Lord of Lies (61 page)

As the night deepened and the wind fell down from the stars, the ghost went on singing for a long time, for his tale was a long one. He told of how Marsul had called a great crusade to wrest the Lightstone from Angra Mainyu by force of arms. Half of the Amshahs had joined Ashtoreth and Valoreth in seeking Angra Mainyu's defeat through finding a way to wield the Sword of Light; but half of them betrayed the One's injunction that the Elijin and Galadin may not take life, and they had gathered to Marsul's standard. And not just angels, it seemed, but the Star People who were my ancestors.

And by their side Valari knights

Like stars a hundred thousand strong,

Their diamond armor gleamed like lights;

Their shields were hard, their swords were long.

What followed then, as the ghost finished his account of the War of the Stone, saddened me for he told of my friend's wrath and near-fall into evil:

At last the faithful Kalkin broke:

With sword in hand, with bitter breath

Upon his soul an oath he spoke:

He vowed to bring the Dragon's death.

Then Mainyu fled across the stars

With Yama, Kadaklan and Zun,

The Daevas with their soul-dark scars –

They hid beneath a silver moon.

On Erathe, oldest world of Man,

The Amshahs found their ancient foe.

With Marsul, Kalkin. in the van,

Their helms on high, their swords aglow.

The armies met in summers heat

Upon Tharharra's sun-seared plain;

No pity, quarter or retreat

No breath of wind nor drop of rain.

Alkaladur
!
Alkaladur
!

The Sword of Love, the Sword of Life,

Which men have named the Quickener

Of dreams of death, of peace and strife.

All day the angels' armies clashed

Across the blazing, grassy sea,

Where steel and gelstei cruelly flashed

In deeds of dreadful savagery.

The sky burned black, the sea ran red –

At last the warrior seized his foe

Who stood as dead among the dead

By might of empathy laid low.

For Kalkin, with black stone in hand,

Now touched upon the depthless dark;

He brought him to that lightless land

And dimmed the Dragon's sacred spark.

And Marsul seized the golden bowl

While Manwe worked the Dragons doom:

With aid of angels sent from Skol

He bound the Dragon on Damoom.

Alkaladur
!
Alkaladur
!

Triumphant Sword, the Righteous Blade,

Which men have named the Vanquisher

Of woe and evil men have made.

Then Marsul, mad with long-held lust,

Beheld the golden bowl that shone.

He broke the Amshahs' sacred trust,

And claimed the Lightstone for his own.

But Kalkin fought him sword to sword

Across Tharharra's blood-soaked field,

Contending for the ancient hoard,

He forced his furied friend to yield.

Bereft of that which maddened him,

Brave Marsul's ageless eyes grew clear,

He found that place of grace and glim,

And faced his fate without a fear.

And now this Galadin so bright,

Atoning for his killing pride,

Vanished in a cloud of light –

Thus Marsul, mighty Marsul, died.

Alkaladur
!
Alkaladur
!

The Blade of Grace, Mysterious Sword,

Which men have named the Deepener –

To ruthless ruth will be restored.

The Amshahs then grew cold with dread

At setting of the bloody sun;

On ground where so much life was shed

They saw an even Darker One.

But he who'd touched the Sword of Light

Perceived the Lightsword had touched him.

While angels watched, his heart blazed bright,

His eyes, his hands and every limb.

The warrior gave to Valakand

To guard the ancient golden bowl;

He set the vessel in his hand,

Thus cooled the fire of his soul.

And though the dark was not undone,

A light within the darkness hides;

While Star-Home turns around its sun

The Sword of Light, and Love, abides.

Alkaladur
!
Alkaladur
!

The Sword of Fate, the Sword of Sight,

Which men have named Deliverer,

Awaits the promised Lord of Light.

As the ghost finished chanting, other beings appeared in the staging area. All were men, or something more, and all wore armor of various kinds: plate or steel mail or rings of silvery silustria - and not a few, diamond armor like my own. Many gripped swords or maces dripping with blood. They gathered among the bodies of the dead, who lay fallen all across the amphitheater's ground. One man, whose bright eyes shone like the diamonds he wore, stood tall and straight as another placed the Lightstone in his hand. This other man smiled a savage smile at me. I gasped to see Kane, or some apparition of him, gazing out at us through the darkness of the ages: He had the same cropped white hair, bold face and blazing, black eyes that I knew so well.

And then, as quickly as these new ghosts had come into the amphitheater, they were gone.

'Ah, that was
worse
than any dream,' Maram said. 'I hope never to see another battlefield, even one from the Elder Ages. If that is indeed what we saw.'

He looked at me to make sense of the ghost's verses and the haunting tableaux that had appeared before us. But where before I'd had a hundred questions about the past and future, now a thousand tormented me.

Master Juwain, sitting beside me, rubbed the back of his smooth head as he looked up at the sky. There were clouds in the east, and the stars of the Mother were falling toward the amphitheater's western rim. 'It's growing late, Val,' he told me. 'We've learned much, but I'm afraid you still don't know what you must, do you?'

'No, not yet,' I told him. I turned to look at Sajagax and Lansar Raasharu, who were watching me.

'If our need to journey on wasn't so great,' Master Juwain said, 'we could return here tomorrow night, and for the next year of nights, until we had our answers.'

Hearing this, the ghost again said,
'Aulara, Auliama,'

I gazed at his wavering form, and I murmured, 'It
is
late. The others will be worrying about us.'

I turned to Sar Varald and said to him, 'Will you go back out and inform Sar Baltasar of what we've found here? And that we will be delayed yet a short while longer?'

Sar Varald bowed his head to me. Then he stood and began walking toward the crack in wall by which we had entered the amphitheater.

'Aulara, Auliama'
the ghost said to me.

And then, because I could bear it no longer, I stood and asked the question that I, like all men, most wanted answered: 'Who am I?'

I did not know what to expert. Perhaps, I thought, the ghost would begin reciting more verses or tell me that such a mystery was impossible ever to apprehend. So it surprised me when he beckoned for me to come forward and stand within the staging area. He likewise beckoned Maram, Master Juwain, Atara and Estrella. There was nothing to do but walk out and position ourselves in front of the benches as he indicated.

'Agalastii
!' the ghost said, pointing at my chest, where I had tucked the Lightstone down beneath my armor. I sheathed my sword and drew forth the golden Cup of Heaven.
'Agalastii
!'

And trail, as quick as a breath, the amphitheater again filled with luminous figures. Many of them, it seemed, were kings: I recognized King Waray's fine, dignified face and the much-scarred King Kurshan, who bore the white Tree of Life on his blue surcoat. Other Valari lords stood nearby, next to a man who could only be King Hanniban Dujar of Eanna, for his shield showed blue lions rampant on each of its gold quadrants. King Aryaman looked at me with eyes as blue as Sajagax's, while King Tal of Nedu watched me, too. And so did the kings of the lands ruled by Morjin or who had made alliance with him: a lithe man wearing the bronze, fish-scaled armor of the Hesperuks regarded me with awe, as did another with soft, almond eyes, whom I knew as King Angand of Sunguru from his unique emblem of a white heart with wings. Many chieftains of the Sarni gathered there, too. And then, one by one, as the Lightstone flared brighter in my hand, they bowed their heads to me and knelt down, touching their knees to the crunching leaves upon the ground.

And then I looked behind me toward Estrella, who was looking back at me, and through me, as if she had at last found what she had been seeking all her life. And the sun rose over the world. The sun was
inside
me, shining with a light that I knew could never die. I knew, too, that I could bring it forth and share it with others.

'Auliama
!
'
the ghost chanted.

'Lord of Light!' the kings called out as one. And then, from farther away, another voice: 'Lord Valashu!'

It seemed that I had my answer. Surely I would never be more certain of my fate than I was at that moment. And yet And yet I stood there watching the bright star of the necklace of the Mother set, and I longed to ask still one more question.

'Lord Valashu!' Sar Varald called out again. I turned to see this thick-thewed knight enter the amphitheater and run toward me. 'They are all gone!'

'What?' I felt stunned as if by the blow of a mace. 'What is it, Sar Varald?'

He came panting up to me with his sword drawn, and said yet again, 'They are all gone!'

At that moment, the star fell behind the amphitheater's dark rock and all the kings kneeling before me returned whence they had come.
'Who
is gone?' I said to Sar Varald.

'Baltasar! Sunjay Naviru! All the Guardians - the Sarni, as well!'

Hearing this, Sajagax leaped up from his bench and charged toward us gripping his great bow in his hand. Lansar Raasharu and the other knights followed closely behind him. So did Karimah. And I said to the sweating Sar Varald, 'Are you sure they're gone?'

'Yes, Lord Valashu. I searched the woods outside the amphitheater, calling out their names. And no one answered back.'

'That's impossible!' Sajagax said. His heavy face furrowed with anger.

'Perhaps they grew tired of waiting and decided to make camp
deeper
in the woods,' Maram said. 'Or perhaps something scared them off.'

'That's impossible,' Sajagax said again.

'Yes, truly it is,' I said, agreeing with him. 'The Guardians were posted by the entrance pillars. They would have died to a man before yielding to anyone or being driven off.'

'And so with my warriors,' Sajagax said.

'But what if it were
ghosts
they faced?' Maram said. 'Or something worse?'

As everyone looked at him, I bent down and put my finger to the moss beneath me. it was wet with fresh blood. I quickly straightened and stepped over to Sar Varald, who was trembling. I gripped his arm to steady him. 'You didn't see any signs of battle?'

'No, none.'

I rubbed the scar on my aching forehead, utterly bewildered by what he had reported.

'Come!' Sajagax said to me as he started for his horse, which he had tethered to one of the elms along with the other horses.

I turned toward the ghost, who cast me one last, deep, piercing look as he said,
'Aulara, Aulara, Aulara.'
Then he, too, winked into unbeing and vanished into the neverness of the night.

'All right,' I said to Sajagax. I began running toward Altaru, who pawed the ground in his eagerness to leave this haunted place. 'Let s find out if men can disappear from the earth as easily as ghosts.'

For the moment, at least, this was the greatest mystery of my life.

W
hen we came out through the crack leading from the amphitheater, we found the shingled ground surrounding the rock formation deserted, as Sar Varald had said. The starlight falling down from above like luminous rain showed nothing except chips of sandstone strewn about. I asked Atara if she could perceive anyone in the woods around us or beyond, but she couldn't. I cupped my hand over my mouth and called out as loud as I could, 'Baltasar! Sunjay! Guardians of the Lightstone!' No one answered back, neither from the right or left, or from straight ahead, where the dark woods were quiet except for the clicking of the katydids. I bade Maram and Sajagax, with their battle-horn voices, to call out as well, to no good end.

'We should be quiet now,' Atara said to me as she stood holding the reins of her horse. 'Why announce ourselves to whatever drove them off?'

'But what
could
have driven them off?' Maram said. 'Nothing that I'd like to imagine.'

'Nothing
could have driven them off,' I said with certainty.

'Not even the Grays?'

At the mention of these dreadful men who had once nearly devoured our souls, both Atara and Master Juwain shuddered while Sajagax and Karimah made signs to ward off evil. And I said, The Grays might have frozen them with fear, though from what Kane told us, probably not so many. 'They could not have compelled them to abandon us.'