David Zindell - The Lightstone

'But if they wanted to kill you,' Maram said, 'why didn't they just ride you down by the stream?'

I had no answer for him; neither could I say why the gray man and his companions hadn't charged Atara.

'Well, whoever they are,' Maram said, 'they know where we are. What are we going to do, Val?'

I thought for a moment and said, 'So long as we keep to the road, we'll be easy prey.'

'Ah, do you mind, my friend, if you don't refer to us as prey?'

'My apologies,' I said, smiling. 'But perhaps we should take to the forest again.'

I said that according to a map I had studied before leaving Mesh, the Nar Road curved north between the gap in the Shoshan Range and Suma, where the great forest ended and the more civilized reaches of

Alonia began.

'We could cut through the forest straight for Suma,' I said. 'There will be hills to hide us and streams in which to lose our tracks.'

'You mean rivers to drown us. Hills to hide them.' Maram thought a moment as he stroked his thick beard. Then he said, 'It worries me that the road should curve to the north. Why does it? Did the old Alonians built it so as to avoid something? What if the forest hides another Black | Bog – or something worse?'

'Take heart, my friend,' I said, smiling again. 'Nothing could be worse than the Black Bog.'

On this point Master Juwain, Maram and I were all agreed. After some further argument, we also agreed – as did Atara – that the cut through the forest offered our best hope.

Soon after that we broke camp and set out through the trees. We moved away from the road, bearing toward the west. I guessed that Suma must lie some thirty or forty miles to the northwest. If we journeyed too far in our new direction, we would pass by It much to the south. Thin prospect didn't discourage me, however, for we could always turn back north and cut the Nar Road when we were sure that we had eluded the men hunting us. In truth, I wanted to get as far away from the road as I could, and the deeper the woods through which we rode the better. As the day warmed toward noon, the ground rose away from the stream. The trees grew less thickly, though they seemed taller, with the oaks predominating over the poplars and chestnuts. I could find no track through them. Still, the traveling wasn't difficult., for the undergrowth was mostly of lady fern and maidenhair, and the horses had no trouble finding footing. We rode in near-silence beneath the great, leafed archways of the trees. I took the lead followed by Master Juwain and the two remaining pack horses. Maram and Atara brought up the rear. All of us – except Master Juwain – rode with bows strung and swords close at hand.

We saw a few deer munching on leaves, and many squirrels, but no sign at all of the Stonefaces, as Maram named the gray men. I never doubted that they were somehow tracking us through the woods. With the sun high above the world, my fever came raging back, and my blood felt heavy as molten iron. It seemed that someone was aiming arrows of hate at me, for I could almost feel a succession of razor-sharp points driving into my forehead.

'I'm sorry I have no cure for what ails you,' Master Juwain said as he rode up beside me. He watched me rubbing my head, and looked at tne with great concern.

'Perhaps there is no cure,' I told him. Then I said, 'The Red Dragon is so evil – how can anyone be this evil?'

'Only out of blindness,' Master Juwain said, 'so that he can t see the difference between evil or good. Or only out of the delusion that he is doing good when actually bringing about the opposite.'

The Red Dragon, he said, was certainly not evil by his own lights.

No one was. But I wasn't as sure of this. Something in Morjin's voice seemed to delight in darkness, and this still haunted me.

'He spoke to me,' I told Master Juwain. 'And listened to him. Now his words won't leave my head.'

How, I asked myself, could I know what was the truth and what was a lie if I didn't listen?

To the rough walking gait of his horse, Master Juwain began thumbing rhythmically through the pages of the Saganom Elu. When he had found the passage he wanted, he cleared his throat and read from the Healings.

'I would advise you to meditate, if you can,' he told me. 'Do you remember the Second Light Meditation? It used to be your favorite.'

I nodded my head painfully because I remembered it well enough: I was to close my eyes and dwell on the dread brought on by the fall of night. And then, after gazing upon the blackness of the sky there as long as I could, I was to envision the Morning Star suddenly blazing as brightly as the sun. This fiery-light I would then hold inside me as I would the promise that day would always follow night.

'It's hard,' I told him after some long moments of trying to practice this meditation.

'The Lord of Illusions has made light seem like darkness and darkness light.'

'The worst lie,' Master Juwain said, 'is that which misuses truth to make falseness.

You'll have to look very hard for the truth now, Val.'

'You mean now that I've listened to Morjin's lies?'

'Please don't say his name,' he reminded me. 'And yes, I do mean that You had to test your courage, didn't you? But you must never listen to him, not even in your dreams.'

'Are my dreams mine to make, then? Or are they his?'

'Your dreams are always your dreams,' he told me. 'But you must fight to keep them for yourself even more fiercely than you would to keep an enemy's sword from piercing your heart.'

'How, then?'

'By learning to be awake and aware in your dreams.'

'Is that possible?'

'Of course it is. Even in your dream, you weren't completely without will, were you?'

'No – or else the Red Dragon would have kept me in his room.'

Master Juwain nodded his head and smiled. 'You see, it's our will to life that quickens awareness. And our awareness that seeks our awakening. There are exercises in the dreamwork that you would have been taught if you hadn't left our school.'

'Can you teach me them now?'

'I can try, Val. But the art of dreaming at will take, a long time to learn.'

As we rode deeper into the woods, he explained some of the funda-mentals of this ancient art. Every night while falling asleep, I was to resolve to remain aware of my dreams. And more, I was to create for myself an ally, a sort of dream self who would remain awake and watch over me while I slept.

'Do you remember the zanshin meditation I taught you before your duel with Lord Salmelu?'

'Yes – it's impossible to forget.'

'You may make use of that, then,' he said. 'The key is in the self looking at the self.

You must continually ask yourself the question: Who am I? When you think you know, ask yourself, who is doing the knowing? This "who," this one who knows – this is your ally. It is he who remains always beside you, and is awake even as you sleep.'

He suggested that I practice an ancient exercise that could be found in the Meditations. I was to visualize in my throat a beautiful, soft lotus flower. The lotus should have light-pink petals which curled slightly inwards, and in the center there should be a luminous red-orange flame. He told me to visualize the top of the flame as long as possible, for the flame represented consciousness and the whole lotus was a symbol of awakening the consciousness of the self.

'Ultimately,' he explained, 'you'll learn to control and shape your own dreams even as they unfold.'

'Even if the Lord of Illusions is attacking me?'

'Especially then. Your dreams are sacred, Val; you must never let anyone steal your dreams.'

That night we made camp on a hill beneath the tall oaks. There was little enough cover to hide us – nothing more than some thickets of laurel and virburn – but at least we would have a more or less clear line of sight should the gray men try to charge at us up the hill. I fell asleep with Master Juwain's lotus blazing inside me. His exercises did me little good, however, for I had terrible dreams all night long. My cries kept the others awake. They were true allies, of flesh and blood, and they kept watch over me where Master Juwain's more ethereal ally did not