Lord of Lies

These words, too, seemed to hang in the air. You are, I thought. I am. I looked down at Kasandra to ask her to finish her sentence, if indeed she already hadn’t. But the light in her tormented eyes suddenly died, and she would speak no more, ever again. Where, I wondered, did the light go when the light went out?

Master Juwain shook his head at me, and put away his green crystal. He reached out and closed Kasandra’s eyes.

‘Val,’ he said, ‘there’s nothing –’

‘No,’ I said softly. ‘No, no, no.’

Because Kasandra was pulling me down into death with her, I let go her hand. I retreated inside the walls of the castle of aloneness that had protected me for so long. I stood away from the bed, and held out my sword. Its dark silver flashed with a sudden light.

He killed my sisters, Kasandra had said to me. His face is as noble as your own. He is no man …

On the floor beneath me were the bloody bootprints of a man, or men. The pattern of these red defilements seemed burned into the stone.

I know that you keep the Cup of Heaven locked and guarded in your castle as in ancient times, Morjin had written me. It is a beautiful thing, is it not? The most beautiful in all the world.

My sword flared again, this time more brightly. I held it pointing down toward the east in the direction of the great hall where the Guardians stood protecting the Lightstone. Alkaladur blazed with a wild radiance that burned deep into my eyes.

‘Master Juwain!’ I cried out. ‘Go back to my father’s room! Ask the King – Asaru, too, my brothers – to come to the great hall!’

‘Val, what is it?’ Master Juwain asked me.

But I was already running for the door. I paused there only a moment to call out to Maram, ‘Go to the Guardians’ barracks! Rouse Baltasar! Tell him that a ghul has been sent to steal the Lightstone!’

I had no breath to say more. I sprinted out into the hallway. Our noise of broken doors and shouts must have roused this floor’s guests. Two of them – old Lord Garvar’s widow and a minstrel from Thalu – had opened their doors halfway to see if the castle might be under attack. I told them to lock themselves inside their rooms. And then, sword in hand, I ran past them toward the stairwell.

I fairly bounced down the twisting stairs like a suddenly released stone. It was a miracle that I negotiated the worn granite slabs without stumbling and breaking my neck. Only seconds, it seemed, sufficed for me to reach the archway into the first floor’s hallway. I ran down this deserted corridor as quickly as I could. At the kitchens, I turned right, and sprinted down the shorter corridor connecting the keep to the great hall. Its doors were open, and so I had no trouble passing inside.

There, in this vast, dim space still smelling of beer and roasted meat, I saw an astonishing thing: the thirty Guardians lay in various positions about the dais at the front of the room. Their faces were peaceful, and they all appeared to be sleeping. The Lightstone remained on its stand above them. Its shimmering presence seemed to call forth a new surge of radiance from my sword.

The debt must be repaid, Morjin had written me. You will serve me – in life or in death.

‘Adamar! Viku! Skyshan!’ I called out to three of the Guardians, to no effect. I ran toward the dais and then bounded up its steps. I picked my way around the splayed arms and legs of the downed Guardians. The hand of the Guardian nearest the Lightstone seemed to beckon me – or someone – closer.

‘Skyshan!’ I called out again as I knelt and tried to shake this large, young man awake. ‘Skyshan!’

After a few moments, I gave up and rose to my feet. I stood with my sword held ready as I steeled myself to guard the Lightstone – in life or in death.

I waited for the faint sound of boots along the corridor or the creak of doors being opened. Hot sweat trickled down my sides beneath my armor. My breath came in quick bursts, and my heart beat like a war drum. I looked out into the hall at the rows of tables and empty chairs. I glanced up at the portraits of my ancestors along the walls; their grave faces looked down at me as if to take my measure. My grandfather, Elkasar Elahad and his father, Aradam, and his grandfather – all the kings of Mesh going back many generations seemed to be waiting with me in the hall. One of the oldest of the portraits was of Julamar Elahad, who had been King of Mesh when last the Lightstone had resided on this stand three thousand years before. His ancient eyes, brilliant as stars, seemed to fix upon me and to ask me if I would give the Lightstone into the Maitreya’s hands, even as he had. He asked me if I would die trying to wrest the Lightstone back from Morjin and his murderous priests, even as he had, too.

As my heart beat out the moments of my life in quick, hot surges that tore through my veins, the whole world seemed to wait with me there in the quiet hall. I felt someone watching me. It seemed that he was far away – or perhaps very near. In all that large space, with its smooth walls of stone, there were few places to hide: behind the pillars holding up the ceiling or in the darkened recesses of the south doors. I listened for the rustle of clothing or mail armor from these places; I felt for the beating of another’s heart or the quiet steaming of his breath.

All at once, an overpowering desire to sleep flooded into me. My arms felt unbelievably heavy, as if they were encased not in steel but in lead. I had to fight to keep my eyes open. My head was like a great weight that kept falling toward my chest.

I must not, I may not, I silently prayed. Please don’t let me fall asleep.

A glint of silver sliced the air above me. Flick appeared in a shower of sparks. This mysterious being began looping through the air, around and around both me and the Lightstone, as if weaving a fence of light. Or trying to paint a beguiling pattern of scarlet and silver streaks that might keep me awake.

I raised high my long and brilliant sword and cried out. ‘Alkaladur!’ The Awakener, men called it. Through its silver gelstei ran a secret pulse that beat in rhythm to my own true pulse. It reminded me that the deepest part of myself remained always awake and always aware, and would remain standing even when I died.

At last, from faroff in the depths of the castle, came the sound of footsteps that I had been dreading. I turned toward the open doorway by which I had entered the hall. My eyes burned as I waited to see who would appear in the rectangular darkness there. My hands seemed fused with the hilt of my sword.

‘Valashu!’ a strong voice called to me. ‘Valashu Elahad!’

My heart surged with joy to see my father charge into the room. He had his shining kalama in hand. Asaru, Karshur and my other brothers, with Lansar Raasharu, followed closely behind him. A few moments later, even as my father hurried up the steps of the dais to join me, Master Juwain appeared in the doorway, too.

‘What is this?’ Master Juwain cried out when he saw the forms of the sleeping Guardians. ‘What poison? What potion?’

‘What sorcery, you mean?’ Asaru said as he gained the dais and tried to rouse his friends.

Just then came a much louder sound of pounding boots and jangling steel from outside the hall to the east. Suddenly, with a crash of wood, the doors were thrown open, and Baltasar and Maram led seventy mail-clad knights into the room. I smiled to see the grim faces of Shivathar and Artanu of Godhra and others who were like brothers to me. They started straight for the dais. But then I held out my hand and shouted, ‘Stay, Baltasar! Guard the doors and stand your distance until we discover the nature of this sorcery!’

While Master Juwain knelt among the fallen Guardians looking for sign of what might have stricken them, Karshur stood like a mountain above him. He yawned and said, ‘Perhaps Master Juwain is right – it’s some sleeping potion.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘it cannot be.’

I explained that it was one of my rules that the Guardians on duty should never all eat of the same food together nor take the same drink.

Ravar, my cleverest brother, rubbed his fox-like face as he said, ‘Then it must be something else. Let us search the hall.’

And so it was done. My brothers and the Guardians still on their feet spread out through the hall as if beating through grass to flush a rabbit. They picked through the rows of tables but paid closest attention to the dais itself. In the end, it was Ravar who discovered the source of what had stricken the Guardians. With a flick of his knife, he wedged out a piece of loose mortar between two of the dais’ floorstones. And in the recess between them, his quick fingers found a small, glassy sphere like an agate or a child’s marble.

‘I see, I see,’ Master Juwain said as Ravar gave it to him. He rolled it between his rough old hands as his gray eyes came alive with a new light. ‘This is surely a sleep stone. One of the lesser gelstei, and quite rare. Whoever hid it here must have remained close by, or else it could not have been used to so great an effect.’

His hand swept out and down toward the sleeping Guardians.

‘The traitor,’ Asaru said. ‘Salmelu – it must have been he.’

‘Damn him!’ Lord Raasharu cried out as he came up upon the dais. ‘We had word that he and the other priests left the castle only half an hour ago. In the middle of the night! We thought that he was fleeing only out of shame.’

My father stepped forward and shook his head. He pointed his sword at the Lightstone. ‘Why flee at all before gaining that which he had come to steal?’

I traded glances with Maram and Master Juwain, and then told my father and everyone else what had happened in the scryers’ chamber. ‘He fled to avoid your justice, sir.’

My father’s eyes flashed with a dark fire as the flames of wrath built inside him.

‘Ah, well,’ Maram said, ‘it seems that Salmelu couldn’t count on his position to shield him from punishment.’

‘An emissary who murders old women is no emissary,’ my father said. I felt him willing his heart to cool down. ‘But what was Salmelu, then? A priest who has defiled my house? A thief? Was it he who used the sleep stone?’

‘No, it was not,’ I said. ‘The scryer spoke of a ghul with a noble face. That cannot have been Salmelu.’

I looked at my father as he traded glances with Asaru, and Lansar Raasharu nodded at Ravar. And then suddenly everyone gathered there was regarding everyone else with questioning eyes. Who, I wondered, had more noble faces than did my friends and family?

‘No, none of us is this ghul,’ I said. I had gazed upon the flames of being of each man in the hall, and I was as sure of this as I was that the sun would rise in the east in a couple more hours. ‘It must be another.’

‘But who, then?’ Ravar asked. He pointed down at the crack in the dais. ‘Someone hid the sleep stone here. Was it a groom bringing drink to the Guardians? Or a knight friendly to them whom they allowed to approach too close?’

I shook my head. Neither I nor anyone else had answers to his questions. ‘It’s not to be believed that any Meshian could ever so betray his people.’