Finally, following an intuition that flashed through my mind, I led the way toward the edge of the kiosks in that area. And there, at one of the dice stalls, we found Maram standing before a table and casting a pair of cubical, carved bones. A pile of coins was heaped up on the table before him. Many people stood watching him - and his pile of coins - as if they hoped his luck would hold and would magically be bestowed upon them.
A sigh of relief broke from Lord Harsha's tight, old lips as he beheld this sight. But Asaru was less forgiving. He stormed up to Maram and said, 'Didn't you hear the trumpet?'
'Ah, what trumpet?' Maram asked, shaking the yellow dice in his huge hand.
'It's nearly time for the next match. You don't want to be late.'
'Don't I,' Maram said as he glanced at his pile of coins.
'No, you don't,' Asaru said, reaching out to close his hand around Maram's. 'What's wrong with you? Playing dice at a time like this? You're a Valari knight and you shouldn't stoop to such vice.'
'Well it's said that every man needs one vice.'
'Yes, but you drink and make a glutton of yourself. You womanize,' Here Asaru cast a quick look at Lord Harsha whose hand remained clamped around the hilt of his sword. 'And now it seems you gamble as well'
'Ah, I'm still deciding which vice will be mine.'
I couldn't help smiling at Maram's incorrigibleness, and neither could Yarashan. Even Asaru seemed amused by this comment - but he kept his face stern even so. And he told Maram, 'You should concentrate on your virtues instead of your vices. You might point at wrestling, you know.'
Maram looked at his pile of coins and then at the other dice throwers around the table. He rubbed his red eye and said, 'I prefer to gamble gold pieces rather than body parts, which are more precious to me.'
Just then the second warning trumpet sounded as if from far away.
'Are you ready to withdraw from the tournament then?' Asaru asked.
'What if I am?' Maram said, staring at him. 'I've been injured, haven't I?'
Yarashan scoffed at this, saying, 'If you call a scratch an injury.'
The sudden fire in Asaru's eyes warned Yarashan into silence. And Asaru said to Maram, 'Don't you want to give the lie to King Mohan's insinuation that you are unqualified to judge Val's feats of arms? Don't you want to help Val?'
'Help him be acclaimed the Maitreya?'
'Yes, if that is what it takes - to help all of Ea.'
Asaru stood staring at Maram, and so bright did his eyes become that Maram was finally forced to look away from him. He gripped the dice in his fist and muttered, 'Ah, well, let's go and wrestle, then.'
Angrily, he cast the dice one last time across the table. The six-sided bones tumbled about and then came to a stop. One of the other dice-throwers examined their carved faces and shook his head in defeat as he called out, 'Double dragons! This knight has too much luck!'
After the tables owner took his share of Maram's winnings, Maram scooped up his coins and dropped them into a leather purse. He gave a few of them to some tatterdemalions standing nearby, and then began walking back toward the Sword Pavilion even as the last warning trumpet blared. That afternoon, it seemed that Maram was touched by the angel of fortune herself Four sturdy knights he faced on the wrestling mats, and he sent each of them tumbling down or managed to demonstrate a kill with some vicious strike, or choke hold. Thus d,d he vanquish even Asaru. As Lord Harsha sat in the stands with Estrella and Behira they watched these moves with great concern - and even greater surprise. From my place at the edge of the wrestling ring, I overheard Lord Harsha say to his daughter, 'How is this possible? It would take more than luck alone for Maram to defeat lord Asaru.'
In the final round, however, Maram lost to Sat Rajiru of Kaash. At the ceremony afterward, they stood before King Waray to be honored - along with Yarashan, Asaru and me, for we had won third, fourth and fifth places. It was a great day for the knights of Mesh, and even King Mohan offered his grudging appreciation as he glared at us and shook his head in wonder.
Before dinner that night, Maram, Asaru, Yarashan and I bathed our battered bodies in one the wooden tubs set up at the edge of our encampment. As Maram laved handfuls of steaming hot water over his mountainous frame, Asaru seemed to look beneath his layers of fat, and he said, 'You've grown stronger since you set out on your quest.'
'Fighting dragons,' Maram said, 'will make a man so.'
'So it seems. But that doesn't explain your skill on the mats. Strength alone never prevailed at wrestling.'
'No,' Yarashan added as he poked his finger into Maram's big, hairy belly, 'it seems our guest from Delu must have been practicing.'
'Maram,' I said, 'has given me to understand that he doesn't practice wrestling.'
As we all looked at Maram, his face flushed bright red whether from shame or the heat of the bath, it was hard to tell 'Ah, Val, I said only that I didn't like to practice wrestling. When I was a boy, my father made me drill at hand to hand because he was always afraid that an assassin would jump out from behind a curtain and stick a knife into me.'
Despite the water's permeating heat I shuddered as I thought of how close Sivar of Godhra had come to murdering me. To Maram I said, 'You learned well.'
'Well enough, I suppose. At my father's court, no one could beat me.' Maram held up his knight's ring and shook the water from its two diamonds. 'Then, too, ever since your father gave this to me, I've engaged Ser Garash to renew my skill.'
So, I thought, the mystery of Maram's second in wrestling was finally explained. Old Sar Garash, years ago, had won firsts this savage art many times before retiring from the competitions to teach young knights such as Asaru, Yarashan and myself.
'You've been practicing in secret then?' Asaru asked him. 'But why?'
'Because of Valari pride, that's why,' Maram told him. 'Think of it: if it became known that I was any good at wrestling, every knight in Silvassu would have wanted to challenge me to a match.'
I smiled as I said to him, 'You'd rather your other talents become known so that women challenge you to other more pleasurable matches.'
'Just so, my friend. Just so.'
'Lecher,' I said to him.
Maram laughed as he splashed a handful of water at me and said, 'At least I practice my talents. At least I keep my sword sharp, if you know what I mean.'
This sentiment seemed to touch upon Asaru's righteousness and familial pride. He turned to look at me through the bath's steam and said, 'You should practice with your sword, Val.'
'Perhaps,' I said to him. 'But the woman I love dwells far away, and will not marry me in any case.'
Asaru frowned at this; with too-great a seriousness, he said, 'I'm not speaking of that sword, as you know well enough.'
I looked over the edge of the tub, where Alkaladur in its lacquered sheath rested against the tub's cedar staves, ready to be drawn at an instant's warning. Every morning and every night, in the privacy of my room, I drew it forth to practice the forms that I had been taught as a boy - and to renew the lessons that the incomparable Kane had drilled into my bones. But since the quest, I hadn't crossed swords with another, in combat or in practice.
'In the end,' Asaru said to me, 'the tournament will likely come down to the sword competition. But how can you hope to win it, Val? Have you given up, then, as King Waray has said?'
'No, not yet - our father taught us never to give up, didn't he?' I lathed some hot water over my aching elbow and added, 'besides, it's premature to speak of swords when we all have to survive tomorrow's mace-work.'
At the mention of this brutal competition, Maram groaned and looked down into the water's steamy surface as if hoping to catch sight of his reflection. And then, to himself as much as me, he muttered, 'Ah, my friend, perhaps you should have left me alone with my dice after all. I confess I've always loathed the mace ever since the day that assassin nearly brained me. Survive, indeed.'
The next morning, on the wide fields also given over to the long
lance, Maram did quite well for three rounds of the mice competition. But I did not. in the very first round., riding against Arthan of Lagash, fortune betrayed me. Or rather, my gift did. Arthan was scarcely twenty years old, untested in battle and of no renown. In fact, he was a simple warrior who had yet to win the two diamonds of a full knight. But he was a fury with the mace. As the Valari kings and five thousand witnesses watched from the stands fifty yards away, he charged across the green grass straight toward me wielding his mace with a mighty and tireless arm. His horse nearly collided with mine. Five times, as we wheeled about as our horses panted and tore up the turf with their great, driving hooves, he swung this cruel club like weapon at me. And five times I either evaded the heavy iron head or deflected it with my shield even as I aimed blows at him. Although some said that mace-work was much like fighting with a sword. I had always found the mace to be a cumbersome and ill balanced weapon, impossible to wield with finesse and difficult to check. The truth is, I loathed the mace and had no feeling for it. Arthan sensed this about me. Thus he urged his horse in too close to Altaru to press his advantage. This was a mistake. Altaru, who loved the snorting violence of battle would suffer no other horse or rider to hurt me if he could help it. And so my fierce stallion whinnied in wrath as he drove his shoulder against Arthan's exposed leg, nearly breaking it. Arthan cried out from the sudden pain, and so did I, for it had been too many months since I had wounded another in battle and I was unprepared for the sudden agony that poured through me Arthan recovered more quickly than I did. As I was gasping for breath, he feinted toward my side, and then with great power, changed the arc of his blow. The mace's head stopped in the air only inches from my temple. I should have given thanks that Arthan had enough restraint to check the mace before knocking my brains out. But with this difficult maneuver, he had demonstrated a kill and had knocked me out of the competition.
His victory cast doubt upon my will to do battle For King Waray and King Mohan, and many others watching in the stands, saw my moment of debility as hesitation. As I rode back toward the compe-tition's staging area, King Mohan shook his head at me and spoke words to king Waray that I was sure I did not want to hear
It gained me no favor that Arthan, despite his injured leg, to the astonishment of all, went on to win the competiotion. He was the youngest man in two hundred years to do so. To honor his feat King Kurshan bestowed upon him his double diamond ring and knighted him right there on that field before the cheering multitude.
Of the knights of Mesh, Yarashan was the only one to win points that day, taking second place. This put his tally for the tournament at ten points, even with Lord Karathar, Sar Rajiru and Arthan (now Sar Arthan), all of whom had won firsts. Some there were who said that the tournament's scoring system was unfair, that a knight such as Yarashan who had pointed at three successive competitions should have more honor than single winners. But that was not the way of things in the Nine Kingdoms. When it came to battle, victory was honored above all else save honor itself, and such pre-eminence was accorded the greater proportion of points.
That day saw the first deaths of the tournament Sar Ishadur's horse, in his wild charge against Lord Marsun of Ishka, stumbled in the churned-up earth and threw his rider headfirst into the ground, which broke his neck. Not even Master Juwain, with his healing crystal, was able keep him alive. And later that afternoon, a very tired Sar Sharald of Anjo failed to check a savage blow aimed at Athar's famous Lord Noladan. The mace sank deep beneath Lord Noladan's forehead with a sickening crunch and a great gout of blood, killing him almost immediately. For his failure to exercise restraint, Sar Sharald was disqualified and banished from the tournament. His shame was great, but all the knights witnessing this horror, including myself, knew that such misfortune might some day fall upon them.
Pilgrims and other wayfarers in the Morning Mountains were often shocked by the violence of the Valari and our triennial tournaments. But in centuries past it had been far worse. In the Age of Law, when the men of other lands had beat their swords into spades to build the great Towers of the Sun and had bowed to the will of the Council of Twenty Kings, the Valari had mistrusted this peace. And so we had kept our swords - and kept them sharp. Although war among the Valari, for a while, died as it did in Alonia and Galda, its spirit did not. Kingdom vied with kingdom in elaborate war-games in which entire armies would take the field to maneuver against each other and strive for victory. Sharshan these games were called - but the Valari had prosecuted them with a deadly seriousness. Warriors, like living chess pieces, moved and fought each other across designated battlegrounds according to precise rules. Unlike chess pieces, however, a wild sword or a chance spearthrust might lay them low or kill them outright. Many were the wounds and deaths at Sharshan.
Overtime, as darkness fell upon Ea and the Age of the Dragon began, Sharshan had developed in two directions. The Valari took to meeting in Nar to display their prowess at arms, in melees in which companies of warriors and knights from each kingdom fought each other. When these brutal affairs stll killed too many, they were finally disbanded to be replaced by competitions between individual knights. The Valari, when disputes between kingdoms grew too acrimonious, also took to meeting on real battlefields, in Ishka, Anjo, Taron or Athar, to fight real battles. At first, for a few centuries, many of the rules of Sharshan carried over to ameliorate the worst consequences of war. But gradually these rules became fewer and simpler. Now, in our formal battles, the Valari agreed only on a very few things: that the battle would commence at a set time and place; that opposing kings would give each other a chance to negotiate; that prisoners would not be harmed and would be released after the defeated king surrendered; that the battle would not overflow into other parts of the kingdom and so become a real war in which lands might be plundered, women ravished or men murdered or enslaved. It was my fear that even these rules would one day break down as war's essential savagery took hold of men's hearts and burned away all restraint - and then burned the beautiful lands of the Morning Mountains from Mesh to the Alonian Sea.
Everyone at the tournament, I thought, from King Waray down to the lowliest groundsman or groom, was glad when the day of the mace ended. The next two days were given over to the chess competition. This was meant to be a time of rest before archery the following day and then the very strenuous long lance and sword competitions. And rest it was, for our bodies. But the intricate play of ivory and ebony pieces across sixty-four black-and-white squares sorely vexed the mind. I won five of my games and fought two others to a draw. Yarashan lost only a single game, to Lord Manamar, who took first place. After Yarashan had received his gift for taking second - a silver knight as long as a man's open hand - he pulled me aside by the rows of chess tables to speak with me. He held up his prize, and with uncharacteristic graciousness, he told me, 'This should have been yours, you know. Or even Lord Manamar's gold knight.'
'Perhaps it should have been,' I said. 'But prizes aren't given for ninety-ninth place.'
'You played brilliantly,' he said. 'As you always do, for twenty or thirty moves, you played like an angel. But then, as you almost always do, you made a weak move or blundered outright. Why, Val, why?' Why indeed? I shook my head because I had no answer to his question.
But Yarashan did. With a surprising gentleness, he laid his hand on my shoulder and smiled at me. 'Might it have something to do with this gift of yours? You're so used to closing yourself off from others to protect yourself that you fail to perceive their plans to defeat you. And so in trying to checkmate them so single-mindedly, you overlook obvious threats to your own king.'
I looked at my handsome brother in wonder. For a man I had always considered to be vain and rather shallow, this was a penetrating insight.
'And as it is with chess,' he added, 'so it is with life. It's our weaknesses that defeat us, not our brilliance that saves us. Take care, Little Brother - take care.'
As he walked off, holding high his prize so that the day's witnesses might app
laud him, I thought deeply upon what he had said to me. I vowed to examine myself for weaknesses and flaws, as I might my armor before a battle. I sensed that some day, and soon, the fate of many beside myself would depend on my ability to avoid blunders and the traps of my greatest enemy.
Chapter 13
With Yarashan's second at chess, he now had fifteen points, which made him the tournament's leader. According to the rules, however, he was unlikely to become champion since he must win one of the next three competitions outright, and this even Yarashan admitted he could not do.
At archery the next day he failed to point. But Asaru won a fourth while I barely edged out Sar Avram of Ishka for fifth. And Maram surprised everyone, again, by winning third place. When we met in my tent afterward, for a glass of brandy, he explained his feat thus: 'I truly haven't been practicing with the bow. At least not very much. But Atara is the finest bowman - ah, bow-woman - in Ea. Watching her fire her arrows with such skill, I think, must have got into my blood.'
'Well, you've now pointed in two competitions,' Asaru told him. 'That should satisfy even King Mohan.'
Of the five hundred Valari knights competing at the tournament, few would point at all, and fewer still point twice.
'Eight points I've won,' Maram said, holding up the bronze arrow that King Waray had given him. 'That's more than you, Val.'
Indeed, it was five more than my paltry three points - more even than Asaru's six. But we all knew that Asaru was likely to win a first at the long lance, and so add ten more points to his tally. And sixteen points was often enough for a knight to be declared the tournament's champion.
The next day dawned dark and cloudy with a moisture in the air that augured rain. But for all the long hours of the morning, the sky seemed to hold back its threat and tormented us knights with that cloying stillness that precedes a storm. Sweating in our stifling armor, we couched our long lances beneath our arms and charged at each other across grounds that had already been trampled in the mace competition. Asaru, again and again, outmaneuvered his opponents and touched the blunted point of his lance against the bodies of all who faced him. And so did I, for Asaru had taught me all his skill with this difficult weapon; for much of my youth we had ridden at each other on the practice fields, brother against brother. Lord Bahram of Waas likewise prevailed, as did Athar's Sar Tarval. By late afternoon, with lightning strikes rending the dark sky over the distant Iron Hills, the four of us had advanced to the long lance's penultimate round.
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