Black Jade (26 page)

'I wish the Ieldra would just
uncreate
Angra Mainyu,' Maram said. 'And Morjin I and every other evil creature in the world.'

'That is not the way of things, either,' Abrasax told him, giving him back the chess piece. 'The Ieldra, according to the One's design, sing the universe into creation. But once it
is
created, no single part may be unmade.
All
is necessary. Nothing may be subtracted just because it seems to be hateful or bad.'

I sat watching Maram twirl the chess piece between his fingers, and I said, 'If Morjin got his hands on those gelstei of yours, he'd try to use them to subtract
us
from the world. And much else that he hates.'

Abrasax nodded his head at this. 'And with Angra Mainyu, it would be much worse. Once freed from Damoom, he would try to use the Lightstone to seize the greatest of the Great Gelstei and unmake the Ieldra themselves. He would, I think, fail. But out of his failure would come cataclysm and fire, and he would cause the Ieldra to have to destroy all things.'

I turned to look out the chamber's windows up at the faraway stars. And I said, 'But why? I don't understand.'

'I'm not sure I do either,' Abrasax said with a heavy sign. 'At least not completely. It seems to me, though, that the Ieldra abide the evil of the world because out of it, sometimes, comes great good. But once
all
is fallen into darkness, forever, what would be the purpose of making everything suffer without ademption or end?'

What, indeed? I wondered, as I thought of my mother hanging all broken and bloody from a plank of wood.

As Maram continued playing with the chess piece, Abrasax looked at me and said, 'I think we have an answer to both Sar Maram's question and yours. If this king can return from the realm of the unmade, then so can a prince vanquish his fear of death -and so in dying, will not die. But only, I believe, with the help of the Maitreya.'

'If you
do
believe that,' I said to him, 'then for love of the world help us to find him!'

At this, Master Storr's fingers closed around his gelstei, and he said. 'It is for love of the world - and much, much else - that we must be sure of you. Wine poured into a cracked cup not only is wasted but helps destroy the cup.'

'I will not fail!' I half-shouted at Master Storr.

'Bold words,' he said to me. 'But what if you
do
fail?'

The room fell quiet as he and the others of the Seven sat regarding me. And then Master Okuth said, 'If the Maitreya is slain or falls into Morjin's hands, then we see no hope of Angra Mainyu ever being healed. And so no hope for Ea and all the other worlds of Eluru.'

'The risk is great beyond measure,' Master Virang said to me. 'And not just to the world, but to yourself. If
you
fall into Morjin's hands, or fall as his master did, then -'

'But we have to take the chance!' I cried out. 'Or else we might as well be dead already!'

For a while everyone sat quite still. The smell of various teas steeping in hot water filled the air. Then Abrasax looked at me with unnerving percipience, and said, 'Your manner, Valashu, the fire of your eyes, all you have dared and done - this bespeaks the attainment of the highest Valari ideal. And yet I think you find your valor in being drawn to that which you most dread.'

I said nothing as I tried to return his relentless gaze.

'You would wish,' he continued, 'for others to see you as fearless, as you would like to see yourself. But you fear this never-ness that Prince Maram has told of so terribly, don't you?'

I could hardly look at him as I nodded my head and said, 'Yes.'

'And you fear, too,' Abrasax said as the others of the Seven bent closer to me, 'that Morjin will be the one to damn you to exile in this lightless land?'

Yes, yes, yes! And as I feared, so I hated; and as I hated my heart ached with a black, bitter wrath that poisoned my blood and darkened everything I held inside as beautiful and good. How I longed to take a sword to this dreadful disease that consumed me! But I could not, as I might rid myself of a rotting limb, simply cut it out.

'And most of all,' Abrasax said, looking at me deeply, 'you fear your hatred of Morjin.'

'It is killing me!' I called out.

The fury that poured out of me beat against Liljana, Master Juwain and the others sitting close to me with the force of a raging river. It caught up the seven Masters, as well. Their faces fell ashen and sick, and Master Storr gripped the edge of his table as if to keep himself from being swept away. And then Master Juwain placed his hand on the center of my back, and I drew in three long, deep breaths.

'You see,' Abrasax said to me, 'your hate is a terrible thing, and we fear it, too.'

'I'm sorry,' I finally gasped out. 'I would have done better to have been born a lamb or made a gelding!'

Abrasax's smile was like a cold bucket of water splashed in my face. And he said, 'Do not mistake lack of passion for virtue. We must celebrate all the passions, as we do life itself.'

'Even hate?'

'Yes, even that. The virtuous man is
not
one who doesn't hate, but he who is in full control of it, as he is all his passions, directing it toward a good end -
and by good means
.'

I traded dark looks with Kane then, for Abrasax had pierced to the heart of the conundrum that tormented me. Then I looked back at the Grandmaster and said. 'Too often it seems that if I don't give back Morjin evil for evil, he'll win. And if I
do
fight this way, evil will
still
win.'

'It is difficult, I know,' he told me. 'But you must find the way to make use of these blazing passions of yours, even the ugly and evil inside yourself, toward a higher end - even as the One does in creating the world. Pour fire the wrong way against a lump of coal and it will burn up and crumble into ashes. Wield fire as the earth does, however, as the sun and stars do, and you will make a diamond.
This
self-creation is the path of the angels; it is their fundamental duty and test.'

He came over to my table to pour some tea into my cup, and his steady gaze seemed to remind me that I held the keys to two opposing kingdoms inside my heart: either the wild joy of life or the rage for death. Master Storr, who had recovered from my carelessness, pointed his finger at me and said, 'We've all felt this passion of Prince Valashu tonight. Will it, in Tria, he slew a man. How long beforehe slays again?'

'Never!' I cried out inside the cold castle of my mind. And then, to Master Storr and the others, I said, I have vowed never again to use the valarda this way. And Morjin lives because of

this!'

It might have been more accurate to say that Morjin had survived our last battle because of my hesitation - or because I could no more control my gift than I could a thunderstorm.

'It is strange that Morjin left Argattha at this time,' Abrasax said to me. 'Indeed, there is something very strange about your encounter with him. I must believe that it is for the best that you did not slay Morjin with this secret sword of yours. All my understanding of the Law of the One is that the valarda is to be used only for the highest of purposes.'

Yes, I thought, it should be. To sense in others their deepest desires, to dream their dreams, to share with them my own, - how I had longed for this! Yet too often the valarda had been a curse. I felt my heart pressing up against my throat as I said, 'All my life, I have suffered others' passions. And now, it seems, I have learned to inflict mine upon them - even to slay.'

Abrasax regarded me a moment before saying, 'Surely you must suspect that your sentiments and passions, as powerful as they are, are
not
sufficient to kill another person?'

I looked at him in alarm and waited for him to say more.

'Haven't you ever wondered,' he asked me, 'at the true nature of the valarda?'

'Only as long as I could think and feel!' I told him.

'Then haven't you ever sensed that your openness to others is only the beginning of openness to much more? Indeed, I believe it leads to the
identity
with others, ultimately with the entire world. As with the Maitreya.'

'But I am not the Maitreya!'

'No, you are not,' he told me. 'But already you have wielded some of the power that must be his. Through him would flow the great soul force, the deepest fires of the world. Such a force, Valashu, can be used either for great evil or great good.'

He went on to say that, ultimately, this angel fire could be used to destroy whole universes, as the Ieldra were sometimes forced to do, or to create new ones.

He finished speaking and poured himself yet another cup of tea. And I said, 'If what you've told us is true, then the Maitreya would possess the valarda in much greater measure than I.'

'Perhaps. But I should say rather than possessing the valarda, the Maitreya, in his essence,
is
valarda, for he would be as a window letting in the light of all things.'

Above us, the twelve round windows filled with the faint sheen of the stars. The dome above us seemed to catch the exhalations of the Seven as they looked at me.

'The Maitreya,' I said to Abrasax, and to everyone,
'must
be able to draw forth the light from the Cup of Heaven. And we must find him before Morjin does.'

Master Virang's discipline was meditation, not mind-reading, but I sensed that he exactly echoed Abrasax's thoughts as he asked me, 'Do you seek the Shining One to keep Morjin from using the Lightstone or for more personal reasons?'

'Both,' I told him truthfully.

Two flames, I thought, burned inside my heart. The first was reddish-black, and would destroy me if I let it. The other flame was as blue as the sky and connected me to all the lights of the heavens.

'If we are to help you, we must be sure of you,' Master Storr told me again. 'Sure, at least, that you can use the valarda for good, and not ill. Will you allow us to test this?'

I nodded my head as I looked at him. 'if you must.'

'Good,' Master Storr said. 'Then please stand up.'

I did as he asked, and moved off to the side of the tables beneath the chamber's dome. The Seven gathered around me. Each of them held one of the Great Gelstei out toward my chest.

'Ah, just don't make
him
disappear,' Maram called out from his cushion below me.

Abrasax smiled at this as his open hand showed a little colored sphere. So it was with Master Yasul, Master Matai and the others of the Seven. Each of them, especially Master Storr, gazed at me intently. I felt their eyes pierce me like hot needles at many places through my body. Their hands, now glowing with the radiance of their crystals, seemed to reach inside me and open me to the whirls of light up and down my spine.

'It burns, does it not?' Abrasax said to me. His eyes filled with concern for me even as his crystal flared with a white luster. 'Your belly is where you feel it, isn't it? All your hatred of the Red Dragon?'

Deep within my belly, down behind my navel, the red flame raged hot as molten stone. For a moment, I perceived it as Abrasax did: as red as burning blood and shot with streaks of orange darkening to black, like smoke. I sensed that it would soon kill me, if I let it.

'There is a saying,' Abrasax told me. 'Words as old as the stars: "If you would be freed from burning, you must become fire."'

With that, the crystals of the Seven glistened in a rainbow brilliance. Wheels of fiery light whirled along my spine in colors to match the hues pouring from their crystals. The red flame in my deepest part built hotter and hotter. It might, I knew, burn up the whole world with my hellish hate if I let it. It consumed me, now, almost, being drawn up into my chest with every beat of my heart. But there, too, gathered the other flame, pure and blue, like Arras and Solaru and the brightest of the stars.

If you would be freed from burning, you must become fire.

I closed my eyes then, and I felt the hot flickers of the red flame feed the blazing of the blue. I
willed
this to be. It grew brighter and brighter.
I
did. My whole being, out from my center into my arms and legs, feet and hands, fairly shimmered and sang with a surging new life. And then, in a rush of joy, a fountain of violet flame seemed to shoot up through my belly, heart and throat, flaring to pure white as it filled the bright, black spaces behind my eyes. For an endless moment I
did
disappear, into a fire so brilliant that it touched the whole world with an infinite light.

At last, I returned to myself. I sensed a quickness of breath and rushing blood inside Abrasax, and I opened my eyes to see as he did. And I gasped in astonishment. For the auras of the Seven and Atara and Kane, and all those in the room, impinged on each other, and flowed, swirled and shimmered in a cloud of light. This living radiance seemed to be drawn to me as water to an opening in the earth and to change hues as it brightened into a numinous and dazzling glorre. I drew my sword then, and held it pointing up toward the apex of the dome. Alkaladur, too, blazed with this perfect color.

'Fire, indeed,' Abrasax said.

Then he put away his gelstei, and so did Master Storr and the others, and the auras of everyone gathered there vanished from my sight. But my sword's silustria continued burning with an ineffable flame.

'Do you see?' Abrasax said, to Master Virang and Master Storr. 'Do you see? It is as Master Juwain told about Prince Valashu.'

Everyone watched as the glorre illuminating my sword slowly faded to a silvery sheen. I sheathed Alkaladur as I looked at Abrasax.

'That is enough of testing for one night,' he said, smiling at me

Master Storr looked down at Maram swigging his tea and said! 'But what of the others?'

'Valashu is their leader,' Abrasax told him. 'As he goes, so go they. If he can overcome the worst of himself as he has here tonight, then I believe that they will, too.'

'You speak of him,' Master Storr said, eyeing me, 'almost as if
he
is the Maitreya!'