Lord of Lies (35 page)

And so we waited there for four days, resting, repairing ripped tents and other gear, polishing our armor and sharpening our swords. I took to spending part of each morning with Estrella. She gave signs that she wanted me to teach her to play my flute, and this I did. She learned its ways even more quickly than had riding her horse. In her long, tapering fingers, this slip of wood came alive with bright, happy sounds. She seemed to speak with music, with her beautiful hands, with the expressions of her lively face. And most of all, as her notes trilled sweetly to -harmonize with the piping of the birds and the rushing of the river, the flames of her being seemed to pour forth like liquid fire from her lovely eyes, and that was the most marvelous music of all.

And yet there were moments, as at the monstrous Aradar castle, when her songs swelled with an unutterable sadness. It seemed that some black and bottomless chasm opened inside her and cut her off from that which she most desired. Then her music became a plaint and a plea that hurt me to hear and filled my heart with an unbearable pain. Listening to her play this way one morning, I knew that I must find a way to help her. I had no power to straighten crooked limbs or mend torn flesh, as Joakim the blacksmith's son, was said to do; this I had proved in my failure to cure a cripple I had encountered along the road to Nar and again with Asaru at the tournament. But might I, somehow, be able to heal a broken soul? Baltasar would say I could; so would his father, Lansar Raasharu, and many others. The words of Kasandra's prophecy sounded inside me like trumpets then. It came to me that Estrella
would
show me the Maitreya: but only in the art of my easing her long, deep and terrible suffering.

On the last morning of our sojourn, I found a spot on some rocks by the stream to sit with her. The air was sweet with spray and the song of two bluebirds warbling at each other:
cheer cheer-lee churr.
Estrella brought forth my flute, and I brought forth the Lightstone. All along the way from Mesh she had shown little interest in the golden cup. But now she held out her hand for me to give it to her. This I did. If I expected it to flare brightly and bathe her in its magical light, I was disappointed. The cup remained quiescent and shone no more brightly than did ordinary gold. She sat for a long while gazing at it with her deep, wild eyes. Then she smiled and dipped the cup into the stream. She held it to her lips, drinking down the clear water in three quick swallows. It seemed that she was only thirsty.

'The Lightstone holds more than water,' I said to her as I took back the cup. 'Here, let me show you.'

As she breathed lightly on the end of my flute, her bright eyes were like mirrors showing
me
the deepest parts of myself And calling me to bring forth the music inside me. She sat watching me and waiting as she played my flute and looked into my eyes. She looked at the Lightstone, too. The sun's rays streamed down from the sky and filled it with a golden radiance. I felt some part of this heavenly fire pass through my hands into me. It warmed my blood with an unbearably sweet pressure that broke open my heart. Everything that was there came pouring out of me and into her. Her face lit up like the sun itself then. She put aside my flute and laughed in her sweet, silent way until her eyes glistened with tears. She stared at the Lightstone, now shining with a numinous intensity. Its brilliance dazzled her; she sat frozen by the stream, her eyes wide open to the clear, blue sky and the shimmering cottonwood trees. I had a strange sense that she was seeing not just their billowing canopies but millions of separate silver-green leaves. It was as if she was aware of the One pouring out its light through all things. And shining with its greatest splendor in her. For a moment, it seemed, she was swept away by both these outer and inner luminosities, and there was no difference. She seemed to remain in this river of light forever. At last, her eyes blazed into mine as she returned to the world. The smile on her face made my heart sing. I sensed that, at least for a time, the ground of her being had knitted itself together and she was made whole again.

Something changed in me, too. Some of the terrible doubt that had oppressed me for many miles suddenly left me, like a wound lanced and emptied of poison. Estrella and I returned to our encampment to take our midday meal, and it seemed I stood straighter and walked with a lighter step. Sunjay Naviru, Lord Raasharu and others looked at me strangely, as if I had donned a magical garment woven of light.

And then later that afternoon, my happiness swelled like the sea, for out of the steppe to the west, three riders crested a knoll and galloped toward us. I recognized the blue rose of Baltasar's emblem and those of Sar Avram and Lord Noldru. They brought straight to me two pieces of great, good news: the lake told of in Master Juwain's verses had been located near the Snake River only thirty miles to the west And Trahadak the Elder of the Zakut clan had invited us, in the name of Sajagax, to cross his lands freely on our way to seek out Sajagax and Alonia.

A
t dawn the next morning I led the Guardians out onto the Wendrush. The plains to the west blazed red with the fire of the rising sun, while the cool turf over which we rode remained steeped in the mountains' shadow. But soon the sun rose higher, and we broke free from the zone of darkness into the sun's strong, streaming rays. The air clicked with the sound of grasshoppers and buzzed with bees. Long grasses swished beneath us, scraping our horses' flanks and across our diamond-sheathed legs. We followed the general course of the winding river toward the lake that Baltasar had told of. If he was right about its location, we should reach it near the end of a long day's ride. And if he was right about Trahadak the Elder's assurance of safe passage, we should encounter no Sarni warriors that day.

The Zakut encampment lies forty miles to the north of the lake,' he had told me during our council the night before. 'Along the river, at this time of year, the Zakut - all the Kurmak - do not pitch their tents.'

'And why is that?' Maram had asked him.

'Because it seems the river is given to flooding.'

'Flooding,
you say? Ah, well, water is only water. But can this Trahadak be trusted?'

'The Sarni are savages, it's true,' Baltasar had admitted. 'But we've given them a gift of gold, and they have always been known to honor their word.'

It vexed me more than a little that I had to rely on Trahadak's word in crossing this unknown country. And so I sent outriders ahead us and behind to scout for bands of warriors that Trahadak might not know of. I did not really fear attack from any small numbers; it seemed that the only force capable of threatening us was that led by Trahadak himself. Even so, I did not want to be unprepared.

All that morning, however, we saw no beings that went on two legs, except ourselves and some flocks of ostrakats who waved their lone necks at us and hissed fiercely to warn us away. The Sarni, of course even though they are human beings like any others, do not go forth on two legs, for they are masters of the horse and worship this noble animal as others do the sun and sky. A Sarni warrior, it is said, measures his wealth by four things: the gold beaten into the ornaments that encircle his limbs; the shaggy sagosk that he herds; the women he has taken as wives; and the number and quality of horses that he rides. A man. His also said, might have to wait many years to marry; he might be stripped of gold and lose all of his sagosk in raids. But a man must possess at least one horse, or he is not counted a man.

As we rode along in our three columns, we kept the curves of the river to our left, sometimes at a distance of a mile, sometimes only a hundred yards away, for we wanted to follow as straight a course as possible. Around noon, though, we had to circle to the north to avoid a herd of wild sagosk grazing along the river. But in so doing, we managed to flush a pride of lions that stalked the sagosk and preyed upon their stragglers and young. Seven great, yellow-eyed beasts burst from the grass in a shock of bunching muscles and unleashed power. The huge cats frightened our horses, who screamed and reared up, kicking out their legs and bucking Sar Viku and four other knights from their backs. The lions, perhaps frightened by
the
glister of our diamond armor and nearly two hundred long lances pointed at them, ran off into the grass. It was a wonder, I thought, that Sar Viku and the others took only bruises from their violent falls.

Toward the end of the day, with the sun bloodying the clouds on the western horizon, we crested a hummock and finally sighted the lake about five miles ahead of us in a depression in the earth many miles wide. The Snake River flowed into it. Somewhere to the west of this hazy blue body of water, it must also flow out. I wanted to ride closer to get a better look at this mysterious lake; I had considered making camp on its shores that night. But it had grown too late. It would be better, I thought, to dig our moat and build our stockade from the fallen wood down by the river to the left of us. There, with the river bending sharply south through the grassy steppe before bending back north and west, we would be protected by water on three sides.

And so we rode down into this sheltered pocket of land and set to work. Guardians sheathed their lances and drew forth spades from the packhorses to dig in the tough, sun-seared turf. I posted Sar Kimball and three other Guardians as sentries on a rise a few hundred yards farther out on the steppe, away from the river. It was one of these, Sar Varald, who broke the peace of that quiet place. The sudden blare of his trumpet seemed to shatter the very air, I looked to the north to see these four Guardians galloping toward us.

'Mount,' I cried out. I ran over to where Altaru was tethered to some branches that we had intented to fashion into a fence. All around me between tents lying limp on to ground, in the chaos of our camp, Guardians were running for their horses too. 'Mount and form up!'

As Sar Varald and the others came pounding up to us. I commanded the Guardians to array themselves in three lines facing north toward the rise overlooking the river. Twenty of these, by arrangement remained unhorsed. They were our best archers and I posted them, ten to either side of us, on our flanks. While the rest of us sat upon our snorting horses with our lances pointing north, the archers strung their great longbows and began building a fence of arrows in front of them by sticking many long, feathered shafts point-down into the ground.

'Treachery!' Sar Kimball cried out as he and the other sentries reined up his huge sorrel at the front of our lines. There, at our center with the late sun making brilliant the diamond armor of two hundred Valari knights. I waited with Maram and Lansar Raasharu to my right while Baltasar and Sunjay Naviru sat on top of their mounts to my left. 'Treachery, Lord Valashu! The Sarni are upon us!'

'How many?' I asked him. I gazed at the grassy rise a few hundred yards away waiting.

'Two hundred,' he said. 'Perhaps more - it was hard to tell.' I turned to look past the two lines of knights backing us up. There, behind our center, Lord Harsha sat on his horse, and Behira and Estrella sat on theirs. Skyshan of Ki, who bore the Lightstone, was with them, along with Sar Adamar, Sar Jarlath and Sar Hannu of Anjo. If the worst befell, these knights would die to a man protecting Skyshan, even as we protected them. And Lord Harsha would certainly fight to the death in defense of his daughter and Estrella.

'Two hundred,' Lord Raasharu repeated in his calm, clear voice. No man in our lines had more experience of battle than he. 'Even odds.' He said this, I thought, to inspirit us. For the odds were not equal. I remembered what my father had taught me as a boy: that while we Valari were nearly always invincible on the ground of the Morning Mountains, here on the endless grasslands of the Wendrush against the Sarni, our heavilv armored knights were at a great disadvantage.
'
There they are!' Maram suddenly cried out as he pointed ahead of us

Along the line of the rise, some two hundred and twenty men on horses suddenly appeared against the cloud-dappled sky. They wore conical helmets polished brightly and black leather breast-pieces, hardened and studded with steel. Gorgets of gold gleamed around their necks, and many of these barbaric warriors sported golden circlets on their bare arms. Their faces were painted blue. Long, drooping, yellow moustaches spilled down beneath their chins. Each of them held in his hand a double-curved bow made of sinew, wood and horn. These powerful bows - and the arrows they fired - could work quick slaughter of their enemies from distances that matched the range of our longbows. If not for a miracle, I thought, they might slaughter
us:
we Valari, who were the most ancient and hated of their enemies.

'Baltasar!' I cried out as I stared at these wild men. 'Which one is Trahadak - can you point him out?'

I vowed to myself that if the Sarni charged us, the treacherous Trahadak the Elder should be the first to die.

Baltasar held his hand to the ridge of his helmet as he scanned the warriors before us. He shook his head, saying, 'The distance is too great.'

'Damn them!' Maram said. I saw that he had taken out his fire-stone. The cracked crystal remained useless in his hand. 'Damn this gelstei! If this were made whole again, I'd give them a little fire for turning against us. Do you think they've come for more gold?'

I couldn't say. It seemed certain that they couldn't have come for the gold of the Lightstone, for Baltasar had kept it and our mission a secret. But surely the Sarni wanted something of us, if only our horses, our arms and perhaps our lives.

'Do you think they want to parlay?' Maram asked. 'Surely they'd want to parlay before giving battle. Wouldn't they?'

I scanned the rise ahead of us. I saw no white flag raised, only standards embroidered with various animals that might be emblems of various clans. To the west, the clouds along the horizon broke apart, and the sun's rays streamed low and glinted from the Sarni's two hundred and twenty helmets. I did not know what they were waiting for.