David Zindell: Lord of Lies

While Maram and I sat at the table on either side of her. Master Juwain made her tea, peppermint with honey, as she requested. He set a new pot and cup before her and made sure that she could reach it easily. I knew that he lamented being unable to heal her of her afflic tion.

My grandmother held herself with great dignity as she carefully moved her hand from the edge of the table toward her cup. Then she said to me, 'I sent Chaya away. There is no reason to burden her, and I must learn to get about by myself. Sixty-two years I've lived here, ever since your grandfather captured my heart and asked me to marry him. I think I know this castle as well as anyone. Now if you please, may we speak of more important things?'

She slowly turned her head as if looking for Master Juwain. Then, to Maram and me, Master Juwain said, 'I've asked the Queen Mother to come here so that she might tell of Val's birth.'

As far as I knew, three woman had attended my entrance to the world: my grandmother and the midwife, Amorah — and, of course, my mother, who had nearly died giving me life.

My grandmother breathed on the hot tea before taking a long sip of it. Then she said, 'Six sons Queen Elianora had already borne for my son, the king. Val was the last, and so he should have been the easiest, but he was the hardest. The biggest, too. Amorah, may she abide with the One, said that he'd baked too long in the oven. She finally had to use the tongs to pull Val out. They cut his forehead, as you can see.'

Although she could no longer see, she tilted her head as if listening for the sound of my breath. Then, with only slight hesitation, she leaned forward, and her hand found the top of my head. Her palm moved slowly down my forehead as she found the scar there, then she traced the cold zags with her warm and trembling finger.

'But what can you fell us,' Master Juwain said, 'about the hour of Val's birth?'

My grandmother hesitated a little longer this time before touching my cheek, then withdrawing her hand to pull at the soft folds of skin around her neck. 'He was born with the sun high in the sky, at the noon hour, as was recorded.'

Both Master Juwain and I turned to glance at the parchment still spread across the nearby desk. Then the heat of Master Juwain's gaze fell upon my grandmother as he asked her, 'Then it was at this hour that Val drew his first breath?'

Master Juwain's eyes gleamed as if he were about to solve an ancient puzzle. He watched my grandmother, who sat in silence as my heart beat ten times. Finally she said, 'No, Val drew his first breath an hour before that. You see, the birth was so hard, he had trouble breathing at all. He was so cold and blue it made me weep. For an hour, Amorah and I thought that he would go over to the other world. At last, though, at noon, his little life quickened. When we knew the fire wouldn't go out, we announced his birth.'

In the sudden quiet of Master Juwain's chamber, twenty-one years after the day that my grandmother had told of, my breathing had stopped yet again. Master Juwain and Maram were staring me. My grandmother seemed to be staring at me too.

'The Morning Star burned brightly that day,' she continued. 'It shone almost like a second sun from before dawn all through the morning, as it does once every hundred years. And so my grandson was named Valashu, after that beautiful star.'

Master Juwain stood up and marched over to the desk. He gathered up the parchment and a similar one that had lain concealed beneath it. After tucking a large, musty book beneath his arm, he marched back toward us.

'Maram,' he called, 'please clear the table for me.' I helped Maram clear the pots and cups from the tea table. Then Master Juwain spread both parchments on top of it, side by side. He stepped back over to the desk and returned with a few more books to hold them down.

'Look,' he said, pointing at the first horoscope that we had already studied. Then he traced his ringer around the circle and symbols of the second parchment. As we could see, the array was nearly the same. 'I confess that I guessed what the Queen Mother has just disclosed today. And so before I left for Nar, I asked Master Sebastian to work up this second horoscope.'

Now his finger trembled with excitement as he touched two small symbols written at the edge of the circle described upon the second parchment. 'Here, of course, is the Morning Star, as on the first horoscope. But here, too — look closely — the stars of the Swan are rising in the east at Vat's earlier and true hour of birth'

Master Juwain straightened and stood like a warrior who has vanquished a foe. He said, 'There are other changes to the horoscope, but this is the critical one. Master Sebastian has advised me that the effect of the Swan, thing would be to exalt and raise the purity of Val's entire horoscope. He has said that these are certainly the stars of a Maitreya.'

I couldn't help staring at the two parchments. The late sun through the windows glared off their whitish surface and stabbed into my eyes.

'It's possible isn't it,' I said, 'that many men, at many times, would have a similar horoscope?'

'No, not many men, Val.'

Master Juwain now brought forth the book from beneath his arm As he opened it and began turning its yellow pages with great care, I noticed the title, written in ancient Ardik: The Coming Of The Shining One. At last, he reached the page he had been seeking. He smiled as he set down the book next to the second parchment.

'I found this in the library of the Brotherhoods sanctuary at Nar. It was always a rare book, and with the burning of Khaisham's Library, it might be the last copy remaining in the world.' He tapped his finger against the symbol-written circle inscribed on the book's open page. 'This is the horoscope of Godavanni the Glorious. Look, Val, look!'

Godavanni had been the greatest of Ea's Maitreyas, bom at the end of the great Age of law three thousand years before. He had also been, as I remembered, a great King of Kings. I gasped in wonder because the two horoscopes, Godavanni's and mine, were exactly the same.

'No,' I murmured, 'it cannot be.'

For my grandmother's sake, Master Juwain explained again the features of my horoscope — and Godavanni's. Then he turned to Maram and said, 'You see, our quest to find the new Maitreya might already be completed.'

'Ah, Val,' Maram said as he pulled at his beard and gazed at me. 'Ah, Val, Val.'

My grandmother reached out her hand and squeezed mine. Then she set it on top of the parchments, rumbling to feel the lines of the symbols written on them.

'Here,' I said, gently pressing her fingertip against the rays denoting the Morning Star. 'Is this what you wanted?'

There was both joy and sadness in her smile as she turned to face me. Her ivory skin was so worn and old that it seemed almost trans parent. The smell of lilacs emanated from her wispy white hair. The cataracts over her eyes clouded their deep sable color, but could not conceal the bright thing inside her, almost too bright to bear. He breath poured like a warm wind from her lips, and I could feel the way that she had breathed it into me at my birth, pressing her lips over mine I could feel the beating of her heart. There was a sharp pain there. It hurt me to feel her hurting so, with sorrow because she was blind and could not look upon me in what seemed my hour of glory. My eyes filled with water and burning salt a moment before hers did, too. And then, as if she knew well enough what had passed between as she reached out her hand to touch away the tears on my cheek that she could not see.

'It was this way with your grandfather, too,' she said. 'You have his gift.'

She gave voice to a thing that we had never spoken of before, for many years it had remained our secret. During the quest, however, Master Juwain and Maram — and my other companions — had discov ered what my grandmother called my gift: that what others feel I feel as well. If I let myself, their joy became my joy, their love flowed into me like the warm, onstreaming rays of the sun. But I was open to darker passions as well: hatred, pain, fury, fear. For my gift was also a curse. How many times on the journey to Argattha, I wondered, had Master Juwain and Maram watched me nearly die with every enemy I had sent on to the otherworld in the screaming agony of death?