Lord of Lies

Maram, standing by my side, clapped his hand against my shoulder and smiled at me. With Sar Tarval's withdrawal, I was assured of at least a second at the long lance, and five precious points.

King Mohan now turned to stare at me. His face was full of simple emotions: anger; disappointment; pride; jealousy; love. I said to him, 'I don't understand, sir. I thought you wanted me to lose.'

'What I want,' he told me, 'is of no importance.'

I shook my head at this because these were not words that I expected this willful man ever to speak.

'A king,' he said to me by way of explanation, 'has desires, as does every man. He acts to bring them to fruition, and this is right and good. But he can never be sure his acts will lead to the desired result-he can only be sure of the acts, themselves. Therefore each act must be good and true, as and of itself. It is upon me to guard the lives of my knights as I would my own life. Or failing that, not to risk them carelessly. A king who doesn't live for the good of his men and his kingdom is no true king.'

This was a noble thing for him to say. I bowed my head and told him, simply, 'Thank you.'

But this only angered King Mohan. He stared up at me as he gritted his teeth. Then he said, 'You owe me no thanks. I have done what I must, and now so must you. If you are to be the Maitreya, you'll win the tournament no matter what anyone does to help or hinder you.'

With that, he turned back to Sar Tarval and clasped his hand. Then he walked up and down the pavilion, greeting other Atharian knights and listening to the stories of how they had come by their wounds. They all looked at King Mohan with utter devotion, as did Sar Tarval. I overheard King Mohan promising a great feast in their honor when they returned to Athar. And then he said his goodbyes and walked out of the tent.

Master Juwain, who had finished bandaging Asaru's shoulder, said to my brother, 'You should withdraw, too.'

Maram seized upon this as a beggar might a gold coin. He added, 'Yes, if you withdraw, Val will win the long lance by default. The ten additional points will give him thirteen. Then he'll need only a second at the sword to win the tournament.'

Yarashan, standing next to Maram, slowly nodded his head. Lord Dashavay had won a fourth at chess, which gave him seven points altogether. Ten more from a win at the sword would put him at seventeen, one behind me if I should do as Maram had said.

'But what if Val fails to take second in the sword?' Yarashan asked. 'Then both he and Asaru would fail to gain the championship.'

Master Juwain waved his hand at these speculations as he might shoo away a cloud of biting flies. 'King Mohan spoke truly. An action is either right or wrong. And it is right that Asaru should withdraw, as did Sar Tarval.'

Asaru had so far endured in silence others' opinions as to what he should or should not do. And now he said, 'What is right for Sar Tarval isn't necessarily so for me. My wound poses no danger to my life.'

'Does it not?' Master Juwain said. 'What if, in riding against Val, you reopen it? What if you bleed to death before I can help you again? Or what if you grow faint and break your neck falling off your horse?'

Now it was Asaru's turn to wave off Master Juwain's speculations.

'All right,' Master Juwain said with a sigh. 'But I'm afraid I must tell you that Lord Bahrain's lance tore a nerve. I was able to begin healing it but it needs time to regenerate fully. If you ride now, you risk the use of your arm, Asaru.'

Asaru winced as he exerted all his will to raise up his arm and test it by flexing muscles and fingers. Seeing this, Yarashan began cursing Lord Bahram. Lord Bahram, he said, had hated Asaru ever since the Battle of Red Mountain when Yarashan had put his lance through Lord Bahram's son. Yarashan as much as accused Lord Bahram of loosening the button on his lance and wounding Asaru deliberately. But Asaru would hear no such slander against a Valari lord, not even his enemy. He returned to the matter at hand, saying, 'Some risks must be taken for the sake of honor.'

'But there is no dishonor,' Master Juwain told him, 'in a wounded knight remaining in his bed.'

'In this instance, there is grave dishonor. If I withdraw, many will say that I did so only to help Val win the long lance.'

'Ah, who cares what anyone says?' Maram asked him.

At this, Yarashan shook his head in disgust as if Maram might point at a hundred competitions and still not understand what it meant to

be a Valari warrior.

Asaru and I met each other's eyes. I deeply cared what others would say, and so did Yarashan — as would Baltasar and the other Guardians of the Lightstone. Our father would care, and our grandfather, if he were still alive, and all our family and friends who remained in Mesh.

'And it is more than that,' Asaru said as he looked at me. In his steady gaze there was something that recalled our climbing mountains together beneath blue sky and sun, something so bright and beautiful that I could hardly bear to behold it. 'If you were you to win the long lance this way, Val, and so the whole tournament you would always doubt when others called you 'Lord of Light'. '

'Yes,' I said to him as we clasped hands together, 'that is true.'

'And that,' Asaru said, 'is why I cannot remain here. Now help me up, and let's finish out the day before it rains.'

By the time we took the field again in front of King Waray's pavilion, big drops of rain were already splatting down upon our helms and horses. My brother and I charged each other across broken, bloodstained grass. Our lances, with a tong of wood against steel, glanced off each other's shields. Asaru held his with his left hand, and the force of my blow shivered up his arm into his bad shoulder, causing him to bite back the shock of pain which stabbed through him. I winced, as well. I considered lowering my shield on the next charge so that Asaru might win this overlong competition and return to his bed. But the flash of anger in his eyes as we faced each other again told me that he knew what I was thinking. It told me, too, that if I lost to him intentionally or fought half an inch beneath my best, I would make a mockery of his valor in riding against me.

And so I charged him with all the fierceness and speed that I could summon from my horse. It would be better, I thought, to finish this as quickly as possible. Asaru clearly thought this, too, for I sensed him straining every muscle and nerve in his battered body to shift his lance at the last moment and score a kill against me. But he had taught me too well; I deflected his lance with my own even as I tried to touch its tip against his chest. He slipped sideways in his saddle then, and my lance touched only air. He smiled to have evaded me this way as the joy of battle, for a moment, washed away its agony.

Six more times we made passes at each other. Thunder boomed closer now as rain began falling in silver, slanting sheets. After our eighth pass, made slower by the slick and sodden turf, Asaru quickly reined his horse aroud and closed with me. There followed a minute of furious, thrusting lancework as our horses screamed and struggled for purchase in the sucking mud, and lightning flashed above us. Finally, in a brilliant stroke, Asaru parried my lance with his and thrust forward quickly. His lance tip scraped across the edge of my shield and slammed into my chest. One of the judges riding nearby then held up his lance, signaling Asaru's victory.

It was Asaru's greatest feat so far that he kept to his saddle as he rode up to King Waray to receive his prize. But there, in front of the stands, as Yarashan and I came up to him, he fell down into my arms, and we helped the grooms lay him on a litter. They bore him to the healing pavilion where Master Juwain went to work on him again. Master Juwain was already exhausted from many days of such exertions. The fire he summoned from his emerald varistei was scant. But it was enough for him to hope that Asaru might yet heal fully, if he were well-tended and fever did not take hold of him. Toward this end, I arranged for Asaru to be brought back to my tent. I laid him on my bed. I spent the night with him there, and Estrella and Behira helped me bathe him and feed him sustaining broths. By the time morning brightened my pavilion's windows, he was able to sit up and exchange a few words with me.

'You fought well,' he said to me. His breath came out almost as weak as a whisper, for he had lost much blood.

'You fought too well,' I said to him. 'You look as pale as a ghost.'

'And you look tired. You should have gotten some sleep.'

I yawned as I stretched my bruised body. How could I have slept when, for hours, I had been afraid that my brother would become a ghost?

'Today is the day,' he said as he looked at the light streaming in the window. He watched me fasten my