Lord of Lies

In answer, I walked over thirty paces to the nearest astor tree. Ninana and Aunai and a dozen other Lokilani followed me. So did my friends. I came up to the tree's lowest bough, which was laden with many clusters of white flowers. I held out my finger and let a single drop of blood fall upon one of these. The little red ball rolled along one of its white petals before gathering into a tiny pool at the flower's center. I waited while my heart beat three times. And then, to my horror, 1 watched as the flower's petals blackened as if from flame and curled inward into a dark, withered knot.

'What have you done?' Ninana cried out again. 'Why, why?'

I sheathed my sword and sucked on my finger for a moment before pointing back toward the grass-covered grave. 'The EJijin did not just die here; he came here to die.'

Master Juwain's gray eyes lit up like the sea under a bright sun as he said, 'Do you think it is Balakin that lies here, then?'

'It must be he,' I said. I turned to Ninana and tried to explain. 'The Beast we call Morjin led a quest to recover the Lightstone, long, long ago. And he killed others of his kind whom he feared might find the Lightstone. It's said that one of these, Balakin, he poisoned with kirax.'

'But what is kirax?'

'It's made from the kirque plant,' I told her. I tried to describe this blue weed that grew in more mountainous climes. 'It's the deadliest of poisons.'

She looked at me in utter mystification. 'But what is poison?'

I drew in a deep breath to cool the burning inside me. I tried to explain this, too, saying, 'It's all life's bitterness and hatred of other life distilled into an evil essence. The kirax consumes life like a fire does leaves.'

'Oh, that is bad, very bad,' Ninana said. She reached up and plucked the dead flower from among the many others still living along the silver bough. 'The astor is the most blessed of trees, but it will grow only in blessed soil.'

She led the way back to Balakin's grave, if indeed it was he who had been buried here. She held out her hand above this green mound and said, 'Then the kirax has. . poisoned the earth here. So that is why only grass will grow.'

'Yes,' I said, 'so it must be.'

'But you say this Balakin and his kind were immortal?'

'Immortal, yes — but they could still be killed. Even though it would take much kirax to kill one of the Elijin.'

'And this kirax,' she said, holding out the dead flower, 'did the Mora'ajin poison you, too?'

'Yes,' I told her. 'One of his men did.'

'But you still live. You're as beautiful as a flower but you must be as tough as grass.'

I noticed Atara smiling at this, and I smiled sadly, too. And then I said, 'No that is not it. The amount of poison in me is minute. And yet one day it will kill me, too.'

One day I knew, I would strike my sword into an enemy trying slay me or someone I loved. The kirax, which tormented every nerve in my body like tendrils of fire, also ignited my gift of valarda and left me even more open to others' agonies, especially those I inflicted upon living flesh. And so one day I would kill, and the terrible pain of it would carry me down into death.

No, I told myself, that must not be.

'Is there no cure for it?' Ninana asked me. She laid her cool hand on the scar cut into my forehead. 'No rain to put out the fire?'

I brought forth the Lightstone and held the little cup over Balakin's grave. 'It was my hope to find a cure in this.'

'And have you?'

'Almost,' I said. 'Almost, I have.'

'I don't understand.'

I gazed at the little cup, all golden against the golden canopies of the astors spread out around me. I said, 'You speak of rain to quench this anguish that burns all beings, and yet there are lakes inside me, truly, entire oceans. Inside all people, if only we could find them. Once, when I held the Lightstone, I did. And many times since. . almost.'

Ninana nodded her head and looked at me sadly but hopefully. 'Then is the Matri'aya also the one who would show the way to these oceans?'

'We believe so. He must have the power to use the Lightstone this way. We believe that the akashic crystal will tell of this.'

I handed the Lightstone to Master Juwain. And he stepped closer to the head of the grave, where the akashic crystal showed its bands of brilliant colors.

'Might I try to open this crystal, my lady?' he asked Ninana. 'Open. . how?'

Ninana looked at him doubtfully as if suspecting he might use the Lightstone to hammer at the crystal like a boy cracking open a nut. 'There are resonances between the Lightstone and the crystal,' he tried to explain. 'As with people. We speak words to each other, and this opens each other's minds.'

Ninana thought about this as she studied the Lightstone. Then she looked at Aunai and asked, 'Do you think this is all right?'

Aunai nodded his head and told her, 'I can't see the harm of it.' Then he turned to a man named Ekewai and asked the same question of him, and so it went, men and women conferring with each other until all the Lokilani present consented to Master Juwain's proposal.

And so Master Juwain held the Lightstone before the great crystal. I expected him to have at least as much difficulty unlocking its secrets as he'd had with the thought stone in my father's hall and those in the Brotherhood's sanctuary in Nar. So it surprised me to see him give a gasp, even his eyes deepened like the sea and Lightstone poured forth a radiance full of glorre. It touched the crystal's center and rippled outward, changing its bright bands one by one until the crystal's entire surface shone with this new color. I felt my heart beating hard inside my chest, and it seemed that the akashic crystal pulsed with a deep and secret light. Master Juwain, it seemed, was drinking it in through his eyes and every particle of his being.

I feared that he might stand there all day in rapture. And so it surprised me once more when, a few moments later, the Lightstone's splendor faded along with that of the akashic crystal, and Master Juwain's eyes grew focused and hard.

'What time is it?' he called out, looking up at the sun pouring down through the trees.

'Scarcely past noon,' I said to him. 'Why do you ask?'

His ugly, old face radiated excitement. 'Noon, yes, of course — but what day is it?'

Maram stepped up to him and touched his shoulder. 'Ah, it's still today, sir. The thirteenth of Marud, I think.'

'Impossible,' he said, giving the Lightstone back to me. He stared at the akashic crystal sitting on top of its pile of stones. 'Days have passed, it seems, weeks.'

Atara smiled at him and said, 'So it is sometimes when a scryer looks into her crystal.'

'Yes, it must be,' Master Juwain said.

To the gasps of the Lokilani, Maram reached out to touch the akashic crystal's colored bands. 'Then I gather you opened this?'

'Opened it? Indeed, I suppose you could say I did. But does one open the sea when cast into its cold waters?'

I smiled to see waves of happiness spreading across his face, transforming him from something squashlike into the loveliest of human beings. 'Then there is much knowledge in the crystal, as we hoped?'

'Knowledge, Val? You can't even begin to imagine.' Master Juwain was almost hopping about as if he'd drunk ten cups of coffee. 'A common thought stone holds great knowledge, but compared to this it's like a drop. I can't imagine it myself. If all the words in all the books in the Library at Khaisham were written here, there would still be room for a million more such libraries.'

'Tell me of these words, then,' I said.

Now Master Juwain's face fell sad and sick as if he had discovered a store of grain that had gone moldy. 'I cannot, I'm sorry. You see, all the knowledge bound in this crystal, all the words — it was all recorded in the