Free Lord of Lies by David Zindell Page A

front of my family's table, here pausing to stab his finger at me as he made a point, there sneering at me as he spat out his filthy accusations. He was all of Morjin's rage and hate, which bubbled up in his blood like poison and transformed him from a once-proud Valari warrior into a snarling, vengeful mockery of a man.
    Once before, in King Hadaru's palace, Salmelu's lies had nearly driven me mad. And so I had challenged him to a duel that left him with terrible wounds - and had nearly killed me. Now, in the heart of my father's castle, I placed my hands flat upon the cool wood of the table before me where I could see them. I commanded them not to move.
    'You ,' Samelu said, pointing at me again, 'are also an assassin who tried to murder Lord Morjin. Is any crime so great as regicide?'
    Once, in a dark wood not far from this place, Salmelu had fired into my body an arrow tipped with kirax in which Morjin had set his spite The poison would always burn through my veins and connect me heart to heart with Morjin. His Red Priest, Salmelu who was now Igasho, continued firing poison into me in the form of his hateful words.
    'And now you ,' he continued, 'pose as the Lord of Light when you know that it is Lord Morjin who has been called to lead Ea into the new age.'
    My hands, welded to the table by the stickiness of some spilt beer, no less my will, remained motionless. But I could not keep my lips from forming these words: 'If the Maitreya is Morjin, then light is dark, love is hate, and good has become evil.'
    'You speak of evil, Lord Valashu? You speak that of one who is famed for his forgivingness?'
    So saying, he removed from his pocket a small, gilded box. He stepped forward and laid it on the table just beyond the tips of my fingers.
    'What is this?' I asked.
    'A gift from Lord Morjin.'
    'I want nothing from him!' I said, staring at the box. 'It cannot be accepted.'
    'But it belongs to you. Or, I should say, to one of your friends.' I looked across the hall to see Maram craning his neck to get a glimpse of what the box might hold. Baltasar, too, had half risen out of his seat.
    'Don't open it, Val!' Master Juwain called from his table. 'Give it back to him!'
    At last, as if my hands had a life and will of their own, they moved to grasp the box and open it. I threw back its lid and gasped to see inside two small spheres that looked like chunks of charred meat. They stank of hemlock and sumac and acids used to tan flesh. I coughed and choked and swallowed hard against the bile rising up from my belly. For I knew with a sudden and great bitterness what these two spheres were: Atara's eyes that Morjin had clawed out with his own fingers and cast into a brazier full of red-hot coals.
    Every abomination, I thought. Every degradation of the human spirit.
    'Do you see?' Samelu said to me. His mocking voice beat at me like a war drum. 'Lord Morjin would return this treasure to your woman by your hand. And now the Cup of Heaven must be returned to him'.
    Despite myself, I moved my fingers to touch these blackened orbs that I had once touched with my lips; it was as if I had touched the blackness at the very center of Morjin's heart. I felt myself falling into a bottomless abyss. I leapt up as I whipped out my sword and pointed it at Salmelu.
    'I'lll return you to the stars!' I shouted at him.
    'Hold!' my father called out. 'Hold him, Ravar!'
    Quick as an arrow Ravar flew out of his chair and grabbed hold of me. So did Asaru and Karshur, who came up behind me and locked their arms around me as they clasped me close to their strong bodies.
    'Do you see?' Salmelu cried out again as he backed away from my table. 'Do you see what a murderer this Elahad is?'
    Truly, I thought, I was a murderer of men. And now I struggled like a madman against my brothers in a rage to stab my sword through Salmelu's vile mouth. I almost broke free. For my rage was like a poison that my brothers absorbed through their skin and which weakened their will to