Black Jade (56 page)

From the Avari line, which had moved in closer to us, a young man called out: 'What I cannot believe is his story of entering the Stone City. Burning holes through rock with sorcerous fire, and slaying dragons - dragons! And this man and a few companions slaying nearly a hundred men? He told that a blind woman fired arrows into their hearts! He lies, surely, and more, he must be mad to think that we should listen to such -'

'Be quiet, Daivayr!' Sunji suddenly barked out, cutting him off. He turned back to me and said, 'My brother is impulsive, as it is with the young. But he only voices questions we all have. You say that you risked your lives seeking the Cup of Heaven in the great Quest, as you do now in search of the one you call the Maitreya. Why?'

'Because it is the only hope for Ea - and for much more.' As Sunji and the three judges listened to every word I spoke, and the droghul's golden eyes never left mine, I tried to tell of my love for Ea's forests and mountains, her oceans and grass-covered plains. And it would all be burnt to ashes, I said, and washed in blood if Morjin and his Red Priests had their way. 'I. .. would see an end to war. The Maitreya might bring this abiding peace, if he can be found.'

'But how could you hope to find him,' Sunji asked me, 'if you do not even know his name or what tribe has given him birth?'

It was a good question, and I knew that my judges would find my answer weak as I said: 'There is one among us who is gifted in finding things.'

'Through the aid of sorceries?'

'We are not sorcerers!' I cried out.

Although the droghul's face remained implacable as he regarded me, his whole being lit up as with a triumphant smile. Then he opened his mouth to speak. His voice, ever golden and persuasive, swelled with a new power. His words fell like irresistible weapons thatJaid people open and left them utterly vulnerable to his command: 'This Elahad has impugned everything about me, going so far as to deny who I am. I
am
King of Sakai! I have risked much in coming into the desert, as I have. In the past, I have sent priests to your people - the bravest and freest of Ea's peoples! - to help them understand the nature of the menace that would undo us all. And to help them unite against sorcerers such as the Elahad and his kind. My priests have not always been well-received. I do not blame you Ravirii for this, as the world is hard and our enemies are not always as they seem. But we are
not
your enemies! I have come here, in my person, that you might hear the truth of things from my own lips.'

The droghul, I knew, almost had a mind of his own, although at the moment I could sense no particle or flame of his own self-ness. So compelling was the smoothness of his voice - the perfection of pitch and tone and utter certainty in itself - that he almost convinced
me
that he was the real Morjin.

'Lord Morjin,' Maslan said hoarsely, coughing at the dry air, 'is known in all lands as the most veracious of kings.'

No, I thought, the most
voracious.
If these desert tribes let him, he would swallow them up one by one as he had the great kingdoms that surrounded them. Little sense of this peril, however, seemed to have made its mark on the Ravirii, at least not the Zuri gathered here. They seemed to regard Maslan and the other Red Priests as keepers of a great and mysterious power. They looked upon these five terrible men with something of the same awe that my people held for the masters of the Brotherhood. Only Oalo, I sensed, suspected how vile they really were. The tightness in his chest told me that he lived in great fear of them, even as the priests themselves dreaded the droghul and Morjin himself.

'I would enlist the aid of all the Ravirii tribes,' the droghul said, looking from Oalo to Yago and then at Sunji. 'The Lightstone has been taken back from the Elahad, who stole it and claimed it for himself. Even now, he seeks other stones of power that he might cast his ensorcellments over all peoples and all lands in hope of stealing back the golden cup yet again.'

'He lies!' I said, shaking my fist at him. 'He accuses me of his own evil dreams and deeds - even as he did the poisoning of the Masud well!'

'I do not lie,' the droghul said. 'And I am no poisoner.'

I tried to find the right words to gainsay this, but I could not. So excruciating was the burning of my blood, from the kirax within and the fiery sun pouring down on me, that I could hardly speak at all.

'The Cup of Heaven,' the droghul said, letting his golden voice carry out to the lines of Zuri and Avari warriors pressing in even closer, 'will remain safely in my hall in Argattha, where I invite any and all to come drink of its light.'

'The urna has been found!' Avraym marveled as he gazed at the droghul. Until now the judges of this trial had been as silent as stone.

'In my own lifetime, sought and found. All glory in the One!' The droghul smiled at him, a bright, open smile all full of the promise of happiness and otherwordly riches, even love. And he said to Avraym and the other judges, and to all the Avari and Zuri: 'When the time comes and victory is ours, I shall bring the Lightstone into all lands. The Ravirii shall be its keepers, and here it will do its most wondrous work. A golden light will poor itself out onto the desert's sands. Trees will grow here again, soft grasses and flowers. Water will run in the dry river beds, and lakes will shine in the sun. The desert will be green again.' 'As it was, it shall be again,' Avraym intoned.

'All glory in the One,' Laisar said.

The droghul, I thought, through his master in Argattha, knew the Ravirii well, even as he knew all peoples. He gave them precisely what they wished to hear.

'This Elahad,' he said, 'claimed the Lightstone for himself. Even as he claimed to be the Maitreya.'

Sunji looked at me and asked. 'Is this true, Valashu Elahad?'

'I... yes, there was a moment,' I stammered out. 'Only a moment when I claimed this. But I was wrong.'

My admission did not make a good impression on those judging me. The droghul smiled at me. I could feel him using the raw power of Morjin's passions to pull at the heartstrings of everyone gathered here. He touched
their
passions. He played on their vanities and fears, and spoke to their deepest dreams. I vowed again that I would never use my gift this way to violate people's souls and work such evil.

'From his own lips, he admits another lie!' the droghul said. 'How many more must we hear before we judge him as what he is?'

How, I wondered, could I ever prevail here against this double of Morjin? The droghul sat up straight on his horse, disdainful of the sun and radiating all of Morjin's power and authority. Morjin was a king, even if an evil and false one, and people heeded what he said.

'The Elahad has no more respect for you,' the droghul said to the judges, 'than he does your laws. He and his fellow conspirators invaded your lands solely to flee a richly deserved justice. With his own hand, he poisoned the Masud well so that he could -'

'He lies!' I called out. 'Can't you hear how he lies?'

Sunji waved his sword at me. He Said, 'You must keep your silence unless you have testimony to offer. Calling King Morjin a liar does not constitute such, nor will it serve you.'

The droghul bowed his head to Sunji, and then smiled at me. He drew in a breath of burning air hi order to further defame me. His cleverness cut with all the precision of a surgeon's knife as he called out: 'When the Masud discovered the Elahad's true purpose, the Elahad poisoned their well to keep them from turning against him. And what is his purpose? He seeks
gelstei
and other stones of power. He found suchlike among the Masud, the very skystones that are sacred to the Avari.'

At this, Sunji touched the blue stones set into the silver of one of his bracelets. Avraym, I saw, wore a pendant fashioned of the same substance, as did Maidro and Laisar. I recalled seeing such jewelry among the gold bangles that Daj had gathered from the dead Masud.

Yago remembered this as well. He looked at me with suspicion eating at his hard face.

'The Elahad,' the droghul went on, 'would use the gelstei to take control of the Lightstone. Each of the conspirators has gained these gelstei and mastery over them.'

How, I wondered, could people ever mistake a lie for the truth? I knew from bitter experience that the truth always spoke with a clear and perfect voice, but too often it spoke too softly. People did not hear it, for they believed what they wanted to believe.

'Valashu Elahad - is this true?' Sunji asked me.

I turned to my right to see Kane's black eyes warning me to silence. But with the judges and everyone else looking at me, I could not keep silent. Neither could I lie.

'Yes,' I said, 'each of my companions and I keep one of the gelstei.'

'Show us these stones, then.'

I saw that Kane trembled to whip out his sword and cut off Sunji's head. Instead, he took out his baalstei and showed it to him and the three judges. At the sight of this black crystal Avraym kissed his own hand and pressed it over his heart. So did Laisar and Maidro theirs. The droghul told that the black gelstei could be used to suck out the very fires of a man's soul and Kane did not dispute this.

'So, it
can
be used this way,' Kane said, making a fist around his stone. He stared at the droghul with such hate that the droghul finally looked away. 'This
thing
of Morjin should know this, for Morjin himself has used a much greater baalstei to try to suck at the soul of the whole world and all her peoples.'

As he went on to tell of the Black Jade, the Avari warriors up and down their line kissed their hands and clasped them to their chests, as did the Zuri warriors in their line.

Then the droghul, for the first time seeming to struggle against Morjin's iron-fisted control of him, pointed at Kane and said, 'He, too, is a liar, like the Elahad. Can no one here feel him attacking you with this evil stone?'

With the sun sucking the life out of everyone gathered in this sweltering canyon, and Morjin perhaps wielding the Black Jade from afar, it was easy for Sunji and the judges to believe that Kane strove to lay an evil enchantment upon them. And so Sunji called to Kane: 'Put away your sorcerer's stone!'

Kane tucked away his gelstei, then said to Sunji, 'Ha - you know nothing of what you speak! All the gelstei were made out of the essence of the Lightstone itself. So, the baalstei were meant to control the fires of the tuaoi stones, for good, not ill.'

'The firestones,' the droghul explained. 'Even as ww speak, the fat leper on that hill makes ready to wreak burning sorceries upon us.'

He pointed up the ravine where Maram, with Master Juwain and Liljana, stood watching us.

'The Elahad himself,' the droghul said, 'bears a sword wrought of the evilest of substances. He has used it to slay with all the deadliness of a scorpion.'

Sunji aimed his saber at me, then commanded Laisar, Avraym and Maidro to draw their sabers. He said to me, 'Let us see this sorcerous sword!'

I drew out Alkaladur then. The Ravirii of all three tribes gasped to behold its silvery brilliance. They drew back from it, too, for even as I held it up to the sun, red flames ran up and down its length. Only Kane, I thought, knew how badly I longed to stab its point into Morjin's heart - even into the droghul. But killing this dreadful creature would not kill Morjin. It would serve only to bring down the sabers of the Ravirii upon me and my friends.

'Break it!' The droghul cried out. 'Take this evil thing from the poisoner, and break it into pieces!'

'You
take it!' I shouted back at him. I pointed my sword at him, and watched in horror as it blazed with even hotter flames. 'Let us cross swords, the two of us here and now, and let that be the test of things!'

Sunji turned to nod at the Avari warriors backing him up as if making sure they were ready to close in on me at a moment's notice. Then he said to me, 'This is no trial by combat; put away your sword.'

The Sword of Light, Alkaladur was called, the Sword of Truth. It caught me up in its fiery light Then I sheathed it and sat gasping at the torrid air.

The sight of this burning blade seemed to stir something within the droghul. His jaws clamped shut as if he struggled to bite off the words forming in his throat. I sensed Morjin from afar, and too near, driving a heated iron into the droghul's spine to make him speak. And when the droghul finally did, he spoke too much - too much for me to bear: 'With that cursed sword, the Elahad murdered his own father and brothers when they discovered his sorceries and tried to drive him from Mesh!'

So bright did the sun blaze just then that I thought it would burn out my eyes.

'Father-killer!' one of the Red Priests called out. A Zuri warrior next to him repeated this accusation. And then, from both the Zuri and Avari lines came more cries: 'Father-killer! Well-poisoner! Sorcerer!'

The three judges stared at me in a silence even more terrible than these accusations.

He has won,
I thought, looking at the droghul for the hidden hand of Morjin.
He will always win.

'Father-killer! Father-killer! Father-killer!'

I had told of things as accurately as I knew how, and it seemed that I had only turned my judges against me. But had I really spoken
truly?
Inside me whispered a deep and beautiful voice that had never failed me; often, now, it called to me as loud and clear as a bell. I knew, though, that I was afraid to make this voice my own and shout it out so that others might hear it. I feared that they would
mishear
it or misuse it - or use it against me. Even more, I feared wielding the truth as a sword that men could not resist, annihilating their wills so that mine might prevail. That was Morjin's way. As the golden eyes of the droghul fell upon me and I felt Morjin staring me down from far away, I knew that he wished me to fear this and to live in dread of my gift of valarda. In a hundred ways, perhaps even through the Black Jade, he had attacked my will toward all that was good and true. And so I spoke with what honesty I dared, but softly and weakly, in words that were often at least partial lies.