Lord of Lies. David Zindell

at the blue and yellow tent into which Estrella had retired for the night. I said, ‘Perhaps she felt for the cracks in the stone.’

      ‘Yes, but felt with her hands or with a different sense? Perhaps she has the second sight.’

      ‘Like a scryer?’

      ‘No, not exactly. A scryer’s gift is to perceive things hidden in time.’

      ‘Some scryers,’ I said, thinking of Atara, ‘can also see things hidden in space.’

      ‘Yes, and there clairvoyance is wed with prophecy. But I’m thinking that perhaps Estrella is gifted otherwise.’

      He went on to tell of a talent so rare that it had only an ancient name little used any more: that of a seard. A seard, he said, had a knack for finding lost things – by becoming, in spirit, that very thing.

      I gazed at the sparks in the flames before me. They reminded me of Flick’s fiery form whirling about nearby. I said, ‘A curious thing happened this morning, sir: When I was packing my chess set, I discovered that one of the white knights was missing. I couldn’t imagine how I’d lost it. But Estrella found it for me in Yarashan’s room. It seems that he had borrowed it without telling me to replace a missing piece in his set. But how did Estrella even know to look there?’

      Maram took a sip of brandy and said, ‘Curious, indeed, my friend. But it’s even more curious to think of a seard becoming a piece of carved ivory – or anything else. If she’s to find the Maitreya for us, is she to become him as well, then?’

      ‘Only in spirit, as I’ve said,’ Master Juwain told Maram. He eyed Maram’s glass of vanishing brandy as if to admonish him that such strong drink could cloud both memory and the wits. ‘I would think that a seard might find the Maitreya through a transparency of the soul that nobody else would possess. By seeing him in a way that nobody else could.’

      ‘Ah, you’re speculating, sir,’ Maram said, needling him.

      ‘That I am. But how else is one to make sense of Kasandra’s prophecy?’

      I poked the fire with a charred stick, and this sent up even more sparks. I said, ‘The true miracle is that Argattha didn’t crush this gift from her. And that Morjin – or his priests – didn’t discover it and use her as a sort of living lodestone to point the way to the Maitreya.’

      ‘As you would use her?’ Maram said, now needling me.

      ‘It is different,’ I told him. ‘As different as slavery and freedom. If Estrella follows me, this is her will and not mine.’

      ‘One can only hope so,’ Maram said to me.

      Master Juwain pulled at his lumpy chin and said, ‘I’m afraid it isn’t always so easy to distinguish slavery from freedom. Or to tell a slave from one who is free.’

      ‘How so, sir?’ I asked.

      ‘Consider Estrella, then,’ Master Juwain said. ‘She is starved her whole life of the one thing that a young girl most needs. And then you save her from death, but even more, you give her the sweetest thing in life. You, who loves so freely and fiercely, as your mother has said. You never count the cost, do you, Val, when you give your heart to a friend?’

      ‘Are you saying that what is between Estrella and me, this thing that is so pure and good, this love, enslaves her?’

      ‘No, love can never enslave – it is just the opposite. But our need for love, burning us up like a fever, that can enslave. For that which we most desire pulls at us and captures us, like moths around a flame.’

      ‘But Estrella doesn’t seem … captured.’

      ‘No, I admit that she does not. She has great strength. She still retains her freedom, as she did in Argattha.’

      ‘What do you mean?’ Maram asked. ‘The filthy priests captured her and forced her to their will.’

      ‘Yes, they captured her body which is the least part of ourselves that we might lose,’ Master Juwain said. ‘Far worse it is to let another master your mind. And it is truly damning to give up your soul.’

      He went on to say that slaves were the least useful of Morjin’s servants, for a slave must constantly be controlled by whips and chains and the threat of being put to death. And that was because a slave’s mind, while compromised by fear, often retained enough free will to plot revolt and the murder of his master, and to dream always of freedom.

      ‘And that is why,’ Master Juwain said, ‘that the Lord of Lies would rather make men into true believers of his lies, for then, having surrendered their minds, they will do his bidding without question. Such men we do not call slaves, but they are less free than a mine-thrall.’

      ‘Some of Morjin’s men would march off a cliff for him,’ Maram said. ‘Remember the Blues at Khaisham? They’re the perfect soldiers.’

      ‘No, not so perfect as you might think,’ Master Juwain said. ‘For what a man believes, he might come not to believe. Men often change their allegiances to ideals like snakes shedding one skin and growing another.’

      ‘Morjin,’ I said, with a sudden certainty, ‘would fear this.’

      Master Juwain slowly nodded his head. ‘Which is why he seeks to steal men’s souls above all else. As the mind embraces the body, so the soul enfolds the mind. Control a man’s soul, and you are the master of all that he feels, thinks and does.’

      ‘It seems as if you’re speaking of a ghul,’ I said.

      ‘I’m speaking of the path toward losing one’s freedom,’ Master Juwain said. ‘This is not a simple thing. No one is completely free, just as no one is completely a slave.’

      ‘But what about a ghul, then?’

      ‘A ghul, Val, is only an extreme case of what we’ve been discussing. He is that certain kind of slave that not only surrenders his soul to one such as Morjin, but then becomes possessed by him body, mind and soul.’

      I thought about this as I listened to the crickets chirping in the pasture beyond our rows of tents. Near the fire, Flick’s luminous substance streaked up toward the sky like a fountain of little silver lights. He seemed to point the way toward a break in the clouds, where a single star shone out of the night’s blackness.

      I looked over at Master Juwain. ‘Sir, you said that no one is ever truly free. But what about the Star People? What about the angels?’

      Master Juwain considered this a moment, then said, ‘Just as there is a path toward slavery, there is one toward freedom. A man begins this path by learning the Law of the One and strengthening his soul. If he is wise, if he is pure of heart, he will go on to walk other worlds as one of the Star People. And the Star People, the most virtuous, gain freedom from aging and so become Elijin. And the Elijin advance as Galadin, who are free from death. The Ieldra, it is said, being of light, are free even from the burden of bearing bodies. And the One – ageless, changeless, indestructible and infinitely creative in bringing forth new forms – is pure freedom itself.’

      ‘Then Morjin,’ I said, ‘as one of the Elijin, should be more free than you or I.’

      ‘He should be,’ Master Juwain said. ‘But an angel can lose his soul as surely as a man. And when he does, having a greater soul to lose, his fall is more terrible.’

      He went on to speak of the fall of Morjin’s master, Angra Mainyu, the greatest of the Galadin. Very little of this tragic tale was recorded in the Saganom Elu. But Master Juwain, in an old book discovered in the Library at Khaisham, had come across some passages concerning Angra Mainyu’s seduction into evil and the cataclysm that had followed. Long, long before the ages of Ea when men had first come to earth, Angra Mainyu had been chief of the Galadin on their home of Agathad in the numinous and eternal light of Ninsun. But he had coveted the Lightstone for his own, and so his gaze