Lord of Lies

face, he seemed somehow frustrated with me and the limitations of my all-too-human body.

Suddenly, before we had rounded less than half the mound's circumference, I came up a much larger crack splitting the rock from ground to summit. The sandstone to either side of it draped in more ivy, was carved into great pillar-like figures that might have been Elijin or Galadin. Wind and water and the slow work of time had worn smooth the details of their faces. The opening beckoned like an entrance to a great building. I watched with smile as Flick shot through it and disappeared from sight.

'Let's follow him,' I said to Maram. I peered inside the crack, which was wide enough for two horses to navigate side by side. I looked at Master Juwain, who sat on his horse clutching the akashic ctystal. 'Will you come, too, sir?'

'If a dragon guarded this gate,' he said, pointing at the crack, 'it couldn't stop me.'

Atara said that she wanted to accompany us, and so then did Karimah and Sajagax. Estrella gave signs that she would not be separated from me. Her bright eyes reminded me that she might help us find inside whatever it was that excited both the akashic crystal and Flick.

Then Lansar Raasharu nudged his horse forward and said, 'Let me come with you, Lord Valashu. We don't know what lies within, and you might need my sword.'

Baltasar likewise shared his father's concern and volunteered to ride before me as a single knight acting as my vanguard. I smiled at him and said, 'Thank you, my friend, but you would best serve me if you would remain here in command of the Guardians.'

'Very well,' Baltasar said, peering through the dark crack, 'but at least send five knights into this, that they might report back to you that the way is safe.'

This seemed prudent, and so I chose out Sar Shevan, Sar Varald, Sar Ishadar, Juradan the Younger and Sar Hannu to make this little mission. Sar Hannu gave the Lightstone into my keeping, and then led the others into the crack. I listened as the sound of their horses' hooves clacking against rock died into echoes.

And so we waited there between this great, mysterious mound and the darkening forest. We did not wait very long. Soon Sar Hannu returned by himself and told me, 'The way is safe, Lord Valashu. And it leads to a great open area that you must see! Come, come!'

His enthusiasm communicated to Maram, Master Juwain and Lansar Raasharu, no less than Sajagax, Atara, Karimah and Estrella, whom I now led into the crack. Its walls, I saw, were smooth as glass, as if a red gelstei had melted this corridor through the sandstone The day's fading sunlight filtered down to illuminate the many fallen rocks, which our horses had to step over with care lest they turn a leg. The corridor was not straight, but bent first right and then left, like the length of a snake. Sar Hannu and I rode side by side, followed by the others. The sound of his breath steaming out into this dim, closed space added to the creaking of diamond armor and iron-shod hooves striking stone like the hammers of miners delving for hidden ores.

And then the corridor straightened and gave out into the open area that Sar Hannu had told of. We rode out toward the four other knights who waited near its center, looking about themselves with awe coloring their faces. For the mound, as we all could see, was hollow. Its insides seemed to have been scooped out of the rock — or melted — in the shape of a perfect cylinder. Above us, above the mound's curving sandstone rim three hundred feet high, the twilight sky was a circle of dark blue showing the night's first stars. Our horses stood within a lower circle, the eastern half of which was given over to rounded, rising rows of stone benches like those of the great amphitheater at Nar. In its western half, which seemed like a staging space, a few elms grew out of cracks in the ground. This might once have been solid rock, but now was covered by layers of old leaves, mosses and dirt that must have blown in over the years. But the circle that caught my gaze and held it was formed by the cylinder's walls. At first, in the deepening gloom, I had thought that they were of fused glass, like the walls of the corridor leading into this strange place. Now, however, as Master Juwain dismounted and brought forth his akashic crystal, these hollowed sweeps of rock began to scintillate and glow. 'Look, Val, look!' he called out.

I dismounted, then, and so did everyone else. I stood gazing at the rock, which now swirled with colors like those of the akashic crystal before it had fallen full of glorre. 'What is this place?' Maram said.

Sajagax and Karimah both made warding signs, even as Atara stood quietly holding Estrella's hand. Lansar Raasharu, with Sar Hannu and the other knights, waited nearby gripping the hilts of their swords.

'In all the books I've ever read,' Master Juwain murmured, 'I've never come across mention of anything like this.'

Atara smiled coldly and said, 'Some scryers can look backward into time as well as ahead. Although I've never had this gift, my sense of things here is that no server who ever lived could look far enough back to see its making.'

'It feels old,' Maram agreed. 'If Ymiru told us right, Argattha is at least six thousand years old, but this feels older still — much older.'

I drew my sword, and its long length of silver gelstei reflected a bit of the heavens' light into my eyes. Without quite knowing how, I suddenly knew that Maram was right. I said, 'Surely, then, this must be some wonder from the Elder Ages.'

But this did not ease Maram's anxiety. He looked at me and said, 'Something from before the Star People came to earth? Who, then, built it? Who, then, sat on those seats?' He pointed at the eastern half of the amphitheater, with its many

benches carved out of stone.

'Others must have visited Ea before Elahad,' Master Juwain said. 'Perhaps the Elijin. Perhaps, as the little people thought, the Galadin themselves.'

At his mention of these great, inextinguishable beings, Estrella clapped her hands together and smiled as if she had found a fireflower in some lightless wood. But Maram's disquiet only deepened. He looked about the amphitheater and muttered, 'Angels, you say, and we can only hope you are right. But wha if other things came here? Dark things out of the Dark Worlds? Or worse, ghosts? I must confess, this place feels haunted to me. Can't anyone else feel this? There's a presence here.'

He waved his hand in front of his face as if to feel for hidden entities. Although it was a summer evening and not at all cold, he shuddered and drew his cloak about himself.

'I'm less concerned with ghosts,' Master Juwain said, pointing ahead of him, 'than with the miracle of those walls. They seem to be of the same substance as this gelstei.'

He rapped his knuckle against the akashic crystal. It was now sending out pulses of glorre as with ripples of water from a stone tossed into a quiet pool.

'I need to get a better look,' he said.

He strode off to examine the jackets of opalescent crystal now pulsing with soft lights all around the amphitheater. Maram accompanied him. Estrella started to dance off by herself toward the benches, but Atara did not approve of her being alone anywhere in this mysterious place at the fall of night, and so she went with her, I swept Alkaladur up toward the stars as if my shining sword might slice open the very heavens to reveal their secrets. Sajagax and Karimah made more warding signs, while Lansar Raasharu and the five Guardians stood ready to draw their kalamas. The night grew darker.

And then, near the benches, out of the wavering air, a figure of a man appeared. His whole being glowed with a soft light. I could not see his face, but he was tall, with long, black hair draping down upon a blue tunic embroidered with silver and gold. Estrella, upon perceiving this man, clapped her hands so loudly that the sudden crack drew Maram's attention. He turned away from the crystal of the wall, and shouted, 'Oh, my Lord! If that isn't a ghost, then I never hope to see one!'

This 'ghost,' or whatever he was, took a step toward Estrella and Atara, who were sitting on the first and lowest of the benches. Seeing this, almost quicker than thought, Sajagax whipped an arrow from his quiver and fitted it to the string of his great bow. Before I could cry out for him to stop, he drew back the arrow and fired it at the man. The arrow shrieked forth and seemed to streak right through his ethereal body in a shimmer of little lights. It slammed into one of the higher benches, and its steel point broke against the stone and sent up a spray of chips.

'Hold, Sajagax!' I called out as he drew another arrow. 'A ghost!' Maram shouted again from across the amphitheater. 'Surely he must be a ghost!'

The ghost now turned to look at Maram, and then at Sajagax and me. His face was of noble mien, with a long nose like an exquisitely sculpted pillar and a broad forehead. His eyes, black and bright as the sky above us, were