Lord of Lies

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 yourself, 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?'