Lord of Lies

by David Zindell

  'If a dragon guarded this gate,' he said, pointing at the crack, 'it couldn't stop me.'

  Atara said that she wanted to accompany us, and so then did Karimah and Sajagax. Estrella gave signs that she would not be separated from me. Her bright eyes reminded me that she might help us find inside whatever it was that excited both the akashic crystal and Flick.

  Then Lansar Raasharu nudged his horse forward and said, 'Let me come with you, Lord Valashu. We don't know what lies within, and you might need my sword.'

  Baltasar likewise shared his father's concern and volunteered to ride before me as a single knight acting as my vanguard. I smiled at him and said, 'Thank you, my friend, but you would best serve me if you would remain here in command of the Guardians.'

  'Very well,' Baltasar said, peering through the dark crack, 'but at least send five knights into this, that they might report back to you that the way is safe.'

  This seemed prudent, and so I chose out Sar Shevan, Sar Varald, Sar Ishadar, Juradan the Younger and Sar Hannu to make this little mission. Sar Hannu gave the Lightstone into my keeping, and then led the others into the crack. I listened as the sound of their horses' hooves clacking against rock died into echoes.

  And so we waited there between this great, mysterious mound and the darkening forest. We did not wait very long. Soon Sar Hannu returned by himself and told me, 'The way is safe, Lord Valashu. And it leads to a great open area that you must see! Come, come!'

  His enthusiasm communicated to Maram, Master Juwain and Lansar Raasharu, no less than Sajagax, Atara, Karimah and Estrella, whom I now led into the crack. Its walls, I saw, were smooth as glass, as if a red gelstei had melted this corridor through the sandstone The day's fading sunlight filtered down to illuminate the many fallen rocks, which our horses had to step over with care lest they turn a leg. The corridor was not straight, but bent first right and then left, like the length of a snake. Sar Hannu and I rode side by side, followed by the others. The sound of his breath steaming out into this dim, closed space added to the creaking of diamond armor and iron-shod hooves striking stone like the hammers of miners delving for hidden ores.

  And then the corridor straightened and gave out into the open area that Sar Hannu had told of. We rode out toward the four other knights who waited near its center, looking about themselves with awe coloring their faces. For the mound, as we all could see, was hollow. Its insides seemed to have been scooped out of the rock - or melted - in the shape of a perfect cylinder. Above us, above the mound's curving sandstone rim three hundred feet high, the twilight sky was a circle of dark blue showing the night's first stars. Our horses stood within a lower circle, the eastern half of which was given over to rounded, rising rows of stone benches like those of the great amphitheater at Nar. In its western half, which seemed like a staging space, a few elms grew out of cracks in the ground. This might once have been solid rock, but now was covered by layers of old leaves, mosses and dirt that must have blown in over the years. But the circle that caught my gaze and held it was formed by the cylinder's walls. At first, in the deepening gloom, I had thought that they were of fused glass, like the walls of the corridor leading into this strange place. Now, however, as Master Juwain dismounted and brought forth his akashic crystal, these hollowed sweeps of rock began to scintillate and glow. 'Look, Val, look!' he called out.

  I dismounted, then, and so did everyone else. I stood gazing at the rock, which now swirled with colors like those of the akashic crystal before it had fallen full of glorre. 'What is this place?' Maram said.

  Sajagax and Karimah both made warding signs, even as Atara stood quietly holding Estrella's hand. Lansar Raasharu, with Sar Hannu and the other knights, waited nearby gripping the hilts of their swords.

  'In all the books I've ever read,' Master Juwain murmured, 'I've never come across mention of anything like this.'

  Atara smiled coldly and said, 'Some scryers can look backward into time as well as ahead. Although I've never had this gift, my sense of things here is that no server who ever lived could look far enough back to see its making.'

  'It feels old,' Maram agreed. 'If Ymiru told us right, Argattha is at least six thousand years old, but this feels older still - much older.'

  I drew my sword, and its long length of silver gelstei reflected a bit of the heavens' light into my eyes. Without quite knowing how, I suddenly knew that Maram was right. I said, 'Surely, then, this must be some wonder from the Elder Ages.'

  But this did not ease Maram's anxiety. He looked at me and said, 'Something from before the Star People came to earth? Who, then, built it? Who, then, sat on those seats?' He pointed at the eastern half of the amphitheater, with its many

  benches carved out of stone.

  'Others must have visited Ea before Elahad,' Master Juwain said. 'Perhaps the Elijin. Perhaps, as the little people thought, the Galadin themselves.'

  At his mention of these great, inextinguishable beings, Estrella clapped her hands together and smiled as if she had found a fireflower in some lightless wood. But Maram's disquiet only deepened. He looked about the amphitheater and muttered, 'Angels, you say, and we can only hope you are right. But wha if other things came here? Dark things out of the Dark Worlds? Or worse, ghosts? I must confess, this place feels haunted to me. Can't anyone else feel this? There's a presence here.'

  He waved his hand in front of his face as if to feel for hidden entities. Although it was a summer evening and not at all cold, he shuddered and drew his cloak about himself.

  'I'm less concerned with ghosts,' Master Juwain said, pointing ahead of him, 'than with the miracle of those walls. They seem to be of the same substance as this gelstei.'

  He rapped his knuckle against the akashic crystal. It was now sending out pulses of glorre as with ripples of water from a stone tossed into a quiet pool.

  'I need to get a better look,' he said.

  He strode off to examine the jackets of opalescent crystal now pulsing with soft lights all around the amphitheater. Maram accompanied him. Estrella started to dance off by herself toward the benches, but Atara did not approve of her being alone anywhere in this mysterious place at the fall of night, and so she went with her, I swept Alkaladur up toward the stars as if my shining sword might slice open the very heavens to reveal their secrets. Sajagax and Karimah made more warding signs, while Lansar Raasharu and the five Guardians stood ready to draw their kalamas. The night grew darker.

  And then, near the benches, out of the wavering air, a figure of a man appeared. His whole being glowed with a soft light. I could not see his face, but he was tall, with long, black hair draping down upon a blue tunic embroidered with silver and gold. Estrella, upon perceiving this man, clapped her hands so loudly that the sudden crack drew Maram's attention. He turned away from the crystal of the wall, and shouted, 'Oh, my Lord! If that isn't a ghost, then I never hope to see one!'

  This 'ghost,' or whatever he was, took a step toward Estrella and Atara, who were sitting on the first and lowest of the benches. Seeing this, almost quicker than thought, Sajagax whipped an arrow from his quiver and fitted it to the string of his great bow. Before I could cry out for him to stop, he drew back the arrow and fired it at the man. The arrow shrieked forth and seemed to streak right through his ethereal body in a shimmer of little lights. It slammed into one of the higher benches, and its steel point broke against the stone and sent up a spray of chips.

  'Hold, Sajagax!' I called out as he drew another arrow. 'A ghost!' Maram shouted again from across the amphitheater. 'Surely he must be a ghost!'

  The ghost now turned to look at Maram, and then at Sajagax and me. His face was of noble mien, with a long nose like an exquisitely sculpted pillar and a broad forehead. His eyes, black and bright as the sky above us, were like the eyes of my father and grandfather and many other Valari. He smiled at us and beckoned with his long, strong-looking hand toward the benches as if inviting us to sit down. 'Come!' I called out. 'Let's sit then. What else is there to do?' At that moment, Fl
ick fell out of the air and turned flaming spirals around the ghost. This being's otherworldly face glowed with a smile as if he were greeting an old friend.

  'Come, Sajagax, put down your bow! Come, Maram, Master Juwain, and everyone, and let us sit!'

  I led the way toward the sandstone benches where Atara and Estrella sat watching the ghost. Everyone converged there and joined them on the first bench - except for Lansar Raasharu, who insisted on standing behind me to guard my back.

  Then the ghost faced us and astonished us by singing out in a deep, lovely voice: 'Aulara, Auliama,'

  The words echoed from the amphitheater's walls, now sparkling even more strongly with bright colors.

  'It sounds like the language of the angels,' Maram said. 'Perhaps he is an angel,' Sajagax said, aiming his sharp eyes at the being before us. 'Pray that he is not a demon or other evil spirit, as I feared.'

  'Aulara, Auliama,' the ghost said again.

  'But what does that mean?' Maram asked. He turned to Master Juwain. 'Sir, do you know?'

  'Yes,' Master Juwain said with a happy smile. 'It is an invitation: "Ask. and be answered."'

  'Ask what?' Sar Hannu said, pulling at his heavy chin. 'Is this some sort of ancient oracle, then?'

  'If it is,' Sar Varald said, 'then we should beware.This ghost could twist words and our understanding of them as might a scryer.'

  At his careless words, Atara shot him a frosty look and said, 'You know little of scryers, it seems, and even less of what we've found here.'

  Sar Varald, who did not want to dispute with the woman I loved, bowed his head and stared down at the old leaves upon which the ghost stood.

  'It seems to me', Maram said, 'that none of us understands anytime about this place.'

  Master Juwain sat gazing at the discus-like crystal in his hands. Then he rubbed his head as if it ached and looked at me. 'The voices inside this - they sing to the walls here. And the walls sing, too. Can't anyone hear them?'

  I stared at the curved, colored expanse of gelstei glimmering beyond the ghost. I shook my head. Master Juwain might have learned to read the akashic crystal and perhaps its much greater cousin spread across the walls surrounding us, but I lacked the art.

  'Whom do the walls sing to?' Maram asked Master Juwain. At this question, the ghost smiled as if he could understand Maram. He lifted back his head and looked up at the stars.

  Atara said to Maram, 'If this is an oracle, you should be careful of what you ask. We might have only three questions - or one.'

  As she said this, the ghost looked straight at her and repeated again, 'Aulara, Auliama,'

  Master Juwain nodded at me and said, 'Ask him your question, Val.' 'All right,' I said as the ghost now looked at me. I drew in a quick breath and asked, 'Who is the Maitreya?'

  My heart drummed hard inside my chest as the ghost stood there staring at me. His eyes, made of light or some shimmering substance, looked right through me. And then he spoke what seemed a single word: 'Laravari.'

  'But what does that mean?' Maram asked. 'I think it means: "wait",' Master Juwain said. 'Wait for what? It's already past dinner time.'

  Again the ghost looked skyward, and then he let loose a torrent of music as he sang out, 'Lanila eli la Ieldara lumiara ar Ininasuni. . .'

  Thus he continued for quite a while before finally falling silent. And Maram asked Master Juwain, 'Do you understand what he said, sir?'

  'Some of it, I think. I believe he is waiting for a certain star, or stars, to rise. Our name for this would be Ninsun.'

  I looked up at the black circle of sky, studded with many stars as bright as the diamonds of my armor. Various constellations edged the sandstone rim high above us. I made out the splendid Firwe and Salwe, the Eyes of the Tiger, and other points of light. I watched and waited as the world slowly turned its dark face to the heavens.

  'Ninsun,' I whispered. I knew this name out of legend only, as the dwelling place of the Ieldra.

  And then, just as the first of the stars forming the necklace of the Mother appeared, my heart seemed to stop and I could not breathe. For this brilliant iar poured its light straight down into the amphitheater like a stream of glorre. The numinous color touched the walls, which blazed with a sudden surge of radiance, giving back the light a thousandfold. Master Juwain's crystal flared brightly, too. The air filled with a strange song, and then ten thousand songs as voices both beautiful and terrible made a music that I could hardly bear. I wanted to stop my ears with my fingers and cover my eyes. But the music, bright as dreams of angels, compelled me to listen and look.

  'Aulara, Auliama', the ghost said yet again.

  What happened then was hard to understand. My consciousness seemed to divide in two like a silk cloth torn by the wind. All the while, I remained aware of the amphitheater and all it contained: the rustling leaves of the elms, the ghost talking to me, the hard stone bench beneath the even harder stones that encased my legs. And yet I found myself in other places, too: soaring through the sky like an eagle above primeval forests, standing on a burning plain, floating in the dark sea of space that envelops other worlds. All that I experienced occurred within time, like grains of sand falling through an hourglass one by one, but time itself seemed to open into a bright infinity that contained all things. I smelled flowers whose scents were utterly strange to me. I felt the earth of distant worlds through the paws of animals for which I had no name.

  I listened to the moans of women giving birth and the clash of steel against steel and the rapture of a silver swan singing its death song. I heard a great deal and saw much more.

  And this is what I saw: by the shore of a blue ocean on some watery world, a great host of men and women gathered. There must have been a million of them. They were raimented in garments finer than silk, and fillets of silver encrusted with emeralds and diamonds shimmered against their dark hair. The music that poured from their lips gave me to know that they were of the Galadin. Their eyes and hands, shining from within, told me this, too.

  They interlocked hands as they danced in ever-widening circles around a golden cup that floated in the air. And as they danced, they sang and the cup gleamed and grew ever brighter. Time passed, perhaps a day, perhaps a thousand years, and then their voices joined into one and filled the world with a single, heartpiercing chord. The flames of their beings suddenly brightened beyond belief and passed around their circles from man to woman as quick as breath - and passed into the shimmering cup, back and forth, from them to it and it to them. The little cup flared so brightly that it outshone the sun. Then a ball of fire exploded outward from its center into space and consumed the Galadin and their world. The light of the great event filled all the universe.

  And out of this pure and infinite light, the first gelstei crystallized like the colors of the rainbow falling out of the sky. They were seven in kind, and they sparkled more splendidly than rubies, sapphires and diamonds. And as they poured out great pulses of violet or red, yellow or blue, they vibrated like a mandolet's strings in seven fundamental notes. This music of creation, almost too bright and too beautiful, fell upon the expanding sphere of fire and interfused every part of it. And so the Galadin, who had now become much more, sang the new universe into being.

  And out of this angel fire, stars were born. There were millions of millions of them. And from the substance of these luminous orbs, countless worlds formed in this lovely new universe that as yet had no name. And still the Ieldra sang, and from the world's blue oceans and rich, fecund earth arose the fishes and flowers, the whales and butterflies and trees, and all the other forms of life. And finally, men and women, who possessed minds to wonder at the mystery of themselves and to find their purpose in the great play of creation.

  And so they planted seeds in the ground and harvested and made flour into bread, as men do; they dug up iron from the same ground and forged it into hoes and ploughshares. They quarreled over who owned this ground, and then made swords instead, and they slew each other in great numbers unt
il their various earths ran red with rivers of blood.

  But they were strong, these first men and the women they took as wives. The great song of life fired their beings; the music of memory carried them forward into the brilliant future. Out of the red, roaring oceans inside them came children and their children's children, in numbers too great for swords to cut down. They built cities in which to live and walls around their palaces and great, soaring towers.

  And then to the greatest of these worlds, Erathe, the leldra sent the Lightstone. It found its way into the hands of a man with fire in his eyes and a great, blazing heart. People called him Maitreya, the Lord of Light.

  He journeyed from city to city and land to land, bringing light wherever he went. And men put down their gleaming swords and polished their souls instead. And glorious cities greater even than Tria filled all the lands until all of the world shined with the splendor of a great civilization and peace at last reigned on Erathe. Then men, tall men with bright, black eyes, looked toward the stars. The boldest of them walked from world to world bearing the Lightstone and giving it into the hands of other great-hearted beings who arose from their various earths. These, too, filled with cities as true civilization spread across the heavens.

  At last, after many millions of years, the Lightstone returned to Erathe. There, one of the Shining Ones claimed it and brought it before the throne of a great king, a Starwalker who had journeyed to the center of the universe where the great geistei were kept and had gained great powers of the body, mind and soul. And this mighty warrior came down from his golden throne and knelt before this one. The radiance that poured from the Cup of Heaven washed away the last of the king's ephemerality and quickened the flames of his being so that his lifefire could never die of its own. And when he straightened yet again, the stars themselves crowned him in light, and there stood the first of the universe's immortals.

  The king then gave up his throne to visit other worlds and help others prepare to make the same journey as had he. And the Lightstone followed him, always borne by the sons and grandsons of the tall, bright-eyed men. And the Cup of Heaven was given to other Shining Ones, who raised up other kings and queens to the order of the Elijin. And the greatest of these - Ashtoreth, Valoreth, Arwe, Urwe, Artu, Mainyu, Arkoth, Varkoth and Ahura - came to preserve the Lightstone's radiance inside themselves so that they shone and no particle of their beings could be harmed in any way.