Lord of Lies

against the floorstones and the edges of the tables.

King Kiritan glanced at his daughter without compassion, and then returned to staring straight at me. He called out, 'We have heard that you have brought the Lightstone here, as you vowed to do. Let us see it, then!'

The hall grew quiet. And so I stood and drew it forth. I held it high above my head.

'It is the Lightstone!' someone cried out. 'Truly it is!'

I saw that King Aryaman was staring at me as a wolf might his prey. King Hanniban, a thickset and ruthless man renowned for his cunning in having survived Kallimun plots for most of his seventy years, regarded me as he pulled at his snowy beard. It was said that he thought about death too much, and feared it mightily. It was said, too, that he drank mothers' milk at his meals in order to forestall the ravages of old age. His greed to lay his old hands upon the Lightstone sickened me. I could almost hear him calculating how to relieve me of my burden.

'We must congratulate you,' King Kiritan said to me, 'on stealing this from the Red Dragon's throne room. Now, deliver it to us, as you also vowed.'

I moved not an inch as I stared right back at him. And then I told him, 'I made no such vow. None of us did who entered Argattha or undertook the Quest.'

'You swore to seek the Lightstone for all of Ea and not yourself!'

'And here it is,' I said, 'brought through mountains, steppes and forests, guarded by great knights from brigands and treacheries, for Ea, and not for myself.'

'That is not what we have heard,' King Kiritan told me. 'Even now, here in this hallowed house of Ea's High Kings, the safest of all places, you grip the golden cup as if it were an heirloom of your house that you claim by right.'

I glanced at Baron Monteer and then Count Muar, a rapier-thin man whose deadly stare gave one the impression that he could strike as quickly as a snake. Absent from the table of these great lords was Baron Narcavage, who had been killed the year before on King Kiritan's own lawn in a plot to assassinate King Kiritan — and me. I looked farther out into the room, at the heavily armored guards lined up behind the throne and posted by the four doors. Any one of these, I thought, any one of the knights and nobles sitting at the tables or the tradesmen standing and staring at me might be the Skakaman, Noman, in disguise. How many hundreds of men and women, in their coverings of cloaks, bright tunics, armor and flesh were gathered in this great hall, the safest of all places?

'Nothing has yet been claimed,' I said once again, turning back to King Kiritan. 'And I am the Lord Guardian of the Lightstone, and so it is upon me to see that it is placed in the hands of the Maitreya.'

'Maitreya,' he snapped out. 'Lord Guardian. Who appointed you so? By what right? And from whom do you guard the Lightstone? King Marshayk? King Kaiman? Ourselves?'

Next to King Hadaru, King Kaiman nodded his red-haired head toward me. And next to him, King Santoval Marshayk, who looked much like an older and even fatter Maram, flashed a jolly smile at me, showing his brown, sugar-eaten teeth.

Without warning, from behind me, Baltasar suddenly leapt up from his table and pointed his finger at Duke Malatam. He cried out, 'We guard the Lightstone from your own back-stabbing lords, King Kiritan!'

Duke Malatam's face flushed bright red. Count Muar's hand fell upon the hilt of his sword. Lansar Raasharu, without rising, reached out to grasp his impetuous son's arm and pull him back to his seat. And King Kiritan barked out, 'Duke Malatam has journeyed here to make apologies for his misjudgment. He shall himself be judged at the appropriate time. In any case, we are not in Tarlan but in Tria.'

He continued staring at the Lightstone as he addressed me, 'If you truly guard this for all of Ea, Valashu Elahad, then allow all of Ea to behold it — and to hold it in our hands, even as you do.'

So saying, he nodded at Prince Viromar, sitting to my right, and at King Danashu next to him.

It seemed that I had no choice but to pass on the Lightstone, and so this I did. Prince Viromar took the cup from me and studied it for a few moments before giving it to King Danashu. The Valari kings were no strangers to its radiant warmth, and they did not linger over it. Quickly the cup made its way to King Sandarkan and King Waray, who hesitated only a moment before setting it into King Aryaman's hands. It seemed lost there. King Aryaman was bigger even than Sajagax, with a bushy red beard, yellow hair and eyes as blue and cold as ice. His arms were as thick as most men's thighs, the better to swing the axe that was buckled to his waist. An old wound to his lip made him seem that he was sneering at others, even when he was not. He was the strong king of an island people ravaged and weakened by centuries of blood-feuds, and I could feel in him a raging desire to make Thalu great again.

'The Cup of Heaven!' he called out in a voice like rolling thunder 'What a great weapon has been given us, if only we have the wit to use it.'

He gripped the little cup so hard that it seemed he might crumple it. But one might as well try to crush a diamond. With a heavy sigh, he passed the cup to King Tal, said to be a great scholar of the gelstei and perhaps the most intelligent of Ea's kings. He looked at it for a long while, turning it around and around in his long, lithe hands. Then he gave it to King Hanniban. This old man held it close to his mouth as if he could drink in its light with his bluish lips. It took all his will, it seemed, to turn it over to King Kiritan.

The moment that this aspiring King of Kings touched the lightstone, I nearly whipped out my sword and lunged across the table at him. For I felt his will to claim the Lightstone for himself as surely as I did the wild beating of my heart against my ribs. All of his vainglory and lust for power — and his malice toward me — beat against me like a battering ram. It crushed the air from me, and for a moment I could not draw breath.

'Very good, Valashu Elahad,' he said to me. His blue eyes were now lit up like glowing sapphires. 'Very good.'

He glanced toward the hall's west door at a tall, scarred graybeard decked out in full armor and gripping the hilt of his sword. 1 took him to be the captain of the guard. The way that King Kiritan looked at him sent a thrill of fear shooting through me.

'Indeed,' he said, speaking to King Aryaman, and to everyone present, 'the Lightstone has been given us to be used for a great purpose — the greatest of purposes.'

His rough, strong hands folded around the golden cup as if making a prayer. It seemed that he was waiting for something.

My attention was drawn to a young man sitting at the Narmada table and I knew without being told that this must be Joakim, the blacksmith's son. He was about my age, and his hamlike hands were blackened from coal dust. He seemed uncomfortable in a new tunic stretched too tight across his massive chest and shoulders. His thick forehead, broad face and dull, brown eyes gave him something of the appearance of an ox. His easy smile was full of longing and wonder as he gazed at the Lightstone.

I sensed King Kiritan's awareness of him, and I expected that he might turn and address him. But he ignored him. Instead, he gripped the Lightstone even more tightly, and called out into the hall: 'Surely it is the will of the One that the Lightstone has returned to Tria, where it belongs. Its promise has drawn Ea's free kings here, to make alliance. What a great thing this is! When we called the Quest a year ago on our birthday, we knew that fate would deliver it into our hands. Many of you made vows to regain the Lightstone for all of Ea — but how is all of Ea to use this greatest of all the gelstei? Surely one, and only one, can wield it in Ea's name.'

'The Maitreya!' Baltasar suddenly cried out again leaping up from his chair. Only Lansar Raasharu's steely grip on his arm kept him from drawing his sword. 'This we all know: the Lightstone is for the Maitreya!'

'Indeed, indeed,' King Kiritan said, 'but until he comes forth, others must use it as best they can.'

Now I pushed back my chair with a harsh, stuttering of wood against smooth stone, and I stood up, too. I called out to King Kiritan: 'No, others may not use the Lightstone as you say.'

'You say this, who has used it to draw your Valari kings here?'

'It is one thing,' I said, 'to call others to gather around a great light. It is another to wield this light oneself.'

The sound of another chair scraping over the floor broke out into the quiet of the hall. And Count Muar stood and called out, 'Prince Valashu confuses the issue! By what right do the Valari keep the Lightstone? By force, I say, they keep it — as I've said before. And by force alone they will be compelled to surrender it!'

His words caused all the Guardians to spring up and clasp the hilts of their swords. And Baltasar shouted at