Diamond Warriors

now to poison him?'

'Because,' Kane said, 'it took her time to determine that Val must be the king her Sisterhood has feared! And because at no other moment would his death wreak such havoc. Think, Juwain! The Valari kings would renew their old quarrels, and fall at each other's throats. Perhaps they'd even draw swords against each other here on this field, eh? Sajagax would then be forced to try to take command, but the Valari would never yield to him. Never! Instead of one army facing Morjin, there would be ten. They'd be like fingers clawing about with no head to guide them. And so Morjin would cut one away from another, and destroy them — utterly.'

As he glared at Liljana, she glared right back at him with resentment, anger and a great sadness filling up her soft, round face. And then Atara pulled herself away from visions of the future to the tragedy of the present moment. In a cold, commanding voice, she called out to Kane: 'Put away your doubts — Liljana is no poisoner! How could you think that she would want Morjin to triumph?'

'So, how could I?' he snarled at her. Then he whipped about to face Liljana. 'How could you want that, eh, witch? This is how, I say: what Morjin would bring to the world is not what the Maitriche Telu has schemed for ten thousand years to make be. Not nearly. But it would be better than Ea's utter destruction in war. There would be a kind of peace, eh? All men and women would be slaves, or worse, Morjin's ghuls. Almost all. Your sisters would still try to work their plots and poisons in secret. They'd try to wait — another ten thousand years, if they had to. They'd wait and wait and wait, and someday they'd hope to murder Morjin and make the world their own.'

I stared at Kane, horrified by his terrible words, and so it was with Maram, Ymiru, Master Juwain and Abrasax. Bemossed seemed frozen within a vast silence. I sensed Estrella wanting to weep in outrage and hurt at Kane's attacking Liljana.

And then Kane continued his diatribe: 'You must think Morjin is a fool eh? A man, who can be twisted about and won to your ways, like other men. Fool you! You've deceived yourself, Liljana. You've looked into Morjin's mind once too often, and so he has deceived you. So. So — he's put his filthy poison in your mind, eh? How long have you been his ghul? Long enough. I say, to have betrayed us already. It was you, wasn't it, who gave away the Brotherhood's school? And not by mistake, but of your own will? And now you would murder Val. But that will never be.'

He moved to break free from my grip on him, and to draw his sword. But I damped my hands on him with greater force, even as Liljana calmly picked up my cup and took a drink from it.

'You're wrong,' she said to Kane. 'So very wrong — there is no poison in this wine.'

Maram watched her as if waiting for her muscles to seize up and her face to turn blue as she choked and died. But she just stood there breathing deeply and glaring at Kane.

And then he shouted: 'It is poisoned, I say! You would have prepared the antidote and taken it against just such a moment as

this!'

Liljana shook her head with great sorrow. Then she turned to me and said, 'Kane's spy told truly about the prophecy concerning the King of Swords. And you are he — I am certain of this. But even if I knew that you would bring ten million years of war to the world, how could I ever poison you? How could I hope to see a new Age of the Mother if I must bring it in by murdering the man who is like my own son?'

Through the tears filling her large brown eyes I felt her love for me like a burst of warm sunlight. I let go of Kane's arm, and reached out to take the cup from her. Before Kane could stop me, I drank from it deeply, down to the last drop of wine.

'It is not poisoned!' I said to Kane. I felt the wine, sweet and good, warming my insides. 'Come, forget what has happened! Sit with us and eat. Liljana has only wanted to make us the best meal that she could.'

Liljana fought hard not to break out weeping openly. And Kane waged a much deeper war within himself, for he stood there grinding his jaws together as the tendons popped out on his neck. A dark light blazed through his eyes. He seemed like a mountain about to crack open and to touch the whole earth with his fire.

Then Bemossed stood up and came over to him. I looked on in amazement, for it seemed that he held in his hand a small golden cup. It caught the light of the candles in a soft shimmer. Bemossed gazed at Kane as he touched the fingers of his other hand to the side of Kane's head. Almost immediately, the agony tearing through Kane seemed to drain away. His eyes cleared to a deep black, all sheeny with tears.

'I … am sorry,' he said, nodding to Liljana. 'So damned sorry.'

Without another word, he turned and stormed from the tent. I heard him ride away into the night.

When I looked back at Bemossed, I could make out only air cupped within his hand. And he said to me, 'Do you see, Valashu? This battle is driving us mad even before we fight it.'

'And that is why,' I told him, 'we must never fight another.'

He glanced at my sword leaning against the side of the table, and said, 'Kane, I fear, believes he is damned to fight forever.'

'Kane will be all right now. I know he will.'

'Will he? Will you?'

I thought of all that had happened between Atara and me scarcely an hour before and the blackened Tree of Life that I had seen within her crystal. Was there truly any hope, I wondered? This question, and Bemossed's, filled my mind as I turned to stare at my sword. Alkaladur's blade, buried within its scabbard, burned with etched characters that I could not quite read.

'It will all be over tomorrow,' I murmured,

Bemossed laid his hand on mine and asked, 'Can you think of nothing except this murder you make in your heart, again and again?'

'Morjin,' I told him, 'must be destroyed. You know that.'

'I know that he is a man, like you. Like me.'

'No — he is nothing like you! You hold light in your hand, always, even when you hold nothing! And Morjin blackens the brightest and most beautiful thing in all the universe. Even as he has devoured himself.'

'Kane, too,' he said, 'is sure that Morjin is damned.'

I did not like the note of longing that filled his voice just then. I said to him, 'No man knows Morjin as Kane does.'

'Does he, really? Does he know himself?' He smiled painfully, and squeezed my hand. 'You should go to him, Valashu. He'll be waiting for you.'

'Can we speak later, then?'

Again, he smiled at me. 'Yes, later. Now go and speak to the man who has fought so hard to see you made king.'

We clasped hands, and I felt his blood coursing deep within him. His eyes, strange and sad, filled with a piercing light.

Then Atara stood up and moved over to the end of the table. She took hold of my sword, and held it out to me.

'You will need this,' she told me. 'As we need Kane. Without him tomorrow, I can see no chance at all.'

I strapped on my sword, and squeezed her hand. And then, after promising Liljana that I would return soon for a taste of her pie, I turned to walk out into the night.

Chapter 20

Outside my tent, Joshu Kadar and Sar Jonavar, with Sar Kanshar and Sar Shivalad, stood keeping watch over me. I told them that I must walk alone through our encampment. I asked after Kane, and Joshu Kadar informed me that he had ridden east, along the line of campfires stretching for two miles down the river. I moved off through the lanes of tents in that direction. The music of flutes and men singing flowed out into the air. I greeted my warriors, who bent over little fires roasting sausages on spits or sagosk steaks or whatever else Lord Harsha had managed to