Lord of Lies

were sitting here now, I thought, he might simply tell me what the Maitreya was meant for. And more, being of the Elijin and having lived long enough to know other Maitreyas in other ages, he might tell me if I could be this Shining One.

After that we went off to our beds. I slept fitfully, being disturbed by dreams of Kane stalking the Red Priests in darkness and killing them with his quick and savage knife. I was very glad when the new day dawned all clear and bright. The meadowlarks singing in the hills around us cheered me; the silvery spheres of dew on the grass caught the sky's blueness and the rays of the golden sun.

We traveled all that day up the North Road through the steadily rising hills. Toward noon it grew quite warm, but the sun did not heat up our armor as much as it would mail, for steel drinks in heat and light, while diamond scatters it in a resplendent fire of many colors. It was a glorious sight to see the hundred Guardians of the Lights one formed up into three columns and riding forth all with the same bright purpose. The miles vanished beneath the clopping of the horses' hooves. In the late afternoon, we entered the thicker forest that covers the mountains to the north. We passed through the pretty town of Ki, and made camp outside it near a stand of oaks.

On our next day's journey, the road rose steeply toward the pass between Ishka and Mesh. The horses drawing the wagons had hard work to keep driving themselves against the ancient paving stones; the horses that bore us snorted and sweated, and were grateful when we stopped to give them rest and exchange them for our remounts. Finally we came to that great cut of rock called the Telemesh Gate. One of my ancestors, using a great firestone, had melted it out of the granite in the saddle between Mount Raaskel and Mount Korukel. On my last journey imto Ishka, Maram, Master Juwain and I had been attacked here. Out the dark mouth of the Gate, a great, white bear had charged down upon us and had nearly torn us to pieces. It remained still unclear as to whether this bear was an animal ghul made by Morjin to murder us. Altaru, remembering his battle with the bear, let loose a tremendous whinny as we drew nearer the Gate. I had to pat his sweating black neck and reassure him that any bear mad enough to charge our company would be impaled on the Guardians' long lances.

I was less sure of what we would find on the other side of the Gate, for King Hadaru's knights had lances of their own, and many more than did we. And so I commanded my men to keep tight their columns, and keep even tighter their lips, and I led them straight into the den of an even greater bear.

Chapter 8

And so we crossed into Ishka. We wound our way down from the pass through fir forests smelling of flowers and fresh spring sap. A few miles farther, on a hill beside the road, we came upon the great fortress that guarded this approach into Ishka. Lord Shadru was its commander. When his lookouts in their towers espied our company advancing into his king's realm, he alerted his trumpeters to sound the alarm and rode out to meet us in force.

This proved to be two hundred Ishkan knights, part of the garrison stationed at this important fortress. Lord Shadru, a stout old man whose face had once been burnt with red-hot sand in the siege of a castle in Anjo, led his knights straight up to us. He called his men to halt, even as I did mine. Then he raised his hand in salute, even as I did mine.

'Lord Valashu!' he called to me. His words came out stiffly, as his lips were thick with scar. 'It is good to see you again, though I must ask why you have entered our land uninvited and without permission?'

His hand swept out toward the knights behind me. From the grim look on Lord Shadru's seamed and pitted face, one might have thought that I led an invasion force into Ishka.

'These are the Guardians of the Lightstone,' I told him. 'And we wish nothing more than to cross Ishka in peace.'

Lord Shadru's eyes widened as if he didn't believe me. He called out gruffly, 'You speak of peace, and yet you ride forth in battle armor! You speak of the Lightstone, and yet Lord Issur has told me that it is your father's intention to keep it in Silvassu for as long as it pleases him. Where is this Cup of Heaven, then, that you claim to guard?'

I motioned for Baltasar to join us, and my fiery young friend rode up from between the columns of knights behind me. I asked him to show Lord Shadru the Lightstone. then he brought forth the golden cup and held it high for all to see, Lord Shadru's eyes widened even more.

'Well, well it seems I was too hasty in my judgments, Lord Valashu.' I motioned for Baltasar to place the Lightstone in Lord Shadru's hands, and this he did. For a moment, it seemed that Lord Shadru was holding the sun itself. 'Well, well, well King Hadaru will be very pleased, indeed.'

I told Lord Shadru that we were on our way to the great tournament, and hoped to see King Hadaru there.

'I've had word that the king will lead a company of knights to Nar, so you certainly will see him there,' Lord Shadru said as he handed the Lightstone back to Baltasar. 'But first, you will see him in Loviisa.'

'Then he hasn't set out yet?'

'No, I had word that he would leave in a few more days.'

I exchanged quick looks with Baltasar, and then nodded at Asaru who came up beside him. We had been hoping to ride straight to Nar, but now it seemed that there was no graceful way to avoid a meeting with King Hadaru.

Lord Shadru confirmed this when he said, 'Very well, you will require an escort to the King's palace.'

He motioned at the knight beside him, a long, lean man with six battle ribbons tied to his long, gray hair. He presented him as Lord Jehu and said, 'He will ride with you to Loviisa.'

Lord Shadru gave the command of the Ishkan knights over to Lord Jehu. He wished us a pleasant journey. And then he looked at Baltasar and said, 'May I see the Lightstone one last time?'

Again Baltasar drew out the Cup of Heaven, and Lord Shadru sighed out, 'Remarkable, remarkable — who would have thought I would live to see such a thing?'

We said farewell to Lord Shadru and watched him ride back up to the huge stack of stones that was the Ishkan's fortress. Then Lord Jehu formed up his knights: a hundred ahead of us as in a vanguard and a hundred following behind. In this way, like a small army, we continued down the road through the most rugged part of the mountains. We of Mesh did not mingle with the Ishkans, for we had fought too many wars with them to make friends so easily. But neither did we quarrel with them. When we made camp that night in a fallow field that a generous farmer lent us, only a little brook separated our rows of tents from those of the Ishkans. There was to be no going back and forth over this little water. But the songs we sang around our campfires were the same that the Ishkans sang around theirs; as the night deepened, we made a single music that winged its way up toward the stars. We set out very early the next morning with the intention of reaching Loviisa by dusk. After some hours of working our way down through a series of gradually descending mountains and foothills, we broke out into the broad valley of the Tushur River. Here the forests and farms spread out in a patchwork of different shades of green for as far as the eye could see. The Tushur itself was a hazy blue band in the distance Loviisa had been built around the point where the North Road bridged the river. We spent the rest of the day riding toward it at an easy pace. The gently roiling country was kind to our mounts and to the horses drawing the wagons; the hours melted away into the abundant sunshine of a long and warm afternoon. We stopped only twice, to water the horses. At our second break, I watched Estrella picking wild flowers in a field buzzing with bees, and Lord Jehu, standing with his horse on the road above, watched us both.

It was just past dusk when we crested a palisade on the south side of the river and rode up to King Hadaru's palace. The fountains and gardens fronting it seemed to invite us closer. In all the Morning Mountains, there was nothing like King Hadaru's Wooden Palace. Its pagodas were exquisitely carved and arrayed on many levels, to delight the eye with its perfect proportions as much as to provide protection from wind and rain and the assault of enemy men.

Lord Jehu insisted that the hundred Guardians were far too many armed knights to be allowed into the palace. I insisted that if the Lightstone was to be brought before King Hadaru, the Guardians must accompany that which they guarded at all times, for this they had sworn upon their lives. King Hadaru broke this deadlock by sending a herald to invite all of us into his throne room. The King of Ishka, it seemed, would not deign to show fear of a hundred Meshian knights. And so, leaving our horses and baggage train to the care of the Ishkans, I led my