Lord of Lies (13 page)

Faithfully, Morjin, King of
Sakai
and Lord of Ea.

P.S. I have returned with this letter the personal belongings of Atara Ars
Narmada. I can only hope thai you, or she, might find some use for them. Of course, Atara might find it more useful if she were given new eyes with which to behold you. Return the Lightstone to me, and I shall make it so. It would give me great pleasure.

P.P.S. One day, if you live long enough, you will use the valarda to strike death into another - as you tried to strike it into me. And on that day, I shall be there by your side, smiling upon you as I would my own son.

My parents' room was deathly quiet as I finished reading. My family and friends were all staring at me. Without a word, I crushed the pages of the letter inside my fist. I stood up and walked over to the far fireplace. There I cast the letter into the flames. It look only a moment for these writhing orange tendrils to begin blackening the while paper and consuming the letter. As I watched the pages curl into char, I thought of all the millions of books that Count Ulanu had burned at Khaisham. But
Morjin's
words, I knew, would not be lost, for they were now burned into my brain.

'The gloves, too, Valashu!' Master Juwain called to me. 'Cast them into the fire!'

I did as he advised, and then walked back to the carpet to rejoin those who would give me counsel.

'Lies, such terrible lies,' Master Juwain said.

'Yes - and even more terrible truths,' I said. 'But which is which?'

'How could you hope to sort the truth from the lies of the Lord of Lies?'

'But I must. I must learn to. Everything depends upon it.'

Asaru refilled my glass and pressed it into my hand. He said, 'Morjin feeds you poisoned meat and you still seek to lake sustenance from it? You did the right thing burning it. Now forget about the letter.'

'How can I? He said -'

'He said many evil things. Predators and prey, indeed.' He nodded at our father, and continued, 'We Valari are taught lo protect the weak, not eat them.'

I smiled at this, and so did everyone else. It was one of the rare moments when my serious brother made a joke. But too much had happened that night for us lo .sustain a mood of levity.

'It may be,' my father told me, 'that the real purpose in Morjin's writing this letter was to confuse you.'

'Then it seems he has succeeded.'

My grandmother, who knew me very well, turned her cataract-clouded eyes toward me and said, 'You are not as confused as he.'

'Thank you for saying that, Nona. If only it were true.'

'It
is
true!' she said. Her back stiffened as she sat up very straight. I knew that If Morjin had managed to invade this very room, she would have thrown her frail, old body upon him to defend me. 'This Red Dragon speaks of love and power. Well, he may know everylhing about the love
of
power. But he'll never understand anything about the power of love.'

Her smile as she nodded at me warmed my heart.

'There's only one love that Morjin could be capable of,' my mother added, looking at me. 'And that is that he loves
to
hate. And how he hates you, my son!'

'Even as I hate him.'

'And such passion has always been your greatest vulnerability,' she went on. Her soft, graceful face fell heavy with concern. 'You've always loved others too ardently - and so you hate Morjin too fiercely. But your hatred for each other binds you together more surely than marriage vows.'

My mother's soft, dark eyes melted into mine and then she said an astonishing thing: 'Morjin uses hale to try to compel your love, Valashu. He hates all things but himself most of all. He wishes that you were the Maitreya so that you might heal him of this terrible hate.'

My confusion grew only deeper and murkier, like a mining pit filled with sediments and sludge. 'But he has said that I cannot be the Maitreya!'

'Yes, but this must be only another of his lies.'

Master Juwain nodded his head as he sighed out: 'There's a certain logic to his letter. It indicates that he believes becoming the Maitreya is open to superior beings who wield the lightstone with power. Certainly he fears Val wielding it this way. It seems that he has written his whole letter toward the end of convincing Val that he
cannot
be the Maitreya.'

I touched Master Juwain's arm and said, 'But what if I cannot?' 'No, Val, you mustn't believe this. I'm afraid that the Lord of Lies

is only trying lo discourage you from your fate.'

As the candles burned lower, we talked far into the night. Each of us had our own fears and dreams, and so we each felt drawn by different conclusions as lo what my fate might truly be. Asaru, I thought, was proud merely to see me become a lord at such a young age and would have been happy if my title remained only Guardian of the Lightstone. My father looked at me as if to ask whether I was one of those rare men who
made
their own fate. Nona, her voice reaching out like a gentle hand to shake me awake, asked me the most poignant of questions: 'If you weren't born to be the Maitreya, who were you born to be?'

It was Maram who made the keenest commeni about Morjin and his Letter. Although not as deep as my father, he was perhaps more cunning. And it seemed that his two slow glasses of brandy had done little to cloud his wits.

'Ah, Val, my friend,' he said lo me as he lay his arm around my shoulders. The heavy bouquet of brandy fell over my face. 'What if Morjin is playing a deep game? The "Lord of Lies", he's called - and so everyone expects him lo manipulate others with lies. But what if, this one time, he's telling you the truth?'

'Do
you
think he is?'

'Do
I
think he is? Does it matter what I think? Ah, well, we're best friends, so I suppose it does. All right, then, what I think is that Morjin could use the truth as readily as a lie to poison your mind. Do you see what I mean? The truth denied acts as a lie.'

'Go on,' I said, looking at him.

'All right - Morjin has said that you cannot be the Maitreya, Perhaps he knows that you could never accept such a truth, even if it
is
the truth, and so you'd think it must be a lie. And so you'd be tempted to believe just the opposite. Therefore, isn't it possible that Morjin is trying lo lead you
into falsely
believing that you're the Maitreya?'

'But why would he do that?'

'Ah, well,
that
is simple. If you believe yourself to be the Maitreya - never mind the prophecies - you would neglect to find and protect the
true
Maitreya. And then Morjin might more easily murder him.'

What Maram had said disturbed me deeply. That he might have great insight into Morjin's twisted mind disturbed me even more. It came to then that I would never find the answers I sought in trying parse Morjin's words and motives - or anyone else's. And so, al last, I drew my sword from its sheath. I held it pointing upwards, and sat looking at its mirrored surface. The Sword of Truth, men called it. In Alkaladur's silver gelstei, I should have been able to perceive patterns and true purposes. But the light of the candles was too little, and I couldn't even see myself - only the shadowed face of a troubled man.

'Valashu,' my grandmother called to me.

I looked away from the sword to see her smiling al me. Her desire to ease my torment was itself a torment that I could hardly bear.

'Valashu,' she said again, with great gentleness. 'You must remember that it is one thing to take on the mantle of the Maitreya. But it is quite another
being,
this man. You'll always be just who you are. And that will be as it should.'

'Thank you, Nona,' I said, bowing my head to her.

My father had always looked to her for her wisdom, without shame, as he was looking at her now. And then he turned to me and said, 'Nona is right. But soon enough, you will have to either claim this mantle or not. If you
are
the Maitreya and fail to take the Lightstone, then, as has been prophesied, as has happened before, a Bringer of Darkness will.'

My hands were sweating as I squeezed the black jade hill of my sword. I felt trapped as if in a deep and lightlless crevasse, with immense black boulders rolling down upon me from either end.

I looked al my father and said, 'Morjin spoke of great consequences if the Lightstone is not returned lo him. Do you think he
could
mount an invasion of Mesh?'

'No, not in full force, not this month or even this summer. He would have to gather armies from one end of Ea to the other and then march them across the Wendrush, fighting five tribes of the Sarni along the way. We have time, Valashu. Not much, but we have time.'

'Time to unite the Valari,' I said. 'Time even to journey to Tria and meet in conclave with the kings of the Free Kingdoms.'

Asaru shook his head at this. 'Who but Aramesh ever united the Valari? Who ever could?'

My father's bright eyes found mine as he said, 'The Mailreya could.'

Because I could not bear to look at him just then, I stared at my two hands, right and left, wrapped around my sword. I said, 'No one really knows, sir,
what
the Maitreya is.'

M
aram and Master Juwain hastened to catch up to me as I made my way out into the quiet hallway. They had begun this long night's quest for knowledge with me, they said, and they would end it by my side as well. I was glad for their company, for the long hallway seemed too empty and too dark. Only a few oily torches remained burning. The sound of our hoots striking cold stone echoed off the walls. We passed between the servants' quarters and the kitchens, as we had come; when we reached the infirmary, we turned down another hallway. There, the pungent smell of medicines mingled with a deeper odor of sickness, sweat and blood. As we moved past the classroom and Nona's empty room, this odor grew only stronger. It seemed not to emanate from the sanctuary to the right, or the guest quarters to the left where King Kurshan and his daughter had taken up residence. I was afraid to discover its source, even as I pushed my way through a moat of fear and pain that chilled my limbs like icy water.

At last, we came to the stairwell at the keep's southwest corner. We entered, one by one, this dark tube of stone that twisted up toward the higher floors. My father had told me that the scryers had been given rooms on the third floor. We climbed up and up into the dark silence, turning always toward the left as the narrow steps spiraled upward. It was cold and close in that dim space; the smell of Maram's sweat and brandy-sweetened breath fairly nauseated me. He was puffing and grunting behind me, moving as quickly as he could. But he was not quite quick enough, for the fear now pierced through to my heart and drove me up the stairs two and then three at a time.

'Slow down!' he gasped out. 'You're killing me! Ah, have mercy, my friend!'

I did not slow down. We passed by the exit to the second door, where the Alonians and the Ishkans had taken quarters. We climbed ever higher. We finally reached the arched doorway that gave out onto the third floor. As I pushed out into the quiet hallway, the mortared stones along the walls seemed to be screaming at me. A sharp pain, with the savagery of cold steel, ripped into my belly. I drew my sword and began running past the closed doors of my father's guests.

'Come!' I gasped. Maram and Master Juwain were close behind me, and began running, too. 'It's this door - it must be!'

At the end of the hallway, we came to a door darkened with torch-smoke and reinforced with bands of black iron. I rapped the diamond pommel of my sword against the dense wood and waited. My heart beat ten times, quick as a frightened bird's, before I knocked at the door again, this time louder. I waited another few moments, and then tried turning the doorknob, but it was locked.

'Come!' I said to Maram. I rammed my shoulder against the door with such force that the hard wood drove the rings of my mail armor into my flesh almost down to the bone. 'Help me break this open!' 'But, Val - they're old women!' Maram said. 'They might have taken a draught to help them sleep,' Master Juwain added.

'Come!' I said again. They're not sleeping! Help me!' Maram finally sighed his consent, and added his great bulk in battering at the door. On our second attempt, it burst inward in a scream of splinters and tormented iron. It was nothing against the scream in my eyes, in my belly and lungs. For the hall's dim torchlight showed a small, simple room filled with carnage. The iron-sick smell of blood drove like a hammer against my head. Sprays of blood moistened one wall; the red imprints of boots darkened the floor-stones. On one of the beds sprawled two of the scryers, whose names I had not learned. Their throats had been cut, and rivers of blood had flowed out over their white robes and white wool blankets. On the other bed was Kasandra. Someone had cut open her belly. She lay on her back with her eyes staring up at the ceiling, and it seemed that she was dead.

Master Juwain hurried to her side and placed his rough old fingers against her throat to feel for a pulse.

'Ah, too bad,' Maram gasped out. He held his hands over his
own
belly as if to protect this massive, food-filled outswelling - or to keep from vomiting. 'Ah, I'd thought we were through with this kind of thing, too bad, too bad.'

My heart throbbed inside me as I gripped my sword and cast my eyes about the room's sparse furnishings, looking for any sign of the men who had worked such an evil deed.

'These poor women!' Maram said. 'Ah, but what kind of
scryers
could they have been if they let themselves be murdered in their sleep?'

They're not all murdered,' Master Juwain said, touching Kasandra's withered face. 'Not yet. This one is still alive.'

I knew that she was. I could feel her faint breathing as a whisper deep inside my throat.

'Can you help her, sir?' Master Juwain gently prodded the wound to her belly. Someone, like a ravening wolf, had ripped out most of its contents, which lay strewn upon the blankets beneath her like bloody white snakes. 'Help her live through
this,
Val?'