Lord of Lies

bow.

'Well, Sar Maram,' he said, 'that was better than anyone would have expected. None of the Kurmak will ever question your strength again.'

Maram squinted as he looked up at the stars showing through the hole he had made. He belched and said, 'I'm sorry about your tent, Sajagax.'

'That's all right — it was growing stuffy in here, and we needed a little ventilation.'

I took a sip of wine, glad that I had this spirit of the grape to drink instead of beer.

'Here, Lord Vaiashu!' Sajagax said, smiling at me as he held out his bow. 'Let's see if you can draw it.'

I smiled back at him and said, 'No one has ever called me an archer.'

'But you placed fifth in archery at this tournament of yours, didn't you? You won the gold medallion of championship, didn't you?'

I admitted that I had as I looked at Sajagax's huge, knotted bow.

'Take it, Lord Valashu,' he said to me. The smile suddenly fell from his face. His eyes grew hard as diamonds and seemed to press into me. 'Take it. Surely the one that Five-Homed Maram follows must be the strongest of men.'

Yaggod and Tringax and all the Kurmak captains in our circle except the senseless Braggod turned to look at me. Master Juwain and Maram, Lord Harsha, Lord Raasharu and Baltasar — all my friends' eyes fell upon me with an uncomfortable light. Even Atara seemed to be waiting to see what I would do.

'Surely the one that Sajagax rides with, if he rides,' Sajagax went on, 'must be strong enough of heart at least to try to draw this bow.'

I knew that I was not as strong as Maram. I looked at the thick, curved bow that Sajagax gripped in his huge fist If I refused to take it, I would bring shame upon myself. But if tried to draw it and failed, I might bring worse than shame

'Come, my friend,' Maram said to me. 'If I can draw it, you can.'

'Show him what a Valari warrior is made of!' Baltasar added.

And then for the first time during the feast, Atara spoke, and her voice was as clear as a bell: T'ake the bow, Val.'

I took the bow. It was even heavier than I had thought it would be. Sajagax gave me an arrow, and I knocked it to the bow's string. I raised up the bow and tried to pull back the arrow as far as it would go.

'Valashu Elahad!' Sar Avram called out. 'Lord Valashu for the Valari!'

A terrible weakness burned through the muscles of my arms and back as I struggled to draw the great bow. I gasped at the pain of it. I knew with a sick and sudden certainty that I didn't have the strength for this feat, any more than I could lift a rock the size of Sajagax. Inch by inch I pulled back the arrow; when the bowstring was about three inches from my ear, my arm seemed blocked by a wall of stone and I could draw the bow no further

'That's about as good as I can do,' Tringax admitted as I trembled and strained and finally relaxed the bow. 'No one except Sajagax will ever draw this.'

'The Elahad will draw it!' Sunjay Naviru said 'lie's only asking a moment to get a better grip.'

I could grip the bowstring with the claws of a dragon. I thought, and still not be able to draw this massive bow just as I was about to give up hope and betray my weakness yet again. Flick began spinning above the Lightstone. All the Timpum possessed qualities such as brightness, calmness or curiosity that made one think of people's faces. I had always seen Flick as a sort of mischievous but well-meaning child. But now I saw something strange to the array of lights before me. Flick's usual colors began giving way to a swirl of topaz, incarnadine and soft browns. Glorre contained the essence of all colors, and out of this brilliant hue, for one lightning quick moment, a distinct face flashed into form: it was that of Alphanderry. A sharp pain stabbed through my heart, Why, I wondered, did this beautiful man have to die? So that I might go on to find the Lightstone?

As Flick faded back into nothingness, my memory of Aiphanderry and his impossible feat at the Kul Moroth burned inside me. I could almost hear him telling me, in the language of the Galadin. that nothing was impossible. 1 gazed down at the Lightstone, which seemed to fill with a marvelous liquid the color of glorre. I drank it in through my eyes. And the more that I drank, the more that the golden cup poured forth this luminous substance, I knew that the little Lightstone could hold much more than ten thousand drinking horns — and I could hold much more than I ever dared dream.

'Come, Val,' Maram said to me.

A tingling warmth flowed down my spine into my arms and hands and every part of me. it touched fire to my blood and filled me with-a great strength.

'Come, Val,' Atara said to me. 'Draw the bow.'

I lifted up this massive working of wood and horn; it now seemed as light as my flute. With one swift motion, to the gasps of Tringax and Urtukar and others looking on. I drew the nocked arrow straight back to my ear. Atara and Maram called out. 'One!' with a single breath. Hundreds of other warriors did, as well. The next numbers came in succession to the slow and even, beating of my heart. When the count reached ten, I eased the tension on the bow, and gave both it and the arrow to Sajagax.

'One hole is enough,' I said to him as I looked up at tear in the tent's roof that Maram had made.

'Lord of Battles!' Baltasar called out. 'Lord of Light!'

Sajagax breathed heavily as he looked at me. He pulled on his bow as if testing it to see if someone had somehow slipped a lighter one into his hand. And then, quickly and surely, he nocked the arrow and turned as he drew it back as far it would go. He sighted on the hole in the roof. He held the bow at full draw for what must have been a count of twenty. Then he let fly the arrow. It burned through the air invisibly and vanished through the star- sparkled hole.

'One hole is enough,' he agreed, smiling at me.

Hundreds of knights and warriors gasped to see such marksmanship. I blinked my eyes, not quite daring to believe what I had witnessed. Not even Atara or Sar Hannu or any other archer I ever heard of could have made such a shot.

'If I ride with you to Tria,' Sajagax said to me, 'if an alliance is made and you are proclaimed the Maitreya, what then, Lord Guardian?'

'Then Morjin will not be able to move against the Free Peoples.'

Sajagax's eyes blazed with a blue fire. 'No — but we will be able to move against him.'

'Perhaps, but we must not.'

'Why not?'

'Because we can defeat him without making war.'

'Defeat the Red Dragon without war, you say?'

His eyes burned into mine. Sitting at the center of his great tent, with hundreds of his warriors gathered around him and thousands more at his call, he looked deep inside me for any sign of weakness or fear. At last I touched his bow and then laid my hand on the hilt of my sword. I said, 'We were meant for much more than this.'

'What then?'

'To make a new world.'

Now I stared at htm as the anguish of all those I had slain and seen slain came pouring into me. My eyes burned, and burned into him. Why, I wondered, had so many suffered so much for me to have recovered the Lightstone? I felt the fire of this golden cup blazing inside me, brighter and brighter. I could not hold it. I stared at Sajagax without blinking in a test of will that seemed to last an hour. Finally, he looked away from me and sat rubbing his eyes as if they were tired and gave him pain.

'You Valari,' he said to me, 'are strange.'

I held out my hand to him and said, 'Will you ride with me to Tria?'

'All right, Valashu,' he told me, on the morrow, the Valari and Kurmak will ride toward this new world of yours.'

He smiled as he took my hand. His grip was strong enough to crush bones, and it took all my strength to hold the clasp without crying out.