Lord of Lies

gleaming in the sunlight. And to King Kiritan, I said, 'No, I don't deny this.'

'Very well, then tell us, in truth, what you must know in your heart,' he said to me. 'If you are the Maitreya, then we shall pledge our entire army and all our warships to the Alliance, to be led by you. If you are the great Shining One told of in the prophecies, then we shall ourself place the Lightstone in your hands.'

The sudden shout of a thousand men, women and children shook the stones of the hall — and struck straight into my heart: 'Maitreya! Maitreya! Maitreya! Maitreya!.!.'

This is the moment, I thought. This must be the moment.

My eyes were pure fire as I gazed across the hall at the mob clapping their hands and beating their fists against the guards' long shields. The kings sitting in their chairs were all watching me. Nearby, where many nobles were rising up from their tables, Liljana, Master Juwain and Maram were all looking at me, too. Estrella flashed a bright smile at me, but she had already shown me all that she could. Atara still sat in silence with her beautiful face turned toward me. I felt time boiling away like drops of mist beneath a blazing sun. Inside me, the terrible, hot flame of kirax burned my blood. But it was nothing against my deep, consuming desire to know who I really was. It came to me then, like a lighting stroke, that if only we could ask the right and true questions, with all our hearts, we would be answered.

'Ashtoreth,' I whispered, 'blessed Mother, I must know: am I the one for whom the Lightstone was meant? Should I claim it?'

At this. King Mohan looked at King Kurshan and called out against the noise filling the room, listen, the Elahad calls on the angels!'

'Ashtoreth,' I said again, a little louder, 'am I the Maitreya?' Above the Lightstone, in the wavering air over the center of the table, brilliant colors burst into being. This must be Flick thought, yet never had I seen him shine so vividly. So bright was this radiance, it astonished me that no one seemed to perceive it except myself.

'Ahum Alarama', I whispered, speaking Flick's true name.

As I held my breath, the colors brightened even further, and deepened to a splendid glorre. And out of this marvelous hue, Alphanderry's face and form took shape. My old friend, shimmering with a secret light, seemed to stand on air. He smiled at me, and in his lovely eyes was all of his old grace and joy in being human — and something more.

And then his lips parted, and I did not understand why no one else could hear the words that he spoke to me: 'The Lightstone was meant for the Maitreya, and you are not he. The Shining One is always of the Ardun, never the Valari. He is the one who forsakes the path of the angels to die from the world: willfully, joyfully, triumphantly.'

I looked up into the light of Alphanderry's eyes, which were bright as stars. A terrible, wild fear ripped through me. And I whispered, 'What is the Maitreya then? Is he not the one who will vanquish death?'

'Listen,' someone called out as if from far away, 'the Elahad talks with the angels.'

And Alphanderry said to me, 'Angra Mainyu once held the same dream as do you. He, too, wanted to end death, suffering itself. He deceived himself, as have you, Valashu.'

And someone else, from behind me, said, The Elahad talks to the air! Or talks to himself. Surely he is mad.'

I am not he; I am not he; I am not he. .

I had a hundred more questions that I wished to ask Alphanderry. But then he smiled at me in silence one last time, and his eyes filled with sadness, compassion, warning and hope. And thenjhe vanished into a swirl of sparks that soon burned themselves out, leaving behind only darkness. 'Lord Valashu,' King Kiritan called out to me in his sternest voice,

'Did you hear what we said?'

I could hardly hear King Kiritan even now, for Alphanderry's words shrieked like shattered steel in my mind. I knew that all he had told me was true. I denied it. The voice whispering inside me, forever it seemed, told me much the same thing. I didn't listen, I didn't want to listen. How could I, with Atara still sitting broken in her chair and waiting to be made whole again, with Estrella and all the other chi dren in the hall and in the world, waiting to die beneath the spear, and nails of the Red Dragon's armies — or simply to die upon the fiery cross of life: horribly, meaninglessly, agonizingly?

'Lord Valashu,' King Kiritan said to me, 'we must ask you to tell us what is in your heart.'

Blackness was in my heart bitterness and blame I looked around the table at Ea's kings who waited upon my answer. If I denied that I was the Maitreya, they would lose hope, and there would be no Alliance. King Kiritan might lead Delu and the Elyssu in a separate and smaller coalition of their realms, for a while, but in the end Morjtn would defeat them, as he would the Valari kingdoms, one by one. He would free Angra Mainyu from the hell of Damoom, and unleash hell on earth — and everywhere — and that would be the end of all things. And as Kane had warned me, that must never be.

'Valashu Elahad,' King Kiritan said again, 'we must ask you formally, before all the sovereigns of Ea's Free Kingdoms, before the witnesses gathered here today, before the entire world: are you the Maitreya?'

I am he who must find him to place the Lightstone in his hands.

I looked straight at King Kiritan and opened my mouth to tell him this. But 1 spoke only the first three words, 'I am he — ' For just then, a great tumult shook the hall as many people began crying out as one:

'Lord of Light! Lord of Light! Lord of light! Lord of Light! …'

'I am he,' I whispered to myself. A thousand men and women had heard this as my affirmation. 'I am he.'

For a moment, I gazed at the Lightstone and felt within myself a great power still to realize all my dreams. I looked over at Atara whose lips were silently forming the words: 'No, no, no, no.. ' Yes, I thought, yes. I knew it was wrong for me to blind myself this way. I knew, too, that I could not escape the evil of it. Evil had seeped into the pores of my skin in the sickening stench of Argattha and into my blood in the kirax upon the arrow that Morjin's priest had fired into me. It had poisoned my mind in the black ink of the words of Morjin's letter. And most of all, it had stricken my soul with the screams of all the men that I had put to the sword. All that I could do now, I thought, was to choose a lesser evil over a greater. And so I, too, retreated into silence, letting stand my lie.

Then King Kiritan called out to me in a voice like thunder: 'No, you cannot be the Lord of Light!'

He motioned toward Atara's table, where a scribe racked up a huge, old book and brought it to our tabic. King Kiritan took it from him and thanked him. Then he opened it to a page that had been marked with a slip of red silk. Again he called for silence in his hall. As the mob grew quiet King Kiritan read this to all assembled beneath his golden dome: They who are born of the earth, love the things of the earth; they of the stars look always back toward their home and love heaven's light above all other things. The Maitreya, loving life, loving others' lives as his own, is always earth-born. Never is he of the Valari. They might seek in the stars for the source of creations splendor until the end of time, but the Lightstone is not for them.'

King Kiritan slammed shut his book, and shouted at me 'Not for them! Not for you, Valashu Elahad!'

I stood staring at him as he stared at me. I couldn't move; I could hardly breathe. It was as if he had driven a spear through my chest. While many hundreds of people around me let loose murmurs of anger and looked at King Kiritan in astonishment Master fuwain came forward and stood by my side. He said to King Kiritan, 'Lord King, what is that book that you have brought here?'

'It is a chronicle written by Balakin, who was one of the Elijin sent to Ea in the year 795 of the Age of Swords.'

This news prompted exclamations and curious looks from the nobles sitting nearby. Master Juwain pointed at the crumbling volume on the table in front of King Kiritan and said, 'Where did you find this?'

King Kiritan grew instantly wroth as he barked out 'We don't have to answer to you. However, since this is a matter of the utmost moment we will tell you that we found it in the library of our ancestors only last night.' 'I'm afraid I know of no such book written by any of the Elijin.'

'Indeed? Then the erudition of the masters of the Brotherhood fails them.'

Now it was Master Juwain's turn to glower at King Kiritan. My small teacher and friend, standing in his plain woolens at the table of the kings, seemed to swell with anger and pride. And then he called out to Ea's greatest king: 'Our erudition is no small thing. It has led me to a lake on the Wendrush, where I recovered