Lord of Lies

‘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 had turned toward the world of Mylene, where the Lightstone was kept. After journeying there, through deceit, treachery and the fire of great red gelstei that had nearly destroyed Mylene, he had slain the Lightstone’s guardian and had stolen the Cup of Heaven. He persuaded a great host of angels to his purpose, for there are always those who will challenge the will of the One. Among the Galadin who followed him were Yama, Gashur, Lokir, Kadaklan, Yurlunggur and Zun. And among the Elijin: Zarin, Ashalin, Shaitin, Nayin, Warkin and Duryin. They called themselves the Daevas, and they fled to the world of Damoom.

Then befell a great and terrible war, the War of the Stone, that was fought on thousands of worlds across the universe and lasted tens of thousands of years. Ashtoreth and Valoreth had led those angels still faithful to the Law of the One against Angra Mainyu. Master Juwain could tell us very little of this war. But it seemed that somehow Ashtoreth and the faithful Amshahs had finally prevailed. The Lightstone had been regained, and Angra Mainyu and his dark angels had been bound on Damoom.

‘And there, on this darkest of the Dark Worlds, Angra Mainyu still dwells to this day,’ Master Juwain said. He looked up at the clouds that hid the night’s stars. ‘And now he is master only of his own doom.’

I wasn’t so sure of this. One of the reasons that Morjin wished to regain the Lightstone was to use it to free Angra Mainyu from his prison.

‘In a way,’ Master Juwain went on, ‘we may think of Angra Mainyu and Morjin as ghuls themselves.’

‘Morjin, a ghul?’ Maram said.

‘Certainly. For it is part of the Law of the One that you cannot harm another without harming yourself. All the evil that the Red Dragon has done has possessed him with evil. And so now his own evil purpose enslaves him.’

I couldn’t help thinking of Kane, he of the black eyes like burning coals and a soul as deep and troubled as time itself. Kane, who was once Kalkin, one of the immortal Elijin sent to Ea with Morjin and other angels who had been killed long ago. Kane, I knew, had slain thousands, and he burned with a terrible purpose that consumed him with hate. And yet he still held within his savage heart a bright and beautiful thing that was hate’s very opposite. By what grace, I wondered, did he retain his essential humanity and the freedom of his soul?

I spoke of this to Master Juwain and Maram, and then I said, ‘It’s hard to understand why one man falls and another does not.’

‘Surely there always remains for each of us a choice.’

‘Yes – but why does one man choose evil and another good?’

‘That, in the end, will always remain a mystery. But the path toward bondage and evil is well known.’

He went on to say that just as Morjin had enslaved others through greed, lust, envy and wrath, these evils had captured him as well.

‘Fear and hate are even worse,’ he said. ‘Hate is like a tunnel of fire. It burns away all the beauty of creation. It concentrates and attaches the will to one thing, and one thing only: the object that is to be destroyed. Is there any slavery more abject than this?’

‘Kane,’ I said, staring at the fire, ‘hates so utterly.’

‘Yes, and if he does not let go of it, one day it will destroy him – utterly.’

In the fire’s hot orange flames, I saw Atara’s beautiful eyes all torn and bloody – and burning, burning, burning. To Master Juwain, I said, ‘It is not so easy … to let go.’

‘Do you see? Do you see? But we must turn away from these dark things if we are ever to be free.’

‘Is that possible?’ I wondered aloud. ‘To be truly free?’

‘It must be possible,’ Master Juwain said. ‘But if the One is the essence of freedom, then it follows that only a man completely open to the will of the One could be completely free.’