David Zindell - The Lightstone

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 livingAnd 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 searched 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.