Lord of Lies

Lokilani. This we know. The Matri'aya is the one who will come to the Forest from another place and take its most precious seed back to this place so that the trees will grow again in all lands.'

I looked off at Flick, who was now hovering beneath an astor tree. Weren't the Timpum, I wondered, in some sense the vital seeds from which the Forest's great trees germinated and took their deeper life? And wasn't Flick, this bright being of flame and glorre, the most precious of all these seeds?

'We have come here to seek the Maitreya,' I admitted. 'Though as you have said, we did not think to find him among the Lokilani.'

At this Master Juwain nodded his head and added, 'You see, we hope to recover the knowledge of who the Maitreya is and how he might be recognized.'

Ninana's eyes lingered on the lightning bolt scar cut into my forehead. Then she asked me, 'Are you the Matri'aya?'

My breath caught in my throat, and I took a quick drink of the Lokilani's cool sweet wine. And I said, 'That must be tested. That must be known.'

'Then did you come here hoping that the Timpirum would make this known to you?'

'Not exactly,' I told her. 'But it's said that they guard a crystal that might tell us the secrets of the Lightstone — and the Maitreya.'

'In the Forest as you have seen,' Ninana said, touching her emerald earrings, 'there are many crystals.'

'This one is called an akashic crystal.'

'I don't know that name.'

'It is a kind of thought stone. It holds memories of the Elder Ages.'

Ninana looked knowingly at Aunai just then, and my heart began beating faster. She nodded her head and said to me, 'The Jewel of Memory. Yes, we know this crystal. It was brought here long ago.'

Now Master Juwain rubbed his hands together and leaned forward toward Ninana. 'But how long ago, then? Three hundred years? Three thousand?'

The lines of Ninana's face drew up into a puzzled frown. 'And what is year?'

I smiled at Master Juwain's consternation. What, indeed, was a year to a people who had no winter, but only eternal spring?

'A year is twelve months,' he said to her. 'When the moon waxes full twelve times, that is a year.'

Now he smiled, too, very pleased to have found so easy a measure to match the time of the outside world with that of the Vild. But his satisfaction melted away a moment later as Ninana said, 'The moons come and go like the fruit on the trees, and who counts them? And why, why?'

'Why, do you ask? Why, to gauge time, my lady. To keep track of history and when events occurred.'

Ninana's face tightened as if she had chewed a bitter fruit. She said, 'You bring miracles into the Forest, but many distasteful words, too. The history that you have spoken of is nothing more than war and evil happenings. But here, there is only eating and singing, making babies and dying. Nothing ever happens that you would call an event.'

Master Juwain seemed inclined to want to argue with her. I could almost hear him lecturing her on the need to know the past so that its evils weren't visited upon the future. I reached over and squeezed his gnarly hand to silence him. And to Ninana I said, 'You've told us that the akashic crystal was brought here long ago, is that right?'

'Yes, before any of our grandmothers' great-grandmothers were born.'

'But you've also told us that none except the animals come from the outside. But it can't have been a bird or a butterfly who bore the akashic crystal to these woods.'

'No, indeed, it cannot,' Ninana said. 'I'm sorry that I didn't speak more clearly. I should have said that no man ever comes here.'

Maram patted his bulging belly as he stared across the table at a small, elegant woman standing in close with the other Lokilani. He said, 'You mean it was a woman you allowed past your damn mists?'

'No, indeed not,' Ninana said. 'No woman ever comes here, either.'

Maram held up his hands in helplessness as he looked at me. Then Atara, who had said very little during the feast showed a bright smile. She had almost as good a head for puzzles as Master Juwain, and she could often see more.

'The Timpum are called the children of the Galadin,' she said to Ninana. 'Your cousins believe that the Galadin walked their woods long before long ago, and left the Timpum to light the trees.'

'Yes, the Galad a'Din did walk the world when it was all the Forest,' Ninana said. 'But the one who brought the Jewel of Memory was not of them. Like, but not so bright. And he could die, even as we die and all things do except the Bright Ones.'

'One of the Elijin,' Atara said softly.

I thought of Kane, who was once called Kalkin and might some day be again. In Argattha, he had told me about a band of immortal brothers who had come to Ea with him from the stars. Their names had been written in my memory with fire and blood: Sarojin, Averin, Manjin, Balakin and Durrikin. And Iojin, Mayin, Baladin, Nurijin and Garain, In the savagery of the Age of Swords, all had been killed — all except Kane and Morjin.

'What was this Elijin's name?' I asked Ninana.

'That is not remembered.'

'But you have preserved the story of his coming and the crystal that he brought. And you say that he could die — how do you know that?'

'Because he died here, in the Forest. We have set the Jewel of Memory above his grave.'

This news pleased Master Juwain even more than the sight of so many lovely Lokilani women enchanted Maram. Atara sat silent and still as if trying to behold this akashic crystal that we had come so many miles to find. Estrella nibbled on a pear, and gazed up at the aster's glowing leaves as if our stories and quests were not her concern. But Ninana's words cut me to my heart. That one of the great Elijin should have died here did not seem possible.

'Where is this grave, then?' I asked Ninana. 'May we see it?'

'Of course you may. But not tonight. Now it's time for singing and dancing, and sleeping. Tomorrow will come soon enough, soon, soon'

The ways of Ninana and her people were really not so different from the Lokilani we had known before. A hundred of them, or more, made circles inside circles and danced about to songs that might have been as old as the Forest itself. With their bright green eyes and their spin ning and whirling, they reminded me of the Timpum who spun with them. We all joined them and danced, too, even Estrella who could not add her voice to ours. But I gave her my flute, and with this little piece of woods she made a sweet music, to the Lokilani's delight. She danced about with a little boy who might have been her brother, all the while piping out perfect melodies. I had never seen her so happy, and this gladdened my heart.

At last, with the hundreds of Lokilani finding places to rest in the woods about us, we laid out our cloaks and made our beds on soft mosses. Atara cradled Estrella in her arms, and they soon fell asleep. And so did Master Juwain, for all the rowing earlier that day had exhausted him. As it had Maram and me. But I lay awake gazing at the new color that brightened Flick's form. It made me wonder what marvels might light up the akashic crystal that we would try to open on the morrow.

Chapter 19

In the morning, after a light breakfast of fruit and nuts, we gathered in the grove. Ninana and Aunai were to lead us to the Elijin's grave and the great crystal planted there. Fifty of the Lokilani decided to join us on this early stroll through the woods. Aunai led forth, with Ninana walking behind him with the grace of a doe. Atara and Estrella, holding hands, followed closely, with Maram, Master Juwain and me only a few feet behind them. The fifty Lokilani fanned out behind us, taking no care to walk in line or any kind of order. They chatted gaily and piped out