Lord of Lies

‘She’s like a sister to me,’ I said as I laid my hand upon her dark, curly hair. Her little triangle of a face, all quicksilver and wild, brightened to see me smiling down at her.

‘Yes,’ my father said, looking at us, ‘but would you take your sister, and one so young, upon a dangerous journey?’

‘She will have a hundred Valari knights to protect her,’ I said. I placed my hand on the hilt of my sword. ‘And myself.’

‘Even so, she would be safer here.’

‘Would she truly? With a ghul still on the loose? How do we know that this man wouldn’t seek to complete Salmelu’s evil work?’

My father thought about this as he studied Estrella’s lively face. Then he said, ‘But, Valashu, it’s a hundred and fifty miles to Nar. And four times that distance to Tria.’

‘Estrella,’ I said, ‘has come out of Argattha, and that is the greatest distance of all, for the road from hell is endless.’

I went on to tell of my sense that Estrella still carried much of this hell inside her, in her nightmares of memory, if not in her soul.

‘You cannot know what an abomination Morjin has worked upon that place,’ I said, to my father and to my family. ‘Morjin has made children … to do unspeakable things. I would make for this child, at least, happier memories.’

My father’s eyes grew deep as oceans. It sometimes seemed that he had the power to look straight through me. ‘You wish to heal her of her affliction, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I said, touching Estrella’s long, delicate neck. ‘There’s nothing wrong with her that she shouldn’t speak. Nothing wrong that Morjin hasn’t somehow made wrong. If I am the one … whom many think I am, then with the aid of the Lightstone, it may be that I can give her back her voice – and perhaps much else as well.’

My father nodded his head at this, then said, ‘And if you could work this miracle, then your healing of her would be that which showed you the Maitreya – is that right?’

‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘But even if she doesn’t show me what it seems she must, she might show me another. Whoever the Lord of Light truly is, he must be found for the sake of all Ea.’

‘For the sake of Ea and not your own?’

‘One can only hope so, sir.’

In the end, it was decided that such a journey, on good horses over good roads, under the escort of a hundred knights, should not prove too arduous for this tough and resourceful girl. She wanted to come with me so badly that she locked the tips of her long, tapering fingers through the rings of my mail. If fate was moving us along the same road together, who was I to go against it?

One last matter regarding our expedition still had to be decided. By law, no knight or warrior of Mesh was allowed to leave the Nine Kingdoms wearing the marvelous diamond battle armor of the Valari – except on expeditions of war. This was meant to protect a lone knight against brigands who might murder him in order to divest him of the glittering treasure that encased him. So it was that I had journeyed across Ea and back wearing only my steel mail. But not all knights could afford two suits of armor; at least half of the Guardians were not so fortunate. Therefore, they must leave Mesh either unarmored or raimented in diamonds.

‘It won’t do to leave my knights unprotected,’ my father said to me. ‘The Red Dragon has spoken of sending armies against Mesh and has brought murder into my house. Very well, then – let it be as if you are riding to war.’

Early the next morning, on the 9th of Soal, all who would journey to Nar assembled in the castle’s north ward. It was a day of drizzle and low, gray clouds that smothered the sky and promised only more rain. This stole some of the sheen from the knights’ usually-resplendent diamond armor. At least, I thought as we all formed up, diamonds do not rust. I ran my finger across the misted, white stones affixed to the hardened leather along my arm. Diamond being lighter than steel, it was joy to move about unburdened, with nearly as much freedom as had a man wearing only woolens or a leather doublet.

I sat astride my great, black warhorse, Altaru, and I urged him past some squawking chickens toward the front of the formation. There, Asaru and Yarashan gathered, too. They wore, as did I, great helms with curving steel face plates and silver wings sweeping up from the sides. Black surcoats showing the silver swan and the seven stars of the Elahads draped cleanly over their shoulders and chests. Their triangular shields were embossed with the same emblem. These bore as well, near the point, marks of cadence that distinguished my brothers and me from each other. Asaru had chosen a small, gold bear while Yarashan displayed a white rose. My mark was that of a lightning bolt. It was burned into the black steel of my shield as it was into the flesh of my forehead.

Lord Harsha and Behira, with Maram, Master Juwain and Lansar Raasharu, took their places immediately behind us. Lord Harsha’s emblem was a gold lion rampant on a field of bright blue. It covered nearly all his shield, except that the bordure around its rim showed a repeating motif of silver swans and stars against a narrow black field, for he had sworn allegiance to my father and must bear sign of it. So it was with Lord Raasharu, his family’s emblem of a blue rose against a gold field being surrounded by the same bordure, and with all the other knights lining up behind him.

Baltasar, who would be that day’s bearer of the Lightstone, had the position of honor at the center of the middle column of Guardians. Our small baggage train trailed this main body of our expedition, followed by strings of our snorting remounts and a rear-guard of twenty knights commanded by Sunjay Naviru. Estrella, I discovered, could not ride and had been brought to Mesh with her sister slaves locked inside a cart. And so the prospect of sitting all day by herself in one of the wagons distressed her. I decided that she should begin our journey riding with me. My mother escorted her through the courtyard, treading carefully through the squishing mud right up to the front of our assemblage. She helped her up onto Altaru’s back, and the small girl seemed happy to sit in front of me dangling her feet over Altaru’s sides.

‘Neither of you will be comfortable this way for long,’ my mother said to me as she stood there in the courtyard’s churned-up mud. ‘Please mind that she doesn’t grow too tired or sore.’

I promised that I would take as good care of Estrella as she would herself.

‘Goodbye, Valashu,’ she said as she bent forward to kiss my knee. ‘Whether you return as a Maitreya or just a man, make sure you do return.’

In the north ward that morning, lined up along the walls from the Aramesh Tower to the Telemesh Gate, blacksmiths and carpenters mingled with great lords such as Lord Tanu, and midwives waited in the rain with princes and even kings. Almost all the castle had turned out to see us off. At the front of this throng stood my father and grandmother, with my brothers Karshur, Mandru and Ravar. When it came time for us to ride forth, they braved the mud and joined my mother in making their goodbyes. Karshur made me promise to return with the gold plaque in swordsmanship. Mandru, adding a twist to my mother’s theme, advised me to return with the gold gelstei – or not at all. This was meant to be a joke, of course, but there was a painful truth in his otherwise tender parting with me.

On this journey, my father had no gifts to give me other than the reassurance of his smile and the fire of his eyes. He spoke the same farewell as he had a year before. This time, in the light of what I sought, his words had an even deeper poignancy: ‘Always remember who you are, Valashu. May you always walk in the light of the One.’

I nudged Altaru forward, and my powerful horse whinnied with excitement, glad to set out into the world again. And so I led the rest of my company through the castle’s gate. A thousand iron-shod hooves struck wet paving stones, sending spray and a great noise into the air. The road wound down from the castle through an apple grove and turned into the North Road that led all the way toward Ishka and beyond.

It was not a pleasant day for travel. And yet the land through which we passed was still lovely. The fields around Silvassu showed the emerald sheen of new shoots of barley and rye; the wildflowers along the road were alive with bees and butterflies undaunted by the soft rain. To the left of us, the peaks of the mountains – Vayu, Arakel and Telshar – vanished into folds of silver mist. Soon we entered the forest filling the Valley of the Swans. With the oaks and elms in full leaf and the songbirds chirping gaily, it seemed churlish to chafe at a little moisture working its way into our garments or to long for the sun to burn its way through the clouds.

We rode all day at an easy pace so as not to tire the horses. That night we camped in the hilly country toward the northern end of the valley. On some nearly level pasturage well-watered by a swift stream, we laid out our rows of tents. Upon considering the warcraft I had learned from my mysterious friend, Kane, and from my father, I insisted that our little camp be fortified by a moat and a stockade. This rudimentary fence was little more than some sharpened stakes pounded into the moist earth and logs and brush piled up to form a breastwork. Nevertheless, with Guardians stationed every twenty paces, we would be well protected against any thieves or murderers who might try to steal upon us in the middle of the night.

My tent, a large pavilion of black and silver silk in which the Lightstone would reside each night, covered a patch of moist grass in the middle of the camp. It was large enough to accommodate numerous people, and Estrella gave signs of wanting to lay out her sleeping furs inside and share it with me. But that would have been unseemly. For however much I thought of her as my sister, she remained a young girl of no true relation. And so I arranged a compromise: Lord Harsha and Behira would have the tent next to mine, and Estrella would sleep with them. We would take our meals, with Master Juwain and Maram, around a common campfire. If Estrella should cry out in the darkness, in her soundless way, her plaint might awaken me so that I could go to her and lead her out of the land of nightmare.

Our dinner that first night on the road to Nar was plentiful and good: beef and barley soup mopped up with a black rye bread thick with butter; roasted lamb and mushrooms; asparagus shoots picked from the shoulders along the road; apple pie that my mother had packed with a block of aged, yellow cheese. All this provender gave us good cheer against the fine, misting rain. The beer and brandy poured into our cups helped raise our spirits, too. I sipped this fine liquor by our fire, with Master Juwain and Maram on my right, while Estrella, Behira and Lord Harsha sat in a half-circle to my left. My two brothers, at the fire nearest us, held a little war council as they discussed their strategies for excelling at the tournament. Between the rows of tents around us, Baltasar, Sunjay Naviru, Sivar of Godhra, and all the other Guardians except the sentries, gathered around fires of their own.

For a couple of hours, I talked with Lord Harsha and Maram about the tournament and other worldly affairs. And all this time, I couldn’t help stealing quick glances at Estrella. She seemed to pay no attention to these matters of great moment which so concerned me and my friends; perhaps she didn’t understand our talk of statecraft or just didn’t care. During dinner, she ate with abandon as if she had been starved and couldn’t get enough of food, and of life itself. Later she played with a little doll sewn out of some bright bits of cloth. Behira, that truly kind young woman whom Maram so foolishly declined to marry, had given it to her as a present. It seemed the only possession that Estrella had ever been allowed to keep as her own. It drew all of her attention. For this, too, was her gift, the way that a picked flower or a brightly colored bird and all the things of life absorbed her utterly. I watched as her dark, almond eyes seemed to melt into the doll’s silken substance. I wondered at her origins. With her light brown skin and finely-boned face, she might have been Hesperuk, Galdan or Sung – or some marrying of all three. She was less pretty than beautiful. Her body was as slender as a willow; her slightly crooked nose suggested that someone had once broken it. What a mystery she was! What a mystery all human beings were! Argattha, I knew, had broken men as strong as bulls and yet here this little sprig of humanity sat in a soft spring mist happily playing with her doll as if none of the world’s horrors could touch her.

After Lord Harsha and Behira had taken her off to bed, I remarked this inextinguishable quality of hers.

‘Her soul … is so free,’ I marveled. ‘After a life in bondage, she’s still so wild at heart. Like a sparrowhawk – like the wind.’

‘People survive slavery in different ways,’ Master Juwain said to me. ‘I think that she retreats inside herself.’

‘No, it is more than that,’ I said. I told him, and Maram, that Estrella seemed able to look into a thing and perceive some part of its fiery essence as her own, and so to take refuge there. ‘She sees things, sir. And what she sees, she reflects in her eyes, in her soul.’

‘You’re quite taken with her, aren’t you?’

‘She has a gift,’ I said. ‘Whether it’s to show me the Maitreya or simply show the sun on a sunless day, who could know?’

‘Yes, a gift,’ Master Juwain agreed as he scratched his bald head. Soft lights began dancing in his eyes as if I had just given him a key piece to a puzzle. ‘There is something about her. Consider how she found her way up the castle’s wall in pitch blackness.’

I thought about this as I gazed through the fire’s flames at the blue and yellow tent into which Estrella had retired for the night. I said, ‘Perhaps she felt for the cracks in the stone.’

‘Yes, but felt with her hands or with a different sense? Perhaps she has the second sight.’

‘Like a scryer?’

‘No, not exactly. A scryer’s gift is to perceive things hidden in time.’

‘Some scryers,’ I said, thinking of Atara, ‘can also see things hidden in space.’

‘Yes, and there clairvoyance is wed with prophecy. But I’m thinking that perhaps Estrella is gifted otherwise.’

He went on to tell of a talent so rare that it had only an ancient name little used any more: that of a seard. A seard, he said, had a knack for finding lost things – by becoming, in spirit, that very thing.

I gazed at the sparks in the flames before me. They reminded me of Flick’s fiery form whirling about nearby. I said, ‘A curious thing happened this morning, sir: When I was packing my chess set, I discovered that one of the white knights was missing. I couldn’t imagine how I’d lost it. But Estrella found it for me in Yarashan’s room. It seems that he had borrowed it without telling me to replace a missing piece in his set. But how did Estrella even know to look there?’

Maram took a sip of brandy and said, ‘Curious, indeed, my friend. But it’s even more curious to think of a seard becoming a piece of carved ivory – or anything else. If she’s to find the Maitreya for us, is she to become him as well, then?’

‘Only in spirit, as I’ve said,’ Master Juwain told Maram. He eyed Maram’s glass of vanishing brandy as if to admonish him that such strong drink could cloud both memory and the wits. ‘I would think that a seard might find the Maitreya through a transparency of the soul that nobody else would possess. By seeing him in a way that nobody else could.’

‘Ah, you’re speculating, sir,’ Maram said, needling him.

‘That I am. But how else is one to make sense of Kasandra’s prophecy?’

I poked the fire with a charred stick, and this sent up even more sparks. I said, ‘The true miracle is that Argattha didn’t crush this gift from her. And that Morjin – or his priests – didn’t discover it and use her as a sort of living lodestone to point the way to the Maitreya.’

‘As you would use her?’ Maram said, now needling me.

‘It is different,’ I told him. ‘As different as slavery and freedom. If Estrella follows me, this is her will and not mine.’

‘One can only hope so,’ Maram said to me.

Master Juwain pulled at his lumpy chin and said, ‘I’m afraid it isn’t always so easy to distinguish slavery from freedom. Or to tell a slave from one who is free.’

‘How so, sir?’ I asked.

‘Consider Estrella, then,’ Master Juwain said. ‘She is starved her whole life of the one thing that a young girl most needs. And then you save her from death, but even more, you give her the sweetest thing in life. You, who loves so freely and fiercely, as your mother has said. You never count the cost, do you, Val, when you give your heart to a friend?’

‘Are you saying that what is between Estrella and me, this thing that is so pure and good, this love, enslaves her?’

‘No, love can never enslave – it is just the opposite. But our need for love, burning us up like a fever, that can enslave. For that which we most desire pulls at us and captures us, like moths around a flame.’

‘But Estrella doesn’t seem … captured.’

‘No, I admit that she does not. She has great strength. She still retains her freedom, as she did in Argattha.’

‘What do you mean?’ Maram asked. ‘The filthy priests captured her and forced her to their will.’

‘Yes, they captured her body which is the least part of ourselves that we might lose,’ Master Juwain said. ‘Far worse it is to let another master your mind. And it is truly damning to give up your soul.’

He went on to say that slaves were the least useful of Morjin’s servants, for a slave must constantly be controlled by whips and chains and the threat of being put to death. And that was because a slave’s mind, while compromised by fear, often retained enough free will to plot revolt and the murder of his master, and to dream always of freedom.

‘And that is why,’ Master Juwain said, ‘that the Lord of Lies would rather make men into true believers of his lies, for then, having surrendered their minds, they will do his bidding without question. Such men we do not call slaves, but they are less free than a mine-thrall.’

‘Some of Morjin’s men would march off a cliff for him,’ Maram said. ‘Remember the Blues at Khaisham? They’re the perfect soldiers.’

‘No, not so perfect as you might think,’ Master Juwain said. ‘For what a man believes, he might come not to believe. Men often change their allegiances to ideals like snakes shedding one skin and growing another.’

‘Morjin,’ I said, with a sudden certainty, ‘would fear this.’

Master Juwain slowly nodded his head. ‘Which is why he seeks to steal men’s souls above all else. As the mind embraces the body, so the soul enfolds the mind. Control a man’s soul, and you are the master of all that he feels, thinks and does.’

‘It seems as if you’re speaking of a ghul,’ I said.

‘I’m speaking of the path toward losing one’s freedom,’ Master Juwain said. ‘This is not a simple thing. No one is completely free, just as no one is completely a slave.’

‘But what about a ghul, then?’

‘A ghul, Val, is only an extreme case of what we’ve been discussing. He is that certain kind of slave that not only surrenders his soul to one such as Morjin, but then becomes possessed by him body, mind and soul.’

I thought about this as I listened to the crickets chirping in the pasture beyond our rows of tents. Near the fire, Flick’s luminous substance streaked up toward the sky like a fountain of little silver lights. He seemed to point the way toward a break in the clouds, where a single star shone out of the night’s blackness.

I looked over at Master Juwain. ‘Sir, you said that no one is ever truly free. But what about the Star People? What about the angels?’

Master Juwain considered this a moment, then said, ‘Just as there is a path toward slavery, there is one toward freedom. A man begins this path by learning the Law of the One and strengthening his soul. If he is wise, if he is pure of heart, he will go on to walk other worlds as one of the Star People. And the Star People, the most virtuous, gain freedom from aging and so become Elijin. And the Elijin advance as Galadin, who are free from death. The Ieldra, it is said, being of light, are free even from the burden of bearing bodies. And the One – ageless, changeless, indestructible and infinitely creative in bringing forth new forms – is pure freedom itself.’

‘Then Morjin,’ I said, ‘as one of the Elijin, should be more free than you or I.’

‘He should be,’ Master Juwain said. ‘But an angel can lose his soul as surely as a man. And when he does, having a greater soul to lose, his fall is more terrible.’

He went on to speak of the fall of Morjin’s master, Angra Mainyu, the greatest of the Galadin. Very little of this tragic tale was recorded in the Saganom Elu. But Master Juwain, in an old book discovered in the Library at Khaisham, had come across some passages concerning Angra Mainyu’s seduction into evil and the cataclysm that had followed. Long, long before the ages of Ea when men had first come to earth, Angra Mainyu had been chief of the Galadin on their home of Agathad in the numinous and eternal light of Ninsun. But he had coveted the Lightstone for his own, and so his gaze had turned toward the world of Mylene, where the Lightstone was kept. After journeying there, through deceit, treachery and the fire of great red gelstei that had nearly destroyed Mylene, he had slain the Lightstone’s guardian and had stolen the Cup of Heaven. He persuaded a great host of angels to his purpose, for there are always those who will challenge the will of the One. Among the Galadin who followed him were Yama, Gashur, Lokir, Kadaklan, Yurlunggur and Zun. And among the Elijin: Zarin, Ashalin, Shaitin, Nayin, Warkin and Duryin. They called themselves the Daevas, and they fled to the world of Damoom.

Then befell a great and terrible war, the War of the Stone, that was fought on thousands of worlds across the universe and lasted tens of thousands of years. Ashtoreth and Valoreth had led those angels still faithful to the Law of the One against Angra Mainyu. Master Juwain could tell us very little of this war. But it seemed that somehow Ashtoreth and the faithful Amshahs had finally prevailed. The Lightstone had been regained, and Angra Mainyu and his dark angels had been bound on Damoom.

‘And there, on this darkest of the Dark Worlds, Angra Mainyu still dwells to this day,’ Master Juwain said. He looked up at the clouds that hid the night’s stars. ‘And now he is master only of his own doom.’

I wasn’t so sure of this. One of the reasons that Morjin wished to regain the Lightstone was to use it to free Angra Mainyu from his prison.

‘In a way,’ Master Juwain went on, ‘we may think of Angra Mainyu and Morjin as ghuls themselves.’

‘Morjin, a ghul?’ Maram said.

‘Certainly. For it is part of the Law of the One that you cannot harm another without harming yourself. All the evil that the Red Dragon has done has possessed him with evil. And so now his own evil purpose enslaves him.’

I couldn’t help thinking of Kane, he of the black eyes like burning coals and a soul as deep and troubled as time itself. Kane, who was once Kalkin, one of the immortal Elijin sent to Ea with Morjin and other angels who had been killed long ago. Kane, I knew, had slain thousands, and he burned with a terrible purpose that consumed him with hate. And yet he still held within his savage heart a bright and beautiful thing that was hate’s very opposite. By what grace, I wondered, did he retain his essential humanity and the freedom of his soul?

I spoke of this to Master Juwain and Maram, and then I said, ‘It’s hard to understand why one man falls and another does not.’

‘Surely there always remains for each of us a choice.’

‘Yes – but why does one man choose evil and another good?’