Lord of Lies Read Free Page B

is ... everything. All the stars in the universe. I can't tell you how bright is their light. It fell upon me like the stroke of a shining sword that brought joy instead of death. I was alive as I've never been alive before, and every particle of my being seemed to blaze like the sun. And then, for a moment, the light, myself - there was no difference. It was all as one.'
    As Maram pulled at his beard, Master Juwain listened quietly and watted for me to say more Then he spoke with a strange gravity. 'You should mark well the miracle of these moments. We all should.'
    'Why, sir? Others have experienced similar things. I'm no different to anyone else.'
    'Aren't you?'
    He stepped closer to me and studied the scar cut into my forehead. It was shaped like a lightning bolt, the result of a wound to my flesh during the violence of my birth.
    'It was you,' he said, 'who found the Lightstone in the darkness of Argattha when it was invisible to everyone else. As it had remained invisible for all of an age.'
    'Please, sir - we shouldn't speak of this again.'
    'No, I'm afraid we must speak of it, before it's too late. You see, Master Sebastian-'
    'He's a great astrologer,' I admitted. I hated interrupting Master Juwain, or anyone, but I had gone too far to stop. 'His knowledge is very great, but a man's fate can't be set by the stars.'
    'No, perhaps not set, as a chisel's mark in stone,' Master Juwain said. 'It is more like a jeweled tapestry. All that is, or ever will be, is part of it. And each golden thread, each diamond woven into it, reflects the light of all the others. There is only one pattern, one master pattern, as I've said a hundred times. As above, so below. The stars, from where we came, mark the place we will return to. And mark it in patterns within the one pattern resonant with the patterns of our lives. Your life, Val, has already been marked out from all others. Everyone has seen this, in who you are, in what you've done. But Master Sebastian has seen it in the stars.'
    He motioned for Maram and me to follow him across the room to where a large desk stood facing the wall. Many old books were heaped on top of it. One was a genealogy of the noble Valari families; another was entitled, simply: The Lesser Gelstei. The largest book was Master Juwain's prized copy of the Saganom Elu, bound in ancient leather. He had placed it, and other books, so that they weighted down the corners of a scroll of parchment. Inked onto its yellow-white surface was a great wheel of a circle, divided by lines like slices of a pie. Other lines formed squares within the circle, and there was a single, equal-sided triangle, too. Around the circle's edge were written various arcane symbols which I took to represent other worlds or the greatest of the heavens' constellations.
    'Before I left for Nar,' Master Juwain said to me, 'I asked Master Sebastian to work up this horoscope from the reported hour of your birth.' Here he stabbed his finger at a cluster of symbols at the top of the circle. 'Do you see how your sun is at the midheaven in the constel lation of the Archer? This is the sign of a soul that streaks out like an arrow of light to touch stars. At the midheaven also is Aos, and this is an indication of a great spiritual teacher. And there also, Niran, which portends a spiritual Master or great king. Their conjunction is striking and very strong.'
    As the afternoon deepened toward evening, and Maram bent over the desk with me, breaking in my ear, Master Juwain went on to point out other features of my horoscope: the grand trine formed by Elad, Tyra and my moon; my moon, itself, in the Crab Constellation, indicating deep and powerful passions for life that I kept hidden inside to protect myself and avoid hurting others; my Siraj in the castle of service in the sign of the Ram, which marked me out as a man who blazed new paths for others to follow. Directly across the circle from it was to be found my Shahar, planet of vision and transcendence.