Most other boys, and even men, would have looked away from Liljana's relentless gaze. But Daj met her eye to eye. His love for her, I thought, was as deep as his desire to please her. And she obviously loved him as a son. During their months together, it seemed that she had lavished her care and ideals upon him — and forged new chains even harder than the iron shackles that had once encircled his limbs.
After a few moments, Liljana turned toward Estrella and said, 'I'm delighted that you trust me, young lady. But would you trust me with all your heart? And with your life?'
Estrella cocked her head as if to ask, 'What do you mean?'
In answer, Liljana held up her blue gelstei and told her, 'I would speak to you with this, in the privacy of our minds, if you'll allow me.'
As we all waited to see how Estrella would respond, she looked deep into Liljana's eyes. She seemed utterly without fear of this powerful woman. Quick as a bird, she nodded her head and smiled at Liljana.
'Very well,' Liljana said, closing her eyes. 'Then listen, listen.'
As my heart beat slowly in my chest like a drum stroke measuring out time, Estrella closed her eyes, too. Liljana sat facing her in silence. She remained utterly still. Not even a jog of her head indicated that she might be hearing anything inside Estrella's mind. Estrella's breaths fell and rose, steady and deep, like my own.
And then, after what seemed an hour, Liljana opened her eyes and sighed. She looked at Master Juwain and then at me. 'It's no use. I can speak to her, but she cannot speak to me.'
Then her muteness,' Master Juwain said, 'is of the mind as well as the mouth?'
'I think it is only of the mind,' Liljana said, gazing at Estrella. 'She has a beautiful mind: most of it is perfectly clear. Like a diamond. Thus she is able to understand others' words. But the part of it that makes words of her own and tells her tongue to speak them has been darkened. By Morjin — damn his soul to burn in dragon fire! I saw this in her memories! When she was very young, he used a green gelstei to make her mute, as I presume he did the other slaves that he gave to his priests.'
Every abomination, I thought. Every twisting of that which is beautiful and good.
Master Juwain drew out his varistei and regarded it with his sad, gray eyes. How many times, I wondered, had he tried to heal Estrella of her wordless silence?
Liljana reached out to take Estrella's hand in her own. 'Poor girl!' she told her, 'You poor girl!'
Estrella pulled away from her and sat staring at her hand as if grateful that she still had the ability to move her long, expressive fingers as she willed. Her lovely smile told of her delight in her own being, just as it was. Having no pity for herself, she did not welcome Liljana's.
To turn Liljana's attention from her, I looked at her and asked, 'Liljana, you said that King Kiritan would challenge me — do you know how?'
'No, I'm sorry, I don't. I only have my suspicions.' I took a sip of brandy, then nodded at her to say more. Liljana's suspicions were often more valuable than most people's certainties.
'The one who claims the Lightstone,' she said, 'must also be able to wield it, yes? But wield it how? This is the key to everything, I think.'
I brought out the Lightstone then and sat holding it in my hands. For a while, as the little noises of the camp outside my tent quieted and the night deepened, we talked of the ways that it might be used. Liljana hoped to find within its golden hollows the power to grow more gelstei, particularly the green and the blue. With other blue crystals similar to her own, she said, she might speak mind to mind with her sisters in other lands and so coordinate a secret alliance against Morjin. Then, after the great Red Dragon was finally overthrown, new green gelstei could be made to pour out their healing light and restore Ea to the glories of the Age of the Mother. Master Juwain reminded us that Yrniru and his people hoped to use the Lightstone to forge more gold gelstei. He pointed out, too, that the gold gelstei might open doors to other worlds: whether for ill, as in freeing Angra Mainyu from Damoom, or for the great good of inviting angels to walk once again on Ea.
'I don't believe,' Liljana said, 'that King Kiritan will challenge Val to summon Ashtoreth into his hall. Nor to stamp out new gelstei as his mint does coins. No, the power of the Maitreya that most people speak of is the power to heal.'
He will be a healer, I thought, recalling the words of 'The Irian Prophecies.' From his eyes will pour a healing light.
I looked at Liljana and said. 'To heal yes — but heal how? To take away people's hatred? To end war?'
Master Juwain nodded toward me and said, 'In the amphitheater, the ghost spoke of healing Angra Mainyu of his fear of death. What great beings we all would be if this evil were lifted from our hearts!'
I felt my own heart beating hard and quick. And then Liljana told me, 'People are saying that the Maitreya will heal the crippled and the ill.'
I glanced at Atara, but if she was aware that I was looking at her, she gave no sign of if.
'King Kiritan,' Liljana said, 'has invited the blacksmith's son, Joakim, to stay at the palace. No one knows why.'
'We heard a story,' Maram said, 'that this Joakim had healed the blind.'
Now we all looked at Atara. She pulled at the cloth binding her face but said nothing.
'That story,' Liljana said, 'has been embellished. In Joakim's village, they claim only that he healed an old man of an eye catarrh and straightened the legs of a girl with rickets. But this might be enough for King Kiritan to put him forth as the Maitreya.'
I squeezed the Cup of Heaven between my hands and watched its golden contours catch the lamp's flickering light. I asked, 'What sort of man is Joakim?'
'I should hardly call him a man,' Liljana said. 'He's still a beardless boy, really, and simple like his fellow villagers. Some say simple-minded.'
'Then he would not be one to be considered to lead the Alliance?'
'Hardly.'
Maram picked up the brandy bottle and refilled his cup. He said, 'How convenient for King Kiritan.'
Master Juwain nodded his head, then asked Liljana, 'Then is King Kiritan to use this story to discredit Val? His own emissary has witnessed Val's healing of Baltasar's spirit. Surely this miracle should weigh against any mere healing of the flesh.'
As he spoke, he turned his green gelstei between his rough, old fingers. I had seen him use this crystal to mend a fatal wound that an arrow had drilled into Atara's lung — all in a matter of moments. But how many times, I wondered, had he failed to heal her of her blindness?
'I don't know what the King intends,' Liljana said. 'But stories are only stories. King Kiritan — and all the kings — might want it proved to their eyes that Val is who he claims to be.'
'So far,' I said, gazing at the Lightstone, 'nothing is claimed.'
'So far,' she said wryly. Then she searched my face and asked, 'What is it you intend, Val?'
I took a deep breath and held it a moment before saying, 'The Lightstone holds the powers of all the other gelstei, yes? Thus it has the power to heal. I know that it does.'
'Go on,' Liljana said, fixing her large eyes upon me. I looked at Estrella, who was smiling at Daj, and then at Atara sitting so still and grave as she waited for fate to unfold. I said, 'It's not a question of bending King Kiritan to my will, or to anyone's. He must be won. It must be proven to him that I am the Maitreya.' 'Go on,' Liljana said again.
'If I could make Estrella speak again or Atara to see, then — ' 'No, Val!' Atara said suddenly, cutting me off. 'Not this way! Not in my father's hall!'
'I must know,' I said to her as gently as I could. I felt the Lightstone giving a soft, warm radiance into my hands. If I had touched a piece of coal just then, I thought, it would light up like the sun. 'Everyone must know. Surely the time has come.'
It nearly broke my heart to see Atara clenching her hands as she silently shook her head.
'It may be,' I said, 'that King Kiritan thinks to bring forth this blacksmith's boy as a sort of champion to make his challenge. But what if it w
ere I who first challenged him?'
'That's it, Val,' Maram said after gulping down some more brandy. 'Take the battle to the enemy!'
I did not like thinking of King Kiritan as the 'enemy.' But the principle that Maram espoused was sound enough. If I were the one to issue the challenge, then it would take much of wind out of King Kiritan's sails.
Master Juwain tapped his fingernail against his green crystal. He bowed his head toward Atara. 'What you propose is dangerous! To give eyes once more to Atara might be beyond the ability of even the Maitreya.'
'Perhaps,' I said. Then I turned toward Estrella. 'But Liljana has told that Morjin has darkened a part of this girl's mind. I know that the Lightstone can be used to brighten it again.'
Master Juwain rubbed his smooth head and frowned at me. 'Even if you're right, Val, even if you are the Maitreya, which I believe with all my heart, I'm afraid it will take time to learn to use the Lightstone once you've claimed it. There is still much we have to learn.'
So saying, he put away his varistei and took out the akashic crystal instead. Its swirls of gold and glorre, I knew, contained much wisdom. But surely the Lightstone held the very secrets of the universe.
'What if you fail?' he asked me.
I looked into the gleaming surface of the Lightstone and saw a bright being of adamantine resolve looking back at me 'I won't fail,' I said.
'But what if you do?'
'If I fail. I fail. Then the kings, will have to choose another to lead the Alliance.'
Master Juwain gazed at me. Finally, he said, 'There are still some hours between now and tomorrow. Will you at least reconsider your plan?'
And Liljana added, 'Please do think about this carefully.'
Atara's cold, beautiful face, as I looked across our circle, reminded me that no one could see all the consequences of an act. Eveen Estrella seemed unsure whether she wished to be made whole again. Daj assured me that she desired with all her heart to be able to talk to birds and sing songs to the sunrise. But then he added that she could do that, in her own way, already. As I gazed at this luminous and happy child, playing with the curls of her dark hair. I wondered, who was I to think of taking her from her secret silent garden into the wider world where people might twist her utterances to their own ends and ensnare her in webs of words and yet more words?
'I wish Kane were here,' I said, turning to Liljana, 'He, of all men, would know about the Maitreya. Have you seen him, then?'
'Not since Viradar, when he left Tria without warning me,' she told me. 'But that brings me to the second reason I've come here tonight. I have a letter for you.'
She reached into the pocket of her cloak and removed a square of ivory paper, sealed with a bubble of blood-red wax. She handed it to me and said. 'This arrived two weeks ago. The man who delivered it said that I was to give it to you before you entered the conclave. He said it was urgent that you read it as soon as possible.'
'This man,' I said, pressing my finger against the letter's hard seal 'was he of the Black Brotherhood?'
'I believe so. But he wasn't any more eager to tell me about himself than I was to tell him about myself, if you know what I mean.'
She drummed her fingers against her palm, waiting for me to open it, I sensed that she was near the end of her patience. The letter was addressed to me in a bold, clear hand. I drew out my dagger and broke the seal. The letter was a single sheet of paper dated the 30th of Ashte, 2813 — barely a week before Salmelu and the Red Priest had defiled my father's hall and I had set out for the tournament at Nar. The words set into the paper in black ink, on both sides, were also bold, but less clear, as if Kane had written them in great haste. This is what I read:
Valashu,
I am sending copies of this to Liljana in Tria and to your father's castle, for it is vital that you know why I have taken to the road agian. I am not sure where this letter will find you, but find you it must. For you are in great danger. Morjin has recovered from the wound that you dealt him, as I said he would. He seeks his revenge. I have learned that he has summoned three assassins from the world of Khutar. You must know their nature, for they are not human — not just human. They are called the Skakamen. You may think of them as the Half-Elijin: they who have gained some of the virtues of greater beings but have been denied immortality due to a sickness of the soul. Even so, they possess great hardiness, strength, cunning and the ability to heal their flesh of almost any wound. So, they have the power to shape their own flesh as they will. Thus they can take on the shape of the victims that they hunt and slay — or any shape at all.
The first of these assassins, Elman, I have hunted, and I have sent him back to the stars. I have found the trail of the second assassin, Urman, and him I will pursue as well. The third assassin has eluded me. His name is Noman. Beware this Skakaman, for he will use all his wiles to murder you and steal the Lightstone. Trust no one! Watch your back! Look into the hearts of everyone, even those closest to you! If any bear you ill will, slay him out of hand before he slays you!
I will help you execute this Skamman, too. I expect that you will make the journey to Tria, with all the others who would join against Morjin. Look for me there. Look to the Lightstone and guard it for the Maitreya. Morjin must not gain it back! That he has summoned three Skakamen from Khutar without its aid bodes ill. So, he must be close, very close, to being able to open a portal to Damoom and freeing Angra Mainyu as well.
Know that if he succeeds, it will be the end of everything. I may have led you to believe that with the Baaloch's defeat, the War of the Stone was concluded. It was not. The war goes on, and has been fought on other worlds all during the ages of Ea. I believe that it will be won — or lost — here on our world within the next few years. You cannot know the peril. You have been told of the Dark Worlds. But the Ieldra will never allow the whole of Eluru to darken. Just as the universe was created in the progression of Galadin into the Ieldra, the Ieldra will be forced to destroy their handiwork if the Galadin fail to lead a great progression into the Age of Light.
And so the Lightstone must be placed in the Maitreya's hands, and soon. And so we must bring Morjin down at any cost.
At any cost!
Kane
'Well,' Maram said to me when I looked up from the sheet of paper that I was clenching, 'another letter. Aren't you going to read it to us?' I took a sip of brandy to moisten my throat. And then I did as Maram had requested. After I had finished, I sat gazing at the lamp's little light.
'Dark worlds, indeed!' he cried out. 'The end of all things! Too much! Too much!'
Again, he refilled his cup with brandy, and downed it in nearly a single gulp. He wiped the tears from his eyes and coughed out, 'A Skakaman, too! Well, now we know what killed our poor knights. A shape-shifter, as in the old tales! Ah, well I suppose that's better than a ghost.'
Daj and Estrella sat holding hands as they stared at each other in dread of this new horror that had been unleashed upon their world. Atara stared off into a dark landscape of her own that I did not wish to behold. And Master Juwain tapped his finger against Kane's letter and said to me, 'I see, I see. It's all made clear now. All that has happened for ill since that night in your father's castle was wrought by this Noman.'
He went on to say that Noman must have entered Mesh disguised as one of Salmelu's emissaries. No doubt Salmelu murdered Kasandra and the scryers, in part to keep them from explaining their prophecy that a man with no face would show me my own, and so give Noman away. It was certainly Noman, he said, who used a sleep stone to incapacitate the Guardians; only my timely arrival kept him from stealing the Lightstone from my father's hall that very night. And it was Noman who had nearly assassinated me outside of Nar.
'The Skakaman,' Master Juwain said to me, 'must have followed us from Silvassu. And when we made camp, he must have followed Sivar of Godhra into the copse where he went to collect firewood. And there murdered him. And there mimed him, taking on his form. And then returned to camp to murder you.'<
br />
I looked at the Lightstone where I had set it down in front of me. I rubbed my head where Noman, disguised as Sivar, had nearly brained me with his mace. Then I looked up and said, 'Then I wasn't wrong about Sivar! He was no ghul!'
'No, he was not,' Master Juwain agreed. 'He was just another knight whose face Noman stole. As he stole your face, Val. He must have followed us to the amphitheater and tricked Baltasar and the Guardians away from their post. And then followed us. It wouldn't have been hard for him to lure Sar Varald and the others into the woods, to their doom, if they thought he was you.'
Maram poured some more brandy into my cup, then asked the question on all our minds: 'Do you think he's still miming you? And if he's not, who is he now?'
None of us wished to venture a guess. But Atara suddenly turned toward me and said, 'He'll murder and mime someone in my father's palace.'
'Have you seen this, Atara?' I asked.
'Only with the eye of reason,' she said with a grim smile. 'Morjin will want to keep you from claiming the Lightstone — at any cost. And so he'll want Noman to strike you down before you can unite the kings against him. Where better to murder you except in the palace, or in its grounds?'
Where, indeed, I wondered as I looked at the blindfold encircling her head? And then I asked her, 'But what does this Noman look like when he's not miming another?'
'I don't know,' she told me. 'I can almost see him. Almost.' We all fell quiet for a few moments and sat sipping our brandy. And then Maram muttered, 'Ah, this is too much, too much.'
'Courage, my friend,' I said, clapping him on his shoulder. 'Three times Noman has failed to murder me and steal the Lightstone. I know that he will fail again.'
I smiled at him, and felt all my bright hope for the future passing into him and warming his insides with a fire more sustaining than that of the brandy.
'All right, all right' he said, 'courage I shall have, or at least act as if I have. What else is there to do?'
He smiled back at me and clasped my hand with his fat, strong fingers.
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