Black Jade (106 page)

I found myself floating in empty space as if I had been abandoned on the only world left in the universe. For a moment, everything grew cold and dark, I felt only a single thing: the terrible.

fire of life that tormented me. I knew then that I
loved
slaying in righteousness evil men such as Morjin. I
would
slay him, I vowed. I would thrust the bitter sword of my malice straight through him. He would die, like a worm caught in a holocaust of flame. And then there would be light again, and an infinitude of stars - and I would find peace at last.

'Morjin!' I cried out, 'you will never harm any of my friends again!'

His smile grew wider and brighter, and I knew that he would try to turn my hate against me. He would try to seize my will and make me into a ghul. I didn't care. I wanted to howl out all the rage inside me that I could not hold. I would then live as a maddened beast or a monster, but at least Morjin would be dead.

'Look at him!' I heard Arch Uttam say to Ra Zahur as he pointed at me. 'The only heir of King Shamesh, and he can't even decide what to do.'

'It was like that in Mesh,' Salmelu said. 'But you'll see, in the end he'll betray his friends as he did his own father and mother.'

Salmelu's face soured in contempt for me, and I knew that I would kill him, too, as I should have in the red circle of honor in King Hadaru's hall. I would kill all the creatures of Morjn, in their red robes and their shining armor, in all their hundreds and their thousands, in every land of the world. All those who stood against me in mockery and evil deeds, as Salmelu did, I would destroy.

No.

Molten silustria, I thought, must burn far hotter than even white-hot steel. With it, my silver sword had been forged. And with some substance infinitely hotter than this,
I
had been forged, the silver of my soul - and it flowed with a hellish fury in the center of my heart.

No, Valashu - you were born for more than murder and hate.

When I listened hard enough, and deeply enough, I could hear rny mother whispering to me, for she, too, dwelled within me. She did not call for vengeance. She cried out to me only that I should live, in pride and joy, as the son whom she loved.

'Valashu,' Bemossed said to me. And once again, he held out his hand to me.

I stared at his slender palm for what seemed forever. Then finally, I took hold of it. The moment that my calloused hand touched his softer fingers, my fury to destroy brightened into a rage to live. Something dark and ugly inside me burned away in a fiery light. I felt instantly lighter, as if a great weight had been lifted from my chest. The air I breathed seemed sweet. I took a great gulp of it, and howled out, not in hate but in utter freedom: 'Morjin! I won't betray them! Not my friends! Not my father and mother, or my brothers!'

The blood cleared from my eyes, and I saw many things. I knew that if I struck Morjin dead, Lord Mansarian and the priests, too, I would only incite Lord Mansarian's men to a killing frenzy of revenge, for that was the way of the world. But there were other ways, as well. And Morjin, I suddenly sensed,
could
be defeated.

'I won't betray
you
!' I shouted at him. Kane stared at me in disbelief, for these were the strangest words that I had ever spoken. '"All men shall be as brothers" - so it is written in the
Darakul Elu.'

Morjin glared at me in confusion. I did not recall ever seeing him so unsure of himself. 'What do you know about
that,
Elahad?'

'I know about Iojin.'

'You ... what?'

'I know you stabbed him in the back with your own knife. And I know you loved him.'

The cloaked man standing less than twenty yards from me seemed unable to speak, and I wondered after all if he might be Morjin's droghul. He glared at me with a bottomless hate. Then he shouted, 'Be silent! You know not what you say!'

His face flushed bright red from the blood burning through him, and I suddenly knew that he had long ago poisoned
himself
with the kirax, to remind himself of what Iojin had suffered and to atone for this terrible crime.

I said to him, 'You have never gone a single day, have you, without wishing that he could live again?'

'Be silent! Damn you, Elahad!'

I remembered Kane, high on top of a mountain, telling me that there were no evil men, only evil deeds. And I said to Morjin, 'No one is damned. There is a way out.'

Now Morjin turned his terrible golden eyes and all his spite upon Bemossed.

'Let us go free,' Bemossed said to him. 'And let yourself go free.'

'Don't speak to me that way!'

Bemossed only smiled at him, in defiance, but in deep understanding, too. He fairly blazed with a deep desire that the world, and all that lived within it, should be made whole again.

'Don't look at me that way, Hajarim!'

I let go of Bemossed's hand, and grasped my sword's hilt again. And I told Morjin, 'It can all end, right here and now.'

Hot acids seemed to burn Morjin's throat, choking him, and he pointed at me as he called out to Lord Mansarian, 'Kill him! Kill the Elahad!'

Two of the knights standing near Morjin looked to Lord Mansarian in consternation. I took them as captains of the Red Capes, and I had overhead their names as Roarian and Atuan. The tall, muscular one, Atuan, nodded at Lord Mansarian. Then Lord Mansarian turned to Morjin and said, 'But, my lord, we are met here in truce!'

'How can there be truce with such as
this?'
Morjin said, hissing at me. 'Kill him, I say!'

He cannot bear it,
I thought.
That which he most desires, he cannot
abide.

I saw that Morjin could withstand very well my killing fury but not my compassion. And what, after all,
was
true compassion, this valarda that connected men soul to soul? Only suffering with. Suffering each other's joys, or suffering agonies, but always being joined as one in the great experience of life. As with love, it was a force and not a feeling.

'Morjin!' I called out.

My eyes met his, and a shock of love ran through me.
Not
love for him: only a Maitreya, I thought, could possess the grace to love such a loathsome being. My love for my family, however, blazed within me like starfire. I could not contain it. I could not keep to myself the anguish of wanting to talk to them again, to cross swords with my brother, Asaru, in a friendly practice duel, and to feel my grandmother's soft, wrinkled hand on mine as we walked together through the halls of my father's castle. I wanted to smell my mother's hair again and the spice of peppermint and honey as she made for me hot tea.

'Morjin!' I cried. 'You kill too easily! Know, then, what it was like for me when you killed my family!'

I drew my sword and pointed it at him. Its silver blade flared with a brilliant flame. If the valarda was the gift of empathy, I thought, then Alkaladur was the weapon of compassion.
Not
this length of silustria, sharper than any razor, whose diamond-bright polish drove the sunlight into Morjin's eyes. But the
true
Alkaladur, wrought of a purer substance, as radiant as the stars. The Sword of Light shone within me, as yet only half-forged. All that I had suffered had gone into its making. All that my friends had suffered
with
me infused its essence as well. Even now, as Liljana, Master Juwain and the children looked on from behind the wall of the cottage, and Kane, Maram and Atara stood by my side, I felt all their courage, kindness and great will toward life. They seemed to pass these fundamental forces to me through their eyes and in their throbbing hearts, in flames of red, orange and yellow, green and blue, indigo and violet. The whole world seemed to pass its fire to me. Somehow, Bemossed seemed to weave it all together into a pure, white blaze that streaked through my sword and me straight up into the sky. Hotter and brighter, it built, until it flared a brilliant glorre. Then this perfect color gave way to a single, clear, indestructible light. And so at the last, Bemossed's love for me, no less Morjin's hate, had put into my hand the greatest weapon in the universe.

'Damn you, Elahad!'

All the fire and force of my soul I poured into this sword. Alkaladur blazed like the sun. Across the distance between us, it struck into Morjin's heart. He gasped and grabbed his chest; he raged and cursed and wept. He stared at me with his golden eyes, now wild and maddened with anguish. I almost couldn't bear it. He had told me once that the only way I would ever free myself from suffering would be to inflict even greater suffering upon another. It was not so. As I drove the Sword of Light deeper and deeper into Morjin, my agony burned through me, and all of Morjin's incredible pain, too. I thought that it might kill me. It killed
something
in Morjin. I felt him longing desperately for some impossible thing: perhaps that he and the world could somehow be different. I felt him longing for something even more. He looked at me strangely. He cringed away from me as a black, bottomless terror took hold of him. I knew then that there was one thing that he feared above all else.

'Elahad!' he screamed out to me.

He continued screaming until his voice grew hoarse. He ranted and bit his tongue, and spat out a bloody froth. He sweated; from nearly twenty yards away, I could smell his foulness and fear. He told of how he would torture me in a dozen hideous ways. The debasement of this powerful man to a snarling, suffering, craven beast stunned all of us looking on.

And then Morjin returned to himself - or perhaps he found sustenance and strength in the being of his droghul. He drew in a deep breath, and stood up straight. He wiped the blood from his mouth. He turned to Lord Mansarian, and said, 'The truce is over. You have heard the Elahad say that they will not surrender. Therefore you will attack, and kill them all.'

'All except the Hajarim,' Lord Mansarian said, looking at Bemossed.

Morjin looked at him, too. But Bemossed's bright face seemed only to drive him to a new- fury.
'Especially
the Hajarim! You are to kill him outright, or deliver him, bound in chains, to me!'

'That was not what you promised!' Lord Mansarian rasped out.

Arch Uttam turned toward this grim, red-caped man in astonishment. So did Atuan and Roarian, and Lord Mansarian's other captains. It seemed that they had never dared to think that any soldier of Hesperu would openly contradict the great Red Dragon.

'You must have misunderstood me,' Morjin said to Lord Mansarian. His silver voice trembled with dismissal and undertones of threat, too.

'I misunderstood nothing,' Lord Mansarian said. 'The Hajarim was to be given to me, for whatever corrective that I might contrive.'

'He will be crucified!' Morjin snarled out. 'Alive or dead.'

'But Hajarim are never crucified!' Lord Mansarian reminded him.

'This one,' Morjin said, pointing at Bemossed,
'will
be crucified. You have my promise.'

Lord Mansarian looked at me, and I sensed that some part of my suffering over my family's death called him to remember the slaughter of his own. He met eyes with Bemossed, and I felt his intense gratitude for what this man had done. And something more. As Bemossed smiled at him. Lord Mansarian's dark, doomed soul began to sparkle with hope once again.

'No,' Lord Mansarian told Morjin.

'No? You say this to
me?'

Morjin's ferocious will beat down upon Lord Mansarian like a battle axe. Lord Mansarian stood there sweating. But he finally found the courage to say, 'The Hajarim saved my daughter's life. And so I owe him
his
life.'

'You owe him nothing! You owe
me
everything!'

Lord Mansarian let out a long sigh, and then traded looks with Atuan. Remorse gnawed at his eyes. He seemed suddenly unable to bear Morjin's lies and spite. Then he said to him, 'All that I have done in King Arsu's service is wrong. I will not dishonor myself, ever again.'

'You
are wrong!' Morjin shouted at him. 'All honor is to be found in loyalty: to your king, and to
his
king!'

As the tone of command reverberating through Morjin's voice grew almost too great to resist. Lord Mansarian hesitated. And Arch Uttam warned him, 'Be careful of what you say, warrior. You speak errors. Major and Mortal.'

'I speak the truth,' Lord Mansarian said. 'And I have no king.'

At this, Morjin spat on the grass in front of Lord Mansarian and told him, 'You, and all of the Crimson Companies who are gathered upon this ground today, are under King Arsu's command! And therefore mine!'

'Are they?' Lord Mansarian said, nodding at Roarian. 'Let us see about that.'

He turned and hurried over to his horse. He quickly mounted, as did Roarian and Atuan. They pointed their horses facing away from the cottage.

Now Morjin's whole body trembled as his jaws clamped together with great enough force to break his teeth. He spat again, in a spray of blood, straight at me. His face contorted with rage as he screamed, 'Damn you, Elahad!'

Then he and his priests, with the four other captains and the banner-bearer, climbed onto their mounts. They all whipped their horses to a gallop, and began a wild race with Lord Mansarian back toward the lines of Lord Mansararian's red-caped knights.

'Ah, I suppose the truce
is
over,' Maram said as he looked from Kane to me. 'What do we do now?'

'Go back,' I said. 'Let us go back inside the house.'

I placed my hand on Bemossed's shoulder to urge him to haste. But he stood facing our enemies across the field as if he would not be moved.

'You have already worked one miracle today,' I said to him. 'I know what you want, and I want it, too. But as long as Morjin lives, he'll drive men to war.'

'You do not know that, Valashu. If I held the Lightstone -'

'So,' Kane growled out to him, 'you'll hold the Lightstone only if
you
live. Which you won't if you stand here dreaming impossible dreams, eh?'