Lord of Lies

by David Zindell

  I looked out at the grasslands to the west, and I said, 'Take heart. A lion chases five antelopes and counts himself lucky if he catches one.'

  'Yes, and the old lions lose their teeth and starve. I'm getting old, my friend. I can feel it in my bones.'

  'But you're only twenty-five.'

  'I'll be twenty-six next month. No, no, it's time I engaged a new life. I've decided that I shall marry Behira. I'll make the announcement in Tria, after you claim the Lightstone and announce yourself.'

  'That,' I said, 'may depend on what Master Juwain finds inside the memory crystal.'

  'Even if you find air inside it, you'll be forced to make a decision, and soon,' he told me. 'You can't play coy with your fate, any more than I can keep putting off mine.'

  I thought about this as we made our way around the shore of the lake and then followed the river that flowed out of it. We kept well to the north of its windings, which snaked across the sun-seared steppe like a blue ribbon edged with green. The leaves of the cottonwood trees, with their silver shimmer that I had always thought so glorious, seemed dull against my memory of the great oaks and astors of the Lokilani's island. And the yellow grasses of the Wendrush seemed almost dead. I thought of the even harsher terrain of Yarkona and the great desert said to lie to the south of it Would the Red Dragon, I wondered, bring the fire of war out of the west so that all of Ea become a blackened wasteland? Or would peace prevail and the earth be made green again? As I scanned the dun-hued distances about us, I squeezed the bag of seeds that Ninana had given me and dreamed of a new world.

  And yet this world, I thought, still had its own beauty. And the plains of the Wendrush still teemed with life. The Manslayers, who rode on ahead of us, seemed to appreciate this in a way that we of the Morning Mountains could not. I tried to apprehend this stark land through their eyes and feel the wind through their senses. And when 1 did, its dried-up grasses seemed less a desolation than a great, golden shield stretching out in all directions to meet the blue sky. Chirping crickets and countless insects made their homes here while the prairie dogs built their mounded villages and kept vigil outside their holes for hawks and wolves and other predators. We passed great herds of antelope and sagosk who ate the grass with as much pleasure as men at a feast. The long, swaying strands also concealed prides of lions, with their tawny coats and their watchful yellow-green eyes. It seemed a million of them could have lain in wait about us. Maram feared these great beasts, as did some of my men, even those knights who bore the lion on their shields as their charge. But Atara and the Mans!avers gave them less thought than the biting flies who took pieces out of flesh and drew blood from the horses. Instead they turned their wariness toward searching the rolling country for any sign of their enemies.

  These, in this part of the Wendrush, were mainly the Janjii, who sometimes raided east of the great Poru River and even a few rogue bands of Kurmak who would not follow Sajagax and had no love of the woman warriors of the Manslayer Society. All the rest of the day, however, we encountered none of these, nor indeed any other human beings. We made camp that night near the river, and the Manslayers watched with amusement as we fortified our rows of tents with a moat and a stockade built of cottonwood logs. Their strategy, if attacked in the middle of the night, was different than ours: they would simply mount their horses at a moment's notice and flee into the dark steppe. Either that, or else they would maneuver across the grasses, fighting their arrow duels if moon and stars gave enough light, or closing and slashing with their sabers if all else failed.

  We traveled early the next day. We kept a good pace toward the west but not so fast that the riding would further weaken my wounded warriors. I gave the Lightstone to Sar Marjay to bear and the akashic crystal to Master Juwain. He spent hours delving into its incomprehensible contents, and many more with pen and paper trying to comprehend them. Over a midday meal of the nut-sweet rushk bread and roasted antelope, I heard him repeating otherworldly words and muttering, half to me, half to himself, 'Let's see, we have valaha and the root there must be val, which could be star as with Ardik or indeed our own language. And then there is arda. Fire, perhaps, or heart or soul. Or maybe all three. And with halla and alhalla we have a pairing that . . .' And so it went, Master Juwain puzzling out meanings and scribbling down possibilities in his journal. I tried to remember more of Alphanderry's death song, and Master Juwain seized upon each word that I brought forth as if it were a precious jewel.

  Late that afternoon we came to the confluence of the Snake and the Poru. This mighty river my companions and I had swum the year before - but in Valte and farther to the south where it was not as wide. Here, with the summer-swollen waters of the Diamond and the Snake added to it, the Poru was a great band of brown flowing swiftly across the steppe. We decided to make camp at the very point where the blue Snake flowed into it. It would be our last night of drawing and drinking clear water. The Sarni, it is said, like the taste of the Poru and draw strength from this Mother of Rivers. But to me and my men, the prospect of dipping our pots and cups into its turbid flow was as appealing as drinking mud.

  For the next three days we followed the Poru's course westward and turning gradually toward the north. Except for afternoon thunderstorms when the sky opened up with lightning and rain fell upon us in sheets, we had good weather for riding. And the Wendrush, however much a Valari knight might feel ill at ease here, was a good place to ride. The turf was easy on the horses' hooves, with few stones and fewer hills to climb. And it was easy for the horses to keep up their strength, with all the fodder they needed growing out of the black soil beneath them. The grass, rich and heavy with seed, sustained them and relieved us of the burden of having to carry oats or other grain. It was one of the reasons why a Sarni army could cover great distances quickly, for they could ride to war without a baggage train weighing them down.

  During this part of our journey, the Manslayers kept to themselves and Atara kept mostly to her sister warriors. Occasionally, however, she would ride with us, visiting with Maram or Master Juwain, making Behira's acquaintance and chatting happily with Estrella. At these times, she seemed warm and content with life, and she took joy in the singing of the meadowlarks and the sweet burn of the sun upon her face. But when she spoke with me, the frigidity returned to stiffen her being. She kept these interchanges brief and to the business at hand. So it was that as we drew nearer to the Sajagax's summer encamping, she explained why her grandfather had chosen this place on the Poru at the northeast corner of the Kurmak's lands: 'There's good water for the horses and herds here, of course, even if you Valari are too pure to want to drink it. Then, too, the Janjii are most numerous just to the other side of the river, and beyond their lands, only fifty miles, are the Marituk. Sajagax likes to keep his enemies close.'

  'Does that include Alonia?' I asked her.

  Atara smiled sadly, for her very life was the result Sajagax cementing an alliance with Alonia in her mother's marriage to King Kiritan. 'Let's just say that while Sajagax no longer regards my father as his enemy, the same is not true of all his dukes.'

  'But what of the Adirii, then? We are far here from their lands.'

  'Yes, but we have been at peace these many years. If any more truce-breakers, like the ones that nearly annihilated you, crossed the Snake in force, Sajagax would move south to annihilate them!'

  I was eager to meet this great warrior renowned across Ea for his deeds in battle. We came upon his encampment late on the fourth day of our journey from the Lokilani's lake. In truth, the vast assemblage of men, animals and dwellings spread out along the Poru's eastern banks was much more like a movable city. Acres of animal pens -holding horses, sheep, goats and lowing sagosk - formed a barrier around its northern, eastern and southern sides. Even from a mile away I could smell these thousands of animals and the dung they dropped onto the ground. I smelled, too, the slaughter yards nearby where the Sarni women worked, hanging fly-covered joints on spits and smoking strips of meat over fragrant fires.
Farther in toward the river were the many open-air shops where the Sarni tanned leather, crafted bows and beat red-hot steel into arrow points, sabers and studs for their armor. The core of the city was reserved for habitation. There, hundreds of rows of tents, with dirt streets running through them, were laid out as neatly as in any Valari encampment. But the tents were much larger, being circular and fitted over wooden frames. The Sarni made their coverings from a thick felt, either of sheep's wool or the long, soft hairs of the sagosk. A few of the tents, though, were larger still and woven of finer materials. These belonged to Sajagax's captains. The largest tent of all, at the city's center, was that of Sajagax himself: a huge dome of quilted silk rose up almost like a palace.

  No guards impeded our entrance to the city. The Sarni are the freest of the Free Peoples, or so they like to claim, and therefore they do not deign to keep any warrior from riding among them. Even the sight of a hundred and seventy-three Valari knights arrayed for war did not unnerve them, as unprecedented as our arrival must have been. At a moment's notice, Sajagax could summon five thousand warriors to his standard. Then, too, word of our crossing of the Kurmak's lands had gone ahead. Indeed, Sajagax's outriders had tracked us across the entire course of our journey from the lake. And so the Sarni had been made ready to receive their most ancient of enemies, not with bows and arrows but rather with wine and beer and roasted meats for a great feast.

  As we rode down dusty streets lined with men, woman and children eager to look upon us, Atara dropped back to accompany me With her lion-skin cloak and white blindfold, she made a striking figure: the great imakla woman warrior who had been blinded yet somehow could see. She greeted the Kurmak warriors whom she had known for years, calling out their names with her clear voice: 'Tiagax, Orox, Turkalak!' And the women, too, 'Ghita, Tyraya, Sarakah!' As anyone would have to admit, they were a handsome people: tall, cleanlimbed and strong, with long blond hair and eyes that gleamed like gemstones of blue or green. Nearly all of them claimed descent from Sarnjin Marshan, son of Bohimir the Great, the Aryan warlord who had sailed At of Thalu at the end of the Age of the Mother to conquer most of Ea. They were a proud people, as honest and open as they were brutal. Their word for stranger was kradak, which meant simply 'enemy'. Their eyes fell upon us like hundreds of steel-tipped arrows. It seemed that they might be happier roasting us over their fires instead of haunches of sagosk or lamb.

  We drew nearer to the center of this barbaric city, and Atara pointed out the tents containing the treasury and armory, and those of Sajagax's concubines and main wives. And then we came to the tent of Sajagax. Its outside was hung with lion skins, while inside, as I would soon discover, it was decorated with sable and ermine and sheets of beaten gold. The Kurmak's great chieftain was waiting for us outside its open doors. To either side of him stood his greatest captains: Urtukar, Mansak, Jaalii, Yaggod, Braggod and his son, Tringax. All were big men, like unto form and appearance with Sajagax.

  But in Sajagax himself, I thought, there concentrated the essence of a Sarni warrior. He wore a doublet of antelope skin embroidered with gold and lapis beads. He was an inch taller than I and massive in his gold-girded arms and across his chest. The weight of gold chains hanging from his bull's neck would have bowed down a lesser man. In his thick hand he bore like a staff of kingship his great bow: a double-curved welding of wood, sinew and horn so heavy and thick it was said that none but Sajagax could draw it. His face was heavy, too, and cut 1 harsh planes like the sun-seared steppe. His gray mustaches drooped down beneath hi stoney chin; his long hair was golden-gray braided and bound with golden wire. He had the same brilliant blue eyes that had once sparkled from Atara's countenance. He did not stand on pomp or ceremony, for he gazed upon his granddaughter with an outpouring of adoration for all to see. No one however, would mistake him for a good-natured man. He radiated ferocity and willfulness as the Marud sun does heat. As Atara had told me, he could be cruel. Once, when a merchant named Aolun Wohrhan had betrayed him in a business dealing,. Sajagax had allowed that Aolun should have all the gold for which he had lied and cheated. And so he had commanded that the greedy Aolun be staked out on the ground and molten gold poured into his eyes, ears and mouth.

  'Atara!' he called out as we all dismounted. His voice was gravelly and bigger even than Maram's, like a battle horn blowing, and blunt as a war hammer, 'My beautiful granddaughter!'

  She rushed up to embrace him, and he kissed her lips, and tears welled up in his eyes. His captains looked on disapprovingly, not at his display of emotion but because the Sarni are seldom kind to women.

  Atara presented me and many of my companions. Then Sajagax called out, 'Valashu Elahad, Lord Guardian of the Lightstone, you and your warriors are welcome in my house! Never have I had the privilege of entertaining Valari warriors before, except with arrow and sword. But tonight, at least, let there be peace between our peoples. Come! Rest! Eat! Sit with me and let us talk of your journey.'

  Urtukar, a fierce old man with a saber scar cutting his face from ear to chin, objected to allowing such a large company of armed Valari knights into Sajagax's tent. But Sajagax gainsayed him. He waved off his concern as he might shoo away a biting fly, bellowing out, 'Do you think I fear these knights? Let them bring their swords to the feast, their lances, too, if they wish. I care not. They are the Guardians of the Lightstone. How are they to guard it if they are stripped of their weapons?'

  He was less generous, however, in inviting Behira and Estrella to take meat with him, for Sarni warriors will sit at feast with warriors only. And so Sajagax's eldest wife, Freyara, was summoned to take them to a more private feast with the women in her own tent.

  Sajagax led the way into his great tent. So huge was this billowing silk structure that it would have required a frame the size of my father's hall to hold it up. Instead, great wooden poles, nearly as long as the masts of a ship, were planted in the ground as the main supports. The guy ropes, I saw, were braided silk. The entire floor was lined with rich and intricate carpets, mostly of blue and gold, for Sajagax was fond of these colors. I looked for a chair or any furniture that might be construed as a throne. But Sajagax required nothing of the sort; indeed he had as much disdain chairs and other decadances as did my father. With a painful stiffness due to many old wounds, he sat down against aground of cushions near the tent's center. His captains sat in a half-circle to his right, while Maram, Lord Harsha, Lord Raasharu Baltasar, Sunjay, Atara and I took our places to his left. Other prominent Kurmak warriors sat in similar circles throughout the tent, as did the rest of the Guardians. The question arose of what to do with Master Juwain, for he bore no weapon and was therefore counted no warrior. Tringax, a young man with bellicose blue eyes, suggested that Master Juwain should dine with the women and children. But I stared at him coldly, and informed him that Master Juwain had stood by my side the length and breadth of Ea and had fought his way into Argattha, a place that even the boldest of the Kurmak warriors might not dare to go. In the end, Tringax relented, and Sajagax invited Master Juwain to sit with us.

  The feast began abruptly, with no speeches of welcome or fanfare. The Sarni, given to the extravagant in their possessions, were simple in their taking of food and drink. They cared little for delicacies and not at all for the fine art of cooking. What mattered to them, it seemed, was the abundance of meat. And of bread and beer and bowls of mare's milk, for this is most of what the Sarni consumed. Beautiful young women wearing long silk robes served us legs of lamb, roasted sagosk livers and other steaming victuals on great golden platters. Many of them bore bruises on their faces and on their naked arms, and they were subservient in their manner. Baltasar mistook them for slaves. He was astonished, as I was, when Sajagax told us that they were his newer wives. Sajagax only laughed at our outraged Valari sensibilities. He slapped one of these wives on her rear as he bellowed out, 'What need have we of slaves when we have women?'

  Atara, I saw, sat quietly sipping from a goblet of wine as Baltasar and others looked at
her. I said to Sajagax, 'But women are the mothers of your children! The mothers of you and all your warriors!'

  Sajagax laughed againls he tore off a huge chunk from a lamb's leg with his strong white teeth. 'Yes, and that is what woman are good for.'

  'We Valari,' Lord Raasharu said sternly, 'believe that women are meant for much more.'

  'Yes, they are good at cooking and gathering sagosk dung, and some of them can even sing.'

  Now Baltasar, picking up on his father's reproach, said to Sajagax, 'If a man spoke thusly in the Morning Mountains, he would have to sleep with his sword instead of his wife.'

  'Do you fear your women, then?' Sajagax asked. 'You, who are always so fearless in battle?'

  'We don't fear them,' Baltasar said. 'But we don't command them, either. Does one command the sun to shine?'

  'No, but a man was made to master his women. And women were made to be mastered.'

  Sajagax looked down at his great hand, thick with callus and scars along his knuckles. It was then that we learned that a Sarni warriors who refused to beat his wife was called a man without a manhood.

  I looked at Atara again and said, ''Some women, it seems, are not so easy to master.'

  'Indeed, they are not,' Sajagax said, smiling at his granddaughter, 'That's the beauty of the world, isn't it? Most women are sheep but a few are born to be lionesses.'

  'From all you've said, it seems surprising that the lions would let them be.'

  'Let them?' Sajagax called out. 'Does one let the sun shine? No one lets a women become a warrior.'

  I bowed my head toward Atara, and then glanced at Karimah and three others of their Society who sat with the warriors in another circle. 1 said, 'The Manslayers are few; your warriors are many. Surely you could keep these women picking up dung, if you chose to.'

  'Could we? At what price? Have you ever tried to make a Manslayer pick up dung. Lord Valashu?'