Lord of Lies. David Zindell

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СКАЧАТЬ Master Juwain paused to take a deep breath, I felt my heart beating hard and painfully inside me. And then he said, ‘For one born beneath stars such as yours, it is necessary to die in order to be reborn – as the Silver Swan emerges with wings of light from the flames of its own funeral pyre. Such a one is rare, indeed. A master astrologer, and many men, might call him the Shining One.’

      Sweat was now running down my sides in hot streams beneath my armor. I could scarcely breathe, so I pushed back from the desk and moved over to the window for some fresh air. I fairly drank in the wind pouring down from the mountains. Then I turned to Master Juwain and said, ‘What did you mean he might be called the Shining One?’

      ‘You see, your horoscope is certainly that of a great man, and almost that of a Maitreya.’

      ‘Almost? Then –’

      Before I could say more, the faint fall of footsteps sounded in the hall outside the door, punctuated by the sound of wood striking stone. Master Juwain, who had a mind like the gears of a clock, smiled as if satisfied by the result of some secret calculation.

      ‘You see,’ he said by way of explanation, ‘I’ve asked for help in deciding this matter.’

      There came a soft rapping at the door. Master Juwain crossed the room and opened it. Then he invited inside a small, old woman who stepped carefully as she tapped a wooden cane ahead of her.

      ‘Nona!’ I cried out. It was my grandmother, Ayasha Elahad. I rushed across the room to embrace her frail body. Then I placed her arm around mine, and led her over to one of the chairs at the tea table. ‘Where is Chaya? You shouldn’t go walking about by yourself.’

      I spoke the name of the maidservant who had volunteered to help my grandmother negotiate the castle’s numerous corridors and treacherous stone stairs. For during the half year of my journey, my grandmother had lost her sight almost overnight: now the white frost of cataracts iced over both her eyes. But strangely, although the cataracts kept out the light of the world, they could not quite keep within a deeper and sweeter light. Her essential goodness set my heart to hurting with the sweetest of pains, as it always did. I had often thought of her as the source of love in my family – as the sun is the source of life on earth.

      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 affliction.

      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 tell 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 at 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 finger 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 Val’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 rising 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 СКАЧАТЬ