Black Jade (35 page)

At dawn, however, Berkuar greeted the morning with a mighty stretch and clear blue eyes. He helped us break camp with a rude good cheer. He moved with a sort of animal grace and power that reminded me of Kane. He seemed to have little liking or care for Maram or me, or indeed, any other human being. His passion, I sensed, was for flower and leaf, for the rabbits that darted across our path and the deer browsing on bracken - and even the squirrels scurrying along the branches above us. His wide nostrils quivered in the breeze as if he were breathing in all the scents of the forest and much else as well. He padded along almost soundlessly in his soft leather boots. He was a quiet man, as far as conversation with others was concerned, but often as noisy as a chittering bird. Indeed, he liked to talk to his winged friends, as he called them, trilling out notes with his thick tongue or imitating their calls. His whistles, as songlike as those of any songbird, were a marvel to hear. While passing through some oaks, he let loose a succession of shureet-shuroos indistinguishable from the voices of the scarlet tanagers that sang back to him. I had a strange sense that he was communicating to them secrets that neither I nor my companions were meant to hear.

While we were resting in another clearing later in the morning, Maram tried to make conversation with him. He moved over to me and rested his hand on my shoulder as he said to Berkuar, 'Mirustral, too, can talk to animals. He's always had a way with them.'

This indeed piqued Berkuar's curiosity. He wiped his greasy fingers in his beard, then pointed toward a robin that was standing nearby on the forest floor. 'What does yon bird say to you, then?'

I let the morning breeze wash over me. I saw a dragonfly near some goldthread and a fritillary fluttering all orange and glorious in a patch of dandelions. From somewhere deeper in the trees, a bobcat screeched out in anger. Once, I remembered, when I was a boy running free in the forests of Mesh, I had loved the wild so much that it seemed I had a covenant with these animals, indeed, with all life. Why, I had wondered, did it seem that man was too often evil and nature good? Who could look out into the woods on a perfect spring day and fail to be astonished at the beauty of the world and the way that all things seemed to beat with one heart and share a secret fire?

I finally I told Berkuar, 'The robin is hungry, as robins always are. Especially in the spring. She is listening for a worm to take back to her hatchlings.'

'Listening?'
Berkuar said as we watched the robin cocking her head, this way and that. 'But how could you know that?'

'Mirustral
knows
things,' Maram said as he squeezed my shoulder. 'And the animals know that he knows. It's the way that he calls to them.'

I looked up at Maram and shook my head in warning. It wouldn't do to tell Berkuar, or any other stranger, too much about my gift of valarda.

Now Berkuar seemed suddenly very interested in me. He pointed up past the crowns of the trees at the blue sky. There, a hawk soared above us and called out its harsh, screaming
kee yarr.
And Berkuar said to me, 'Let's hear you call to that hawk, then. Not many can do well the cry of a red-shouldered hawk.'

'Neither can I,' I said.'I've never been able to mimic animals.'

'Then how is it that you can call to them?'

In answer, I stood and turned my face to the sky. I looked up at the hawk even as he looked down at me. In the meeting of our eyes was a shock of recognition, like the flash of a lightning bolt. It seemed as if the hawk and I had known each other for a million years and would be as brothers for a million more.

'Come!' I whispered in the silence of my heart. 'Ashvarii. come to me!'

It was said that if you called out an animal's true name, he would do as you asked.

Again, the hawk gave voice to its screaming hunting cry; I felt this sound deep within my own throat. Suddenly, without warning.. the hawk pulled back his wings and dived straight down toward me. I held my arm straight out. At the last moment, it seemed, the hawk's wings beat the air in a feathered fury as he settled down onto my forearm and wrapped his talons around my cloak and the steel mail buried beneath it.

Daj and Estrella came running to witness this little miracle, and Maram's eyes widened in surprise.

The hawk turned his bright black eye toward me. Ashvarii, my grandfather used to call this kind of hawk. He was a beautiful bird; true to his name, his feathers were rufous around the shoulder, and his wings were barred black and white. Five thin white bands marked his black tail. Nature had designed this sleek bird to hunt along the wind, flying as straight and true as an arrow. He looked at me for a long moment, as if to ask me why I remained so heavy and earthbound? Then he cried out again, and in a burst of muscles and feathers, pushed off my arm into the air. He flew up and up, toward the crowns of the trees.

'Strange,' Berkuar said, looking at me in a new light. 'Very strange.'

It occurred to me that I had not called animals in this way for a long time. It gave me hope that the lies and killings of the previous year hadn't completely sullied me. Would Ashvarii have come to me if I were forever tainted with hate? How was it possible, I wondered, to hate at all in sight of such a great being?

And then a shadow fell over my eyes as it came to me that Morjin would hate this bird solely because it claimed a realm that could not be his and flew so wild and free.

'Strange,' Berkuar murmured again. 'We of Acadu do not summon these hunting birds as you have done, but it is said that in-other lands they practice such arts. Is that
your
bird then, trained from a hatchling?'

'I've never seen him before,' I told him. 'And that bird belongs to no one and nothing except the sky.'

After that we resumed our journey to the west. We did not come across the hawk again. But the woods were full of other birds: warblers and ravens, sparrows, shrikes and starlings. We saw many four-legged animals as well, and many of these were deer. What evening we feasted on a young buck killed by Berkuar. He spent most of an hour washing its still form in fresh water and chanting over its spirit before he would allow us to dress and cook it. Maram, it seemed, had developed a liking for this strange man and his ways. He was overeager to take the first watch; he even offered to stand Master Juwain's and my watches, as well. The night passed peacefully, with Daj and Estrella curled up in each other's arms between Atara and Liljana in front of the fire. Toward midnight, the wakeful Berkuar called out to a great horned owl somewhere in the woods. The owl's deep, hooing answer seemed as natural as the wind, but it disturbed me even so.

Just before dawn, I came awake to the urgent press of Kane's hand. He knelt over me, gripping his strung bow as waves of anger poured out of him. When my eyes finally cleared, he bent his head low and whispered to me, 'There are men, all around us, in the woods.'

As I roused myself up and grabbed for my sword, Kane whipped about and drew an arrow. He fit it to his bowstring, which he pulled back, aiming the arrow straight at Berkuar standing guard by the wooden fence that protected our encampment. I quickly woke the others, even Daj and Estrella. Atara and Maram armed themselves, too, then joined Kane and me as we stood facing Berkuar.

'So, you've led us into a trap!' Kane snarled at him.

The day's first light barely sufficed to show the gray trunks of trees all around us and the bracken low and grayish green along the forest floor. The morning mist filled the silent woods. Between the trees, I saw, through the swirls of mist stood men in a great circle around us. There must have been more than thirty of them. They wore long, hooded cloaks and bore bows and arrows, which they pulled back on almost invisible strings. They seemed to be waiting for a signal or call.

'Kill me,' Berkuar said to Kane, 'and you'll die with a dozen arrows in you - your friends, too!'

Maram, crouching low as if he hoped our flimsy fortifications would be enough to shield him, cried out, 'Is it the Grays, then? No, no - there are too many for a company of Grays, and the Stonefaces bear knives, not bows, don't they?'

'We are the Greens,' Berkuar told him. Then he turned to Kane. 'We are the Keepers of the Forest, and it is upon us to keep the enemy out of Acadu. If you are one of them, then this is indeed a trap.'

'We've told you who we are!' Kane said as he tightened the tension on his bow.

It was a rare man who could stare down Kane in all his fury, but Berkuar seemed unconcerned with the prospect of his imminent death. He said to Kane, 'You've told of a quest to find the Well of Restoration and names that I do not believe are yours.'

'We killed your enemies!'

'You killed that traitor, Harwell, and his cursed Crucifiers, and they
were
our enemies. But were they really yours, as well? Or did you arrange the attack on Gladwater and sacrifice them to win my confidence? The Kallimun have done more deceptive things, and worse, to try to win their way into the trust of our society.'

The mist thinned to reveal the men surrounding us. Kane finally blinked his eyes then. But he did not loose his arrow. I felt his consternation, like an acid, at being confronted by a man even more suspicious than he was.

'Val,' he whispered to me.

He nodded at me as if to confess that his own evil mistrust had brought these men down on us. With his eyes, he sought my forgiveness and looked to me to put things aright.

Then Berkuar let loose a whistle like that of a goldfinch. Kane turned his attention back to him and to the Greens, about thirty of them, who slowly began advancing upon us through the woods like a tightening noose.

'What is your name?' Berkuar asked me. 'The one you were born with?'

I hesitated only a moment, then said, 'Valashu Elahad. Of Mesh.'

Then I gave him the names of my companions and the lands that had birthed them, as far as I knew. Estrella could not tell of her origins, and as for Kane, no one knew what name his father and mother had spoken on the hour of his birth - perhaps not even Kane himself.

'And what of this Well of Restoration then? Do you really seek it?'

My breath rose and fell as I looked into Berkuar's blue eyes, now gray in the early light. His breath, too, came quickly, like a bird's, as he looked back at me. There dwelled within me, I knew, a great power: that if I told the truth, utterly and completely, with all my heart, men would believe me.

'We seek the Lightstone,' I said to him. 'Or rather, the one who can wield it who is called the Maitreya.'

As quickly as I could, in a low voice that he strained to hear, I told Mm of our struggles against Morjin and of our quest to faroff Hesperu.

'What is he saying?' one of the Greens beyond our encampment called out to us. This proved to be a big man named Gorman, who was as thick and shaggy as a sagosk. 'Give the word and we'll fill him with arrows!'

'Let us kill them all, anyway, and be done with it!' another said. This man, almost as tall as I, was thin and angular like a piece of overly whittled wood.

'Kill the summoner?' a third Green cried out. 'Didn't you see how he called down the hawk? Would you have him call down a dragon upon us?'

Berkuar ignored them and continued to regard me strangely. At last he said to me quietly, 'That hawk's heart was as true as my own, and I cannot think that such a bird would have given his trust to our enemy. I believe you. And I believe your story, incredible as it is, though it seems that I haven't heard the tenth part of it.'

So saying, he motioned for his fellow woodsmen to lower their bows, then stepped straight toward me within reach of my sword. He paid this terrible weapon no heed. Then he embraced me, clasping me to his hard, hairy body with all the strength of a bear. His lips pulled back to show his barbark-stained teeth. It was the first time I had seen him smile.

After that, I persuaded Kane to help me tear open our wooden fence, and we invited the thirty Greens to share breakfast with us. Most of these grim men remained wary of us, though they were inclined to accept my friendship with the hawk as a powerful -and good - sign. Then Berkuar told them of what had befallen in Gladwater and of our part in the battle at the longhouse; they hadn't known of this for they ranged the wild lands west, of the Tir. A few of them had wives and children in Gladwater, though, and were overjoyed to learn from Berkuar that they still lived. They came up to me and clasped my hand in thanks. They even thanked Kane for his savage knifework in the grove behind the longhouse. They appreciated prowess with the knife almost as much as with the bow and arrows.

And so on that misty morning we made together a small feast. Fires were lit from the wood of our fortifications. Venison was roasted, and stories were told. Berkuar respected the need to keep at least part of our past and our present quest a secret. Who knew better than this embattled Acadian how even the hardest of men might break and betray his friends if nailed to a cross or threatened with seeing his children tortured?

Between bites of blackened deer meat Berkuar said, 'These are the worst of times, and strange, too. There are bad things in the deep woods. I've heard stories of woodcutters whose minds the Crucificr has seized and forced like puppets to his will so that they chop down friends and family with their axes - and I believe them. There are the ones you call the Grays. They freeze men's blood like winter does water, and steal children from their beds. Something, in the woods to the far west, turns men to stone. And then there is the Skadarak.'

I shivered to hear Berkuar say this word. Seeing this, he went on.

'It is,' he said, 'a bad, bad place. There, the trees grow black and twisted, and the animals devour their own young. Pass nearby it, and it draws you without your knowing you are being drawn. Take the wrong path through the forest, and it will capture you like a fly in a spider's web. And then the Dark Thing will devour you.'

'But what it this "Dark Thing"?' Maram asked him.

'It is the Skadarak,' Berkuar said simply, staring at Maram. 'Haven't you listened to what I've said?'