Lord of Lies

'Estrella,' I told Liljana, 'is one of us now. 'Her fate is tied to my own.'

'Do you trust her?' Liljana asked me.

Estrella's dark, wild eyes, found mine just then, and I said, 'With all my heart. With my life.'

No sooner had these words left my lips then Daj looked me and laughed out, 'Estrella trusts you, too, Val. She even trusts Liljana.'

He turned to smile at Liljana, but she just sat across from him regarding him sternly. And she muttered, 'Impertinent boy.'

Daj, in Argattha, had faced a fire-breathing dragon bravely, but he now fairly wilted beneath Liljana's disapproval. Seeing this, Liljana leaned over and touched his arm. Her voice softened as she said, 'These are matters of life and death, Daj. And not just our lives, either.'

Most other boys, and even men, would have looked away from Liljana's relentless gaze. But Daj met her eye to eye. His love for her, I thought, was as deep as his desire to please her. And she obviously loved him as a son. During their months together, it seemed that she had lavished her care and ideals upon him — and forged new chains even harder than the iron shackles that had once encircled his limbs.

After a few moments, Liljana turned toward Estrella and said, 'I'm delighted that you trust me, young lady. But would you trust me with all your heart? And with your life?'

Estrella cocked her head as if to ask, 'What do you mean?'

In answer, Liljana held up her blue gelstei and told her, 'I would speak to you with this, in the privacy of our minds, if you'll allow me.'

As we all waited to see how Estrella would respond, she looked deep into Liljana's eyes. She seemed utterly without fear of this powerful woman. Quick as a bird, she nodded her head and smiled at Liljana.

'Very well,' Liljana said, closing her eyes. 'Then listen, listen.'

As my heart beat slowly in my chest like a drum stroke measuring out time, Estrella closed her eyes, too. Liljana sat facing her in silence. She remained utterly still. Not even a jog of her head indicated that she might be hearing anything inside Estrella's mind. Estrella's breaths fell and rose, steady and deep, like my own.

And then, after what seemed an hour, Liljana opened her eyes and sighed. She looked at Master Juwain and then at me. 'It's no use. I can speak to her, but she cannot speak to me.'

Then her muteness,' Master Juwain said, 'is of the mind as well as the mouth?'

'I think it is only of the mind,' Liljana said, gazing at Estrella. 'She has a beautiful mind: most of it is perfectly clear. Like a diamond. Thus she is able to understand others' words. But the part of it that makes words of her own and tells her tongue to speak them has been darkened. By Morjin — damn his soul to burn in dragon fire! I saw this in her memories! When she was very young, he used a green gelstei to make her mute, as I presume he did the other slaves that he gave to his priests.'

Every abomination, I thought. Every twisting of that which is beautiful and good.

Master Juwain drew out his varistei and regarded it with his sad, gray eyes. How many times, I wondered, had he tried to heal Estrella of her wordless silence?

Liljana reached out to take Estrella's hand in her own. 'Poor girl!' she told her, 'You poor girl!'

Estrella pulled away from her and sat staring at her hand as if grateful that she still had the ability to move her long, expressive fingers as she willed. Her lovely smile told of her delight in her own being, just as it was. Having no pity for herself, she did not welcome Liljana's.

To turn Liljana's attention from her, I looked at her and asked, 'Liljana, you said that King Kiritan would challenge me — do you know how?'

'No, I'm sorry, I don't. I only have my suspicions.' I took a sip of brandy, then nodded at her to say more. Liljana's suspicions were often more valuable than most people's certainties.

'The one who claims the Lightstone,' she said, 'must also be able to wield it, yes? But wield it how? This is the key to everything, I think.'

I brought out the Lightstone then and sat holding it in my hands. For a while, as the little noises of the camp outside my tent quieted and the night deepened, we talked of the ways that it might be used. Liljana hoped to find within its golden hollows the power to grow more gelstei, particularly the green and the blue. With other blue crystals similar to her own, she said, she might speak mind to mind with her sisters in other lands and so coordinate a secret alliance against Morjin. Then, after the great Red Dragon was finally overthrown, new green gelstei could be made to pour out their healing light and restore Ea to the glories of the Age of the Mother. Master Juwain reminded us that Yrniru and his people hoped to use the Lightstone to forge more gold gelstei. He pointed out, too, that the gold gelstei might open doors to other worlds: whether for ill, as in freeing Angra Mainyu from Damoom, or for the great good of inviting angels to walk once again on Ea.

'I don't believe,' Liljana said, 'that King Kiritan will challenge Val to summon Ashtoreth into his hall. Nor to stamp out new gelstei as his mint does coins. No, the power of the Maitreya that most people speak of is the power to heal.'

He will be a healer, I thought, recalling the words of 'The Irian Prophecies.' From his eyes will pour a healing light.

I looked at Liljana and said. 'To heal yes — but heal how? To take away people's hatred? To end war?'

Master Juwain nodded toward me and said, 'In the amphitheater, the ghost spoke of healing Angra Mainyu of his fear of death. What great beings we all would be if this evil were lifted from our hearts!'

I felt my own heart beating hard and quick. And then Liljana told me, 'People are saying that the Maitreya will heal the crippled and the ill.'

I glanced at Atara, but if she was aware that I was looking at her, she gave no sign of if.

'King Kiritan,' Liljana said, 'has invited the blacksmith's son, Joakim, to stay at the palace. No one knows why.'

'We heard a story,' Maram said, 'that this Joakim had healed the blind.'

Now we all looked at Atara. She pulled at the cloth binding her face but said nothing.

'That story,' Liljana said, 'has been embellished. In Joakim's village, they claim only that he healed an old man of an eye catarrh and straightened the legs of a girl with rickets. But this might be enough for King Kiritan to put him forth as the Maitreya.'

I squeezed the Cup of Heaven between my hands and watched its golden contours catch the lamp's flickering light. I asked, 'What sort of man is Joakim?'

'I should hardly call him a man,' Liljana said. 'He's still a beardless boy, really, and simple like his fellow villagers. Some say simple-minded.'

'Then he would not be one to be considered to lead the Alliance?'

'Hardly.'

Maram picked up the brandy bottle and refilled his cup. He said, 'How convenient for King Kiritan.'

Master Juwain nodded his head, then asked Liljana, 'Then is King Kiritan to use this story to discredit Val? His own emissary has witnessed Val's healing of Baltasar's spirit. Surely this miracle should weigh against any mere healing of the flesh.'

As he spoke, he turned his green gelstei between his rough, old fingers. I had seen him use this crystal to mend a fatal wound that an arrow had drilled into Atara's lung — all in a matter of moments. But how many times, I wondered, had he failed to heal her of her blindness?

'I don't know what the King intends,' Liljana said. 'But stories are only stories. King Kiritan — and all the kings — might want it proved to their eyes that Val is who he claims to be.'

'So far,' I said, gazing at the Lightstone, 'nothing is claimed.'

'So far,' she said wryly. Then she searched my face and asked, 'What is it you intend, Val?'

I took a deep breath and held it a moment before saying, 'The Lightstone holds the powers of all the other gelstei, yes? Thus it has the power to heal. I know that it does.'

'Go on,' Liljana said, fixing her large eyes upon me. I looked at Estrella, who was smiling at Daj, and then at Atara sitting so still and grave as she waited for fate to unfold. I said, 'It's not a question of bending King Kiritan to my will, or to anyone's. He must be won. It must be proven to him that I am the Maitreya.' 'Go on,' Liljana said again.