Lord of Lies

long delay, you would want to ride as soon as possible.'

The tightness of his voice told me that he had worried we would never return; the faces of my Guardians told me the same thing. Valari restraint kept them from voicing their concern. But the ways of the Sarni warriors were very different.

'Aara!' a strong voice cried out. The moment that Atara set foot to land, Karimah jumped off her horse with several other Manslayers. Karimah rushed forward to kiss Atara, and she began weeping and talking, all at the same time, wailing out, 'Four days you were gone! I thought you were dead — we all did. What kept you, my dear?'

Atara said nothing of the Lokilani and very little of the wonders of their woods. It wouldn't do to tempt the Sarni to their doom seeking treasure on the island, nor Tembom and the Dirt Scrapers, who stood about watching us, too. But Atara did admit that our quest had been successful.

'A great thought stone was hidden on the island long ago,' she said. 'With the aid of the Lightstone, we found it.'

At this, I brought out the akashic crystal for all to see. Flick spun above this little discus, and ail gasped as glorre passed from his form into the gelstei and back again.

'What is this!' Baltasar said as he marveled at this new color. 'You have stories to tell, Lord Valashu.'

'We do,' I said to him. I looked from him and my other knights across a little dirt lane to where the.Manslayers gathered on their horses watching us. Their naked arms showed bands of bright gold, and their sun-burned faces showed desire — whether for my men or something else. It was hard to say. 'And it's to be hoped that you don't have stories to tell.'

Something stirred inside Baltasar as he glanced at a handsome woman named Chinira. She stared back at him, boldly, and he said, 'We kept the peace, as you commanded. But it's well that you returned when you did.'

We were not the only ones to have rejoined our companions, for only the day before, Sar Sharath and Sar Manasu had arrived with the other knights whom we had left behind after the battle. The four wounded ones had recovered well enough to ride, and that was good, as many miles still lay between this misty lake and Tria.

Although it was growing late we set out that very afternoon. Karimah and the Manslayers pointed their horses toward the west and rode away from the Dirt Scrapers' village without a glance backward I paused only long enough to thank Tembom for the use of his boat and his people for the loaves of rushk bread that they gave us freely.

It was a hot day for travel. The sultry air almost immediately caused Maram to slump in his saddle and nod off, I rode up next to him and nudged him awake with an elbow in the ribs. And I said to him, 'You should have gotten more sleep last night.'

'Ah, I should have gotten any sleep last night. But Akia wouldn't let me,'

'And who is Akia?'

'Who is Akia?' he said. 'Did you not see me dancing with her? She of the honey lips and breasts that turn up toward the stars? Ah, well, I promised her that we would meet and dance all night beneath the stars, if you know what I mean.'

'Too well,' I said, turning to look at Lord Harsha and Behira where they rode with the wounded knights near the end of our columns. Then I said to Maram, 'Are you all right? You've never begrudged losing sleep to do your midnight duets before.'

'No, I haven't, have I? But it seems Akia took me at my word; all she wanted to do was to dance, if you know what I mean — too bad.'

I told him to close his eyes and meditate, since the day would be long and he had lost his chance for deeper rest.

'Meditate? On what? On my dwindling powers? I'm losing my charms, I know I am.'

I looked out at the grasslands to the west, and I said, 'Take heart. A lion chases five antelopes and counts himself lucky if he catches one.'

'Yes, and the old lions lose their teeth and starve. I'm getting old, my friend. I can feel it in my bones.'

'But you're only twenty-five.'

'I'll be twenty-six next month. No, no, it's time I engaged a new life. I've decided that I shall marry Behira. I'll make the announcement in Tria, after you claim the Lightstone and announce yourself.'

'That,' I said, 'may depend on what Master Juwain finds inside the memory crystal.'

'Even if you find air inside it, you'll be forced to make a decision, and soon,' he told me. 'You can't play coy with your fate, any more than I can keep putting off mine.'

I thought about this as we made our way around the shore of the lake and then followed the river that flowed out of it. We kept well to the north of its windings, which snaked across the sun-seared steppe like a blue ribbon edged with green. The leaves of the cottonwood trees, with their silver shimmer that I had always thought so glorious, seemed dull against my memory of the great oaks and astors of the Lokilani's island. And the yellow grasses of the Wendrush seemed almost dead. I thought of the even harsher terrain of Yarkona and the great desert said to lie to the south of it Would the Red Dragon, I wondered, bring the fire of war out of the west so that all of Ea become a blackened wasteland? Or would peace prevail and the earth be made green again? As I scanned the dun-hued distances about us, I squeezed the bag of seeds that Ninana had given me and dreamed of a new world.

And yet this world, I thought, still had its own beauty. And the plains of the Wendrush still teemed with life. The Manslayers, who rode on ahead of us, seemed to appreciate this in a way that we of the Morning Mountains could not. I tried to apprehend this stark land through their eyes and feel the wind through their senses. And when 1 did, its dried-up grasses seemed less a desolation than a great, golden shield stretching out in all directions to meet the blue sky. Chirping crickets and countless insects made their homes here while the prairie dogs built their mounded villages and kept vigil outside their holes for hawks and wolves and other predators. We passed great herds of antelope and sagosk who ate the grass with as much pleasure as men at a feast. The long, swaying strands also concealed prides of lions, with their tawny coats and their watchful yellow- green eyes. It seemed a million of them could have lain in wait about us. Maram feared these great beasts, as did some of my men, even those knights who bore the lion on their shields as their charge. But Atara and the Mans! avers gave them less thought than the biting flies who took pieces out of flesh and drew blood from the horses. Instead they turned their wariness toward searching the rolling country for any sign of their enemies.

These, in this part of the Wendrush, were mainly the Janjii, who sometimes raided east of the great Poru River and even a few rogue bands of Kurmak who would not follow Sajagax and had no love of the woman warriors of the Manslayer Society. All the rest of the day, however, we encountered none of these, nor indeed any other human beings. We made camp that night near the river, and the Manslayers watched with amusement as we fortified our rows of tents with a moat and a stockade built of cottonwood logs. Their strategy, if attacked in the middle of the night, was different than ours: they would simply mount their horses at a moment's notice and flee into the dark steppe. Either that, or else they would maneuver across the grasses, fighting their arrow duels if moon and stars gave enough light, or closing and slashing with their sabers if all else failed.

We traveled early the next day. We kept a good pace toward the west but not so fast that the riding would further weaken my wounded warriors. I gave the Lightstone to Sar Marjay to bear and the akashic crystal to Master Juwain. He spent hours delving into its incomprehensible contents, and many more with pen and paper trying to comprehend them. Over a midday meal of the nut-sweet rushk bread and roasted antelope, I heard him repeating otherworldly words and muttering, half to me, half to himself, 'Let's see, we have valaha and the root there must be val, which could be star as with Ardik or indeed our own language. And then there is arda. Fire, perhaps, or heart or soul. Or maybe all three. And with halla and alhalla we have a pairing that. .' And so it went, Master Juwain puzzling out meanings and scribbling down possibilities in his journal. I tried to remember more of Alphanderry's death song, and Master Juwain seized upon each word that I brought forth as if it were a precious jewel.

Late that afternoon we came to the confluence of the Snake and the Poru. This mighty river my companions and I had swum the year before — but in Valte and farther to the south where it was not as wide. Here, with the summer-swollen waters of the Diamond and the Snake added to it, the Poru was a great band of brown flowing