penetrating eyes and said to me, 'Do we flee or fight, Val?'

'Perhaps neither,' I said, trying to keep my voice calm for Maram's sake – and my own. I turned, pointing toward the right, where a hummock stood like a grass-covered castle. 'Up there – we'll face them up there.'

'That's very right,' Master Juwain said reassuringly as he looked at the men bearing down on us. 'This is probably just some wayward lord and his retainers. If we flee, he'll think we're thieves or afraid of them.'

'Well, we are afraid of them!' Maram pointed out. He might have said more, but we had already turned to gallop up the hummock, and the shock of his horse's heaving muscles drove the wind from him. It took us only a few moments to gain what little protection the hummock's height provided us. Its top was nearly flat, perhaps fifty yards across; we sat on our horses there as we watched the men approach. I didn't remark what we could now see quite plainly: that next to this great lord, who bore upon his yellow surcoat another red dragon, rode three naked men whose bodies seemed painted blue. Their little mountain ponies carried them up our hummock with greater agility than did the war horses of their more heavily armored companions.

Each of the three men were short and immensely muscled, and they each brandished in their knotted fists an immense steel axe.

'I'm sorry,' Alphanderry said to Kane, who had his sword drawn as his black eyes stared down at the approaching company.

'It's not your sorrow that we need now, my young friend,' Kane said with a grim smile, 'but your strength. And your courage.'

The company drew up in a crescent on the slope below us. And then their leader, along with the standard-bearer and one of the blue men, rode forward a few paces.

He was a quick-eyed man with a vulpine look to his hard face, which seemed all angles and planes, like pieces of chipped flint. Many would have called him handsome, a grace that he seemed to relish as he sat up straight on his horse in all his vanity and pride. His eyes were almost as dark as his well-trimmed beard; they fixed upon me like poisoned lances that pierced my heart with all the darkness of his.

'Who are you?' he called out to me in a raspy voice. 'Come down and identify yourselves!'

'Who are you,' I said to him, 'who rides upon us in surprise like robbers?'

'Robbers, is it?' he said. 'Be careful how you speak to the lord of this domain!'

I traded a quick look with Kane and then Atara, who held her strung bow down against her saddle. Rinald had told us that Virad's lord was Duke Vikram, an old man with scars along his white-bearded face. To this much younger man below us, I said, 'We had heard that the lord of this domain is Duke Vikram.'

'Not any more,' the man said with glee. 'Duke Vikram is dead. I'm the lord of Virad now. And of Sikar and Aigul. You may address me as Count Ulanu.'

It came to me, all in a moment, what the terrible stench in the air must be: the taint of manycorpses rotting in the sun. Somewhere near here, I knew, a battle had recently been fought. And Count Ulanu claimed the lordship of Virad by right of conquest.

'You have my name, now give me yours,' the Count said to me.

'We're pilgrims,' I told him, 'only pilgrims bound for Khaisham.'

'Pilgrims with swords,' he said, looking at Kane, Maram and Liljana Then he turned his gaze on me and studied my face for a long time 'It's said that the Valari look like you.'

I slipped my hand beneath my cloak as I rested it on the hilt of my sword. I noticed Maram gripping his red crystal in his free hand even as Liljana held her blue stone to her head.

'What's that you've got in your hand?' Count Ulanu barked at her.

But Liljana didn't answer him; she just sat staring at him as if her eyes could drink up all the challenge in his and still hold more.

Count Ulanu bent his head to whisper something to one of the Blues, whose large, round head was shaved and stained darkly with the juice of the kirque berries, even as Kane had said. One of his ears was missing, and the skin about the hole there all scabbed over. Along his side, he showed an open wound, probably from a sword cut; in the dark red suck of it squirmed many white maggots eating away the decaying flesh there. As he pointed at Alphanderry and whispered back to Count Ulanu, I understood that this was the man who had sighted us earlier. Most likely, he had then gone to fetch the Count and his other men upon us.

'You picked an evil time for your pilgrimage,' the Count said, looking up at us. His raspy voice had now softened as if he were trying to lure a reluctant serving girl into his chambers. 'There has been unrest in Sikar and in Virad. Both Duke Amadam and Duke Vikram were forced to ask our help in putting down rebellions. This we did.

We've recently fought a battle not far from here, at Tarmanam. Victory was ours, but sadly, Duke Vikram was killed. A few of the rebellious lords and their knights escaped us. They'll likely turn to outlawry now and fall upon pilgrims such as you.

This country isn't safe. That is why we must ask you to lay down your arms and come with us for your own protection.'

I sat on top of Altaru sweating in the burning sun as I listened to him. I smelled the acridness of his own sweat and that of the knights about him. I knew that he was lying, even if I couldn't quite tell what the truth really was, I noticed Liljana suddenly close her eyes; it was strange how she seemed to be staring straight at him even so.

'You might ask us to lay down,' Kane told him, with surprising politeness, 'but we must respectfully decline your request.'

'I'm afraid we must to do more than ask,' Count Ulanu said, his voice rising with anger. 'Please lay down now and come with us.'

'No,' Kane told him. 'No, we can't do that.'

'When peace has been restored,' the Count went on, we'll provide you an escort to Khaisham so that you may complete your pilgrimage.'

'No, thank you,' Kane said icily.

'You have my word that you'll be treated honorably and well,'

Count Ulanu said smiling sincerely. 'There's a tower for guests at Duke Vikram's castle – it overlooks the Ashbrum River. Well be happy to set you up there.'

Now LilJana's nose pointed straight toward him as if she were sniffing out poison in a cup. She suddenly opened her eyes to stare at him as she said, 'He speaks the truth: there are many towers of wood now at the Duke's castle. He intends to set us on these crosses with the Duke's knights and his family.'

The sudden rage that enpurpled Count Ulanu's face just then was terrible to behold.

He whipped out his saber and pointed it at Liljana as he shouted, 'Damn you, witch!

Give me what's in your hand before I cut it off and take it from you!'

Liljana opened her hand to show him her blue gelstei. Then she smiled defiantly as she closed her hand about the stone and stuck her fist out toward him.

'Damn witch,' the Count muttered.

'There was a battle at Tarmanam,' she said to all who could hear. 'But there were no rebellious lords – only those faithful to Duke Vikram, who has been cruelly tortured to death.'

In her frightfully calm and measured way, she went on to tell us something of what she had seen in the Count's mind. She said that he and his army had marched into Sikar even as Rinald had told us. But there had been no siege of the mighty fortifications there. As soon as the Count's engineers had set up their catapults and battering rams, his army had been joined by a host of Blues. And then Kailimun priests within the city had assassinated the Duke of Sikar and his family; the Duke's cousin. Baron Mukal, bowing before the terror of these priests, had thrown open the city gates. Hostages had been taken and threatened with crucifixion. The Sikar army had then gone over to the Count taking oaths of loyalty to him and his distant master. Thus Sikar had fallen in scarcely a day.

Count Ulanu had then gathered up both armies – and the companies of Blues. In a lightning strike, he had swept south, into Virad. Duke Vikram and his lords had had no time to watch events unfold in Sikar and to sue for peace on favorable terms; their only choice was to surrender unconditionally or to ride out to battle. With the Khaisham Librarians still preparing to send a force to Sikar, much too late, Duke Vikram chose to fight alone over bowing to Count Ulanu and the Red Dragon. But his forces had been slaughtered and many of the survivors crucified. And now his captured family awaited the same fate, imprisoned in his own castle.

'It was treachery that took Sikar,' Liljana said to us. 'And, listen, do you hear the lies in the Count's words? He promises us more treachery with every breath.'

As Count Ulanu stared at her, I was given to understand that he had been out riding with his personal guard in search of the best route to march his army through to Khaisham when one of his Blues had alerted him as to our presence.

On either side of the Count, two of his knights, clad in mail and armed with wicked-looking, curved swords, nudged their horses closer to him as if to steady him and show their support in the face of Liljana's barbs. It was to her that the Count now said, 'You know many things but not the one that really matters.'

'And what is that, dear Count?' Liljana asked.

'In the end, you'll beg to be allowed to bow before me and kiss my feet. How long has it been, old witch, since you've kissed a man?'

In answer, Liljana again held out her fist to him, this time with her middle finger extended.

The Count's face filled with hate, but he had the force of will to channel it into his derisive words: 'Why don't you try looking into my mind now?'

Then he, this priest of the Kallimun, turned upon her a gaze so venomous and full of malice that she gave a cry of pain. As something dark yet clear as a black crystal flared inside him, I felt the still-sheathed Alkaladur flare as well even through its jade hilt.

'What a gracious lord you are!' she said. She continued to stare at him despite her obvious anguish, 'I should imagine that all Yarkona has remarked your exemplary manners.'

I knew, of course, what she intended, and I approved her strategy: she was trying to use her blue gelstei and all the sharpness of her tongue to provoke the Count into an action against us. For surely there must be a battle between us; it would be best for us if we forced the Count and his men to fight it, here, upon this high ground, charging up this hill. This was our fate, perhaps written in the moon and stars, and I could see it approaching as dearly as could Atara. And yet it was also my fate that I must first speak for peace.

'Count Ulanu,' I said, 'you are now Lord of Sikar and Virad by conquest. But your domains were gained through treachery. No doubt the lords of Khaisham are preparing to take them back. Why don't you withdraw your men so that we may continue our journey? When we reach Khaisham, we'll speak to the Librarians concerning these matters. Perhaps a way can be found to restore peace to Yarkona without more war.'

It was a poor speech, I thought, and Count Ulanu had as much regard for it as I. His contemptuous eyes fell upon me as he said, 'If you are Valari, it seems you've lost your courage that you should suggest such cowardly schemes of running off to the enemy.'

For quite a few moments, he stared at the scar on my forehead. Then his eyes, which had caused Liljana nearly to weep, bored into mine. I felt something like black maggots trying to eat their way into my brain. My hand closed more tightly around Alkaladur's swan-carved hilt. I felt the fire of the silustria passing into me and gathering in my eyes. And suddenly Count Ulanu looked away from me.

'Pilgrims, are you?' he muttered. 'Seven of you, what's to be done with seven damn pilgrims?'

As the hot wind rippled the grasses about the hill, the Blue warrior with the shaved head impatiently turned to speak to the Count. His words came out in a series of guttural sounds like the grunts of a bear. He suddenly raised his axe, which caught the fierce rays of the sun. From his neck dangled a clear stone, which also gleamed in the bright light. It was a large, square-cut diamond like those that are affixed to leather breastpieces to make up the famed Valari battle armor. The other Blues sported identical gems. With the veins of my wrist touching my sword's diamond pommel, I saw in a flash how these Blues had acquired such stones: they had been ripped free from the armor of the crucified Valari after the battle of Tarshid an entire age ago. For three thousand years, Morjin had hoarded them against the day they might be needed. As now they were. For clearly, he had bought the service of the Blues' axes – and perhaps their forgetfulness of past treacheries – with these stolen diamonds.

'Urturuk here,' the Count said, nodding at the scabrous Blue, 'suggests that we do send you on to Khaisham. Or at least your heads.'

Like a perfect jewel forming up in my mind, I suddenly saw what Morjin's spending of this long-hoarded treasure portended: that he had finally committed to the open conquest of not only Yarkona but all of Ea.

'The Librarians,' the Count said, 'must be sent some sign that they've forfeited the right to receive more pilgrims.'

While the horses, ours and theirs, nickered nervously and pawed the earth, Count Ulanu stared up the grassy bill at us deciding what to do.

And then Liljana smiled at him and said, 'But haven't you already made your request to the Librarians?'

Again, the rage returned to Count Ulanu's face as he caught Liljana in his hateful eyes. And she stared right back at him, taking perhaps too much delight in her power to provoke him. Then she told us of the hid-den thing that she had so painstakingly wrested from the Count's mind.

'After Tarmanam,' she said to him loudly so that all his men could hear, 'didn't you send your swiftest rider to Khaisham demanding a tribute of gold? And didn't the Librarians send you a book illumined with gilt letters? A book of manners?'

Her revelation of the Librarians' rebuke and the Count's secret shame proved too much for him. With his true motives for wanting to humble the Librarians exposed like a raw nerve, the Count's hand tightened on his horse's reins, pulling back its head until it screamed in pain. And 'then the Count himself suddenly pointed his sword at us and screamed to his men, 'Damned witch! Take her! Take them all! And be sure you take the Valari alive!'

This command pleased the three Blues greatly. They clanked their great axes together, and in harmony with the ringing steel, they let loose a long and savage howl: OWRRULLL!

Then the twenty knights kicked their spurs against their screaming horses' flanks, and the battle was joined.