The Lightstone

by David Zindell

  They are dead and I am still alive.'

  He took a few steps closer to me and said, 'But they did defy me. Even as you have, Valashu Elahad.'

  'No,' I said, 'no, no.'

  'No ... what?'

  'No, Lord Morjin.'

  'You killed one of my knights, didn't you?'

  'No, that's not true - are assassins knights?'

  'You put your knife into him. You killed this man, and so you owe him a life. And since he was my man, you owe me your life.'

  'No, that's a lie,' I said. 'You're the Lord of Lies.'

  'Am I?'

  'You're the Lord of Illusions, the Crucifier, the Great Beast.'

  'I'm only a man, like you.'

  'No-that's the worst lie of all! You're nothing like me.'

  Morjin smiled, revealing small white teeth as lustrous as pearls. He asked me, 'Have you never lied, then?'

  'No - my mother taught me not to lie. My father, too.'

  'That is the first lie you've told me, Valashu. But not the last.'

  'Yes, it is!' I said, I pressed my hand to my throbbing head. 'I mean, no, it isn't - I wasn't lying when I said it's wrong to lie.'

  'Is it really?' he asked me. He took another step closer and said, 'It pleases me that you lie to me. Why not be truthful about what all men do? You honor the truth, don't you? You're an Elahad aren't you? Then listen to this truth that I give to you freely: He who best knows the truth is most able to tell a falsehood. Therefore the man best at lying is the most true.'

  'That's a lie!' I half-shouted. But my head hurt so bad I could hardly tell what was true and what was not. 1 tried to close my ears to the music that poured off Morjin's silver tongue. I tried to close my eyes and heart to him, but he just stood there smiling at me nicely as if he were my brother or best friend.

  'Is this a lie then, Valashu? That there must be truth between us? That we already know the truth about each other, deep in our hearts?'

  'No - you know nothing about me!'

  'Don't I?'

  Morjin pointed his long finger at my chest and said, 'I know that you're in love.

  Show her to me, please.'

  I closed my eyes as 1 shook my head. In my mind there appeared a blazing image of Atara clasping hands with me, and I quickly shut it away in the stone-walled keep of my heart as I would the most precious of treasures.

  'Thank you,' Morjin told me. 'I might have foreseen the irony of a Valari knight falling for a Sarni warrior. Do you congratulate yourself on the nobility of your making friends with your enemy?'

  'No!'

  'Well, she's a beautiful woman, in an animal kind of way. But then, you like riding horses, don't you?'

  'Damn you!' I told him. I moved my hand to draw my sword, but I found that I wasn't wearing it.

  'My apologies, that wasn't kind of me,' he said. 'And as you'll see, I'm really the kindest of men. 'But the truth is, this woman is as far beneath you as an earthworm.'

  'I love her!'

  'Do you? Or do you only love the benefits of loving her? When a man burns for a woman, all other hurts disappear, don't they? Tell me, Valashu, did you save her from my men out of love or so that you wouldn't have to suffer the agony of her violation and death?'

  I made a fist to strike him then, but then he smiled as if to remind me of my vow not to harm others.

  'You tell yourself that you honor truth, but sometimes it's too painful to face, isn't it?

  And so, like all men, you tell yourself lies.' Morjin's fine hands moved dramatically to emphasize his point; it seemed that such bright fires burned inside him that he couldn't stop moving- 'But please, do not chastise yourself. These little lies enable us to go on living- And life precious is it not? The most precious gift of the One?

  And therefore a lie told in the service of the One is a noble thing'

  I stood there pressing my hands over my temples and ears. It felt like some beast was trying to break its way into my head.

  'You've been told that I'm evil, but some part of you doubts this.' Morjin nodded his head at me, and I suddenly found myself nodding my head, too. 'It's a great suffering for you, isn't it, this doubt of yours? And most of all, I think, you doubt yourself.'

  Again, I nodded my head.

  'But wouldn't it be good to live without this doubt?' he asked me.

  Yes, yes, I thought, it would be very good.

  'How is evil known, then?' he asked. 'Is evil the light that shines from the One?'

  'No, of course not - it's just the opposite,' I said. And then I quoted from the laws:

  "'Darkness is the denial of the One; darkness is the illusion that all things are separate from the light of the One."

  'You understand,' he said kindly. 'Please don't separate yourself from the gifts I bring you, Valashu.'

  I slowly shook my head, which throbbed with a deep agony at every beat of my heart.

  'Please don't deny me.'

  Now Morjin took the final step toward me and smiled. I was suddenly aware that he smelled of roses. I tried to move back, but found that I didn't want to. I told myself that I mustn't be afraid of him, that he had no power to harm me. Then he reached out his hand, which was long and beautiful with tapering fingers. He touched his forefinger to the scar on my forehead; the tip of it was warm, and I could almost feel it glowing with a deep radiance. He traced this finger slowly along the zig-zags of the scar, sinuously impressing it into me. He smiled warmly as he then cupped the whole of his hand around my head. Despite the delicacy of his fingers, I sensed that there was iron there and that he had the strength to crush my skull like an eggshell. But instead he only touched my temples with exquisite sensitivity and breathed deeply as if drawing my pain into him. And suddenly my headache was gone. 'There,' he said, stepping away from me. He waited a moment for me to speak, then told me, 'You're deciding if your Valari manners permit you to thank me, aren't you? Is it so hard to say the words, then?' 'To the Lord of Lies? To the Crucifier?'

  'Men have called me that - they don't understand.'

  'They understand what they see,' I said.

  'And what do you see, young Valashu?'

  Again he smiled, and the room lit up as with the rising of the sun.

  For a moment I couldn't help seeing him as an angel of light, as what I imagined the Elijin to be.

  'They understand what you do,' I said. 'You've enslaved half of Ea and tortured everyone who has opposed you.'

  'Enslaved? When your father accepts homage from a knight is that enslavement?

  When he punishes a man for treason, is that torture?' 'My father,' I said, 'is a king.'

  'And I am a king of kings,' he said. 'My realm is Sakai - and all the lands east, west, north and south. A long time ago, the land that you and your friends are traveling through belonged to me, and will once again.'

  'By what right?'

  'By the right of what is right,' he told me. 'Do you remember the words written in your book?'

  He pointed at my hand,and I suddenly saw that I was holding Master Juwain's copy of the Saganom Elu. I hadn't been aware that I held it.

  Morjin's face grew bright as he quoted from the Commentaries: '"'The Lord called Morjin far excels the rest of mankind."'

  'But you've left something out!' I accused him. 'Isn't the full passage: "The Lord Morjin far excels the rest of mankind in doing evil."7

  'Of course not,' he said. 'My enemies added those words after I had been imprisoned on Damoom and there was no one to gainsay their lies.'

  I stood there watching the quick and elegant motions of his hands as he tried to convince me. I didn't know what to say.

  'I'm more than seven thousand years old,' he told me. 'And I didn't come by my immortality by accident'

  'No - you gained immortality by stealing the Lightstone.'

  'But how can a man steal what is his?'

  'What do you mean? The Lightstone belongs to all of Ea.'

  'It belongs to him who made it.'

  I search
ed his face for the truth and his golden eyes seemed so bright and compelling that I didn't know what to think.

  The Lightstone,' I finally said, 'was brought here by Elahad and the Star People ages ago.'

  At this, Morjin laughed softly. But there was no mockery in his voice only irony and sadness. He said, 'You must know, Val - can I call you that - you must know that is only a myth. I made the Lightstone myself late in the Age of Swords.'

  'But all the histories say that you stole it, and that Aramesh won it back at the Battle of Sarburn!'

  'The victors of that battle wrote the histories they wanted to write.'

  he said. 'And Aramesh was victorious - until death took him in its claws.'

  Here I couldn't help staring at the claws of the dragon embroidered on his tunic

  'The Lightstone belongs to me,' he told me. 'And you must help me regain it.'

  'No, I won't.'

  'You will,' he told me. 'Scrying isn't the greatest of my talents, but I'll tell you this: someday you'll deliver it into my hands.'

  'No, never.'

  'You owe me your life,' he told me. 'A man who doesn't repay his debts is a thief, is he not?'

  'No - there is no debt.'

  'And still you deny me!' he thundered. Suddenly, he smacked his fist into his open hand. His face grew red and hard to look at. 'Just as you still shelter one who is worse than a thief.'

  'What do you mean?'

  "Who is that standing behind you?' he said, pointing his finger at me.

  'What do you mean - there's no one behind me!'

  But it seemed that there was. I turned to see a boy standing in the shadow that I cast upon the carpet. He was about six years old, with bold face bones, a shock of wild black hair and a scar shaped like a lighting bolt cut into his forehead.

  'There,' Morjin said, stabbing at him with his long finger. 'Why are you trying to protect him?'

  Morjin tried to step around me then to get at the boy. When I raised my arm to stop him, he touched my side with something sharp. I looked down to see that his finger had grown a long black daw tipped with a bluish substance that looked like kirax.

  My whole body began burning, and I suddenly couldn't move.

  'Come here, Valashu,' Morjin said. Quick as a snapping turtle, he grabbed up the boy and stood shaking him near the wall. But the boy spat in his face and managed to bite off his clawlike finger. Morjin looked at the gaping wound in his hand and said to me, 'You'll have to help me now.'

  'No, never!' I said again through my clenched teeth.

  'Give me the arrow!' Morjin told me.

  With one hand pitining the struggling boy against the wall he reached out his other hand to me. I saw then that I really wasn t holding Master Juwain's book in my hand but an arrow fletched with raven feathers and tipped with a razor-sharp steel.

  It was the arrow that the unknown assassin had shot at me in the forest. 'Thank you,'

  Morjin said, taking it from me. He suddenly plunged it into the boy's side, and we both screamed at the burning pain of it In j moments, the kirax froze the boy's limbs so that he couldn't move.

  'Do you have the hammer?' Morjin said to me. 'Do you have the nails?'

  He turned from the boy, and took from me the three iron spikes that I held in my left hand and the heavy iron maul in my right. I saw then that I had been mistaken, that there really was a door giving out into the room: it was a thick slab of oak set into the wall just next to the boy. Morjin used the hammer to nail his hands and legs to it. I couldn't hear the ringing of iron against iron, so loud were the boy's screams.

  'There,' he said when he had finished crucifying him. He smiled sadly at me and continued,'And now you must give me what is mine.'

  'No!' I cried out. 'Don't do this!'

  'A king,' he said to me, 'must sometimes punish, even as your father punished you.

  And a warrior must sometimes slay in pursuit of a noble end even as you have slain.'

  'But the boy! He's done nothing - he's innocent!'

  'Innocent? He's committed a crime worse than treason or murder.'

  'What is this crime?' I gasped.

  'He coveted the Lightstone for himself,' he said simply. 'He couldn't bear the gift that the One bestowed upon him, and so when he heard his grandfather speak of the golden cup that heals all wounds, he dreamed of keeping it for himself?'

  'No - that's not true!'

  Morjin moved closer to the boy and let the blood streaming from his pierced hand run into his open mouth.

  'No, don't,' I said.

  'You must help me,' he said to me.

  'No.'

  'You must do me homage, Valashu Elahad, son of kings. You must surrender to me what is mine.'

  The whole of my body below my neck couldn't move, but I could still shake my head.

  'You must open your heart to me, Valashu. Only then will you find peace.'

  His eyes now began to burn like two golden suns. Long black claws like those of a dragon grew from his hands in place of fingers.

  'Don't hurt him!' I cried out. 'You can't hurt him!'

  'Can't I?'

  'No, you can't - this is only a dream.'

  'Do you think so?' he asked. 'Then see if you can wake up.'

  So saying, he turned to the terrified boy and made cooing sounds of pity as he tore him apart. When he was finished, he held the boy's still-beating heart in his claws so that I could see it.

  You killed him! I wanted to scream. But the only sound that came from my ravaged throat was a burning sob.

  'It's said that if you die in your dreams,' he told me, 'you die in life.'

  He looked at the throbbing heart and said, 'But no, Val, I haven't killed him, not yet.'

  And with that, he placed the heart back into the boy's chest and sealed the wound with a kiss from his golden lips. The boy opened his eyes then and stared at Morjin hatefully.

  'Do you see?' he said to me with a heavy sigh. 'I can't demand that you open your heart to me. Such gifts must be truly given.'

  I bit my lip then and tasted blood. The dark, salty liquid moistened my burning throat, and I cried out, 'That will never happen!'

  'No?' he asked me angrily. 'Then you will truly die.'

  Now his head grew out from his body, huge and elongated and red and covered with scales. His eyes were golden-red and glowed like coals. His forked tongue flicked out once as if tasting the fear in the air. Then he opened his jaws to let out a gout of fire that seared the boy from his head to his bloody feet. The boy screamed as his flesh began to char; Morjin screamed out his hatred in his fiery roar. And I screamed too as I pleaded with him to stop.

  But he didn't stop. He let the fire pour out of his fearsome mouth as if venting ages of bitterness and hate. I felt my own skin beginning to blister; I knew that Morjin would soon renew it with the touch of his lips so that he could burn me again and again until I finally surrendered to him or died. I sensed that if I fought against this terrible burning, it would go on forever. And so I surrendered to it. I let its heat burn deep into my blood; I felt it burning the kirax in my blood. And suddenly I found myself able to move again. I swung my fist like a mace at the side of Morjin's head; it was like striking iron. But it stunned him long enough so that I could rush through the flames streaming from his mouth to the blackened, bloody door. The boy was now all black and twisted and screaming for me to help him. I somehow wrenched him free from the door with a great tearing of flesh and bones. And then, holding him close to me where I could feel as my own the wild beating of his heart and his screams, I opened the door.

  I opened my eyes then to see Atara bending over me and pressing cool, wet cloth against my head, which she held cradled in her lap. was lying back against my sweat-soaked sleeping furs near the fire. I took me a moment to realize that I was screaming still. I closed my mouth then and bit my bloody lip against the burning in my body. Master Juwain, brewing up some more tea, held my hand in his, testing my pulse. Maram sat beside me pulling at his t
hick beard in concern.

  'We couldn't wake you,' he told me. 'But you were screaming loud enough to wake the dead.'

  I squeezed Atara's hand to thank her for her watching over me, and then I sat up. I found that I was still clutching my other hand against my heart, but the wounded boy I thought to find there was gone.

  'Are you all right now?' Maram asked me.

  I blinked my eyes against the burning there. I looked out at the trees, which were immense gray shapes in the faint light filtering through the forest. The crickets were chirping in the bushes, and a few birds were singing the day's first songs. It was that terrible time between death and morning when the whole world struggled to fight its way out of night.

  I stood up, wincing against the flames that still scorched my skin. I took a step away from the fire.

  It's still night,' Atara said. 'Where are you going?'

  'Down to the stream, to bathe,' I said. I wanted to wash away the charred skin from my hands and let the stream's rushing waters cool my burning body.

  'You shouldn't go alone,' she told me. 'Here, let me get my bow -'

  'No!' I said. 'It will be all right - I'll take my sword.'

  So saying, I bent to grab up my kalama, which I always kept sheathed next to my bed when I was sleeping. And then I walked off by myself toward the stream.

  It was eerie moving through the gray-lit woods. I imagined I saw dark gray shapes watching me through the trees. But when I looked more closely I saw that they were only bushes or shrubs: arrowwood and witch hazel and others whose names I couldn't quite remember, I plodded along the forest floor and crunched over twigs and old leaves. I smelled animal droppings and ferns and the sweaty remnants of my own fear.

  And then suddenly I broke free from the trees and came upon the stream. It gurgled along its rocky course like a silver ribbon beneath the stars. I looked up at the glowing sky in deep gratitude that I could see these blazing points of light. In the east, the Swan constellation was just rising over the dark rim of the forest. Near it shone Valashu, the Morning Star - so bright that it was almost like a moon. I kept my eyes fixed upon this familiar star that gave me so much hope even as I bent to lave the stream's cool water over my head.