Kitabı oku: «Lord of Lies»

1

A man’s fate, the scryers say, is written in the stars. Beneath these fiery points of light, we come forth from our mother earth to live and gaze up at the sky in wonder, to dance and dream and die. Some are born to be tillers of the soil or huntsmen; others to be weavers or minstrels or kings. Murderers might find the bright Dragon constellation pulling at their souls while saints seek in the Seven Sisters for the source of their goodness. A few turn away from the heavens altogether and look to the fire of their own hearts to forge their fate. But I believe that there is one – and one only – who is chosen to bear the golden cup that the angels sent to earth long ago. Even as a sword is made for the hard grip of a warrior, only the Shining One was meant to take the Lightstone in his hands and bring forth its secret light for all to behold.

Others, however, believe other things. In the year 2813 of the Age of the Dragon, the Lightstone having been wrested from the hall of Morjin the Liar, the Great Red Dragon himself, word that the quest to find the Cup of Heaven had been fulfilled spread like a wildfire to each of Ea’s lands. In far-off Hesperu, the slaves in the fields gripped their hoes in bitterness and prayed that some hero might wield the Lightstone to free them from their bondage; in conquered Surrapam, starving youths took up their bows and dreamed of hunting the true gold instead of meat. The priests of Morjin’s Kallimun wove their plots to regain the Lightstone while minstrels from fallen Galda and Yarkona made their way across burning plains to sing its wonders and hear new songs. Even the kings of realms still free – great men such as King Kiritan Narmada and King Waray of Taron – sent out emissaries to demand that the Lightstone be brought to them. From north and south, east and west, they joined a whole army of lordless knights, exiles, scryers, seekers and rogues who journeyed to Mesh. To the castle of my father, Shavashar Elahad, they came to view the wonder of the Lightstone. For there, behind the castle’s white granite walls, my friends and I had brought it to be guarded against the world’s evil and greed.

On a warm Sunday afternoon in late spring, with the cherry trees in the foothills in full bloom, I joined Master Juwain Zadoran and Sar Maram Marshayk at the top of the castle’s great Adami tower. It was our first gathering in nearly half a year – and our first in Master Juwain’s guest chamber since we had set out on the great Quest half a year before that. Master Juwain had recently returned from Taron in great haste, and had called this meeting to discuss matters pertaining to the Lightstone – and other things.

The room in which he resided when visiting my father’s castle was large and well-lit. Four arched windows looked out upon the white-capped peaks of Arakel and Telshar and the other mountains to the west. Four more windows gave a good view of the rest of the castle below us: the round and graceful Swan Tower and the Tower of the Stars; the courtyards full of wagons and knights on panting horses arriving for the evening’s feast; the great shield wall cut with crenels along its top like a giant’s teeth. Largest of all the castle’s structures was the massive keep, a huge cube of granite, and the adjoining great hall where the Lightstone was displayed for all to see. I might rather that it had been brought into the fastness of Master Juwain’s chamber, with its comforts of thick Galdan carpets, bright tapestries and many cases full of books, but I reminded myself that the golden cup was not meant to be kept in private by Master Juwain or Maram – or even me.

As I closed the door behind me and crossed the chamber’s tiled floor, Master Juwain of the Great White Brotherhood called out to me with a disquieting formality: ‘Greetings, Lord Valashu Elahad, Knight of the Swan, Guardian of the Lightstone, Prince of Mesh.’

He stood with my best friend, Maram, by the chamber’s west windows, looking at me strangely as if trying to peer beneath the mantle of these newly-won titles to apprehend a deeper thing inside me. His silver-gray eyes, large and luminous as moons, were full of wisdom and his great regard for me. Although some called him an ugly man, with his brown, squashlike nose and head as bald and lumpy as walnut, the light of kindness seemed to burn through these surface features and show only a being of great beauty.

‘Sir,’ I called back to him. I had addressed him thus for ten years, since the day that I had begun my studies at the age of eleven at the Brotherhood’s sanctuary in the mountains nearby. Although that happier time had long passed and we had been companions on the great Quest, he was still a Master Healer and Ea’s greatest scholar, and he deserved no less. ‘It’s good to see you!’

I rushed forward to embrace him. Despite being well into his middle years, his short, stocky body was still hard from the various disciplines to which he subjected it. A long, brown tunic of homespun wool covered him from neck to knee. From a chain, over his heart, dangled a gold medallion showing a sunburst and plain cup in relief. Seven rays streaked out of this cup to fall upon the medallion’s rim. King Kiritan had bestowed such gifts upon all who had vowed to make the quest to find the Lightstone. Maram and I wore our medallions as did Master Juwain: in bittersweet memory and pride.

‘It’s good to see you, Val,’ Master Juwain said, smiling at me. ‘Thank you for coming.’

Maram, dressed in a bright scarlet tunic emblazoned with two gold lions facing each other, did not like being left out of the greetings. He stepped up to me and threw his arms around me, a feat made difficult by his big, hard belly, which pushed out ahead of him like a boulder. He was a big man with a great, blazing heart of fire, and he drummed his hamlike hands against my back with such force that they threatened to stave-in my ribs.

‘Val, my brother,’ he said in his booming voice.

When he had finished pummeling me, we stood apart regarding each other. We were true brothers, I thought, and yet our lineages were as different as the river country of gentler climes and the highlands of Mesh. We were different, too. Although he was tall, for an outlander, I looked down upon him. He had his people’s curly chestnut hair, while mine was that of my father and mother: long, straight and black, more like a horse’s mane than the hair that covered the heads of most human beings. His face was of mounds of earth and rounded knolls, soft, pliable as red river clay; mine was all clefts and crags, cut as with walls of rock: too stark, too hard. He had a big, bear’s nose while mine was that of an eagle. And where his eyes were brown and sweet like alfalfa honey, my eyes, it was said, were black and bright as the nighttime sky above the winter mountains.

‘Ah, Val,’ he said, ‘it’s good to see you again, too.’

I smiled because we had taken breakfast together that very morning. Although Maram had been born a prince of Delu, he had resided in my father’s kingdom for half a dozen years. Once a novice of the Brotherhood under Master Juwain, he had renounced his vows and was now a sort of permanent guest in the castle. I looked at the jeweled rings on the fingers of his left hand and the single silver ring encircling the second finger of his right hand. It was set with two large diamonds: the ring of a Valari knight. Thus my father had honored him upon the fulfillment of the quest, declaring that Maram, in spirit at least, now belonged to my people.

Master Juwain invited us to sit at his tea table, inlaid with mother of pearl and precious woods, and years ago imported from Galda at great cost. He bent over one of the chamber’s fireplaces and retrieved a black iron pot. After heaping some green leaves into it, he brought it to the table and set it down on a square tile, along with three blue cups.

‘Ah, I think I’d rather have a bit of beer,’ Maram said, eyeing his empty cup. ‘I don’t suppose –’

‘I’m afraid it’s time for tea, Brother Maram,’ Master Juwain said. He, at least, remained true to his vows to renounce wine, women and war. ‘We’ve need for clear heads today – and tonight.’

Maram regarded the tea pot as he sat pulling at his thick, curly beard. I looked at Master Juwain and said, ‘What is troubling you, sir? It’s said that you nearly killed your horse returning from Taron.’

‘My poor horse,’ Master Juwain murmured, shaking his head. ‘But I had heard that King Kiritan’s emissaries were on the road toward Mesh, and I wanted to be here when they arrived. Have they?’

‘Only an hour after yourself,’ I told him. ‘Count Dario Narmada and a small army of knights. It will be hard to find rooms for so many.’

‘And the emissaries from Sakai? I had heard that the Red Dragon has sent seven of his priests to treat with your father.’

‘That is true,’ I said. ‘They’ve remained sequestered in their chamber since their arrival three days ago.’

I listened to the distant echoes and sounds that seemed to emanate from the stone walls around me. A wrongness pervaded the castle, like a child’s scream, and a sense of dread clawed at my insides. I thought of the five Kallimun priests and the cowled yellow robes that hid their faces; I prayed that none of them had been among the priests that had tortured my friends in Morjin’s throne room in Argattha.

‘They should never have been allowed into Mesh,’ Master Juwain said. He touched the enlarged opening of his ear that one of Morjin’s priests had torn with a heated iron. ‘That’s almost as dangerous as allowing the Red Dragon’s poisonous dreams into our minds.’

‘Dangerous, yes,’ I agreed. ‘But my father wishes to hear what they have to say. And he wishes it to be known that all are welcome in Mesh to view the Lightstone.’

I looked out the east windows where the city of Silvassu was spread out beneath the castle. It was a small city, whose winding streets and sturdy stone houses gave way after about a mile to the farmland and forest of the Valley of the Swans. And every inn and stable, I thought, was full with pilgrims who hoped to stand before the Lightstone. Even the fields at Silvassu’s edge were dotted with the brightly colored pavilions of nobles and knights who could not find rooms in the castle, and who disdained sleeping in a common inn with exiles, adventurers, soothsayers and all the others who had flocked to Mesh.

‘We can guess what the Red Priests will say: lies and more lies,’ Master Juwain told us. ‘But what of King Kiritan’s emissaries? Could he have agreed to the conclave?’

My father, King Shamesh, upon the deliverance of the Lightstone to Mesh, had sent emissaries of his own to Alonia and Delu, to the Elyssu and Thalu at the edge of the world. And to Eanna and Nedu, too, and of course, to the Nine Kingdoms of the Valari: to all of Ea’s Free Kingdoms my father had sent a call for a conclave to be held in Mesh, that an alliance might be made to oppose Morjin and his rampaging armies.

‘Ah, now that the Lightstone has been found,’ Maram said, ‘King Kiritan will have to agree to the conclave. And everyone else will follow Alonia’s lead – won’t they, Val?’

In truth, it had been I who had asked my father to call the conclave. For it had been I – and my friends – who had seen with our own eyes the great evil that Morjin was working upon the world.

‘The Valari kings,’ I said, ‘will never follow the lead of an outland king, not even Kiritan. We’ll have to find other means of persuading them.’

‘Indeed, but persuading them toward what end?’ Master Juwain asked. ‘Merely meeting in conclave? Making an alliance? Or making war?’

This word, dreadful and dark, stabbed into my heart like the long sword I wore at my side. It was as heavy and burdensome as the steel rings of the mail that encased my limbs and pulled me down toward the earth. Once, in my father’s castle, in my home, I had dressed otherwise, in simple tunics or even in my hunting greens. But now that I was Lord Guardian of the Lightstone, I went about armored at all times – especially with the Red Dragon’s priests waiting to get close to a small golden cup.

‘If we make an alliance,’ I told Master Juwain, ‘then perhaps we won’t have to make war.’

It was my deepest dream, I told myself, to end war – forever.

‘An alliance,’ Master Juwain said, shaking his head. ‘I’m afraid that the Red Dragon will never be defeated this way.’

‘It is not necessary to defeat him,’ I said. ‘At least not outright, in battle. It will be enough if we secure the Free Kingdoms. Then, with the Brotherhoods working at the Dragon Kingdoms from within, and the Alliance doing the same from without, the realms Morjin has conquered can be won back one by one.’

‘I see how your thinking has progressed since I went away.’

‘It is not just my thinking, sir. It’s that of my father and brothers.’

‘But what of the Lightstone, then?’

‘It is the Lightstone,’ I said, ‘that makes all this possible.’

‘But what of the one for whom the Lightstone was meant? Have you given thought, as I’ve asked, to this Shining One?’

Master Juwain poured our tea then. Through the steaming liquid, I watched the little bits of leaves swirl about and then settle into my cup.

‘There’s been thought of little else,’ I told him. ‘But the Free Kingdoms should be strengthened so that the Shining One can come forth without fear. Then Morjin will have much to fear.’

‘Indeed, he would,’ Master Juwain said. ‘But will the Red Dragon be content while you make alliance against him? Your way, I’m afraid, is that of the sword.’

‘Perhaps,’ I said, letting my hand rest on the seven diamonds set into the swan-carved hilt of my sword.

‘We’ve all seen enough evil for one lifetime, Val.’

I drew my sword then, and held it so that it caught the sunlight streaming in through the western window. Its long blade, wrought of silustria, shimmered like a silver mirror. Its edges were keen enough to cut steel even as the power of the silustria cut through darkness and gave me to see, sometimes, the truth of things. The sword’s maker had named it Alkaladur. In all the history of Ea, no greater work of gelstei had ever been accomplished, and none more beautiful.

‘This sword,’ I said to Master Juwain, ‘is not evil.’

‘No, perhaps not. But it can do evil things.’

Maram took a sip of his tea and grimaced at its bitterness.

Then he said, ‘There can’t be enough evil for Morjin and all his kind.’

‘Do not speak so,’ Master Juwain said, holding up his hand. ‘Please, Brother Maram, I ask you to –’

‘Sar Maram, I’m called now,’ Maram said, patting the sword that he wore sheathed at his side. It was a Valari kalama, like unto length and symmetry as my sword, only forged of the finest Godhran steel.

‘Sar Maram, then,’ Master Juwain murmured, bowing his bald head. ‘You mustn’t wish evil upon anyone – not even the Red Dragon himself.’

‘You say that? After he blinded Atara with his own hands? After what he did to you?’

‘I have another ear,’ Master Juwain told him, tapping his large, knotty finger against the side of his head. ‘And if I could, I’d wish to hear no talk of revenge.’

‘And that,’ Maram said, ‘is why you’re a master of the Brotherhood and I am, ah, what I am. Evil deserves evil, I say. Evil should be opposed by any means.’

‘By any means virtuous.’

‘But surely virtue is to be seen in the end to be accomplished. And what could be a greater good than the end of Morjin?’

‘The Red Dragon, I’m afraid, would agree with the first part of your argument. And that is why, Brother Maram, I must tell you that –’

‘Please, sir, call me Maram.’

‘All right,’ Master Juwain said with a troubled smile. Then he looked deep into Maram’s eyes and said, ‘To use evil, even in the battle against evil, is to become utterly consumed by it.’

I held my sword pointing north toward the castle’s great hall where the Lightstone was kept. Alkaladur’s silver gelstei flared white in resonance with the greater gold gelstei of which the cup was wrought. Its bright light drove back the hate that threatened to annihilate me whenever I thought of Morjin and how he had torn out the eyes of the woman I loved.

‘It is … not evil to guard the Lightstone for the Maitreya,’ I forced out, speaking the ancient name for the Shining One. In Ardik, Maitreya meant Lord of Light. ‘Can we not agree that this is our best means of fighting Morjin?’

I sheathed my sword and took a sip of tea. It was indeed bitter, but it cleared my head and cooled the wrath poisoning my heart.

‘Very well,’ Master Juwain said, ‘but I’m afraid we’ve little time for making alliances or battles. We must find the Maitreya before Morjin does. We must seek him out in whatever land has given him birth.’

At this, Maram took another sip of tea and smiled to try to hide the dread building inside him. ‘Ah, sir, it almost sounds as if you’re proposing another quest to find this Maitreya. Please tell me that you’re thinking of no such thing?’

‘A moment ago,’ Master Juwain reminded him, ‘you were ready to oppose Morjin in any way you could.’

‘I? I? No, no – you misunderstand me,’ Maram said. ‘I have already done my part in fighting Morjin. More than my part. We all have.’

I said nothing as I took a long sip of tea and gazed into Maram’s eyes.

‘Don’t look at me that way, Val!’ he said. He drained his cup in a sudden gulp, and banged it down upon the table. Then he stood up and began pacing about the room. ‘I don’t have your courage and devotion to truth. Ah, your faith in these great dreams of yours. I am just a man. And a rather delicate one at that. I’ve been bludgeoned by one of Morjin’s assassins, and nearly eaten by bears. And in the Vardaloon, I was eaten by every mosquito, leech and verminous thing in that accursed forest. I’ve been frozen, burnt, starved and nearly drained of blood. And the Stonefaces, ah, I don’t even want to speak of them! I’ve been shot with arrows …’

Here he paused to rub his fat rump, each half of which had been transfixed by a feathered shaft during the siege of Khaisham. To this day, he claimed, it pained him to sit on top of a horse – or on chairs.

‘Isn’t all this enough?’ he asked us. ‘No, no, my friends, if there’s another quest to be made, let someone else make it.’

I felt the ache in my side where one of Morjin’s assassins had run me through with a sword. In my veins stilled burned, and always would burn, the kirax poison that he had fired into me with an evil arrow shot out of the darkness of the woods. ‘We’ve all suffered, Maram,’ I said softly. ‘No one should ask that you suffer more.’

‘Ah, but you ask when you speak to me like that. When you look at me with those damn Valari eyes of yours.’

‘My apologies,’ I said, glancing down at the floor.

‘I just want to drink a little beer and write a few poems for Behira – what’s wrong with that?’

In truth, Maram liked to consume much more than a ‘little’ beer. Ever since we had returned to Mesh with the Lightstone, he had devoted his considerable passions toward savoring life. My brother, Asaru, often accused him of sloth, but he really worked very hard in his pursuit of pleasure, filling up each day of the week. Sunday nights, for instance, were for drinking, and sacred Oneday brought more beer and brandy. Moonday was equally holy, and Arday was needed to recover from so much holiness. Then came Eaday, which he reserved for walks in the mountains and rides through the forest – usually with his betrothed, Behira, or another beautiful young woman – so that he could worship the glories of the earth. Valday nights were for singing and stargazing in similar company, while on Asturday he wrote love poems, and on Sunday he rested yet again in preparation for the evening’s drinkfest.

I smiled at Maram’s peccadilloes, and so did Master Juwain, with curiosity as much as concern. Then he asked Maram, ‘And what of Behira, then? Have you set a date for the wedding?’

‘Ah, I’ve set at least three dates.’

He explained that he had kept postponing the wedding, offering one excuse or another. Most recently, he had argued that he and Behira should have news of the conclave before deciding anything so private and permanent as a wedding.

‘I did not think Lord Harsha,’ Master Juwain said, ‘could be put off so easily in matters concerning his daughter’s happiness.’

‘Did I say there was anything easy about all this? You should have seen Lord Harsha’s face when I told him I couldn’t possibly make vows in Ashte because the auguries were unfavorable.’

Master Juwain pushed back his chair, stood and went over to Maram. He rested his hand on his arm and asked, ‘What’s wrong? I thought you loved Behira?’

‘Ah, I do love her – I’m certain I do. More than I’ve ever loved any woman. In fact, I’m nearly certain that she’s the one I’ve been seeking all my life. It’s just that …’

His voice trailed off as he reached into a deep pocket of his tunic and removed a red crystal nearly a foot in length. It was six-sided and pointed at either end; a large crack ran down its center, and a webwork of smaller ones radiated out from it so that no part of the crystal remained untouched. With this great gelstei, Maram had wounded the dragon, Angraboda, in the deeps of Argattha. But the great blast of fire had broken the crystal so that it would unleash fire no more.

‘My poor firestone,’ he lamented, squeezing the red crystal. ‘I had hoped to find, in the Cup of Heaven, the secret of how it might be mended or forged anew. But I’ve failed.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t understand,’ Master Juwain said.

Maram gazed at the crystal and said, ‘As with this firestone, so with my heart. There’s a crack there, you see. Some fundamental flaw in my being. Every time I look at Behira, love flows into me like fire. But I can’t quite hold it. I had hoped to find in the Lightstone a way that I could. The way to make love last: that’s the secret of the universe.’

Maram, I thought, was no different to anyone else. Everyone who stood before the Lightstone sought the realization of his deepest desire. But no one, it seemed, knew how to unlock the secrets of this blessed, golden vessel.

‘I see, I see,’ Master Juwain said. Then he reached into the pocket of his tunic. He brought out an emerald crystal, much smaller than Maram’s, and stood looking at it. He said, ‘Don’t give up hope just yet.’

‘Why, do you propose to heal my heart with that?’

Master Juwain studied the green gelstei that he had gained on our quest. With it, he had healed Atara of a mortal wound, as he had more minor ones torn into Maram’s and my flesh. But too often the gelstei failed him. I knew that he dreamed the Lightstone might infinitely magnify the power of his healing crystal.

‘I wish I could,’ Master Juwain told Maram. ‘But you see, I’ve little more knowledge of how the Lightstone might be used than you do.’

‘Then your journey was unsuccessful?’

‘No, I wouldn’t quite say that. In fact, I discovered several things of great interest in Nar.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘Well, to begin with, it’s becoming ever clearer that only the Maitreya will show what the Lightstone is really for.’

Here he turned toward me, and his large eyes filled with a soft, silver radiance. ‘And you, Val – what have you found in the Lightstone?’

‘More than I ever dreamed,’ I said. ‘But less than I hoped.’

Maram had said that love is the secret of the universe. But why did the One, in love, give us life only to take it away in the bitterness of death?

‘I have looked for the secret of life,’ I admitted.

‘And what have you found?’

‘That it’s a mystery no man will ever solve.’

‘Nothing else?’

I stood up and walked over to look out the window. Above Silvassu – above all the world – Telshar’s white diamond peak was gleaming in the light of the late sun.

‘There have been moments,’ I said at last. ‘Once or twice, while I stood looking at the Lightstone, meditating – these bright moments. When the gold of the cup turns clear as diamond. And inside it, there is … everything. All the stars in the universe. I can’t tell you how bright is their light. It fell upon me like the stroke of a shining sword that brought joy instead of death. I was alive as I’ve never been alive before, and every particle of my being seemed to blaze like the sun. And then, for a moment, the light, myself – there was no difference. It was all as one.’

As Maram pulled at his beard, Master Juwain listened quietly and waited for me to say more. Then he spoke with a strange gravity: ‘You should mark well the miracle of these moments. We all should.’

‘Why, sir? Others have experienced similar things. I’m no different to anyone else.’

‘Aren’t you?’

He stepped closer to me and studied the scar cut into my forehead. It was shaped like a lightning bolt, the result of a wound to my flesh during the violence of my birth.

‘It was you,’ he said, ‘who found the Lightstone in the darkness of Argattha when it was invisible to everyone else. As it had remained invisible for all of an age.’

‘Please, sir – we shouldn’t speak of this again.’

‘No, I’m afraid we must speak of it, before it’s too late. You see, Master Sebastian –’

‘He’s a great astrologer,’ I admitted. I hated interrupting Master Juwain, or anyone, but I had gone too far to stop. ‘His knowledge is very great, but a man’s fate can’t be set by the stars.’

‘No, perhaps not set, as a chisel’s mark in stone,’ Master Juwain said. ‘It is more like a jeweled tapestry. All that is, or ever will be, is part of it. And each golden thread, each diamond woven into it, reflects the light of all the others. There is only one pattern, one master pattern, as I’ve said a hundred times. As above, so below. The stars, from where we came, mark the place we will return to. And mark it in patterns within the one pattern resonant with the patterns of our lives. Your life, Val, has already been marked out from all others. Everyone has seen this, in who you are, in what you’ve done. But Master Sebastian has seen it in the stars.’

He motioned for Maram and me to follow him across the room to where a large desk stood facing the wall. Many old books were heaped on top of it. One was a genealogy of the noble Valari families; another was entitled, simply: The Lesser Gelstei. The largest book was Master Juwain’s prized copy of the Saganom Elu, bound in ancient leather. He had placed it, and other books, so that they weighted down the corners of a scroll of parchment. Inked onto its yellow-white surface was a great wheel of a circle, divided by lines like slices of a pie. Other lines formed squares within the circle, and there was a single, equal-sided triangle, too. Around the circle’s edge were written various arcane symbols which I took to represent other worlds or the greatest of the heavens’ constellations.

‘Before I left for Nar,’ Master Juwain said to me, ‘I asked Master Sebastian to work up this horoscope from the reported hour of your birth.’ Here he stabbed his finger at a cluster of symbols at the top of the circle. ‘Do you see how your sun is at the midheaven in the constellation of the Archer? This is the sign of a soul that streaks out like an arrow of light to touch the stars. At the midheaven also is Aos, and this is an indication of a great spiritual teacher. And there also, Niran, which portends a spiritual master or great king. Their conjunction is striking and very strong.’