Lord of Lies

by David Zindell

'What do you mean?' Maram asked, now as puzzled as the rest of us.

  'It's a test,' Braggod said. 'Each of us is given a horn of beer. We drink. The horns are refilled, once, twice - as many times as it takes. The one who holds his beer and remains standing is the better man.'

  Maram's eyes gleamed. Braggod might as well have suggesting a test to see who could deflower the most virgins.

  'Bring on your horns!' Maram called out with a smile. He fairly jumped to his feet. 'It's time we tested your Kurmak beer!'

  Sajagax's warriors in their circles cried out: 'The kradak will drink against Braggod! Give him room to fall!' They stood and gathered around us, and so did many of my knights.

  The Sarni cut their long, curved drinking horns from the heads of the greatest sagosk bulls. Such horns, it is said, are the measure of a man. Some are shorter, some longer, their lengths varying according to the amount of beer a warrior can consume. But the horns used in such contests as this were always of the longest: a tall man's arm scarcely sufficed to reach from the horn's mouth to its tip.

  Sajagax's wives brought forth two horns, equal in length, brimming with frothy beer. Braggod took one and Maram the other. They stood eyeing each other. Braggod was slightly taller than Maram and seemed stronger, with long, lean muscles that showed beneath his sun-burned skin. He was thick through the body and hips, with massive legs from a lifetime of squeezing the ribs of horses. At a signal from Sajagax, they both lifted up their horns and threw back their heads as they drank deeply.

  'Ah, not bad,' Maram said as he smacked his lips and then belched. 'In fact, it's really quite good. You brew your beer from that yellow rushk grain, don't you?'

  Braggod belched, too, and licked the foam from his drooping mustache. His large blue eyes seemed as watery as a lake.

  'Well,' Maram continued, 'it's more potent than Meshian beer, I'll give you that. Why don't we refill our horns?'

  Braggod consented to this, and Sajagax's wives poured the yellow-brown beer into their horns. They raised them and began again.

  'Come, Braggod!' Yaggod called out, 'drink it down!'

  'Drink him down!' a nearby warrior called back.

  'No one has ever outdrunk Braggod before.'

  'And no one ever will.'

  'Especially not some fat kradak. Look at that belly!'

  It took Braggod and Maram slightly longer this time to drain their horns. When they had finished, Maram stood staring at Braggod, whose eyes were glazing and losing their focus. The big warrior seemed a little unsteady on his feet.

  Again their horns were refilled, and again they were emptied

  'Do you see?' Maram said, patting the ball of fat pushing out above his belt. 'A belly is a great, good thing. In form, like unto a globe like ... ah, the world itself. And so it is a reservoir of great strength. It centers a man. And more to the point of this fine sport of yours, it gives a man a greater capacity to enjoy your fine beer.'

  He began reciting verses that extolled the beauty of the belly. I could not tell if he was composing these in the moment. I appreciated his strategy: rather than immediately calling for another horn, he seemed happy to let the beer bubble in Braggod's belly and do its work.

  'Bring on another horn!' Tringax finally said. 'No one has ever finished a fourth horn.'

  Now both Maram and Braggod were weaving and shifting about, trying to find their balance. Freshly filled horns were pressed into their hands. Again, they began to drink.

  'Down, down, drink it down!' the Sarni warriors called out. And my Valari knights standing with them picked up the chant: 'Down, down, drink or drown!'

  Maram and Braggod stood with their horns thrust out toward each other as they eyed each other and drank. Somehow, to the amazement of Yaggod and Urtukar and others who were expert at these contests, they both managed to drink their beer to the last drop. When they lowered their horns, both of them seemed sick, as if they stood above a precipice on slippery rocks.

  'Ah, that was very good,' Maram said with a belch. 'A very, very brew. Ah, I mean, a very fine brew. Very fine, indeed.'

  He began rambling on about his liking of the Kurmak's beer, all the while watching Braggod. This great captain now began staggering, lurching forward and checking himself desperately trying to pull himself erect before staggering again.

  'Ah, had enough, have you, Braggod, my drinking man?' Maram took a step closer to him. He looked around at the warriors watching him. 'I do believe he's about to fall. May I help him?'

  'You may not lay your hands upon him,' Sajagax told him. 'That would be wrestling.'

  Maram belched again and muttered, 'May not lay my hands upon him, so you say. Well, I won't then. But he must go down.'

  Maram stepped even closer to Braggod, whose eyes were almost rolling back into to head. Suddenly, Maram let loose a tremendous belch. The blast of his breath seemed further to stagger Braggod. 'Down, down, like a drunken clown!' Maram called out Then he pushed out his belly against Braggod, nudging him slightly. It was just enough to make Braggod teeter and lose his balance altogether. With his arms flailing, he finally collapsed, falling down into his pile of cushions. All present laughed wildly and cheered to see such sport.

  'Down, down to carpet-covered ground!' Maram rambled on. He stood weaving above Braggod and smiling at him. 'Well, my good man, I think you have had enough to drink, too bad. But Maram Marshayk has not. Bring on your best beer! Fill my horn! Fill your eyes and watch how a Valari knight and a prince of Delu drinks. Behold!'

  Once again, one of Sajagax's young wives poured a stream of dark beer into Maram's horn. This time, it took Maram much longer to drink it, but drink it he did. Proud Sarni warriors stood dumbfounded at this feat; they knocked their bows together with a fearsome clacking. Never in living memory had any of them heard of a man finishing five horns of beer. And so Tringax called out: 'A five-horned man! Maram of the five horns!'

  'Five horns?' Maram said. 'Why not make it six? Yes, I like the sound of that better: "Six-Homed Maram"!'

  So saying, he held out his horn yet again. But when Sajagax's wife came forward to refill it, Maram's face fell sick and he shook his head as he thought better of his impulse. 'Ah, enough, enough - I think I've had very enough.' And to the cheers of hundreds of warriors, both black-haired and blond, he fell backwards down to his cushions, too.

  Braggod lay close-eyed and moaning as if felled by an axe, but Maram still had his wits - and his pride. As everyone looked on, he smiled at Sajagax and said, 'Do you see? Do you see, great chieftain? And you thought we Delians weak!'

  No one could challenge Sajagax thusly and expect such a man to keep his silence. Sajagax nodded at Maram and said, 'You're not weak in the belly, I'll give you that. Nor in the mouth. If you weren't so drunk, we'd put the strength of your arms to the test as well.'

  'My arms are as strong as those of any Sarni.'

  'You think so, fat man?'

  'As strong as yours, old man.'

  Sajagax's eyes flared with anger. He said, 'Prove it then.'

  'Gladly. How?'

  In answer, Sajagax stood up and leaned his body into his bow he bent it and strung it. He handed it to Maram and sat back down. 'Let's see if you can draw this, then,'

  Although Maram was unused to working a bow from a sitting position, he held the great bow out before him with his stiffened arm. He grunted and groaned and exerted all the power of his arms and black

  to pull the bow's string to his ear. Then a moment later, he relaxed

  the string and called out. 'There!'

  Yaggod and Urtukar nodded their heads at this feat, Tringax, too. And Sajagax said to Maram, 'You're stronger than anyone would think I'll give you that. That was more than most of my warriors can manage But that is not what we mean by drawing a bow.'

  'What is, then?'

  Sajagax handed him an arrow fletched with raven feathers, one of the heavy ones used for piercing armor. He said to Maram, 'You must hold this at full draw for a count of at least five.'r />
  'Only five? Can Five-Horned Maram do any less?'

  And with that, he knocked the arrow and again drew the string back to the side of his head. Sajagax tried not to blink as Maram pointed it past his head toward the roof of the tent.

  'One!' Sajagax cried out.

  Maram grunted and seemed to swallow back a belch. He gripped the arrow between his sweating fingers with a fierce concentration.

  'Two!' A hundred voices cried this out together.

  Beads of sweat rolled down Maram's face as he gasped for breath. Both his arms began trembling with the strain of pulling the great bow.

  'Three!'

  'Look at him!' a warrior called out. 'Five-Horned Maram is going to hold the count!'

  'Four!'

  But even as everyone in the tent, myself included, shouted out this number, Maram's arm buckled and he lost his grip on the bowstring. With a loud crack, it sent the arrow whining through the air. A dozen warriors ducked low their heads. And three hundred more looked up to witness the neat hole thatihe arrow had punched through the silk of Sajagax's tent.

  Seeing this ruin, three of Sajagax's wives looked at Sajagax and cringed. Everyone else looked at him, too. The great chieftains face grew as red as the Marud sun. His eyes fixed on the hole like arrows of his own. Even Yaggod and Tringax dared not speak.

  At last, like the sky breaking open during a storm, Sajagax let loose a tremendous laugh. He threw back his head and pounded Maram's shoulder, all the while pealing out a huge, happy thunder. We all laughed with him. And then Sajagax dried his eyes and took back his

  bow.

  'Well, Sar Maram,' he said, 'that was better than anyone would have expected. None of the Kurmak will ever question your strength again.'

  Maram squinted as he looked up at the stars showing through the hole he had made. He belched and said, 'I'm sorry about your tent, Sajagax.'

  'That's all right - it was growing stuffy in here, and we needed a little ventilation.'

  I took a sip of wine, glad that I had this spirit of the grape to drink instead of beer.

  'Here, Lord Vaiashu!' Sajagax said, smiling at me as he held out his bow. 'Let's see if you can draw it.'

  I smiled back at him and said, 'No one has ever called me an archer.'

  'But you placed fifth in archery at this tournament of yours, didn't you? You won the gold medallion of championship, didn't you?'

  I admitted that I had as I looked at Sajagax's huge, knotted bow.

  'Take it, Lord Valashu,' he said to me. The smile suddenly fell from his face. His eyes grew hard as diamonds and seemed to press into me. 'Take it. Surely the one that Five-Homed Maram follows must be the strongest of men.'

  Yaggod and Tringax and all the Kurmak captains in our circle except the senseless Braggod turned to look at me. Master Juwain and Maram, Lord Harsha, Lord Raasharu and Baltasar - all my friends' eyes fell upon me with an uncomfortable light. Even Atara seemed to be waiting to see what I would do.

  'Surely the one that Sajagax rides with, if he rides,' Sajagax went on, 'must be strong enough of heart at least to try to draw this bow.'

  I knew that I was not as strong as Maram. I looked at the thick, curved bow that Sajagax gripped in his huge fist If I refused to take it, I would bring shame upon myself. But if tried to draw it and failed, I might bring worse than shame

  'Come, my friend,' Maram said to me. 'If I can draw it, you can.'

  'Show him what a Valari warrior is made of!' Baltasar added.

  And then for the first time during the feast, Atara spoke, and her voice was as clear as a bell: T'ake the bow, Val.'

  I took the bow. It was even heavier than I had thought it would be. Sajagax gave me an arrow, and I knocked it to the bow's string. I raised up the bow and tried to pull back the arrow as far as it would go.

  'Valashu Elahad!' Sar Avram called out. 'Lord Valashu for the Valari!'

  A terrible weakness burned through the muscles of my arms and back as I struggled to draw the great bow. I gasped at the pain of it. I knew with a sick and sudden certainty that I didn't have the strength for this feat, any more than I could lift a rock the size of Sajagax. Inch by inch I pulled back the arrow; when the bowstring was about three inches from my ear, my arm seemed blocked by a wall of stone and I could draw the bow no further

  'That's about as good as I can do,' Tringax admitted as I trembled and strained and finally relaxed the bow. 'No one except Sajagax will ever draw this.'

  'The Elahad will draw it!' Sunjay Naviru said 'lie's only asking a moment to get a better grip.'

  I could grip the bowstring with the claws of a dragon. I thought, and still not be able to draw this massive bow just as I was about to give up hope and betray my weakness yet again. Flick began spinning above the Lightstone. All the Timpum possessed qualities such as brightness, calmness or curiosity that made one think of people's faces. I had always seen Flick as a sort of mischievous but well-meaning child. But now I saw something strange to the array of lights before me. Flick's usual colors began giving way to a swirl of topaz, incarnadine and soft browns. Glorre contained the essence of all colors, and out of this brilliant hue, for one lightning quick moment, a distinct face flashed into form: it was that of Alphanderry. A sharp pain stabbed through my heart, Why, I wondered, did this beautiful man have to die? So that I might go on to find the Lightstone?

  As Flick faded back into nothingness, my memory of Aiphanderry and his impossible feat at the Kul Moroth burned inside me. I could almost hear him telling me, in the language of the Galadin. that nothing was impossible. 1 gazed down at the Lightstone, which seemed to fill with a marvelous liquid the color of glorre. I drank it in through my eyes. And the more that I drank, the more that the golden cup poured forth this luminous substance, I knew that the little Lightstone could hold much more than ten thousand drinking horns - and I could hold much more than I ever dared dream.

  'Come, Val,' Maram said to me.

  A tingling warmth flowed down my spine into my arms and hands and every part of me. it touched fire to my blood and filled me with-a great strength.

  'Come, Val,' Atara said to me. 'Draw the bow.'

  I lifted up this massive working of wood and horn; it now seemed as light as my flute. With one swift motion, to the gasps of Tringax and Urtukar and others looking on. I drew the nocked arrow straight back to my ear. Atara and Maram called out. 'One!' with a single breath. Hundreds of other warriors did, as well. The next numbers came in succession to the slow and even, beating of my heart. When the count reached ten, I eased the tension on the bow, and gave both it and the arrow to Sajagax.

  'One hole is enough,' I said to him as I looked up at tear in the tent's roof that Maram had made.

  'Lord of Battles!' Baltasar called out. 'Lord of Light!'

  Sajagax breathed heavily as he looked at me. He pulled on his bow as if testing it to see if someone had somehow slipped a lighter one into his hand. And then, quickly and surely, he nocked the arrow and turned as he drew it back as far it would go. He sighted on the hole in the roof. He held the bow at full draw for what must have been a count of twenty. Then he let fly the arrow. It burned through the air invisibly and vanished through the star-sparkled hole.

  'One hole is enough,' he agreed, smiling at me.

  Hundreds of knights and warriors gasped to see such marksmanship. I blinked my eyes, not quite daring to believe what I had witnessed. Not even Atara or Sar Hannu or any other archer I ever heard of could have made such a shot.

  'If I ride with you to Tria,' Sajagax said to me, 'if an alliance is made and you are proclaimed the Maitreya, what then, Lord Guardian?'

  'Then Morjin will not be able to move against the Free Peoples.'

  Sajagax's eyes blazed with a blue fire. 'No - but we will be able to move against him.'

  'Perhaps, but we must not.'

  'Why not?'

  'Because we can defeat him without making war.'

  'Defeat the Red Dragon without war, you say?'

&n
bsp; His eyes burned into mine. Sitting at the center of his great tent, with hundreds of his warriors gathered around him and thousands more at his call, he looked deep inside me for any sign of weakness or fear. At last I touched his bow and then laid my hand on the hilt of my sword. I said, 'We were meant for much more than this.'

  'What then?'

  'To make a new world.'

  Now I stared at htm as the anguish of all those I had slain and seen slain came pouring into me. My eyes burned, and burned into him. Why, I wondered, had so many suffered so much for me to have recovered the Lightstone? I felt the fire of this golden cup blazing inside me, brighter and brighter. I could not hold it. I stared at Sajagax without blinking in a test of will that seemed to last an hour. Finally, he looked away from me and sat rubbing his eyes as if they were tired and gave him pain.

  'You Valari,' he said to me, 'are strange.'

  I held out my hand to him and said, 'Will you ride with me to Tria?'

  'All right, Valashu,' he told me, on the morrow, the Valari and Kurmak will ride toward this new world of yours.'

  He smiled as he took my hand. His grip was strong enough to crush bones, and it took all my strength to hold the clasp without crying out.

  After that, there was more drinking and singing, far into the night. Sajagax offered one of his daughters in marriage to Maram; Maram, under Lord Haraha's scathing eye, told Sajagax that he was already betrothed and that as a Valari warrior he might take only one wife When it came time for sleeping, Sajagax noticed that Atara's blindfold was soiled with dust and splashed beer. He called for a fresh, white cloth to bind her eye hollows. With his own hands he tendered this service. After he had finished, he sat combing back her golden hair with his calloused fingers. Tringax and Yaggod and others, displeased at his kindness, glared at him in reproach. And Sajagax glared right back and called out, 'If the chieftain of the Sarni's greatest tribe can't do as he pleases in his own tent, what's the point of being chieftain?'

  He picked up his bow then, and stared down his captains one by one. Although they might have dreamed deep in their hearts of a new world in which no man would ever yield to another, no one was willing to challenge the great and fearsome Sajagax.