Diamond Warriors

Waray also invited his only child: a daughter named Chantaleva. Many called her beautiful, with her jet black hair and finely sculpted features. I thought her too thin and too pale, as her delicate skin seemed almost bone white. She took a quiet pleasure in pouring the coffee that King Waray's attendants brought our to us, but she had few words to offer anyone.

King Waray stood with his back against a large rock with the rest of us arrayed around him. After I had told him of what had transpired since I had become king and marched with my army out of Mesh, he rapped his king's ring with its five diamonds against his coffee cup and said, 'King Valamesh — no man could be more worthy of succeeding your father, whom I felt fortunate to call my friend. If he is looking down from the stars, he would rejoice at your great victory in Delu, as everyone who knows of it must.' King Waray, a strikingly handsome man with a broad forehead and radiant eyes, spoke as always with the steel knife of his true thoughts and intentions concealed by a handkerchief of silk. His voice spilled out through his long, high nose as through a trumpet, even as it seemed to rumble and catch deep within his throat. It could be as sweet as sugared wine — and as deadly as poison.

'But it is a pity that you failed to persuade King Mohan to ally with you,' he continued. 'War, among our people, has always been the tragedy of our people. Athar's quarrel with Lagash couldn't help but lead to war, once you failed in Tria to bring the Valari into alliance.'

King Waray, of course, knew that I hadn't come up to his palace that day just to drink a good Galdan coffee and to appreciate the view of smoky Nar from these wooded heights. He had always resisted my leadership of the Valari — as he did now.

'That war could be helped,' I told him. I stood across from him with my boot pressed up against an exposed tree root. I looked very hard for his innate nobility within his gleaming eyes. 'King Mohan wanted to make alliance. And might have, but for his fear of King Kurshan.'

And how often, I wondered, had King Waray spoken to King Mohan of King Kurshan's design to build a great fleet of ships and so strengthen his realm in order to threaten King Mohan's? And all under the guise of friendship and averting war?

'That fear,' he said to me, 'is reasonable enough. For how long has King Kurshan been readying his army for an attack against Athar?'

'Only as long as he has feared that King Mohan would attack him.'

'That concern, too,' King Waray said, 'is not without foundation. I have reasoned with King Mohan many times, trying to find a way to make a permanent peace between Athar and Lagash.'

I tried not to smile at this. I said, 'You are a reasonable man.'

'I like to think I am. And that others speak of me that way, too.'

'Then can you not reason with both King Mohan and King

Kurshan one last time? I must march west with my army tomorrow, but if you sent fast riders east to Athar and Lagash, there is still time for you to help persuade their kings to put aside war and join us at the Detheshaloon.'

'To avoid their war, you mean,' he said, tapping his cup. 'Only to join you in making a much worse war against the Red Dragon.'

'What comes is not of my making.'

'Is it not? If you hadn't put yourself forward as the Maitreya, if you hadn't lost the Lightstone to Morjin, we might have made alliance two years ago and kept the Dragon from marching on the Nine Kingdoms.'

I tried to quiet the wild, hot rush of blood through my veins. I asked him: 'Do you mean, you might have organized the alliance and led if?'

King Waray took a sip of coffee, then waved his hand at my question as if shooing away a biting fly. 'Many have spoken of me as warlord of our people, but I think that it is perhaps less important who leads us than that we are led. I would see even King Hadaru take command of our armies, if that was the only way to stop the Red Dragon.'

My heart beat hard with a sudden surge. 'Then you will support an alliance?'

King Waray flashed me a brilliant smile, and said, 'I always have. It was always just a question of how to bring it about.'

'The way to bring it about is simple: send word to Athar and Lagash that Taron will not tolerate a war just beyond her border. Inform King Hadaru that you have joined with Mesh and Kaash. When Athar marches after us. so will Lagash. Then King Hadaru will have no choice but to lead the Ishkans out against Morjin. As Ishka goes, so Anjo will have to follow. Perhaps even King Sandarkan will be persuaded to make alliance as well.'

After I finished speaking. King Waray stood gazing at me. His counselors waited near him. ready to support him in whatever line of reasoning or debate he might pursue. I hated it that so

much should depend upon this one conniving king who had always positioned himself at the center of Valari affairs. And then King Waray said to me. 'You have given this matter a great deal of thought.'

'I have thought of little except Morjin's defeat for a long time.'

King Waray, like duelist evading his opponents swoid and then circling turned his attention to Abrasax. Master Matai and the others of the Seven. He said to Abrasax: 'We of the Nine Kingdoms had long heard that secret Masters ruled the Brotherhood, but until today I had thought this a legend. I have to say that it is strange to see Brothers supporting an Elahad as the Valari's warlord. What of the Brotherhood's rule forsaking wine, women and war?'

Abrasax's corona of white hair and beard gleamed in the sunlight as he said to King Waray, 'The spirit of our rule has led us to see that forsaking war is a good thing but ending it forever would be even better.'

'I see,' King Waray said, glancing at me. 'The Elahad's dream.'

He smiled at he turned toward Maram, who sat on a fat rock imbibing his coffee with too much relish. I wondered if he had somehow persuaded one of the attendants to add a little brandy

to it.

Then King Waray asked, 'But is not fighting a war to end war something like hoping for sobriety by drinking dry every cask of wine in the world?'

Before Abrasax could answer, Maram put in, 'Ah, well — there must be a bottom to everything.'

Abrasax only smiled at this. Then he looked at King Waray. He, too, could circle around an opponent, though the sword he wielded was not one of steel. He seemed to look down deep into King Waray, and he said, 'What ails you, lord? What has made you so cynical?'

King Waray's face darkened in anger, but he could not hold the Grandmaster's kindly gaze. He turned to Master Juwain, and said to him in a sweet but pinched voice: 'Am I to understand that your order has made you its Master Healer? Was that your reward for removing gelstei from the school here without my leave?'

A couple of years ago, King Waray had closed down the Brotherhood's school in Nar, in part because of Master Juwain's necessary indiscretion. It seemed that King Waray had never forgiven him this slight defiance — and, as it happened, for other things.

'We made Master Juwain the Brotherhood's Master Healer,' Abrasax said, 'because on all of Ea there is none more worthy.'

'Is there not?' King Waray said. He held his hand out toward Bemossed, sitting on a rock with Estrella at the edge of the stream. 'But what of this one that King Valamesh, with the Brotherhood's blessing, has now put forth as the Maitreya?'

Bemossed stood up to address King Waray, saying much as he | had before: 'I am no healer, as Master Juwain is, for I know little of his art. But sometimes, a kind of light that heals passes through me, and then — '

'And then,' King Waray said, interrupting him, 'I suppose people are miraculously made well. If true, you are too modest.'

'It is true,' Master Juwain said. 'His power far exceeds my own, and he would make a better Master Healer than I if he didn't have other work to do.'

'And you,' King Waray told Master Juwain, 'aspire to modesty, too. I believe that someday you will succeed, for you have much to be modest about.'

I could almost feel Master Juwain's misshapen ears burning with shame; King Waray's daughter, Chantaleva, looked at Master Juwain as she let out a little cough. She coughed again, this time harder, and Estrella got up and went over to her. Estrella's dark, quick eyes seemed to ask permission of the princess as she laid her hand on Chantaleva's chest.