Lord of Lies

'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 were 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