Lord of Lies. David Zindell

Juwain cast me a sharp look as if to ask me why I still doubted what was almost certainly proven. And I said to him, ‘I must know, sir.’

      ‘Very well, but do you have to know it right now?’

      The sight of the murdered girls was like a poisoned knife cutting open my belly. Around my neck I felt an invisible noose, fashioned by Morjin, inexorably tightening. My whole being burned with the desire to have answered a single question.

      ‘There’s so little time,’ I said to him. ‘Will you come with me, now, sir, to see what wisdom your gelstei might hold?’

      Master Juwain nodded his assent, and so I went out into the hall. The guards remained behind to wait for those who would prepare the dead girls for burial. I did not know what to do with Estrella. When I mentioned giving her over to the care of a nurse, she threw her arms around my waist and would not let go until I promised not to leave her.

      ‘All right then,’ I said to her. ‘If you’re to show me the Maitreya, perhaps you can show me other things as well.’

      And so I took her hand in mine, and led her and my friends back down to the great hall to stand before the Lightstone.

       6

      When we reached this room of feasts and councils, more people were gathered there. The sleeping Guardians had been moved off the dais and laid beneath it on the cold stone floor. Baltasar had deployed forty of the new Guardians to posts near the steps at either end of the dais. The remaining Guardians stood watch on the dais as usual, fifteen of them to either side of the Lightstone. Their hands gripped their swords, and they showed no sign of wanting to fall asleep.

      My mother, hastily dressed in a simple tunic and shawl, stood over the sleeping Guardians talking with my father. Lord Tanu prowled about with his hand on his sword and looked very crabby from the loss of sleep. It seemed that the night’s events had roused the entire castle.

      I presented Estrella and gave a quick account of how she had escaped from Salmelu and his priests. My mother began weeping, whether from relief that I was still alive or from her sorrow for Estrella it was hard to tell. She came over to us and smiled at Estrella. She gently laid her hand on her shoulder.

      But Lord Raasharu was not so kind. He came over to us and looked at Estrella, saying, ‘Could this be the ghul, then?’

      His question outraged me. I held out my hand to warn him back as I said, ‘She’s just a girl!’

      ‘Forgive me, Lord Valashu, but might not the Lord of Lies make use of one so young even more easily?’

      ‘No!’ I said. And then, ‘Yes, perhaps he could – but not this one, Lord Raasharu. She’s no more a ghul than you are.’

      The fire in my eyes just then must have convinced him of what my heart knew to be true. He bowed and took a step back, even as the awe with which he had earlier regarded me returned to his face. He seemed ashamed to have doubted me. ‘Forgive me, Lord Valashu, but it was my duty as your father’s seneschal to ask.’

      ‘It’s all right, Lord Raasharu,’ I said, clapping him on his arm. ‘This has been a long night, and we’re all very tired.’

      But this, it seemed, was not good enough for Lord Tanu. He marched straight up to us as his suspicious old eyes fixed on Estrella. ‘If she’s not a ghul, then perhaps she’s a spy that Salmelu left behind. She came out of Argattha! How do we know that her true loyalties won’t always lie with the Kallimun priests and the Red Dragon?’

      My mother slipped her shawl around Estrella’s bare shoulders. Then she gathered her closer, and stood holding her protectively. ‘If this girl is a spy, then fair is foul and I’m as blind as a bat.’

      Lord Tanu opened his mouth as if to gainsay her, but my father suddenly stepped forward and called out, ‘Enough! The Red Dragon has set traps for us tonight, but it’s not to be believed that this girl is one of them. Now, haven’t we other concerns?’

      We did have. For it seemed that there was still a ghul hiding somewhere in the castle. The thirty Guardians continued their unnatural sleep. And I still struggled to solve the great mystery of my life.

      While the search continued, my father sent one of his fastest riders to the Brotherhood’s sanctuary to retrieve a book about the lesser gelstei that Master Juwain requested. Master Juwain believed the sleeping men sprawled below the dais would awaken naturally in good time. But if they did not, he wanted to search in his book for mention of some tonic or tea that would rouse them.

      ‘There must be some specific that will counteract the effects of the sleep stone,’ he said. ‘Just as there must be some specific sequence of thoughts that will open this.’

      So saying, he drew out the opalescent little thought stone that he had brought from Nar. In the presence of the Lightstone, its colors seemed to swirl more vividly.

      ‘Try, sir,’ I said, urging him toward the dais.

      He yawned and said, ‘I’m afraid I would have a fresher mind if we waited until tomorrow.’

      ‘Tonight is nearly tomorrow,’ I told him. ‘Haven’t we waited long enough?’

      Master Juwain’s eyes flared with a new light. He loved nothing in life so much as delving into the mysteries of the mind.

      And so we both went up upon the dais. The Guardians there made room for us. Master Juwain stepped straight up to the Lightstone, holding the little gelstei in the open bowl of his hands. I stood by his side as he closed his eyes. He fell so still that it seemed he was sleeping, too.

      And so I waited to see if Master Juwain might discover some proof of my fate. What a great mystery the gelstei were! The secret of their making had been almost completely lost. But why, since there were still many ancient books describing how naked matter – the base elements of the earth – might be transmuted into these glorious crystals?

      I remembered Master Juwain once explaining the answer to this puzzle: ‘Because the gelstei are living crystals, and the knowledge that goes into their forging is individual and spiritual and alive.’

      They could not, he had told me, be forged as if by recipe. And they could not be used that way, either.

      And as it was with the lesser gelstei, so it was even more with the greater gelstei: the silustria of my sword, the healing varistei, the blazing firestones. And most of all, the Lightstone itself. It was said that the golden cup gleaming on its stand three feet away from me had been forged by the Galadin around a distant star many ages ago – but no one really knew. Certainly no one on Ea, for twice ten thousand years, had succeeded in creating another like it, for almost everything about the gold gelstei remained a mystery. All through the Age of Law, the Brotherhoods had tried to unlock its secrets, with only partial success. As Master Juwain had said to me, it was one thing to hold the Lightstone in one’s hands, but quite another to wield it.

      It was near the first hour of the new day – Moonday, I thought – when Master Juwain finally opened his eyes. He sighed as he squeezed the little gelstei in his hand. ‘I’m afraid I’ve failed, Val. The conundrum remains: this crystal might contain knowledge about the Lightstone. But it seems we still need the Lightstone to open it.’

      I gazed at the golden cup that we had fought through hell to bring to this place. It quickened the powers of each of our gelstei – and so quickened our individual gifts that enabled us to use them.

      Master Juwain went on, ‘I’ve tried all the formulae and incantations, in ancient Ardik, in Lorranda and Uskul, even the Songlines, but nothing has availed.’

      My father’s words rang in my head: that we must believe, for believing in a thing, we make it be. Then an old verse flashed in my mind:

      The deeper dance of head and heart, The angels’