'Valaysu,' he said to me, 'you have told that you seek the one called the Maitreya in the lands across the desert, but you have not said where.'
'Nor can I, sir,' I said. 'It may be that your people will fight other battles with the Red Dragon's priests — if they are captured, the Kallimun know tortures that would make a stone talk.'
King Jovayl frowned at this. 'When I was a young man, these priests tried to establish an embassy here, but my father, Tavayr, had the good sense to send them away. Now, from the Zuri and Vuai, we see what happens when a tribe takes scorpions into its heart.'
He paused to look about, and continued, 'We see as well the wisdom of our elders' elders in turning strangers away from the Avari's country.'
I said nothing to this as I took a long drink of wine.
'Of course,' King Jovayl continued, looking from me to Estrella, 'our laws were made to serve us, and not the reverse, and so exceptions must be made. It is clear that in keeping strangers away we have also denied ourselves news of great and evil things occurring beyond our borders. I had not thought that any outsiders, not even the greatest of kings, could ever send an army into the desert. Now I am not so sure.'
He nodded at Arthayn, a square-faced man with eyes as cool as pools of water. A choker of bright skytones and silver encircled his neck. Arthayn had just returned from the north, where King Jovayl had sent him on a mission to avoid yet another war with the Sudi. Arthayn now gave a report of his journey, telling us: 'I saw none of these Red Priests in the Sudi's hadrah, but I heard talk that the new King of Yarkona wanted to send an embassy of Kallimun to the Sudi. I didn't know what that word meant, then. The Sudi believed that if they did not accept this embassy, King Ulanu would send an army down through the Nashthalan into the desert. There was a time when Yarkona was weak, but now it is strong.' At the look of loathing that fell over Liljana's face at the mention of King Ulanu's name. King Jovayl turned to her and said.'Do you know of this man?'
'We met him once,' liljana told him. 'On our road to Argattha, I happened to hold out a sword just as Ulanu — he was only a count then — happened to slice off his nose on the tip of it.'
Although Liljana could not smile, her wry words caused nearly everyone else to smile. Then King Jovayl said to her, 'And you call yourself a pilgrim?'
'Then we were truly pilgrims,' she said, 'In quest of the Lightstone. Ulanu killed the best of us — the finest minstrel in the world! — And then nailed him to a cross of wood.'
'And what was this minstrel's name?'
'Alphanderry.'
For the thousandth time, I reflected on the miracle of Flick somehow taking on Alphanderry's face and form. I looked about the room for Flick's twinkling lights, but as always he winked in and out of existence according to a will beyond mine.
'A minstrel,' King Jovayl intoned, 'is the beloved of the One, for his heart sings with the words of the One.'
King Jovayl raised his cup in silent remembrance of our dead companion. Then he said to me, 'I have taken the counsel of our elders. We do not believe that this Lightstone that King Morjin claims can be the Kal Urna. Nor can the Maitreya you seek be the great Udra Mazda — not unless as a child he was once lost to the Avari and taken into the lands outside the desert. And yet we do not have claim upon all wisdom. If we are wrong, the Maitreya must be found and the Lightstone somehow must be taken back. And even if we are right that the Lightstone is only one of these gelstei of yours, King Morjin must be denied the use of it lest he send into the desert even worse things than droghuls. These are strange times, in which strangers can bring an udra mazda to us and new water be found. And so we have decided to help you. But help you how?'
'Help us to cross the desert,' I said simply.
'And how will you, strangers from wet lands, do this impossible thing even with our help?' King Jovayl sat on his cushions looking from Liljana to Maram to Daj.
'You cannot cross it to the far north — the way is too long, and the Sudi would kill you if thirst didn't first. Beyond the Sudi are the Idi, five hundred miles from here as the eagle flies to the northwest. The southern way will take you through the Zuri's or Vuai's country, where the Red 'Priests will surely be waiting for you now.'
'Perhaps,' Maram said, 'we should then reconsider our plans. Perhaps we should go back through the Masud's country, and then turn far south, through Sunguru.'
'No,' Kane barked out. 'In Sunguru, we'll find hundreds of the bloody Red Priests — and even more acolytes under their command. As well, the armies of King Angand.'
I took a sip of wine, then said to King Jovayl. 'How would the Avari cross the desert then?'
'We wouldn't,' he told me. 'We don't.'
'But don't your minstrels sing that the Avari have gone everywhere in the desert, searching for the Kal Urna?'
'That is true, in ages past, we have gone almost everywhere.'
'Even, then, into the Tar Harath?'
At the mention of this immense hell at the heart of the Red Desert, King Jovayl's face grew hard and full of dread. So did the faces of every other Avail sitting down to dinner. King Jovayl said to me, 'I see the turn of your thoughts, Valaysu. But you cannot hope to cross the Tar Harath. That would be madness. Nothing lives there, not even scorpions or flies. There is no water — only rocks and sand, wind and sun. And then sun, and more sun.' 'Then the Avari never go into the Tar Harath?' King Jovayl glanced at Sunji before turning back to me. 'We go into it, for we are Avari and the desert is ours.'
He told that men of his tribe often journeyed to the Golden Highlands to mine skystone out the rocks there. The deep blue skystone, as King Jovayl told us, was precious to the Avari, for it reminded them of the great vault of the heavens from which the Father of the Valari and Ea had once come. A few intrepid warriors had also ventured deeper into the Tar Harath in search of the fabled salt beds of a dried-up lake. As the Avari tell their children: 'Safe is life.' They usually do not say this of water, for that is too obvious. But in the desert, the salt dissolved in the blood and in the sweat pouring forth from the skin's pores was vital.
'In a thousand years, though, no Avari has ever found these salt beds,' King Jovayl told us. 'Just as no one has ever found water.'
Old Sarald pulled at the folds of flesh beneath his chin as he regarded King Jovayl with a bright, knowing look. King Jovayl took note of this and said to me, 'The eldest of the Avari's judges reminds me that I have not told all: it is said that there is water in the deep desert, though no Avari knows where. You must have heard word of this water yourselves, Valaysu.'
'No, we have not,' I said to him. 'Why would you think that?'
'Why, because when Sunji first questioned you, you admitted that you sought the Well of Restoration. That is the name of the water said to lie within the Tar Harath.'
I stared at King Jovayl in amazement. The inspiration for our story that we were pilgrims seeking the Well of Restoration had come from Maram one night on the Wendrush while he was deep into his third horn of beer. It seemed too incredible a coincidence that this name had just popped into his head, as he had claimed. When I turned to him now and caught his eye with a questioning look, he murmured to me: 'Ah, I must have been touched by the spirit of the One. Do you see now the value of brandy and beer? Why do you think they're called spirits?'
I tried not to smile at this as King Jovayl called out to him from the front of the room: 'What are saying, Prince Maram? Speak louder so that we all can hear you!'
'Ah, I was saying that you must be right. Wise King, that it would be madness for us to seek this Well of Restoration that even the hardiest of your warriors has not been able to find.'
Now I stared more intently at Maram, letting him feel my great desire to journey on.
'Ah, and that is why,' Maram continued, 'we must try to cross. the Tar Harath after all — we're all mad, as you must have guessed, even to have come this far.'
Now I couldn't help smiling, nor could King Jovayl or Sunji or even Old Sarald and many other
s sitting at their little tables. King Jovayl nodded at Maram. 'It may be that only a madman could survive in the Tar Harath. And yet there is a chance for others to survive, one chance only. It may be that the udra mazda could lead you to this water.'
All eyes in the room now turned toward Estrella. This slight girl, with her dark curls and dreamy eyes, sat between Atara and Liljana, eating an orange. She seemed unused to people expecting such great and even miraculous things of her. And yet I knew that she expected great things of herself. What these might be, however, I thought that she could not say, not even to herself.
She put down her orange rind, and looked at me. Her eyes shone like dark, quiet pools. She seemed to have a rare sense of herself, and something more. She nodded her head to me. She smiled, then turned to bow to King Jovayl, too.
'It would be cruel to take this child, or any child, into the Tar Harath,' King Jovayl said to us. 'And yet your way has been nothing but cruel. That the udra mazda chooses this freely is a great thing. We have drunk to her finding water; now let us drink to her finding such great courage.'
He commanded that everyone's cup be refilled again. Maram tried not to show his disgust at the prospect of have to swallow yet more warm milk. Estrella and Daj both seemed delighted to see their cups filled with wine — as far as I knew, their first taste of it.
'To Estrella!' King Jovayl said. 'May the One's light always point her way toward water!'
We all drank deeply then — all of us except the children, as Liljana permitted them a few sips of wine but no more. King Jovayl then called for an end to the feast and commanded that we should go to take our rest.
'Even with an udra mazda to guide you,' he said to me, 'a journey across the Tar Harath will be a desperate chance. I cannot supply you with men, horses and water until I have conferred with the Elders more. So go, rest — tonight and tomorrow. And then tomorrow night, I shall give you my answer.'
My companions and I went down to our rooms then, but I did not sleep very well because I shared a room with Maram, and he slept poorly. Despite his exhaustion, he kept moaning as he tossed and turned in his bed, struggling to find a position that did not put pressure on his sores. He grumbled and cursed and finally fell into oblivion vowing that he would never ogle another woman again.
But the next day, late in the morning, I found him outside leaning back against an orange tree near one of the hadrah's springs. He sat in the shade of this fragrant-smelling tree as he used a shard of a broken pot to scratch at his sores. He watched the children at play: with swords and dolls, and kicking a leather ball across the dusty square. He watched the Avari women, too. They came and went to draw water from the spring. They cast us looks of both curiosity and suspicion, and then hurried away.
'Ah, these Avari woman are as comely as those of the Morning Mountains,' Maram said to me as he fixed his gaze on a young matron bending over the walled-off spring. 'At least, I think they are — who can really tell with those ugly robes and shawls of theirs?'
'I thought that women no longer interested you,' I said to him. 'Did I say that? No, no, my friend, it is I who do not interest them. In truth, I think I repulse them. And who can blame them? I think they would rather take a leper into their arms.'
He scratched the edge of his potsherd across one of his bandages. After sniffing at this stained white wrapping, his face fell into a mask of disgust. He shooed away the buzzing flies then let loose a long, deep sigh.
'Master Juwain,' I said to him, 'worries because your wounds are not healing as they should. He believes it would be best for you to rest here.'
'A year would not be too long,' he said. 'That is, if I could just engage one of these women in a little, ah, conversation. And if not for these damn flies.'
His hand beat the air in front of his face as he tried to snatch up and crush one of the black flies bedeviling him. But he might as well have tried to grasp the wind.
'Master Juwain,' I said to him, 'believes that it might be best for you to remain here.'
'Remain here?' he said to me. 'And watch the rest of you go on without me?'
I said nothing as I watched him scratch at his bitten leg.
'Ah, do you think I haven't thought about it?' he said to me. 'I don't suppose these Avari would deny me wine, though they'll keep their women away from me as they would silk from a pig.'
He made a fist and punched out at a particularly large, loud fly. Then he said, 'The truth is, though, no matter how drunk I tried to remain, I couldn't get away from these damn bloody flies. Unless I go with you into the Tar Ha rath, where there are no flies, if King Jovayl is right. Then too. .'
'Yes?'
'Then, too, I could never desert you,' He dropped his potsherd and clapped me on the shoulder. 'Haven't I told you that a hundred times?'
We traded smiles, then he said to me, 'In any case. King Jovayl might decide not to help us. Then we'll have the merry little choice between giving up our quest or going into the Tar Harath anyway where we'll die.'
I knew that he hoped for a good reason to give up our quest — and perhaps even longed for death to end his sufferings. But that evening. King Jovayl, according to his promise sent us word of his decision. Sunji found me outside King Jovayi's house as I sat on a large rock and gazed out at the stars.
'You shall have my father's help in crossing the Tar Harath,' he told me. 'I, myself, am to to lead three of our warriors and twenty horses to carry water across the sands.'
'Thank you,' I told him. 'The Avari are generous. And kind.'
'Sometimes we are. But some of the elders, I must tell you, spoke against this journey. They do not believe this Maitreya you hope to find really exists.'
'And you?'
'I have seen that Morjin thing you call a droghul. If such crea-tures of dark exist, why not a being of great light?'
Why not indeed? I wondered as I watched the bright stars.
'The elders,' he went on, 'believe that we Avari can live here as we have almost forever, keeping strangers away. But my father does not. and I do not. I believe that we will have to fight this new enemy, or die. Or worse: watch the world die.'
I clasped hands with him then and smiled sadly. Sunji, descended
from Elahad and Arahad, was of Valari blood, even as I was. It seemed that it was the fate of our people ever to fight against the evil that Morjin and Angra Mainyu had made — that is, when we weren't busy fighting each other.
Sunji pointed at the dark line of hills against the glowing sky to the west. He said to me, 'I went into the deep desert once, and promised myself I never would again. But life is strange, is it not?'
Yes, life was strange and precious, I told myself as I watched the play of lights that pointed the way to the Tar Harath. We might yet come to death there, or anywhere, but for the time being at least our quest to find the Maitreya would go on.
Chapter 24
For four days my companions and I rested at the Avari's hadrah. We ate good food and enjoyed good conversation, even as Maram bemoaned his wounds that wouldn't heal and beat away the biting black flies. King Jovayl sent out warriors and horses heavily laden with water into the west. The only well between the hadrah and the Tar Harath lay sixty miles toward the setting sun; no one knew whether or not at this time of year it would prove to be dry. As we learned when the warriors returned, the well was dry. And so the warriors had left a cache of water at the well. It wouldn't be enough to get us across the Tar Harath, but it would help us replenish the water that we brought with us. Hours before dawn on the twenty-third of Soldru, a day that promised to be as hot as any that summer, all who would be journeying into the Tar Harath gathered by the springs. We filled our waterskins and slung them on the backs of our horses. The pack-horses, of course, carried much more water than did our mounts and remounts — unless one considered that Altaru and Fire and our other old friends carried us, who were mostly water. I nearly wept when I learned of the Avari's plan for the horses, which was cruel: their packhorses would
be given barely enough water to keep them alive. And then, if no additional water was found, as we and our mounts drank our precious water and lightened the packhorses' burdens waterskin by waterskin until nothing remained, the Avari would have to kill the now-useless horses to spare them from a worse death. As I had been told more than once: the ways of the desert were hard.
'If the worst befalls,' Sunji said to me, 'we'll have to reserve our water for ourselves and let our mounts go without. Not that this will save us for long, for if our mounts die, then we will die.'
In the quiet of the dark, with night's cold practically freezing us, I placed my hands over Altaru's ears so that my great stallion wouldn't have to hear such terrible words. I stroked his long neck and whispered to him: 'Don't worry, old friend, I won't let you be thirsty. You shall have water first before I drink, and if I must, I'll give you my own.'
He nickered in understanding, if not of my words, then of the bond of brotherhood that had taken us from land to land and battle to battle.
Sunji had chosen companions from his own tribe to go with us: Arthayn and a younger man named Nuradayn, whose black eyes burned with a desire to please his prince and do great things. Nuradayn seemed all whipcord muscle and quick, almost violent motions that blew out of the center of him like a whirlwind. I thought he might be impulsive or even wild, whereas I knew that Sunji's third companion was the opposite. This was Maidro. It surprised me that Sunji would choose an old man for such a difficult venture, but as Sunji told me: 'He is as hard as a rock and wiser in the ways of the desert than any man I know, even my father.'
When it came time for us to set out, King Jovayl rode up to the springs with his queen, Adri, and their two other children, Daivayr and Saira. They kept their farewell to Sunji brief. I overheard King Jovayl say to Sunji: 'Help Valaysu and his people to cross the desert, but do not go any farther than you must, and return as soon as you can. May the One always lead you to water.'
We assembled in a formation with Sunji and Maidro in the lead, followed by my companions and me, and then the packhorses, whom Arthayn and Nuradayn watched over. We made our way out of the hadrah as we had come, past the sentinels standing on high rocks. This time, in the deep of night before dawn, they did not blow their horns. I couldn't help wondering if Sunji and his warriors would ever return out of the Tar Harath to be heralded as the brave men they truly were.
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