Black Jade (15 page)

'So, I think you can see your
own
end. And long for it too much, eh?'

I shook my head at this, and told him, 'Last year, at the Tournament when Asaru lay abed with a wounded shoulder, King Mohan spoke these words to me: "A man can never be sure that his acts will lead to the desired result; he can only be sure of the acts, themselves. Therefore each act must be good and true, of its own.'

'A warrior's code, eh? Act nobly, always with honor, and smile at death, if that is the result. The code of the Valari.'

'Yes,' I said, 'better death than life lived as Morjin lives, or as one of his slaves.'

Kane regarded Daj and Estrella a moment before turning back to me. He said, 'But we're not speaking of the death of a lone warrior, or even an entire army, but that of the whole world and all that
is
!'

'I ... know.'

'Do you really? What, then,
is
good? Where will you find truth? Do you know
that,
as well?'

'I know it as well as I can. Is it not written in the Law of the One?'

'So, so,' he murmured, glaring at me.

'Is it not written that a man may slay another man only in defense of life? And is it not also written that the Elijin may not slay at all?'

'So, so.'

'And yet you slay so
gladly.
As you would have had me slay Morjin!'

At this he gripped the hilt of his sword and smiled, showing his long white teeth. But there was no mirth on his savage face.

'You are one of the Elijin!' I said to him.

'No, Kalkin was of the Elijin,' he told me. 'I am Kane.'

I held out my hand to him and said, 'If I gave you this sword that is inside me, would
you
slay with it? What law for the valarda, then?'

'I ... don't remember.'

His eyes smoldered with a dark fire almost too hot to bear. I felt his heart beating in great, angry surges inside him. It came to me then that there were those who could not abide their smailness, and they feared mightily obliteration in death. But those, like Kane, who turned away from their greatness dreaded even more the glory of life. How long had this ancient warrior stood alone in shadows and dark chasms, away from all others, even from himself? Was it not a terrible thing for a man to forget who he really was?'

'I know,' I said to him, 'that the valarda was not meant for slaying-'

So - you
know
this, do you?'

'Somewhere,' I said. 'It must be written in the Law of the One.'

Kane stared at me as through a wall of flame. His jaws clenched. and the muscles of his windburnt cheeks popped out like knots of wood. It seemed that the veins of his neck and face could not contain the bursts of blood coursing through him.

Then he whipped his sword from its sheath and shouted at me. 'Then damn the One!'

His words seemed to horrify him, as they did the rest of us. Daj sat looking at him in awed silence. Even Estrella seemed to wilt beneath his fearsome countenance.

Then Kane murmured, 'What I meant to say was that
Asangal
damned the One. Angra Mainyu did - do you understand?'

I looked down at my open hand. A bloody spike pierced the palm through the bones. The agony of this iron nail still tore through me, as did that of the other nails driven through my mother's hands and feet. And I said to Kane, 'Yes - I
do
understand.'

I felt the hard hurt of his sword pressing into his own hand. He did not want to look at me, but he could not help it. His eyes said what his lips would not:
I
am damned. And so are you.
'No, no,' I told him. I took a step closer and covered his hand with mine. 'Peace, friend.'

As gently as I could, I peeled back his fingers from his sword's hilt then took it away from him. He stood like a stunned lamb as he watched me slide it back into its sheath.

'Valashu,' he whispered to me.

I clasped hands with him then, and stood looking at him eye to eye. His blood burned against my palm with every beat of his great, beautiful heart. Such a wild joy of life surged inside him! Such a brillance brightened his being, like unto the splendor of the stars! What
was
the truth of the valarda, I wondered? Only this: that it was a sword of light, truly, but something much more. It passed from man to man, brother to brother, as the very stars poured out to each other their fiery radiance, onstreaming, shining upon all things and calling to that deeper light within that was their source.

'Kalkin,' I said to him, whispering his name. For a moment, as through veil rent with a lightning flash, I looked upon a being of rare power and grace. But only for a moment. 'No, no,' he murmured. 'You promised.' 'I am sorry,' I said.

'No, it is I who am sorry. What do I really know of the valarda, eh? Perhaps you were right to try to keep
that
sword within its sheath.'

His gaze, it seemed, tore open my heart. I said to him, 'If Angra Mainu is defeated, I do not believe that it will be by my hand, or yours, or even that of Ashtoreth and Valoreth.' 'Perhaps you are right. Perhaps.' 'And so with Morjin.' 'So, so.'

'Only the Maitreya,' I said, 'can keep him from using the Lightstone. And I do not believe I will ever be allowed to lay eyes upon this Shining One if I use the valarda to slay.'

Then he smiled at me, a true smile, all warm and sweet like honey melting in the sun. 'So, there will be no slaying tonight, let us hope. Peace, friend.'

He stepped back over to the breastwork and picked up his bow again. His smile grew only wider as his eyes filled with amusement, irony and a mystery that I would never quite be able to apprehend.

After that it grew dark, and then nearly as black as a moonless eve, for here at the bottom of the gorge, there was very little light. Its towering walls reduced the heavens to a strip of stars running east and west above us. But one of these stars, I saw, was bright Aras. After all the work of washing the dishes and settling into our camp was completed, with Atara singing Estrella to sleep and Kane standing watch over us, I lay back against my mother earth to keep a vigil upon this sparkling light. It blazed throughout the night like a great beacon, and I wondered how this star of beauty and bright shining hope could ever be put out.

I did not welcome my awakening the next morning. My battle wounds - mostly bruises from edged weapons or maces that had failed to penetrate my mail - hurt. The cold wind tunneling down the gorge set my stiff body to shivering, and that hurt even more. No ray of sun warmed the gorge directly for the first few hours of the day, as we ate our breakfast and broke camp with a slowness and heaviness of motion. Ail of us, except Kane, perhaps, were exhausted. It would have been good to remain there all day before a crackling fire, eating and resting, but we needed to gain as much distance as we could from the gorge's entrance at the gateway to the Wendrush. And so we loaded our horses and drank one of Master Juwain's teas to drive the weariness from our bodies. Then we set forth into the gorge, winding our way around walls of naked rock deeper into the Kul Kavaakurk's shadows.

As we kicked our way over the rattling stones along the river-bank, I looked back behind us often and listened for any sign of pursuit. I sniffed at the cool air and reached out with a deeper sense, as well. I heard water rushing along its course and smelled spring leaves fluttering in the wind, but the only eyes upon us were those of the squirrels or the birds singing in the branches of the gorge's many trees. No one, it seemed, followed us. Nothing sought to harm us. The only enemy we faced that morning, I thought, dwelled within. The horror of what lay behind us in the previous day's butchery haunted all of us, even those who had not actually witnessed the battle. We feared what lay ahead in the vast unmapped reaches of the lower Nagarshath. Fear, in truth, was the worst of all our inner demons, for who among us did not gaze up at the sky and wonder if the Dark One could devour the very sun?

It was after dinner that evening when Maram finally let fear take hold of him. He rose up from the campfire to tend his horse's bruised hoof, or so he said. But I followed him and found him in the stand of trees where the horses were tethered, rummaging through the saddlebags of Master Juwain's remount. Quick as a weasel stealing eggs, he prized out a bottle of brandy and uncorked it. I ran over to him and slapped my hand upon his wrist with such force that I nearly knocked the bottle from his hand. And I shouted at him, 'What of your vow?'

And he shouted back at me, 'What of
your
vow, then?'

I clamped my fingers harder around his massive wrist as he struggled to bring the mouth of the bottle up to his fat lips. And I asked him, 'What vow?'

'Ah, what you said when we first met, that ours would be a lifelong friendship. What kind of friend keeps his friend from drinking away his pain?'

'The kind who would keep him from a greater pain.'

'You speak as if we have endless moments left to us.'

'Our whole lives, Maram.'

'Yes, our whole lives, as long as they will be. But how long
will
they be? Didn't you hear
anything
of what was said last night? Months we have, until Morjin frees Angra Mainyu, perhaps only days. And so why not allow me what little joy I can find in this forsaken place?'

I let go his arm and stood facing him. 'Drink then, if that is what you must do!'

'I shall! I shall! Only, do not look at me like that!'

I continued staring through the twilight into his large, brown eyes.

'Ah, damn you, Val!' he said more softly. 'I'll do what I want, do you understand? What I choose. And what I choose now is
not
to drink after all. You've ruined the moment, too bad.'

So saying, he put the cork back in the bottle and sealed it with an angry slap of his hand. He tucked it back into Master Juwain's saddlebag. Then he stood beneath the gorge's towering wall staring at me.

Our shouts drew the others. They stood around us in a half-circle as Maram said, by way of explanation, 'All that talk last night of Angra Mainyu and worlds ending in fire - it was too much!'

Kane eyed the poorly tied strings of the saddlebag but did not comment upon them. Then he said, 'Perhaps it
was
.'

There was a kindness in his voice that I had heard only rarely. His black eyes held Maram in the light of compassion, and that was rarer still.

'There are only six of us against Morjin and all his armies!' Maram cried out. 'Eight, if we count the children! How can we possibly keep the Dragon at bay while we find the Maitreya?'

'We were one fewer,' Kane said, 'when we found our way into Argattha.'

'But Morjin is stronger now, isn't he? I
saw
this. So damn strong. And there is Angra Mainyu, too.'

Kane regarded him as a deep light played in his eyes. And then he snarled out, 'Strong, you say? Ha, they are weak!'

His words astonished us. I stared at him as I shook my head. He was a man, I thought, who could hold within fierce contradictions, like two tigers in rut locked inside the same small cage.

'So, weak they are,' he growled out again. 'Who are the strong, then, the truly powerful? They who follow the Law of the One, even though their faithfulness leads to their death. They who bring the design of the One into its fullest flowering, for in creation lies true life. But Morjin and his master create nothing. They fear everything, and their own feebleness most of all. So, fearing, thus they hate, and in hating chain themselves to all that is hateful and foul. Daj escaped from Argattha, Estrella, too, but how can the two Dragons ever break free from the hellhole that they have made for themselves with every nail they have pounded into flesh and every eye they have gouged out? From the very chains that they have forged to make themselves slaves? So. So. Knowing this, they would cloak their slave souls in royal robes and seek to conquer others, as proof of their power over life - and death. But the truly free can never be conquered, eh? At least not conquered in
their
souls. The stars can all die, their radiance, too, but
not
the light of the One. It is
this
that terrifies Angra Mainyu, and Morjin, too. And that is why, in the end, we'll win.'

His words stunned Maram more than they soothed him. But for the moment, at least, they drove back the demons that impelled him to find solace in his brandy bottle. He stood proud and tall staring at Kane, transformed from a drunkard into a Valari knight. And he said, 'Do you really think we can win?'

'So, we
must
win - and so we will.'

Kane, I thought, understood the nature of evil better than any man. But it was the nature of evil, the truly horrible thing about it, that understanding alone would not keep evil from devouring a man alive.

'We
will
win,' Master Juwain affirmed, looking at Maram, 'so long as we do not let down our guard. Have you been practicing the Light Meditations?'

'Ah, perhaps not as often as I should,' Maram said.

'Well, what about the Way Rhymes, then? Memorizing them would be a better balm than brandy.'

'Ah, I'm too tired, and it's too late. My brain aches almost as much as my poor body.'

'Then I'll prepare you a tisane that will wake you up.'

'Ah, what if I don't want to wake up?'

Master Juwain rubbed the back of his shiny head as he regarded Maram. He seemed at a loss for words.

It was Liljana who came to his rescue. She waggled her finger at Maram, then poked it below his ribs as she said, 'How many nights have I stayed up cooking and cleaning so that
you
might go to bed with a full belly? Master Juwain has asked you to memorize his verses, and so you should, for
our
sakes, if not your own.'

Everyone looked at Maram then, and he held up his hands in defeat - or in victory, depending on one's point of view.

'All right, all right,' he said, 'I'll learn these silly rhymes, if that's what you all want. It will easier than everyone nagging me all the time.'