Lord of Lies. David Zindell

Harsha and Behira, with Maram, Master Juwain and Lansar Raasharu, took their places immediately behind us. Lord Harsha’s emblem was a gold lion rampant on a field of bright blue. It covered nearly all his shield, except that the bordure around its rim showed a repeating motif of silver swans and stars against a narrow black field, for he had sworn allegiance to my father and must bear sign of it. So it was with Lord Raasharu, his family’s emblem of a blue rose against a gold field being surrounded by the same bordure, and with all the other knights lining up behind him.

      Baltasar, who would be that day’s bearer of the Lightstone, had the position of honor at the center of the middle column of Guardians. Our small baggage train trailed this main body of our expedition, followed by strings of our snorting remounts and a rear-guard of twenty knights commanded by Sunjay Naviru. Estrella, I discovered, could not ride and had been brought to Mesh with her sister slaves locked inside a cart. And so the prospect of sitting all day by herself in one of the wagons distressed her. I decided that she should begin our journey riding with me. My mother escorted her through the courtyard, treading carefully through the squishing mud right up to the front of our assemblage. She helped her up onto Altaru’s back, and the small girl seemed happy to sit in front of me dangling her feet over Altaru’s sides.

      ‘Neither of you will be comfortable this way for long,’ my mother said to me as she stood there in the courtyard’s churned-up mud. ‘Please mind that she doesn’t grow too tired or sore.’

      I promised that I would take as good care of Estrella as she would herself.

      ‘Goodbye, Valashu,’ she said as she bent forward to kiss my knee. ‘Whether you return as a Maitreya or just a man, make sure you do return.’

      In the north ward that morning, lined up along the walls from the Aramesh Tower to the Telemesh Gate, blacksmiths and carpenters mingled with great lords such as Lord Tanu, and midwives waited in the rain with princes and even kings. Almost all the castle had turned out to see us off. At the front of this throng stood my father and grandmother, with my brothers Karshur, Mandru and Ravar. When it came time for us to ride forth, they braved the mud and joined my mother in making their goodbyes. Karshur made me promise to return with the gold plaque in swordsmanship. Mandru, adding a twist to my mother’s theme, advised me to return with the gold gelstei – or not at all. This was meant to be a joke, of course, but there was a painful truth in his otherwise tender parting with me.

      On this journey, my father had no gifts to give me other than the reassurance of his smile and the fire of his eyes. He spoke the same farewell as he had a year before. This time, in the light of what I sought, his words had an even deeper poignancy: ‘Always remember who you are, Valashu. May you always walk in the light of the One.’

      I nudged Altaru forward, and my powerful horse whinnied with excitement, glad to set out into the world again. And so I led the rest of my company through the castle’s gate. A thousand iron-shod hooves struck wet paving stones, sending spray and a great noise into the air. The road wound down from the castle through an apple grove and turned into the North Road that led all the way toward Ishka and beyond.

      It was not a pleasant day for travel. And yet the land through which we passed was still lovely. The fields around Silvassu showed the emerald sheen of new shoots of barley and rye; the wildflowers along the road were alive with bees and butterflies undaunted by the soft rain. To the left of us, the peaks of the mountains – Vayu, Arakel and Telshar – vanished into folds of silver mist. Soon we entered the forest filling the Valley of the Swans. With the oaks and elms in full leaf and the songbirds chirping gaily, it seemed churlish to chafe at a little moisture working its way into our garments or to long for the sun to burn its way through the clouds.

      We rode all day at an easy pace so as not to tire the horses. That night we camped in the hilly country toward the northern end of the valley. On some nearly level pasturage well-watered by a swift stream, we laid out our rows of tents. Upon considering the warcraft I had learned from my mysterious friend, Kane, and from my father, I insisted that our little camp be fortified by a moat and a stockade. This rudimentary fence was little more than some sharpened stakes pounded into the moist earth and logs and brush piled up to form a breastwork. Nevertheless, with Guardians stationed every twenty paces, we would be well protected against any thieves or murderers who might try to steal upon us in the middle of the night.

      My tent, a large pavilion of black and silver silk in which the Lightstone would reside each night, covered a patch of moist grass in the middle of the camp. It was large enough to accommodate numerous people, and Estrella gave signs of wanting to lay out her sleeping furs inside and share it with me. But that would have been unseemly. For however much I thought of her as my sister, she remained a young girl of no true relation. And so I arranged a compromise: Lord Harsha and Behira would have the tent next to mine, and Estrella would sleep with them. We would take our meals, with Master Juwain and Maram, around a common campfire. If Estrella should cry out in the darkness, in her soundless way, her plaint might awaken me so that I could go to her and lead her out of the land of nightmare.

      Our dinner that first night on the road to Nar was plentiful and good: beef and barley soup mopped up with a black rye bread thick with butter; roasted lamb and mushrooms; asparagus shoots picked from the shoulders along the road; apple pie that my mother had packed with a block of aged, yellow cheese. All this provender gave us good cheer against the fine, misting rain. The beer and brandy poured into our cups helped raise our spirits, too. I sipped this fine liquor by our fire, with Master Juwain and Maram on my right, while Estrella, Behira and Lord Harsha sat in a half-circle to my left. My two brothers, at the fire nearest us, held a little war council as they discussed their strategies for excelling at the tournament. Between the rows of tents around us, Baltasar, Sunjay Naviru, Sivar of Godhra, and all the other Guardians except the sentries, gathered around fires of their own.

      For a couple of hours, I talked with Lord Harsha and Maram about the tournament and other worldly affairs. And all this time, I couldn’t help stealing quick glances at Estrella. She seemed to pay no attention to these matters of great moment which so concerned me and my friends; perhaps she didn’t understand our talk of statecraft or just didn’t care. During dinner, she ate with abandon as if she had been starved and couldn’t get enough of food, and of life itself. Later she played with a little doll sewn out of some bright bits of cloth. Behira, that truly kind young woman whom Maram so foolishly declined to marry, had given it to her as a present. It seemed the only possession that Estrella had ever been allowed to keep as her own. It drew all of her attention. For this, too, was her gift, the way that a picked flower or a brightly colored bird and all the things of life absorbed her utterly. I watched as her dark, almond eyes seemed to melt into the doll’s silken substance. I wondered at her origins. With her light brown skin and finely-boned face, she might have been Hesperuk, Galdan or Sung – or some marrying of all three. She was less pretty than beautiful. Her body was as slender as a willow; her slightly crooked nose suggested that someone had once broken it. What a mystery she was! What a mystery all human beings were! Argattha, I knew, had broken men as strong as bulls and yet here this little sprig of humanity sat in a soft spring mist happily playing with her doll as if none of the world’s horrors could touch her.

      After Lord Harsha and Behira had taken her off to bed, I remarked this inextinguishable quality of hers.

      ‘Her soul … is so free,’ I marveled. ‘After a life in bondage, she’s still so wild at heart. Like a sparrowhawk – like the wind.’

      ‘People survive slavery in different ways,’ Master Juwain said to me. ‘I think that she retreats inside herself.’

      ‘No, it is more than that,’ I said. I told him, and Maram, that Estrella seemed able to look into a thing and perceive some part of its fiery essence as her own, and so to take refuge there. ‘She sees things, sir. And what she sees, she reflects in her eyes, in her soul.’

      ‘You’re quite taken with her, aren’t you?’

      ‘She has a gift,’ I said. ‘Whether it’s to show me the Maitreya or simply show the sun on a sunless day, who could know?’

      ‘Yes, a gift,’ Master Juwain agreed as he scratched his bald head. Soft lights began dancing