Lord of Lies. David Zindell

of these who were on their way to the tournament. Their shields showed blue boars and black ravens and other devices unfamiliar to me. If the Taroners were chagrined to see such a large body of outland knights riding free through their land, they gave no sign of it. But their leader, a Lord Eladaru, remarked the strangeness of Ishkans accompanying Meshians, saying, ‘If this is truly the end of the age, as has been prophesied, then this must be the first of its miracles.’

      After King Hadaru proudly called up Sar Marjay, one of his nephews, to bring forth the Lightstone, Lord Eladaru blinked his eyes and said, ‘It seems I misspoke. Meshians surrendering the guardianship of the Lightstone to an Ishkan – surely this must be the greatest of miracles. The next thing you know, maybe King Kurshan really will find a way to sail the stars.’

      Lord Eladaru bid us a safe journey, then gathered up his men and rode on ahead of us. I watched them disappear along the road that wound up and around the low, green hills to the east.

      We, with our heavy baggage train, followed them more slowly. We passed through fields of sunflowers and apple orchards, and then some miles of rolling pasturage given over to the grazing of goats and sheep. Toward the end of our first day in Taron, the finely paved road turned into a track of packed dirt. As there had been no rain for the past few days, the hot sun had dried out its surface. The horses’ hooves, no less the wheels of the wagons, pulverized the dirt and sent up thick clouds of dust. Trailing behind King Hadaru and his Ishkan knights became a torment of stinging eyes and grit coating our lips and teeth. We had to cover our faces with our scarves so as not to choke. Maram complained about riding behind King Hadaru. As he wiped at his beard and blinked his powdered eyes, he said, ‘Now that we’re in Taron, the Ishkans should trail us. Let them eat our dust.’

      On our second day in Taron, Maram had good cause to wish for the previous day’s dust: toward noon, some thick, dark clouds came out of the west and let loose a downpour lasting for hours. The rain turned the road into a bog of sticky mud and potholes like little brown ponds. Twice, one of the wagons got stuck in this mire. Our pace slowed as the horses slogged along; I listened to the squish and suck of their hooves against the mud as I blinked my eyes against the slanting rain. The gray sky seemed too low, too heavy. The air was too moist and nearly smothered me. I felt something cold, wet and dark sniffing at my insides like the snout of some fell beast. I felt a pulling there, in my belly, as if sharp teeth were tearing into me while long claws hooked into my back. This odious sensation seemed to emanate from somewhere behind me; it reminded me of the time that the dreadful Grays had pursued Maram, Master Juwain, Atara and me through the wilds of Alonia. Only now, on this muddy road in the open country, whatever was pursuing me seemed to have no hate for me, but only a fierce will to rend and destroy.

      We made camp that night in well-drained meadow above the road. After Estrella’s riding lesson, I held council in my tent with Maram and Master Juwain – and with my brothers, too. I told them of my misgivings. And Maram immediately sighed out, ‘Oh, no, not the Stonefaces! I’d rather face Morjin himself again than them. If it is them, too bad for us.’

      ‘It will be all right,’ I said to him. I remembered too well the unclean sense of how the Grays wanted to suck out my soul and torment me. ‘This didn’t feel like them.’

      ‘Well, what did it feel like?’

      ‘Like someone behind me wanted to murder me.’

      Yarashan, who had little liking for the new Guardians, didn’t hesitate to say, ‘One of the Ishkans, then?’

      ‘It can’t be,’ I said. ‘Whoever is pursuing me, in his wish to slay … there is so much power.’

      Yarashan shook his handsome head skeptically. This strange gift I had of sensing others’ emotions disturbed him, the more so because he seemed to lack it. ‘It could be one of the Ishkans, Val. King Hadaru chose them himself, didn’t he? What if he’s set one of them to murder you?’

      He went on to say that King Hadaru could not want me to be the Maitreya. Even though King Hadaru had spoken nobly about uniting the Valari, very likely he himself wished to be the one to lead an alliance against Morjin. If I were killed, then King Hadaru might contrive a way to use the new Guardians to give him control of the Lightstone.

      ‘You’ve a keen mind for plots and strategies,’ I said to Yarashan. My brother beamed as if he had just beaten me in another game of chess and was proud to explicate my mistakes. ‘What you say makes good sense – except for one thing.’

      ‘And what is that?’

      ‘King Hadaru is no murderer who would set an assassin upon me.’

      ‘Can you be sure of that?’

      ‘As sure as I am of Ianashu and the new Guardians. As sure as I am of Skyshan and Sunjay and the Guardians that I chose myself.’

      Yarashan looked at Asaru as if in frustration of my naivete. And Asaru said, ‘There is another possibility. The ghul may have followed us from Mesh.’

      I shuddered at this suggestion as I looked out the flap of my tent at the darkening hills around us. If a ghul was hiding in the pastures or woods nearby, I could not sense him.

      ‘We should post extra guards tonight,’ Asaru continued. ‘And we should post guards around your tent, Val. Men we can trust beyond doubt in case one of the Ishkans is an assassin.’

      Each night, since we had set out on the road, it had become our custom that the Lightstone return to my hand and be kept in my tent at the center of our camp.

      ‘No, there will be no guards around my tent,’ I told Asaru. ‘What would we tell them? That we mistrust the Ishkans, who are now their companions? And what would the Ishkans think of their calling as Guardians when they discovered that we of Mesh sought to guard ourselves against them?’

      Master Juwain, who had been silent until now, sighed as he rubbed the back of his head. ‘Very well, then, since the rain has stopped, I’ll sit outside my tent as if taking a bit of fresh air. If anyone approaches your