'All right,' I finally said, holding up my sword. I smiled at my good friends, at Sunjay Naviru, and at Skyshan of Ki and at others. 'All right. In eleven days, the tournament in Nar will begin. All the kings of the Valari or their seneschals will be there. Let this be the test of things, then: if I can persuade them to journey to Tria, there to meet in conclave with the kings of the Free Kingdoms and make alliance against Morjin, I will claim the Lightstone.'
At this news, Baltasar and Sunjay — Jonathay, too, and others — let loose a cheer. Asaru smiled at me and told me that he was glad that I would be accompanying Yarashan and him to Nar. But Lord Tanu remained skeptical. He pulled at his sour face and asked, 'And just how will you accomplish this miracle?'
'With all the force of my heart, sir.' I went on to explain that I would compete at sword and at bow, and at all the tournament's other competitions. 'If I do well enough, or am even declared champion, then the kings will have to listen to me.'
If you're declared champion,' Asaru said with a smile, 'you'll have to defeat me first, little brother.'
'And me,' Yarashan put in as pride stiffened his handsome face.
I smiled at both of them as I bowed my head. Then I turned to Master Juwain. 'The tournament's champion, whoever he is, may ask of King Waray a boon. If fortune should favor me, I would ask that the Brotherhood school might be reopened.'
Master Juwain squeezed the thought stone in his hand. He was nearly as eager as I to enter the Brotherhood school and discover what knowledge its companion stones might hold.
'Very well,' Lord Tanu said to me, 'You young knights always want to go to tournaments. But is it fitting that the Knight of the Swan and
the Guardian of the Lightstone himself should abandon his charge to go off seeking glory?'
'No, it is not,' I said to him. I held my hand out toward the Lightstone. 'And that is why we will have to take it with us.'
As I now explained to Lord Tanu, no less my father and Lansar Raasharu and everyone else, there were good reasons for risking the Lightstone by taking it on the road. First I had vowed that all the Valari kingdoms would share in its radiance. Second, if King Waray should grant me or another Meshian knight the boon of entering the Brotherhood's school, the Lightstone would be needed to open any thought stones. Third, although there was obvious danger in taking the Lightstone out of the Elahad castle, there was perhaps an equal danger in keeping it here, as the night's events had proved. And fourth, if it should be proven that I was the Maitreya, the Lightstone must be close at hand for me to claim.
When I had completed my argument, everyone remained silent and looked at my father to see what he might say. He gazed at me for many moments before he finally spoke: 'It is hard to imagine losing this great light that has come into our castle so soon after gaining it.'
'We have each of us given our word, sir. Shouldn't we honor this?'
'Are you asking my permission to remove from my hall the greatest treasure in the world? And to take from my kingdom a hundred of its finest knights?'
He nodded at Baltasar as his radiant eyes looked past the Lightstone at the Guardians who stood around it. And then he turned back toward me.
'Yes, your permission, sir,' I said to him.
'Is that truly mine to give?'
'Should not a king command his own son? 'His son, yes,' he said as he regarded me strangely. He bowed his head to me, slightly, then continued, 'A king is charged with the safeguarding of his kingdom and ordering its affairs — and so commanding those who follow him. But he has a greater charge as well, and that is to the kingdom of the earth and all of life. This realm, however he does not rule. If he should lose his son to this higher realm, how then should he presume to command him?'
A sharp pain filled my throat as I looked at my father. The great passages of life were always sad. I could find no words to say to him.
'Very well, then, Valashu,' he finally forced out. Take the Lightstone with you to Nar, if you must. But be careful, my son.' He leaned forward to embrace me and then kissed my forehead.
'Will you come, too, sir?' I asked him.
He glanced at the Lightstone and shook his head. 'No, that's impossible, now. The Red Dragon has spoken of marching armies into Mesh. There's much to be done if these armies are to be kept away.'
I bowed to him deeply and then met his bright gaze.
'And now,' my father said to everyone, 'it is more than late. Let us retire to our rooms or take breakfast, as we will. Later there will be much to do.'
And with that, he put his arm around my mother to escort her and Estrella from the hall. Everyone else except the Guardians who would stand near the Lightstone through the morning prepared to leave as well. I remained for a few moments staring at this sacred cup that had caused so many to sully themselves and make murder. Then I went off to take a few hours of rest.
Chapter 7
That afternoon the bodies of the scryers and the slave girls were laid to earth on a grassy knoll on the slopes of Telshar above the castle. There I buried as well the box that Salmelu had given me. I stood with my family and friends beneath a cloudy sky and listened to my father vow vengeance toward the one who had so defiled his kingdom. Never again, I thought, would he extend hospitality toward the emissaries of Morjin.
Late the next day, a messenger brought word of the Red Priests. It seemed that they had managed to keep ahead of the knights that my father had sent in pursuit of them; they had ridden straight across Mesh and into Waas before the kel keep that guarded the frontier could be alerted. Thus they made their escape. For the Waashians would allow no knight of Mesh into their realm, nor even suffer them to tell of Salmelu's infamy. This was according to King Sandarkan's command. Only a few years before, at the Battle of Red Mountain, we of the Swan and Stars had badly defeated the Waashians, and King Sandarkan still held great bitterness toward Mesh.
Neither did the search of the castle uncover the ghul. But then, that is a ghul's nature, to remain hidden inside another's mind or dwell deep within the flesh of a faithful nurse or a groom or even a friend. Now that it had come time to prepare for the Nar tournament I was relieved to be putting behind me the castle's many residents and the many more town-dwellers who journeyed back and forth from Silvassu every day. It gave me some small comfort that I could choose my companions from those I was certain could not be a ghul. Baltasar and the hundred Guardians I trusted with my life — and more importantly, with the Lightstone. Lansar Raasharu, of course, was beyond reproach, as were my brothers, Asaru and Yarashan. Master Juwain would be riding at my side, as he had on the great Quest. And it turned out that Maram would be coming with us, too.
'Well, Val,' he said to me after a long day of laying in supplies and attending to the many details of organizing an expedition, 'you didn't really think I'd let you go off alone on another adventure, did you?'
'You're the most faithful of friends,' I said, clasping his hand. 'But your decision wouldn't have anything to do with another wedding postponement, would it?'
He smiled at me knowingly and said, 'Well, perhaps just a little. Let's just say that a journey to Nar will give me a little more time to make sure that Behira is truly the one meant for me,'
'But what did she say when you told her you were going away?'
'Ah, well, she wept, of course, too bad. But I believe that I was able to make her understand that duty called me to your side in your time of need. I promised her that if I were to win any of the competitions, I would bring back the gold medal and give it to her.'
I nearly coughed in astonishment. 'Are you really thinking of entering the tournament?'
'I? I? Go galloping about trying to cross lances with Valari knights? Do you think I'm mad? The point is, Behira believes I will be competing. This will soothe her. If I'm kept busy, you see, I'll have less time for dalliances. But when we actually reach Nar, I can always, ah, be incapacitated with a bad back or the flux, do you understand?'
I did understand, and I promised
Maram that I would keep secret this little dishonesty. He seemed very happy with his plan, and gave thanks that fate always seemed to rescue him from Lord Harsha's wrath just when things looked darkest for him. But this one time, fate betrayed him. At the evening feast, when it came time for the rounds of toasting, Lord Harsha stood upon his game, old leg and called out, 'Tomorrow Lord Valashu and Mesh's finest knights will leave for the tournament in Nar. My daughter has just told me that Sar Maram Marshayk will be joining them and competing as an honorary Valari knight! We should all honor his courage! Let us all drink his health!'
Maram, sitting at Lord Harsha's table beneath Lord Harsha's upraised goblet, cast me a quick, sharp look from across the room as if to ask me if I had divulged his plan after all. I shook my head at him. And he shook his head at me in silent resignation and drank his beer even as two hundred lords and knights cheered him and wished him well. Lord Harsha had yet another surprise for him. He was not an especially clever or imaginative man — except perhaps when it came to protecting his daughter. So it vexed Maram greatly when Lord Harsha dapped him on the back and announced, 'As many of you know, Sar Maram is to be my son-in-law. Since it is distressful for my daughter and me to see him ride off at this time, we've decided to journey to the tournament as well. We'll see to it that no harm befalls this brave knight!'
At this, Maram choked on his beer. His fat face reddened as he groaned and looked across the room at me for help. But it was all I could do to keep from laughing at this much-deserved plight that he had brought upon himself.
And so it seemed that all preparations for the expedition to Nar and our roster were complete. Yet one more addition remained to be made. Later that night I met with my father and my family in his rooms. Estrella, whom my mother had practically adopted, took warm milk while the rest of us had brandy. When I told her that I would not be returning to Mesh for perhaps several months, she threw her arms around my legs arid would not let go. She wept and seemed disconsolate, even when my mother promised to teach her the art of weaving and my grandmother sang her a comforting song. I knew then that I must take her with me, for our fates were somehow joined together. If I left her here in Mesh, I was afraid that the beautiful thing that had come alive inside her upon our meeting would wither and die.
'She's like a sister to me,' I said as I laid my hand upon her dark, curly hair. Her little triangle of a face, all quicksilver and wild, brightened to see me smiling down at her.
'Yes,' my father said, looking at us, 'but would you take your sister, and one so young, upon a dangerous journey?'
'She will have a hundred Valari knights to protect her,' I said. I placed my hand on the hilt of my sword. 'And myself.'
'Even so, she would be safer here.'
'Would she truly? With a ghul still on the loose? How do we know that this man wouldn't seek to complete Salmelu's evil work?'
My father thought about this as he studied Estrella's lively face. Then he said, 'But, Valashu, it's a hundred and fifty miles to Nar. And four times that distance to Tria.'
'Estrella,' I said, 'has come out of Argattha, and that is the greatest distance of all, for the road from hell is endless.'
I went on to tell of my sense that Estrella still carried much of this hell inside her, in her nightmares of memory, if not in her soul.
'You cannot know what an abomination Morjin has worked upon that place,' I said, to my father and to my family. 'Morjin has made children. . to do unspeakable things. I would make for this child, at least, happier memories.'
My father's eyes grew deep as oceans. It sometimes seemed that he had the power to look straight through me. You wish to heal her of her affliction, don't you?'
'Yes,' I said, touching Estrella's long, delicate neck. 'There's nothing wrong with her that she shouldn't speak. Nothing wrong that Morjin hasn't somehow made wrong. If I am the one. . whom many think I am, then with the aid of the Lightstone, it may he that I can give her hack her voice — and perhaps much else as well.'
My father nodded his head at this, then said, 'And if you could work this miracle, then your healing of her would be that which showed you the Maitreya — is that right?'
'Yes,' I admitted. 'But even if she doesn't show me what it seems she must, she might show me another. Whoever the Lord of Light truly is, he must be found for the sake of all Ea.'
'For the sake of Ea and not your own?'
'One can only hope so, sir'
In the end, it was decided that such a journey, on good horses over good roads, under the escort of a hundred knights, should not prove too arduous for this tough and resourceful girl. She wanted to come with me so badly that she locked the tips of her long, tapering fingers through the rings of my mail. If fate was moving us along the same road together, who was I to go against it?
One last matter regarding our expedition still had to be decided. By law, no knight or warrior of Mesh was allowed to leave the Nine Kingdoms wearing the marvelous diamond battle armor of the Valari — except on expeditions of war. This was meant to protect a tone knight against brigands who might murder him in order to divest him of the glittering treasure that encased him. So it was that I had journeyed across Ea and back wearing only my steel mail. But not all knights could afford two suits of armor; at least half of the Guardians were not so fortunate. Therefore, they must leave Mesh either unarmored or raimented in diamonds.
'It won't do to leave my knights unprotected,' my father said to me 'The Red Dragon has spoken of sending armies against Mesh and has brought murder into my house. Very well, then — let it be as if you are riding to war.'
Early the next morning, on the 9th of Soal, all who would journey to Nar assembled in the castle's north ward. It was a day of drizzle and low, gray clouds that smothered the sky and promised only more rain. This stole some of the sheen from the knights' usually-resplendent diamond armor. At least, I thought as we all formed up diamonds do not rust. I ran my finger across the misted white stones affixed to the hardened leather along my arm. Diamond being lighter than steel, it was joy to move about uburdened, with nearly as much freedom as had a man wearing only woolens or a leather doublet.
I sat astride my great, black warhorse, Altaru, and I urged him past some squawking chickens toward the front of the formation. There Asaru and Yarashan gathered, too. They wore, as did I, great helms with curving steel face plates and silver wings sweeping up from the sides. Black surcoats showing the silver swan and the seven stars of the Elahads draped cleanly over their shoulders and chests. Their trian-gular shields were embossed with the same emblem. These bore as well near the point, marks of cadence that distinguished my brothers and me from each other. Asaru had chosen a small, gold bear while Yarashan displayed a white rose. My mark was that of a lightning bolt. It was burned into the black steel of my shield as it was into the flesh of my forehead.
Lord Harsha and Behira, with Maram, Master Juwain and Lansar Raasharu, took their places immediately behind us. Lord Harsha's emblem was a gold lion rampant on a field of bright blue. It covered nearly all his shield, except that the bordure around its rim showed a repeating motif of silver swans and stars against a narrow black field, for he had sworn allegiance to my father and must bear sign of it. So it was with Lord Raasharu, his family's emblem of a blue rose against a gold field being surrounded by the same bordure, and with all the other knights lining up behind him.
Baltasar, who would be that day's bearer of the Lightstone, had the position of honor at the center of the middle column of Guardians. Our small baggage train trailed this main body of our expedition, followed by strings of our snorting remounts and a rear-guard of twenty knights commanded by Sunjay Naviru. Estrella, I discovered, could not ride and had been brought to Mesh with her sister slaves locked inside a cart. And so the prospect of sitting all day by herself in one of the wagons distressed her. I decided that she should begin our journey riding with me. My mother escorted her through the courtyard, treading carefully through the squishing mud right up to the
front of our assemblage. She helped her up onto Altaru's back, and the small girl seemed happy to sit in front of me dangling her teet
over Altaru's sides.
'Neither of you will be comfortable this way for long,' my mother said to me as she stood there in the courtyard's churned-up mud.
'Please mind that she doesn't grow too tired or sore.'
I promised that I would take as good care of Estrella as she would herself.
'Goodbye, Valashu,' she said as she bent forward to kiss my knee. 'Whether you return as a Maitreya or just a man, make sure you do return.'
In the north ward that morning, lined up along the walls from the Aramesh Tower to the Telemesh Gate, blacksmiths and carpenters mingled with great lords such as Lord Tanu, and midwives waited in the rain with princes and even kings. Almost all the castle had turned out to see us off. At the front of this throng stood my father and grand-mother, with my brothers Karshur, Mandru and Ravar. When it came time for us to ride forth, they braved the mud and joined my mother in making their goodbyes. Karshur made me promise to return with the gold plaque in swordsmanship. Mandru, adding a twist to my mother's theme, advised me to return with the gold gelstei — or not at all. This was meant to be a joke, of course, but there was a painful truth in his otherwise tender parting with me.
On this journey, my father had no gifts to give me other than the reassurance of his smile and the fire of his eyes. He spoke the same farewell as he had a year before. This time, in the light of what I sought, his words had an even deeper poignancy: 'Always remember who you are, Valashu. May you always walk in the light of the One.'
I nudged Altaru forward, and my powerful horse whinnied with excitement, glad to set out into the world again. And so I led the rest of my company through the castle's gate. A thousand iron-shod hooves struck wet paving stones, sending spray and a great noise into the air. The road wound down from the castle through an apple grove and turned into the North Road that led all the way toward Ishka and beyond.
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