Lord of Lies (90 page)

'Yes, that is true,' I said, pressing my palm against my chest 'But which wolf will win the fight?'

'The one you feed.'

I, too, gazed down into the valley that had given me birth. The light of the stars and the rising moon showed a gentle and peaceful land of farm houses, fields and silent forests.

'So many dead,' I murmured, repeating these words like a chant. 'So many dead.'

Kane looked back at me and said, 'Sometimes the worst defeats open the door to the greatest victories.'

I rubbed the scar on my forehead against the hot; angry pain that burned into me there. 'You can say that because it wasn't
your
family that was lost.'

'All people are my family, Val.' Starlight rained down upon him, and his face seemed as sad and distant as the moon. 'And I've list them a thousand times a thousand generations.'

His dark eyes drank me in, and I gasped to behold the unfathomable depths inside him. Everything was there: whirling constellations and blazing suns and worlds without end. The growling of a lion devouring his prey half-alive and the scream of a woman giving birth to her son. The song of a child singing to a butterfly. He grabbed my hand of a sudden, hard, and smiled as he held on to me with all his might. Something passed into me then.
Not
his unquenchable will to life, but a calling and quickening of my own.

I did not know if suffering could truly leave the soul open to more joy. But, like fire, it could burn away all of a man's conceits, desires and delusions so that only a greater and deeper will remained. Somewhere, in the charred ruins inside me, in the deepest chamber of my heart, there was a light. It blazed with all my will toward the beautiful, the good, the true. And, unless I let it, it could never go out.

'So many stars,' I said, looking up at the sky.

Their soft radiance bathed the cairn and all its rings in a silvery shimmer. Light poured down upon the mountain and touched its luminous fingers to the white granite of the Elahad castle and the white stones marking the place along the Kurash River where we had put my mother and grandmother, and everyone else Morjin had slaughtered, into the earth.

'So many stars.'

If I
did
feed the compassionate wolf, I wondered, what would it be. Only love.

'Father,' I whispered. 'Mother.'

As softly as I could, I spoke the names of Nona, Karshur, Yarashan, Jonathay, Mandru and Ravar. And Asaru. I listened for their voices in the rising wind. And then, far below, a wolf called out its strange and beautiful song, and all my hatred left me.

I drew my sword then, and held it up toward the sky. It came alive with a light of its own, and it seemed both to feed the fire in the diamonds of the thousands of rings and to gather it back into itself. Alkaladur, the Sword of Sight, suddenly blazed as bright as the moon, the snow and the stars. And I saw, clearly, the whole design of my life, what I should have seen all along: tomorrow or the day following that, I would leave the Morning Mountains to seek the one they called the Lord of Light. My friends would come with me - all of them. As Kasandra had foretold, Estrella would show this Shining One to me, wherever he was. And then, some day, somehow, I would win back the Lightstone and place it in his hands.

We
know,
I thought,
we always know.

And that was the great mystery of it all, that no matter our confusions and the lies we told ourselves, we always knew good from evil, right actions from wrong. And if only we had the courage to listen and follow our hearts, we might suffer or die, but we would never betray the great promise of life.

When I told this to Kane, he let loose a great howl of laughter and pressed the bag of astor seeds back into my hand. He leapt up, pulling me to my feet along with him. And he pointed above his head and told me, 'An eagle flies only as high as the sky. But a silver swan, reborn from its funeral pyre, flies to the stars.'

I could not share his joy at my decision. Tomorrow, I knew, or soon, in the days that were to come, I would hate again. I would kill, in fury, with my sacred sword. I would weep and rage and gnash my teeth at the terrible pain that would never go away. For that, too, was the mystery of life. But now I stood in the cold snow on top of a mountain in the deep of night. I felt the sighing of the fir trees below me and the very breath of the world rise in both mourning and exalta-tion. And then, for a moment, the souls of the dead bore me up like a great and beautiful swan toward the stars, and that was enough.

'Come,' Kane said to me, pulling at my hand. 'It's late and it's cold, and we've half a mile of a mountain to get down in the dark - it will go badly for us if we get lost.'

It was hardly dark, I thought. The moon illuminated Telshar's upper reaches and showed the track back down to our hut.

'We won't get lost,' I told him.

I bent to pick up the rope and tie it around my waist again. Then I turned to walk back down the mountain. I would wander my mother earth, always seeking my master, my brother, my other self who could hold the secret light in his hands. I would wander for a year or all the days of my life, never lost, knowing that the fiery and brilliant stars would always point the way.

The End

Continues With Book 3 of the Ea Cycle: Black Jade

The shield and surcoat arms of the warriors of the Nine Kingdoms differ from those of the other lands in two respects. First they tend to be simpler, with a single, bold charge emblazoned on a field of a single color. Second, every fighting man, from the simple warrior up through the ranks of knight, master and lord to the king himself, is entitled to bear the arms of his line.

There is no mark or insignia of service to any lord save the king. Loyalty to one's ruling king is displayed on shield borders as a field matching the color of the king's field, and a repeating motif of the king's charge. Thus, for instance, every fighting man of Ishka, from warrior to lord, will display a red shield border with white bears surrounding whatever arms have been passed down to him. With the exception of the lords of Anjo, only the kings and the royal families of the Nine Kingdoms bear unbordered shields and surcoats.

In Anjo, although a king in name still rules in Jathay, the lords of the other regions have broken away from his rule to assert their own sovereignty. Thus, for instance, Baron Yashur of Vishal bears a shield of simple green emblazoned with a white crescent moon without bordure as if were already a king or aspiring to be one.

Once there was a time when all Valari kings bore the seven stars of the Swan Contellation on their shields as a reminder of the Elijin and Galadin to whom they owed allegiance. But by the time of the Second Lightstone Quest, only the House of Elahad has as part of its emblem the seven silver stars.

In the heraldry of the Nine Kingdoms, white and silver are used interchangeably as are silver and gold. Marks of cadence - those smaller charges that distinguish individual members of a line, house or family - are usually placed at the point of the shield.

Mesh

House of Elahad -
a black field; a silver-white swan with spread wings gazes upon the seven silver-white stars of the Swan constellation

Lord Harsha
- a blue field; gold lion rampant filling nearly all of it

Lord Tomavar
- white field; black tower

Lord Tanu -
white field; black, double-headed eagle

Lord Raasharu -
gold field; blue rose

Lord Navaru
- blue field; gold sunburst

Lord Juluval
- gold field; three red roses

Lord Durrivar
- red field; white bull

Lord Arshan
- white field; three blue stars

Ishka

King Hadaru Aradar
- red field; great white bear

Lord Mestivan -
gold field; black dragon

Lord Nadhru
- green field; three white swords, points touching upwards

Lord Solhtar
- red field; gold sunburst

Athar

King Mohan
- gold field; blue horse

Lagash     

King Kurshan -
blue field; white Tree of Life

Waas

King Sandarkan -
black field; two crossed silver swords

Taron

King Waray -
red field; white winged horse

Kaash

King Talanu Solaru
- blue field; white snow tiger

Anjo

King Danashu -
blue field; gold dragon

Duke Gorador Shurvar of Daksh -
white field; red heart

Duke Rezu of Rajah -
white field; green falcon

Duke Barwan of Adar -
blue field; white candle

Baron Yashur of Vishal -
green field; white crescent moon

Count Rodru Narvu of Yarvanu -
white field; two green lions ram pant

Count Atanu Tuval of Onkar
- white field; red maple leaf

Baron Yuval of Natesh
- black field; golden flute

As in the Nine Kingdoms, the bordure pattern is that of the field and charge of the ruling king. But in the Free Kingdoms, only nobles and knights are permitted to display arms on their shields and surcoats. Common soldiers wear two badges: the first, usually on their right arm, displaying the emblems of their kings, and the second, worn on their left arm, displaying those of whatever baron, duke or knight to whom they have sworn allegiance.

In the houses of Free Kingdoms, excepting the ancient Five Families of Tria from whom Alonia has drawn most of her kings, the heraldry tends toward more complicated and geometric patterns than in the Nine Kingdoms.

Alonia

House of
Narmada
-
blue field; gold caduceus

House of Eriades -
Field divided per bend; blue upper, white lower; white

star on blue, blue star on white
House of Kirriland -
White field; black raven

House of Hastar -
Black field; two gold lions rampant

House of Marshan -
white field; red star inside black circle

Baron Narcavage of Arngin -
white field; red bend; black oak lower; black eagle upper

Baron Maruth of Aquantir -
green field; gold cross; two gold arrows on each quadrant

Duke Ashvar of Raanan -
gold field; repeating pattern of black swords

Baron Monteer of Iviendenhall -
white and black checkered shield

Count Muar of lviunn
- black field; white cross of Ashtoreth

Duke Malatam of Tarlan -
white field; black saltire; repeating red roses on white quadrants

Eanna

King Hanniban Dujar -
gold field; red cross; blue lions rampant on each gold quadrant

Surrapam

King Kaiman -
red field; white saltire; blue star at center

Thalu

King Aryaman
- Black and white gyronny; white swords on four black sectors

Delu  

King Santoval Marshayk -
green field; two gold lions rampant facing each other

The Elyssu

King Theodor Jardan
- blue field; repeating breaching silver dolphins

Nedu

King Tal -
blue field; gold cross; gold eagle volant on each blue quadrant

With one exception, in these lands, only Morjin himself bears his own arms: a great, red dragon on a gold field. Kings who have sworn fealty to him ~ King Orunjan, King Arsu - have been forced to surrender their ancient arms and display a somewhat smaller red dragon on their shields and surcoats. Kallimun priests who have been appointed to kingship or who have conquered realms in Morjin's name - King Mansul, King Yarkul, Count Ulanu - also display this emblem but are proud to do so.

Nobles serving these kings bear slightly smaller dragons, and the knights serving them bear yet smaller ones. Common soldiers wear a yellow livery displaying a repeating pattern of very small red dragons.

King Angand of Sunguru, as an ally of Morjin, bears his family's arms as does any free king.

The kings of Hesperu and Uskudar have been allowed to retain their family crests as a mark of their kingship, though they have surrendered their arms.

Sunguru

King Angand
- blue field; white heart with wings

Uskudar

King Orunjan
- gold field; 3/4 red dragon

Karabuk

King Mansul
- gold field; /4 red dragon

Hesperu

King Arsu
- gold field; /4 red dragon

Galda

King Yarkul -
gold field; /4 red dragon

Yarkona