Black Jade (105 page)

'La neshama halla jai Maitreya
!
'

In the air in front of him, a plain golden cup appeared. It seemed at once to be as hard as diamond and without true substance, like light. Bemossed reached out with his bandaged arm to grasp this cup. The moment that his fingers closed around it, my sword blazed a bright glorre. Then a dazzling radiance filled up every corner of the cottage, and swelled outward and upward to illuminate the green hills around us and the deep blue of the sky. Strangely, our enemy, riding ever closer, seemed unable to perceive this splendid light.

'The gelstei!' Maram shouted. He seemed stunned as by a hammer blow to his head. He ran over to the horses, and removed his firestone from the waterskin encasing it. He held it up for us all to see.
'My
gelstei - look, it cools!'

Liljana and Master Juwain took out their gelstei then,too.

'I won't break the truce,' Maram sighed out, tucking the fire-stone down into the pocket of his trousers. He came back over to me. 'I think you Valari are right, after all. All that
really
matters is honor - to honor the glory of life. And so if I must die, I must die, too bad.'

Liljana pointed at the gray-cloaked man who rode with the three priests behind Lord Mansarian. 'I doubt if that is really Morjin.
He
wouldn't trust us to keep the truce. I was wrong, Val. Don't waste the best of yourself on him.'

'I agree,' Master Juwain told me. He seemed able to breathe more easily. 'It is likely some sort of trap.'

Atara moved up next to me, and she reached out blindly to lay her hand on my chest. And she said, 'Do what you were born to do, but not
this
murder.'

Our enemy came even closer, within the long range of our arrows, and now even Kane put down his bow. He turned to gaze at Bemossed with great dread, and yet with an intense longing, too. I knew that he wanted to weep and laugh and roar out all his wild joy of life, all at once. Finally he said to me, 'Do not use the valarda to slay. Remember the two wolves, Val. Remember who you really are.'

At this, Bemossed smiled. He held out his hand to me.

'Valashu Elahad!' someone called out from far away. The voice sounded raspy, like that of Lord Mansarian. 'Liljana Ashvaran! Maram Marshayk! Atara Ars Narmada! We know that these are your real names!'

And then a deeper, richer voice reverberated across the field. It was bright like silver and as cruel as steel. It rang with a will toward torment and vengeance, and left no doubt who in the body of men riding toward us held command. Too often, in my dreams and in my waking hours, I had trembled with loathing as I listened to the fell, deceptive, deadly voice of Morjin.

'Valashu Elahad!' the man in the gray cloak cried out to me. 'It has been too long - too long since I said farewell to your mother, and to Mesh!'

I turned away from Bemossed then. I could not take his outstretched hand. I noticed Daj staring at my fiery sword.

At a distance of two hundred yards. Lord Mansarian called for a halt and sent the knight bearing the white banner cantering toward us. He rode straight up to the cottage. He drew up in front of our wall, and said to us, 'You are offered a truce, that Lord Mansarian might discuss with you the terms of your surrender.'

'Terms!' I shouted. 'We all know the terms here: our deaths, or yours!'

The knight looked at Bemossed standing next to me. He said, 'Lord Mansarian has asked me to assure you that he will do all he can to spare the life of the Hajarim. Will you speak with him?'

Kane, standing on my other side, snarled in my ear: 'It's a trap!

Don't let that Morjin thing come any closer!'

I fought to quiet the wild pounding of my heart. I remembered how Lord Mansarian had protected Bemossed at our performance for King Arsu - likely at great risk to himself. I said to Kane, 'He
might
spare him.'

'He
won't,
damn it! Don't let them close, I say!'

'No,' I whispered. 'I
want
them all as near as they can be.' I nodded at the knight. 'All right - tell Lord Mansarian that he can approach us, and we will honor the truce.'

But the knight shook his head at this. He sat holding up the white banner, and he said, 'First, put down your bows and come out from behind that wall. My lord will not meet beneath the threat of your arrows.'

'All right,' I said again. 'We will come out - twenty yards only.' I nodded to Kane and Maram, and we began walking toward the door. And the knight pointed at Atara, and said, 'The princess, too.'

'But she is blind!' I said.

'So are bats blind,' the knight said, 'and yet somehow they fly through the air straight as arrows. My orders are clear on this: the princess must put down her bow.'

Atara smiled coldly, and she laid her bow on top of the wall. She, too, moved over toward the door. So did Bemossed. He said to me, 'Let me come with you.'

I looked for the golden cup in his hand, but I could no longer see it. The radiance pouring out of him seemed lost to the hellish glare of the sun. I told him, 'No, you must stay here. It will be all right.'

I told the knight that we would meet with his master, and he turned to gallop back to Lord Mansarian.

I drew in a long, deep breath of burning air. I clamped my fingers around the hilt of my sword, and I tried not to look at Bemossed. Then, with Maram, Kane and Atara close behind me, I stepped through the doorway out into the brilliant sunlight.

My friends followed me out across the grass to a distance of twenty yards. There we waited.

Lord Mansarian and his knights, with Morjin and the priests behind them, came within a hundred yards of us, and then fifty. If they should break into a charge, or at any time draw their swords, we could beat a quick retreat back into the cottage.

At twenty yards, I called out, 'That is far enough! Come down from your horses!'

'What!' Lord Mansarian wheezed out. 'Who are you to issue commands here?'

'We are not mounted,' I told him, 'and we will not hold parlay with you speaking down to us.'

Lord Mansarian looked behind him at the man in the gray cloak. This mud-spattered traveler threw back his hood to reveal a shock of golden blond hair and a beautiful face that I knew too well. His golden eyes burned into mine. In the manner of the Grays, he had affixed to his forehead a flat, dark stone: a black gelstei. It seemed to suck at my will to resist him. He, himself, seemed to swell with an enormous will to crush anyone who stood against him. I felt a weakness run through my legs as if my body were being drained of blood.

'Lord Morjin?' Lord Mansarian said to this man.

'We will dismount,' he said. His beautiful voice pounded through the air like a great hammer. 'Let the Elahad have his way.'

His motions as he came down from his horse were sure and swift. He seemed as full of life as a young lion. I felt sure that Morjin had lost the power of illusion over me, and so he could not disguise the hideousness of his true appearance as a rotting old man - if indeed he still appeared so. I doubted this. Looking at him, I suddenly doubted all that I knew to be true. I wondered, again, if he had used the Lightstone to remake himself as he had been in his body long ago. As for his soul, I thought, nothing could ever expunge its foul, terrible stench. I could not tell if he was really Morjin. Indeed, in this hateful creature who stood glaring at me, it seemed that Morjin and his droghul might have become as one.

'We demand your surrender!' he called out to me. 'Throw down all your weapons, your gesltei, too, and your lives will be spared!'

I let my hand rest on the hilt of my sword. I wondered if I could whip free my blade and charge him, and cut him down before the six dismounted knights standing near Lord Mansarian stopped me. If I cut his cloak and tunic to bloody shreds, I wondered, would I find the Ltghtstone secreted there?

'How long will you let us live then?' I asked him. 'Long enough for your priests to nail us to crosses?'

It shouldn't have surprised me that Arch Uttam, at Morjin's right, had found the hardiness to ride with the Red Capes in our pursuit, so great was the malice that he held for us. On the other side of Morjin stood my old enemy, Salmelu. Although he called himself Haar Igasho now, and he wore a red robe instead of armor and the emblem of a prince of Ishka, his ugliness of face and spirit were the same. He smiled at me as if my plight gave him great satisfaction.

'If you don't surrender, Eiahad,' Salmelu told me, 'you
will
be crucified!'

Arch Uttam turned to cast him a venomous look. I sensed his jealousy that Salmelu had the privilege of accompanying their master.

'That is for Lord Morjin to decide,' he reminded Saimelu. 'Lord Morjin, the Merciful and Compassionate!'

He gazed at Morjin as if he did not suspect that this creature might be only a soulless droghul. I wondered, however, if he truly believed that Morjin could be the Maitreya.

'Surrender, Valashu Eiahad.' Morjin called to me, 'and you have my promise that you won't be crucified. You will live as long as you can.'

The command in his voice stunned me. I thought it an abom-nation that he too, possessed the gift of vaiarda. He poured all of his power into willing me to submit to him.

'You lie,' I said. I stood there sweating and fighting for breath. 'And so we will surrender only when we are dead.'

'Is it death you want so badly? Would you bring it upon your friends and everyone you encounter?' He drew in a deep breath, and then roared out: 'Ra Zahur!'

The third priest, a man as squat and hairy as an ape, struggled with the tarp that he had taken down from the packhorse. He moved with a great strength, as if he spent the hours of the day lifting stones. At last, when he had the bundle standing upright, he used a knife to slash the rope binding it. He pulled down the tarp to reveal the face and body of a boy about fourteen years old.

'Taitu!' Bemossed cried out from behind the cottage's wall.

'Why? Why.'

He came running, and although I yelled for him to go back inside, he paid me no heed. It was all I could do to catch him and hold him fast before he closed the distance toward Morjin and his filthy priests.

I stared out at Lord Mansarian, hating him as well as Morjin. Taitu, I saw, had been stripped naked, and he could not stand of his own. I thought it a miracle that the hard ride slung over the back of a bounding horse hadn't killed him outright. I sensed, though, that he didn't have long to live: the horse's backbone had crushed Taitu's organs as surely as had the mule's kick, swelling out his belly again with blood. His soft eyes had grown glassy, and he seemed to cry out silently for Bemossed to help him.

'It is said,' Arch Uttam called out, 'that the Hajarim healed this boy with a laying on of his hands. That power is the Maitreya's only, and so all who have conspired in this lie have committed an Error Mortal. The boy's father and sister have already paid the price, and even now hang on crosses in their village.'

'No!' Bemossed cried out. 'It is
you
who lie!'

'Be quiet, Hajarim!' Arch Uttam spat out. He moved over and drove his fist into Taitu's belly. He waited a long time for Taitu to finish screaming. Then he said, 'As you can see, the boy is
not
healed. But we are merciful, as always. Ra Zahur! Help him!'

While I held Bemossed fast with my arm, Ra Zahur plunged his knife into Taitu's belly, and ripped him open. A great gout of blood poured out of him, along with his ruptured organs. From the cottage behind us, I heard Liljana cry out in grief. Kane cast Morjin a look that seemed blacker than any gelstei, and wondered if he had hidden in his pocket one of his throwing knives. Nearly two hundred yards across the field, Lord Mansarian's red-caped soldiers in their quiet, mounted lines gazed upon this horror. Surely they had seen worse crimes. As for Morjin, he watched Taitu die with all the compassion he might have held for a worm. I sensed that he cared nothing for Taitu, but took great pleasure in Bemossed's

pain.

'Once,' Bemossed said to Morjin, 'I thought you
were
the

Maitreya. But now I see what you are.'

Bemossed stood staring at Morjin, and a terrible sadness welled up out of him. I marveled that he seemed able to suffer great anguish and sorrow and yet remain open to the deep light that filled his eyes. I could not. I felt only acid burning a hole through my heart. Bemossed seemed to sense this, and he turned his attention toward me. I thought that he feared nothing, for himself. But for me, everything. I knew that he did not want to lose me to the dark, twisting thing ripping me open. 'No,' he murmured to me. 'Not this way.'

I gripped the hilt of my sword. I sensed Alkaladur burning in its scabbard, where I had sheathed it. If it grew as hot as a fire-stone, I wondered, would it melt straight through the scabbard's thin metal?

Morjin kicked his boot into Taitu's fallen body. He smiled at me. He nodded at Bemossed and asked me, 'Well, Elahad? Will you surrender and spare your friends such agony?'

I knew then that he
wanted
Bemossed to live: so that he could torture out of him the secret of how the Lightstone might be used to its fullest power. He wanted, too, for me to draw my sword.

'We will never surrender to you!' I called out. 'I told you this in Argattha!'

Morjin - or his droghul - smiled at Atara, who stood next to Kane. He told her simply, 'Surrender, and I will restore what I took from you.'

But she shook her blindfolded head, and said softly, 'Liar.'

I felt a pressure filling up my belly and pressing at my brain behind my eyes. Water, I thought, builds within a cloud until the thunder sounds and the lightning flashes to let it out. I suddenly knew that I must strike out with the valarda. Morjin - Lord Mansarian and the priests, too - stood close enough that they would feel its full force.

'Surrender,' Morjin demanded of me again, pointing toward the cottage at Estrella, 'or I will do to the girl what I let Haar Igasho and my soldiers do to your mother.'