Black Jade (30 page)

I climbed on top of Altaru, whose coat was like a black sheen in the early morning light. He drove his hoof into the earth impatiently. My friends mounted their horses, too; our remounts and packhorses, heavily laden with supplies, were strung out behind us. A young student had also brought out a couple of nags from the stable. Master Storr and one of his adepts, a Brother Lorand, would be accompanying us so that they might show us the way out of the valley.

Our slow ride toward the mountains took only a few hours, and we savored each of them, drinking in the warmth of the sun and the sweetly scented air. Flowers grew in sprays of pink and purple along our way. From somewhere in the woods around us, a lark piped out its high, tinkling song. Never in my life, I thought, had a day seemed so lovely and bright. Kane rode his big brown horse beside me, fairly beaming out his fierce will to triumph against any odds. And yet I was keenly aware that our high spirits could not last. Whenever the shadow of such doubts fell across my heart, all of Kane's assurances of victory, as well as my own fierce hopes, seemed utterly in vain, the foolish longings of desperate men who refused to admit defeat.

We made our way back to the tunnel as we had come, winding back and forth up a steep slope. The horses' hooves kicked at loose rocks and sent them rattling down the road. Just outside the tunnel's entrance, where an arch of precisely cut stone invited us inward and onward, we paused to take a drink of water and eat

some currants.

'Ah, here we are again at another entranceway,' Maram said, squinting at the sun in the east. 'But it's well past dawn, isn't it?'

Master Storr's fair skin was flushed from our ride, and he ran his fingers back through his wispy hair. He smiled at Maram and said, 'The sun at dawn at the ides of Ashte is only one of the things that animates the tunnel's gelstei. There is the light of the Seven Sisters, conjuncting the moon. And there is this.'

He removed from his pocket a crystal about as long as his finger. It was opaque, with a reddish patina that reminded me of rust.

'What is it?' Maram asked. 'One of your secret gelstei?'

'It's a key,' Master Storr told him. 'And yes, it is a gelstei.'

He pointed it toward the tunnel, and we watched as the dark circle before us filled with a milky white light. I felt a pulsing, as from deep inside the tunnel's rock - and along my veins as my heart began beating more quickly.

'Well, why don't we go inside?' Master Storr said. 'The way in is easy enough.'

'Ah, I don't like this,' Maram said. 'I don't like this at
all.
We can find our way
in
easily enough, it's true. It's finding the way
out
that worries me.'

Master Storr handed the crystal to Brother Lorand, a reedy young man with a long, narrow head and a serious look stamped into his face. And Master Storr instructed him, 'Hold your concentration as I've taught you. We wouldn't want to leave Brother Maram behind.'

His rather pitiless smile, showing his small, yellowed teeth, did nothing to reassure Maram, or the rest of us. But Master Storr was not a cruel man - only a cautious, difficult and guarded one. As we set forth into the tunnel, he explained to us certain of its secrets that he had so far withheld: 'There are seventeen such tunnels throughout this part of the White Mountains, as far as we've been able to determine. The Grandmaster thinks it most likely that the Aymaniri built them. But Master Yasul and I are more inclined to believe that they are a Work of the Elder Ages, like the library. All that we have really divined of them is that they connect to other tunnels through other mountains.'

'But connect
how?'
Maram asked. 'And how can that be possible?'

Master Storr regarded Maram with his hard blue eyes and said, 'How should that
not
be possible? All things are connected in their deepest part, in their hearts, to each other. That is why we call the One as we do, and not the Two or the Three.'

This was almost the first time we had heard Master Storr make any attempt at humor, and we all smiled at him. Then Maram continued his questioning: 'If all things are connected to everything, then that really explains nothing. How is it that I should still be standing in this lost valley in your company, as pleasant as it is, instead of enjoying a glass or two of good Meshian beer with my beloved, merely at a click of my fingers?'

So saying, he snapped his middle finger against his thumb, and looked about as if disappointed that this rude gesture hadn't magically transported him from the valley.

Master Storr kept on staring at him, and said, 'The key, of course, is in discovering
how
things are connected. We know, for instance, that Ea touches upon other worlds in places of power such as the Vilds or where the earth fires have been disturbed or concentrated.'

'Such as the Black Bog? Kane told that in our passage through that accursed swamp, we were walking on other worlds.'

'So you were - and Dark Worlds at that. The Black Bog is known to lead into such places, just as the ocean, toward the North Star, flows into the seas of the worlds where the Star People dwell.'

'Then you believe the legend of King Koru-Ki?'

Master Storr's eyes gleamed as he said, 'All worlds are connected by water, on the physical plane, as they are by the aethers on the others.'

'But that still doesn't explain the tunnel.'

Master Storr, I thought, did not like Maram's impatience to learn the truth of things, and a note of irritation crept into his voice:

'As I've said, there are other ways of making these connections. Whoever built this tunnel must have forged a gelstei that opened up the earth chakra over which the tunnel was built. And so

directed its fires to open other chakras in other places so that a passage might be made.'

'Then is it possible to pass to other
worlds
this way?'

'Not through this tunnel at least so far as we've been able to discover. But there may be other tunnels through other mountains somewhere on Ea that lead to the Star People's worlds.'

'But might it be possible,' Maram asked, 'to pass to another part of
this
World through this tunnel? Ah, perhaps to journey to Hesperu in a click of a moment?'

Again, he snapped his fingers, and again Master Storr looked at him with disapproval. He said to Maram, There are no tunnels like these that we know of in Hesperu, or indeed outside of the White Mountains. But if you discover any such on your journey, you must be sure to let me know.'

'I shall, I shall,' Maram muttered as he looked into the tunnel's glowing mouth. 'But I still don't understand how walking into
here
will result in our walking out
there
- when 'there' is not just one other tunnel, but any one of seventeen.'

'Haven't you been listening to anything of what I've told you?' Master Storr asked him. 'There is really only
one
tunnel, interconnected in its seventeen parts. But connected how? Geometrically, yes, certainly, in ways that we don't fully understand. But we know they are also connected through thought and will. This is the key, Sar Maram. When you were looking for our school and went back inside the tunnel, which the sun had brought to life, its gelstei sensed your desire to reach us, and so brought you out into our valley. If you had willed a different destination and held it strongly enough in your minds, you would have found that place instead.'

'Ah, but what if the tunnel came alive, and we willed
nothing?'
Maram's voice boomed out and disappeared into the curved, pulsing walls of gelstei ahead of us. 'Because we were frightened or confused?'

'That is an experiment we haven't wanted to make,' Master Storr said. 'Presumably, you would eventually come out into one lost valley or another.'

'But what of Morjin then? Aren't you afraid that he will learn to control the tunnel's gelstei?'

'He might know nothing of it,' Master Storr said. 'He is not omniscient, you know. Now. if you will please forbear and let Brother Lorand learn the ways of these tunnels.'

None of us, I thought,, was pleased at the prospect of Master Storr utilizing our circumstances to teach his young student, but that was the way of the Brotherhood. In truth, however there was little danger of Brother Lorand guiding us wrongly, for Master Storr guided
him,
holding his concentration on the rustlike gelstei even as he encouraged Brother Lorand with a ready smile or a kind word. Our passage through the tunnel was much as before. We lined up in order behind Master Storr; I took the lead of my companions, followed by Atara, Liljana, Daj and Estrella, with Master Juwain and Maram riding closely behind this irrepressibly joyful girl. Kane, in the rear, kept a close watch on what Estrella watched, gazing into the flowing hues of the gelstei on the walls in hope that she might discover something of note. The horses, which we had blindfolded, clopped along nervously as each of us fought the spinning sensation in our heads and the sickness that crept into our bellies. Maram moaned to see Master Storr waver like a ghost and then reappear a moment later. It seemed that we walked a long time and an even longer way over the road's cold stones. But in the end, as Master Storr kept promising Maram, we drew closer and closer to the spot of light at the tunnel's end.

We came out, as before, into a valley - but a very different one than the Valley of the Sun. Below us, down steep and heavily wooded slopes, ran a long, deep groove between two ridgelines of jagged mountains. It was higher here, and colder, and crusts of snow whitened, the rocks above the treeline. The blueness had fled from the sky, to be replaced by a solid sheet of grayish-white clouds.

We stood by our horses on the rocky ground outside the tunnel, trying to catch our breaths as we scanned this rugged terrain. Maram leaned across his knees as if he might lose his breakfast. And then he pointed down into the valley as he gasped out, 'But which way
is
that? I can't see the damn sun! North, I would guess, but it seemed that we were walking south, or perhaps east.'

Master Storr came up beside him and placed his old hand on his-shoulder. And he said, 'It is north by west. The line of the valley curves off due west, just around the base of that domed mountain. It will take you down into Acadu.'

'Are you certain of that? What if we get lost?'

'Would it reassure you if I taught you a Way Rhyme to guide you?'

'Ah, is that really necessary?'

'No, it. is not,' Master Storr said, smiling at him. 'From here, you can't help but walk straight into Acadu, but you'll have to find your own way through the great forest, as your circumstances will determine.'

He embraced Maram then; and me and the others as well. And he told us, 'You must undertake this quest with only one end in) mind. But if you
should
come across any new gelstei on your journey, I would be forever grateful if you would return them to our school for study. You seem to have a knack for finding gelstei - let us hope that also holds for finding the Maitreya.'

As Abrasax had, he enjoined us to walk in the light of the One. Then he gathered in the reins of his horse, and with Brother Lorand, moved back into the tunnel.

'Well,' Maram said to me as we looked off into this new valley, 'shall we get this over with?'

I nodded at him, then turned to pull on Altaru's reins and go down into the dark forests of Acadu.

For the rest of the morning, we worked our way down into the valley. The going was rough. The road here, as ancient as any I had ever seen, had mostly disintegrated into a long, twisting slip of broken rock and dirt. Near the bottom of the valley, where a river rushed between steeply cut banks, the forest swallowed up the road altogether. We had to take care where we stepped, lest a rock hidden in the undergrowth or a root turn an ankle or hoof. We moved slowly, from need, guiding our horses over this bad ground. And yet a greater need drove us like a match flame slowly growing hotter inside us. We each knew that our quest had little chance of success in any case, and none at all if we wasted a week coddling ourselves - or perhaps a day or even an hour.

After a quick lunch of ham and cheese sandwiches, washed down with a bubbly apple cider, it began to rain, and this added misery to the difficulty of our descent. As we came down near the river and the ground flattened out, Maram let out a grunt of thanks - and then he began cursing as the rain suddenly drove down harder in stinging sheets that made him, and all of us, squint and shiver as we hunched down into our cloaks.

'I'm tired and cold,' he complained late in the afternoon. 'And I'm getting hungry again, too. Why don't we break for the day, and see if we can roast up some of that lamb the Brothers packed for us before it rots?'

Kane, however, insisted that we plod on another hour before making camp, and so we did. But by the time we found a level spot above the river and began unpacking the horses, Maram had grown quite surly with hunger - and fairly wroth when he discovered that every twig, stick and log that he could find rummaging around in the woods was soaking wet. As the day darkened into night he spent another hour fumbling with matches and strips of linen, trying to get a fire going. He finally gave up. He sat on a large, wet rock feeling as sorry for himself as he was ashamed at failing the rest of us. Then he took out his firestone and held it between his hands as he might a dead child.

'Oh, my poor, poor crystal!' he moaned. He nudged the pile of! wood beside him with his foot. 'If that damn dragon hadn't ruined you, I'd turn this damn kindling into char with a
real
fire.'

'It might help,' Atara said, sitting down next to him, 'if you used paper for tinder instead of linen.'

'Paper? What paper?'

At this, we all looked at Master Juwain, who said, 'Tear up one of my books? You might as well tear off my skin and try to get a fire out of that. Only if we were dying from cold would I consider it.'

'Ah, well, it wouldn't matter anyway,' Maram said, kicking his woodpile again. 'The problem is not with the tinder - these damn logs are soaked to the core, as am I.'