Abdel ibn Zaid stared at the cagey old man, and his first thought was that the prophet must be lying to him to save the prince. It was exactly what ibn Zaid would have done in his place, sending the hunters off in the wrong direction and leaving the prince free to pursue whatever course he chose.
But that wouldn’t be in character with the nature of the priesthood. The followers of Oromasd believed firmly in the truth—and this prophet, as a particularly holy man, would revere it even more. For him to lie that blatantly would be a betrayal of his entire life’s work and could, by his own beliefs, damn him to the Pits of Torment until the rehabilitation at the end of the world. No, he would not lie merely to save some temporal prince. Whatever his reasons for doing so, he had told the truth.
