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But across the valley twenty miles due east, Mount Eluru stood like a vast pyramid of granite and ice. Beyond it were still greater peaks of the Culhadosh Range, which separates the kingdoms of Waas and Mesh. In the distance to the south forty-five miles as a raven flies, was the hazy wall of the Itarsu in whose narrow passes my ancestors had more than once slaughtered invading Sarni armies from the great gray plains beyond. Behind us above the hills from where we had ridden that day, just to the west of the bear-infested woods that we proposed to enter, were three of the greatest and most beautiful peaks of the Central Range: Telshar, Arakel and Vayu. These were the mountains of my soul; here, I thought, was the heart of the Morning Mountains and possibly of all Ea. As a boy I had played in their forests and sung songs to their silent, stony faces. They rose up like gods just beyond the houses and battlements of Silvassu: the shining Vayu a few miles to the south, Arakel west just across the swift Kurash river, and Telshar the Great on whose lower slopes my grandfather’s grandfathers had built the Elahad castle. Once I had climbed this luminous mountain. From the summit, looking north, I had seen Raaskel and Korukel glittering beyond the Diamond River, and beyond these guardian peaks, the cold white mountains of Ishka. But, of course, all my life I have tried not to look in that direction.
Now Maram followed the line of Asaru’s outstretched hand. He looked into the dark, waiting forest and muttered, ‘Ah, where am I, indeed? Lost, lost, truly lost.’
At that moment, as if in answer to some silent supplication of Maram’s, there came the slow clip-clop of a horse’s hooves. I turned to see a white-haired man leading a draft horse across the field straight toward us. He wore a patch over his right eye and walked with a severe limp as if his knee had been smashed with a mace or a flail. I knew that I had seen this old farmer before, but I couldn’t quite remember where.
‘Hello, lads,’ he said as he drew up to us. ‘It’s a fine day for hunting, isn’t it?’
Maram took in the farmer’s work-stained woolens, which smelled of horse manure and pigs. He wrinkled up his fat nose disdainfully. But Asaru, who had a keener eye, immediately saw the ring glittering on the farmer’s gnarled finger, and so did I. It was a plain silver ring set with four brilliant diamonds: the ring of a warrior and a lord at that.
‘Lord Harsha,’ Asaru said, finally recognizing him, ‘it’s been a long time.’
‘Yes, it has,’ Lord Harsha said. He looked at Asaru’s squire, and then at Maram and me. ‘Who are your friends?’
‘Excuse me,’ Asaru said. ‘May I present Joshu Kadar of Lashku?’
Lord Harsha nodded his head at my brother’s squire and told him, ‘Your father is a fine man. We fought against Waas together.’
Young Joshu bowed deeply as befit his rank, and then stood silently basking in Lord Harsha’s compliment.
‘And this,’ Asaru continued, ‘is Prince Maram Marshayk of Delu. He’s a student of the Brothers.’
Lord Harsha peered out at him with his single eye and said, ‘Isn’t it true that the Brothers don’t hunt animals?’
‘Ah, that is true,’ Maram said, gripping his bow, ‘we hunt knowledge. You see, I’ve come along only to protect my friend in case we run into any bears.’
Now Lord Harsha turned his attention toward me, and looked back and forth between me and my brother. The light of his eye bore into my forehead like the rays of the sun.
‘You must be Valashu Elahad,’ he said.
Just then Maram’s face reddened in anger on my behalf. I knew that he didn’t approve of the Valari system of honors and rank. It must have galled him that an old man of no noble blood, a mere farmer, could outrank a prince.
I looked down at the ring I wore around my finger. In it was set neither the four diamonds of a lord nor the three of a master – nor even the two sparkling stones of a full knight. A single diamond stood out against the silver: the ring of a simple warrior. In truth, I was lucky to have won it. If not for some skills with the sword and bow that my father had taught me, I never would have. What kind of warrior hates war? How is it that a Valari knight – or rather, a man who only dreamed of being a knight – should prefer playing the flute and writing poetry to trials of arms with his brothers and countrymen?
Lord Harsha smiled grimly at me and said, ‘It’s been a long time since you’ve come to these woods, hasn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir, it has,’ I said.
‘Well, you should have paid your respects before trampling over my fields. Young people have no manners these days.’
‘My apologies, sir, but we were in a hurry. You see, we got a late start.’
I didn’t explain that our hunting expedition had been delayed for an hour while I searched the castle for Maram – only to find him in bed with one of my father’s chambermaids.
‘Yes, very late,’ Lord Harsha said, looking up at the sun. ‘The Ishkans have already been here before you.’
“Which Ishkans?’ I asked in alarm. I noticed that Asaru was now staring off into the woods intently.
‘They didn’t stop to present themselves either,’ Lord Harsha said. ‘But there were five of them – I heard them bragging they were going to take a bear.’
At this news, Maram gripped his bow even more tightly. Beads of sweat formed up among the brown curls of hair across his forehead. He said, ‘Well, then – I suppose we should leave these woods to them.’
But Asaru only smiled as if Maram had suggested abandoning all of Mesh to the enemy. He said, ‘The Ishkans like to hunt bears. Well, it’s a big wood, and they’ve had more than an hour to become lost in it.’
‘Please see to it that you don’t become lost as well,’ Lord Harsha said.
‘My brother,’ Asaru said, looking at me strangely, ‘is more at home in the woods than in his own castle. We won’t get lost.’
‘Good. Then good luck hunting.’ Lord Harsha nodded his head at me in a curt bow. ‘Are you after a bear this time, too?’
‘No, a deer,’ I said. ‘As we were the last time we came here.’
‘But you found a bear all the same.’
‘It might be more accurate to say the bear found us.’
Now Maram’s knuckles grew white around his bow, and he looked at me with wide-open eyes. ‘What do you mean a bear found you?’
Because I didn’t want to tell him the story, I stood there looking off into the woods in silence. And so Lord Harsha answered for me.
‘It was ten years ago,’ he said. ‘Lord Asaru had just received his knight’s ring, and Val must have been what – eleven? Ten?’
‘Ten,’ I told him.
‘That’s right,’ Lord Harsha said, nodding his head. ‘And so the lads went into the woods alone after their deer. And then the bear –’
‘Was it a large bear?’ Maram interrupted.
Lord Harsha’s single eye narrowed as he admonished Maram to silence as he might a child. And then he continued the story: ‘And so the bear attacked them. It broke Lord Asaru’s arm and some ribs. And mauled Valashu, as you can see.’
Here he paused to point his old finger at the scar on my forehead.
‘But you told me that you were born with that scar!’ Maram said, turning to me.
‘Yes,’ I said. That’s right.’
Truly, I had been. My mother’s labor in bringing me into the world was so hard and long that everyone had said I wanted to remain inside her in darkness. And so, finally, the midwife had had to use tongs to pull me out. The tongs had cut me, and the wound had healed raggedly, in the shape of a lightning bolt.
‘The bear,’ Asaru explained, ‘opened up the scar again and cut it deeper.’
‘He was lucky the bear didn’t break his skull,’ Lord Harsha said to Maram. ‘And both of them were lucky that my son, may he abide in peace, was walking through the woods that day. He found these lads half-dead in the moss and killed the bear with his spear before it could kill them.’
Andaru Harsha – I knew the name of my rescuer very well. At the Battle of Red Mountain, I had taken a wound in my thigh protecting him from the Waashians’ spears. And later, at the same battle, I had frozen up and been unable to kill one of our enemy who stood shieldless and helpless before me. Because of my hesitation, many still whispered that I was a coward. But Asaru never called me that.
‘Then your son saved their lives,’ Maram said to Lord Harsha.
‘He always said it was the best thing he ever did.’
Maram came up to me and grabbed my arm. ‘And you think to repay the courage of this man’s son by going back into these woods?’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ I said.
‘Ah,’ he said, looking at me with his soft brown eyes. ‘I see.’
And he did see, which was why I loved him. Without being told, he understood that I had come back to these woods today not to seek vengeance by shooting arrows in some strange bear, but only because there are other monsters that must be faced.
‘Well, then,’ Lord Harsha said. ‘Enough of bear stories. Would you like a bite to eat before your hunt?’
Due to Maram’s peccadilloes, we had missed lunch and we were all of us hungry. Of course, that wouldn’t have dismayed Asaru, but rejecting Lord Harsha’s hospitality would. And so Asaru, speaking for all of us as if he were already king, bowed his head and said, ‘We’d be honored.’
While Lord Harsha opened his horse’s saddlebags, our horses stamped the earth impatiently and bent their heads to munch the sweet green grass growing between the field’s stone wall and the forest. I glanced off across the field to study Lord Asaru’s house. I liked its square lines and size and the cedar-shingled roof, which was almost as steeply gabled as the chalets you see higher in the mountains. It was built of oak and stone: austere, clean, quietly beautiful – very Valari. I remembered Andaru Harsha bringing me to this house, where I had lain in delirium for half a day while his father tended my wound.
‘Here, now,’ Lord Harsha said as he laid a cloth on the wall. ‘Sit with me, and let’s talk about the war.’
While we took our places along the wall, he set out two loaves of black, barley bread, a tub of goat cheese and some freshly pulled green onions. We cut the bread for sandwiches and ate them. I liked the tang of the onions against the saltiness of the cheese; I liked it even more when Lord Harsha drew out four silver goblets and filled them with brown beer that he poured from a small, wooden cask.
‘This was brewed last fall,’ Lord Harsha said. In turn, he handed goblets to Asaru, me and Joshu. Then he picked up his own goblet. ‘It was a good harvest, and a better brew. Shall we make a toast?’
I saw Maram licking his lips as if he’d been stricken dumb with grief, and I said, ‘Lord Harsha, you’ve forgotten Maram.’
‘Indeed,’ he said, smiling. ‘But you said he’s with the Brothers – hasn’t he taken vows?’
‘Ah, well, yes, I have,’ Maram admitted. ‘I’ve forsworn wine, women and war.’
‘Well, then?’
‘I never vowed not to drink beer.’
‘You quibble, Prince Maram.’
‘Yes, I do, don’t I? But only when vital matters are at stake.’
‘Such as the drinking of beer?’
‘Such as the drinking of Meshian beer, which is known to be the finest in all of Ea.’
This compliment proved too much for Lord Harsha, who laughed and magically produced another goblet from the saddlebags. He picked up the cask and poured forth a stream of beer.
‘Let’s drink to the King,’ he said, raising his goblet. ‘May he abide in the One and find the wisdom to decide on peace or war.’
We all clinked goblets and drank the frothy beer. It tasted of barley and hops and roasted nuts of the talaru tree that grows only in the forests near Mount Arakel. Maram, of course, was the first to finish his beer. He gulped it down like a hound does milk. Then he held out his goblet for Lord Harsha to fill it again and said, ‘Now I would like to propose a toast. To the lords and knights of Mesh who have fought faithfully for their King.’
‘Excellent,’ Lord Harsha said, once more filling Maram’s goblet. ‘Let’s drink to that indeed.’
Again Maram drained his cup. He licked the froth from his mustache. He held the empty cup out yet again and said, ‘And now, ah, to the courage and prowess of the warriors – how do you say it? To flawlessness and fearlessness.’
But Lord Harsha stoppered the cask with a cork, and said, ‘No, that’s enough if you’re going hunting today – we can’t have you young princes shooting arrows at each other, can we?’
‘But, Lord Harsha,’ Maram protested, ‘I was only going to suggest that the courage of your Meshian warriors is an inspiration to those of us who can only hope to –’
‘You’re quite the diplomat,’ Lord Harsha said, laughing as he cut Maram off. ‘Perhaps you should reason with the Ishkans. Perhaps you could talk them out of this war as easily as you talked me out of my beer.’
‘I don’t understand why there has to be a war at all,’ Maram said.
‘Well, there’s bad blood between us,’ Lord Harsha said simply.
‘But it’s the same blood, isn’t it? You’re all Valari, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, the same blood,’ Lord Harsha said, slowly sipping from his goblet. Then he looked at me sadly. ‘But the Ishkans shed it in ways shameful to any Valari. The way they killed Valashu’s grandfather.’
‘But he died in battle, didn’t he? Ah, the Battle of the Diamond River?’
Now Lord Harsha swallowed the last of his beer as if someone had forced him to drink blood. He tapped his eye-patch and said, ‘Yes, it was at the Diamond. Twelve years ago now. That’s where the Ishkans took this eye. That’s where the Ishkans sacrificed five companies just to close with King Elkamesh and kill him.’
‘But that’s war, isn’t it?’ Maram asked.
‘No, that’s dueling. The Ishkans hated King Elkamesh because when he was a young man such as yourself, he killed Lord Dorje in a duel. And so they used the battle as a duel to take their revenge.’
‘Lord Dorje,’ I explained, looking at Maram, ‘was King Hadaru’s oldest brother.’
‘I see,’ Maram said. ‘And this duel took place, ah, fifty years ago? You Valari wait a long time to take your revenge.’
I looked north toward the dark clouds moving in from Ishka’s mountains, and I lost myself in memories of wrongs and hurts that went back more than a hundred times fifty years.
‘Please do not say “we Valari,”’ Lord Harsha told Maram. He rubbed his broken knee and said, ‘Sar Lensu of Waas caught me here with his mace, and that’s war. There’s no vengeance to be taken. They understand that in Waas. They would never have tried to kill King Elkamesh as the Ishkans did.’
While Lord Harsha rose abruptly and shook out the cloth of its crumbs for the sparrows to eat, I clenched my teeth together. And then I said, ‘There was more to it than vengeance.’
At this, Asaru shot me a quick look as if warning me not to divulge family secrets in front of strangers. But I spoke not only for Maram’s benefit, but for Asaru’s and Lord Harsha’s and my own.
‘My grandfather,’ I said, ‘had a dream. He would have united all the Valari against Morjin.’
At the mention of this name, dreadful and ancient, Lord Harsha froze motionless while Joshu Kadar turned to stare at me. I felt fear fluttering in Maram’s belly like a blackbird’s wings. In the sky, the dark, distant clouds seemed to grow even darker.
And then Asaru’s voice grew as cold as steel as it always did when he was angry at me. ‘The Ishkans,’ he said, ‘don’t want the Valari united under our banner. No one does, Val.’
I looked up to see a few crows circling the field in search of carrion or other easy feasts. I said nothing.
‘You have to understand,’ Asaru continued, ‘there’s no need.’
‘No need?’ I half-shouted. ‘Morjin’s armies swallow up half the continent, and you say there’s no need?’
I looked west beyond the white diamond peak of Telshar as I tried to imagine the earthshaking events occurring far away. What little news of Morjin’s acquisitions that had arrived in our isolated country was very bad. From his fastness of Sakai in the White Mountains, this warlock and would-be Lord of Ea had sent armies to conquer Hesperu and lands with strange names such as Uskudar and Karabuk. The enslaved peoples of Acadu, of course, had long since marched beneath the banner of the Red Dragon, while in Surrapam and Yarkona, and even in Eanna, Morjin’s spies and assassins worked to undermine those realms from within. His terror had found its most recent success in Galda. The fall of this mighty kingdom, so near the Morning Mountains and Mesh, had shocked almost all of the free peoples from Delu to Thalu. But not the Meshians. Nor the Ishkans, the Kaashans, nor any of the other Valari.
‘Morjin will never conquer us,’ Asaru said proudly. ‘Never.’
‘He’ll never conquer us if we stand against him,’ I said.
‘No army has ever successfully invaded the Nine Kingdoms.’
