The Shadow and Night by Chris Walley Read Free Book Online

without thinking, “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, Aunt. But I thought he said he hadn’t dreamed.”
    Zennia, looking away from him, remained still, her only movement the agitated twisting of her fingers on the door frame. When she spoke it was in awkward, hacked phrases. “Well . . . I really can’t—I’m not sure . . . exactly what he said.”
    There was a clumsy pause in which both were silent. Then she turned, gave him a cool, formal smile, and left, calling gently over her shoulder as she pulled the door behind her closed, “Good night and blessings, Merral.”
    The door was closed by the time he had begun to return her benediction.

    With his mind in total confusion, Merral clicked the diary off, and the image looming over his desk instantly vanished. He sat back in the chair, arms behind his head, trying to unravel his perplexed thoughts. So, Barrand had had a foul dream too. That was curious. One bad dream in a house was odd, but for two people to have one on the same night was very mysterious. Yet the dream was not what worried him or, he suspected, Zennia. No, what was making his mind reel was that this morning Barrand had definitely said that he had slept well and had had no dreams. He had said it plainly. And Zennia’s unhappiness when he had pressed her had confirmed it. She avoided answering his inquiry because she couldn’t face the fact that her husband had lied earlier in the day. And with that answer came a terrible awareness: Could it really be that his uncle had lied?
    Under the thrust of the word lied Merral got up and paced the small room in agitation. The very word lie was unfamiliar. To deceive, to willfully alter truth; he knew theoretically—as everyone did—what it meant. But understood it was never practiced. You might sometimes mislead people in sport, like in Team-Ball games, where you made them think you were going right not left, but that, of course, was not lying. Nor was it lying to pull a verbal surprise, as in a joke or a riddle. And even when asked a question where the answer would be hurtful to the hearer, it was easy enough, at least in Communal—the historic languages were harder—to give an answer that allowed it to be understood that, for whatever reason, you preferred not to commit yourself. True, the idea of lying came to you on occasions, particularly when you had made a mistake. But you just pushed the idea aside. Since the time of the Great Intervention, the temptation to willfully deceive someone had had little real force. Jannafy’s rebellion in the first days of the Assembly had probably been the last instance of large-scale deception.
    No, Merral concluded, the idea of lying was hateful. The entire edifice of the civilization of the Assembly of Worlds was built on truth and on its counterpart, trust. The lie was the enemy to all that. As he lay down on the bed, he reflected that it was an axiom of the whole era of the Lord’s Peace from the Intervention till now that no one lied. Truth had been sacred since the Dark Times, over eleven thousand years ago.
    And yet, the thought nagged at Merral until sleep finally fell on him; the conclusion seemed inescapable.
    His uncle had lied.

3

    M erral was up early the next morning, and after donning his jacket, slipped outside to look at the weather. Although the sun should have been rising there was only a dull glow in the east, and in the gloom he could faintly make out that during the night the wind had changed and was now coming out of the barren wastelands of the west. At least, he comforted himself, from that direction neither rain nor snow would come.
    When Merral entered the kitchen he found Barrand sitting at the table. There was an unhappy look on his face, and after the briefest of greetings he blurted out, “Merral, I’m so sorry about yesterday! The whole thing was ridiculous! Zennia said you were worried because I seemed to