Lord of Lies

so gentle. So quiet, inside. You sing songs to the stars! And I think the stars, sometimes, sing back to you. In light, in fire. And this fire! It burns so brightly in you. So hot, so clean, so sweet.'

At that moment I was almost glad that she could not let her eyes find mine, for I did not know if I could bear what I would see there.

'And that', she said, breathing deeply, 'is why it is good that we don't make our camp with yours or take our meals together. In any case, what would your women,say if Lord Harsha or the others had their way?'

'Lord Harsha,' I told her, 'is many years a widower. And the Guardians have no women.'

'So much the worse,' she said. 'But do you mean, no wives or no one to whom they have pledge their troths?'

'No wives. We have pledges, of course. We have our hopes.'

Here I reached out and clasped her hand in mine.This beautiful hand — long and delicate and yet strong from years of working her bow — seemed stiff and cold as if the fire's warmth had touched only her skin but had failed to penetrate deeper inside. Gently, but with unrelenting force, she pulled her hand away from mine.

'No, no, you shouldn't touch me,' she told me.

'Why — because you're a Manslayer who puts knives to men? Or because you're imakla?'

'Because I cannot bear to be touched this way. And neither can you.'

'Has nothing changed, then?'

'Should it have?'

'Yes,' I said, 'truly it should have.'

I thought of Master luwain's hurrying to my father's castle to show me his star charts and of what had later occurred between Baltasar and me in the great hall. I thought of Estrella sitting by a little moun-tain stream and sipping water in all her innocence from a small golder cup.

'I still have my vow,' Atara reminded me.

'You've slain seventy-one men,' I said, 'yet you've only loathing to slay another.'

'And yet I must if war comes, as it seems it must.'

'But war must not come,' I told her. 'We must not let it. And as for your vow, you made it to the Manslayer Society, didn't you?'

'Yes — and to myself.'

'But there are always higher vows, aren't there? Merely in being born, you made a vow to life and to the One, who gave you life.'

She finally picked up her cup of brandy and took a long sip. She said, 'Do we honor life then by breaking our vows?'

'The old age and the old ways are nearly finished, Atara. This is a time of new life — and so for making new vows.'

'To you, then?'

'Yes, to me — to us and all the world. To the new life we'll bring forth.'

'But I'm still blind,' she said. 'Nothing will ever change that.'

I gazed off at the sky, at the constellations spread out across the heavens like a shimmering tapestry of diamonds and black silk. Solaru, Aras and Varshara, the brightest of the stars, poured down their clear, lovely light.

'If this is truly a new age,' I told her, 'then it is truly a time for new hopes.'

She pulled at the cloth binding her face and said, 'Morjin took my hope when he took my eyes.'

'Yet you have your sight — greater than it was before.'

'It is not the same,' she said. 'When you see, as I once did, the sun touches a thing: a stone, a flower, a child. The whole world. . gives back the light into our eyes, touching us, in glory. Everything is so bright, so warm, so sweet. But now, what you call this sight of mine — it is so cold. It is like trying to touch the world through the iciest of waters.'

'You have your hands,' I told her. 'You have your heart — a heart of fire. No woman could love a child as you could.'

'A child, Val?'

'Our sons. Our daughters.'

'No,' she said, shaking her head. 'That can't be, don't you see?'

'But why?'

'Because it's all buried beneath this shroud,' she said, touching the white cloth. 'Because … in the light of a mother's eyes, a newborn learns to be human.'

I said nothing as I turned to stare into the fire. Flames still worked at a good-sized log, blackening it, and the coals beneath seemed hellishly hot, covered with ash and glowing a deep red. I remembered the coals of another fire in Argattha that had burned Atara's eyes to char; my hands could almost feel the hard edges of the box that Salmelu had delivered to me out of that forsaken place. If we learned to be human from our mothers, who was it that later taught us to be beasts?

'There's always a way,' I murmured. 'There's got to be away.'

'Your way of hopes and miracles?'

'Miracles, yes, if you call them that.'

'What should I call this wild hope of yours then? What should I call you? Lord Valashu? Lord of Light?'

I nodded toward her scryer's crystal, but she seemed not to perceive this slight motion. I asked her, 'What have seen in your kristei, Atara?'

'Too much,' she said.

'Have you seen the Maitreya, then?'

'I've seen many people. . who must have held the Lightstone. Who will hold it, almost certainly, and always are. But there will come a moment. Then there will be one who will make the cup shine as no one else can. Him I cannot see. No scryer can. In the same way it's impossible to see the Lightstone, we're blind to him in this moment, for their fates are as one.'

'Have you seen who the Maitreya is not, then? Is it possible that I could be he?'

'Do you wish to be?' she asked. She sat very still, and her voice was full of longing and mystery.

'It's said that if the Maitreya fails to come forth, then a Bringer of Darkness will claim the Lightstone instead. And yet this might not be the worst of such a failure.'

'What could be worse than this?'

'That the Maitreya would then also fail to bring forth miracles.'

Atara took another sip of brandy, and I felt the fiery liquid clutch and burn inside her chest. She took a deep breath and held it for a moment. The long, deep pain she held inside herself made me want to weep.

'You must know that these miracles you desire,' she said to me, 'I also desire. Desperately, desperately. But I mustn't, don't you see? And you mustn't either.'

'But shouldn't I desire what should be?'

'Do you know what should be, then?' The cold anger in her voice cut me like a knife.

'My grandfather,' I said to her, 'believed that a man can make his own fate.'

She smiled sadly at this and said, 'You have dreams. Miracles — you would work this beautiful thing you hold inside on moments yet to be. And on yourself. But, Val, you should know that the future has as many plans for us as we do for it.'

'Tell me of these plans, then.'

'Tell yourself. Listen to your heart.'

'But what of your heart?' I said. 'Do you remember the passage from the Healings? 'If we bring forth what is inside ourselves, what we bring forth will save us. If we do not bring forth what is inside ourselves, what we do not bring forth will destroy us.''

As Atara sat breathing softly and the fire crackled and moaned, I brought forth the Lightstone which I had