Lord of Lies (27 page)

Baltasar, my hot-blooded and faithful friend, of his own impetu-ousness, suddenly stood and called out toward me, 'Lord of Light! Maitreya! Lord of the Lightstone!'

Others, at the Meshian tables, picked up the cry. Almost immediately Sar Laisu and half a dozen Kaashans added their voices to this acclaim, and soon many knights at the tables of the Ishkans, Lagashuns, Anjoris, Taroners, Atharians and even the Waashians joined in:

'Maitreya! Maitreya! Maitreya!'

So loud did this chant become that I was finally forced to stand and hold up my hand for silence. As the hundreds of voices died down I called out, '
That
is still not proven!’

Sar Tadru of Athar, who had also stood with me in Tria to make vows, now called back, 'What would it take then to establish this proof?'

'That, too is still not detetmined,' I told him. 'But it would make a mockery of the One's design if the Maitreya were to come forth only to see the Lightstone regained by Morjin. And this Morjin will certainly attempt if the Valari don't stand together against him.'

I looked down at the kings at my table. It had come King Sandarkan's turn to hold the Lightstone. He was a tall, thin man with a predatory look about his lean face. His body seemed all angles and long limbs, and he reminded me of nothing so much as a huge preying mantis. And now he gripped the Lightstone in his lands as if he never wanted to let if go.

'If the Valari are to stand together,' his thin voice croaked out, 'let us first put our own house in order. And how are we to do that when certain Valari enter the rooms of others to take priceless objects that are not theirs?'

Here he turned slightly to glare at the impassive Lord Viromar, and I couldn't help remembering what King Waray had said about Kaash's conquest of the Arjan Land, I noticed King Hadaru eyeing King Danashu at a hungry bear might a wriggling salmon, while King Kurshan and King Waray sat side by side separated by a wall of mistrust. The Valari kings. I thought, shared this table like a single family. And like a family they seethed with resentments, jealousies and old wounds.

'King Sandarkan!' I called out. 'You fret over lost objects when our house itself is on fire and threatened with destruction. Will you help put out this fire before you lose
everything?'

'You ask a great deal of Waas.'

'No more than of any Valari kingdom,' I said. You've spoken of rooms within our small house. But the Valari were sent to Ea to build mansions and whole cities glorious beyond anything we can even dream.'

'Myths,'he said shaking his head.

'If the Valari unite,' I said to him, 'the time of wars between us would
come
to end. All would be restored to Waas, and much more. The whole world would lie before us waiting for us to create an inde-structible kingdom beneath the stars.'

'Miracles,' his voice croaked out. Again, he shook his head, but his eyes were bright. 'Are such miracles truly possible?'

I looked at the golden cup that he held in his long, lean hands. It came to me then that while families were sometimes riven by malice, an opposite and deeper force ran within them like a river of light.

'Maitreya!' a young knight of Waas suddenly called out. 'Maitreya!'

It seemed to me that the time had come to bring about one of the miracles King Sandarkan had spoken of. But then the man sitting next to him, King Mohan of Athar, impatient as always, suddenly turned in his chair and snatched the Lightstone from his hands with all the speed of a snapping turtle. He held up this prize to regard it with his small, hard eyes. He himself was small, for a Valari, and hard in his body and spirit from the fierce disciplines he forced upon himself. His face was rather ugly, despite his fine features, because of his seething irritability, arrogance and love of strife.

'Lord Valashu,' he said to me, 'you have regained the Lightstone for all the Valari, and for this you have earned our thanks. And now you try to gain a Valari alliance. But who is to lead it?
You?'

I counted the beats of my heart as I listened to some knights at one of the Anjori tables begin chanting again: 'Maitreya! Maitreya! Maitreya!'

King Mohan didn't wait for me to answer; he cast me an angry, smoldering look and fired out another question: 'Do you ask us to approve your leadership, here, now?'

'No,' I said, 'at this time, it will be enough if the Valari kings agree to the alliance, itself. And agree to journey to Tria. There it will be decided if I am the Maitreya.'

'No,' he shot back at me, 'that must be decided here, on the Tournament Grounds, with lance and sword. If you are truly the Maitreya, you must prove it. And how else but by becoming champion?'

I saw that King Waray was regarding King Mohan as if very pleased with the words he had just spoken.

Now Maram, both very drunk and very incensed, rose out of his chair and pointed his finger at King Mohan as he said. 'The proof you desire lies in your hands. Who but the greatest of champions could have fought through half of Morjin's army to bring the Lightstone to you?'

'Yes,' King Mohan sneered out, 'we've all heard of this great deed, sung by minstrels. But who has seen it? An old Master Healer and a fat prince of Delu?'

Delu and Athar were ancient enemies, and Maram's face flushed red with rage. I was afraid he might even draw his sword and fall upon King Mohan. But he restrained himself. He drew in a deep breath and said 'A prince of Delu I was born, but I am now also a Valan knight.'

Here he held up his silver ring, with its two bright diamonds, for all to see.

'A Valari knight,' King Mohan said, 'needs more than a ring to make him so. Prove
yourself
in the competitions, and we might believe you had the skill at arms to judge Lord Valashu's deeds and to report them truly.'

Maram opened his mouth as if to shout down King Mohan, but I caught his eye and shook my head slightly. If he pressed King Mohan, this rapacious king would only turn upon him like a cornered wolverine and defend his position all the more fiercely. And so, with a loud grumble, Maram assured King Mohan that he would prove his worth as both a Delian prince
and
a Valari knight. And then he took his seat.

I nodded at King Danashu and at King Kurshan. I said to them, and to all the kings at our table, 'King Mohan appears to speak for all of you. But I would ask you each, as kings of your own realms, to speak for yourself.'

I believed that if four or five of the Valari kings pledged to meet in Tria, King Waray, as a great conciliator, would suddenly find himself in favor of this journey as well. And then King Mohan would be forced to follow his lead - or to stand alone.

'Lord Viromar,' I said to my uncle, 'will you go to Tria?'

And this taciturn prince of Kaash replied with a single word: 'Yes.'

'King Kurshan, will you make the journey as well?'

King Kurshan looked up at the dark sky. It seemed that he was trying to decide the very fate of the world. And then he smiled, and his scarred visage lit up as if with dreams of sailing from Tria itself straight up to the stars. He said, 'If the other kings agree to this, so does Lagash.'

'King Danashu,' I said, turning to Anjo's nominal sovereign, 'will you meet in conclave with the outland kings?'

King Danashu pulled at his heavy chin as beads of sweat formed up on his brow. He had promised me that he would speak in favor of meeting in Tria, but now he seemed unable to meet me eye to eye.

'It must be said,' he finally forced out, 'that we Valari should make an alliance. Of course we should. And we Valari kings should meet with the other kings in Tria. We
should
do this, unless other matters prevail upon us here. King Sandarkan is right that we should first put our own house in order. Let us do this. Let us
then
journey to Tria, or to another meeting place, perhaps even in Nar - perhaps next year.'

As he fell silent, I saw King Waray regarding him triumphantly.

A sudden heaviness weighed at my belly as if I had swallowed a ball of lead. And I asked King Sandarkan, 'Will you meet in conclave?'

King Sandarkan glanced at King Danashu and then at King Waray. He was like a great bird of prey alert for any shift in the direction of the wind.

'No, I will not journey to Tria, not now,' he said. 'The idea of an alliance is a good one, but it's time is not yet'

Now it seemed that a whole ocean of molten lead burned inside me as I turned to King Hadaru and asked him the same question.

'The Valari must make alliance against Morjin,' he said to me and to all those present. 'But who is to lead this alliance? Valashu Elahad? I, for one, do not doubt his deeds. They are truly great. And it may be that he is this great Shining One whom many hope him to be. But at the Battle of Red Mountain, it's known that he he hesitated in engaging his enemy who stood before him. Even as, in my own palace, in a duel, he refused to slay the one whose name I will not speak. Let us not forget that he has led four men and two women only into Argattha. If he would lead the whole of the Valari against Morjin, let him first overcome these hesitations; let him prove himself in battle as a warlord. Or, failing that, let him prove himself as this tournament's champion. And then we may speak of journeying to Tria.'

He, at least, the great Ishkan Bear, did not hesitate to stare straight at me. In his grim, old eyes was a promise that he would do what I had asked of him only if I did what he had asked of me.

'King Waray,' I said, finally turning to the gloating host of this feast, 'will you meet with the sovereigns of the Free Kingdoms?'

King Waray's polite face hid the most savage of smiles as he told me, 'Perhaps, Lord Valashu. But let it be as King Hadaru has said.'

Now only King Mohan remained to query. This I did. And he told me, 'Win the championship, and we will see about the conclave.'

As it had now grown late and the lance-throwing competition began early the next day, many of those present began saying their good-nights and returning to their respective encampments. More than a few knights walked up to my table to wish me well. Their words of encouragement were sincere, and yet they were proud men who would yield before me only if I truly outfought them.

At last, King Kurshan returned the Lightstone to me. I stared at this simple cup that held the light of the bright stars above. I remembered too well how I had fought and killed many men to gain it for the Valari. And soon, at dawn, I would have fight many Valari, if not quite kill them, so that the cup might be preserved for my quarrelsome people and an alliance be forged. It seemed yet another strange turning of my fate.

T
he next morning, to the sound of trumpets blaring in the cool morning air, I rode forth with Maram and the others of our incampment in our columns of whinnying horses and watchful Guardians, and we made our way toward the Tournament Grounds' main road. There our company had to pause while long lines of Lagashuns and Taroners passed before us. King Kurshan, resplendent in his diamond armor and blue surcoat showing a great Tree of Life, led his men past the Sword Pavilion and then on to the fields reserved for the long lance. King Waray and the more numerous Taroners followed them in a brilliant stream of flapping banners and knights displaying their emblems: gold bears and white wolves, crossed swords and sunbursts and roses, and many others. We of Mesh - and my Ishkan knights - joined this great procession. We paraded west more than a mile to the area given over to lance throwing. There we joined the companies of Waashians, Atharians, Anjoris, Ishkans and Kaashans who also converged there. An open pavilion, covered with a great red cloth, held the stands where the Valari kings and other luminaries would sit and bear witness to their knights' feats of arms. Other stands, lower and uncovered, adjoined the pavilion on either side, and these were already full of the many townspeople of Nar who had arrived before dawn. They had come in such numbers that most had to take seats on the grass beside the stands or keep to their feet in hope of being able to see what occurred before them.

On fields of grass still sparkling with dew, many targets had been set up in a long line running north and south. The targets were nothing more than open circlets of wood attached to poles planted in the ground. And the lance-throwing competition was a very simple, if very difficult, one: knights would spur their horses and gallop towards the targets, loosing lances at set intervals in hopes of seeing theirs pass through their circlet, eight inches in diameter. A long blue line, parallel to the line of targets, had been painted across the grass at a distance of ten yards. Any knight failing to loose his lance before reaching this line, or failing to transfix his target, would be eliminated. Those who succeeded would advance to the next round and would ride toward the next line, the yellow one, at a distance of twenty yards. And so with the orange line ten yards farther out and the white one beyond it. Any knights who remained in competion after riding at the red line at fifty yards would then ride at each other.

'And
that
,' Maram said to me as we made our way toward the staging area with Asaru and Yarashan, 'is the very part of this competition that makes no sense.'

'How so?' I asked him. I reached down to pat Altaru's neck, and my great black warhorse whinnied with excitement.

'Think of it, my friend. A knight such as you, or I, against all the odds, succeeds in a practically impossible feat. And his reward is having to face another knight throwing a lance at
him.'

'But the lances are blunted,' I pointed out.

'They're not blunt enough. They can still crush a windpipe or an eye. It's happened before.'

'You worry too much.'

'And you worry too little. I'll never understand you Valari!'

I noticed him gripping his lance with his sweaty hand; the two diamonds of his ring sparkled in the early light. I said, 'Perhaps you
should
understand us then, since, as you have said, you are now one of us.'

I clapped him on the shoulder and then rode over to Sunjay and Baltasar. They were two of only twenty Guardians who would be competing in the tournament; the rest of our companions would carry out their duty while they watched from beside the stands. With Asaru and Yarashan and the forty other knights of Mesh who had journeyed here before us, the number of my countrymen casting their lances that day would be sixty-two - sixty-three if Maram were counted as riding for Mesh.