Lord of Lies

Guardians were seated closer still. Properly, only kings or their heirs to the throne should sit with King Waray. But since I was Guardian of the Lightstone, King Waray had invited me to join Asaru at his table. In an act of kindness that surprised me, he included Yarashan in this honor so that he wouldn't feel slighted. We pulled out three chairs together, and bowed our heads as my uncle, with King Hadaru, King Danashu and the other kings, seated themselves around King Waray.

The feast began, and it was much like many others that I had attended. Much food was eaten; casks of brandy and beer were emptied as their contents found their way past the lips of King Waray's guests, and none more so than Maram. He made a fine toast to King Waray's hospitality. Others stood and made toasts, too: to all the knights who would be competing on the morrow; to their success in arms; to the tournament's past champions. Here King Waray, sitting at the center of our table, paused to cast me a cold look. It grew even colder as one of the Kaashan knights raised his goblet and praised me for leading the quest to find the Lightstone. He called for a minstrel to come forth and tell this tale. When many of the other knights present added their voices to this demand, King Waray was forced to summon his own minstrel, a man named Galajay, who sang out words that King Waray could not want to hear.

At last it came time for me to bring forth the Lightstone and show it to all assembled on that broad field. This I did. I held the golden cup high so that it caught the light of the torches and the night's first stars. Then I gave it to my uncle, who held it a moment before setting it into the hands of King Danashu. And then he passed this shining wonder down the line of the other Valari kings.

Baltasar, my hot-blooded and faithful friend, of his own impetu-ousness, suddenly stood and called out toward me, 'Lord of Light! Maitreya! Lord of the Lightstone!'

Others, at the Meshian tables, picked up the cry. Almost immediately Sar Laisu and half a dozen Kaashans added their voices to this acclaim, and soon many knights at the tables of the Ishkans, Lagashuns, Anjoris, Taroners, Atharians and even the Waashians joined in:

'Maitreya! Maitreya! Maitreya!'

So loud did this chant become that I was finally forced to stand and hold up my hand for silence. As the hundreds of voices died down I called out, 'That is still not proven!’

Sar Tadru of Athar, who had also stood with me in Tria to make vows, now called back, 'What would it take then to establish this proof?'

'That, too is still not detetmined,' I told him. 'But it would make a mockery of the One's design if the Maitreya were to come forth only to see the Lightstone regained by Morjin. And this Morjin will certainly attempt if the Valari don't stand together against him.'

I looked down at the kings at my table. It had come King Sandarkan's turn to hold the Lightstone. He was a tall, thin man with a predatory look about his lean face. His body seemed all angles and long limbs, and he reminded me of nothing so much as a huge preying mantis. And now he gripped the Lightstone in his lands as if he never wanted to let if go.

'If the Valari are to stand together,' his thin voice croaked out, 'let us first put our own house in order. And how are we to do that when certain Valari enter the rooms of others to take priceless objects that are not theirs?'

Here he turned slightly to glare at the impassive Lord Viromar, and I couldn't help remembering what King Waray had said about Kaash's conquest of the Arjan Land, I noticed King Hadaru eyeing King Danashu at a hungry bear might a wriggling salmon, while King Kurshan and King Waray sat side by side separated by a wall of mistrust. The Valari kings. I thought, shared this table like a single family. And like a family they seethed with resentments, jealousies and old wounds.

'King Sandarkan!' I called out. 'You fret over lost objects when our house itself is on fire and threatened with destruction. Will you help put out this fire before you lose everything?'

'You ask a great deal of Waas.'

'No more than of any Valari kingdom,' I said. You've spoken of rooms within our small house. But the Valari were sent to Ea to build mansions and whole cities glorious beyond anything we can even dream.'

'Myths,'he said shaking his head.

'If the Valari unite,' I said to him, 'the time of wars between us would come to end. All would be restored to Waas, and much more. The whole world would lie before us waiting for us to create an inde-structible kingdom beneath the stars.'

'Miracles,' his voice croaked out. Again, he shook his head, but his eyes were bright. 'Are such miracles truly possible?'

I looked at the golden cup that he held in his long, lean hands. It came to me then that while families were sometimes riven by malice, an opposite and deeper force ran within them like a river of light.

'Maitreya!' a young knight of Waas suddenly called out. 'Maitreya!'

It seemed to me that the time had come to bring about one of the miracles King Sandarkan had spoken of. But then the man sitting next to him, King Mohan of Athar, impatient as always, suddenly turned in his chair and snatched the Lightstone from his hands with all the speed of a snapping turtle. He held up this prize to regard it with his small, hard eyes. He himself was small, for a Valari, and hard in his body and spirit from the fierce disciplines he forced upon himself. His face was rather ugly, despite his fine features, because of his seething irritability, arrogance and love of strife.

'Lord Valashu,' he said to me, 'you have regained the Lightstone for all the Valari, and for this you have earned our thanks. And now you try to gain a Valari alliance. But who is to lead it? You?'

I counted the beats of my heart as I listened to some knights at one of the Anjori tables begin chanting again: 'Maitreya! Maitreya! Maitreya!'

King Mohan didn't wait for me to answer; he cast me an angry, smoldering look and fired out another question: 'Do you ask us to approve your leadership, here, now?'

'No,' I said, 'at this time, it will be enough if the Valari kings agree to the alliance, itself. And agree to journey to Tria. There it will be decided if I am the Maitreya.'

'No,' he shot back at me, 'that must be decided here, on the Tournament Grounds, with lance and sword. If you are truly the Maitreya, you must prove it. And how else but by becoming champion?'

I saw that King Waray was regarding King Mohan as if very pleased with the words he had just spoken.

Now Maram, both very drunk and very incensed, rose out of his chair and pointed his finger at King Mohan as he said. 'The proof you desire lies in your hands. Who but the greatest of champions could have fought through half of Morjin's army to bring the Lightstone to you?'

'Yes,' King Mohan sneered out, 'we've all heard of this great deed, sung by minstrels. But who has seen it? An old Master Healer and a fat prince of Delu?'

Delu and Athar were ancient enemies, and Maram's face flushed red with rage. I was afraid he might even draw his sword and fall upon King Mohan. But he restrained himself. He drew in a deep breath and said 'A prince of Delu I was born, but I am now also a Valan knight.'

Here he held up his silver ring, with its two bright diamonds, for all to see.

'A Valari knight,' King Mohan said, 'needs more than a ring to make him so. Prove yourself in the competitions, and we might believe you had the skill at arms to judge Lord Valashu's deeds and to report them truly.'

Maram opened his mouth as if to shout down King Mohan, but I caught his eye and shook my head slightly. If he pressed King Mohan, this rapacious king would only turn upon him like a cornered wolverine and defend his position all the more fiercely. And so, with a loud grumble, Maram assured King Mohan that he would prove his worth as both a Delian prince and a Valari knight. And then he took his seat.

I nodded at King Danashu and at King Kurshan. I said to them, and to all the kings at our table, 'King Mohan appears to speak for all of you. But I would ask you each, as kings of your own realms, to speak for yourself.'

I believed that if four or five of the Valari kings pledged to meet in Tria, King Waray, as a great conciliator, would suddenly find himself in favor of this journey as well. And then King Mohan would be forced to follow his lead — or to stand alone.

'Lord Viromar,' I said to my uncle, 'will you go to Tria?'

And this taciturn prince of Kaash replied with a single word: 'Yes.'

'King Kurshan, will you make the journey as well?'