Lord of Lies

friendly words to each other like the birds in the trees singing their songs. They had no fear that anyone should hear them; they had no mind for marching or hurrying against time. To my frustration, they stopped frequently, as Ninana and Aunai did, to drink from a clear brook or to pluck a pear to eat or to exclaim over the beauty of a flower. As we passed deeper into the woods, many were their cries of delight, for it seemed that the Timpum here all retained the bright new color that Flick had bestowed upon them. A few Lokilani paused to dance with these glorious beings, and a few more lost interest in our mission and dropped out altogether — perhaps to dance with each other in some secluded glade. What would it be like, I wondered, to live with no thought for the future, as if each day were complete in itself and might go on forever? To know nothing of hatred, killing or war?

About two hours into our journey, Atara stopped suddenly and turned as if to look off through the trees. I looked too, and so did many others. And there, only twenty-five yards away, a strange animal stood munching the browse from a bush. It was about the size of a deer and had much of that animal's grace, and yet it had something of the goat and the lamb about it, too. It looked, however, more like a small horse. Its fur was all white, and a single horn, straight and showing spiral swirls like a seashell, grew out of its head. It seemed utterly unconcerned that we should stand so close watching it.

'It's beautiful — what is it?' Maram said. 'In all the world, I've never seen anything like it.'

'In all the world you won't,' Ninana said! him. The asherah is of the worlds where the Bright Ones dwell.'

'Then how did it come to be here?'

Ninana waved her hand ft the great trees growing all around us She said, 'This is all that remains of the Forest that once was. You have called our home an island. But on all worlds everywhere, there is one Forest. Sometimes here, in certain places, when the stars are bright and the earth sings songs from deep inside, the trees remember this. Then our Forest and the Forest are truly one. And then the asherahs sometimes wander into our woods.'

'Is that all that wanders in?' Maram asked. He scanned the woods as if looking for dragons or other fell beasts.

'Yes,' Ninana said with a smile. 'The Galad a'Din allow only the asherahs to come here. They are blessed, blessed. They remind us of the deeper Forest where the Lokilani will walk some day when the stars call us home.'

I gazed at the asherah, standing in all its perfect whiteness, and the innocence of its bright, black eyes stunned me into silence. But Maram persisted in his inquisition: 'But why don't your people just follow the asherahs back to the Galadin's worlds?'

'Because once they come, they do not leave.'

And so it was with all the peoples of Ea, I thought. Our ancestors had come to earth thousands of years before, and here we remained on our much greater island as exiles on a war-cursed world.

'Ah, too bad,' Maram said, studying the strange beast standing before us.

'No, it is not so,' Ninana said to him. 'The asherahs give us great hope. For some day, they will leave — some day some day. Their horns have great magic. It's said that they point the way back to the stars.'

Upon hearing this, Estrella's eyes lit up with wonder. And then suddenly, before I could stop her, she broke away from Atara and dashed off through the trees, straight toward the asherah. The animal should have been startled into a burst of furious motion, either fleeing from Estrella's wild charge or lowering its head to bring its wicked horn to bear in its defense. But it just stood there, regarding Estrella with its bright eyes. And then, as Estrella came closer and drew up in front of the asherah, it did lower its head. And Estrella reached out her slender hand and touched the asherah's horn. Estrella's whole being danced with delight. Her joy seemed to pass into the asherah, for it nuzzled Estrella's face and licked her ear. And all the while, Estrella kept her hand wrapped around the asherah's great, shining horn.

I sensed within the asherah a great power; I knew that it could fiercely battle, with hoof and horn, lions or bears or any who attacked it. I sensed, too, that Estrella was in no danger. And yet, despite myself, I moved to protect her. I took only a single step forward. But it was enough for the asherah to regard me warily with its deep, knowing eye, and then to shake off Estrella's hand and bound off into the woods.

Estrella ran back to me and looked at me as if to ask why I had driven away this magic animal. What could I tell her? I hardly knew myself.

After that we resumed our journey, and all of us watched the woods hoping for the asherah to return. We walked beneath the great oaks and maples, where many birds called to each other from their branches. After a while, we paused to drink from a cool stream. And Maram said to me, 'There's something strange here, Val. Stranger even than that one-horned horse. We've been walking for at least three hours with the sun behind us. And so we should have covered a good ten miles. I didn't think this whole island could be half that wide.'

Neither did I. And neither did Master Juwain, who wiped his wet hands against the back of his bald head as he sighed out, 'Perhaps the old maps were wrong.'

'Is our sense of the lake's size wrong?' Maram asked. 'Is our sense of this island? It seems that it must go on for another fifty miles. Strange, strange.'

The Lokilani's Vild, I thought, was full of marvels and mysteries. We walked through the sweet-smelling woods for another two hours after that. And then we came to a place where an astor grove was spread out over a few small hills. And there lay buried the greatest mystery of all.

Aunai led us along winding ways beneath the beautiful trees, with their silver bark and their lovely leaves a yellow-gold brilliance against the blue sky. Many of them were in flower: bright bursts of white petals enveloped their boughs like clouds of light. Ninana told us that each tree had been planted from a seedling over the grave of one of their ancestors.

'The astors,' she said softly, 'are our fathers and mothers. Do you see, do you see? The Lokilani can never really die.'

Suddenly, as with the asherah, Estrella broke away from us and ran on ahead of Aunai. At first, I thought that she must have sighted another of these strange animals. I hurried after her, as did Maram and Master Juwain, Aunai and Ninana and many others. But as we rounded the base of a hill, I could see no large animals of any kind through the open trees. And then I realized that it was not one of the asherahs that had drawn Estrella onward. For she stopped abruptly before a long mound, covered with grass. Aunai's exclamation of astonishment told me that she had led us unerringly to the Elijin's grave. 'But how did the girl know?' he asked me.

'She has a gift,' I told him. As we drew up next to Estrella and gathered around the grave, I explained that Estrella was a seard who could sense within herself the essence of the crystal that we sought

This Jewel of Memory, as the Lokilani called it, was set upon a cairn of stones above the grave. I stopped breathing for a moment because I had never seen anything quite like it. It was round and flat, like a discus; its center was as clear as Atara's white gelstei and encircled by bands of translucent violet, blue and the other colors of the spectrum. Many Timpum, like hummingbirds, hovered above it. It was the first time I had seen these bright beings drawn to something that was not alive.

'Look!'Aunai said. 'Your Timpirum has come, too.' Flick, I saw, appeared among the other Timpum and flitted about with them. Their colors caught up the hues of the akashic crystal. And this great thought stone reflected theirs, for its clear center suddenly shone with the singular brilliance of glorre.

'The verse did tell true,' Master Juwain said, staring at it. 'For here, surely, the memory crystal dwells.'

'And here the one who brought it to this island also dwells,' Maram said, shuddering as he pointed at the grave. 'But why isn't an astor planted here? Surely the Elijin deserve to be honored as do the Lokilani. '

'Surely they do,' Aunai admitted, 'But many times, it's said, so very many times we have tried to plant the sacred seeds here. But they would not grow. And so we planted grass instead.'

Maram nudged the mound with the toe of his boot and said, 'There's good dirt here like any other. I don't understand why grass should grow from it but not these pretty trees.'

'Why, why?' Aunai said to him. 'We have asked ourselves why for many, many of what you call years, but we do not understand.'

I drew my sword then, and stared at its mirror-like silustra. The Lokilani, too, stared at this new wonder that shone in their woods. And then, as I touched my finger to Alkaiadur's edge, Ninana cried out in dismay to see blood welling up from the slight wound it made. 'What have you done?' she said to me. 'And why, Vala' ashu?'