'The King is dead!' someone called out. 'The Elahad has slain the King!'
'Murderer!' Someone else called out. 'Slay the king slayer and all his murdering kind!'
Kane had now succeeded in hacking apart the shields of his two adversaries; in a moment more, he would knock aside their spears and cut them down. My knights had fallen against King Kiritan's guards with a desperate wrath and a deafening clanging of steel against steel. Near the round table, the Valari kings and their retinues stood ready to bring battle into the hall — and war into Alonia. Just then the strong, steady voice of Count Dario called out to everyone: 'Hold! Put down your swords! The King is dead, and let there he no more killing here today!'
'The King is dead' men and women from the mob shouted. And then a hundred more joined them in their mournful cry: 'The King is dead! The King is dead!'
Nearly everyone froze then as they eyed those around them with a terrible tension like that of a drawn bow. Count Dario, a brave man. stood up straight and made his way from the Narmada table past King Hadaru and King Kurshan. He turned his red-bearded face toward King Mohan aa he laid his hand on the blade of King Mohan's sword. 'Peace.' he said to him. 'Let us not make war with each other.'
Seeing this, Belur Narmada shouted out: 'The King is dead! And so Count Dario must be King!'
'By what right!' Duke Parran shouted back Baron Maruth and Duke Ashvar joined him in outrage, and Count Muar called out- 'Count Dario has no claim upon the throne!'
Count Dario nodded his head toward these great lords, and he said, 'It may be that my claim is not strong enough, but I shall be regent until a new king is crowned. Does anyone dispute me?'
Even as he said this, a new company of guards a hundred strong led by a young Narmada lord, burst through the halls great southern doors. They wore the blue and gold livery of the royal house and brandished heavy spears. They marched straight down the aisle toward Count Dario and stood by his sides. And then Count Muar and Baron Marian reluctantly sheathed their swords.
Accompanied by a dozen of these men, Count Dario strode toward me. On the floor beneath me lay the corpse of the man that I had thought was King Kiritan. There, too, lay Baltasar's still warm body. Lord Raasharu knelt beside him stroking his hair as he cried out, 'My son! My son! My beautiful son!'
Now Count Dario stared down at the man that I had slain, and to eyes widened in horror. So it was with Duke Parran and King Kirttan scribes and chamberlains, and everyone else gathered close to us. And myself, for in death, Noman's face could not hold the shape of King Kiritan's countenance. I watched with dread as the skin and bones beneath seemed to ripple like bubbling tar and transform into a face that I hated more than any other. The lines of the jaw and cheekbones were fine almost delicate, and would have made for a beautiful being but for the sagging, grayish flesh mottled with broken blood vessels. The eyes, red as blood, were still open and stared up at the great noth
ingness. They were the eyes, I thought, of Morjin.
'That,' Kane said, pointing down a, him, 'is how I was sure Ravik was not Noman. In death, a Skakaman's face return to that of his master.'
'More sorcery!' Belur Narmada shouted, crowding in closer He motioned toward Kane, Master Juwain and me. 'These men are all sorcerers!'
But his kinsman, Count Dario, was not so easily persuaded that we were workers of the black arts. He listened patiently as Kane explained about the Skakaman and his kind that Morjin had summoned to earth. He pressed his lips together in grim silence as Kane said, 'So, this Noman must have entered the palace yesterday and contrived a way to murder and mime King Kiritan. Likely your king's body will never be found.'
Hearing this, Atara, who was standing next to me, bowed down her head and began sobbing beneath her blindfold. And Queen Daryana came up to her daughter and held her against her bosom. She herself, however, shed no tears for her murdered husband and king. 'So,' Kane growled, kicking his boot into the cheek of the man who had killed King Kiritan, 'likely we'll never know the shape of this thing's true face, for the Skakaman is truly a man with no face.'
At this, Maram and Sunjay Naviru and Lord Harsha — and many others — looked at me. The dread in their eyes recalled the last part of Kasandra's prophecy: that a man with no face would show me my own.
Now King Waray, accompanied by King Hadaru and King Mohan and all the Valari kings, pushed past the men and women crowding around the tables and stepped up to me. His proud, eagle's nose pointed straight toward me as he regarded me with his flashing eyes. And he called out to me in his nasal voice, made firm with rectitude and resolve: 'It's clear that this thing called Noman tried to trap you. Therefore all his words and questions must be suspect. Even so, one question must be asked, and it is upon me to ask it: Are you the
Maitreya?'
There was still hope in him, I saw to my amazement wavering like a candle flame on a windy night. And in my uncle, Prince Viromar, and in many others, this mysterious will of life that things should move toward the good. Once more the hall fell quiet as everyone gazed at me. I could hear Atara and Lansar Raasharu weeping softly, and the blood rushing in my ears, but little else. King Theodor Jardan and King Tal, with the huge King Aryaman and Sajagax, drew in close, along with King Hanniban, King Kaiman and King Marshayk. They joined the Valari kings, and a thousand others, in waiting for me to speak.
I looked down at my sword then. The blood from my bitten hand caked the black jade hilt and the diamonds set into it. But Noman's heart-blood would not cling to the bright blade. In its gleaming silus-tria I beheld my tormented face — and my fate. An alliance of Ea's free Kingdoms, I saw, still might be forged. If I could not lead it in light, even love, then I could compel others to follow me through awe, fear and hate. I could throw down Morjin and make the world safe for a new and better age.
I am he, I thought. I am he.
'No!' I whispered to myself, loathing what I saw in my shining sword, 'no, no, no, no!'
I looked down at Ravik's dead body. Once I remembered, Morjin had prophesied that I would use my sacred gift of valarda to slay in fury, and so I had. How easy it was, I thought, to turn away from all that was bright and beautiful and be cast alone into darkness.
'Valashu Elahad,' King Hadaru said to me, 'King Waray is right: the question must be asked, and the truth must be told. Are you the Maitreya?'
The truth must be told!
I slammed my sword back into its sheath. I licked my bloody lips; I gulped in a huge breath. And then I cried out, 'No, I am not the Maitreya! I am Morjin! I am Angra Mainyu!'
For a long few seconds, no one spoke. No one dared to look at me. I could feel everyone contemplating me in horror and mystification. Then Lansar Raasharu stood up before me. His cheeks were streaked with tears. He grasped my arm as he pointed down at Baltasar and cried out, 'My son did not die in vain! You are the Maitreya! You mustn't deny it!'
'No, Lansar,' I said gently. 'I am not'
Lord Raasharu's dark eyes fell as black and bottomless as the deep hole of hatred that had opened inside him. He hated Morjin, I sensed, even more than I did for stealing his son away from life. For a moment, it seemed, he even hated me. Although he tried to hold his plain, noble face stern and still, as befit a Valari lord, he was mad with grief. And he said to me, 'Do you remember the third part of that witch s prophecy? That a ghul would undo all your dreams? I won't let the Dragon fulfill this!'
A shipwrecked man, drowning at sea, will try to grasp onto the slightest stick of wood. I wrapped my still-bleeding hand around his hand and told him, 'It's too late, sir. The prophecy has already been fulfilled. I am the ghul.' I tried to explain that my very dream of vanquishing the Red Dragon and all his evil had made me a slave to him. For my terrible wrath had blinded me, and for one vital moment, had robbed me of my soul.
Now Duke Malatam came forward and said, 'If Lord Valashu is not the Maitreya, what is he, then?'
What, indeed? When the light goes out, what is left? 'He is a murderer,' Belur Narmada
said, pointing down at the floor. 'He slew Lord Ravik and then King Kiritan.'
'By his own words, he stands condemned,' Duke Parran said to Count Dario. 'He should be put to death.'
Lansar Raasharu gripped the hilt of his sword as he glared at him; Maram, Sunjay Naviru and the other Guardians gathered in close to me, ready to swing their kalamas and begin battle anew.
'He cannot be put to death,' Count Dario said. 'No matter his crime, he is an emissary of King Shamesh.'
'He is a king-slayer!' Belur Narmada shouted. 'That may or may not be,' Count Dario said, looking down at Noman's corpse doubtfully.
'He certainly killed Lord Ravik!' Count Muar said. 'We all saw this!'
'Yes, he killed Lord Ravik,' Count Dario said, 'in the heat of passion, even as once he saved young Baltasar's life. Manslaughter this might be, but we shall not in turn slay him for this.'
'Then imprison him on Damoom, and seize the Lightstone as wergild for these deaths and the ruin that he has brought into this hall!'
At this, Lansar Raasharu and the Guardians unsheathed their swords, and so did I. Then Sajagax, his great bow in hand, fit an arrow to its bowstring and called out, 'I care not to hear more talk of imprisoning or slaying Valashu Elahad! Who speaks of this again shall himself be the first to die!'
King Kiritan's guards surged forward to disarm Sajagax, but then Count Dario held up his hand to stop them. 'Hold!' he commanded them. 'There shall be no more violence here today!'
'But what shall be done with Lord Valashu?' Belur Narmada asked.
'Let him go!' Sajagax bellowed out to Count Dario and all the nobles standing nearby. 'Unless you wish a war with all the Kurmak, let him go!'
I looked around at King Hanniban and King Aryaman, King Tal, King Theodor and King Marshayk, who had come so far to unite in a noble purpose. I hoped that they might speak for me, as Sajagax had. They stared at me in a cold silence. So it was with even the Valari kings. King Hadaru and King Kurshan, King Waray and King Danashu and King Mohan — they all turned their dread and enmity on me, even as they turned their hearts away from me.
'Valashu Elahad,' Count Dario told me in a voice as heavy as lead, 'this conclave has come to an end, and you have no place in the company of kings. Leave Tria before the sun sets tonight. Leave Alonia as quickly as your horse will carry you. Do not return.'
He drew in a deep breath as he pointed at the pocket of my cloak into which I had placed the Lightstone. And then he added, 'Take that cursed thing from our land.'
After that, there was nothing to say and little to do. Kane, sword in hand, stood by my side flashing deadly looks at any and all who would dare challenge me. Master Juwain bent to scoop up the pieces of his shattered crystal, then pressed close to me, as did Maram. Liljana, with Daj and Estrella close behind, came over to me and met my eyes with a sweet, motherly look that told me she would always see good in me, even when I could not see it in myself. Atara finally broke away from Queen Daryana. She stepped up to me and gently touched my wounded palm. It made me weep to feel the warmth that had returned to her and passed into to me, hand to hand.
Then Lord Raasharu, Lord Harsha, Sar Shivathar, Skyshan of Ki, Sar Jural ad and Sar Kimball raised up Baltasar's body to their shoulders. Sunjay Naviru, with Sar Jarlath and Lord Noldru, formed a vanguard ahead of them. At my command, they stepped forward with drawn swords, and my friends and I followed them bearing Baltasar's body down the long aisle and out of the hall.
Chapter 29
On the lawn outside the palace, we said goodbye to Sajagax and Queen Daryana. King Kiritan's death had at last freed her from her despised marriage vows, and she had decided to return with her father to her childhood home.
'There's no point in my trying to rule,' she explained, standing up straight and regal. 'The barons would never accept a Kurmak as their sovereign.'
As Sajagax's warriors brought up their horses and my knights gathered around us, Maram said to her, 'But what of Atara, then? She is King Kiritan's daughter as well as yours.'
Daryana looked at Atara, who was embracing Karimah in farewell, and she said, 'Yes, Atara is our daughter. The Alonians might once have bowed to a High Queen, but that was in another age.'
'Then who will rule Alonia?'
Daryana waved her hand in front of her as if warding away a hornet. 'Perhaps Count Dario. Perhaps Baron Maruth. I care not. Let the Five Families and the barons fight with Kiritan's bastards over the throne.'
Just then one of her servants came out of the palace bearing a gem-encrusted box. I presumed it contained Queen Daryana's jewelry: all that she would be taking with her from Alonia. She grasped the box and said to Atara, 'Besides, our people will need me now.'
Sajagax laid his muscular, sun-burned arm about her shoulders as he looked at Atara and said, 'As I warned Valashu, in the event of the conclave's failure, there will be trouble with the Marituk. Trouble all across the Wendrush. We'll ride south as quickly as we can. Won't you ride with us?'
'No,' Atara said, standing by my side and squeezing my hand. 'I'll ride with Val. My place is with him, now.'
Sajagax stepped forward to kiss Atara, and so did Daryana. They took their leave of each other in the brusque Kurmak way. Then Sajagax clasped my hand and said, 'You shouldn't blame yourself for what happened here. Fate is fate, is it not? But we're still free, and we still have our bows — and swords. Let us use them to fight Morjin and bring the Law of the One into all lands.'
He grinned at me, then mounted his horse and added, 'You'd better ride quickly, too, Valashu. No matter Count Dario's words, I trust these Alonians not at all. And your Valari kings hardly more. Maybe we'll meet again in better times. Until then, death to our enemies — and seek the glory of the One! Farewell, my Valari friend!'
And so we parted ways with the great Sajagax and his wild, yellow-haired warriors. They rode out of Tria as they had come. I gathered the Guardians to me and prepared to leave the city by a different route. And then Liljana surprised me, announcing that she and Daj would accompany me, too.
'I didn't fail you on the road to Argattha, did I?' she said to me. 'Did you think I'd desert you now just because the road ahead seems a dark one? No, no, of course I'm coming with you!'
We hastened to leave Tria then. With my columns of knights behind me, my friends and I made our way across the city down broad avenues lined with people who had turned out to witness my disgrace. No one cheered me. No one cast rose petals onto the streets. Our retreat took us down to the Poru and across the great Star Bridge, gleaming golden in the late sun. Near the ruins of the Old Sanctuary of the Maitriche Telu, we stopped at a large house for Liljana to retrieve a few cooking pots and other essentials she might need on our journey. And then we passed the city's walls through the Ashtoreth Gate, which slammed shut behind us as the Trians sealed in their city against the fall of night The Nar Road lay before us, for hundreds of miles, through deep forests and across mountains. As Liljana had said, it seemed a dark way, its worn paving stones already fading to shades of gray and black as the day's light failed all around us.
I learned much later that with the deaths of Noman, Ravik Kirriland and Baltasar (and King Kiritan, whose body was never found), the great conclave did indeed come to an end, even as Count Dario had said. But for the next few days, most of the kings lingered on in Tria as King Waray tried to rally the Valari kings and persuade the others to sit once more in good faith at King Kiritan's round table. But then King Mohan quarreled with King Kurshan, and they nearly came to blows. King Kurshan rode off with his retinue, as did King Sandarkan, who had renewed the old dispute with Prince Viromar over the Arjan land. King Waray himself had to take the defensive when King Hadaru accused him of conspiring against him and Ishka. In the end, the old Ishkan bear stormed out of the palace threatening war with Taron. Things went not much better with King Aryaman and King Tal, and the other kings. They left Tria in betrayal and anger, never to return. And as for Count Muar and Baron Maruth, they each vowed to return at th
e head of their domains' armies should Count Dario press his claim to Alonia's throne.
Late the next day, thirty miles from Tria outside the town of Sarabrunan, we buried Baltasar on a little knoll covered with oaks. He would rest in good company. For all about us, beneath the woods and grass, were buried the ten thousand Valari who had fallen at the Battle of the Sarburn two entire ages before. Beneath some moss, I found a white stone that had once marked the grave of one of these men. Time had nearly worn smooth the ancient headstone. I called for a hammer and used a sharp tent stake to renew the lettering cut into the hard granite: Here lies a Valari warrior. Sunjay Naviru declaimed that I should chisel Baltasar's name and feats into the stone, but Lansar Raasharu would not hear of this. He said that his son would have more honor lying in the ground as did the other heroes who had fought against Morjin and defeated him. And so I planted the stone above Baltasar's grave and said a prayer for his soul.
That night, we camped in a fallow field beneath the Hill of the Dead, as the knoll had once been called. We dug a deep moat around our rows of tents and made a palisade of sharpened stakes driven into the loamy earth. Sunjay Naviru posted one of the Guardians at every twenty paces to watch for Belur Narmada's knights — or anyone else who might have thought to pursue us. My men ate a cold, quick meal and hurried off to their beds. They bade me goodnight with deep looks of mourning. It was a quiet, cheerless camp, and I listened in vain for the singing of the Sarni warriors who had accompanied us along many miles of our journey toward Tria.
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