Lord of Lies

by David Zindell

  Chapter 19

  In the morning, after a light breakfast of fruit and nuts, we gathered in the grove. Ninana and Aunai were to lead us to the Elijin's grave and the great crystal planted there. Fifty of the Lokilani decided to join us on this early stroll through the woods. Aunai led forth, with Ninana walking behind him with the grace of a doe. Atara and Estrella, holding hands, followed closely, with Maram, Master Juwain and me only a few feet behind them. The fifty Lokilani fanned out behind us, taking no care to walk in line or any kind of order. They chatted gaily and piped out friendly words to each other like the birds in the trees singing their songs. They had no fear that anyone should hear them; they had no mind for marching or hurrying against time. To my frustration, they stopped frequently, as Ninana and Aunai did, to drink from a clear brook or to pluck a pear to eat or to exclaim over the beauty of a flower. As we passed deeper into the woods, many were their cries of delight, for it seemed that the Timpum here all retained the bright new color that Flick had bestowed upon them. A few Lokilani paused to dance with these glorious beings, and a few more lost interest in our mission and dropped out altogether - perhaps to dance with each other in some secluded glade. What would it be like, I wondered, to live with no thought for the future, as if each day were complete in itself and might go on forever? To know nothing of hatred, killing or war?

  About two hours into our journey, Atara stopped suddenly and turned as if to look off through the trees. I looked too, and so did many others. And there, only twenty-five yards away, a strange animal stood munching the browse from a bush. It was about the size of a deer and had much of that animal's grace, and yet it had something of the goat and the lamb about it, too. It looked, however, more like a small horse. Its fur was all white, and a single horn, straight and showing spiral swirls like a seashell, grew out of its head. It seemed utterly unconcerned that we should stand so close watching it.

  'It's beautiful - what is it?' Maram said. 'In all the world, I've never seen anything like it.'

  'In all the world you won't,' Ninana said! him. The asherah is of the worlds where the Bright Ones dwell.'

  'Then how did it come to be here?'

  Ninana waved her hand ft the great trees growing all around us She said, 'This is all that remains of the Forest that once was. You have called our home an island. But on all worlds everywhere, there is one Forest. Sometimes here, in certain places, when the stars are bright and the earth sings songs from deep inside, the trees remember this. Then our Forest and the Forest are truly one. And then the asherahs sometimes wander into our woods.'

  'Is that all that wanders in?' Maram asked. He scanned the woods as if looking for dragons or other fell beasts.

  'Yes,' Ninana said with a smile. 'The Galad a'Din allow only the asherahs to come here. They are blessed, blessed. They remind us of the deeper Forest where the Lokilani will walk some day when the stars call us home.'

  I gazed at the asherah, standing in all its perfect whiteness, and the innocence of its bright, black eyes stunned me into silence. But Maram persisted in his inquisition: 'But why don't your people just follow the asherahs back to the Galadin's worlds?'

  'Because once they come, they do not leave.'

  And so it was with all the peoples of Ea, I thought. Our ancestors had come to earth thousands of years before, and here we remained on our much greater island as exiles on a war-cursed world.

  'Ah, too bad,' Maram said, studying the strange beast standing before us.

  'No, it is not so,' Ninana said to him. 'The asherahs give us great hope. For some day, they will leave - some day some day. Their horns have great magic. It's said that they point the way back to the stars.'

  Upon hearing this, Estrella's eyes lit up with wonder. And then suddenly, before I could stop her, she broke away from Atara and dashed off through the trees, straight toward the asherah. The animal should have been startled into a burst of furious motion, either fleeing from Estrella's wild charge or lowering its head to bring its wicked horn to bear in its defense. But it just stood there, regarding Estrella with its bright eyes. And then, as Estrella came closer and drew up in front of the asherah, it did lower its head. And Estrella reached out her slender hand and touched the asherah's horn. Estrella's whole being danced with delight. Her joy seemed to pass into the asherah, for it nuzzled Estrella's face and licked her ear. And all the while, Estrella kept her hand wrapped around the asherah's great, shining horn.

  I sensed within the asherah a great power; I knew that it could fiercely battle, with hoof and horn, lions or bears or any who attacked it. I sensed, too, that Estrella was in no danger. And yet, despite myself, I moved to protect her. I took only a single step forward. But it was enough for the asherah to regard me warily with its deep, knowing eye, and then to shake off Estrella's hand and bound off into the woods.

  Estrella ran back to me and looked at me as if to ask why I had driven away this magic animal. What could I tell her? I hardly knew myself.

  After that we resumed our journey, and all of us watched the woods hoping for the asherah to return. We walked beneath the great oaks and maples, where many birds called to each other from their branches. After a while, we paused to drink from a cool stream. And Maram said to me, 'There's something strange here, Val. Stranger even than that one-horned horse. We've been walking for at least three hours with the sun behind us. And so we should have covered a good ten miles. I didn't think this whole island could be half that wide.'

  Neither did I. And neither did Master Juwain, who wiped his wet hands against the back of his bald head as he sighed out, 'Perhaps the old maps were wrong.'

  'Is our sense of the lake's size wrong?' Maram asked. 'Is our sense of this island? It seems that it must go on for another fifty miles. Strange, strange.'

  The Lokilani's Vild, I thought, was full of marvels and mysteries. We walked through the sweet-smelling woods for another two hours after that. And then we came to a place where an astor grove was spread out over a few small hills. And there lay buried the greatest mystery of all.

  Aunai led us along winding ways beneath the beautiful trees, with their silver bark and their lovely leaves a yellow-gold brilliance against the blue sky. Many of them were in flower: bright bursts of white petals enveloped their boughs like clouds of light. Ninana told us that each tree had been planted from a seedling over the grave of one of their ancestors.

  'The astors,' she said softly, 'are our fathers and mothers. Do you see, do you see? The Lokilani can never really die.'

  Suddenly, as with the asherah, Estrella broke away from us and ran on ahead of Aunai. At first, I thought that she must have sighted another of these strange animals. I hurried after her, as did Maram and Master Juwain, Aunai and Ninana and many others. But as we rounded the base of a hill, I could see no large animals of any kind through the open trees. And then I realized that it was not one of the asherahs that had drawn Estrella onward. For she stopped abruptly before a long mound, covered with grass. Aunai's exclamation of astonishment told me that she had led us unerringly to the Elijin's grave. 'But how did the girl know?' he asked me.

  'She has a gift,' I told him. As we drew up next to Estrella and gathered around the grave, I explained that Estrella was a seard who could sense within herself the essence of the crystal that we sought

  This Jewel of Memory, as the Lokilani called it, was set upon a cairn of stones above the grave. I stopped breathing for a moment because I had never seen anything quite like it. It was round and flat, like a discus; its center was as clear as Atara's white gelstei and encircled by bands of translucent violet, blue and the other colors of the spectrum. Many Timpum, like hummingbirds, hovered above it. It was the first time I had seen these bright beings drawn to something that was not alive.

  'Look!'Aunai said. 'Your Timpirum has come, too.' Flick, I saw, appeared among the other Timpum and flitted about with them. Their colors caught up the hues of the akashic crystal. And this great thought stone reflected theirs, for its clear center
suddenly shone with the singular brilliance of glorre.

  'The verse did tell true,' Master Juwain said, staring at it. 'For here, surely, the memory crystal dwells.'

  'And here the one who brought it to this island also dwells,' Maram said, shuddering as he pointed at the grave. 'But why isn't an astor planted here? Surely the Elijin deserve to be honored as do the Lokilani. '

  'Surely they do,' Aunai admitted, 'But many times, it's said, so very many times we have tried to plant the sacred seeds here. But they would not grow. And so we planted grass instead.'

  Maram nudged the mound with the toe of his boot and said, 'There's good dirt here like any other. I don't understand why grass should grow from it but not these pretty trees.'

  'Why, why?' Aunai said to him. 'We have asked ourselves why for many, many of what you call years, but we do not understand.'

  I drew my sword then, and stared at its mirror-like silustra. The Lokilani, too, stared at this new wonder that shone in their woods. And then, as I touched my finger to Alkaiadur's edge, Ninana cried out in dismay to see blood welling up from the slight wound it made. 'What have you done?' she said to me. 'And why, Vala' ashu?'

  In answer, I walked over thirty paces to the nearest astor tree. Ninana and Aunai and a dozen other Lokilani followed me. So did my friends. I came up to the tree's lowest bough, which was laden with many clusters of white flowers. I held out my finger and let a single drop of blood fall upon one of these. The little red ball rolled along one of its white petals before gathering into a tiny pool at the flower's center. I waited while my heart beat three times. And then, to my horror, 1 watched as the flower's petals blackened as if from flame and curled inward into a dark, withered knot.

  'What have you done?' Ninana cried out again. 'Why, why?'

  I sheathed my sword and sucked on my finger for a moment before pointing back toward the grass-covered grave. 'The EJijin did not just die here; he came here to die.'

  Master Juwain's gray eyes lit up like the sea under a bright sun as he said, 'Do you think it is Balakin that lies here, then?'

  'It must be he,' I said. I turned to Ninana and tried to explain. 'The Beast we call Morjin led a quest to recover the Lightstone, long, long ago. And he killed others of his kind whom he feared might find the Lightstone. It's said that one of these, Balakin, he poisoned with kirax.'

  'But what is kirax?'

  'It's made from the kirque plant,' I told her. I tried to describe this blue weed that grew in more mountainous climes. 'It's the deadliest of poisons.'

  She looked at me in utter mystification. 'But what is poison?'

  I drew in a deep breath to cool the burning inside me. I tried to explain this, too, saying, 'It's all life's bitterness and hatred of other life distilled into an evil essence. The kirax consumes life like a fire does leaves.'

  'Oh, that is bad, very bad,' Ninana said. She reached up and plucked the dead flower from among the many others still living along the silver bough. 'The astor is the most blessed of trees, but it will grow only in blessed soil.'

  She led the way back to Balakin's grave, if indeed it was he who had been buried here. She held out her hand above this green mound and said, 'Then the kirax has . . . poisoned the earth here. So that is why only grass will grow.'

  'Yes,' I said, 'so it must be.'

  'But you say this Balakin and his kind were immortal?'

  'Immortal, yes - but they could still be killed. Even though it would take much kirax to kill one of the Elijin.'

  'And this kirax,' she said, holding out the dead flower, 'did the Mora'ajin poison you, too?'

  'Yes,' I told her. 'One of his men did.'

  'But you still live. You're as beautiful as a flower but you must be as tough as grass.'

  I noticed Atara smiling at this, and I smiled sadly, too. And then I said, 'No that is not it. The amount of poison in me is minute. And yet one day it will kill me, too.'

  One day I knew, I would strike my sword into an enemy trying slay me or someone I loved. The kirax, which tormented every nerve in my body like tendrils of fire, also ignited my gift of valarda and left me even more open to others' agonies, especially those I inflicted upon living flesh. And so one day I would kill, and the terrible pain of it would carry me down into death.

  No, I told myself, that must not be.

  'Is there no cure for it?' Ninana asked me. She laid her cool hand on the scar cut into my forehead. 'No rain to put out the fire?'

  I brought forth the Lightstone and held the little cup over Balakin's grave. 'It was my hope to find a cure in this.'

  'And have you?'

  'Almost,' I said. 'Almost, I have.'

  'I don't understand.'

  I gazed at the little cup, all golden against the golden canopies of the astors spread out around me. I said, 'You speak of rain to quench this anguish that burns all beings, and yet there are lakes inside me, truly, entire oceans. Inside all people, if only we could find them. Once, when I held the Lightstone, I did. And many times since. . . almost.'

  Ninana nodded her head and looked at me sadly but hopefully. 'Then is the Matri'aya also the one who would show the way to these oceans?'

  'We believe so. He must have the power to use the Lightstone this way. We believe that the akashic crystal will tell of this.'

  I handed the Lightstone to Master Juwain. And he stepped closer to the head of the grave, where the akashic crystal showed its bands of brilliant colors.

  'Might I try to open this crystal, my lady?' he asked Ninana. 'Open . . . how?'

  Ninana looked at him doubtfully as if suspecting he might use the Lightstone to hammer at the crystal like a boy cracking open a nut. 'There are resonances between the Lightstone and the crystal,' he tried to explain. 'As with people. We speak words to each other, and this opens each other's minds.'

  Ninana thought about this as she studied the Lightstone. Then she looked at Aunai and asked, 'Do you think this is all right?'

  Aunai nodded his head and told her, 'I can't see the harm of it.' Then he turned to a man named Ekewai and asked the same question of him, and so it went, men and women conferring with each other until all the Lokilani present consented to Master Juwain's proposal.

  And so Master Juwain held the Lightstone before the great crystal. I expected him to have at least as much difficulty unlocking its secrets as he'd had with the thought stone in my father's hall and those in the Brotherhood's sanctuary in Nar. So it surprised me to see him give a gasp, even his eyes deepened like the sea and Lightstone poured forth a radiance full of glorre. It touched the crystal's center and rippled outward, changing its bright bands one by one until the crystal's entire surface shone with this new color. I felt my heart beating hard inside my chest, and it seemed that the akashic crystal pulsed with a deep and secret light. Master Juwain, it seemed, was drinking it in through his eyes and every particle of his being.

  I feared that he might stand there all day in rapture. And so it surprised me once more when, a few moments later, the Lightstone's splendor faded along with that of the akashic crystal, and Master Juwain's eyes grew focused and hard.

  'What time is it?' he called out, looking up at the sun pouring down through the trees.

  'Scarcely past noon,' I said to him. 'Why do you ask?'

  His ugly, old face radiated excitement. 'Noon, yes, of course - but what day is it?'

  Maram stepped up to him and touched his shoulder. 'Ah, it's still today, sir. The thirteenth of Marud, I think.'

  'Impossible,' he said, giving the Lightstone back to me. He stared at the akashic crystal sitting on top of its pile of stones. 'Days have passed, it seems, weeks.'

  Atara smiled at him and said, 'So it is sometimes when a scryer looks into her crystal.'

  'Yes, it must be,' Master Juwain said.

  To the gasps of the Lokilani, Maram reached out to touch the akashic crystal's colored bands. 'Then I gather you opened this?'

  'Opened it? Indeed, I suppose you could say I did. But does one open
the sea when cast into its cold waters?'

  I smiled to see waves of happiness spreading across his face, transforming him from something squashlike into the loveliest of human beings. 'Then there is much knowledge in the crystal, as we hoped?'

  'Knowledge, Val? You can't even begin to imagine.' Master Juwain was almost hopping about as if he'd drunk ten cups of coffee. 'A common thought stone holds great knowledge, but compared to this it's like a drop. I can't imagine it myself. If all the words in all the books in the Library at Khaisham were written here, there would still be room for a million more such libraries.'

  'Tell me of these words, then,' I said.

  Now Master Juwain's face fell sad and sick as if he had discovered a store of grain that had gone moldy. 'I cannot, I'm sorry. You see, all the knowledge bound in this crystal, all the words - it was all recorded in the language of the angels.'

  For a thousand miles across the forests, mountains and deserts of Ea, Alphanderry had tried to recreate this strange and beautiful language of the Elijin and Galadin that no man understood. And at the pass of the Kul Moroth, for one brilliant moment, in an outpouring of perfect song that shook the very heavens, he had succeeded. But it seemed that the secrets of this language had died with him.

  'Ah, too bad,' Maram said. Then there's no hope of ever understanding it.'

  'No, there must be hope,' I said. 'There must be a way.'

  Master Juwain brightened a bit and said, 'Alphanderry sang out the words of this language. If only we could remember them and learn their meaning, we might be able to use them to decipher it.'

  I drew my sword again and held it pointing toward the sky. Its silvery surface reflected the golden astor trees and the immense blue dome above the world. Flickers of the Timpum's colors danced along the blade. The Sword of Truth, men called Alkaladur, the Sword of Memory.