Lord of Lies

sky?' The Black Bog, it was said, was a portal to the Dark Worlds. On our nightmare journey through it, we had walked on one or more of these worlds before miraculously finding our way back home. It worried Maram that if we could wander out of the bog onto the familiar soil of Ea, so could other things from other places.

'What of the Grays?' he said to me. 'And what if there are worse things than those Soul-Suckers? What of the Dark One himself?'

To the sound of the Guardians digging a moat in the black earth around our encampment, I thought of Angra Mainyu, once the greatest of the Galadin — and now, if Master Juwain was right, the greatest of ghuls who would bring evil to all worlds. What shape had this once-bright being taken on? Was he still fair of form and wondrous in aspect? Or had the vile work of ages twisted him like a blackened worm so that he was hideous to behold?

'Angra Mainyu,' I reassured Maram, 'is bound on Damoom.'

'So Kane says — but what if he's wrong? And what if Morjin finds a way to free him?'

'He won't,' I said, 'as long as we guard the Lightstone. Now, why don't we finish making camp and raise a glass of beer — and forget all this talk of dark creatures and such?'

That night Maram raised more than one glass of thick, dark Ishkan beer. But he did not quite forget his dread of things that might come for him out of the night. And neither did I. Although the Black Bog lay a good twenty-five miles to the north of us, a hint of its terrors wafted across the lake in the faint fetor of rotting vegetation and mires that could suck a man down into the earth. It seemed to ding to our garments and to work its way inside us, even as we broke camp early the next morning and began climbing into the clearer and sweeter air of the mountains. A sense of overwhelming wrongness pervaded me I felt something pursuing me, not necessarily from behind us or from any direction in space, but rather in time, from the past — or perhaps the future. It had the feel of Morjin. But in it also was Angra Mainyu's hatred of life, and all life's cruelty to life; it reeked of blood and screams and the sickness of the soul in surrendering to its worst nightmares. Didn't all evil, like decaying flesh, have the same foul odor? Didn't suffering too? It came to me then that the terrible pain Estrella carried inside her might not have its source in Argattha after all. For if all things took their being from the One — fallen angels and swords no less flowers and trees and bright, singing birds — then might not the blame for Estrella's suffering be laid at the workings and will of this terrible One? For the next two days, this realization oppressed me. I did not speak of it to Maram or Master Juwain, for they had trials of their own. Our passage through the mountains was difficult. The roads over these great peaks of the Shoshan range were slanted and bad. Fierce summer rains found us working our way up or down steep tracks of stone and dirt, which turned to streams of slippery mud beneath our horses' driving hooves. On one of the numerous switchbacks snaking up the sides of the slopes, Sar Jarlath's horse lost its footing and fell against some rocks near a spruce tree, breaking its leg with a sharp crack and ripping open its belly. Sar Jarlath plunged into these rocks as well; miraculously, he suffered only a broken arm. It was not a bad break, and Master Juwain mended it quickly. But the horse had to be put to death. This mercy killing saddened all of us, for he was a great-spirited warhorse that Sar Jarlath had ridden to an honorable seventh place in the long lance competition.

On the last day in the mountains, we passed by the Ishkan fortress of Karkallu and came down into the narrow valley of the Snake River. Beneath gray, heavy skies, we followed its bends and rapids toward the west. It was drier in this broken land, and the silver maples and oaks around us soon gave way to cottonwoods and hawthorn that grew along the watercourses of the Wendrush. We had our first view of the great grasslands late in the afternoon on the fifth of Marud. I led our company up a rocky hill at the mouth of the valley, and there before us for many miles lay a sea of green. Far out to the curving horizon — west, north and south — these dark plains lit up with flashes of lightning from the even darker clouds pressing down upon them. Their oppressive flatness was broken only by a few hummocks and the blue-gray track of the Snake River winding its way toward the much greater Poru a hundred miles farther on. To the south of the Snake, the Adirii tribe of the Sarni held sway; they were allied with the Kurmak, whose lands stretched out north of the river and west of the mountains. Into this open country of antelope, sagosk and lions, I sent three knights: Sar Avram, Lord Noldru the Bold and Baltasar. They were to seek out the headmen of the Kurmak's clans, and if possible, Sajagax himself. For I did not want to lead a force of nearly two hundred knights into unknown country without the permission of those who possessed it. We made camp on a little triangle of land at the confluence of the Snake and a mountain stream that flowed into it. We fortified it heavily. It would be a bad place to be caught in the event of a thunderstorm and a flood. But there, at the gateway to the Wendrush, I feared raging Sarni warriors on horses more than I did raging waters.

And so we waited there for four days, resting, repairing ripped tents and other gear, polishing our armor and sharpening our swords. I took to spending part of each morning with Estrella. She gave signs that she wanted me to teach her to play my flute, and this I did. She learned its ways even more quickly than had riding her horse. In her long, tapering fingers, this slip of wood came alive with bright, happy sounds. She seemed to speak with music, with her beautiful hands, with the expressions of her lively face. And most of all, as her notes trilled sweetly to — harmonize with the piping of the birds and the rushing of the river, the flames of her being seemed to pour forth like liquid fire from her lovely eyes, and that was the most marvelous music of all.

And yet there were moments, as at the monstrous Aradar castle, when her songs swelled with an unutterable sadness. It seemed that some black and bottomless chasm opened inside her and cut her off from that which she most desired. Then her music became a plaint and a plea that hurt me to hear and filled my heart with an unbearable pain. Listening to her play this way one morning, I knew that I must find a way to help her. I had no power to straighten crooked limbs or mend torn flesh, as Joakim the blacksmith's son, was said to do; this I had proved in my failure to cure a cripple I had encountered along the road to Nar and again with Asaru at the tournament. But might I, somehow, be able to heal a broken soul? Baltasar would say I could; so would his father, Lansar Raasharu, and many others. The words of Kasandra's prophecy sounded inside me like trumpets then. It came to me that Estrella would show me the Maitreya: but only in the art of my easing her long, deep and terrible suffering.

On the last morning of our sojourn, I found a spot on some rocks by the stream to sit with her. The air was sweet with spray and the song of two bluebirds warbling at each other: cheer cheer-lee churr. Estrella brought forth my flute, and I brought forth the Lightstone. All along the way from Mesh she had shown little interest in the golden cup. But now she held out her hand for me to give it to her. This I did. If I expected it to flare brightly and bathe her in its magical light, I was disappointed. The cup remained quiescent and shone no more brightly than did ordinary gold. She sat for a long while gazing at it with her deep, wild eyes. Then she smiled and dipped the cup into the stream. She held it to her lips, drinking down the clear water in three quick swallows. It seemed that she was only thirsty.

'The Lightstone holds more than water,' I said to her as I took back the cup. 'Here, let me show you.'

As she breathed lightly on the end of my flute, her bright eyes were like mirrors showing me the deepest parts of myself And calling me to bring forth the music inside me. She sat watching me and waiting as she played my flute and looked into my eyes. She looked at the Lightstone, too. The sun's rays streamed down from the sky and filled it with a golden radiance. I felt some part of this heavenly fire pass through my hands into me. It warmed my blood with an unbearably sweet pressure that broke open my heart. Everything that was there came pouring out of me and into her. Her face lit up like the sun itself then. She put aside my flute and laughed in her sweet, silent way until her eyes glistened with tears. She stared at the Lightstone, now shining with a numinous intensity. Its brilliance dazzled her; she sat frozen by the stream, her eyes wide open to the clear, blue sky and the shimmering cottonwood trees. I had a strange sense that she was seeing not just their billowing canopies but millions of separate silver-green leaves. It was as if she was aware of the One pouring out its light through all things. And shining with its greatest splendor in her. For a moment, it seemed, she was swept away by both these outer and inner luminosities, and there was no difference. She seemed to remain in this river of light forever. At last, her eyes blazed into mine as she returned to the world. The smile on her face made my heart sing. I sensed that, at least for a time, the ground of her being had knitted itself together and she was made whole again.

Something changed in me, too. Some of the terrible doubt that had oppressed me for many miles suddenly left me, like a wound lanced and emptied of poison. Estrella and I returned to our encampment to take our midday meal, and it seemed I stood straighter and walked with a lighter step. Sunjay Naviru, Lord Raasharu and others looked at me strangely, as if I had donned a magical garment woven of light.

And then later that afternoon, my happiness swelled like the sea, for out of the steppe to the west, three riders crested a knoll and galloped toward us. I recognized the blue rose of Baltasar's emblem and those of Sar Avram and Lord Noldru. They brought straight to me two pieces of great, good news: the lake told of in Master