Lord of Lies

drummed inside my chest Then Maram, next to me, said, 'No help even from Ishka?'

'No,' my father said. 'King Hadaru tells me that Ishka must move to punish King Waray for conspiring against him. He has already sent emissaries to Taron to arrange a time and place for battle.'

'Fools!' Kane snarled out. 'They fight over honor at a time where the only honor lies in fighting the Red Dragon!'

'And what of Athar, then?' Maram asked. 'And Lagash?'

'The messengers sent there have not returned,' my father said. 'But it's told in Ishka that on the road home from Tria, King Mohan and King Kurshan drew on each other. It's likely that they will carry their dispute back to their realms and arrange for battle, too.'

'And if they don't?'

'Even so, there is no more time. Morjin will probably march tomorrow or the day after. Likewise the Galdans.'

So, I thought, that was that. Mesh would battle alone against two armies, and the Sarni clans, with a combined strength of nearly seventy thousand men.

'Later today,' my father said to me, 'your brothers will ride down with me and join the army. You will remain here and take charge of the castle's defenses.'

'No!' I cried out. 'My place is with them, and with you!'

'Your place,' my father told me, 'is here, guarding the Lightstone. You are Lord Guardian, and it is upon you to command the knights who have sworn to protect it.'

'But Sunjay Naviru could command them equally well! Besides, we all know that there will be no assault upon the castle. You'll need my sword, when it comes to battle.'

So saying, I stood up and drew Alkaladur. Its long blade filled the library with a fierce brightness.

'Sit down,' my father said to me.

'But Morjin will take the battlefield!' I called out to him. 'What he did to Atara, what he did to me … you cannot know! He and I — it must be this way, don't you see?'

'Enough!' he shouted at me. His black eyes burned into mine. Then he looked down the table at Atara, and his voice grew more gentle. 'I am not just your father but your king, and so it is upon me to see to Mesh's needs and not your own. There is more to be protected here than just a little golden cup: the wives of Mesh's greatest lords, as well as the children of simple warriors. Your own mother and grandmother. And you have had experience, at Khaisham, in repelling a siege.'

He turned to regard Maram, Atara and Kane. 'All of you — you fought off the Dragon's army under Count Ulanu, and so that is why you will remain here to guard the castle.'

'No, I won't,' Kane growled out, grasping the hilt of his kalama.

'What?' my father said to him.

'I won't remain behind these walls while Morjin finally comes out of that dungheap of a city of his and exposes himself to my sword.'

'As long as you are in my service, you'll do as you're ordered!

'But I am not in your service, King Shamesh. Freely I've ridden here, and freely I'll ride into battle.'

'Under whose command?'

'Under my own. Where the fighting is thickest, where Morjin stands, there I shall be.'

'And if my knights keep you from this revenge?'

'Then you shall lose both my sword and your knights.' My father and Kane stared at each other with equal savagery. Finally my father said, 'And what if Morjin has a firestone? It's told that you possess one of the black gelstei. With it you could keep Morjin from burning the castle's walls.'

Kane took out his dark crystal, which looked like a teardrop of obsidian. He squeezed it in his fist and said, 'Morjin does not have a firestone. But even if he did, it would take him a day to burn through the castle's walls. First he would turn its flame upon your army, that none would be left to stop him. And so you would do better to let me take the field, with my gelstei as well as my sword.'

My father nodded his head to Kane, bowing to his logic, no less his fierce will. Then Atara unwrapped her two red arrows and said to my father, 'I, too, shall ride to the battle with Kane.'

'Very well,' my father sighed out. Then he turned to Maram. 'You, at least, are under my command. And so you'll remain here, with Val.'

It surprised no one at the table when Maram fought off a smile of relief and gladly assented to what my father had said: 'You wish me to stay by Val's side? I shall! I shall! We'll keep the castle safe!'

After that my father dismissed everyone except me. He rose from his chair and laid his hand on my shoulder, saying, 'Let's take a walk outside the walls, shall we?'

I followed him out of the keep and then through the throngs of people in the west ward as he made his way to the castle's gates. The great iron doors were still open, and we went outside and stood upon the band of ground between the castle and the drawbridge spanning the Kurash River. In the event of an assault the bridge's entire end section could be pulled up to cover the castle's gates and break the bridge in two.

'Have you seen that the chains have been oiled?' he said, pointing at the black links of iron that worked the bridge.

'You asked me to, didn't you?'

'Good,' he told me.

He took me by the arm and led me along the narrow ground above the river. We had to step carefully lest we stumble into its churning waters. We rounded the great gate tower and came out on the castles southern side. A steep, rocky slope led down toward the houses of Silvassu below. It would be impossible, I knew, for any siege tower to be rolled up it to assault the wails — and difficult unto the death for warriors to bring up ladders or grappling hooks. I set my hand upon the warm granite of the wall, looking up at the overhanging parapets high above. I could almost feel burning oil raining down upon me and sizzling into my flesh. Not even a monkey, I thought, could find a handhold in the wall's smooth stone.

'The masonry looks sound,' he said, craning his neck as he looked up.

'It is,' I said. 'Every inch of it.'

'Good. Our ancestors built it well. And we've kept it well.' He rapped his knuckles against the white granite and smiled. 'Even with all our guests, we've food enough to last two years. And the wells will never run dry. Our castle will never be taken.'

'No,' I promised him, 'it won't be.'

'So many Elahads have lived here,' he said to me. 'Going back to the first Shavashar, and Elkasar, for whom your grandfather was named.'

My father must have forgotten that he had told me this before, more than once. His thoughts seemed to be far away, dwelling with the dead.

'A great battle we'll fight soon,' he said to me. 'The greatest ever fought in Mesh.'

As he gazed off at Silvassu and the Valley of the Swans below, glowing a deep green in the late sun, he shifted his weight suddenly and had to fight to keep from plunging down the slope. I clasped onto his arm to steady him.

'Are you all right, sir?'

'I nearly fell,' he said, gripping my hand. And then his eyes darkened as with storm clouds as he told me, 'If I should fall in battle, Asaru will make a fine king. You must help him, Val. You, of all your brothers, he trusts the most.'

'You won't fall, sir. This battle can be won — you said so yourself.'

But he seemed not to be listening to me. His eyes grew bright and clear as he gazed out upon Mount Eluru shining white with snow across the valley.

'All of my sons,' he said, 'would make good kings. Even Yarashan.'

'You think so?' I said to him.

'Yes, even he. He is full of vainglory. But in the end, he would overcome it and find his greatness in his love of his people instead of himself. After you won the championship, do you know what he said to me?'

'No, what?'

He said: 'Better Val than me.''

'Yarashan said that?'