Lord of Lies. David Zindell

Through ancient alchemy is wrought A higher sense, a deeper thought.

      After I had recited these lines, Master Juwain looked at me and asked, ‘Where did you learn that?’

      ‘From a book in your library, years ago,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you might find these thoughts that are deeper than words, since as you say, none of your words has availed.’

      ‘But, Val, thoughts are words. Language is.’ He held up his little crystal. ‘And this is called a thought stone – not a heart stone.’

      I gazed off at our family’s table, where my mother sat with Estrella tending her bruised and bloodied feet. Something about this mute girl, so wild and free, called forth the grace of an animal. An animal, I was sure, had thoughts and mind, ordered not with words, but with the deeper logic of life. Estrella, not being able to talk to others, had somehow learned to communicate a blazing intelligence as if unfolding a fireflower from out of the depths of her being. The smile on her face as my mother finished her work and kissed her spoke more clearly and purely than words ever could.

      ‘But, sir,’ I said to Master Juwain, ‘doesn’t thought arise from the deeper intelligence of the heart? Doesn’t mind merely translate this intelligence into words, and then manipulate it and permute it?’

      Master Juwain remained silent as he looked at me.

      ‘And didn’t you once teach me,’ I went on, ‘that the head and heart are two horses that draw the same chariot? And that the ancients made no such war between mind and body as do we?’

      Master Juwain sighed as he nodded his head. ‘Yes, yes, I know very well what you say is true. But, you see, sometimes I don’t know … what I know.’

      I pointed at the pocket of his robes and said, ‘The varistei is a healing stone, yes? What if it could heal this rent in the soul? Why don’t you try using it on yourself?’

      He looked appalled as if what I had suggested to him was more painful than taking a knife to his own chest to perform a surgery. But he slowly nodded his head as he removed the emerald crystal from his pocket. He stood holding it in his hand in front of him.

       The deeper dance of head and heart …

      The healing stones, the green gelstei were called. And yet their powers ran much deeper than merely mending flesh together. Used in harmony with the natural forces of the earth, the varistei could awaken and strengthen the very fires of life itself.

       The sacred fire of heart and head

       Where sense and thought are sweetly wed …

      Again, Master Juwain closed his eyes. I felt my heart beating in a quick but steady rhythm with his. The sounds of the room – jangling steel and creaking chairs and low voices – faded into a distant hum. I seemed to wait forever, all the while expecting Master Juwain to look at me and tell me that he had failed yet again. And then suddenly, the varistei came alive with a deep viridian light. The hall fell eerily silent as this lovely radiance enveloped Master Juwain’s hand, his arm and then his entire body; it seemed to course through his body and illumine it as from within. I gasped, then, to see his heart pulsing inside his chest like a great, living jewel. It sent shoots of emerald light through his arms and his legs, and up in a great shimmering fountain through his head.

      When at last he opened his eyes, I had never seen these twin gray orbs so luminous and clear. He smiled as he tucked his varistei back into his pocket. Then he looked upon the Lightstone. The golden cup overflowed with a clear light, which he seemed to drink in through his eyes. He stood thusly for a long time. At last he turned his attention to the thought stone that he still held in his other hand. He stood gazing at it, nearly lost in rapture, even as the first rays of the morning sun fell upon the great hall’s windows and carried colors of crimson, gold and blue into the silent room.

      ‘I see, I see,’ he whispered to himself.

      Now some of the sleeping Guardians began stirring and opening their eyes, bewildered. My father led Asaru and my brothers up upon the dais. Lansar Raasharu and Lord Tanu followed, and my mother, her arm covering Estrella’s shoulders, slowly climbed the steps to hear what Master Juwain might say.

      ‘You were right, Val,’ he said, holding up the thought stone for all to see. ‘Words were not the key to open this, though its contents were recorded in words. In High East Ardik, no less, which, then as now, was a language that only the Brotherhoods used.’

      A fleeting look of triumph swept over Master Juwain’s face as he continued,

      ‘And I was also right. There is knowledge of the Lightstone in this gelstei. And knowledge of the Maitreya, too.’

      ‘Go on,’ I said as my eyes burned into his.

      ‘I’m afraid it won’t be as much as you hoped for.’

      ‘Go on,’ I said again.

      Master Juwain sighed as he held his hand out toward the Lightstone. ‘It seems that the Cup of Heaven may be used by anyone, each according to his virtue and understanding. But if a man is flawed in any way, the light leaks out from his deeds like water from a cracked cup.’

      ‘Are you saying, then, that a man needs to be perfect in order to use the Lightstone?’

      ‘No – only to use it perfectly.’

      ‘And the Maitreya?’

      ‘The words concerning him, at least, are clear enough,’ Master Juwain said. ‘The Lightstone is meant for the Maitreya.’

      ‘But how is he to use it?’

      ‘Only he will ever know.’

      I turned toward the Lightstone, now pouring out a golden radiance as if it had caught the rays of the morning sun and was giving them back a thousandfold. Around the dais the last of the stricken Guardians were waking.

      ‘But who is the Maitreya, then?’ I asked Master Juwain. ‘What does your stone say about that?’

      ‘Very little, I’m afraid.’ Master Juwain sighed again as he looked at me with all the kindness that he could find. ‘This is the relevant passage, listen: “Just as the Lightstone is the source of the radiance that holds all things together, so the Maitreya is the light that draws all peoples and all kingdoms together toward a single source and fate.”’

      I looked at Master Juwain and said, ‘Is there no more?’

      ‘I’m certain that there is more recorded in the other thought stones in Nar.’

      I drew Alkaladur and held it before the Lightstone. The Sword of Truth, it was called, the Sword of Fate. Its silver gelstei, gleaming as bright as a mirror, gave me to see a frightful thing: that I stood at the center of the whirlwind of forces that drew all the people of Ea toward a singular fate.

      Lansar Raasharu suddenly cried out, ‘Claim the Lightstone, Lord Valashu!’

      ‘Claim it, Val!’ Baltasar, his faithful son, repeated.

      I looked around at my father and my mother, at my brothers and friends and all these people who were so close to my heart. Only hours before, Kasandra had warned of a ghul who would undo my dreams. I was sure that none of those present could be this evil being. And yet, in the deepest sense, I could be sure only of myself. Shouldn’t I then claim the Lightstone, here and now, if for no other reason than to keep it safe within my grasp and guarded by my sword?

      ‘Claim it, Val!’ my fierce brother, Mandru, said to me.

      The golden cup gleamed before me. If I were a false Maitreya and yet claimed it for my own, I would crack apart like a cup of clay and bring great evil to the world. But if I were the true Maitreya and failed to claim it, another would – and then the evil that he wrought with the gold gelstei would be just as great.

      ‘Come, Val,’ my brother Jonathay laughed out. His face,