helping us to recover it. You must help us, Valari.'
I gripped my sword more tightly as I fought off the waves of bliss that he beamed at me. It was strange to think that he wanted my hate and fear less than he did my love.
'Surrender your sword,' he again commanded me. 'Surrender your self.'
'No,' I said, my heart beating fast like a bird's.
'You must surrender, Valari.'
He stood before me with his fingers outstretched as if waiting for me to place my sword in his hands. His eyes called to me. I knew that he required the surrender of my will and all my adoration so that he might counterfeit a sense of the One within himself.
'Is it death you want?' he asked me. His eyes now seemed as golden as the Lightstone itself. 'Or life?'
I took a few deep breaths to slow the racing of my heart. And then I said, 'It's not upon you to give me either.'
'Is it not? That we shall see.'
I lifted my sword back behind my head in readiness should Morjin send his guards against us. And I told him, 'I'll never surrender to you!'
My contempt for Morjin was in my eyes for all to behold. Even if I hadn't possessed the gift of valarda, not a man in the hall would have been spared feeling my defiance.
'Damn you, Valari!' he suddenly thundered at me. His face contorted into a mask of ugliness as rage took hold of him. If he couldn't have love, he was ready to embrace hate. 'Never surrender, you say? That too, we shall see.'
He shook Atara's arrow at me, and then pointed its head back at the circle directly at Master Juwain. He shouted, 'What is it you know about the Lightstone?'
'What?' Master Juwain said as if he didn't quite understand the question.
'Didn't you hear me?' Morjin roared out. Upon beckoning Lord Uilliam to follow him, he turned and strode back into the circle. He plucked one of the irons from the brazier and handed it to Lord Uilliam. 'Master Juwain's ear is stopped with wax
– clean it out.'
As Lord Uilliam gazed at the iron's glowing red point, Morjin com-manded the guards still posted near the door to join the others around the circle. They took their places there, and Lord Uilliam looked over at Master luwain, sweating and biting his lip as he pulled at the chains that bound him to the standing stone.
'Put it in his ear!' Morjin commanded.
Lord Uilliam still hesitated, and he said, 'But he's just an old man!'
'Do it?' Morjin hissed.
'I can't, Sire.'
Morjin grabbed the iron from Lord Uilliam's trembling hand and pointed it at Master Juwain. He said, 'He is old, but is he a man?'
I didn't know what he meant; I didn't want to know. Beside me, Maram now had his sword drawn, as did Liljana and Kane. I was ready to charge forward in an effort to cut our way through to Master Juwain – and to Ymiru and Atara. But we were only four against a hundred.
'Be strong,' Kane said to me. 'You must be strong now, eh?'
Morjin now turned to Lord Uilliam; it seemed for a moment that he might put the iron in him for failing to do his bidding. But he surprised me. He drew up closer to the young man, and laid his arm about his shoulder as he bent his head to whisper in his ear. From seventy feet away, I could not hear what he said to him. But I had a keen sense that he was trying to persuade his priest that Master Juwain was not really a man at all but some kind of beast.
'It's hard, I know,' Morjin called out so that everyone could hear him. Compassion seemed to pour from him like rain.
'Sire?' Lord Uilliam said as Morjin gave him back the iron. He looked at Master Juwain.
I looked at him, too. His face, tight with fear, seemed even uglier than it usually did.
It was all twisted and knotted with lumps, bristly like a boar's and scarcely human.
'Do as I've commanded you!' Morjin said to Lord Uilliam.
And then his eyes fell upon Lord Uilliam, and he breathed the terrible fire of his wrath into him. Lord Uilliam suddenly stiffened as if he could feel the heat of the iron up through his hand and all throughout his body. He turned to step closer to Master Juwain. As one of the guards slammed Master Juwain's head back against the standing stone and held it clamped there, Lord Uilliam pushed the burning point of the iron into the opening of Master Juwain's ear. There came a hising and the stench of burnt flesh.
Lord Uilliam snarled and gnashed his teeth together; he kept pushing the iron deeper, twisting it, reaming it around in circles as his hate poured out of him.
'Master Juwain!' Maram called out, and he burst into tears.
The pain burning through my head was so great that I could barely keep standing.
But the sheer valor with which Master Juwain faced his torture sent a thrill of strength shooting through me. Not once did he cry out for mercy. His whole body quivered with the shock of what the priest was doing to him. Although his face contorted with agony, I saw that it was really beautiful after all – beautiful with a luminous will that overmatched Morjin's and kept him from surrendering his soul to him.
'Master Juwain!' Maram cried out again. 'Master Juwain!'
True men, I thought looking at Maram, didn't need the gift of valarda to suffer another's pain.
At last, the iron's point quenched in Master Juwain's blood, Lord Uilliam stood away from him. His face was white; he held the iron in his trembling hand. He could barely stand himself. Morjin stepped closer to him, and wrapped his arm around his back to help hold him up.
'Well done, my priest,' Morjin told him. He touched his finger to the iron's bloody point; then he touched his finger to his tongue. 'Have I not said many times that the priests of the Kallimun must do the hard things and so sacrifice themselves for the sake of Ea?'
After Lord Uilliam could stand on his own again, Morjin shook his fist at Master Juwain and shouted, 'Is this what you wanted? That you, a master healer, should cause such sickness in my priest's soul?'
But I did not think that Master Juwain could hear him, even with his remaining good ear. His head had fallen down against his chest, and the weight of his body pulled against the chains binding him.
'Where is the Lightstone?' Morjin screamed at him. He stepped over and slapped Master Juwain's face. 'What have you learned about it?'
Master Juwain finally opened his eyes and lifted up his head. His gray eyes blazed with defiance. And he told Morjin, 'Only that you'll never have from it what you wish.'
Again Morjin slapped Master Juwain's face, which snapped his head back against the great stone. He looked at the greatly enlarged red hole in Master Juwain's ear. And he said to him, 'I would be doing you a favor to order your death. But until I know where the Lightstone is, I'm not permitted to extend such mercies.'
He motioned for his six priests to gather around him. He stood talking to them in hushed tones as the thirteen silent Grays waited nearby and the hundred guards circled the ritual area with the steel of their swords and spears. It was a mortar of torture and blood-crime that bound this evil brotherhood together. It was well for them, I thought that they hid their secrets inside the windowless vaults of a black mountain.
'Val,' Maram whispered to me as he stared at the standing stones. He was sweating even more profusely than Master Juwain. 'Stab your sword into my heart – I don't think I have the courage to fall on mine.'
'Be strong!' Kane called to him. 'Strong as stone now, I say!'
Maram closed his eyes then. It was said that the Brotherhood taught meditations that could forever still the beating of one's heart. But it seemed that Maram had been too busy with other pursuits to learn them. 'I can't,' he finally said, looking at me. 'I can't will myself to die.'
'Will them to die!' Kane growled out, pointing his sword at Morjin and his priests.
Now Morjin stepped over to Atara and looked at her and a new terror struck into me. Atara looked back at htm boldly, her eyes as clear as diamonds. There was a terrible fear in their bright blue depths, but something else as well. It seemed that she was seeing the future and trying to surrender herself to what must be. This was her will, as a warrior and a woman, to fulfill her purpose in being bom on such a savage world as Ea.
'Don't you ever look at me like that!' Morjin suddenly raged at her. He slapped her face with his left hand,
