Lord of Lies. David Zindell

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.

       5

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

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

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

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

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

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

      ‘Come!’ I said to Maram. I rammed my shoulder against the door with such force that the hard wood drove the rings of my mail armor into my flesh almost down to the bone. ‘Help me break this open!’

      ‘But, Val – they’re old women!’ Maram said.

      ‘They might have taken a draught to help them sleep,’ Master Juwain added.

      ‘Come!’ I said again. ‘They’re not sleeping! Help me!’

      Maram finally sighed his consent, and added his great bulk in battering at the door. On our second attempt, it burst inward in a scream of splinters and tormented iron. It was nothing against the scream in my eyes, in my belly and lungs. For the hall’s dim torchlight showed a small, simple room filled with carnage. The iron-sick smell of blood drove like a hammer against my head. Sprays of blood moistened one wall; the red imprints of boots darkened the floorstones. On one of the beds sprawled two of the scryers, whose names I had not learned. Their throats had been cut, and rivers