Lord of Lies (44 page)

'Tonight,' I said, 'we've all beheld what you call a miracle. The Lightstone works many such. But there is one miracle, the only true one, for which it was meant.'

Ninana waited for me to continue and then said, 'Please, tell us.'

I traded glances with Master Juwain and said,
'That
we have not been able to discover. It remains one of the Lightstone's secrets. But we do know that there is one, and one only, who was meant to work this miracle.'

'And who is that?'

'We call him the Maitreya.'

At the mention of this name, Ninana drew in a deep breath, and Aunai nodded at Taije. Then a murmur of recognition rippled outward through the men and women gathered around us.

'We know this one, too,' Ninana said to me. 'We call him the Matri'aya, the Lightning. He is the one who opens the sky. The way to the worlds where the Forest covers all the earth. But we have never known that the Matri'aya would use a Jewel of Light to make this opening.'

Although I tried to keep my face calm, her words disturbed me deeply. I said nothing of how Morjin would use the Lightstone to open ways of his own: to the Dark Worlds and wastelands where the trees had been cut long ago and now not even a bird remained to sing a bright song.

'I think you have come to the Forest to look for the Matri'aya,' Ninana said to me suddenly. 'But the Matri'aya is not
of
the Forest, as are the nightingales and the fritillaries and the deer - and the Lokilani. This we know. The Matri'aya is the one who will come to the Forest from another place and take its most precious seed back to this place so that the trees will grow again in all lands.'

I looked off at Flick, who was now hovering beneath an astor tree. Weren't the Timpum, I wondered, in some sense the vital seeds from which the Forest's great trees germinated and took their deeper life? And wasn't Flick, this bright being of flame and glorre, the most precious of all these seeds?

'We
have
come here to seek the Maitreya,' I admitted. 'Though as you have said, we did not think to find him among the Lokilani.'

At this Master Juwain nodded his head and added, 'You see, we hope to recover the knowledge of
who
the Maitreya is and how he might be recognized.'

Ninana's eyes lingered on the lightning bolt scar cut into my forehead. Then she asked me, 'Are
you
the Matri'aya?'

My breath caught in my throat, and I took a quick drink of the Lokilani's cool sweet wine. And I said, 'That must be tested. That must be known.'

'Then did you come here hoping that the Timpirum would make this known to you?'

'Not exactly,' I told her. 'But it's said that they guard a crystal that might tell us the secrets of the Lightstone - and the Maitreya.'

'In the Forest as you have seen,' Ninana said, touching her emerald earrings, 'there are many crystals.'

'This one is called an akashic crystal.'

'I don't know that name.'

'It is a kind of thought stone. It holds memories of the Elder Ages.'

Ninana looked knowingly at Aunai just then, and my heart began beating faster. She nodded her head and said to me, 'The Jewel of Memory. Yes, we know this crystal. It was brought here long ago.'

Now Master Juwain rubbed his hands together and leaned forward toward Ninana. 'But how long ago, then? Three hundred years? Three thousand?'

The lines of Ninana's face drew up into a puzzled frown. 'And what is
year?
'

I smiled at Master Juwain's consternation. What, indeed, was a year to a people who had no winter, but only eternal spring?

'A year is twelve months,' he said to her. 'When the moon waxes full twelve times, that is a year.'

Now he smiled, too, very pleased to have found so easy a measure to match the time of the outside world with that of the Vild. But his satisfaction melted away a moment later as Ninana said, 'The moons come and go like the fruit on the trees, and who counts them? And why, why?'

'Why,
do you ask? Why, to gauge time, my lady. To keep track of history and when events occurred.'

Ninana's face tightened as if she had chewed a bitter fruit. She said, 'You bring miracles into the Forest, but many distasteful words, too. The history that you have spoken of is nothing more than war and evil happenings. But here, there is only eating and singing, making babies and dying. Nothing ever
happens
that you would call an event.'

Master Juwain seemed inclined to want to argue with her. I could almost hear him lecturing her on the need to know the past so that its evils weren't visited upon the future. I reached over and squeezed his gnarly hand to silence him. And to Ninana I said, 'You've told us that the akashic crystal was brought here long ago, is that right?'

'Yes, before any of our grandmothers' great-grandmothers were born.'

'But you've also told us that none except the animals come from the outside. But it can't have been a bird or a butterfly who bore the akashic crystal to these woods.'

'No, indeed, it cannot,' Ninana said. 'I'm sorry that I didn't speak more clearly. I should have said that no
man
ever comes here.'

Maram patted his bulging belly as he stared across the table at a small, elegant woman standing in close with the other Lokilani. He said, 'You mean it was a
woman
you allowed past your damn mists?'

'No, indeed not,' Ninana said. 'No woman ever comes here, either.'

Maram held up his hands in helplessness as he looked at me. Then Atara, who had said very little during the feast showed a bright smile. She had almost as good a head for puzzles as Master Juwain, and she could often see more.

'The Timpum are called the children of the Galadin,' she said to Ninana. 'Your cousins believe that the Galadin walked their woods long before long ago, and left the Timpum to light the trees.'

'Yes, the Galad a'Din
did
walk the world when it was all the Forest,' Ninana said. 'But the one who brought the Jewel of Memory was not of them. Like, but not so bright. And he could die, even as we die and all things do except the Bright Ones.'

'One of the Elijin,' Atara said softly.

I thought of Kane, who was once called Kalkin and might some day be again. In Argattha, he had told me about a band of immortal brothers who had come to Ea with him from the stars. Their names had been written in my memory with fire and blood: Sarojin, Averin, Manjin, Balakin and Durrikin. And Iojin, Mayin, Baladin, Nurijin and Garain, In the savagery of the Age of Swords, all had been killed - all except Kane and Morjin.

'What was this Elijin's name?' I asked Ninana.

'That is not remembered.'

'But you have preserved the story of his coming and the crystal that he brought. And you say that he could die - how do you know that?'

'Because he died
here,
in the Forest. We have set the Jewel of Memory above his grave.'

This news pleased Master Juwain even more than the sight of so many lovely Lokilani women enchanted Maram. Atara sat silent and still as if trying to behold this akashic crystal that we had come so many miles to find. Estrella nibbled on a pear, and gazed up at the aster's glowing leaves as if our stories and quests were not her concern. But Ninana's words cut me to my heart. That one of the great Elijin should have died here did not seem possible.

'Where is this grave, then?' I asked Ninana. 'May we see it?'

'Of course you may. But not tonight. Now it's time for singing and dancing, and sleeping. Tomorrow will come soon enough, soon, soon'

The ways of Ninana and her people were really not so different from the Lokilani we had known before. A hundred of them, or more, made circles inside circles and danced about to songs that might have been as old as the Forest itself. With their bright green eyes and their spin ning and whirling, they reminded me of the Timpum who spun with them. We all joined them and danced, too, even Estrella who could not add her voice to ours. But I gave her my flute, and with this little piece of woods she made a sweet music, to the Lokilani's delight. She danced about with a little boy who might have been her brother, all the while piping out perfect melodies. I had never seen her so happy, and this gladdened my heart.

At last, with the hundreds of Lokilani finding places to rest in the woods about us, we laid out our cloaks and made our beds on soft mosses. Atara cradled Estrella in her arms, and they soon fell asleep. And so did Master Juwain, for all the rowing earlier that day had exhausted him. As it had Maram and me. But I lay awake gazing at the new color that brightened Flick's form. It made me wonder what marvels might light up the akashic crystal that we would try to open on the morrow.

I
n 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.'