Lord of Lies

by David Zindell

  Kane slowly nodded his head. His black eyes searched for something in mine. 'Yes, it would be like that.'

  'And I made it worse,' I said. 'I encouraged Lansar to believe that I was the Maitreya. And so he had already surrendered part of his will to me.'

  'So, it was his will to do this,' Kane told me.

  'Why didn't I see it?' I said, looking at the wounds in Lansar's body where Morjin must have stabbed him with his own sword.

  'Please, don't blame yourself,' Atara said, moving over to my side.

  'Why didn't I see any of it?' I said, looking at my sword.

  There came a knocking at the door leading into the keep, and I shouted for whoever it was to go away. And I heard Master Juwain's voice call back to me, 'Val, open the door!'

  I sent Maram to open it. I turned to see Master Juwain and Liljana walk into the room. Their robes showed almost as much blood as the garments of the dead.

  'Why are you here, sir?' I said to Master Juwain. I gazed at Liljana. 'There must be wounded from the battle to attend to. Thousands of them.'

  'I'm afraid there are,' Master Juwain said. 'But there are other healers. We heard that the castle had been overrun. And so we came here to attend to the women and children.'

  I stared at the black banner covering my mother and grandmother. 'Then you've come in vain. They're all dead.'

  But in this, I was wrong. Again, someone knocked at the door, and again Maram went to open it. And Daj and Estrella ran into the room.

  'What?' I cried out.

  Estrella hurried up to Atara and buried her face against her leather armor as she burst out weeping. Daj clasped my hand in his, and his eyes filled with a wild light.

  'We hid beneath the wine cellars,' he explained to me. 'In the chambers there.'

  'But there are no chambers beneath the wine cellars!' I said.

  But it seemed that there were: secret chambers, as Daj told me, built long ago. Somehow, Estrella had discovered them. Like a rat, Daj had once survived in the dark, tunneled earth beneath Argattha. And now he and Estrella had miraculously survived again.

  'At first we tried hiding in the granary, with the others,' Daj told me. 'But then, when Lord Morjin's men started killing everyone and taking slaves, we had to find a better place.'

  'He took slaves?' I said to him.

  Daj nodded his head. 'Dasha. Priara. Lord Tomavar's wife. Other women.'

  'Dasha Ambar?' Maram cried out. Tears sprang-into his eyes. 'Then I'll never go riding with her again! Ah, too bad, too bad. But at least she was spared. These beautiful, beautiful women, still alive.'

  'No,' I said to him, clenching my fist, 'they're worse than dead.'

  I looked out into the hall, at the still and silent people lying there. The faces of all those I had seen fail that day on the Culhadosh Commons burned like writhing flames in my mind.

  'So many dead,' I murmured. I thought of all the women and children taking refuge in Lashku and Godhra and in Mesh's other cities and towns. I thought of all those in the other cities and realms of Ea, and I said, 'So many waiting to die.'

  Atara slid her hand over mine and said, 'Val, you -'

  'I killed them all!' I shouted.

  'No, you mustn't blame -'

  'It is upon me!' I said, pulling my hand away from hers. 'If I hadn't gone to Tria, and killed Ravik Kirriland there, the Valari kings would have sent help to Mesh. Morjin would never have dared to invade us.'

  'But you can't know that!'

  I was hardly listening to her. I said. 'I was warned of a ghul. I thought it was me. But it was I who made Lansar into what he became.'

  'No, no.'

  'My father was right: I should never have left the castle.'

  Any why did I leave? Because I thought that Asaru had called for me? Or because I was all too glad to have a chance to ride out and kill Morjin?

  'So many dead,' I whispered, looking about the hall.

  And suddenly, their souls called to me from that dark and dreadful place that I had always turned away from, and I wanted to join them. Asaru's dying breath burned from my lips. So did that of Mandru and Yarashan, and all my brothers. My mother cried out my name as spears pierced her limbs and belly. And my father. The son of Elkasar Elahad and all of my ancestors, even the Elahad, himself - calling, calling like wolves lost in an endless night. Surely the moment had finally come to end their proud and ancient line that went back to Adar in the mists of the beginning of time?

  So much death, I thought as I gazed at the black shroud covering my grandmother. So much evil.

  I hated this dark twisting of the soul as I hated Morjin - as I hated myself. I, freely, of my own will, had chosen to believe that I was the Maitreya. And death had descended upon this wrong as surely as night follows day.

  'I knew,' I whispered. 'I always knew.'

  Smoke wafted into the room, and I could hardly breathe. I choked on the stench of blood and charred flesh. The end of the world, in a hellish conflagration hotter than the sun, seemed to hang in the air. Cold knives pierced my belly, groin and throat - every part of me. My heart was a swollen sack of poison ready to burst open. There was too much pain. I had brought much of it into the world. I was a murderer, truly, and the punishment for murder was death.

  I walked away from my friends, looking for a crack in the floor-stones. I never again wanted to see a child hacked into pieces with a sword. Never to see the terror in a man's eyes when I fell upon him with my sword, never to smell his fear or to hear his shrieks: all that I desired was to join my brother Guardians in peace, quiet and nothingness.

  'No, Val, no!' Atara cried out. I I finally found a good place to wedge the hilt of my sword so that I could fall upon it. I moved to do so. But Kane was too quick for me. He leapt across the room like a tiger and grabbed me from behind. He was strong, like a beast, like an angel, so unbelievably strong. His arms encircled me like iron bands.

  Maram and Liljana came forward to help hold me, too. Master Juwain pried my fingers open while Atara took hold of my sword. After Kane had let go of me, she gave it to him. He stood holding the bright blade that he had forged long ago. 'So, Val,' he murmured as he stared at me.

  'I have another sword,' I told him. 'With it, I killed Ravik Kirriland.' The hate built inside me, hotter and hotter, deeper and deeper. It was like a fire out of the heart of the stars that nothing, least of all I, could resist.

  Then Daj stepped closer, and the shackle marks on his wrists reminded me that many had suffered more than I. In the blaze of Kane's bright, black eyes was the assurance that there was no pain so great that a man could not bear it. Maram, I knew, wanted to tell me that we still had many a glass of beer to drink together. Atara touched my hand in love. It was with love and gratitude for her life that Estrella looked at me - and with something more. For she was truly the mirror of my soul. And in this magical child I saw myself, for all my failings: wild, noble and free. Master Juwain and Liljana, too, came up to me, and they rested their hands over my heart. Then Flick appeared out of nothingness, and Alphanderry's bright face shimmered in the air. My friends all surrounded me like a ring of angels. And then they took away my other sword.

  'Live,' Kane said to me. 'Promise me that you'll live.' I felt within my hands and heart the life that the One had given me, still pouring through me like a glorious flame. Who was I to put it out?

  'All right,' I told him. 'I promise.'

  Kane's hand smacked into mine, and then squeezed me, hard, as if testing my resolve. He pulled me up so close to him that I could feel his eyes burning into mine. And he murmured, 'So, Val, so.'

  A moment later, he broke away from me. 'Ha!' he cried out. Then he gave me back Alkaladur.

  In its silvery substance I saw his savage, smiling face - and my own. I said to him, 'You would have killed me with this, wouldn't you?'

  And he growled out, 'Yes, I would have. As it was for Lansar, so it is for you. If you have given up, if you had despaired, utterly – Morjin would have made a ghu
l of you. Can you not feel his presence in this

  room?'

  I looked from one end of the hall to the other, and I nodded. 'Now that he holds the Lightstone,' he said, 'his power will be even greater. We must all watch for each other and guard our souls.'

  I walked back over to the dais where the Guardians had given their lives, if not their souls, in defense of that which I had forsaken. I laid my hand on Sunjay's forehead. I said, 'I have done such a great wrong.'

  'Yes,' Kane told me, 'you have. And your punishment is to live.' I bowed my head in acceptance of this judgment. Once, I had tried to defy the will of the One in trying to rid the world of suffering. Now I would no longer try to flee from my own.

  I gazed deep into the silustria of my sword, and I saw a terrible thing: that it was not only my own wrongs for which I must atone, but those of all people who had come before me, on this world and others, back through the ages great and small to the first Ardun who had come forth into being. For my life had been forged in fires that were ignited millennia, even millions of years, before. I had not made the world; I had only tried to live in it. This was not my fate alone. This was the tragedy and glory of life, that all people touched upon each other in their deeds and must suffer the agonies and joys of each other.

  Kane came over to me and said, 'We should go, now. There's much to be done.'

  'No, I'll never leave this place,' I told him.

  I looked about the quiet hall. In the hundreds of bodies of the Guardians near the stand on the dais, I saw my own crumpled form where I should have joined them. A part of me, I knew, would always remain with them. But the part of me that still lived had duties to perform. It came to me then that the dead cannot weep for the dead - only the living can. And with this thought, all that I had been holding inside broke me open. I sheathed my sword, then fell against Kane's chest and began sobbing like a little boy. 'Val,' he said to me. 'Val.'

  My other friends moved over to help hold me up. And that was a true miracle. For as Atara's hand found mine and Maram's great arm pressed into my back, my friends all surrounded me, and they fell against each other sobbing, too.

  After a while, I stood back and looked at Kane. With his fierce, beautiful face, softened with his regard for me, he reminded me of my grandfather. And Master Juwain was like unto my father, as Liljana was my mother, and Estrella and Daj were the little sister and brother that I would never have now. In Maram I must find all of Asaru's faithfulness, Karshur's strength, Jonathans laughter, Yarashan's bravura and even his blessed vainglory. And Atara. Her long, gentle hand held all my hope for the future and the new family we might call forth upon the earth.

  'We should go,' Kane said to me again. 'Go out and rejoin the army.' 'Yes,' I said. 'Perhaps we might still overtake Morjin.'

  'You must be king now, Val.'

  I brought out the ring that my father had given me. I shook my head. 'No, I cannot be king.'

  'You must be. You must take the throne.' 'No, I've brought only destruction upon Mesh. And death.'

  'And now you must bring new life.'

  'No - I'll renounce the kingship.'

  Atara squeezed my hand and said to me, 'Is this too, how you think to punish yourself?'

  I drew in a deep breath as I stood gazing at the cloth binding her face.

  'Don't you dare punish your people this way!' Liljana scolded me. 'What do you think your father would say?'

  Master Juwain smiled at me and bowed his bald head. 'I'm afraid Liljana is right. If you refuse the throne, you'll only bring chaos upon Mesh.'

  Maram smiled at me, too, and said, 'Ah, King Valamesh - that's what they'll call you, isn't it? It has a nice ring to it, don't you think?' Daj told me that he wanted some day to enlist in my service as a knight, and without words, Estrella told me much the same thing. And then Kane said to me, 'Only you can be king, Val.'

  I bowed my head to the inevitable. 'All right then, if this is what must be, I will.' I put my father's ring on my finger. It fit me well. It pained me to walk with my friends out of the hall, leaving my grandmother and mother unattended - and everyone else. But we had already spent too much time letting Morjin get away. We gathered our horses in the middle ward and met up with Sar Vikan, who informed me that everyone who had taken shelter on the upper floors of the keep. and elsewhere in castle, had been put to the sword. For the moment, it seemed, there was nothing to do except rejoin the army, as Kane had said. And so we mounted our horses, and I led the way out of the westgate and across the charred bridge, back down to the Culhadosh Commons where I would stand before the warriors of Mesh to be acclaimed as king.

  It was late in the afternoon when we reached the battlefield. The sun was dropping toward the mountains, but its heat still seared the thousands of men laying upon the grass. Those who had survived the battle worked quickly to prepare the dead for burial. In the sky, the carrion birds gathered and flew in slow, lazy circles.

  Lord Tanu had taken command of the army. I found him at the center of the field conferring with Lord Tomavar, Lord Avijan, Lord Harsha and Lord Sharad, who now led the knights of Asaru's battalion. We rode straight up to them past the blood-spattered warriors and knights of Mesh.

  'Lord Tanu!' I called out as we drew up before them. 'Lord Avijan! We must mount a pursuit before it is too late.'

  Lord Tanu's crabby face tightened into a frown. Despite the tiredness of his old. body, he pulled back his shoulders and stood up straight, which made him seem almost like a tall man.

  'Lord Valashu,' he said, 'we've decided that there will be no pursuit. It will soon be dark, and our warriors have no will for it.' The faces of those about me, I saw, were haggard and haunted. As they went about their business of wrapping the dead in shrouds, their limbs trembled with, exhaustion. Their every motion seemed a burden and a pain.

  'But how can we just let the enemy get away?' Lord Harsha put in. It seemed that he had been making this argument for hours. 'They will be as tired as we are!'

  Lord Tanu shook his head at him, then turned toward me to recount the logic of his decision. He said that the remnants of the enemy were mostly Galdans and Sarni. The Sarni we would never catch, and as for the Galdans, why should we waste the life of even one more warrior hunting them down?

  'They will certainly flee Mesh now,' he said, 'and return to Galda, if they can. Their army is broken, and pose us no threat.'

  'But what of Morjin?' I said. 'And the Dragon Guard?'

  Sar Vikan had already sent word to Lord Tanu of the ravaging of the castle. And so he had learned that Dashira, his faithful wife who had believed that I must be the Maitreya, had been butchered. Lord Tanu's old face screwed up with hate as he said, 'We would ride after them, if we could. But we've had reports that they had remounts stationed along the South Road. There isn't a horse within five miles of here who has the strength to catch up with them.'

  Some men find in the murder of their loved ones a terrible rage for vengeance; others wish only for an end to their anguish. I knew that Lord Tanu's sons rode with Lord Avijan. Perhaps he could not suffer them to risk their lives a second time this day.

  'But we must try!' I said. 'Morjin has carried off the Lightstone!' Lord Tanu trembled with a barely contained fury as he pointed first at the dead spread out across the field and then back toward the smoking castle. And he snarled out, 'The Lightstone? The Lightstone? That cursed thing has brought only ruin upon our land!'

  'No, you're wrong,' I said to him. I turned to look at Lord Avijan, whose strong, youthful face burned with a desire foffevenge. I said to him, 'Do your knights lack the will to pursue Morjin?'

  'Not those who saw your father slain,' he told me. 'We would ride with you, if we could.'

  I nodded at Lord Sharad, a tall, spare man whose gray hair was caked with blood. 'And you, Lord Knight?'

  'After what we saw when you slew the Ikurians after they killed your brother? We would ride with you to the end of the earth.'

  'Very well,' I said, to him and to
Lord Avijan. 'Then us make ready.'

  'Hold!' Lord Tanu said, sticking his palm straight out. 'It has been decided that we will not pursue the enemy - and this includes Morjin.'

  'And whose decision was this?'

  'Mine.'

  'Very well. But a new decision has been made.'

  'No, Lord Valashu, it has not.'

  'No?' I said, holding up my hand to show him my five-diamonded ring. 'Who is in command here?'

  'As long as the warriors haven't acclaimed you, I am.' The light sparking from the white stones in my ring stabbed into my eyes, and I called out, 'Assemble the warriors, then.'

  It was a bad time to dispense with formalities, but the ancient laws must be obeyed. And so Lord Tanu gave the order for the army to come together upon the northern section of the pasture, which the battle had left almost untouched. It took quite a while to call the warriors from across the two miles of devastation, and to form up fifty deep in their companies and battalions. Despite their weariness, they held themselves straight as trees, covered in diamonds and blood. I dismounted and stood before the whole army. Behind me, also on foot, were Kane, Atara and my other friends. Between me and my men, Lord Tanu and the other Lords of Mesh gathered close by, facing me along with nearly a hundred master knights who captained the army's companies. Seventeen thousand men had marched to battle here earlier in the morning, and it broke my heart to see many fewer of them still standing here now.

  Then Lord Tanu stepped forward and shouted out, 'Who will speak in favor of Lord Valashu Elahad becoming King of Mesh?'

  'I will!' Lord Harsha shouted back. His single eye sent out sparks of its own as he limped forward and held out his hand toward me. 'We all know Lord Valashu's character. We all know his deeds. They are greater than those of any of Mesh's kings, not discounting even Telemesh and Aramesh. What more is there to say?'

  'Only this!' a sturdy master knight called out. It was Sar Jessu, who had led the reserve battalion to fill up the break in the Meshian line. 'Lord Valashu commanded us to hold back until the enemy lost their senses. It was this tactic that won the battle and gave Mesh our greatest victory since the Sarburn. What more is there to say?'