Lord of Lies

horses. I clasped Jonathan's wiry body to me, and then Karshur's blockier form. Then Asaru came into the ward, too, and strode up me. After embracing me and kissing my forehead, he stood back to regard me with his warm, dark eyes.

'It's good to see you,' he said, smiling at me. 'But you look tired.'

'And you look. well,' I told him. I laid my hand on him and asked, 'How is your shoulder?'

'Healed but still sore. But it's not so bad that I can't grip a lance. As it seems that every knight in Mesh must soon do. Have you heard the news?'

'There's been little else to hear all the way down the North Road.' I did not tell him of Atara's vision or of Kane's warning me of Morjin's march. Too many people were standing about, and it was not the time to hold council.

Just as I was presenting Atara and my other companions to my brothers, my father walked into the ward. He was tall and grave in his long black tunic, embroidered with the swan and stars of the Elahads. He wore on his thick, black belt the sword that my grandfather had given him. Although he was strong and graceful in all his motions, as always, there was about him a heaviness, as if he wore a suit of mail made of lead. He came up to me and embraced me. And then he said, 'Valashu, welcome. It's good chance that has brought you home at this time — good chance for us, thought perhaps not for you.'

'It wasn't really chance at all, sir,' I told him. 'Perhaps we could speak of this in private, with my friends.'

My father looked at Atara, standing next to me, and at Kane. Then his bright gaze took in the Guardians behind us. I could feel his surprise at seeing so many knights from the other Nine Kingdoms in our company. I was sure as well that he noticed Baltasar's absence and descried the grief written across Lansar Raasharu's face.

'Very well,' he said to me. 'Go and get yourself something to eat. Wash the dust from your face. Then let's meet, in an hour, in the library.'

We did as he had commanded us. I led everyone into the middle ward, and then into the great hall. There we were served a hastily prepared feast of ham and eggs, wheat bread with butter and jellies, quince pies, strawberries, blackberries, peaches and plums. It was good to tuck in so much delicious food. I wondered how much longer such meals would be forthcoming. After we could eat no more, I set the Lightstone back on its stand on the dais beneath the black banner and the portraits of my ancestors. I gave the quartering and command of the Guardians over to Sunjay Naviru. Daj and Estrella were set free to explore the castle. Then I walked with Atara and Liljana down the corridor connecting the great hall to the keep. Kane, Maram and Master Juwain, with Lansar Raasharu, followed behind us.

We made our way past the kitchens and the empty infirmary to the library where my father sometimes held council. My father and Asaru were waiting for us there. So were my mother and grand-mother. The moment that we entered this rectangular room, lined on each of its four walls with shelves of books, my mother came up and kissed me, and then so did my grandmother. Nona, I thought, seemed even older and frailer than, when I had left for the Tournament at Nar. But her whole being was somehow brighter, as if she were gathering into herself stores of hope and courage that might be needed in the days to come. My mother, too, was in brave spirits. In truth, I had never seen her look so radiant and beautiful. In her bearing was an assurance that she, and everyone around her, would find the will needed to face even the darkest of times. But then she was the daugter of a strong king and the queen of an even stronger one.

We all sat around a large table in the center of the room, my father at one end and Asaru at the other. The dark cherrywood, smelling of rosemary and beeswax, was covered with books. Fresh quills and sheets of paper, along with inkpots, had been set out for the writing of letters. One might have expected to see maps of Mesh spread out across the table's gleaming surface, but my father disdained such when it came to planning the movements of armies. Reliance on maps, he claimed, weakened the mind and made less clear the image of terrain that a good commander should always hold inside his head.

'It's good to meet the rest of Valashu's companions,' he said to Atara, Liljana and Kane. 'One of the measures of a man is his friends. And by that ruler, my son stands tall, indeed.'

Coming from another, this might have seemed flattery, but my father never said anything that he didn't mean.

'Now then,' he went on in a strong, clear voice, 'let us hear what has happened, and we will discuss what must be done.'

For a few moments I gazed around the room at the stands of candles casting their soft light on the many books stacked from the floor to the ceiling. I breathed in the smells of old leather and new ink. And then I told of all that had happened since I had parted company with Asaru and Yarashan after the Tournament. My father's eyes widened slightly at the story of the misty island in the middle of the Wendrush and the single-horned asherahs that wandered its magical woods. He smiled as I recounted Maram's feat in drinking down the mighty Braggod; I sensed his approval — and surprise — of my friendship with Sajagax. But when I turned to telling of the Skakaman who had nearly murdered me, and my murdering of Ravik Kirriland and ruin of the conclave, his face fell grim. At the news of King Kiritan's death, he shook his head and said to Atara, 'It's a terrible thing when one king connives to assassinate another — and leaves nothing of him even to bury. But then Morjin, although he claims the sovereignty of Sakai and much else, is no true king.'

He sat gazing at Atara, and there was kindness and compassion in his eyes. In all his life, I thought, he had never looked upon one of the Sarni so closely, except in battle. And never a Sarni woman. Her golden hair seemed to hold great wonder for him, as It did for my mother. That Atara was blind and yet somehow could still see amazed him even more.

Then my father nodded at Lansar Raasharu. 'All of Mesh will grieve for Baltasar. It seems like only yesterday when he played along the battlements with Ravar and Val. He'll be missed, as would one of my own sons.'

Pain welled in Lansar's eyes as he clamped his jaws shut. Then he grabbed at his sword and said, 'Thank you, my lord. There's no help for grief, but there is the cold solace of revenge. It may be the worst of things for Mesh that Morjin has marched upon us, but it is not bad tidings for me.'

My father sat regarding him calmly, but with great perceptivity, as if he could look into his heart and soul — even as he often looked at me. I felt the weight of my father's concern for him as he said, 'Peace, Lansar. Peace to you, and to Mesh if we can find the way to it.'

Now he turned to me and said, 'Even before your last journey, you'd had adventures enough for three lifetimes. And now. A first in the sword and a second in the long lance. Champion. Victor of two battles. Vanquisher of this evil thing called a Skakaman.'

'And slayer of an innocent man!' I cried out. 'I brought ruin upon the conclave — and perhaps upon Mesh!'

'You judge yourself more harshly than Count Dario did — or any man should,' my father told me. 'Ruin, you say, you brought to the conclave. But it was you who brought the Valari kings there in the first place, to sit at one table together, and this is a great thing.'

'Surely they sit there no more,' I said. 'You should have seen their faces when they learned that I was not the Maitreya.'

'That is still not proven!' Lansar Raasharu called out slamming his hand down on the table. 'All we've had are some old verses out of an old gelstei that is now in pieces. Who knows if they really told true? Val must have faith! Perhaps he'll regain it after we've smashed the Dragon.'

My father looked down the table at Lansar, and then at me. Many things stirred inside him: sorrow, pride, doubt, love. The light of his eyes filled my own like fire. And then he said, 'We must assume that Val is not the Maitreya, unless by some miracle it is proven otherwise. Certainly few now will perceive him as such. Certainly the Valari kings do not.'

He paused to take a breath, then asked me, 'You say that King Hadaru and the others have left Tria?'

'They must have,' I said. 'But we rode ahead of them, so it is hard to be sure.'

My father ran his finger along his jaw, and then said, 'It may be, then, that they have already reached their domains, or soon will. Very well. It was not known how things would go in Tria, and so messengers have already been sent to them, requesting aid. It will take some days for them to return with their answers.'

'It would be folly,' I said to him, and to myself, 'to place too great a hope on what these answers will be.'

'Perhaps,' he told me. 'But it would equally be folly to place too little. You say that the Valari kings are cold