Diamond Warriors

'A parlay!' Maram called out to me. 'A trap, more likely. You can't let yourself get close to that crucifying snake, Val. Don't go!'

'Ha!' Kane shouted as he laid hold of his sword, 'If it's to be a trap, then let us spring it and put an end to Morjin for all time!'

'No, Kane,' I told him. 'You know we cannot.'

And we couldn't, I said, because if we slew Morjin, then surely Morjin's men would finish off Bemossed. Too, the one who met with us at the center of the field might not be Morjin himself, but only one of his droghuls whom we could not distinguish in appearance from the real Morjin. And last, I told Kane, we could not murder Morjin here beneath the sacred banner of truce because I was now a Valari king who could not do such a thing.

'Six counselors are to ride out with Morjin,' I said to Kane, 'and I am to bring as many.'

I turned to Maram, sweating in the building heal of the morning, and he huffed out: 'Not I! You have kings at your command Val.'

'But you are a prince among men,' I told him, 'and a hero whom the minstrels will sing of for ages. Come, friend, and let us finally write the ending to this song!'

Maram was weeping as he nodded his head at me. I did not know if he shed tears for himself or for Bemossed — and all of Ea.

'Kane,' I said, turning to my right, 'you will come, too, yes?'

The blaze in Kane's dark eyes told me that nothing could stop him.

For my other counselors, I choose Ymiru, Atara, Sajagax and King Hadaru. It took some time for my messengers to ride forth and summon them to me. Then, beneath a white flag held aloft by one of my heralds, we moved out to confront our enemy. We met Morjin and his counselor at the center of the field. Atop a snow-white horse, the Red Dragon rode easily and with an air of authority, as if the very grass and all the earth beneath him were his to command. I could almost feel the force of his fell desires emanating from him with a terrible heat. He wore an armor of mail and steel plate stained a bright carmine and encrusted with glittering rubies, in mockery of the diamonds that we Valari bore. Two of his retinue were similarly accoutered: a great, squat, black-bearded Ikurian named Zahur Tey, who proved to be Lord of the Dragon Guard, and my old enemy, Prince Salmelu of Ishka — now named Arch Igasho. Two other Kallimun priests hung by Morjin's sides: Arch Uttam, who had nearly put my companions and me to death in Hesperu, and Arch Yadom. Both had the gaunt, hollowed-out look of cadavers that had been eaten at by wolves; they wore long yellow robes in place of armor, for they were no warriors. The fifth of Morjin's followers, however, in his youth, had been a great warrior who had fought his way to become chief of the Marituk tribe. But over the years Gorgorak had grown nearly as great in girth as in reputation due to his fondness for food and beer. His once-golden hair had gone gray, and his little blue eyes buried deep within his puffy red face stared out at me in challenge. Right behind him rode Count Ulanu, now acclaimed as Yarkona's king. He had a hard, foxlike face framed by a neatly shaped beard. Ulanu the Handsome he had once been called — until Liljana had cut off the end of his nose in a battle preceding the siege of the great Library. As he drew closer, he glared at me with poisonous dark eyes as if to transfer his hate for Liljana onto me.

I did not need to look at Morjin to feel his great malice burning him up like a disease. I had not seen him, in the flesh, since I had put my sword through his neck in Argattha. Through the grace of his kind he had recovered from this mortal wound, and more, he had called upon the darkest of sources to invigorate his body with a terrible new life. Through the power of the illusions he cast, others saw him as a golden-eyed angel. But I would always see him as an old, old man whose sagging skin had gone gray with corruption. His smell was all foulness and fear, rage and hate.

He halted far enough away that I could not easily hurry forward to strike at him with my sword, but close enough for me to make out the webwork of broken veins that made his eyes seem like pools of blood. The others drew up behind him.

'King Valamesh!' he called out to me, formally and politely. 'I would like to thank you for making parlay with me!'

His voice, like a battering ram, struck straight into my chest with a power I had not remembered. Save for Alphanderry, I had never heard anyone put tone to words more beautifully.

'Morjin!' I called back to him. 'I do not know what we have to discuss — unless it is your surrender!'

I could almost feel Kane smiling savagely at this just behind me. But what I had said, and even more the manner in which I had said it, only infuriated Morjin.

'I did not give you leave to call me familiar!' he shouted at me. 'I am King Morjin of Sakai, Lord Emperor of Ea and Lord of Light!'

'You are the Lord of Lies!' I said. 'Why should I listen to anything of what you have to say here?'

In answer, Morjin turned to point at the cross rising up from the Owl's Hill and framed by the great, skull-like rocks of the Detheshaloon. I could not call out to Bemossed, nailed up in the air so far away, but my whole being burned to ask him a single question: Why did you go to our enemy?

'The Hajarim slave,' Morjin said, turning back to me, 'is a false Maitreya. I promised you he would be punished, and his agony has only begun. But it is upon you to end it.'

'How so … Lord of Light?'

Morjin could not abide sarcasm, and his face darkened with rancor. 'Surrender to me, here and now, your sword. Command your men to lay down their swords. Their bows, too. Command them then to return to their encampment. Do these things, and despite what I have written to you, I will spare their lives. I will see that the Hajarim is taken down from the cross and given to your healers.'

He lies! I told myself. He is the Lord of Lies, the Crucifier, the Red Dragon, the Great Beast!

And upon this thought, as I gazed up at Bemossed with his hands stretched out to the world, I knew why he had deserted in the dead of night. Out of a strange pride that knew nothing of vanity and conceit, but only the foolishness of compassion, he had gone to Morjin with a desperate hope thnt he might somehow heal this dark angel.

'Do as I say,' Morjin told me, 'and we can avoid this battle that no one wants. And I will let even you have your life.'

Could Morjin, I wondered, really think that I might believe him and set up my men to be slaughtered? Why had he really called this parlay?

'I, for one, do want battle!' Sajagax suddenly shouted, shaking his bow at Morjin. 'You have laid waste Kurmak lands and ravaged my people! We will have our revenge! I care not for any of your threats and lies! Nor your slave army: the One will give us strength today and keep our sight true. If Valashu Elahad had not asked otherwise, right here I would put an arrow through your eye!'

Sajagax's fierce words caused Morjin's pallid face to drain of all blood. I imagined, however, that Morjin's men perceived him through the colored glass of illusion as a mighty and sanguine warrior who stared down Sajagax with a vast self-assurance beaming from an implacable countenance. Morjin had only to nod at Gorgorak for this great chief of the Marituk to speak in Morjin's stead:

'You will do nothing if I put an arrow into you first!'

'Brave words!' Sajagax shouted at Gorgorak with a voice like a lion's roar. Then he pointed out into the steppe. 'Let us see if your deeds can match them! Within the hour, my warriors will ride against yours. Let us first, at a distance fit for Sarni chieftains, loose our arrows at each other. Let him who survives take the other's horses, wives and lands, and thus settle matters between the Kurmak and the Marituk!'

But Gorgorak, usually so bold, made no answer to this. He just sat staring at Sajagax with his little blue eyes. On all the Wendrush, it was said, no one could outshoot Sajagax.

Now Morjin turned the force of his will upon Arch Uttam, and his overawed Red Priest could not help but deliver more of Morjin's words:

'If it is battle you seek,' Arch Uttarn told Sajagax, 'then it is battle you shall have! And at the end of it, when you are brought before the Lord of Ea in chains, we will tear out your liver and you will watch us feed it to the dogs before you die!'

Kane, who had liked Sajagax from their first meeting, growled out to Arch Uttam: 'Ha! Save your words for when you do have him in chains!'

Arch Uttam's skull-like face fixed on Kane. 'We should have put you in chains when we had the chance! I would have torn out much more than your liver!'