Lord of Lies

'Why indeed?' he said, gazing at me.

I walked around the kings in their chairs at the rim of the table until I came to King Aryaman. I leaned over and grasped the rough wood of his axe's haft. With a quick wrench, I freed it and handed it to him. 'There are greater adventures than raiding merchants' caravels. Did not Thalu's own King Koru-ki build a fleet of lightships to sail up to the stars?'

The wild gleam in King Aryaman's eyes told me that I had guessed right about him, that he shared King Kurshan's dream of setting forth to new worlds. He pushed his axe down into his thick black belt as he stared at me in amazement.

And so it went as I moved around the table, speaking in turn to each of the kings. The fire inside me grew brighter and brighter, like the heart of a star. I sensed that I could wield the Lightstone like some sort of cosmic hammer, to forge a finer sword than the length of silver gelstei I wore sheathed at my side. The Sword of Light, the Sword of Love. Which king, which man, could stand against it?

'King Hanniban!' I said, looking upon this sad, old man. It seemed that he could hardly breathe. 'Will you not pledge to join the Alliance?'

He blinked his red-rimmed eyes as if he could hardly bear to look at me; years seemed to fall away from him as he sat up straighter, made new by a finer elixir than mother's milk. To the gasps of many watching us, he called out, 'I pledge my whole army and all my warships!'

Now a dozen men and women in the mob pressing the guards cried out, 'Maitreya! Lord of Light!' The captain of the guards tried to identify them and cut them out, but even as he began issuing orders to his men, three score peasants and landless knights picked up the cry and shouted, 'Lord of Light! Lord of Light! Lord of Light!' They were too many to drive from the hall unless the guards were willing to spear their own people.

At last I came to King Kiritan. His cool blue eyes were now hot with anger as he glared at me. He seemed still to be waiting for something. And I said to him, 'We make alliance not just for the sake of Ea, but for all worlds. The Lightstone was sent here for a great purpose.'

But I could not move him. He pressed his thin lips tightly together for a moment before snapping out: 'To be placed in your hands?'

'Maitreya!' half a hundred men and women shouted. 'Maitreya!'

As I locked eyes with King Kiritan in a silent battle, Duke Malatam stood and begged permission to speak. King Kiritan broke off staring at me and said to him, 'Speak then, if that is what you wish.' Duke Malatam smoothed his sleek brown beard with his little fingers, all the while turning his ferret's-face right and left toward the many kings and nobles watching him. And in a voice full of both bombast and pleading, he said, 'Many of you know that I have had great success in battle until I met Lord Valashu Elahad and his knights. My defeat has been told of — and Lord Valashu's victory. But the true nature of this victory has not been told. For in the end, it was my victory as well: a victory of the spirit I confess that when I first laid eyes upon the Lightstone, the wanting of it drove me mad. Lord Valashu healed me of my madness, not with steel and death, but with mercy, compassion and new life, for myself and my knights whom he spared. I do not know what the Maitreya is; perhaps no one does. But I do know who he is.'

And with that, with a flourish of his hand, he bowed deeply to me, and then returned to his seat. And many people cried out, 'Maitreya! Healer! Lord of Light!'

But not everyone in the hall shared their enthusiasm. At the nearby table of the Five Families, a lean, wolfish man about King Kiritan's age fixed all his attention on me. Although he affected a casual interest in the shouts of the mob and never actually looked at me directly, I felt his resentment and malice toward me sliding between my ribs like a quick and vicious dagger. His name, I recalled, was Ravik Kirriland. He had unusually colored eyes that I hadn't remembered being quite so vital and dark, like violets.

King Kiritan, even more, could not bear the cries of the multitudes around us. He finally lost his patience as he stood and shouted out 'Silence! Silence, or we will have the hall cleared!'

At once, the chanting ceased as impassioned words died on the lips of hundreds of men and women. The hall grew quiet. Even across the room, I could hear Maram and Master Juwain, and others, gathering in their breaths. And then King Kiritan snapped at me: 'They call you the Maitreya.'

'Yes,' I said, staring at him.

'All of us have dreams, Valashu Elahad, but we have tried to discourage false hopes until it is known whether you are truly this Shining One who has been prophesied.'

'It is known, as well as it will ever be!' Maram suddenly called out. He looked at me long and deep as if in warning. 'No, it is not,' King Kiritan told him.

'No, it is not,' I agreed, turning away from Maram. Although Atara had no eyes, I felt her staring at me from her table across the hall. 'It must be put to the test.'

A flicker of surprise flashed across King Kiritan's face. Then he said 'Yes, we agree, it must be tested.'

King Hanniban and King Aryaman, as well King Hadaru and every other king at the great, round table, were watching me and waiting. And I called out, 'It is said that the Maitreya will be a healer.'

Now it was King Kiritan's turn to surprise me. With a quick glance toward Joakim sitting nervously at the Narmada table, he said, 'Healing is no measure of a Maitreya. Were it so, we would all bow down to simpletons. Or elevate the Brotherhood's Master Healers to the highest throne.'

Here he smiled thinly and looked right at Master Juwain. Master Juwain took this as a challenge: to himself, and even more, to me. He regarded me for a long few moments. An understanding passed between us. And then, with great dignity, he stood up and walked between the rows of tables toward the Guardians' table immediately across the aisle He came up to Estrella, who sat between Lord Harsha and Behira. He placed his gnarled, gentle hand on top of her head and sighed out, 'Even I, with the aid of a green gelstei, have been unable to heal this girl.'

So saying, he opened his other hand, and many people gasped in wonder at the beauty of his emerald crystal that he showed them.

'What ails her?' Count Muar called out, turning toward me.

'She is mute,' I told him.

Count Muar scoffed at this as his face darkened with doubt. 'Do you propose to heal this girl, who is in your charge, of that which might require no healing at all?'

'What do you mean?' I asked him.

'Is it a miracle to summon forth words from one who perhaps willfully swallows her own words? What kind of test is that?'

'She cannot speak,' I said.

'Cannot or will not?'

'Do you challenge my word?' I said to him.

I commanded my hand move away from the hilt of my sword. And King Kiritan's eyes filled with a dark light as he looked from Count Muar to me.

'In the end, a knight's word is all he has,' he told me coldly. 'Therefore, it is upon us to ask you a simple question: Are you the Maitreya?'

My heart beat three times, like a hammer against hot steel, and I gasped out, 'But that is what must be tested!'

Although I knew he was trying to maneuver for advantage, I did not see the nature of the trap.

'Indeed,' he said, 'and surely this must be the test of things, the only test, that you give us your word, yea or nay.'

He stood up as tall and straight as the carved pillars set into the walls as he gazed across the table at me. And then he spoke words to an ancient verse that I knew too well:

About the Maitreya One thing is known:

That to himself He always is known

When the moment comes

To claim the Lightstone.

'Do you deny, Valashu Elahad,' he said to me, 'that you came to Tria to claim the great gelstei?'

I looked away from him toward the center of the table where the little cup I had sought for so long sat