Black Jade (48 page)

I stepped up beside her, and put my arm across her shoulders I said to her, 'Don't give up hope just yet I have a plan.'

I bade Liljana, Master Juwain and the children to gather around me. Then, to the sound of the stream pouring over dark rocks and crickets chirping in the bushes, I told them what we must do.

'Daj,' I said, looking through the star-pierced darkness at this brave boy. 'Will you come with me?'

Daj stood up straight as he nodded his head. He told me, 'I'd do anything to help Maram.'

Kane drew out his black crystal and said, 'Perhaps I should come with you, too.'

'No,' I said, 'it will be better for you to protect the others, if you can. And to take them to Hesperu, if I do not return,'

After that we made ready the horses and prepared to leave. I took off the gold medallion that I had worn since King Kiritan had called the great Quest, and I draped it around Berkuar's neck. I said a quick prayer for his spirit. Here he stood, dead upon the earth instead of in it and here he might stand for a thousand more years.

While Kane set off with others further into the gap, I led Daj back up the slope toward Jezi Yaga's house. We came up behind the same oak tree that had given Kane and me shelter. Daj fairly clung to its bark as he looked out from behind the tree. In the strong starlight the house gleamed like the heap of bones that it was.

'You must wait here until she's gone,' I said to him, 'then squeeze through the crack and cut Maram free with your sword. Don't try the door - you won't be able to move it, and the Yaga may look back and see you.'

'Don't worry,' he whispered to me as he shuddered. 'I don't want to wind up like Berkuar.'

He paused, breathing deeply to quiet the pounding of his heart, as Liljana had taught him. Then he said, 'I wonder if it hurts to be turned into stone?'

'Don't think about that,' I said to him. 'Do you have your sword?'

He smiled as he showed me the small sword that I had given him.

'All right,' I said. 'After you're out, keep to the high ground, and keep yourselves unseen. We'll meet you in the desert.'

I embraced him as I would any other warrior who was dear to me. Then I walked out across the gleaming rocks and bones of the open ground toward the house. I positioned myself halfway between the great door and the few trees at my back. I cupped my hands around my mouth as I drew in a deep breath. Then I shouted out: 'Jezi Yaga! Daughter of angels and mother of the Marudin! Let Maram go! We have in our keeping a varistei that you may use to help make your son! We will give it to you if you let Maram go!'

From the house came the sound of Maram moaning and then the much louder voice of Jezi Yaga shouting through the walls: 'Do you tell the truth, little man? Do you tell the truth?'

I stood on the hard ground listening for the sound of the stone bar being thrown back from inside the door. I told myself that I
would
exchange Master Juwain's green geistei for Maram. I would give up my sword and all my possessions - even my life.

'I think you
do
tell the truth, sweet man,' Jezi called out to me. Her piercing, musical voice rattled the very bones of her house. 'My father told me that you hate to lie.'

'Let Maram go!' I shouted to her, 'and I shall let you have the green varistei!'

'Do you take me for a fool, Valashu Elahad? I will never let my dragon man go!'

'Then you will never have the geistei.'

'Will I not? Will I not?' At last I heard the harsh grating sound of stone grinding against stone.

I dared not wait a moment longer. With one quick glance toward Daj's oak tree, I turned and fled across the dark, uneven ground into the shelter of the trees. Behind me I heard the great stone door of Jezi's house grind open and then slam shut.

'Where are you, little man?' she called out to me.

She could not see me, but surely she could hear me, as I could her. Her great weight of driving legs and hard feet rattled broken rocks. It was perilous ground in the dark of night, for both of us. As I leapt down the slope from rock to rock, past boulders and around trees, over guileys and across rotting logs, I prayed that I wouldn't stumble and fall.

For a while I ran downhill and then up again over a dark hump of ground. I listened for the noise of Jezi Yaga pounding after me. My breath burst from my lungs, and the owls hooed in the trees, and beneath the tempest of these sounds, I listened and ran and listened ever harder. I no longer heard her. I had staked everything on my being able to outdistance her, so I ran on and on, into the night. I thought of Daj, the rat-boy, as they had called him in Argattha.

Sly as any rat, by now he would have cut Maram free with his

sword. Maram, despite his wounds, would be strong enough to

force open the great door, or so I prayed. I prayed that he and Daj

would then make their escape along the high ground of the gap,

out into the desert.

I smelled this vast expanse of burning sands and wasted land long before I laid eyes upon it. The wind from the west blew warm and hard through the gap, carrying the scent of desert plants into my nostrils and I ran for many miles over cracked and broken ground toward it. The air grew even drier. Few trees grew in the hard, stony soil that bruised my feet even through my boots.

But I ran on even so. The arrow wound in my back became a knot of burning pain. A worse fire tormented my blood. I could not hear the footfalls of Jezi Yaga; it seemed that I had left her far behind. But I knew she was still pursuing me, for I felt her presence as a dreadful sensation like a sucking at my guts.

I sensed her drawing closer to me. How, I wondered, could this be? I didn't know where her impossible speed came from. I couldn't guess how she had remained alive all these years, or how she could see. I waited to feel the skin along the back of my neck hardening into stone. Like Daj, I couldn't keep myself from wondering how badly it would hurt.

And then I turned panting and driving hard around a great mound of rock and almost ran straight into Kane and my other companions. Kane stood behind his horse aiming an arrow in my direction; I saw through the gloom that he had affixed his black gelstei to his forehead, as of a third eye.

'Quick . . . away from here!' I called. 'She ... must . . have . . guessed where .
.
And taken a shortcut.'

I caught my breath and added, 'Hurry - the sun will be up soon!'

Already, in the east the sky through the gap behind us glowed with red light that devoured the stars.

And so hurry we did. I had thought my friends would already be beyond the pass, but Master Juwain explained that Atara had turned her ankle on the rocky ground and so had been forced to ride. In the darkness, they had not been able to move quickly.

For a mile we worked our way up a swell of fissured rock. And then, at the top, we had our first view of the great Red Desert. The wall of mountain to the north still blocked a line of sight in that direction, but to the west and south, for as far as the eye could see, a seemingly endless expanse of flat, scrub-covered ground opened out toward the horizon. Only a last short slope, no more than a quarter mile in length, led down into it.

It vexed me that the ground of this slope was so stony and broken that we still could not ride - at least no more quickly than Atara rode. Jezi Yaga, I thought, might be quick over short distances but could never outpace a horse. I wondered at the range of the purple gelstei that were her eyes. How far out in the desert must we gallop, I thought, before we would be safe?

We were never to find this out. For just as we had descended a short way down the slope, I heard a great pounding of footsteps and then a jolly laughter from behind us. I whipped my head from left to right, wildly looking about for any cover. A single boulder, not even large enough to shelter Estrella, stood out from the ground.

'Valashu Elahad!' Jezi Yaga's rolling voice called out. 'Sweet man! I'm coming! I'm coming!'

I moved quickly to help Atara down from her horse, then positioned her behind this snorting beast. The rest of us likewise took shelter behind our horses. Then we waited.

'Sweet man! Sweet man! Did you think you could escape my lovely, lovely eyes?'

A moment later, Jezi Yaga appeared at the top of the slope above us. She stood smiling with her hands planted on her huge, round hips. Her great breasts hung nearly to her waist and shook as she let loose great peals of laughter. She lifted back her blocky head in order to shake her hair out of her glowing, violet eyes.

'Come out from behind your beasts, that I might see you better!' she shouted to us. 'Must I turn them to stone, too? I've no liking for horseflesh, for it's not as sweet as man.'

I crouched behind Altaru's great, trembling body, and I stroked his neck and prayed that he could not understand Jezi Yaga's cruel words. It would be a simple thing, I thought, for Jezi to charge down the slope and find us out behind our horses once she
had
turned them to stone.

'Come out! Come out!' she called to us. 'Come out and bring me the greenstone! I've no liking to have to chisel it from your hand!'

Master Juwain, I saw, slightly behind me, cringed in back of his horse as he made a fist around his varistei. He called out, 'Take my crystal then, but let us be!'

'I will take it! I will take it! But I will
not
let you be!'

Just then the sun rose through the gap behind Jezi Yaga enveloping her in a ball of red fire. It sent rays of light streaking straight at us like arrows. I felt its heat on the mail of my legs, which the legs of my horse could not quite cover.

Liljana, standing behind her horse near me, called out, 'I must try!'

I looked over to see her bring her blue gelstei up to the side of her head. A moment later, she flung the little figurine down upon the ground as she cried out: 'He is still there!'

Kane, to my right, touched the smooth, black gelstei glued to his forehead, and growled out, 'So, Valashu, if I fail, remember your sword. Remember the valarda.'

Then he looked up the slope toward Jezi Yaga. He had only a single moment to cry out: 'Damn him!' before his eyes closed and his grip upon his horse's saddle broke. I felt the life drain from his limbs as of water being-sucked into dry sand. Then he fell to the ground. Never had I seen this great warrior lie so still.

Jezi Yaga turned her head toward him. Her eyes grew brighter.

I closed my eyes as I looked for the killing sword of valarda inside me. But whether because of my promise or because I didn't hate Jezi as I did her father, I could not find it.

I looked down to see the skin along the back of Kane's hand changing color and hardening. I hated it that I could think of nothing to do.

Then there came a booming in the distance like thunder. It took me a moment to realize that it was a voice, a great human voice full of wrath. I could not make out what words echoed through the mouth of the gap, but I knew with a great leaping of my heart that they belonged to Maram.

'My man!' Jezi cried out. 'My dragon man!'

The hardening of Kane's body suddenly ceased. I risked looking over the top of my horse's saddle. A streak of brilliant red fire split the air. The fire grew even more incandescent and merciless as it fell upon Jezi Yaga's naked back. With my eyes, I followed the line of this flame from the top of the slope. There, on a shelf of rock, stood Maram. The ruby light that spilled forth from him dazzled my eyes so that I could not see clearly, but I knew that he gnpped his hands around his firestone.

'My man! My man!' Jezi called out to him. Her words came out more slowly now, for it seemed that she was having difficulty forming them. 'My sweet, sweet dragon man!' She stood as still and steady as a statue. She had turned her head halfway toward Maram. But it seemed that she could move it no farther. The skin across her neck and back had hardened into a carapace of stone. As the fire continued to fall upon her, the stone grew thicker. I sensed that instinct had driven her to protect her body from the fire.

'My man. My ... beautiful man.'

Those were her last words. The flames from Maram's firestone burned straight into her, melting the stone that she made of her own flesh. A thick, glowing lava ran down her back and sides, and dripped in bright red splashes upon the ground. In order to assuage the anguish of Maram's red-hot flame, or so I sensed, Jezi hardened layer upon layer of herself, deeper and deeper, until even her muscles and bones began to petrify. At last, the power of the purple gelstei worked its way into the deepest part of her being. I felt the life leave her then, for as she had said, she must surely die if ever her heart turned to stone.

After that, I came out from behind Altaru and called up to Maram that Jezi Yaga was dead. He must have understood, for the fire pouring out of his red gelstei suddenly ceased. I walked up the slope toward the statue of Jezi Yaga as he walked down to us, with Daj close behind him. He came closer, and I ground my teeth together to see what she had done to him. He was entirely naked, even down to his bloody feet. Blood still oozed from the bites that she had taken out of his chest from his shoulders and belly, his hindquarters and legs, too, and nearly every other part of him.

'I knew you wouldn't abandon me,' he called out to me. 'You saved my life again, old friend.'

'Even as you saved mine,' I said, smiling at him as I clasped his hand.

He gripped his other hand around his firestone. I saw to my amazement that not a single crack marred its ruby interior.

'But how?' I said to him. 'How did this happen?'

While Estrella stood oyer Kane's still form, Master J uwain and Liljana helped Atara walk up to us. Then Maram looked at his red crystal and explained: 'I told Jezi that all my, ah, powers of love and life, my very potency, were bound up in this. I persuaded her to make it whole it again. And so with the touch of her eyes, she healed it.'

He reached out to touch Jezi's face, and he ran his fingers across her cheeks. As when he had first seen her, a thin layer of stone covered the purple jewels of her eyes.