'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.
Chapter 25
When 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.'
'Then what did?' Maram asked.
'That we must discover,' I said. 'But whyever Baltasar led the Guardians away from here, he must have had a good reason.'
My faith in him was unshakable. And after what I had experienced in the amphitheater, so was my faith in my fate.
'Let's look for sign of them,' I said.
Of all of us, Sajagax had the greatest craft at hunting and tracking, and the sharpest eyes. And so he took the lead in retracing our steps around the rock formation. We walked our horses slowly across the treacherous, rattling shingle, all the while searching the wall of trees that rose up before us. Soon we came to the place where the trampled ferns and broken deadwood showed where we had come through the forest, from the southeast. Sajagax dropped to his hands and knees, peering through the near-blackness as he traced his fingers around the divots the horses' hooves had left in the earth. Then he straightened and said, 'I don't think they passed back this way. Let's go on.'
We continued our journey around the great bubble of rock, which loomed in the starlight like the bald head of a giant. After about a hundred yards, Sajagax stopped suddenly. I stared so hard through the darkness that my eyes burned, and I could just make out the broken vegetation between the trees. Then Sajagax again entered the woods and dropped to the ground. A few moments later, he came back to me and said, 'They did pass this way. The track seems straight and leads northeast.'
'Back to the road,' I said. 'But by a different direction.'
'So it would seem.'
'Then it would seem we have choice. We might return to the amphitheater for the night. Or go on.'
There were good reasons, I said, for spending the night in the amphitheater: its entrance was narrow and easy to defend, and we were all too tired to go bushwhacking through the dark forest. But the prospect of returning to that place of ghosts disquieted Sajagax and Karimah - and Maram most of all.
'I'm hungry and thirsty, and we have little food or water,' he said as he patted his horse's saddlebags. 'And more to the point, I don't like that place. What if there are secret entrances to it that we can't guard? There's some secret about it that we haven't learned. And that might have something to do with why the Guardians abandoned us.'
Sar Hannu looked toward the rock formation, and I felt a shuddering beneath his armor. Then he said to me, 'We would be immobilized inside there. In any case, the Lightstone should not be separated from its Guardians.'
'Nor the chieftain of the Kurmak,' Sajagax said, 'from his warriors.'
'All right then, let's follow them,' I said. 'Perhaps we'll come across them farther up the road.'
It was too dark to ride through the trackless woods, and so Sajagax strode forth at a slow walk, leading his horse through the bracken. I followed him, pulling gently on Altaru's reins; Estrella, Atara, Karimah, Maram and Master Juwain came next, and then Sar Hannu and the other knights, while Lansar Raasharu brought up the rear. It was hard work, pushing through the ferns and trying not to trip over the old, downed trees and rotting splinters of wood almost impossible to see. We made too much noise, gasping as we stubbed our feet against half-buried rocks or snapped dry branches. Maram worried that bears might be hiding behind the shadowed oaks; certainly, he said, there would be snakes slithering across the dark mosses and poison ivy leaving its flesh-eating oils all over our garments. But he reserved his greatest fear for things not of the earth: 'What if the amphitheater also contains malevolent spirits?' he whispered. 'And what if they can take form and follow us?'
I touched my finger to my tongue and tasted the iron tang of blood. Then I pressed my finger to my lips and whispered, 'Shhh! You'll frighten Estrella. You'll frighten yourself.'
'Ah, you're right, my friend, I don't have to be afraid,do I?' He fell silent for a moment as he puffed and pushed his way through the swishing ferns. And then I heard him muttering to himself, '"Act as if you have courage, and courage you shall have." Well, whoever wrote that never saw a ghost.'
We continued on thusly for more than an hour, making our way through the towering trees. It was well past midnight when they finally gave out onto the road. Sajagax led his horse onto this dark, smooth band, and so did I. The striking of Altaru's iron-shod hoof against the naked paving stones was like the sounding of a gong announcing us to anyone who might have been hiding in the woods to either side of the road.
'Ah, here we are at last,' Maram said, looking right and then left. 'The question is, which way did they go?'
'Surely toward Tria,' Master Juwain said, coming up behind him. Sajagax walked his horse toward the north, sniffing at the air and staring down at the nearly black stones of the road. After about ten yards, he espied a pile of dung, most likely, as he said, left by one of the Guardians' or his Kurmak's horses.
'They went this way,' he announced. Then he motioned toward Karimah and pointed down as he told her, 'Test it, woman.'
Quick as the flash of a shooting star, Karimah drew her knife and hissed at him, 'Test it yourse
lf, mighty chieftain.'
It was too dark to make out the features of Sajagax's face, but I sensed that he was smiling. I sensed as well his sudden affection for this handsome woman. The Sarni are a sudden people, and he said to her, 'If you weren't a Manslayer, I'd take you as a wife.'
'If I weren't a Manslayer,' she told him, 'I'd let you. But since I am if ever I kill my hundred, I'll take you as a husband.'
By tradition, any Manslayer completing her vow was free to chose among the men of her tribe a mate, who was then assured of siring great warriors.
We all had a good laugh at her besting of Sajagax, Sajagax most of all. I liked it that he could laugh at himself. And I liked it even more that he wasn't too proud to stoop down and test the dung with his finger, even as he had suggested to Karimah.
'They passed this way two hours ago,' he said. 'Or perhaps three.'
'Then we will have to ride hard to overtake them,' I said.
Without another word, I mounted Altaru, and so did the others their horses. I urged Altaru to a canter. The rhythmic, three-beat tempo of his hooves against the road was like a stately dance that the other's horses joined in, too.
Soon, however, it became apparent that we could not keep up this gait. The clouds drifting in from the east thickened and smothered the faint flickers of the stars. It grew nearly pitch black. We slowed our horses to a jolting trot and then a fast walk. I could barely see the road in front of us. Maram kept yawning and complaining that he couldn't keep his eyes open to see the road. Master Juwain rode stiffly as if each one of his old bones and joints pained him. We were all exhausted, from the battle four days before and all our hard riding and everything that had happened since. Twice, Estrella fell asleep and nearly slid from her little horse. The third time this happened, Atara stopped me and said, 'We can't go on this way, Val. She's only a girl, and needs rest. We all do.'
Even Sajagax, who was used to spending whole days and nights in the saddle, agreed with this. He came up to me and said, 'We passed a clearing off the side of the road a few hundred yards back. Let us camp there for the night and continue on in the morning.'
Maram held out his hand in the dark air and said, 'I do believe I felt a raindrop - it would be madness to ride through such a night in the rain.'
At last, I bowed my head to the inevitable. 'All right, then, we'll stop for a few hours. But we must be on our way by dawn, if we can.'
By the time we found the small clearing that Sajagax had spoken of, more drops of rain were splatting down, pinging from our helms and soaking into our garments. It was too late and we were all too tired to gather wood or dig trenches to fortify our encampment. It was all we could do to set up our only two tents in the deepening rain. Each tent could sleep four comfortably and six at a squeeze. Sajagax ordered Estrella, Atara and Karimah to take the first tent for them selves, and not even Karimah disputed this. He insisted on wrapping himself in his cloak and lying down on the wet ground outside its entrance flap. Maram needed no encouragement to spread out inside the second tent, nor did Master Juwain. But Lansar Raasharu balked when I suggested that he join them. And Sar Hannu - with Sar Varald and Juradan the Younger - rebelled altogether against my command that they should rest.
'It is you, Lord Valashu, who must take some sleep,' Sar Hannu said. 'Who knows what tomorrow, or even the rest of this night, will bring? the Lord Guardian of the Lightstone must be of a fresh mind to face it.'
'The Lord Guardian,' I reminded him, 'must sometimes make sacrifices for the sake of that which he guards and the others who help him guard it.'
'Truly spoken,' Sar Hannu said. 'Thus surely the Lord Guardian must be willing to put aside his compassion for a few hours, if not his pride.'
In the end, I was forced to relent, as was Lord Raasharu. While Sar Hannu, with Sar Varald, Sar Shevan, Sar Ishadar and Juradan the Younger, posted themselves around our encampment, we went inside the tent. I lay down next to Master Juwain, who had taken out his akashic crystal and seemed to be meditating on it. It took only a few minutes for Maram to fall asleep, and not much longer for Lansar Raasharu. Alter a while, in a near-whisper, I told Master Juwain, 'You should sleep yourself, sir.'
'In moment,' he murmured. The disc in his hands glowed with a soft glorre that lit the tent faintly. 'This crystal seems to be alive now in a way that it wasn't before we found the amphitheater. The voices - so strong, so strong!'
'Is Kane's voice one of them?'
'I'm not sure,' he said. 'I'm not sure I've yet found the way to go where I must inside this. There are whole worlds there - a universe full of worlds.'
'If Kane were here,' I aaid, 'then surely he could show us the way to them. If the ghost spoke truly, then Kane was involved with the War of the Stone from the first.'
'Yes - and it's strange that he was the one to lead in the forging of the first Alkaladur, this Sword of Light.'
'It would be good to know more about that,' I said. 'Why did it take so long to forge it? And why did the Amshahs fail to heal Angra Mainyu?'
Master Juwain sighed as he slid his knotted old hand across the smooth crystal. 'I think the answer to both those questions is dear enough. The Sword of Light was made of the collective compassion of ten thousand Elijin and Galadin. Surely it must have been difficult beyond our comprehension to achieve the attunement of so many. And as for their failure the valarda is a double-edged sword, even as you've discovered. At the moment they struck out to touch Angra Mainyu with their love, when they were most open, he must have struck back in hate.'
'To kill this way with hate,' I murmured, 'could anything be more evil?'
At this, Master Juwain fell silent as he rolled over on his side and looked at me. I drew my sword from its sheath and watched as its silustria took on the tones of glorre. I said, 'Then Kane named this in mockery of the true Alkaladur.'
'Perhaps, Val, perhaps,' he said mysteriously. 'But there is much that we don't know about either sword.'
'And much that we still don't know about Kane.'
'True enough. It seems that he resisted breaking the Law of the One for the longest time. But finally he followed Marsul to war.'
'Our friend ever finds hate inside himself,' I said. 'But ever the opposite, too.'
'Yes - and it took great faith for him, at the last, to surrender the Lightstone to Valakand. Even as in Argattha, he gave it back to you.' I sheathed my sword and brought out the Cup of Heaven instead. The small golden bowl was warm against my hand. 'The touch of this, it seems, drove Marsul mad - as it had Angra Mainyu. But why?'
'Because the Lightstone was made for the hand of the Maitreya, and no other,' he said. 'This much I have discovered. The Elijin, even the Galadin, are not permitted to use it.'
'But why?' I said again. 'What is the secret of this gelstei?'
'That I don't yet know, Val. But it's clear that during the Elijin Satra, all the angels who tried to use the Lightstone failed - and fell.'
The word 'satra,' I remembered, meant 'true age': the great and very long ages of the universe As the rain pattered against the fabric of the tent above us and its interior filled with the sounds of Maram snoring and Lansar Raasharu's heavy breath, Master Juwain told me more about the history of these elder ages. The first of them, he said, in the immense span of time after the creation of our universe, Eluru, was called the Dark Satra. Over ten billion years, on countless worlds, life came forth and strove always towards the highest at last attaining to Mind when the first human beings appeared. These men and women of the earth, the Ardun, gave their name to a new satra that saw all the worlds of Eluru flower with people. The Ardun Satra progressed more quickly than the first, lasting only a tenth as long. But it was long enough to achieve a great civilization on Erathe. On that world, the first Maitreya used the Lightstone to raise up the Ardun to a new order: that of the Valari. This name had originally meant, simply, the 'Star People'; and now, during a glorious age called the Valari Satra, men and women of the stars learned to walk from world to world, br
inging to the Ardun peoples the seeds of Civilization. And bringing the Lightstone as well. It became a sacred tradition that the best way to use this golden cup was to give it into the hands of a Maitreya who would then help quicken a world's peoples to a higher order. As there were very many worlds in the universe, however, the whole process progressed rather slowly over a hundred million years.
By the end of the age, when many had achieved World-Mind, it seemed that the design of the One - and the Ieldra - was unfolding much as it should. As time went on and knowledge of all manifestations of the One gradually accumulated, men and women began to gain great powers of body and mind. Finally, on Erathe, oldest of Civilization's worlds, a great king was raised up to the order of the Elijin. His first charge, according to the Law of the One, was to vow never to take human life. His second charge was to help others gain his high estate. And so he journeyed across Erathe and then out into the stars to carry out this noble mission. After thousands of years, as the Elijin Satra progressed, this first immortal was joined by many others. These angels, as they were called, acted as messengers of the Ieldra, visiting troubled worlds and helping them toward Civilization.
But not without a struggle. The Elijin, enjoined never to kill, had to work by the power of persuasion and teaching, as well as touching people's hearts with their great, golden auras. From time to time, one or more of the Elijin would break the Law of the One and fall into murder. Many, too, tried to use the Lightstone to gain still greater powers and become greater beings. But for some mysterious reason, all who tried failed and fell - even as Master Juwain had said. It was only after a great many years that the Elijin laid down a law that only the Guardians of the Lightstone and the various Maitreyas were allowed to touch it.
'If we could learn why the higher orders may not use the Lightstone,' Master Juwain said, pointing at the cup in my hands, 'we might understand how the Maitreya can.'
I squeezed the Lightstone's smooth, glowing gelstei, said to be the hardest and most impenetrable of substances. I whispered to Master Juwain, 'I must know this, sir. Keep searching in your crystal, if you will.'
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