Diamond Warriors (47 page)

'I
know
!' she said. She clasped Bemossed's hand to her chest. 'There is no more pain
here.'

And upon her utterance of this word, I felt a sudden new pain come alive within King Waray's chest.

'Maitreya!' he called out to Bemossed. He bowed his head, then declared, 'I shall give you
two
barrels of diamonds.'

'Thank you, King Waray,' Bemossed told him. 'But I would not know what to do with such wealth.'

'What is it that you want, then?'

In answer, Bemossed looked at me in a deep and painful silence.

'That, surely, must be obvious,' King Waray continued, answering his own question. 'You would see Valashu Elahad lead the alliance.'

'To lead it, yes,' Bemossed said. 'But not to war.'

'But war is nearly upon us. What will you do?'

'I will fight,' Bemossed said mysteriously. 'As all must fight.'

'I don't understand,' King Waray said.

But Bemossed did not enlighten him. He just gazed down at the city below us, where Nar's white Tower of the Sun rose up almost as high as the surrounding hills.

'What will
you
do?' I asked King Waray. 'Will you support: the alliance? And not just with words, but with your warriors and your own sword?'

King Waray stood considering this. Around him gathered Abrasax and the others of the Seven, who had their hands thrust down into the pockets of their robes. Though none of them looked at King Waray, I could sense their deep concentration upon him; I sensed as well that Master Juwain, and not Abrasax, guided the Seven in directing the power of their hidden gelstei at King Waray. 'I
will
support it!' King Waray finally said to me. 'Good!' I called it. 'Then who is to lead?' King Waray thought about this for a few moments. Then he said, 'When we Valari first came to the Morning Mountains, we made our homes in Mesh. Mesh has always been at the forefront of our affairs. And it was a Meshian, King Aramesh, who defeated Morjin at the Sarburn.'

He paused as he looked at me, and I waited for him to say more. Once, in the silver shimmer of my sword, I had seen that one, and only one, could unite the Valari. The wind flowing across the world from the west seemed to whisper his name to me.

'And that is why,' he went on, 'that this time, the king who leads us must
not
be from Mesh. We Valari have failed, too many times. Even Aramesh failed to defeat Morjin once and forever. I am sorry, Valashu Elahad, but the Valari will not follow you.'

For ages, I thought, the Valari had suffered two opposing impulses: to elevate Mesh and the Elahads as exemplars of all that was most truly Valari, and to tear down my kingdom and my family out of jealousy.

'They would follow me,' I said to King Waray, 'if you did. Will you?'

He stood straight across from me looking at me deeply, and I knew that he wanted to say yes. Something, however, kept him armored inside his ambition and pride as with a breastpiece made of steel plate. I knew that within my heart I held a sword that could cut it open.

Kane waited to my right with his hand poised near a very different kind of sword. His black eyes seemed to ask me if I wanted him to draw it and slay this recalcitrant king. 'How
can
I follow you?' King Waray said to me. I looked past him, down across Nar, where the green, wooded plain of Taron vanished into the west of the world. King Waray had spoken truly: I
did
have a dream, and I saw a way to make it be. But, always, men opposed me. And not just evil ones such as Morjin and the Red Priests of the Kallimun, but foolish kings such as Sulavar Jehu Waray. He had his own ideas for the world

and for himself. I knew that if only I could eliminate such men, I could accomplish the greatest of things. That, however, was Morjin's way, and too often, Kane's. I knew that I could never allow him to put King Waray to the sword. And neither could I use the true Alkaladur to destroy King Waray's will so that he would give his consent to what I desired. If I did, with him and with others, then soon I would kill my own soul and make myself like unto Morjin.

'How can you not help me to fight our enemy?' I asked him. If I could not wield the sword within me to rule King Waray, much less to slay him, then at least I could hold it before him like a shining silver mirror. And what might he see as he stood there gazing into my eyes? I thought that he, too, had a secret dream, which was to ally the whole world as one so that Chantaleva's children might grow up to pursue meditation and music and all the higher things. He would make a better world, cleansed of hideous diseases such as the white plague. He might, too, behold himself as I sometimes could: that his immense pride concealed a haunting sense of his basic flawlessness; that his refusal to tell an outright lie suggested a long-forgotten love of truth; that all his intrigues sprang from his quest for a deeper ordering of the world. I thought, too, that he might come alive to his own compassion and open himself to all the immense suffering around him - if only I could open
myself
to him.

'King Waray,' I said to him, holding out my hand, 'let us join our forces together!'

I felt his urge to reach out and press his palm against mine. Then, at the last, he looked away from me, down at the ground. And he said, 'Perhaps we should first wait to see if Morjin really does march his armies toward the Morning Mountains.'

At this, Daj jumped up from his rock to face King Waray. Daj usually had a great respect for rank, even that of false kings such as Morjin. Now, however, he shook his fist at King Waray and cried out, 'If you won't help Val, Morjin will win! What is
wrong
with you! How can you call yourself a
king?'

For what seemed a long time, I stared at my empty hand. Then I pulled my arm back and closed my fingers around the hilt of my sword.

'This council,' King Waray said, glaring at Daj as his face flushed with anger, 'is over.'

He drew in a deep breath, then looked at me and added, 'You

should consider long and well before you take this boy with you to war. You should consider taking
anyone,
King Valamesh.'

He paused to regard Bemossed. 'Especially this man. He might really be the Maitreya.'

After that my companions and I, with King Viromar and the Seven, rode back down from King Waray's palace into Nar. At a tree-lined curve along the winding road, Daj pushed his horse up to me and asked: 'How can the Valari kings keep spurning you? How
can
they, Val?'

King Viromar, riding just behind us, had remained as faithful as anyone could be. He cleared his throat as he looked at Daj and said, 'Some of them, at least, must hope that now that Morjin possess the Cup of Heaven, he will leave the Nine Kingdoms alone.'

He fell silent for a moment, then added, 'They must think that Morjin's quarrel was only with Valashu Elahad.'

I smiled at this with great bitterness. I said, 'No, that is not why the Valari refuse me.' 'Why, then?' Daj asked. 'Because,' I told him, 'I broke their hearts.' I stopped Altaru and turned my huge warhorse around in the middle of the road so that I could speak with my friends. 'In Tria, we almost made an alliance. And so in coming an inch from a great dream, the Valari kings have had to tell themselves that it would have been a nightmare.'

But Master Juwain, for one, would not accept my condemnation of myself. He told me, 'You have not failed, Val. King Waray might yet come to his senses.' 'Do you really think so?'

Master Juwain nodded his head and said to me, 'King Waray suffers from a sad malady: he experiences the world and other people as does any other man. But because his heart chakra has beef blocked, he cannot
feel
anything of what he experiences very deeply.'

'And so,' Abrasax explained, Looking at Master Virang, 'we employed the great crystals to open
all
his chakras, and particularly that of the heart.'

I thought of Master Juwain using the dead Master Okuth's green stone on King Waray, and
my
heart warmed, slightly.

'All that happened today,' Master Juwain told me, 'might yet work a slow magic on King Waray. Give it time, Val.'

I ground my teeth together as I saw the moments of my life running out like grains of sand through an hourglass.

And then Maram, sitting on top of his big horse, turned to Liljana and accused her:
'You
opened up King Waray like popping a cork out of a bottle! But you
promised
that you would never, without permission, use your gelstei to look into anyone's mind!'

'How many times have
you
broken your promise to forsake brandy?' she countered. 'When the need is great enough, exceptions must be made. King Waray needed to be pushed by the truth of what he has done. I thought it would save Val from pushing in his way, as he is loath to push.'

I did not know whether to thank her or to take her to task for what she had done. Kane, though, could not abide her violation of King Waray. He sat on his horse glaring at her, and I did not like the look that burned through his black eyes. 'But what shall we do now?' Maram asked. 'Since we haven't the strength even to consider going up against Morjin?'

I closed my eyes as I gripped the hilt of my sword. Then I told him, 'We will march on. If the warriors consent, tomorrow we will march toward Anjo and then cross over the mountains. And we will join with Sajagax and the other Saxni tribes.'

'And then?' Maram asked.

'We will wait - and hope for the magic that Master Juwain has spoken of.'

'You mean, hope for a miracle.'

I tried not to let my terror show as I forced myself to smile. And I said to him, 'There is always hope.'

As I turned my horse back around and looked out at the cloud-darkened sky to the west, I prayed that the words I had spoken would not prove to be a lie.

T
he next morning, with the wind blowing in rain clouds from the west, I called for the warriors of Mesh, Kaash and Delu to assemble on the grassy fields of the Tournament Grounds. Twenty thousand men stood in their gleaming armor to hear what I had to say. I told them that we could count on no allies among the Valari; I said that I still intended, however, to answer Sajagax's call and join with the Kurmak tribe in drawing swords against the Red Dragon. Anyone, I said, who did not want to make this fight was welcome to return to his home, without penalty or shame. It touched my heart that not a single man declined to march with me.

Two hundred miles lay between Nar and the appointed meeting place on the Wendrush. I led my army up the Nar Road for sixty of these miles at a bone-bruising pace. Summer rains found us passing through pastures, and soaked us to the skin. A few score of my men, suffering from chafing boots and bleeding feet, had to drop out of their columns and ride in the wagons. But then, after we crossed over the Culhadosh River into King Danashu's realm of Anjo, I had to order that every spare inch of space in the wagons be cleared. Indeed, I asked Lord Harsha to use the last of the gold that we had brought with us, jangling in little chests, to purchase more wagons - and great quantities of aged birch. I set our arrow makers to fashioning as many thousands of killing shafts as they could, sitting in their workshops inside jostling wagons. The wood of the white birch, especially from the upland forests of Anjo, was

famed across Ea for making the straightest and truest arrows.

King Danashu declined to meet with me, although our route took us down through Onkar and the barley fields of Jathay, where King Danashu held court at Sauvo. He sent an envoy to inform me that he could not possibly consider leading any of his warriors against Morjin at this time. This did not surprise me. After King Danashu had conspired to take sides with King Waray against Ishka, King Hadaru had forced him to yield to Ishka the duchy of Adar and the barony of Natesh. Everyone knew that King Danashu feared that King Hadaru would soon send his entire army against Anjo, though King Danashu's envoy did not speak of this. For a long time, many had ridiculed King Danashu as a king in name only; now, with two great pieces of his realm broken off and the rest of it under dire threat from Ishka, he seemed less a king than ever.

His greatest lords, however, in consequence had taken upon themselves more and more of the royal prerogatives. Two of these - Duke Rezu of Rajak and Duke Gorador of Daksh -I had met on my first journey to Tria on the Great Quest. When I pointed my army across the high pastures of Daksh, with its small stands of trees and many herds of white sheep spread across rising green hills, both of these lords led the knights and warriors of their small domains out to join us. As Duke Rezu, a man with a face as sharp as flints, put it: 'Who, in their right senses, would fear King Hadaru above Morjin?'

Although the thousand men that these two dukes brought with them increased the size of our army only slightly, we could take good cheer that now three of the Nine Kingdoms would be represented in the coming battle.

We had a hard time crossing the mountains. The ice-capped peaks of the great Shoshan range rose up like a fortress of white and blue before us. The road through these rocky heights had crumbled nearly to rubble, for few came this way anymore, and no one kept it in repair. An early snow caught half my army coming down the side of a jagged mountain in the Goshbrun Pass; nearly all of the Delians suffered from frostbitten toes, for they had no footwear suitable for such harsh weather. Master Juwain managed to heal all of them with the warm green flame of his varistei and so no one spoke of gangrene and amputation. Even so, it was a harbinger of more bitter assaults to the flesh soon to come.

At last, early in Ioj, my small army made the descent down to the vast steppe of the Wendrush. These sun-seared grasslands opened out to the west for what seemed an infinite distance. As before on our passage of the Mansurii's lands, we trod here with great care. Although Sajagax's Kunnak warriors would certainly greet us as allies, even if dangerous ones, the same could not be said of the Adirii, at least not some of this fierce tribe's clans. I remembered too well, two years before, leading a force of knights through country not far from here. Warriors of the Adirii's Akhand clan had crossed the Snake River to attack us, and had tried to steal the Lightstone. Sonjah, guiding us across the Wendrush's rolling eastern hills, explained that the Akhand's own chieftain had long since punished these treacherous Akhand; she assured us that
all
the Adirii had gathered to Sajagax's banner and would welcome us as brothers in arms. I wanted to believe her. Still, it grieved me to march nearly blind into this open land, for I did not know how far south Morjin had moved his army. And worse, I did not know if he might have sent out the warriors of the Marituk tribe, or others, ahead of his main force to harry us and kill us from afar with arrows.