I bowed my head to acknowledge his honoring of me.
'
And therefore,' he continued, 'It is you who should lead our armies. And those of the other Vaiari kingdoms, if ever you can unite them. Once you almost did.'
None present disputed his assertion that I should be warlord of the combined armies of Kaash and Mesh. To seal the new covenant between us, King Talanu called for brandy to be poured into everyone's cup. Everyone toasted my new status then - except for Maram, who loudly reaffirmed that he would touch no spirits until Morjin stood defeated.
'And that great day,' Maram called out as if trying to convince himself more than the grim warriors around him, 'will surely come now that King Valamesh leads the Valari!'
But I, of course, now led only a fraction of the Valari. And although on the morrow I would ride at the head of two armies into Delu, I still did not know where I must lead them.
After King Talanu had returned to his encampment and my captains went off to their beds, I requested that my friends hold council with the Seven to help decide this matter. We took our places at my long table, where Liljana served us tea instead of brandy. I sat sipping from a small blue cup as I looked from Master Juwain to Kane and then at Abrasax.
'I told King Sandarkan,' I said to everyone, 'that we know the plans of the Galdan fleet, but that is not quite true. Hadrik rode from Galda to inform us that the Galdans will soon sail, but he did not know when. And he did not know where our enemies' armies will land.'
I wished that Hadrik had agreed to sit at our council. But this strange knight seemed loath to bear the company of other human beings. I might have tried to command his presence here, but I was not his king, and he called no man master, not even Kane. He roamed our encampment like a lone wolf, and I did not know what role he would play on our march to Delu - that is if he consented to ride with us at all.
'The
where
and the
when,'
I said to Abrasax and to everyone. 'If we knew
that,
we would gain a great advantage over our enemies.'
'As to the
where,'
Maram said, swirling his tea in his cup, 'we might make a good guess. Surely our enemy will make use of the beaches along the White Coast.'
He, born of Delu, spoke of that stretch of white sand beaches that began about a hundred miles southwest of Delarid and ran for seventy miles back toward the Morning Mountains and Delu's border with Kaash.
'Even if they do,' Kane said, 'we don't know
which
beach to concentrate on.'
'But we can send out scouts,' Maram said. 'Val can lead the armies as close as he can, and when the scouts make report, we can fall upon our enemy in a lightning stroke.'
I smiled sadly at this because I knew that I would not be likely to bring up our armies very close to our enemy's landing point -not if we had to cover seventy miles of beaches. The lightning stroke that Maram envisioned would degenerate into a slow thrust that our enemy would see coming from miles away.
I turned to Master Matai, sitting next to Abrasax, and I said, 'Can the Master Diviner help us?'
Master Matai's golden skin gleamed in the soft light given off by the stands of candles around the tent. So did his soft brown eyes as he regarded me. 'You ask a good question, King Valamesh:
can
I help you?
Can
I, really?'
'So,' Kane said to him, 'you must keep a kristei, or make use of the Master Galastei's stone. What futures have you seen in your crystal sphere, eh?'
'I am a diviner, it is true,' Master Matai said with a grave formality. 'But I am no scryer. And even if I were and could tell you exactly which beach the men you call your enemy will embark upon, should I then point it out to you so that you can fall upon them with your swords?'
'They are the
enemy
!' Kane snarled out.
'They are men,' Master Matai said, 'who are compelled to fight beneath the Red Dragon's standard. And many of them are from Galda, which I once called home.'
While I remained quiet out of respect for the immense tragedy that had befallen the once-proud kingdom of Galda, Kane wasted not even a glimmer of a tear on useless sentiment. He said to Master Matai: 'Compelled, ha! Your own Brotherhood teaches that all men and women may choose between the light and the dark. In the end, our wills are free!'
'Our wills
are
free,' Abrasax said, intervening on Master Matai's behalf. 'And we do have to choose between the dark and the light. But that choice is difficult at times of twilight, when all the world seems as gray as an ice-fog.'
Then he went on to reaffirm the Brotherhood's ancient stand against war.
'Master Matai,' he told us, 'should not have asked if we
can
help Valashu Elahad. But rather,
may
we? Are we permitted to?'
'You've helped before,' Kane said,
'We helped him to find the Maitreya,' Abrasax said, nodding at Bemossed, who sat at the end of the table between Estrella and Liljana. 'We helped him to recover from his wounds, to his body and soul.'
'And so helped him to become king. And now that he
is
king, you shilly-shally in helping him to fulfill his purpose
as
a king.'
'And what is that purpose?' Master Storr broke in. 'To bring on a war that will burn up the world?'
'No,' Kane said. 'To fight a war that is not of our making, that we cannot avoid. And then, in victory, to end war once and for all.'
I sat quietly feeling the drumbeats of my heart. Kane spoke of my deepest dream almost as if he had made it his own.
'To kill then, in order to end killing?' Master Storr asked.
'Is it better to avoid killing and so bring on annihilation?'
'But do you not see how your way is impossible?'
'Do you not see that men must fight, when they
must fight?
It is what we were born for!'
Master Storr shook his head at this. 'We were born to know the peace of the One. And to honor the Law of the One. And that law says that men must not kill other men.'
'No - it says that the
Elijin
must not kill!'
'Thus, from your own mouth, you damn yourself.'
Kane's eyes caught up the red glow of the candles as he growled out, 'So - then I am damned!'
'As
you
choose,' Master Storr said to him. 'But we of the Brotherhood have devoted ourselves to walking the path of the Elijin and the Galadin, and so we must accustom ourselves to their laws. As with those for mortal men, they are simple.'
'Simple, ha! Nothing about this universe the Ieldra created is simple!'
Master Storr, Elder of the Brotherhood and honored Master Galastei of the Seven, was rich in lore and wisdom and full of years - and even so, Kane looked upon him as if he were a child.
The two men might have gone on arguing through the night if Abrasax had not held up his hand for a truce.
'We have a hard choice to make,' he said, 'and this will not help.'
He looked at me then, and his eyes seemed to hold whole universes inside. It gave me great hope that although Abrasax tried to live by simple principles, he never interpreted them simply.
'As I have said,' he told me, 'twilight is now upon the world, and we must do our best to see our way through it. We have many miles still to go on our march. Let my brothers and me confer along the way. When we come to Delu, we shall tell you if we will help you.'
I bowed my head to him, then gazed at Bemossed sitting within a deep silence at the other end of the table. He spoke no words to me that night, nor to anyone else, but his soft, pained eyes seemed to ask me how much longer I could go on killing when I knew that this violence must inevitably turn back upon myself and those I loved?
The next morning, the armies of Mesh and Kaash set out for Delu. I led forth with the Guardians and my friends riding in the van near me, and we kept to the same formation as we had in our crossing of the Wendrush. Behind the rear of the Meshian army, King Talanu and his captains rode at the head of the Kaashans. There might have been a better way to organize and move our combined forces, but I thought that my countrymen and our allies would do best fighting alongside their own people, and to be captained by lords whom they knew and trusted. Like a two-headed man, it might prove harder to. coordinate this union of warriors who must go into battle as a single army. I had immense faith, however, in our army's other head. King Talanu remained a
king,
and so would not simply receive my commands as must Lord Tanu or Lord Tomavar. But neither, I knew, would he lead his warriors in a way that contradicted me or mine. With every mile farther that we marched along the Raj abash River, with every pause to confer with each other or take our meals together at our nightly encampments, I came to know my uncle better, as he did me. As the days passed and we pushed our way into the eastern mountains of Kaash, I had a strange sense that King Talanu's will was becoming as my own.
For five days we kept to the good road that followed the winding course of the Rajabash, which flowed mostly north toward Waas. Our way took us through thick forests beneath high mountains. At a town called Antas, we came to the Char, a tributary of the Rajabash, and there we turned almost due east. King Talanu came forward to speak with me and to point out the road through the Char Valley that would lead us part of the way to Delu. At the valley's end. he said, we would find it a hard road of steep grades and bridges over swift rivers; three passes we must cross, though none so difficult as the route that my warriors had taken around the back of Mount Ihsan.
And so for the next nine days we labored on toward the east. The forest here showed many willows and maples of a kind that I had never seen. Flowers, in the warm Marud sun, bloomed along the roadside and from bushes beneath the overhanging trees. Many animals dwelt here: raccoons and badgers, rabbits, skunks and deer. King Talanu claimed that these eastern reaches of his realm were a hunter's paradise, and I saw no reason to doubt him. But as the mountains grew more steep and rugged, this rough land became a wilderness where even hunters must take care where they tread. And my warriors, I thought, were a whole army of hunters in search of men instead of beasts.
The weather favored us, for we endured no heavy rains or unbearable nights. The men marched as hard as they could without wearing themselves to the bone. We suffered no mortal accidents on the rough roads leading over chasms and winding up across broken rock. One unfortunate incident occurred on our descent from Mount Makara. One of my warriors, Sar Aragar, keeping pace at the head of Lord Tanu's columns, managed to turn his boot in a pothole and sprain his ankle. Joshu Kadar happened to be riding in the vanguard not far ahead of him, and he immediately offered to bear Sar Aragar back to the wagons on the back of his horse. But this displeased Lord Tanu, who stood before Joshu Kadar and said to him: 'When battle comes, you'll be off with the cavalry and won't be able to take time helping fallen foot warriors. Sar Aragar can wait by the side of the road for the wagons to catch
up to us.'
'But there is no need for him to wait!' Joshu Kadar called out. 'Let me take him back to Master Juwain before the swelling grows too great!'
'Sar Aragar's companions can wrap the wound,' Lord Tanu told
him testily. He looked out at the patches of snow covering the tundra around us. 'And cool it, too.'
'But Lord Tanu, there is no need for such austerity and -' 'No need? What does a young knight know of
need?'
Joshu wisely broke off his dispute with Lord Tanu. After all, he bore only two diamonds in his knight's ring while Lord Tanu was a lord of great renown who commanded nearly half my army. Then Joshu came forward to complain of Lord Tanu's callousness.
'The man has no heart,' I overheard him say to Sar Shivalad. 'It is a crime that such a nasty old bag of bile should have wed my Sarai!'
I remembered that, after the Culhadosh Commons, Lord Garvar had given young Sarai Garvar in marriage to Lord Tanu instead of to Joshu. I felt Joshu's hot, throbbing jealousy almost as my own. But I could not allow his passions to turn poisonous and deadly.
'Lord Tanu,' I said to Joshu that night in my tent, 'is a true Valari and so has heart enough. My father always said that of all his captains, Lord Tanu had the greatest talent for forging men as hard as diamonds. We will need all this hardness, and more, before very long. As I need Lord Tanu. And so I must ask you to stay away from him before your quarrel results in a duel.'
'Very well, Sire,' Joshu said to me, reluctantly bowing his head. 'You may be sure that I will stay as far from him as I can, on the march or the battlefield. But do not expect me to weep if our enemy cuts him down.'
If discord lurked always among my warriors as it did all Valari, and indeed all men, at least I could give thanks that no worse arguments broke out among them, I knew that while Lord Tanu might not be moved to easy pity for Sar Aragar, he would gladly throw himself at a dozen of our enemy in order to protect him if the need arose. Most of my warriors, I knew, felt that way about most of their companions, even the Kaashans who would line up in battle by their sides. And so we marched across the mountains toward Delu, and on the brightest of days with the sun shining down warm and good upon us, we were like thousands of brothers who must soon fight and die as if we were one.
At last, late on the seventh day of Soal, we came to a bridge over the Ianthe River, which marked the border of Delu. On the other side of this clear water rose yet more mountains, though slightly less high than those of Kaash.
That night in my tent my friends and I again met with the Seven. And again Bemossed fell into a troubled silence as Abrasax spoke for the other masters: 'We have decided that we must help you after all, Valashu Elahad. We do evil, we fear, in putting a sword into your hand. But it might prove an even greater evil to refuse you.'
He went on to say that just as there could be no real distinction between matter and the numinous force that animated it so men could not always keep separate a war of the spirit from a war of the sword.