'If the juggler misses,' Arch Uttam announced, 'it is only because his bad conscience spoils his aim, and we shall know that he is lying. Likewise if he strikes the girl.'
What must it be like, I wondered, to feel so superior to others that one could torment, maim or kill them at will?
I hoped that Lida might somehow persuade King Arsu to put a stop to this barbaric trial. But the King seemed to take a great interest in Arch Uttam's proposal, as he did in all cruel and bizarre things. I watched him pull his hand away from Lida.
'And if he strikes the apple?' King Arsu asked Arch Uttam.
With reluctance, Arch Uttam forced out, 'Then we shall know that he is telling the truth.'
'Let be so,' King Arsu said. 'If the juggler strikes the apple, there is no error, and they will be free to go.'
He pointed down at the cart. 'Put the girl in her place.'
Lord Mansarian now escorted Estrella back down to the cart. He stood her up with her back to the target, facing Kane, and then backed away. Kane stalked forward, squeezing the apple in his hand. He touched her cheek, kissed her brow. Then he set the apple gently on top of Estrella's head. After grabbing up two throwing knives, one in either hand, he returned to his place in front of the target.
I overheard one of the soldiers say, 'Why two knives? Doesn't he know that Arch Uttam will never give him a second chance?'
A second soldier next to him shrugged his shoulders and said, 'Maybe the other knife balances him.'
This was true. Kane would strive for every advantage in this evil trial that Arch Uttam had forced upon him. But I knew that Kane had a deeper reason: if he missed, the second knife would be for Arch Uttam.
I now walked over to the foodsellers' stalls with my friends, so that we would not distract Kane by standing too near the can. I wondered if Bemosscd knew what was about to happen as he dwelled in the darkness inside it.
Out in the square, Kane looked at nothing except the apple perched on top of Estrella's head. She stood almost perfectly still, fixing her gaze upon him. I sensed no fear in her - at least no fear of Kane. Although her face remained quiet and serious, she seemed to be smiling at him from some place deep inside herself.
I knew that Kane could split the apple. He would not let his love for Estrella ruin his aim.
And then, before he could raise back his arm, Arch Uttam cried out: 'We have all seen this man's skill; at this distance, casting the knife will be no trial. Therefore, let the distance be doubled.'
King Arsu, with Lida puiling on his elbow, looked at him as if he thought this last condition was cruelly unfair. Lord Mansarian looked at Arch Uttam this way, too - and so did half a hundred nobles and soldiers. But Arch Uttam would not be defeated a second time that day.
'This is written,' he called out. "We must always double and redouble our efforts to prove ourselves worthy of the journey toward the One." Let the Juggler prove himself to us. Lord Mansarian!'
He issued a command to Lord Mansarian, who borrowed a spear from one of his red-caped soldiers. He then walked over to where Earella stood in front of the cart. With hardly a glance at her, he began counting out paces as he stepped out toward Kane and then continued counting until he reached a place on the grass twice Kane's distance from the target. There he stuck the spear into the grass, down into the loamy earth. Kane was to stand behind the spear, facing Estrella.
After Kane had taken his place at this new mark. Lord Mansarian once more retreated nearer to King Arsu's box. Again, Kane fixed the whole of his awareness on the apple gleaming a bright crimson on top of Estrella's head. Arch Uttam had set for him an impossible distance, better suited to archery than the casting of a foot-long knife. Maram stood on one side of me muttering, 'Ah, too bad, too bad!' while Daj waited on the other side almost weeping. Even Atara seemed terrified by the future now about to fall upon us in a whirring of steel. I felt my heart pounding wildly. I did not think that even Kane could make such a throw.
Neither, it seemed, did anyone else. From his chair up in the box. King Angand said to Arch Uttam, 'It is too far and too windy. This is no true trial of arms. No man who ever lived could make such a throw.'
But Arch Uttam only scoffed at this. 'They're magicians, aren't they? They made the minstrel disappear - maybe they can make the wind stop, too.'
While Estrella waited for Kane to make ready, she closed her eyes as if she could not bear to look at him. I felt her enter into an immense, inner stillness. All at once, the splendidly colored banners flapping above the pavilions of King Arsu and King Angand drooped down and the wind suddenly died. Kane's eyes blazed brightly. And then, with a suddenness that astonished everyone, his arm drew back and whipped forward with a blinding speed. The knife flashed through the air in a whirl of bright steel almost impossible to see. Its point drove straight through the apple's center, pinning the apple to the target. Then, and only then, Estrella opened her eyes and smiled at Kane.
'He did it!' Maram cried out, clapping me on the shoulder. 'Oh, my lord - he really did it!'
Kane's great feat caused hundreds of soldiers to draw their swords and strike their pommels against their shields in a tumult of acclaim. Even Lord Mansarian bowed his head to Kane. But Arch Uttam only cast him a hateful look. He stood by his chair up in the box waiting for the thunder of celebration to die down.
"The juggler got lucky,' he finally called out with a sickening peevishness. 'And luck is no part of a true trial.'
'A trial is a trial,' King Angand said.
'This trial,' Arch Uttam said, 'is not over. Let the distance be doubled again!'
So saying, he grabbed up a second apple from the bowl. Again-he hurled it out toward Kane. But almost before the apple left his hand, Kant cast his second knife, left-handed, straight at the apple. The knife struck it in midair, and the greater weight of its steel carried the apple back toward Arch Uttam so that the knife buried itself quivering in the table with the apple transfixed upon its blade.
'Was that luck, too, priest?' Kane called to him. He grinned like a wolf, showing his long, white teeth.
Arch Uttam stared at the knife planted in the table as if he couldn't believe what he had just seen. I, myself, had always thought that striking a moving target in the air was impossible.
With a great sigh and groan. King Arsu heaved himself up from his chair. He looked straight at Arch Uttam and said, 'The trial is over. The juggler and the mime are deemed to have told the truth and shall be free to perform where they will, even as we have said.'
At this, Estrella ran forward toward Kane and leaped into his arms. She wept and laughed silently, all at once. And then the wind began blowing fiercely again.
'Sire!' a voice called out. This came from Lord Rodas, who began advancing across the square toward King Arsu's box. It seemed that we might not be so very free, after all. 'Sire, my players have forfeited their prize in payment of their error, but what about my portion of it?'
Now Lady Lida stood up, too, and whispered something in King Arsu's ear. And King Arsu pointed at Lord Rodas as he called down to Lord Mansarian: 'There is something vexing about this New Lord and his insistence on gaining gold. Take him to be questioned, and his men, too.'
Lord Mansarian hurried forward to carry out this command. He grabbed the outraged Lord Rodas's arm, while other knights of his red-caped company closed in upon Lord Rodas's six hirelings and escorted them from the square. It seemed that we really were free.
Then Arch Uttam cast us one final, poisonous look that promised death, and stalked off toward his pavilion. We hurried over to the cart, which we began making ready for the next leg of our journey, out of Hesperu and into the vast, forested miles of the mountains that lay beyond.
Chapter 39
We left the army's encampment as quickly as we could without giving the impression that we were fleeing from it. When we reached the Avrian Road, we turned north toward Orun, only two miles away. We soon stopped at the edge of a cotton field. I opened the cart's door so that
Bemossed could finally come out of his prison and join us in the sunlight. He embraced Estrella and ran his hand through her curly hair as he told her, 'I knew that Kane would not cut off a single lock.'
He embraced Kane, too, and stood there as if wondering what we would do next.
Although I wanted to unhitch Altaru and gallop back through Orun and across the Black Bridge to escape the men who had almost murdered us, I felt the need for council even more. And so I called for everyone to gather close by the cart.
'Liljana,' I said, looking at this stout woman who had kept her calm through the whole of our ordeal. 'You seemed almost familiar with Lady Lida, and she saved us, more than once. Why?'
Liljana nodded her head into the gusting wind. And she said simply, 'Lida is Maitriche Telu.'
This news surprised all of us, especially Master Juwain. He said to Liljana, 'I had thought that King Arsu's grandfather. King Taitu, had destroyed the Hesperuk Maitriche Telu.'
'I had thought this, too,' Liljana said. 'But it seems that at least one sanctuary must have remained undiscovered.'
'And in all those years, they have sent you no communication?'
'They wouldn't know how, or whom to send word to. You see, even within the Maitriche Telu, we have our secrets - and so we survive.'
For the course of two long quests across Ea, Liljana had told us very little of the ancient Sisterhood that she led. And now, she would explain only that the Maitriche Telu was composed of secret sanctuaries in all lands. The sisters of individual sanctuaries knew each other and the identity of their mistresses only, and the mistresses each reported to a single matriarch in charge of several sanctuaries, and so on. This gave great protection in case any sanctuary was discovered and its sisters tortured, for they could betray only the next highest sister in the net that connected them to the great sanctuary in Tria and the Materix herself. But if enough knots in this net were destroyed, it could also leave them isolated and ignorant of the workings of their own order.
'But then how did you recognize Lida?' Master Juwain asked.
'There are signs we use,' Liljana said. 'Secret signs that others see as normal expressions and gestures. It is its own language.'
I bowed my head to this woman whom I had come to respect more than almost any other. I asked her, 'Can Lida help us, then? It will go badly for us if Arch Uttam sends assassins after us or if King Arsu changes his mind.'
Liljana shook her head at this. 'Lida has only so much influence over King Arsu. As for Arch Uttam, she lives in mortal peril of him.'
'We are ourselves in mortal peril,' Maram said. He looked about the field as if Arch Uttam's spies might be hiding among the white, wind-whipped bolls of cotton. 'We must go on as quickly as we can. That traitor Salmelu, who now calls himself Mar Igasho, is riding toward King Arsu's encampment.'
'We know,' I said to him. 'While you were in the courtesans' tent, King Arsu announced that King Orunjan was coming to a conclave along with a master priest.'
'He did?' Maram said. 'But did he also tell that Morjin rode with them?'
'What?' I said, looking down the road toward the south. 'Morjin? Here, in Hesperu? How do you know?'
'Ah, I don't really know,' Maram admitted. 'But while I was with the courtesans. King Arsu's messenger came into the tent for a little comfort after his hard ride, or so he said. He liked to talk, that man did. He said that Morjin rode with King Orunjun in secret. Well, very soon, I think, it will be a secret that is no secret that Morjin has come to Hesperu - to meet with the other kings to plan the conquest of Eanna, if not the whole damn world.'
Now I stared hard at the road's gray paving stones as if they might tell me if my enemy was pounding down them toward us. I said to Maram: 'Surely it can't be Morjin, himself. Surely it must be the third droghul that Atara told of.'
At this, Atara turned her blindfolded face toward me and said, 'I assumed he was a droghul, but I can't see that, Val. The one who comes - it could be Morjin.'
I waited while a farmer plodded along with a wagon full of manure, and I let him pass by. Then I drew forth my sword and pointed it down the road. Its silvery blade seemed to burn with a blue fire but gave little light. If Morjin himself had come from Argattha, he would surely bear the Lightstone with him, wouldn't he? And so wouldn't my sword flare in resonance with the golden cup as it once had?
Master Juwain saw the thrust of my reasoning, which hadn't changed since the first droghul had pursued us across the plains of the Wendrush. He said to me, 'I'm afraid you can't use your sword as a test this way any more, Val.'
I watched as the flames running along Alkaladur's length grew hotter. I said to Atara, 'If we knew it was really Morjin, I could wait for him and put an end to things, here and now. And the rest of you could take Bemossed to safety.'
I looked at Kane as if to ask if he would give up everything for this final vengeance; his eyes burned with a dark fire of their own, and I saw that he dwelled with death.
'But we don't even know if Bemossed is the Maitreya!' Maram said. 'And without you and Kane with us, we'll never live to reach home!'
Master Juwain nodded his head at this and said, 'There are other considerations as well. If you kill Morjin and fail to reclaim the Lightstone, it will pass to Arch Uttam or King Arsu. Or to another high priest if Morjin has left it in Argattha. In the end, one of these would become a new Red Dragon. And complete Morjin's conquest in his name.'
'Not if Bemossed could keep him from using the Lightstone,' I said.
'But could he? Would he?' Master Juwain said to me. 'Maram is right: if you throw your life away this way, Bemossed might not live to contest anyone for the Lightstone.'
'That is a chance we'll have to take!'
'Indeed? But on whose behalf must we take it? Yours? The dead who are buried on the Culhadosh Commons? Or the living, in all lands?'
'No one can see all ends,' I said. 'We have such a rare chance!'
At this Atara came over to me and grasped my hand. In a clear voice, she told me, 'If you and Kane go after the one who pursues us, I see your deaths.'
Atara's face turned toward me as she tried to fight back her fear, and I saw our deaths, too. And I said, 'I don't care!'
'No, Val,' she said to me as her hand tightened around mine. 'You must care. And you must live.'
Master Juwain nodded his head at this. 'There is a great deal at stake here, beyond our lives or even the life of Ea.'
At that moment, Alphanderry stepped out of the shimmering air and said to me, 'I would rather sing while you play the flute than wail at your funeral.'
Bemossed, I saw, stood near the cart taking in every word of our debate. His large, luminous eyes held much doubt, and he seemed at once both restless and calm, innocent and wise.
'I have seen too much death, Valashu,' he said to me. 'Is there no other way?'
I squeezed the black jade of my sword's hilt so hard that my hand hurt. I said, 'Not so long as Morjin lives.'
'Is there no way, even for him, other than murder and war?' I shook my head at this. 'You're a dreamer, Bemossed.' 'You have called me the Maitreya as well,' he said. 'Should I not then dwell in dreams?'
He brushed back the curls from his gentle face, which came alive with a deep light that seared into me. Then he looked from me to Kane. Something inside my fierce friend seemed to soften. And Kane said to me, 'There is a time for fighting and a time for fleeing. Even if we could come within striking distance of Morjin without him smelling us out, which we couldn't, what do you suppose would happen then, eh? King Arsu would send Lord Mansarian and his damn Red Capes after our companions, and they'd hunt them down.'
'Likely they will hunt us down anyway as soon King Orunjan meets up with King Arsu,' I said. 'If anyone should tell of us, Morjin will come after us with the whole of King Arsu's army.'
That is a good argument for going quickly, as Maram has said. We will have a lead - let's keep it and lose ourselves in the mountains.'
Estrella gazed at me with
a look of utter simplicity and a question in her eyes that cut into me like the keenest steel: Why kill at all unless killing was inescapably thrust upon me? She had a way, I thought, of showing me my soul. 'All right,' I finally said. I sheathed Alkaladur, and put it back inside the cart. 'Let us then flee, as fast as we can.'
But with our heavy cart and our horses yoked to it, we could not set anything like a rapid pace. We needed to find a wood where we could abandon the cart, and with it our disguise as players, but it would be folly to do this too close to King Arsu's army.
And so we continued our journey back up the road. The wind blew steadily out of the north, cooling the sweltering valley of the Iona River. We turned east at Orun, which stank of rotting wood and oily fish, and we crossed over the Black Bridge into the rich bottom land on the east side of the river. A few miles farther on, we left the road to strike out along back lanes more or less straight for the Khal Arrak pass through the mountains. It would be more difficult to ride cross-country through field and forest, but easier to throw off anyone who might pursue us.
Amid rice bogs and swarms of mosquitoes, we soon came upon a village of a few dozen mud huts called Tajul. We had no intention of stopping in this ugly place, but the sight of our cart, painted with such eye-popping colors, drew the curiosity of the few villagers not at work in the surrounding fields.
One of these, a thick-bodied man with a shock of curly hair and a grizzled beard, called out to us: 'Good players! Have you any medicines? My son is sick, and could use something for his pain.'
Though he might once have been tall, he stood all hunched over as if crippled with some disease; all his movements seemed to torment him. He wore a tunic of good silk, belted with a piece of thick leather chafed in a way that suggested it might once have borne a sword. He gave his name as Falco and said his son had been kicked in the belly by a mule.
Master Juwain asked him, 'Is there no healer hereabouts who can help him?'
Falco shook his head at this. 'We had a good one, Jahal, but he left our village last year.'
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