Lord of Lies (47 page)

Atara said nothing of the Lokilani and very little of the wonders of their woods. It wouldn't do to tempt the Sarni to their doom seeking treasure on the island, nor Tembom and the Dirt Scrapers, who stood about watching us, too. But Atara did admit that our quest had been successful.

'A great thought stone was hidden on the island long ago,' she said. 'With the aid of the Lightstone, we found it.'

At this, I brought out the akashic crystal for all to see. Flick spun above this little discus, and ail gasped as glorre passed from his form into the gelstei and back again.

'What is this!' Baltasar said as he marveled at this new color. 'You have stories to tell, Lord Valashu.'

'We do,' I said to him. I looked from him and my other knights across a little dirt lane to where the .Manslayers gathered on their horses watching us. Their naked arms showed bands of bright gold, and their sun-burned faces showed desire - whether for my men or something else. It was hard to say. 'And it's to be hoped that you
don't
have stories to tell.'

Something stirred inside Baltasar as he glanced at a handsome woman named Chinira. She stared back at him, boldly, and he said, 'We kept the peace, as you commanded. But it's well that you returned when you did.'

We were not the only ones to have rejoined our companions, for only the day before, Sar Sharath and Sar Manasu had arrived with the other knights whom we had left behind after the battle. The four wounded ones had recovered well enough to ride, and that was good, as many miles still lay between this misty lake and Tria.

Although it was growing late we set out that very afternoon. Karimah and the Manslayers pointed their horses toward the west and rode away from the Dirt Scrapers' village without a glance backward I paused only long enough to thank Tembom for the use of his boat and his people for the loaves of rushk bread that they gave us freely.

It was a hot day for travel. The sultry air almost immediately caused Maram to slump in his saddle and nod off, I rode up next to him and nudged him awake with an elbow in the ribs. And I said to him, 'You should have gotten more sleep last night.'

'Ah, I should have gotten
any
sleep last night. But Akia wouldn't let me,'

'And who is Akia?'

'Who is
Akia?
' he said. 'Did you not see me dancing with her? She of the honey lips and breasts that turn up toward the stars? Ah, well, I promised her that we would meet and dance all night
beneath
the stars, if you know what I mean.'

'Too well,' I said, turning to look at Lord Harsha and Behira where they rode with the wounded knights near the end of our columns. Then I said to Maram, 'Are you all right? You've never begrudged losing sleep to do your midnight duets before.'

'No, I haven't, have I? But it seems Akia took me at my word; all she wanted to do was to
dance,
if you know what I mean - too bad.'

I told him to close his eyes and meditate, since the day would be long and he had lost his chance for deeper rest.

'Meditate? On what? On my dwindling powers? I'm losing my charms, I know I am.'

I looked out at the grasslands to the west, and I said, 'Take heart. A lion chases five antelopes and counts himself lucky if he catches one.'

'Yes, and the old lions lose their teeth and starve. I'm getting old, my friend. I can feel it in my bones.'

'But you're only twenty-five.'

'I'll be twenty-six next month. No, no, it's time I engaged a new life. I've decided that I
shall
marry Behira. I'll make the announcement in Tria, after
you
claim the Lightstone and announce yourself.'

'That,' I said, 'may depend on what Master Juwain finds inside the memory crystal.'

'Even if you find air inside it, you'll be forced to make a decision, and soon,' he told me. 'You can't play coy with your fate, any more than I can keep putting off mine.'

I thought about this as we made our way around the shore of the lake and then followed the river that flowed out of it. We kept well to the north of its windings, which snaked across the sun-seared steppe like a blue ribbon edged with green. The leaves of the cottonwood trees, with their silver shimmer that I had always thought so glorious, seemed dull against my memory of the great oaks and astors of the Lokilani's island. And the yellow grasses of the Wendrush seemed almost dead. I thought of the even harsher terrain of Yarkona and the great desert said to lie to the south of it Would the Red Dragon, I wondered, bring the fire of war out of the west so that all of Ea become a blackened wasteland? Or would peace prevail and the earth be made green again? As I scanned the dun-hued distances about us, I squeezed the bag of seeds that Ninana had given me and dreamed of a new world.

And yet
this
world, I thought, still had its own beauty. And the plains of the Wendrush still teemed with life. The Manslayers, who rode on ahead of us, seemed to appreciate this in a way that we of the Morning Mountains could not. I tried to apprehend this stark land through their eyes and feel the wind through their senses. And when 1 did, its dried-up grasses seemed less a desolation than a great, golden shield stretching out in all directions to meet the blue sky. Chirping crickets and countless insects made their homes here while the prairie dogs built their mounded villages and kept vigil outside their holes for hawks and wolves and other predators. We passed great herds of antelope and sagosk who ate the grass with as much pleasure as men at a feast. The long, swaying strands also concealed prides of lions, with their tawny coats and their watchful yellow-green eyes. It seemed a million of them could have lain in wait about us. Maram feared these great beasts, as did some of my men, even those knights who bore the lion on their shields as their charge. But Atara and the Mans!avers gave them less thought than the biting flies who took pieces out of flesh and drew blood from the horses. Instead they turned their wariness toward searching the rolling country for any sign of their enemies.

These, in this part of the Wendrush, were mainly the Janjii, who sometimes raided east of the great Poru River and even a few rogue bands of Kurmak who would not follow Sajagax and had no love of the woman warriors of the Manslayer Society. All the rest of the day, however, we encountered none of these, nor indeed any other human beings. We made camp that night near the river, and the Manslayers watched with amusement as we fortified our rows of tents with a moat and a stockade built of cottonwood logs. Their strategy, if attacked in the middle of the night, was different than ours: they would simply mount their horses at a moment's notice and flee into the dark steppe. Either that, or else they would maneuver across the grasses, fighting their arrow duels if moon and stars gave enough light, or closing and slashing with their sabers if all else failed.

We traveled early the next day. We kept a good pace toward the west but not so fast that the riding would further weaken my wounded warriors. I gave the Lightstone to Sar Marjay to bear and the akashic crystal to Master Juwain. He spent hours delving into its incomprehensible contents, and many more with pen and paper trying to comprehend them. Over a midday meal of the nut-sweet rushk bread and roasted antelope, I heard him repeating otherworldly words and muttering, half to me, half to himself, 'Let's see, we have
valaha
and the root there must be
val,
which could be star as with Ardik or indeed our own language. And then there is
arda.
Fire, perhaps, or heart or soul. Or maybe all three. And with
halla
and
alhalla
we have a pairing that . . .' And so it went, Master Juwain puzzling out meanings and scribbling down possibilities in his journal. I tried to remember more of Alphanderry's death song, and Master Juwain seized upon each word that I brought forth as if it were a precious jewel.

Late that afternoon we came to the confluence of the Snake and the Poru. This mighty river my companions and I had swum the year before - but in Valte and farther to the south where it was not as wide. Here, with the summer-swollen waters of the Diamond and the Snake added to it, the Poru was a great band of brown flowing swiftly across the steppe. We decided to make camp at the very point where the blue Snake flowed into it. It would be our last night of drawing and drinking clear water. The Sarni, it is said, like the taste of the Poru and draw strength from this Mother of Rivers. But to me and my men, the prospect of dipping our pots and cups into its turbid flow was as appealing as drinking mud.

For the next three days we followed the Poru's course westward and turning gradually toward the north. Except for afternoon thunderstorms when the sky opened up with lightning and rain fell upon us in sheets, we had good weather for riding. And the Wendrush, however much a Valari knight might feel ill at ease here, was a good place to ride. The turf was easy on the horses' hooves, with few stones and fewer hills to climb. And it was easy for the horses to keep up their strength, with all the fodder they needed growing out of the black soil beneath them. The grass, rich and heavy with seed, sustained them and relieved us of the burden of having to carry oats or other grain. It was one of the reasons why a Sarni army could cover great distances quickly, for they could ride to war without a baggage train weighing them down.

During this part of our journey, the Manslayers kept to themselves and Atara kept mostly to her sister warriors. Occasionally, however, she would ride with us, visiting with Maram or Master Juwain, making Behira's acquaintance and chatting happily with Estrella. At these times, she seemed warm and content with life, and she took joy in the singing of the meadowlarks and the sweet burn of the sun upon her face. But when she spoke with me, the frigidity returned to stiffen her being. She kept these interchanges brief and to the business at hand. So it was that as we drew nearer to the Sajagax's summer encamping, she explained why her grandfather had chosen this place on the Poru at the northeast corner of the Kurmak's lands: 'There's good water for the horses and herds here, of course, even if you Valari are too pure to want to drink it. Then, too, the Janjii are most numerous just to the other side of the river, and beyond their lands, only fifty miles, are the Marituk. Sajagax likes to keep his enemies close.'

'Does that include Alonia?' I asked her.

Atara smiled sadly, for her very life was the result Sajagax cementing an alliance with Alonia in her mother's marriage to King Kiritan. 'Let's just say that while Sajagax no longer regards my father as his enemy, the same is not true of all his dukes.'

'But what of the Adirii, then? We are far here from their lands.'

'Yes, but we have been at peace these many years. If any more truce-breakers, like the ones that nearly annihilated you, crossed the Snake in force, Sajagax would move south to annihilate
them
!'

I was eager to meet this great warrior renowned across Ea for his deeds in battle. We came upon his encampment late on the fourth day of our journey from the Lokilani's lake. In truth, the vast assemblage of men, animals and dwellings spread out along the Poru's eastern banks was much more like a movable city. Acres of animal pens -holding horses, sheep, goats and lowing sagosk - formed a barrier around its northern, eastern and southern sides. Even from a mile away I could smell these thousands of animals and the dung they dropped onto the ground. I smelled, too, the slaughter yards nearby where the Sarni women worked, hanging fly-covered joints on spits and smoking strips of meat over fragrant fires. Farther in toward the river were the many open-air shops where the Sarni tanned leather, crafted bows and beat red-hot steel into arrow points, sabers and studs for their armor. The core of the city was reserved for habitation. There, hundreds of rows of tents, with dirt streets running through them, were laid out as neatly as in any Valari encampment. But the tents were much larger, being circular and fitted over wooden frames. The Sarni made their coverings from a thick felt, either of sheep's wool or the long, soft hairs of the sagosk. A few of the tents, though, were larger still and woven of finer materials. These belonged to Sajagax's captains. The largest tent of all, at the city's center, was that of Sajagax himself: a huge dome of quilted silk rose up almost like a palace.

No guards impeded our entrance to the city. The Sarni are the freest of the Free Peoples, or so they like to claim, and therefore they do not deign to keep any warrior from riding among them. Even the sight of a hundred and seventy-three Valari knights arrayed for war did not unnerve them, as unprecedented as our arrival must have been. At a moment's notice, Sajagax could summon five thousand warriors to his standard. Then, too, word of our crossing of the Kurmak's lands had gone ahead. Indeed, Sajagax's outriders had tracked us across the entire course of our journey from the lake. And so the Sarni had been made ready to receive their most ancient of enemies, not with bows and arrows but rather with wine and beer and roasted meats for a great feast.

As we rode down dusty streets lined with men, woman and children eager to look upon us, Atara dropped back to accompany me With her lion-skin cloak and white blindfold, she made a striking figure: the great
imakla
woman warrior who had been blinded yet somehow could see. She greeted the Kurmak warriors whom she had known for years, calling out their names with her clear voice: 'Tiagax, Orox, Turkalak!' And the women, too, 'Ghita, Tyraya, Sarakah!' As anyone would have to admit, they were a handsome people: tall, cleanlimbed and strong, with long blond hair and eyes that gleamed like gemstones of blue or green. Nearly all of them claimed descent from Sarnjin Marshan, son of Bohimir the Great, the Aryan warlord who had sailed At of Thalu at the end of the Age of the Mother to conquer most of Ea. They were a proud people, as honest and open as they were brutal. Their word for stranger was
kradak,
which meant simply 'enemy'. Their eyes fell upon us like hundreds of steel-tipped arrows. It seemed that they might be happier roasting
us
over their fires instead of haunches of sagosk or lamb.