Читать книгу Lord of Lies - David Zindell, David Zindell - Страница 9

My father, before he left the hall, informed me that there was to be a gathering in his rooms. While he walked on ahead with Asaru, Nona and my mother, I proceeded more slowly with Master Juwain and Maram, who had also been invited to this unusual midnight meeting. Maram was in his cups, and in no condition to hurry. I offered my arm around his back to steady him, but he shook me off, saying, ‘Thank you my friend, but I’m not that drunk – not yet. Of course, your father has promised me some of his best brandy. Otherwise, I would have been tempted to find Dasha and recite a few lines that I composed during the feast.’

‘Dasha?’ I said, shaking my head. ‘You mean Behira, don’t you?’

‘Ah, Behira – yes, yes, Behira.’

We made our way down the short corridor connecting the hall to the castle’s keep. There we found another corridor leading straight to my father’s rooms. Most of his guests had already retired for the night, but from the deeps of this great building came sounds of low voices and heavy oak doors creaking and closing. We passed by the infirmary, which was quiet enough, though a stench of medicines and bitter herbs emanated from it, as well as a more ancient odor of anguish of all the sick and dying who had ever lain inside. To me, carrying Salmelu’s wooden box, brooding upon Kasandra’s warning, it seemed to be the very essence of the castle itself, and it overlay other odors of burnt flesh from the kitchens and the centuries of candle smoke that darkened the stone ceiling and walls. I was glad to pass by the empty library and the servants’ quarters and so to come to the great door to my parents’ rooms. For inside, there had always been happier scents: of soap and wax from the well-scrubbed floors; of flowers that my mother arranged in vases and the honey-cakes that she liked to serve with tea and cream; and most of all, the air of safety and steadfastness with which my father ordered all things within his realm.

Asaru opened the door for us and invited us inside. There we removed our boots and joined my father, mother and grandmother, who were sitting around the edge of a fine Galdan carpet. My father disdained chairs, claiming that they weakened one’s back and encouraged poor posture; to suit convention, he filled his hall with many tables and chairs but would allow none in his rooms. I looked around this large chamber as I drank in its familiar contents: the two fireplaces filled with fresh white logs and the six braziers heaped with the coals of fragrant woods that helped drive away the castle’s omnipresent chill; a cherrywood chest that had once belonged to my grandfather and a painting of him, hung on the west wall, that my grandmother had once made; another carpet on which rested a chess board with its gleaming ivory and ebony pieces; a loom where my mother wove colored threads into tapestries. And at the room’s north end, framed by a massive, carved headboard, stood my parents’ bed where twenty-one years before I had come into the world on a warm winter day, with the sun at the midheaven in that bright and fiery constellation of stars that called me ever on toward my fate.

I sat straight across from my father, who poured me a glass of brandy. Maram and Master Juwain sat to my right, while Asaru took his place next to my mother and grandmother on my left. Asaru, it was said, favored my mother, his face cut with the same clean and symmetrical lines in which many found a great beauty. His faithfulness to her, and to all those he honored, could make one cry. He was that rarest of beings: a very intelligent man who saw things simply without ever being simple-minded. His love for me was simple, too – and as strong and bright as a diamond.

‘That was a close thing that happened tonight,’ he said to me as my father passed him a glass of brandy. ‘That traitor nearly got you killed.’

Everyone turned toward my father, who held his face stern. No one seemed to have the courage to ask him if he really would have ordered my death, should I have murdered Salmelu.

‘We’ll speak of the emissary in a moment,’ my father said. ‘But we’ve other things to discuss first.’

‘But what of Karshur and Yarashan?’ I asked. ‘And Jonathay, Ravar and Mandru? Shouldn’t we wait for them?’

‘No, let them sleep. It will be best if we keep this council small.’

‘Ah, sleep,’ Maram said as he yawned, then took a sip of his brandy. ‘Don’t you think we’d all do better, King Shamesh, with a little sleep before discussing anything of importance?’

‘Certainly, we would do better, Sar Maram,’ my father said. ‘But the world won’t always wait while we retreat into sleep, will it?’

I shifted on top of the carpet, with its thick and clean-smelling wool. Sitting on it in my steel armor was almost a comfort. I looked at my father and said, ‘What is troubling you, sir?’

He looked straight back at me, and his eyes fell dark with a terrible sadness. I knew that had he been forced to order my death, he might as well have ordered his own.

‘Many … things are on my mind,’ he said to me. ‘Which is why my family has been called to council at such a late hour – and those who are like unto family.’

He smiled at Master Juwain and Maram, then continued: ‘We’ll begin with the demands of the Alonian emissary. Asaru, what do you think?’

Asaru, sitting straight as the mast of a ship, nodded at my father and said, ‘Like it or not, King Kiritan has finessed us. It seems that the conclave will have to be held in Tria, if anywhere.’

‘Yes, it does.’

‘But the Valari kings will never agree to journey there.’

‘No, not as things stand now,’ my father said.

‘And there would be great trouble in the Nine Kingdoms if the Lightstone were brought into Tria, as King Kiritan has asked.’

‘That is true,’ my father said. ‘Especially if the Lightstone were given into the hands of the blacksmith boy. The Ishkans would make war against us immediately for such a betrayal.’

I again shifted about as I thought of the young Alonian healer named Joakim. And I heard Asaru say to my father, ‘Count Dario hinted that King Kiritan’s barons are calling for war against us – does this concern you?’

‘Do you think it should?’

‘That’s hard to say. It seems impossible that the Alonians would march against us across such a distance. Not over a little piece of gold.’

Although the Lightstone remained on its stand in the great hall, it seemed that its shimmering presence filled the room and added to the soft radiance of its many flickering candles.

‘No, you’re right, we need fear no such invasion,’ my father said. ‘But that Count Dario spoke freely of King Kiritan’s problems with his barons – that does concern me.’

He went on to say that such strife could weaken any kingdom, even Alonia. And with Morjin gathering armies to his bloody red banner, it would not do for any of the Free Kingdoms to fall into disorder – especially Alonia.

‘It would seem,’ my father said to Asaru, ‘that strengthening his realm is the real reason that King Kiritan has demanded your “little piece of gold”. It is probably why he called the Quest in the first place.’

‘To strengthen Alonia or to strengthen himself?’

‘He would think there is no difference,’ my father said.

My mother, sitting next to him, brushed the long, black hair away from her face as she said, ‘King Kiritan’s offer of his daughter’s hand must be considered in this light. And like it or not, it must be considered.’

Her voice was as clear and sweet as the music of a flute, and it seemed to carry out straight toward me. As she smiled at me, I couldn’t help remembering how she had taught me to play that most magical of instruments and had sung me songs of Ramsun and Asha, and the other great lovers who had died for each other in ages past.

‘It’s said that Atara Ars Narmada is very beautiful,’ my mother told me. ‘With hair as gold as your cup. With eyes as blue as stars.’

‘Once they were,’ I said bitterly, squeezing the box that I had set by my side. In barely three heartbeats’ worth of time, Morjin had utterly transformed Atara’s face from one that was open, bright and alive into something other. For now shadows gathered in the dark hollows beneath her brows, and her lips would have frozen the breath of any man who dared try to kiss her.

It might have been thought that my mother, who was the kindest of women, would have done anything to avoid a topic that caused me so much pain. Compassion, I thought, should be like a soft, warm blanket wrapped around those we love to comfort them, and hers usually was. But sometimes, it was like a steel needle that plunges straight into the heart of a boil to relieve the pressure there. My mother seemed always to know what I needed most.

‘You should remember her as she was when you first saw her,’ my mother told me. ‘Don’t you think that is what she would want?’

‘Yes … she would,’ I forced out. And then I added, ‘And as she might be again.’

My mother’s face softened as she searched for something in mine. ‘You’ve never said much about her, you know.’

‘What is there to say, then?’

‘Well, nothing, really – nothing that your eyes haven’t shouted a hundred times.’

I turned to wipe at my eyes as I remembered the way that Atara had once looked at me. Not so long ago, in the flash of her smile, in beholding the boldness of her gaze, my eyes must have filled with the light of that faraway star that fed the fire of our souls.

My mother’s smile reminded me of Atara’s in its promise that she would only ever wish all good things for me. She said to me, ‘You’d never marry another, would you?’

‘Never,’ I said, shaking my head.

She turned to regard my father a moment, and a silent understanding passed between them. My father sighed and said, ‘Then King Kurshan will have to look elsewhere if he wants a match for his daughter.’

He spoke of this fierce king from Lagash who would sail the stars – after first marrying off his daughter, Chandria. Then Asaru nodded at my father and asked him, ‘Do you wish me to make marriage with her, sir?’

‘Possibly,’ my father said to him. ‘Do you think you might ever come to love her?’

‘Possibly,’ Asaru said, smiling at him. ‘By the grace of the One.’

We Valari do not, as a rule, marry for love. But my grandfather had chosen out my grandmother, a simple woodcutter’s daughter, for no other reason. And my father had always said that his love for my mother, and hers for him, was proof of life’s essential goodness. For until the moment of his betrothal to Elianora wi Solaru, daughter of King Talanu of Kaash, my father had never set eyes upon her. And now, thirty years later, his heart still leaped with fire whenever he looked her way.

‘Well,’ he said, taking a sip of brandy, ‘we can speak of marriage another time. We have other kings to worry about now.’

He glanced at Master Juwain and said, ‘There’s an ugly rumor going around that you quarreled with King Waray on your journey to Taron.’

‘I’m afraid that is true,’ Master Juwain said. His lumpy face pulled into a frown as he rubbed the back of his bald head. ‘I’m afraid I have bad news: King Waray has closed our school outside Nar.’

The story that Master Juwain now told, as the logs in the fireplaces burnt down and we all sipped our brandy, was rather long, for Master Juwain strived for completeness in all things. But its essence was this: Master Juwain had indeed gone to Nar to make researches into the horoscope of an ancient Maitreya, as I had discovered earlier that evening. He had also wanted to retrieve relics that the Brothers kept in their collection in the Nar sanctuary. These were thought stones, he said, and therefore lesser gelstei – but still of great value.

‘King Waray allowed me to remove a book about the Shining One from the library, as Val will tell,’ Master Juwain said. ‘But he forbade the removal of any thought stone or gelstei.’

‘A king’s forbiddance does not make a quarrel,’ my father said.

‘No, it does not,’ Master Juwain agreed. ‘But when a certain master of the Brotherhoods very testily reminds that king that his realm ends at the door of the Brotherhood sanctuary, that is the beginning of a quarrel.’

‘Indeed it is, Master Juwain.’

‘And when that king orders all the Brothers to leave the sanctuary and the doors to be locked, some would say that is only the quarrel’s natural development and should have been anticipated.’

‘Some would say that very thing,’ my father said, smiling. ‘And they would be surprised that such an otherwise reasonable and non-quarrelsome master would risk such a disaster over some old gelstei.’

‘Over a principle, you mean, King Shamesh.’

‘Very well, then, but to lose one’s temper and court the failure of one’s mission over the continuation of what is really an ancient quarrel cannot be counted as the act of a wise man.’

‘Did I say I failed?’ Master Juwain asked. Now he smiled as he drew out of his pocket a stone the size of a walnut. Its colors of ruby, turquoise and auramine swirled about in the most beguiling of patterns. ‘Well, I didn’t fail completely. I managed to spirit this away before King Waray locked the doors.’

‘Spirit it away!’ Maram called out, leaning over to examine the thought stone. ‘You mean, stole it, don’t you?’

‘Can one steal from one’s own house?’

‘King Waray,’ my father said, ‘might feel that since it was his ancestors who built the sanctuary and his knights who defend it still, that the house is his – or at least the treasures gathered inside.’

‘You do not feel that way, King Shamesh. You have always honored the ancient laws.’

This was true. My father would never have thought to act as tyrannically as had King Waray. In truth, he honored the Brotherhood even as he did old laws that others had long since repudiated. And so half a year before, when Master Juwain had returned with me bearing the Lightstone, my father had ordered a new building to be raised up at the Brotherhood’s sanctuary in the mountains outside our castle. Master Juwain – and the other masters – were to gather gelstei from across Ea that they might be studied. Master Juwain must have seen that King Waray’s envy of Mesh and the much greater treasure in my father’s hall was the deeper reason that he had closed the sanctuary in Nar.

‘Knowledge must be honored before pride of possession,’ my father said. His bright eyes fixed on the thought stone. ‘Let us hope that this gelstei holds knowledge that justifies incurring King Waray’s ill will.’

‘I believe it to hold knowledge about the Lightstone,’ Master Juwain said. ‘And possibly about the Maitreya.’

My father’s eyes grew even brighter – and so, I imagine, did mine. Everyone except my grandmother now turned toward Master Juwain to regard the little stone in his hand.

‘You believe it to hold this knowledge?’ my father said. ‘Then you haven’t – what is the right word – opened it?’

‘Not yet,’ Master Juwain said. ‘You see, there are difficulties.’

What I knew about the thought stones was little: they belonged to the same family of gelstei as did the song stones and the touch stones. It was said that a thought stone, upon the closing of a man’s hand, could absorb and hold the contents of his mind as a sponge does water. It was also said that in ages past, the stones could be opened and ‘read’ by anyone trained in their use. But few now possessed this art.

‘One would have thought that a master of the Brotherhood would have overcome any difficulties,’ my father said to Master Juwain.

‘One would have thought so,’ Master Juwain agreed with a sigh. ‘But you see, this is not just any thought stone.’

He went on to say that in the Age of Law, the ancients had used the Lightstone to fill certain thought stones with a rarefied knowledge: that of the secrets of the Lightstone itself.

‘If this stone contains such knowledge,’ Master Juwain said to my father, holding up his opalescent little marble, ‘it may be that the only way to open it would be with the aid of the Lightstone.’

‘Do you wish my permission to use the Lightstone this way?’

Master Juwain’s face tightened with dismay. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know how. Perhaps no one now living does.’

My father swirled the brandy around in his glass and watched the little waves of the amber liquor break against the clear crystal. Then he looked at Master Juwain and said, ‘Then you need the Lightstone to open the thought stone, and the thought stone to understand the secrets of how the Lightstone might be used. How are we to solve this conundrum?’

‘I had hoped,’ Master Juwain said, ‘that if I stood before the Lightstone, the answer might come to me.’

He turned toward me and added, ‘I had hoped, too, that the thought stone might tell us more about the Maitreya. About how he is to be recognized and how he might use the Lightstone.’

Now I, too, looked down at the swirls of brandy in my glass. For a long few moments, I said nothing – and neither did anyone else.

And then my father said to Master Juwain, ‘You may certainly make your trial whenever you wish. It’s too bad that you brought back only one such stone. But you say that others remain in Nar?’

‘Hundreds of others, King Shamesh.’

My father smiled at him reassuringly and then nodded at Asaru. He said to him, ‘Do you still plan to journey to the tournament?’

‘If that is still your wish, sir,’ Asaru said. ‘Yarashan will accompany me to Nar next week.’

‘Very good. Then perhaps you can prevail upon King Waray to reopen the Brotherhood’s school.’

‘Can one prevail upon the sun to shine at night?’

‘Does the task daunt you?’

‘No more than Master Juwain’s conundrum must daunt him,’ Asaru said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘In either case, there must be a solution.’

‘Good,’ my father said, smiling at him. ‘Problems we’ll always have many, and solutions too few. But there’s always a way.’

His gaze now fell upon me, and I couldn’t help feeling that he regarded me as both a puzzle to be solved and its solution.

‘Always a way,’ I said to him, thinking of my own conundrum. ‘Sometimes that is hard to believe, sir.’

My father’s gaze grew brighter and harder to bear as he said, ‘But we must believe it. For believing in a thing, we make it be. As you, of all men, must believe this now.’

Strangely, what had happened earlier in the hall with Baltasar had so far gone unremarked, like some family secret or crime, instead of the miracle that Lansar Raasharu proclaimed it to be. But my family and friends knew me too well. Master Juwain and Maram, on our quest, had seen me sweat and weep and bleed. When I was a child, my mother had wiped the milk from my chin, and once, my father had pulled me off Yarashan when I had tried to bite off his ear in one of our brotherly scuffles. They might or might not believe that I was the Maitreya of ancient legend and prophecy – but it was clear that they did not intend to speak of me in hushed tones or to forget that whatever mantle I might claim, I would always remain Valashu Elahad.

‘It is not upon me,’ my father said, ‘to determine if you are this Shining One that many hope you to be. But you are my son, and that is my concern. The brightest flower is the one that is most often picked; the elk with the greatest rack of antlers draws the most arrows. You are a target now, Valashu. Even before this thing passed between you and Baltasar, it was so. Consider the way that the traitor nearly brought about your doom – and my own.’

The quiet of the room was broken only by the hissing from the fireplace and my father’s measured words. We all listened to him tell of what a great tragedy it would have been for Mesh if I had murdered Salmelu. For then my father would have been faced with an excruciating choice: either for the king himself to break the law of the land in sparing my life or to order the death of that which gave his life purpose – and the death of one who might possibly be the Maitreya.

‘The Red Dragon,’ he said, ‘set a terrible trap for us. By the grace of the One, we found a way out. You did, Valashu. A way – there’s always a way.’

‘I … hated Salmelu as I’ve only hated one other,’ I said. I picked up the box containing the two broken windows to Atara’s soul, and gripped it so hard that it hurt my hand. ‘And when he gave me this, the hate, like fire in my eyes, like madness … this is what Morjin must have calculated would make me kill Salmelu. But how could Morjin have been sure?’

‘Go on,’ my father said as everyone looked at me.

‘This trap of Morjin’s – it wouldn’t have caught another. And it shouldn’t have caught me.’

‘No, it shouldn’t have,’ my father agreed. ‘And from this, what do you conclude?’

‘That there will be other traps that we haven’t yet seen.’

Across the circle from me, my mother’s breath seemed to have been choked-off as if by an invisible hand. I heard Maram muttering in his brandy, even as my father nodded his head and said, ‘Yes, just so. This is why we’ve all been kept from our beds tonight, that we might see these other traps before it’s too late.’

Asaru, it seemed, had been making calculations of his own. He eyed the familiar chess set for a moment before turning to my father. ‘The Red Dragon was willing to throw away Salmelu’s life, like a pawn.’

‘No, rather like a knight that must be sacrificed to checkmate an opponent,’ my father said.

‘Very well, a knight, then. But did Salmelu know that he was to be sacrificed?’

My father smiled grimly and shook his head. ‘Few men have such devotion for their king.’

‘Morjin is no king,’ I said, thinking of the whips I had heard cracking in the darkened tunnels of Argattha. ‘Men do not follow him out of love.’

‘Then shouldn’t we consider the Galdan scryer’s prophecy?’ Asaru asked. ‘She spoke of a ghul, didn’t she?’

Could Salmelu truly be a ghul, I wondered? Had he given up his soul to Morjin so that Morjin breathed his fell words into Salmelu’s mouth and moved his lips and limbs from afar like a puppeteer pulling on strings? The living-dead, ghuls were called: they who were as corpses inside and were forced to think the very thoughts of their masters.

‘No,’ I said at last, ‘Salmelu is no ghul.’

‘But, Val, how can you be sure?’

Because the flames of his being burn with different colors than do Morjin’s.

I stared off at the candles in their stands as I said, ‘In Salmelu and Morjin, so much malice, so much hate. But the fire that eats away at Salmelu is different from that which consumes Morjin. Its source is different. I … can feel Salmelu’s will to destroy me. It’s as unique to him as a knight’s emblem or a man’s face.’

Asaru thought about this for a moment as a sudden dread came over him. ‘But, Val, if Salmelu isn’t this ghul, who is?’

Master Juwain, now sitting utterly still, cleared his throat and said, ‘A scryer’s prophecies are famously difficult to interpret, even those that prove true. But we should all give much thought to this one.’

His large, gray eyes fell upon me with the weight of worlds as he continued, ‘We see at least one of the Red Dragon’s traps within the trap: if Salmelu had failed to goad you into murder, what he brought here out of Argattha could not have failed to make you want to murder him.’

‘Many wish to murder Morjin,’ I said. ‘And his priests.’

‘But do they wish it as you do, Val? A fire, you spoke of, a raging fire that blinded you – like one of his illusions.’

‘In Argattha,’ I said, ‘the Lord of Lies lost the power to make me behold his illusions.’

‘Yes, but it seems he still has the power to make you hate.’

The brandy in my glass burned my tongue as I sipped it. ‘Are you saying, then, that Morjin is trying to make me into a ghul?’

‘Trying, yes, with all his might. But your heart is free. And your soul is the gift of the One. It can never be taken, only surrendered.’

‘That,’ I said, ‘will never happen.’

‘No, the Lord of Lies has no power to seize your will directly. But how much of your will do you think will remain if you destroy yourself with this terrible hate?’

I had no answer for him. I knew that he was right. For a few moments, I tried to practise one of the light meditations that he had once taught me. But the two blackened orbs inside the box that Salmelu had given me darkened my eyes; and the letter that I had placed down inside my armor was like a crushing weight upon my heart.

I finally brought forth this thick square of folded paper. I held it up toward the candles in their stand. No ray of light pierced the bone-white envelope to show what words Morjin might have written to me. It was sealed with red wax bearing the stamp of the Dragon.

‘Is this, then,’ I asked, ‘another of Morjin’s traps?’

‘I’m afraid it is,’ Master Juwain said.

‘Then the trap must be sprung.’

I drew my knife to open it, but Master Juwain held out his hand and shook his head. ‘No, do not – burn it instead.’

‘But the letter must be read. If Morjin has set traps for me, then his words might betray what these are.’

‘I’m afraid his words are the trap. Like the kirax, Val. Only this poison will work at your mind.’

‘My father,’ I said, looking across the circle at the great man who had sired me, ‘taught me that an enemy’s mind must be studied and known.’

‘Not this enemy,’ Master Juwain said. ‘Liljana merged minds with the Dragon in Argattha. It nearly destroyed her.’

I thought of this brave woman with her round, pleasant face and her will of steel. Atara had once warned her that the day she looked into Morjin’s mind would be the last day she ever smiled. And yet, if she hadn’t dared this dreadful feat, none of us would have escaped from Argattha and the Lightstone would remain in Morjin’s possession.

I squeezed the letter between my fingers, and said to Master Juwain, ‘“Lord of Light,” everyone called me. If this is true, how, then, should this Dark Lord called Morjin have power over me with his words?’

‘Is this the pride of a prince?’

‘It might seem like pride, sir. But I don’t think it really is. You see, after being forced to watch what Morjin did to Atara, no help for it and nothing I could do, nothing … after that, there wasn’t very much to be proud of, ever again. No, it is something else.’

Master Juwain’s Juwain’s eyes grew bright and sad as he finally understood. ‘No, Val – don’t do this.’

‘Earlier tonight, you made a test of things with your horoscopes. But there are other tests to be made.’

‘No, not this way.’

‘I must know, sir.’

Master Juwain pointed his gnarled finger at the letter and said, ‘I think this is an evil thing.’

I nodded my head to him. ‘But didn’t you once tell me that light would always defeat the darkness? Either one has faith in this or one does not, yes?’

Master Juwain sighed as he rubbed his eyes. He rubbed the back of his head. He sighed, his troubled eyes on the letter. Then he turned toward my father and asked, ‘And what, King Shamesh, do you advise your son to do?’

My father’s eyes were like coals as he said simply, ‘Open the letter.’

‘And you, Queen Elianora?’ Master Juwain asked my mother.

Her concern for me hurt my heart as she said, ‘Burn it, please.’

Master Juwain asked everyone’s counsel. Nona joined my mother and Master Juwain in their desire to see the letter destroyed, while Asaru and Maram agreed with my father that it should be opened and read. And so Master Juwain looked at me and said, ‘You must decide, Val.’

I nodded my head, then moved my knife toward the letter.

‘Wait!’ Master Juwain called out. ‘If you don’t fear the poison of the Lord of Lies’ words, then at least consider that he might have written this letter with a poisoned ink. Do not touch it with your bare hands!’

Again, I nodded toward him. I laid down both the letter and the knife, then removed the riding gloves folded around my belt. I put these on. Then I picked up the knife again and used its sharp steel tip to break the seal of the letter.

‘Do you have enough light?’ my mother said to me. ‘Shall I bring you a candle?’

I shook my head as I drew out the sheets of paper and unfolded them. It was awkward working this way, with my fingers covered in slips of leather. But the gloves kept my sweat from the paper, and the ink from my flesh, even as the small, neat lettering of Morjin’s hand leaped like fire into my eyes:

My Dearest Valashu,

I trust this letter finds you in good health, which my friends in your little kingdom assure me has never been better. You will want to know that I have made what could be called a miraculous recovery from the wound to my neck that you must have hoped was mortal. The wound to my heart, however, remains more grievous. For you have taken from me that which is dearer than life itself.

‘Well?’ Maram called out from next to me. ‘What does it say? Read it out loud.’

I nodded my head and took another sip of brandy. I began reading again from the letter’s beginning, for Maram’s sake and everyone else’s. As I intoned the words that Morjin had set to paper, I had to fight to keep my voice from becoming his voice: smooth, suasive, seductive and strong. An image of Morjin as I had first seen him came into my mind: his fine, intelligent face that was radiant with an almost unearthly beauty; his hair like spun gold and his golden eyes. They were the eyes of an angel, and they seemed to know all things. They looked at me out of the black ink of his words as I continued to read:

I know that you keep the Cup of Heaven locked and guarded in your castle as in ancient times. It is a beautiful thing, is it not? The most beautiful in all the world. And so I know that you will see in its golden depths the most beautiful of all temptations: to believe that you are its master, the Lord of Light – the Maitreya. How could it be otherwise? For you, Valashu Elahad, who feels so keenly the suffering of others, must long quite terribly for the suffering to end. This is a noble impulse. But it is misguided, and for the sake of the world, and your own, I must try to make you understand why.

All beings yearn for one thing above all else: the light and love of the One. For this is our source and substance, and we long to return there. But this ecstasy of completion and deep peace is denied to us, and the proof of this is our suffering. Men suffer many things: dread of death and wounds and dashed dreams, but nothing so terrible as the desire that burns our beings to feel ourselves at one with our source. We suffer most of all because we do not understand why we must suffer: why the One, which is said to be all goodness itself, would wish all the agonies of the body and soul upon us. Have you not, Valashu, as you listened to the cries of the children being torn apart at Khaisham, as you cursed life itself, asked yourself the simple question, ‘Why?’

The answer, I must tell you, is as simple as it is terrible: because of the One’s nature, which is the nature of all things. Can you not yet see that good and evil are the two sides of the One’s face, and his two hands, right and left? In one hand he holds the golden gelstei and makes the cosmos and all its creatures from the substance of his own being; with the other he casts them from the light and torments them. He builds walls of flesh around our souls to separate us from our source and from each other; he makes us rot with age, and crucifies us to the cross of life in the most hideous of anguish. He makes us to die. And so, at the end of all things, we must suffer the greatest ignominy: that of being erased. And then, forever, there is only nothingness and the darkness of night.

Who has not raged that the One should make things so? Do you think that I, Valashu, have not wept bitter tears like any other man? Have not known love and loss? To fear that the beautiful light that is my soul will simply die like a candle flame snuffed out by cold wind – do you think I haven’t, ten thousand times, shaken my fist at the heavens over the cruelty of such a fate? Should I not, then, hate the One and all the works of his hand? Shouldn’t we all?

Indeed, we should, for this too is the nature and design of the One. Hate, Valashu, is that singular force that separates. We are born as separate selves, and it is our right and duty to strengthen ourselves so that we might live our lives. But since life lives off life, whether beasts or men, we must strengthen ourselves against others, even as they would strengthen themselves against us. Hate gives us great courage in this war of all against all; it breathes fire into our will to become greater beings, and so to succeed in the quest for greater life itself. And so, like dragons, we might stride the earth in our power and pride, rather than cowering behind a rock and wailing at the injustice of life. And it is indeed cruel, as it must always be: for if you do not have the courage to become a predator, you must have the resignation to be prey. As night will follow day, the strong will devour the weak, on and on through all of eternity.

It is just this success that gives us joy. It is measured by the degree of our dominion over others. In many individuals seeking their advantage, the world gains its greatest advantage as the hidden hand of the One raises up the strongest and bestows upon them the only true wealth. Then the accumulation of the riches of power gained, if invested in our bodies and beings, leads to ever greater riches. Thus does a man, training at arms, become a knight; thus do knights go on to become lords and kings. And the greatest kings of men use the great gelstei to turn their sight to the heavens for new conquests, and so learn to walk the stars. Then comes the greatest conquest of all as mortal men strengthen the flame of life so that it cannot be blown out. And so are born the immortal Elijin, and the strongest of these angels gain the power of the quenchless Galadin: they who can not be harmed in any way.

And yet, still they do suffer: terribly, terribly, terribly. For our journey toward the ultimate becomes more, not less, painful at every step. Man is a very small vessel that contains only a small amount of life’s bitter poison; the great Galadin hold inside entire oceans. And as their suffering increases without measure, so must their means to bear it.

You know in your heart, Valashu, what this must be: that one’s own pain can only be ended by inflicting equal pain upon another. For the power of life and death over the weak is ultimately the power of life over death itself. Can you deny that this is so? Doesn’t the scream of another make you give thanks that you are healthy and whole? Doesn’t the flesh of animals quicken your own? Do you not feel, like a lion, exalted at the moment when you kill?

This is the secret of the valarda, the secret of life itself. The deepest part of the Law of the One is this: that there is an affinity of opposites. We hate most those we love most deeply. We love: terribly, terribly, terribly. In our love and longing for the One, we feel too keenly the longing of others. If we are not to be overwhelmed by it, what are we to do? Strike fire into their souls! Rend them with our claws! Devour their entrails and take joy in the agony of their eyes! Then they will cry out to be relieved of their suffering. But since it is our hand, the One acting through us, which creates this torment, it is to us they cry for relief. And so, for a moment, we are reminded of our divine nature and why we were created. We touch upon the One’s true purpose, and the One itself, and in that light of ecstasy, how should any suffering remain?

Do you not see the terrible beauty of the One’s design? As the One is infinite, so is the One’s pain – and so must be the means to end it. In the torment of innocents, infinite in number, the One realizes his invulnerability. And the tormented innocents, the strongest of them, raise themselves up as angels to grasp the divine light itself. And so the true magnificence of the One is revealed: for the One’s two faces are also love and hate. Our hate of the One for making us suffer leads, in the end, to love of the One for impelling us back to our source. And so the One uses evil to work the greatest possible good. And isn’t this, Valashu, true compassion?

I paused for a moment in reading Morjin’s letter. Because my mouth was dry, I took a drink of brandy. My hands were sweating inside their casings of slick leather. My eyes burned. The whoosh of Maram breathing heavily beside me merged with the other sounds of the room: the crackle of the fire, the rustle of paper, the grinding of my brother’s jaws. Asaru’s anger was no greater than mine. True compassion, Morjin had spoken of! But it was a twisted compassion. Another image of Morjin, the true image that he did not wish men to see, appeared in my mind: The once-lovely Elijin lord whose very body had rotted as if from the inside out. His ghoulish-gray flesh hung in folds from the sharp bones of his face. His gray hair, stringy and limp, grew in patches as if he had once suffered terrible burns. His eyes, his ancient eyes, were as cold and cruel as iron, rusted red and filled with blood. In them raged a terrible will to suck the life out of others. And they cried out with a terrible hunger. For he spent much of his vital force trying to maintain the illusion of his beauty in order to deceive men – and perhaps himself.

‘Read on!’ Maram called out beside me. ‘Let’s finish this, Val!’

I noticed my father studying my face, as my grandmother turned toward me and my mother watched me intently. Even Master Juwain, now caught in his curiosity to hear what Morjin had written next, nodded for me to continue. And so I read on:

The Maitreya is called the Compassionate One. He is said to be a healer of the world’s suffering and the anguish that all men know. If this be true, then how could you be he? You, who have killed and maimed so many and caused so much agony? Do you truly wish the ending of war and the forgiving of your foes? Then ask yourself this question, Valashu: if you were this Shining One who bears the light of the divine, would you hold out your healing hand to me?

The Maitreya, it is also said, will show man the world just as it is. For man, faced with the horror of existence, is liable to long for a world without evil that can never be. And to give up under the crushing burden of life and its torment of fire. And so the One, in mercy, in true compassion, sends into the world the Lightstone, all the One’s power, so that the Maitreya might seize it and show men the truth. And so the Maitreya eases their suffering, for all then know their place in the natural order and the path of returning to their source. But can you, Valashu, show the world this terrible truth? Can you bear to show it to yourself? No, we both know that you do not have the heart for this. And so you cannot be this Maitreya, either.

But if you aren’t he, who are you? You are a Valari of an ancient line of adventurers who are never Maitreyas. You are a warrior who professes to hate war. A murderer of men who justifies his crimes by castigating his foes as evil. A prince … of thieves. You are he who steals the light of truth from the world so that darkness will prevail. You are he who opposes the establishment of a natural order where the strong might rise without the waste of war. You are a Lord of Lies, for you tell yourself that you will somehow be redeemed from your dreadful deeds in your suffering of others’ pain.

You believe that you have experienced the most bitter of suffering, but I promise you that you have known only the barest twinge of its beginning. You think, too, that what I have done to you is evil. It is just the opposite. Consider this: would you have ever developed the strength to steal the Lightstone if I hadn’t opposed you at every step of your journey? What is evil? All that weakens and diminishes a man. What is good? All that strengthens him and drives him toward divinity. Can you deny that you – and the woman you think you love – are now both greater beings as a result of the torments that I have visited upon you? Lord Valashu, Knight Swan, Guardian of the Lightstone – can you deny that it is I who has made you?

And so you are in my debt. And doubly and triply so since you have wounded me and taken the Cup of Heaven. And yet, upon you I wish no vengeance. I must believe that you did what you did out of error and not malice. You are young and full of fanciful dreams, as I was once. Inside you there blazes a truly beautiful light. Who has seen this as I have, Valashu? Open your eyes, and you might see it yourself.

The debt must be repaid. One day, I hope, you will swear allegiance to me. You will serve me – in life or in death. The Lightstone, however, must be returned immediately. If it is, I shall reward you with a million-weight of gold and a kingdom of your own to rule. If it is not, I shall so reward any man who delivers the Lightstone into my hands. And the kingdom of Mesh shall be taken away from you, and you and your family destroyed. My ally, King Angand of Sunguru, stands ready to march by my side that the crime you have committed might be redressed. And the kings of Uskudar, Karabuk, Hesperu and Galda, who owe me allegiance, will march as well. And King Ulanu of Yarkona, whose acquaintance you have already made. Upon this sacred crusade, I pledge my kingdom, my honor and my life.

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 that 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 took only a moment for these writhing orange tendrils to begin blackening the white 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 take 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 to 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 to 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 everything 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 hate 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 to 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 to 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 comment 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 to 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 to 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 to 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 me then that I would never find the answers I sought in trying to parse Morjin’s words and motives – or anyone else’s. And so, at 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 at 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 hilt of my sword. I felt trapped as if in a deep and lightless crevasse, with immense black boulders rolling down upon me from either end.

I looked at my father and said, ‘Morjin spoke of great consequences if the Lightstone is not returned to 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 Maitreya 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.’

‘Many believe that he would be the greatest warlord the Valari has ever known.’

‘No one knows who he is,’ I said.

‘Many believe him to be you.’

A single flicker of light fell off from my sword like a shard of silver. It stabbed into my eyes; it pierced cold and clean straight down to my heart. There, it seemed, in the silence between its quick and violent beats, I heard someone whispering to me.

‘I must know,’ I suddenly called out. I slipped my sword back into its sheath and picked up the box that Morjin had sent to me. I bowed my head to my father and said, ‘Sir, may I be excused?’

Even as he nodded and gave his consent, I pushed myself to stand up.

‘It is very late,’ he said. ‘It seems we’ll accomplish little more tonight. But where are you going?’

‘To the scryers’ room,’ I said.

‘At this hour? Kasandra is an old woman, Val.’

‘She … is not sleeping, sir. She is waiting for me.’

She is calling to me, I thought as my heart pounded against the bones of my chest. She wants to tell me something.

I said to my father, to my mother and to Maram and everyone, ‘Kasandra said that I would find the Maitreya in the darkest of places. If Morjin has set traps for me, she might have seen them. I must know before it’s too late.’

And with that, I tucked the box beneath my arm and moved off toward the door.