He looked at me with ail the devotion of dog. I wanted to accept his homage; I wanted to forgive him and take him into my confidence. But that much vanity and trust I did not have.
'No,' I told him, 'you shall go back to Tiamar and await your king's command. We shall go to Tria to hold conclave with him.'
I turned my back on him to walk across the field and visit with my wounded knights. A mace had broken Sar Kimball's arm, and a lance taken out the eye of Sar Gorvan. Others had other wounds. But by the One's grace, all of them would live.
None killed! I thought, giving thanks to the wind. None killed!
But as I stepped around the bodies of the fallen Tarlaners, I knew in my heart that too many had been killed. Five-Horned Maram, my fat friend, had himself slain five of the enemy that day, more than had any of my knights. But the dead no longer looked like enemies to me: they were only dead. They were all men who should have lived to take wives and sire children and fight the true enemy, called the Red Dragon. They were all men, luminous beings beneath their coverings of flesh, created in the likeness of angels. And now, like all the other countless souls who had once stridden the earth in all their pride, they walked among the stars.
Chapter 24
The next morning, we rode away from that blood-drenched place. The Tarlaners were too ashamed to put a name to the terrible defeat that: had befallen them, but it would ever after be known among the Valari and the Kurmak as the Battle of Shurkar's Notch. King Shurkar Eriades, I thought, would have been appalled that the stone taken from the quarry there had failed to protect his realm from this small force of Sarni who rode with us. I, too, was appalled by the slaughter that we had wrought together. It occurred to me that with these splendid warriors on our side, working with the Valari at a man's thumb might coordinate with his fingers, I might at last reunite the two estranged kindreds of the tribe of Elahad and forge a weapon of terrible power, efficiency and deadliness.
Our pace away from the escarpment was slow, for we were all tired, and 1 did not want to press my wounded knights. One of these was Sar Kandjun. It seemed that a Tarlan knight, while Sar Kandjun had been playing dead, had used him for target practice, sticking his lance into Sar Kandjan's thigh. Sar Marjay and Sar Jaldru had testified that Sar Kandjun had borne this insult without uttering a sound. But after the Duke's host had passed, Sar Kandjun had arisen from the grass, bound his leg with some cloth torn from his surcoat and had whis-tled for his horse. Then he led the others toward the notch. These three brave knights thus came late to the battle, but with Sajagax's warriors,
they had fallen upon the Tarlaners' rear with a vengeance that brought honor to their names.
Our flight across the Duke's lands had taken us too far west almost all the way to the Aquantir. And so, to cut the road leading to Tria, we had to journey north and slightly east, toward the hills that glowed golden-orange beneath the sun. I did not think that Duke Malatam was mad enough to try to gather his scattered horses and mount a pursuit. And doubted if his beaten men would follow him if he did. Even so, we kept a watch behind us. Sajagax sent outriders to patrol in that direction as well as ahead.
The steppe stretched before us, a sea of long swishing grasses that seemed as endless as the sky. But according to Atara, who had been this way before, we were approaching its northern bounds. After about eight miles of easy travel, we saw single trees pushing up out of the turf like lonely sentinels. A few miles further on they were joined by a sprinkling of their cousins. And then suddenly, after we had crested a rise, we came upon a line of trees stretching from east to west for as far as the eye could see. Alonia's Great Northern Forest stood before us like a wall of green. Sajagax and his warriors seemed even more loathe to enter it than they had been to cross the Long Wall.
'Trees,' Sajagax said to me as we sat side by side in front of our companies surveying the country ahead of us. 'So many trees.'
I pointed at a band of stone about a quarter mile ahead of us and to our right. I said, 'Look, there's the road. From here, if Atara is right, it's scarcely more than a hundred miles to Tria.'
'About such things, Atara is always right,' he said. 'Though I passed this way once, before she was born, and it seemed like much more than a hundred miles.'
We made our way onto the road, with Sajagax riding foremost and his guard strung out behind him. I led my knights in three columns following them. After the soft ground of the Wend rush, the road's paving stones seemed too hard and the sound of our horses iron-shod hooves against it too loud. And then we passed into the archway of trees before us, and their fluttering green canopies suddenly blocked out the sun. It grew cooler, and the air thickened with the moist breath of the forest. Several of the Sarni warriors ahead of us made signs as if to ward off evil.
We ambled up the road for several more miles. This dosed country of wooden pillars and shrubby ramparts seemed to chasten our yellow-haired allies. Many of Sajagax's men, I thought, had never seen more than a scattering of trees in all their lives. Although Thadrak and a few others had ridden on raids into Anjo, that broken kingdom's patchwork of woods was nothing like this expanse of vegetation that went on a hundred miles to the north and more than twice that to the east and west. The forest's gloom fell over them like a dark, green blanket and smothered their easy laughter, which I had come to relish as I did the wind and sun. Even I, who had grown to manhood among the great oaks and elms of the Morning Mountains, found myself wishing to come upon an open field or a crag that might give a good view of the sky. But the only high ground nearby was the hill land along the Poru to the east of us and these old, rounded mounds of earth were covered in trees as thick and tall as those towering above
us.
Late that afternoon, however, we came upon a great clearing to the side of the road. It seemed large enough to encamp an army. Indeed although we were still in Tarlan, King Kiritan had ordered it cut out of the forest in order to accommodate his armies, should he have need to march this way. It was one of many such sites along the roads leading through Alonia. We decided to spend the night there. When we were finished laying out our firepits and pitching our tents acres of sweet green grass surrounded us, and this made Sajagax's warriors happy and all our horses even happier.
During the night, a thick shroud of clouds came up to cover the stars. It began raining hard before dawn and continued all the next day. Big drops of water and occasional bursts of hail pelted us in millions of silver, streaking missiles. My wounded knights felt this assault most grievously, although they did not complain of it I gave my cloak to Sar Kandjun to keep out this wet, driving cold. It helped him, a little, I thought. I wished I had two hundred cloaks, for all of us who had fought the Tarlaners suffered from aching limbs and a stiffness that penetrated to the bone.
Atara, wrapped in her lion skin, kept warmer than most — at least in her body. Her soul, however, remained as cold as the little bits of hail that fell down from the dark clouds above us and broke against the diamonds of my armor. It was like a wall of ice between us. I wanted to melt it and heal her of her deepest anguish as badly as I wanted the sun to return. I knew that she pushed me away only to drive me into myself, to learn the truth of who I really was. It cost her a great deal to maintain her aloofness. In her heart was a deep hurt that choked her and would not go away. I wanted to weep at this strange and terrible compassion of hers, as cold and hard as the crystal of her gelstei.
As we trod down the road and our horses kicked up a muddy spray, I brooded over what she had told me about the world's fate hanging balanced upon the edge of a sword. I felt my own fate, pulling me on toward Tria. I felt, too, something dark and too-familiar pursuing me from behind. Then the road led us past the last of the hills to the east and a sense of dread and doom fastened its claws into the bones of my back and would not let go. That night, lying on ground so sodden that my sleeping furs soaked-through, I dreamed that I was trying to ride away from my own shadow. But the faster I rode, the stronger and more defined it g
rew. When I told Master Juwain ot this the next morning, he interpreted it to mean that I was afraid of my fate of being the Maitreya.
'All men,' he said to me as he pressed a cup of hot tea into my hand, 'fear the great shining thing inside themselves and try to flee from it-How much worse this must be for the Lord of Light.'
I gulped the tea and scalded my throat. I said, 'But this is no shining thing. 'It is dark. It is cold, like death.'
'As I've said many times,' he told me, 'there is an identity of opposites. The light that is too bright burns and blinds. And is it not written that the silver swan is born anew from the ashes of its own funeral pyre?'
"To live, I die," ' I said, quoting from the Valkariad. ' "Out of the deepest darkness, the brightest light." '
'Do you see, Val? Do you see?'
'Perhaps,' I said to him. 'You know a great deal about dreams. But whatever it is that's after me feels as real as this rain that won't stop.'
After that we broke camp and set out into the wet morning. We crossed into Old Alonia, and the rain seemed to grow only stronger as did my sense of something following me. At last, I felt obliged to take Sajagax into my confidence. I told him of my fears.
He looked at me strangely and said, 'Sometimes, Valashu, I think that you are like the imakil who ride in another world. They have senses that we of this world lack. You say that something hunts us. I sense this not — and I have the eyes of an eagle, the nose of a wolf, the ears of a horse. But this is not my country; these cursed trees devour the wind and sky. Very well then, I will send out riders again to look for signs.'
I sent out riders, too: Sar Avram and Sar Elkad, Sunjay Naviru and Skyshan of Ki. They galloped back down the road and beat through the forest to either side of it searching for anything that went on two legs or rode on top of anything with four. With Sajagax's scouts, they returned to report that they had seen nothing more suspicious than five deer, a black bear with her cubs, a woodcutter and a merchant making his way up the road toward Adavam with a cart full of silks to sell.
It occurred to me that Estrella, as a seard, might be able to find whatever my men could not. She rode beside me, now covered in Atara's lion skin, which Atara had draped over her shivering body to protect her from the rain. When I tried to describe my sense of being steeped in shadow, she just looked at me as she always did and smiled mysteriously.
As we made our way north, the road bent back toward the Poru and took us through a rich farmland mostly cleared of trees. The huts of peasants stood out against misty, emerald fields. The rain eased and then softened into a drizzle that sifted down from the gray sky. So time after noon, we came to Adavam, second largest of Alonia's cities. It had been built on marshy ground where the Istas river flows in from the west and meets the Poru in a great joining of waters We spent a few hours riding along its crowded streets, buying meat and bread for my hungry men and oats for the horses. We might have found accommodations for the night with one of the nobles who had estates outside the city — or with a Lord Palandan, who dwelled in the great, ancient castle rising up at the city's center. But after our encounter with Duke Malatam, we'd had enough of Alonia's nobility for the time being. And so we pressed our tired mounts onward, and we crossed the great Delikan Bridge that spanned the Istas. We made camp that night five miles to the north, in the fields of a peasant who owned his own lands. Although he was too poor to feed us, he surprised everyone by producing a cask of beer, which he and his eldest son helped us drain to the last drop.
We awoke the following morning to skies as blue as a robin's egg. The sun came out to dry the sodden lands through which we rode, and a rainbow arched across the horizion. Its vivid colors seemed to drive back the chill of dread clinging to me. We passed along a stretch of road where the farmland gave out into forest again. I smiled to see the millions of leaves above us letting through a lovely, green light. Estrella, riding to my left, smiled her bright smile as if to show me this radiance inside myself. Master Juwain, on my right, sat on top of his horse holding the akashic crystal in his gnarly hands. He softly sang out words in the angels' language that he called Galadik. He had come to understand at least a part of this musical tongue, and he worked very hard to unlock the knowledge stored in his glowing disc.
Late in the afternoon, just as we crossed a stream flowing down to the Poru, Master Juwain's crystal began shimmering more brightly than any rainbow. Hues of scarlet, viridian and sapphire blue spun about its center and seemed to whirl right off the disc and fill the air with a brilliant sheen.
'Hold!' I called out, raising up my hand. I reined-in Altaru, while behind me, Maram, Karimah and Atara brought their mounts to a halt as well — along with the tens of Guardians behind them. 'What is this?'
'I don't know,' Master Juwain said as he gazed at the crystal. 'Look how it flares!'
Even as he spoke, the entire crystal filled with glorre, as it had in the Lokilani's wood in the presence of the Lightstone. But the Cup of Heaven now resided with Sar Hannu, who sat on his horse in the middle of our columns nearly a fifty yards behind us.
'Look Val, look!'
Now the glorre spilled out and enveloped us in a shimmering clouds. Seeing this, Sajagax galloped back down the road straight toward us. He called out, 'What magic do you summon now, wizard?'
'I don't know,' Master Juwain said again. 'But this gelstei — it's as if it's seeking something. It wants something of me.'
'How can that be?' I asked him.
'I wish I knew.'
Maram came forward to get a better look at the crystal. 'But how do you know it wants something of you?'
'I wish I knew that, too.'
Just then Flick appeared like a comet falling out of the sky. in a swirl of sparkling lights, he turned circles around the crystal in Master Juwain's hand. Then he shot off into the woods. His luminous form paused between two maple trees as if he waited for us to follow him.
'Flick wants something of us too,' I said. 'Perhaps the same thing.'
'What?' Maram said. 'To go wandering about these wild woods?'
I looked off through the trees. Then I turned to Atara. 'Is there anything unusual nearby?'
But Atara only shook her head. Even when she could 'see,' she could not do so perfectly.
'Let's go with Flick,' I suggested. I smiled at Maram. 'These woods are a tangle, but nothing so bad as the Vardaloon.'
I nodded at Sajagax and Lord Raasharu, and they seemed almost as eager as I was to solve this new mystery. And so 1 led off into the trees, toward Flick. My knights trailed after me at a walk, followed by Sajagax and his warriors. Our hundreds of horses let loose snorts of unease as their hooves cracked the deadwood littering the forest floor. The undergrowth was mostly bracken and maidenhair, which Altaru pushed past or trampled down. But patches of it were cinnamon fern and royal lady growing four feet high, and this I chopped through with my sword Flick seemed to have no sense that such vegetation might impede us. He streaked around stem, leaf and tree trunk with the ease of sparkling water and all the impatience of a child.
Thus we continued for perhaps an hour. Flick led us on a course that seemed as straight as the flight of a blazing arrow. And all the while, with every furlong deeper into the woods that we rode, Master Juwain's crystal flared brighter and brighter.
Without warning I came to a break in the trees through which I could see a wall of sandstone before us. Altaru pushed through the last of the bracken, and we came out onto a wide strip of shingled ground that fronted an unusual rock formation. It rose up perhaps three hundred feet and curved around toward the right and left. The mound seemed circular in shape; I guessed it might be a quarter of a mile in diameter. Baltasar and rest of my knights joined me there between the mound and the trees. So did Sajagax and to warriors. We watched with amusement — and amazement — as flick rose straight up the rockface like a flaming bird that could simply soar over the barrier in front of us.
'There must be something at the top,' Maram said, looking up
at the smooth rock above us. 'If I had wings, I'd follow him.'
'If you had wings, they'd break,' Sajagax said as he nudged his horse closer to Maram and poked his finger into his big belly. Then he looked at me and asked, 'How are we to follow this imp of yours?'
Long cracks ran vertically in many places through the mound's sandstone and sprays of ivy covered much of it but it was otherwise as smooth as a girl's cheeks. I looked at this rock doubtfully, and I said, 'It might he scaled.'
Sajagax examined the wall with even more doubt written across his florid face. 'You Valari may be men of the mountains, but even a goat would have a hard time of such a climb. There must be another way.'
Master Juwain held the akashic crystal toward the mound, and the gelstei blazed like a little sun in his hands.
'Let's ride around this,' I said, pointing at the wall. 'Lets see what we can see.'
Carefully, for the ground was broken with many splinters of sandstone, I led forth in a slow walk around this great bubble of rock. Everyone followed me. So did Flick. Although his form remained free of anything resembling a face, he seemed somehow frustrated with me and the limitations of my all-too-human body.
Suddenly, before we had rounded less than half the mound's circumference, I came up a much larger crack splitting the rock from ground to summit. The sandstone to either side of it draped in more ivy, was carved into great pillar-like figures that might have been Elijin or Galadin. Wind and water and the slow work of time had worn smooth the details of their faces. The opening beckoned like an entrance to a great building. I watched with smile as Flick shot through it and disappeared from sight.
'Let's follow him,' I said to Maram. I peered inside the crack, which was wide enough for two horses to navigate side by side. I looked at Master Juwain, who sat on his horse clutching the akashic ctystal. 'Will you come, too, sir?'
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