Lord of Lies

by David Zindell

  I looked past his great shoulders at the wall of gray behind him. I looked to the right and left, and the grayness swirled no less densely in those directions. Which way was south? There was mist in my mind, and I could not see it.

  'Take heart, my friend,' I said to Maram. 'At least this isn t as bad the Black bog.'

  Take heart, you say,' Maram sputtered. 'Every time we get in a fix, you remind me that it's not as bad as that filthy, evil place, as if that's supposed to encourage me. Well, so what if this isn't as bad? What's bad enough for you? We could still starve here, couldn't we? We could sink in a storm. And if there are currents protecting the island, then why couldn't there be whirlpools, too? To be sucked down into this damn cold water . . . no, no, that's not quite as bad as wandering around that stinking Bog until we rotted, but it's bad enough for me.'

  I had nothing to say against this rant. For a while, we all fell quiet. Then Master Juwain said, 'The current might not flow back toward the shore. It seems to me that the Lokilani could better protect their island by a current that flowed around it, like a ring.'

  'Oh, that certainly encourages me,' Maram said. 'To think we're caught in some whirl of water that turns around and around their island forever.'

  'Take heart,' Master Juwain said to Maram. 'If only we could determine the direction of this flow, we could row crosswise, and so escape it - to go back to shore or continue on to the island, however things fell out.'

  But here, caught in this cloud of gray that smothered our senses, moving in our wooden tub as the water moved, there was no way we could think of to feel out the currents of this lake. Can one feel the turning of the earth beneath one's feet?

  We were all hungry, and so we paused to eat a meal of cheese and bread. The mist dampened the little yellow loaves that Tembom's wife had given us and caused them to taste like old fish. Not even the brandy that I poured into our cups sufficed to take this rancid taste away.

  After that, for many hours, Maram, Master Juwain and I took turns in rowing crosswise against the current - or rather, against the direction we supposed the current to flow. We got nowhere. The mist seemed to grow only darker and thicker about us. I blinked my eyes against its blurring moisture as I tried to make out Atara sitting straight and quiet at the front of the boat. Was her world, when it fell dark, one of perpetual mist? How did she bear it?

  'Ah, maybe we shouldn't have cast out those hooks and nets,' Maram said to me. He took a moment to rest from his labor at the oars. 'We could survive a long time here on the fish we could catch.'

  'You'll like the Lokilani's food better, when we reach the island,' I told him.

  'Yes, if there is an island somewhere in the middle of this damn fog. But I'm beginning to think it was all a myth.'

  I felt his fear gnawing at his insides like a rat. Master Juwain, sitting again at the front of the boat, fought his growing doubt by keeping his mind whirling like a wheel. Even Atara was perturbed by the uncertainty of our situation. Her being felt steeped in a cold foreboding that made me shiver. Of all of us, only Estrella betrayed no apprehension. Every time I looked at her, she smiled at me in utter confidence that I would lead us aright. Her deep, trusting eyes seemed to show me a bright flame inside myself that not even the mist's smothering dampness could put out.

  'The island can't be a myth,' I said to Maram. 'And there must be way to find it.'

  Master Juwain, to occupy himself, began reciting the verses that had led us here:

  There is a place tween earth and time,

  In some secluded misty clime

  Of woods and brooks and vernal glades,

  Whose healing magic never fades.

  An island in a grass-girt sea,

  Unseen its lasting greenery

  Where giant trees and emeralds grow,

  Where leaves and grass and flowers glow.

  For no good reason, I drew my sword and pointed it toward the boat's bow and stern, and then port and starboard. Once, its gleaming silver blade had pointed the way toward the Lightstone. But now that I kept the golden cup so close, Alkaladur shone brightly at all times, no matter in which direction I swept it.

  And there the memory crystal dwells Sustained by forest sentinels Of fiery form and splendid mien: The children of the Galadin.

  My sword's bright blade now showed only mist: millions of silvery droplets spinning through space like a spray of stars. The swirling pattern recalled a fiery form that was dear to me. I gripped my sword as I interrupted Master Juwain, calling out: 'Has anyone seen Flick.

  'Not for the last hour,' Maram said. 'Or maybe it's been a day.'

  As always, Flick flamed into being or unbeing according to no rule or logic that any of us had ever been able to determine. Whether whimsy or will moved his swirls of little lights, perhaps not even me angels knew. 'Flick!' I suddenly called out. 'Do you know the way to the island? Can you take us there?'

  It was a wild hope, but I wondered if Flick might be able to sense his brethren Tirnpum on the island that must lie somewhere beyond this mist.

  'He can't hear you,' Maram said to me. 'And he certainly can't answer you, any more than Estrella can.'

  'Flick!' I called out again. 'Flick! Flick!'

  Maram, gripping the oars in his big fists, looked at me as if I had fallen mad.

  'Don't you remember Alphanderry's little farce on the way to the Tur-Solonu?' I said to Maram. 'Flick seemed to understand much of what Alphanderry said.'

  'Ah, he seemed to.'

  'And many times since, he's had an uncanny knack of appearing just when we need him the most'

  'Well, we certainly need him now - where is he?'

  'Flick!' I said again. 'Flick!'

  'He's never come just because anyone called his name, Val.'

  As Maram said this, my sword flared brighter. A memory flashed in my mind. At the pass of Kul Moroth, as Alphanderry had sung back an entire army with a voice of unearthly beauty, he had finally beheld Flick's sparkling lights. And just before Alphanderry had died, he had recreated the language of the Star People and had sung out Flick's true name.

  And they forever long to wake,

  To praise, exalt and music make,

  Breathe life through sacred memories,

  Recall the ancient harmonies.

  Beneath the trees they rise and ring,

  And whirl and play and soar and sing

  Of under woods beyond the sea

  Where they shall dwell eternally.

  'Ahura!' I suddenly sang out. 'Ahura Alarama!'

  Out of the heart of the mist above the boat, a shimmer of lights burst into brilliance. Flickers of scarlet and silver swirled about like a top turning through space.

  'Ahura Alarama!' I said again as I looked at Flick. 'Can you show us the way to the island, where the children of the Galadin sing?'

  Flick hung suspended in the air only two feet from my face; at the center of his being sparkled a lovely blueness that reminded me of an eye. I looked into it, and it seemed to look into me And then, without warning. Flick shot off into the mist, toward starboard, like a flock of tiny, twinkling birds suddenly taking flight.

  'Turn the boat!' I cried out to Maram. 'Turn the boat and row!'

  Maram needed no encouragement from me to begin pulling the oars. Within seconds, he was huffing and sweating and straining with every fiber of his huge body to keep up with Flick. Never had I seen him work so hard, not even in pursuit of wine or women.

  'A little more to starboard!' I called out to him as I pointed my sword past his shoulder. 'That's good - now row!'

  And row he did. He pulled at the oars with such speed and ferocity that I feared they would break. I feared that he might break. But he set his jaw and furrowed his forehead as he called upon reserves inside himself that seemed as vast as the sea. It always astounded me how he could transform himself from a wastrel into an angel of purpose at need. And now the need for furious and directed motion was very great, or so he must have deemed. I could feel his
urgency not to lose Flick in the wet grayness, as well as his will to pull free from the onstreaming current. And so he heaved backward against the unseen waters of the lake, again and again, many times as I called for him to turn the boat, right or left, according to the direction of the little light that burned through the mist like the brightest of stars.

  Somehow Flick seemed to know not to venture too far beyond us. He remained always a few feet beyond the prow of the boat, whirling in a silver ring of radiance. How long we followed him thusly 1 couldn't say. Maram couldn't count his strokes, and I was afraid to - afraid that his heart might burst or that he would fall to a stroke of sudden death. And then, with a mighty pull and a grunt from Maram as loud as a bear's, we broke free from the mist into the light of the setting sun. And in its blindingly brilliant rays, straight ahead of us, we sighted land. It was an island covered with giant trees that reached their shimmering green canopies two hundred feet upward toward the clear blue sky.

  Chapter 18

  The Lokilani were waiting for us on the beach. There must have been a thousand of them: men, women and children packed four or five deep and lining the sands just beneath the wall of huge oak trees towering above. Like the Lokilani we had met in the first Vild, they were slight of stature, wearing mosslike skirts of some silvery substance over their lithe bodies. They had the same large, leaf-green eyes. But many of them showed hair almost as black and curly as Estrella's, and they were darker of skin than their cousins: their naked arms and legs were smooth and satiny brown like chestnuts. Much to Maram's relief - and my own - none of them bore bows and arrows or any other weapons they might turn against us.

  They watched us beach our boat and climb out of it. And then one of them, a little man wearing a necklace of rubies, pointed at Flick, and his large eyes grew even larger with astonishment as he cried out, 'The Big People bring one of Timpirum! So bright! So bright! How is this possible?'

  The moment that we set foot on the island. Flick's fiery form grew even more brilliant. His shades of crimson blazed like the rubies around the little man's neck; the blues near his center shone like sapphires, while his whirling bits of silver shimmered diamond-bright.

  'The Big People see the Timpirum,' the man said, looking at me. 'How is that possible?'

  And then there occurred what must have been to him the greatest of impossibilities, for many of the Lokilani children, who are not permitted to look upon the Timpum, began jumping up and down and crying out as one: 'I see the Timpirum, too! I see him, I see him!'

  'You bring miracles here,' the man said to me. He spoke with a strange lilt that was alike and yet different from that of the Lokilani we had met the year before. Then he walked straight across the beach toward us as if it never occurred to him to fear our swords. He had a bold, inquisitive face. He presented himself as Aunai, and asked our names. These we told him. And then, as if a signal had been given the entire tribe of the Lokilani ran across the narrow beach and swarmed about us.

  'Behold this one's hair!' a little woman cried out as she caught her hands in Atara's flowing mane. 'It's all gold, like an astor leaf!'

  'And this one has no hair!' another woman said as she reached up to pat Master Juwain's shiny pate.

  'And behold the hairface!' a young man said, upon daring to touch Maram's thick brown beard. 'He looks like bear!'

  'He's as fat as bear,' one of his friends said, poking him in the belly. Estrella, small and dark as she was seemed less strange to them, but the little men and women looked up at me in wonder. Many of them pressed close to me, and they ran their little fingers across the diamonds of my armor, the four diamonds set into my silver ring, and the great diamond pommel of my sword. Aunai eyed the scar cut into my forehead. Everything about us seemed a marvel to them.

  And we marveled to have discovered another of Ea's vilds. The sun streaking down from the blue sky seemed stronger and brighter here, and yet strangely less harsh, with no burn to its brilliant golden rays. The soft wind carried sweet scents that refreshed our tired bodies and breathed a spirit of joy and celebration into us. Everything around us seemed clearer, deeper, lovelier. The very earth upon which we stood fairly trembled with ancient secrets and a primeval power.

  'Beautiful, beautiful,' Atara said as she bent to pick up a little diamond that sparkled in the sands of the beach. 'I had forgotten how beautiful.'

  Behind us, out over the lake's turbid waters, the mist waited like a dark ring of doom; but ahead, the Vild's great trees seemed to call us into their abiding greenery, where we might find rest and rejoicing and the fulfillment of our deepest dreams.

  One of the Lokilani women, older and taller than most of the others, pressed through the throng and stepped up to us. She wore emerald earrings and a diadem woven with tiny emeralds around her silver-streaked hair. Her face was rather striking, with fine features and an expression that conveyed great sensitivity and kindness. Through her eyes poured a radiance like the sun's light through elm leaves. Aunai presented her as Ninana. I immediately took her to be the Lokilanis queen, but I was wrong.

  'We do not have this word "queen",' Ninana said to me after I had tried to explain the ways of the world to her. 'It is a strange idea to us, that one of us should tell others what to do, or should have a greater say than others in what occurs in the Forest.'

  Here she turned to look at the great and silent trees rising up along the rim of the beach.

  'Sometimes it seems strange to me, too,' I said to her. 'But so it is everywhere - even in your people's other Vild.'

  I told her of our journey through Alonia and our sojourn in the Vild that had remained hidden in the deep woods there for many ages; I told her how Maram, Master Juwain, Atara and I had eaten the sacred timana fruit and had been gifted with sight of Flick and all the other Timpum that dwelled there.

  'And that is even stranger,' Ninana said. 'To think that you Big People have found your way into the Forest where our cousins live - and now you have found your way here.'

  The hundreds of Lokilani standing around us nodded their heads and murmured their amazement at our feat. And I said, 'Has it been long since anyone has come here, then?'

  'No one ever comes here.' Ninana stared out into the lake and added, 'No Big People, that is. We allow the birds to come, and the butterflies - and a few other things.'

  'Who allows this, then? If you have no queen, is there another with whom we should speak? A man or woman of power? A sorceress?'

  I tried to explain my mystification at the barriers that had nearly kept us from the island, and to determine who had summoned them. Ninana listened to me patiently as she gazed up at me. Then she touched the fabric of her skirt and told me, 'It takes only two hands to weave the angel moss into our garments. But it takes many hands - many, many - to weave the mist around the Forest.'

  'Very well,' I said, smiling at the Lokilani encircling us. 'But we have so many questions, and we can't speak with all of you.'

  'You must speak with all of us. And we must speak with you. We have many questions to ask you, too.'

  Ninana watched as one of the Lokilani children, a little boy, danced around Flick's silvery swirl, all the while clapping hands and singing and piping out sounds of delight.

  'Come, now, come,' Ninana said to us. 'We've agreed that you shall sit with us in the Forest and take refreshment with us, if you are willing.'

  Like a flock of birds suddenly changing direction, the Lokilani all turned away from the lake and began walking toward the woods. We followed them. When we reached the line of the trees, the air suddenly fell cooler and quieter, almost alive in itself like the great green sentinels all around us. Giant oaks and elms predominated here, but there were silver maples, too, and many groves of fruit trees laden with apples, pears, cherries and long blue fruits, bright as lapis pendants, which I had never seen. There were more flowers than I had remembered from the first Vild: goldthread, queen's lace, periwinkles, and tiny white starflowers that grew in bright sprays across the forest f
loor. There, too, out of the earth, grew amethysts and rubies, sapphires and perfect diamonds as big as a man's fist. We had to watch where we stepped for fear of trampling these pretty jewels with our boots. The Lokilani, however, seemed to follow invisible lines through and around the trees. With precision, and yet with naturalness and grace, their leathery feet found their way across the carpet of gold leaves laid oot before us. Many of these had been shed by the splendid astor tree, whose fluttering leaves seemed to have soaked in the essence of the sun so that their canopies shone like clouds of gold, even at night. The astors' fruit, the sacred timanas, were golden, too: all round and brilliant like dusters of little suns.

  But the loveliest of light to grace the Forest were those of the Timpum. There were thousands of these twinkling beings, millions. They came in as many kinds as the squirrels, deer, bluebirds and other animals of hoof and wing that dwelled here. No flower unfolded its bright petals without one or more Timpum hovering over it like an even brighter butterfly woven of pure glister and radiance. No tree there was, however great, that did not emanate an aura in glowing curtains of green and gold, violet and silver and blue. As we walked deeper into the woods, Flick made acquaintance with his brethren beings, and he whirled with them in an ecstatic dance of white and scarlet sparks, and some part of his brilliance seemed to pass into them, and theirs into him. The Vild quickened him and made new his splendor with a living presence that was a marvel to behold.

  About two miles from the beach, we came to a place were hundreds of mats woven from long shiny leaves had been laid out in a grove of astor trees. On each mat were set bowls of food: fruits, greens, nuts and other nourishment provided by the Forest. Maram eyed the pitchers of berrr wines, which he had learned to like better than beer or brandy. He also drank in the beauty of the young Lokilani women as they took their places around the various mats with the men and children. I felt his belly rumbling in anticipation of the feast, even as his blood burned for more fleshy pleasures.

  'Ah, Val,' he murmured to me. We sat down with our friends across from Ninana and two other Lokilani women whose breasts were, as he put it, as ripe and perfect pears. 'I think I've finally come home.'