Lord of Lies (64 page)

'Never!' I told him. 'Why would I do such a thing.'

'Because, you said that you had discovered inside a great treachery.'

'What treachery, then?'

'That Duke Malatam had gathered a new army and was pursuing us again.' Baltasar looked back and forth between me and Sajagax, who was glaring at him. 'You commanded me to intercept the Duke's army here, in this village. You were to take the Lightstone into Tria by a different route. That's what you said.'

'Someone
might have said that,' I told him. 'But it was not I.'

'But it
was
you!' Baltasar said. 'You came up to me outside the rock. I
saw
you. So did Sunjay, Skyshan, Adamar - everyone. You stood two feet from me, face to face!'

Along the line of my knights, Sunjay Naviru and Lord Noldru nodded their heads gravely in affirmation of what Baltasar had said. They all stared at me as if to assure themselves that I really was Valashu Elahad.

'But how
could
I have come up to you outside the amphitheater?' I asked Baltasar. 'Since the Guardians were posted across the entranceway?'

'Well, you said that you had found a secret entrance.'

At this, Maram shot me a swift, knowing look and muttered, 'Ah, what did I say? What did I say?'

'You told me,' Baltasar went on, 'that you had come out on the side of the rock opposite us. And then you circled the rock and approached us from the woods. And commanded us to ride toward Silver Glade immediately.'

'No, it was not I,' I said again. 'It was something else.'

I motioned for the Guardians to break their formation and gather around me. Then I told them everything that had happened inside the amphitheater and since then.

'But this is terrible!' Baltasar said to me. 'What if Sar Maram is right? What if some ghost from the amphitheater took on your form and commanded me to desert you? And then followed to slay you and steal the Lightstone?'

Beware the Skakaman
! I thought. I was almost convinced that Maram's fear had somehow been made real.

'Perhaps,' Sunjay said, 'it was only an illusion sent by the Lord of Illusions himself.'

He touched the warder stone that hung from his neck, and so did many other knights around us. And Master Juwain said, 'I don't think these gelstei failed to protect you.'

'No,' I said agreeing with him. 'What happened to Sar Hannu and the others was no work of illusion. Someone struck cold steel into them.'

At the mention of the murdered Guardians, the men around me bowed down their heads. Lord Noldru, I saw, was weeping, for Sar Varald had been his friend.

'What are we to do, then?' Baltasar asked me.

Although the rain had stopped and the sky was clearing, soon it would be dark. I looked about the wheat field and the orchard across the road. I said, 'It's late, and so we shall camp here for the night -after we've paid Farmer Harbannan for trampling his wheat. Tomorrow, we'll ride into Tria.'

The camp we made then was the strongest of our entire journey. Deep moats we dug in poor Harbannan's field, and we gathered wood from a nearby stand of oaks to build up a stockade around our rows of tents. I issued a password,
Alumit,
that anyone approaching my pavilion must know. I gave orders that anyone resembling me should be examined to make sure he was wearing the gold medallion of the Quest and that of the Tournament Champion. Master Juwain and Maram volunteered to act as my safe-keepers, that everyone might see that I had not left their presence -and that they had not left mine

I dined with them and Atara inside my pavilion that evening. I desired only the companionship of those who had borne the uncertainties of the Quest with me. And so I regarded it as the working of fate when I heard a faint clopping of hooves along the road and then two visitors announced themselves at the perimeter of our encampment. For they proved to be friends I loved as mother and brother Liljana Ashvaran and a little boy named Daj, whom we had brought out of Argattha.

T
he Guardians posted behind the stockade would not let them pass. After being summoned, I hurried out of my pavilion and down the rows of tents to see two figures dressed in traveling cloaks and standing by their horses outside the stockade in the swishing wheat. Twilight was darkening the world, but I could still make out Liljana's pretty, round face and Dajarian's sharper features. The months since the Quest had wrought changes upon them. Liljana's once-plump form had thinned, and her cheeks seemed gaunt and hollowed. Daj, however, stood half a head taller and had filled out, probably from Liljana's sumptuous cooking. In his fine tunic, cleaned up as he was, he seemed almost a different boy. From beneath a mop of black hair, his almond eyes looked out at me and met mine with great gladness.

'Val!' he called to me. And then, impulsive as always, he blurted out, 'Your armor really
is
made of diamons!'

Liljana nodded at him in a kindly way, then turned to me. 'Well -are you going to keep an old woman waiting all night in the dark?'

Liljana, I thought, was hardly old. Although her hair was gray as iron and her skin deeply creased, she was only of middling years and still robust. She possessed a strength of body and spirit that a much younger woman might have envied. Indeed, many did, for she was the Materix of that secret Sisterhood known as the Maitriche Telu.

'Sar Avram! Sar Tavar!' I called out to the sentries. 'These are my friends - let them through!'

Sar Tavar, a long-faced knight, stared past the thin logs of the stockade and shook his head doubtfully. 'What if the thing from the amphitheater has taken on this woman's form?'

Liljana's forhead creased with puzzlement. I felt her bristling with anger at being kept waiting for what must have seemed no good reason. But I sensed her resolve to control this impulse and sort things out in a calm, careful and even relentless way. The flames of her being blazed with a bright will toward goodness, truth and beauty, and if she were realty a skulking murderer in disguise, then I might as well give up all hope, for the world had ended and the sun would not rise on the morrow.

'Let her pass,' I said to Sar Tavar again.

Sar Tavar and Sar Avram reluctantly pulled open the stockade's rudi-mentary gate, and Liljana and Daj stepped inside. Just then, Master Juwain, Maram and Atara came hurrying up behind us. Liljana greeted them warmly, then told me, 'I can see that my identity is questioned, though I really can't imagine why. You have stories to tell me, as I have you. Very well. But I'm the tome Liljana who cooked your meals and darned your socks across the length of Ea.. Of course I am.'

She bowed her head toward Atara, and then stared at me. 'Don't you rememher what I said to you in the White Mountains about what a woman truly desires?'

'Do
you
rememher?' I asked her.

'Of course I do.' She stepped closer to me, which caused Sar Tavar to grip the hilt of his sword. Then, as I leaned down, she cupped her hands over my ear and whispered, 'To be someone's beloved.'

If Atara had still possessed eyes, they would have filled with anguish just then. Somehow, she must have known what Liljana told me. She stood tall and still as one of the sculptures that the Frost Giants carve out of ice. I didn't want to look at her.

And then Liljana rushed forward and threw her arms around Atara. She kissed the cloth binding her face, and stroked her long hair. Tears streamed from her soft large eyes as she said, 'It's good to see you again, my dear.'

I felt Atara weeping inside as she embraced Liljana and kissed her. And then, in a quavering voice, with only a little irony, Atara said, 'It's good to see
you,
too.'

Daj ran up to me, and I grabbed his sides and raised him up in the air. He laughed as he looked at me eye to eye. Once, his lively face had held the aspect of one much older than his nine or ten years. But under Liljana's care much of the boy had returned to him. I set him down, and rumpled his hair. And he ran his finger over the diamonds encrusting my chest. He told me, 'Liljana taught me my letters, Ten times, maybe more I've read the story of how Aramesh and the Valari defeated Lord Morjin at the Sarburn, I didn't know
anyone
had ever defeated him before . . . before you did in the hall. They call the Valari the "Diamond Warriors." But I never really believed your armor was made of
diamonds
,'

His words caused Sar Tavar and Sar Avram to beam with pride. Other knights had broken away from their meals to get a look at these two companions from the great Quest. Baltasar and Lord Raasharu crowded in close next to Skyshan of Ki, Sar Kimball and Sunjay Naviru. And then Lord Harsha and Behira, with Estrella, made their way down the lane between the tents. When Daj met eyes with Estrella, a smile as bright as the sun broke upon his face. He pushed past the tall knights nearby and ran straight up to her. 'Estrella!' he cried out. 'Estrella! Estrella!'

He hugged her to him and then stood back as they both fairly danced with delight. And Liljana called to him: 'You
know
this girl?'

'Yes, from the Dark City where she served one of the priests.' he said. 'She's
my
sister.'

We were all astonished to hear this, for during the many miles of our flight from Argattha, Daj had never spokeen of any relation that he might have left behind. Upon questioning, however. Daj now admitted that Estrella was his sister in spirit only.

'Her mother was a slave, too,' Daj said. 'She belonged to a weaver on the fourth level. That's where Estrella was born.' I stepped closer to these two mysterious children. I looked at Daj and asked. 'But how could you know that? Was there a time when Estrella could speak?'

'Of course there was,' he said. 'I mean, there is. She speaks so me now.'

I turned to Liljana, who held in her hand what seemed a little piece of driftglass cast into the shape of a whale. But I knew it to be of blue gelstei the stones that quickened the powers of truthsaying and listening to the whisperings of the mind. I looked into her wise, old eyes, and asked, 'Have you ... ?'

Have you taught him how to speak mind to mind?

Liljana had once promised me - and our other companions – that she would never look into another's mind without his leave. But she didn't need to exercise this power now to understand my unfinished question. She shook her head slightly as she said to me, 'No, I haven't.'

'Then what does Daj mean?' I asked.

I watched as he looked at Estrella, widening his eyes and pursing his lips. Estrella nodded as she gestured with her hand back toward the road. Then she slashed her finger across her throat. Her face darkened with a frown. I didn't need the gift of valarda to perceive the sadness that fell over her.

For a while the two children stood there facing each other, flashing hands, smiles or knowing looks at each other. It seemed they were talking to each other in a secret language much deeper than words. Then Daj broke off his silent communications. He looked at me and said simply, 'It's after you.'

'What
is?' I said to him.

'The Skakaman,' he told me.

Baltasar, Skyshan and other knights moved in closer. Their eyes filled with dread as they regarded Daj warily. Dread seized my innards with cold claws, and I looked at Daj with amazement, for I had spoken this evil-sounding word to no one except Master Juwain. 'And what is
that?
' I asked Daj.

Daj held up his hands and shook his head. 'I don't really know. But I heard Lord Morjin speak of the Skakaman once. I think it's something he sends to hunt people down when they're asleep. It... steals their faces.'

Baltasar muttered something to Sunjay then, and Lansar Raasharu's hand tightened around the hilt of his sword. Other knights looked at each other as if seeking to confirm their worst fears. Seeing this, Master Juwain stepped over to me and said, 'Perhaps we should return to your pavilion. I'm sure our friends would welcome a little dinner.'

At the mention of food, Daj's eyes lit up. In Argattha, he had often had only rats to eat - that is, when he'd had anything at all.

And so I bade the Guardians to return to their meals or posts. I led Liljana and Daj back to my pavilion, where they joined Atara, Maram and Master Juwain inside. Since Daj and Estrella seemed inseparable, I invited the girl as well. In the soft light of the oil lamps that I meant to keep burning all night, we sat in a circle and shared our simple meal of roasted pork loin and some fresh bread and onions that we had bought in the village. The walls of my tent, lined with white silk, danced with shadows. Because they were so thin, we kept our voices low as we discussed all that had happened along the way from my father's castle toward Tria - and what had occurred in that great city over the last few days.

'A tinker traveling up the road,' Liljana said to me, 'passed your knights earlier today. When he reached Tria, he told of a company of Valari a few miles outside the walls. The word has spread quickly. Ever since King Waray and King Mohan arrived, everyone has been expecting you, myself most of all. I had to hurry to leave the city before they closed the gates for the night. And so here I am.'

'Why the urgency?' I asked her. 'Don't tell me that it's just because you're glad to see an old friend?'

'I
am
glad to see an old friend, my young friend,' she said, reaching out to squeeze my hands. 'But there are things I must tell you before you go into the conclave tomorrow.'

'Then has it already begun?' I asked.

'It has,' she said. 'King Kiritan wouldn't wait upon your arrival. Your Valari kings, of course, objected to that, since, as they said, it was your father who called for the conclave in the first place. But King Kiritan shouted them down. There has been much shouting in his hall. For two days, that's all these glorious kings have done, shout and argue with each other.'

Between bites of bread and pork, she told of some of these disputes. The sovereigns of the Free Kingdoms, it seemed, could not even agree upon the nature of what they were supposed to agree upon. Were they met to make an alliance against Morjin or only to discuss means to forestall his aggressions? Old King Hanniban of Eanna, for one, professed little fear of Morjin. He claimed that the southern kingdoms had fallen to Morjin's perfidies and plots because they were weak. But the Free Kingdoms, he said, were strong. He boasted that the combined navies of Eanna, Thalu and Nedu could easily blockade the Dragon Channel against Morjin's warships. And if Morjin's armies tried to attack Eanna by way of the much more arduous land route through Surrapam, then Eanna, with aid from Thalu alone, could easily beat back the invaders.