"No. But evil powers might grant a semblance of such. It is hard to explain-though you will understand if you succeed-but during your training you are more open to evil influence than before. We must so harrow your minds: and as in a harrowed field both sun and frost strike deeper, so in your minds both good and evil can strike a firmer root. That is why you are kept apart from the others, once you begin the final training, and why you are always in the company of your sponsor, who can sense any threat and protect you from it."

"But we're supposed to be more resistant anyway," grumbled Harbin. Paks agreed, but said nothing. It almost sounded as if they were weaklings.

"You are-you were-and you will be," said Cami. "But right now, and for the time of your training, we are 386.

looking for weakness-searching for any crevice through which evil can a.s.sail your hearts. And we will find things, for none of us is perfect, or utterly invincible, except in the High Lord's protection." Paks wondered uneasily what weakness they would find in her, and what they would do about it.

"And," added Sarek, closing that session with a laugh, "remember that while a demon can't eat your soul, once you're a paladin, any village idiot can crack your skull with a rock. By accident."

Other such discussions followed. They learned that paladins never married unless-and this was rare-they retired from that service to another. Yet although celibate on quest-Paks saw someone frown, across the room, and wondered if he would drop out-they might have lovers in Fin Panir or elsewhere, as time allowed. "But those you love most are in the most danger," pointed out Amberion. "Choose your loves from those who can defend themselves, should Achrya's agents be seeking a weapon against you. We are here to defend the children of others-not to protect our own. And if we had children, and were good parents, we would have no time for Gird's work."

Soon Paks knew the paladins as people. She knew the room would bubble with excitement when Cami arrived, that Saer brought with her an intensity and mysticism almost eerie to experience, that Sarek's jokes always had a lasting sting of sense, that Amberion was the group s steady anchor. She, like the others, opened up under Kevis's warm and loving regard; and like the others she found her determination hardened by Teriam's stern logic. Garin, last of the seven, left on quest shortly after his sponsored candidate withdrew-the first of their group to rail. Paks had not known Amis well, and did not know why he had left. She knew less of the candidates than she'd expected, for when not in cla.s.ses together, they were each with a sponsor or learning to meditate alone.

But even so she was conscious of a difference between these young Girdsmen, long committed to their patron, and herself. Matters that she thought trivia! were cause for hours of discussion, and the simple solution she always .

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thought she saw never satisfied them. They picked away at the motives they claimed lay behind all acts, creating, Paks thought, an incredible tangle of unlikely possibilities. She had imagined herself committed to the defense of good . - . but was good this complicated? If so, why was Gird the patron of soldiers? No one had time to think of definitions and logic in the midst of a battle. The way Sarek had said it first made the most sense to her: here are the bad people, and you kill them; there are the good ones, and they cheer for you. Surely it was only a matter of learning to recognize all the evil. She prayed, as Amberion was teaching her to do, and said nothing. She was there to learn, and in time she might understand that other way of thinking. She had time.

Busy as she was, Paks had almost forgotten the mysterious scrolls when she received a summons to the Master Archivist, Marshal Kory. She found him at a broad table set before a window, with the scrolls all open before him.

"Paksenarrion-come and see the treasure." He waved his hand at the array. "Amberion tells me you had no idea what you brought?'

"No, sir."

"Well, if it were all you ever brought here, Paksenarrion, the Fellowship of Gird could count itself well repaid. We have all examined these-all those of us in Fin Panir with an interest in such tilings. I believe-and so do many others-that these scrolls were penned by Luap himself, Gird's own friend. How they got where you found them I doubt we will ever know for certain."

"But how can you know what they are?"

Marshal Kory grinned. "That's scholar's work, young warrior. But you would know a sword made in Andressat, I daresay, from one made in Ve'rella-"

"Yes, sir."

"So we have ways to know that the scrolls are old. We have copies of Luap's chronicles and letters; we compared them, and found some differences-but just what might have come from careless copying. And these scrolls con- 388.

tain far more than we have: letters to Luap's friends, little sermons-a wealth of material. We think the writing is Luap's own hand, because we have preserved a couple of lists said to be his-and one of the letters here mentions making that list of those who fell in the first days of the rebellion."

Paks began to feel the awesome age of the scrolls. "Then-Luap really touched those-I mean, he was alive, and could- "He was a real person, yes-not a legend-and because he writes so, we know that Gird was real, too. Not that I charge you with having doubted it, but it's easy to forget that our heroes were actual men and women, who got blisters when they marched, and liked a pot of ale at day's end. Luap now-' His eyes stared into the distance. "That isn't even his name. In those days, luap was a kinship term, for someone not in the line of inheritance. The military used it too. A (uap-captain had that rank, for respect and pay, but had no troops under his own command: could not give independent orders. According to the old stories, this man gave up his own name when he joined the rebellion. There are several versions with different reasons for that. Anyway, he became Gird's a.s.sistant, high-ranked because he could write-which few besides lords could do in those days-and he was called Gird's luap. Soon everyone called him "the luap,' and finally 'Luap.' Because of him, no one used luap for a kinship term after that; in Fintha the same relationship now is called 'nik,' and in Tsaia it's 'niga' or 'nigan.' " The Archivist seemed ready to explain the origin of that and every other term, and Paks broke in quickly, sticking to what she understood.

"And he speaks of Gird?"

"As a friend. Listen to this." Marshal Kory picked up one of the scrolls, and began to read. " '-and in feet, Ansuli, I had to tell the great oaf to quit swinging his staff around overhead like a young demon. I feared he would hit me, but soon that great laugh burst out and he thanked me for stopping him. If he has a fault, it is that liking for ale, which makes him fight sometimes whether we have .

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need or no.' And that's Luap talking of Gird at a tavern in eastern Fintha. I'm not sure where; he doesn't name the town."

Paks was startled. "Gird-drunk?"

"It was after their first big victory. I've always suspected that the reason several of the articles in the Code of Gird dealt with drunkenness is that Gird had personal knowledge of it." He laid that scroll down and touched another with his fingertip. "We have Had the copyists working on these every day. It is the greatest treasure of the age-you cannot know, Paksenarrion, how it lifts our hearts to find something so close to Gird himself. Even when it's things like that letter-that just makes him more human, more real to us. And to have in Luap's own words the last battle-incrediblel Besides that, we now have a way to prove whether or not these scrolls are genuine. Have you ever heard of Luap's Stronghold?"

Paks shook her head. "I had not heard of Luap until I came here, sir."

"There's been a legend for a long time that Luap left the Honnorgat Valley and traveled west, to take Gird's Code to distant lands. For a time, it was believed, he had established a stronghold, a fortress, in the far mountains, and some reports had Girdsmen travelling back and forth. But no one has come from the west with any reports of him for hundreds of years, so most scholars now think it was just a legend. But in one of these scrolls, sent back, he says, at the request of the Marshal-General of that day, he gives the location of that stronghold. If someone were to go there, and see it, that would prove that these are, indeed, the scrolls of Luap."

Paks thought of it, suddenly excited. "What are the western lands like?"

"All we have are caravan reports. Dry gra.s.sland for some days' travel, then rock and sand, then deep gouges in the rocks, with swift-running rivers in the depths. Then mountains-but they don't go that way, skirting them on the south, to come to a crossways. North along that route is a kingdom called Kaelifet; I know nothing about it. Southward is more desert, and finally a sea."

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Faks tried to imagine those strange lands, and felled. "Will you go, then, Marshal Kory?"

"Me!" He laughed. "No, I'm the Archivist-I can't go. Perhaps no one will. Some think it is an idle fancy, and the trip too long and dangerous to risk with evil nearer to hand. But I hope the Marshal-General sends someone. I'd like to know what happened to Luap-and his followers- and why they left Fintha. Perhaps there are more scrolls there-who knows?" He looked at her. "Would you go, if you could, or does this seem a scholar's question to you?"

"I would go," said Paks. "A long journey-unknown lands-mountain fortress-what could be more exciting?"

Chapter Twenty-four.

The early spring flowers were just fading when Paks rode west up the first long slopes above Fin Panir. She still thought nothing could be more exciting. With the caravan, the year's first, rode Amberion, High Marshals Connaught and Fallis, and four knights: Joris, Adan, and Pir, from the Order of the Cudgel, and Marek from the Order of Gird. A troop of men-at-arms marched with them, and a number of yeomen had signed on as drovers and camp workers. Most of the caravan was commercial, headed for Kaelifet, but Ardhiel and Balkon rode with the Girdish contingent as amba.s.sadors and witnesses for their people.

. Paks continued her training under the direction of die paladin and High Marshals. If she had thought the trip would provide a respite from study, she was quickly convinced otherwise. By the time they reached the Rim, a rough outcrop of stone that loomed across their path, visible a day's journey away, Paks had pa.s.sed their examinations on the G.o.de of Gird and grange organization. She began learning the grange history of the oldest granges, the reasons for locating granges and bartons in certain places, the way that the Code of Gird was administered in grange courts and market courts in Fintha. Now she knew how the judicar was appointed in Rocky Ford, and why the required number of witnesses to a contract varied with the land of contract.

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Their encounter with the horse nomads was a welcome break. She had been marching along muttering to herself the names of the Marshal-Generals who had made changes in the Code when one of the wagonmaster's sons came pelting along the line, crying a warning. As he neared the Girdsmen, he yelled "Sir paladin! Sir paladin! Raiders!"

"Where, lad?" Amberion was already swinging onto his golden chestnut warhorse.

"North, sir! The scouts say it's a big party."

Paks felt her stomach clench as she hurried to untie Socks from the wagon. Socks was tossing his head, and she scrambled up, uncomfortably aware of her awkwardness. At least she had her own armor and sword for the journey. She swung Socks away from the wagons, and unhooked her helmet from its straps. Amberion was already hel-meted, shield on arm.

"Paksenarrion!" he called. "Brine spears." Paks unfastened her shield from the saddle and slid it on her arm. At the supply wagon, she called for two spears, and a young yeoman slid them out the rear. Paks locked them under her elbow, whirled Socks, and rode off to find Amberion. To the north she could see a smudge of dust. The caravan itself was suddenly alive with armed troops. Their score of men-at-arms marched as a rear guard; the regular caravan guards rode atop each wagon, crossbows loaded and c.o.c.ked. High Marshal Connaught carried a bow; he, Sir Marek, and Ardhiel rode toward the head of the caravan. The other three knights waited on High Marshal Fallis, whose bald-faced horse was throwing its usual tantrum. Paks grinned to herself. She'd had to ride that horse a few times herself; she could imagine the struggle to get helm and shield in place while staying aboard.

Then a bellow from the wagonmaster bought Amberion back. He shrugged at Paks, and she followed him to the cl.u.s.ter of mounted fighters. High Marshal Connaught was glaring, but the wagonmaster never looked up.

"You can't do it, I say, and you agreed when I took you on that you'd be bound by my orders."

"Thieves and outlaws-" began Connaught. The wagon-master interrupted.

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"Horse nomads. Horse nomads I've met before, and will every year, whether you ride with me or not. Maybe you could hold them off-if it's one of the half-decent clans like Stormwind or Wintersun. But what about next year? We skirmish a little for honor's sake, pay our toll, same as a caravan would on the long route through Tsaia, and that's tt. None of your Girdish sermonizing here, Marshal: it'll get me killed."

"And if they attack?" said Amberion. Paks noticed that the wagonmaster's fixed glare softened a little.

"We fight, of course: that's why I have guards. But they won't, with you in sight. I'm glad enough to have the extra blades and bows, and that's truth, but for the rest of it, I'll pay toll." Connaught started to speak, but Amberion caught his eye, and he closed his mouth. Amberion smiled at the wagonmaster. "Sir, we agreed to follow your command while we traveled with you; forgive us for our eagerness to defend you."

It was not long before they could see die advancing warriors clearly: a ma.s.s of riders armed with lances, on s.h.a.ggy small horses. Paks watched the war party ride closer-and closer. Now she could see the s.h.a.ggy manes, the glitter of bridle ornaments, the colors of the riders' cloaks. On tall poles long streamers of cloth fluttered in the wind: blue, gray, and white. She could hear the drumming of those many hooves.

The wagonmaster had insisted that all but the parley group he led stay near the wagons, but he had invited Amberion to ride out with him. Paks followed, at his nod. As they moved toward the nomads, the wagonmaster gave them his instructions. Finally they faced their enemy only a bowshot away. Amberion waved his spear slowly, left to right. The nomads halted. Several of their horses whickered.

A single figure in the front of the group waved one of the streamered poles and yelled something in a language Paks didn't know.

"Parley in Common!" yelled Amberion.

The figure rode forward ten yards or so. "Why we halt?" he called. "Yer on our pasture, city folk. On the sea of gra.s.s, only the strong survive. Can ye stop us taking all 394.

you have, and feeding ye to the gra.s.s?" His speech was thickly accented, a mixture of several dialects.

"Aye, easily enough." The wagonmaster sounded confident.

"Ha! Five against fifty? Are ye demons, then, like that black one that walks north?"

"We are servants of Gird and the High Lord," said Amberion. The wagonmaster shot him a glance, but said nothing.

"Well met here, servant of whoever. Go tell yer master that those who travel our lands must pay our tolls-unless ye'd rather fight."

Amberion turned to the wagonmaster, brows raised. The wagonmaster nodded. "Oh, these aren't bad. These are Stormwinds-that's old Carga out there; he don't torture prisoners at all. Keeps slaves, of course, they ail do, but if there's a good horse nomad, it's Carga. h.e.l.l take our tribute and leave us alone. You notice he changed his demand, that second time?"

The wagonmaster had a.s.sembled a bale of striped cloth, a small keg of Marrakai red wine, several skeins of red and blue yarn, a sack of river-clam sh.e.l.ls, and a bundle of mixed wooden staves of a length for arrowshafts. Now he waved, and some of the drovers carried the goods toward them.

The nomad leader rode forward slowly, alone, close enough that Paks could see the curl of hoof on its thong around his neck, the spirals tattooed on his cheeks, the clear gray eyes under dark brows. He rode without stirrups, in knee-high boots whose embroidered soles had surely never been used for walking, clear as the colors were.

"Ye ride with strange powers, cityborn trader," he said. "Yer men I know, but him-" he pointed at Amberion. "Wizard, is it?"

"A paladin of Gird," said Amberion. The nomad shrugged and spat.

"Never heerd of him, nor paladins neither. But ye stink of power." He watched closely as the goods were displayed before him, and finally nodded. "Go yer way, .

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scarfeet riders-" It took Paks a while to understand this reference to their stirrups, and the marks those left on boots.

She hardly had time to enjoy the memory of the nomads before High Marshal Connaught had her hard at work again. Spring pa.s.sed quickly into summer, the hot windy summer of the gra.s.slands. At times it seemed they rode in the center of a bowl of gra.s.s, and Paks wondered if the world might be turning under them, so that they would never be free. Then the green turned grayer; the gra.s.s hardly reached their horses' knees. The dry air rasped in her nose, chapped her lips. Paks could see the ground's color showing through, as if the gra.s.s were a threadbare rug over the land, and then the gra.s.s foiled. The trail went on, a deep-bitten groove of dust and stone.

They moved from water to water. Paks learned to ride with a cloth over her face, and keep her mouth closed against the dryness. The horses lost flesh, despite their care. The caravaners showed the Girdsmen how to turn over every rock before sitting down: Paks loathed the many-legged creatures that lurked in that cool shade and carried poison in their tails.

It took days to cross the first deep canyon: first to ease the wagons down that steep trail without losing control of any of them, then to warp them across the roaring river, red with ground rock, then to drag them back up, foot by foot. And when they came out on top again, Paks could see t.i.ttle of where they had been. After another such canyon, the caravaners pointed out a line of purple against the northern sky. Mountains, they said. Elves, they said also, with sidelong looks at Ardhiel.

Paks asked him, and Ardhiel answered that those mountains were home to elves, but not of his family. He seemed troubled by something, but Paks knew better than to ask. Balkon, looking north, muttered eagerly about stone. He had confided to Paks that his family, the Goldenaxe clan, was looking for more daskgeft, more stonema.s.s for the increase of the family. He hoped to find some; the descriptions Luap had written of the land made him think the stone there might be "dross," or suitable. Paks won- 396.

dered again how dross could have so many meanings in dwarvish: courage, wit, strength-almost anything good, it seemed to her, was dross.

Day by day the mountains seemed to march nearer their flank. Ahead was only the rolling level of the desert, broken by watercourses. Paks began to feel a pressure from those mountains; she understood why the caravaners would go around rather than through them, for that alone. Then one morning an edge of red rock showed ahead. As they marched toward it, it rose higher and higher. By the next afternoon, they could see the lighter rock below, great sweeping curves of white and yellow-the same color, Paks thought, as the walls of Cortes Andres. And two days later, marching under those great stone ramparts, the Girdsmen turned aside.

Here a river emptied itself from those stone walls into the sand and rubble outside. The caravaners muttered and made gestures, but finally moved on, while. High Marshal Connaught examined the map again. When the caravan was gone, he mounted his bay horse and led them up the watercourse, the horses lunging through the dry sand. Ahead, Paks could see towering white walls dosing in. She wondered how they could ride in such a narrow s.p.a.ce if the water came up.

"Bad place for an ambush," said Amberion beside her.

"Yes, sir."

"By the map, well be leaving this soon, and climbing into another stream's valley. I hope the route can be climbed by horses."

Paks had not thought of that, but looking at the sheer walls of stone, she realized what they might face. "If they can't-"

"Then we'll leave them. Build a stout camp, leave die novice yeomen and most of the men-at-arms.'

Before the canyon walls closed completely, High Marshal Connaught turned left away from the river, leading them onto a rough slope of broken rock. He seemed to find a trail; Paks, far back in the group, could not see anything ahead to guide them. Socks heaved upward, stride by stride. They stopped often to rest the animals; the war- .

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horses were curded with sweat. Amberion's horse, alone of all the animals, never showed the marks of hard riding, always slick-coated and fresh. Paks had noticed that about all the paladin's mounts in Fin Panir. Far back she could see the mules, head down, picking their way delicately and almost without eflbrt over the rocks. Below, the canyon they had come from disappeared into a jumble of shadow and light. Now she could see far to the right, more swooping curves of stone, patterned by dark cracks. Far up on the heights, she thought she saw trees.

By late afternoon, she could see a strange shape against the sky: a dark cone with a scoop out of the point. Amberion pointed to it.

"That's marked on the map. Blackash cone, it said: we must bear left of it." As they came nearer, always climbing, the rock changed abruptly from white to red. The trail led through a break in that vertical red wall. Suddenly the black cone was close; it looked like a loose pile of dark rock sitting on the red stone around it. Paks stared. Had someone-some giant, surely-built a cairn? Long shadows streaked the land, making weird shapes of the windblown rocks around them. Now they could see that the canyon they had climbed from was only a small section of something much larger that extended far to the east, ending at last in a higher rampart of white topped with forest. South, the land dropped abruptly into that hole. It was hard to believe they had climbed anything so sudden. Westward the land dipped to a rumpled plain of sand, and that again dropped shaiply: Paks could just see against the setting sun the distant mountains beyond that drop. Northward, their view was blocked by the black cone and the higher land behind it. Red clifis, these, with fortress-size blocks lying at their feet. Paks wondered if die others felt as small as she did.

That night they camped on the sandy plain just southwest of me black cone. A cold wind brushed the camp; stars blazed brighter than Paks had ever seen them. She woke several times to hear Ardhiel singing. Dawn came early on that high place. Paks saw the white stone below begin to glow even before she was aware of light in the 398.

sky. Then the high wall to the east stood clear against a green dawn. First light turned die red peaks north of tnem to fiery orange; then the light crept down to meet them, throwing blue shadows below.

They had some trouble to find the trail from there. Just to the left of the black cone, layers of stone like those that peel from a boiled egg curved downward, but the horses skidded and slipped. High Marshal Connaught sent Thelon ahead; he reported that the stony way ended in a drop four or five men high. Then they searched for a way around. Paks decided that walking in deep dry sand was harder than any marching she had ever done. The wind increased, blowing sand into their eyes. The horses flattened ears against it. The first three trails they tried led to sheer clifls, and it was early afternoon before the scout found a safe route.

It began in a narrow grove of pines, where broad low boles rose from drifted sand, old trees bent by strong winds into a tangled thatch of branches. Below the trees, the trail followed a twisting ravine, its bed choked with boulders of garish red and black on a bed of sand; they radiated the heat like coals. Across the ravine, as they went down, they could see outcrops of red rock. Suddenly the cleft they traveled angled back to die left, then crooked right again. They were on a narrow platform above a small valley that led straight away toward a tangle of clifis and canyons. On either side sheer clifis rose hundreds of feet, rose-red and orange, striped with black. To die right, an arm of die valley angled back away from them. Down die valley a stream reflected the sky; it looked wider than Paks had expected.

As they rode down into the valley, Paks heard conflicting opinions.

"What a farm diat'd make," said one of the yeomen with die mules. "Wind-shelter from those cliffs-water-must be good soil with all that gra.s.s."

"A long way to market," said another. "Unless you founded a grange out here, Tamar."

"Marry me, and we might," said the woman, laughing.

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