Lord of Lies (51 page)

'Perhaps, but we must not.'

'Why
not?'

'Because we can defeat him without making war.'

'Defeat the Red Dragon without
war,
you say?'

His eyes burned into mine. Sitting at the center of his great tent, with hundreds of his warriors gathered around him and thousands more at his call, he looked deep inside me for any sign of weakness or fear. At last I touched his bow and then laid my hand on the hilt of my sword. I said, 'We were meant for much more than this.'

'What then?'

'To make a new world.'

Now I stared at htm as the anguish of all those I had slain and seen slain came pouring into me. My eyes burned, and burned into
him.
Why, I wondered, had so many suffered so much for me to have recovered the Lightstone? I felt the fire of this golden cup blazing inside me, brighter and brighter. I could not hold it. I stared at Sajagax without blinking in a test of will that seemed to last an hour. Finally, he looked away from me and sat rubbing his eyes as if they were tired and gave him pain.

'You Valari,' he said to me, 'are strange.'

I held out my hand to him and said, 'Will you ride with me to Tria?'

'All right, Valashu,' he told me, on the morrow, the Valari and Kurmak will ride toward this new world of yours.'

He smiled as he took my hand. His grip was strong enough to crush bones, and it took all my strength to hold the clasp without crying out.

After that, there was more drinking and singing, far into the night. Sajagax offered one of his daughters in marriage to Maram; Maram, under Lord Haraha's scathing eye, told Sajagax that he was already betrothed and that as a Valari warrior he might take only one wife When it came time for sleeping, Sajagax noticed that Atara's blindfold was soiled with dust and splashed beer. He called for a fresh, white cloth to bind her eye hollows. With his own hands he tendered this service. After he had finished, he sat combing back her golden hair with his calloused fingers. Tringax and Yaggod and others, displeased at his kindness, glared at him in reproach. And Sajagax glared right back and called out, 'If the chieftain of the Sarni's greatest tribe can't do as he pleases in his own tent, what's the point of being chieftain?'

He picked up his bow then, and stared down his captains one by one. Although they might have dreamed deep in their hearts of a new world in which no man would ever yield to another, no one was willing to challenge the great and fearsome Sajagax.

I
n the morning, with the smells of freshly baked bread and roasting meats hanging heavy in the air, we gathered in the great open area outside of Sajagax's tent. My Guardians formed up in their three columns; Sajagax had summoned his own private guard: fifty Kurmak warriors, all of the Tharkat elan. All wore conical steel helmets over their long, blonde braids; their armor was of black leather studded with shiny bits of steel. This covered only their upper bodies, and left their arms bare and free for drawing their powerful bows. It was much lighter than the suits of diamonds that encased a Valari knight from neck to ankle. Being unused to battle at close quarters, the Sarni carried no shields, nor throwing lances, nor long lances either. Thus the load that their horses had to bear was lighter than that of our stout warhorses. Being unused to roads as well, they did not bother to draw up these lithe animals into anything resembling columns. The only order I could detect in the horde of snorting horses and fierce men that gathered to Sajagax was that Sajagax would ride foremost among them.

Just before we set out, however, he nudged his horse, a young piebald stallion, over to where I sat at the head of my knights. He looked long and deeply at Altaru and said, 'It's a great horse you ride, Valashu Elahad. He has beauty and grace. A little too thick for speed over distances, but I would guess he's a terror in a short charge.'

Sajagax and his guard led the way out of his city of tents, and this [took some time. When we reached the open steppe, his warriors fanned out to either side of him in a formation that reminded me of a flock of geese. We followed them at a distance of a hundred yards. They did not really need to lead the way toward Tria, for the during the rest of our journey, we would parallel the Poru as it wound its way through grassland and forest to the Northern Ocean.

Atara and Karimah, who had said farewell to the Manslayers so that they could attend the great conclave, rode with me and my Guardians Despite what Sajagax had said about the Sarni warriors respecting the Manslayers, the Manslayers did not really trust their own men and preferred to keep a distance from them. Of course, they did not trust
my
men either. But as Karimah had with Lord Harsha, she kept her knife ready (and her sword and bow), and so my knights were careful how they looked at this jolly but violent woman. And as for Atara, everyone knew that she and I had been comrades-in-arms and perhaps something more.

In truth, I welcomed the chance to be near her even though she seldom consented to speak with me. Her coldness along the sere miles of the endless steppe was a winter that I longed to melt away as with the waxing of the hot spring sun. I knew well enough the source of her silence toward me. And so I understood why she pulled her red mare next to Karimah, Behira or even Estrella, to speak with these females in a way that she no longer could with me - or perhaps any man. They comforted her in a way that I could not. It made me want to reach Tria all the sooner, to unlock the Lightstone's secrets and claim it as my own - and then to begin the great work of healing that I thought I must be born for.

Toward this end, I spent as much time as I could with Master Juwain trying to recreate the language of the Galadin. With every mile of grass that our horses trampled beneath their hooves, it seemed that I remembered more words of Alphanderry's last song. Master Juwain, in an elegant and precise script, dutifully wrote each of them down in his journal. When I confessed that I had seen Alphanderry's face take shape out of Flick's shimmering form, Master Juwain grew very excited. He brought forth the akashic stone, and he said, 'Ever since we drew near the Lokilani's island, there's been something strange about Flick. And then in the astor grove, the music, his song, so like Alphandeny's - strange, strange.'

On our first night out from the Kurmak's city, we made camp below some rocky bluffs overlooking the Poru. Master Juwain and I sat with Maram, Lord Raasharu, Atara and Estrella discussing the difficulties of unlocking the akashic crystal Master Juwain held the rainbow disc in front of a lackling woodfire and watched its play of colored lights. Just then Sajagax, with two burly warriors named Thadrak and Orox, rode into our encampment. Sajagax had with him a bottle of Sungurun brandy that he wished to share. He took his place by the fire, sitting between Atara and me. He gazed at the akashic crystal with lime curiosity, as if it were a mere jewel to be appraised and claimed as treasure But when Flick appeared to whirl above it, his blue eyes lit up with wonder and dread.

'The imp returns,' he said. He made a sign of a circle above his forehead and held out is hand as if to ward off evil.

'Flick is no imp,' Maram said. 'More like a spirit of the little people's wood.'

'No,
more
than a spirit, I should say,' Master Juwain told us. 'Perhaps much more.'

Sajagax hastened to fill our mugs with his fiery brandy, which was even better than our own good brandy that we had brought with us from the Morning Mountains. He gripped the bottle's long neck with great force: I sensed, to keep his hand from trembling. 'If not a spirit, what then?'

'The Lokilani,' Master Juwain said, 'believe the Timpum to be some part of the Galadin.'

'But what are the Galadin if not the greatest of spirits?'

'The Galadin,' Master Juwain said as he took out his worn copy of the
Saganom Elu,
'are men - and something much more. Would you like to read the passages that tell of them?'

'I cannot read,' Sajagax said, making another circle with his finger and staring at the book suspiciously. I care not to learn that art.'

'Not read! But why?'

Sajagax tapped his finger against his head and said, 'To depend on words written on paper - this weakens the memory. And so the mind.'

'But there are so many books!' Master Juwain said. 'So much knowledge! Far too much for anyone to remember!'

'Books! Knowledge!' Sajagax spat out. 'What does a man really need to know? To shoot an arrow straight; to live like a lion; to die bravely. What good are books for this?'

'But there is so much more! Why, the ways of the stars and the secret of making the gelstei, and -'

'A
man
,' Sajagax said, holding up his great bow, 'teaches his son how to make his weapons and the ways of the wolves and other men. Your books might speculate as to where the sun goes at night and why winter comes. But it is better to know where the sagosk go
when
winter comes.'

'But all of history!' Master Juwain said. 'The Chronicles! The Songs! The Prophecies! To understand why we are here and where we were meant to -'

'We are
here',
Sajagax broke in again, 'that we might know joy. And as for the past, it is like the future: dwelling in these little tents, we lose the pleasure of life in the here and now, beneath the open sky. It is enough to know the deeds of the
imakil
and one's ancestors. These are told of in the sagas, and passed down from father to son.
These
words are written in the blood and heard in the heart, and so they

never lie.'

The implication that the writings in his book might not all be entirely accurate disturbed Master Juwain and angered him. But he took a deep breath to calm himself. He pointed at Flick and said 'This Timpum has somehow learned to sing. If we could hear
his
songs in our hearts, we might understand the Galadin's language. And so we might better understand the Law of the One.'

'What I there to understand?' Sajagax, disdaining our day mugs, brought forth a golden goblet and filled it with brandy. He drank half of it in a single gulp. The Law of the One is simple: "Be strong. Do what you will. Keep your word. Seek glory. Bear no shame. Honor -" '

'You speak of honor?' Master Juwain called out, now interrupting him. 'You, who honors not the wisdom of many great men who have given their lives to gain it?'

Sajagax's eyes narrowed as he studied Master Juwain. He seemed puzzled that an old man who bore no weapons should yet bear the courage to dispute with him. 'I
do
speak of honor,' he continued. 'As it is spoken of in the Law of the One: "Honor your father. Honor your horse. Honor the wind, the sun and the sky. Honor your honor above all.'"

He paused to drink the rest of his brandy. And Master Juwain asked him, 'And is that all you know of the Law, then?'

Sajagax peered at the scarred opening of Master Juwain's ear, which Morjin's priest had enlarged with a red-hot iron. And Sajagax said to him, 'No, I know this last thing, that my father taught me: "Live free or die."'

Master Juwain sighed as he rubbed the back of his bald head. He said to Sajagax, 'And I know what the masters of my Order taught me.'

He squeezed his leather-bound book and thumbed through its pages.

'If that is different than what I have said,' Sajagax growled out then it is a lie, and I wish to hear it not.'

'Is that why your people have always turned away the Brothers we sent to instruct them? Either that, or burnt them?'

'Yes,' Sajagax said. 'We do not abide liars.'

'The truth is only ever the truth,' Master Juwain said. 'And the Law is the Law. But men, according to their knowledge, according to their powers, understand it differently.'

'Words, and more words,' Sajagax muttered.

Master Juwain looked at the blazing logs before us. 'A man teaches his young son not to play with fire, does he not?'

'Of course - what's your point wizard?'

'And when his son is older,' Master Juwain continued patiently 'the same father teaches him to
make
fire.'

Sajagax, like a lion sensing a trap, now only stared at Master Juwain.

'A father,' Master Juwain said, 'makes rules for his children, but requires different things from an infant, a boy, or a youth.'

Sajagax now gripped his bow with such force that had it been a man's skull, he would surely have crushed it. 'Are you saying that we Sarni are children who cannot understand this Law of yours?'

'It is not my Law, but
our
Law - the Law of the One. And all who dwell on earth are as children in their understanding of it.'

He went on to say that the Star People knew more of the Law, while to the immortal Elijin, much more was revealed. 'And the Galadin,' he told us, 'are given the sight and senses to apprehend the Law perfectly.'

Maram, listening to his old master with great care, asked him, 'And what of the Ieldra?'

'The Ieldra
are
the Law, the perfect working of the One's will upon the world and all the stars.'

At these words, I couldn't help gazing up at the brilliant constellations illumining the sky. Somewhere, in this whirling array of lights, the Golden Band poured forth all the Ieldra's beauty, goodness and truth. But most men were too blind to see it.

'If we could understand the Law of the One as the angels do,' Master Juwain said to Sajagax, 'then we would understand how the Lightstone might be used. And who might use it.'

At this, I brought out the gold gelstei and sat turning it beneath the stars. Sajagax asked to hold it. I set it into his massive hands. The moment that the little cup touched his skin, his eyes brightened with a new light. He shook his head in wonder. I felt something change inside him then. The core of his being seemed like an iron heating for a long time in a fire and suddenly turning colors from black to red-hot.

He gave the Lightstone back to me. Then he pointed at Flick and said, 'And you truly believe this imp might help in this understanding?'