Black Jade (68 page)

While the Loikalii men and women melted off into the woods to gather nuts and fruits, which was most of their work, Kalevi escorted us to a little lake, where we stripped ourselves naked and used fragrant leaves to wash the grime from our bodies. He gave us garments - tunics woven of silk - to wear. Then he led us a short distance to our 'houses'. These proved to be nothing more, and nothing less, than the hollowed-out trunks of huge living trees called olindas. As Kalevi told us, his people had little need of shelter, for the Forest never grew very hot or very cold. Even when it rained, the canopies of the oaks and other great trees protected them. A few of the Loikalii therefore lived their entire lives outside of their houses, but most of them liked to sleep inside the wooden walls of the olinda tree.

'The trees give us their strength,' Kalevi said to us as he stopped near one of the towering oilndas. 'As they will to you.'

A sort of doorway almost wide enough to ride a horse through opened through the trunk of one of the olindas, which must have been a hundred feet around. Its dark interior seemed to have been scooped out, though Kalevi gave me to understand that these trees grew this way mostly of their own accord, with very little help from the Loikalii.

'We do not shape
these
trees,' he told us, 'but deeper in the wood, you might see the bonsails, which are almost as beautiful as the astors. Now, come, come! - rest, as Maira has said!'

He left us to make ourselves comfortable inside our three houses. After seeing to the horses, the Avari went inside a great olinda. Atara, Liljana and Estrella shared the shelter of a second tree, while Kane, Daj, Master Juwain and I set up inside the third. There was little work for us to do. We had no need even to roll out our dusty, stinking sleeping furs, for the interior of the olinda had been lined with a thick carpet of leaves, and mats of woven silk laid out on top of them. Someone had stocked our new home with gourds of water and others full of fresh fruits and nuts. We had to share our simple living quarters with the spiders and insects who also dwelled there, but we were all so tired that we didn't mind this web-spinning and buzzing company.

And so we all lay down to take our rest - all of us except Master Juwain. He bore a heavy burden of guilt at having so nearly killed Maram with his crystal, and he would not suffer Anneli to try to heal Maram alone with her varistei. Anneli, a woman of generous heart, gladly invited Master Juwain into her house. While we slept, the two of them spent many long hours tending to Maram.

For the next three days we did little more than eat, sleep and walk through the Loikajii's woods. Liljana could not even manage to wash our sweat-stained clothing, for the Loikalii insisted on soaking our woolens in water full of the same leaves with which we had washed ourselves. They brought us water to drink and a never-ending supply of delicious things to eat. After they over came their fear of our horses, they even took on the task of watering them with their own hands.

We saw Master Juwain only twice during this time, and Maram not at all. One evening, Daj stole close to Anneli's house, but was not allowed inside. He later told us of flashes of emerald lighting up the tree's interior, and of Maram calling out softly for water. On the fourth day after our entrance into the Vildi Anneli and Master Juwain emerged to tell us that Maram would be all right. On the fifth day, Maram himself walked out of Anneli's house under the power of his own two legs. He was nearly naked; like the Loikalii, he wore only a narrow band of a skirt that barely covered his loins. His flesh, no less his eyes, gleamed. I could hardly believe the wonders that Anneli and Master Juwain had worked upon him.

He stood boldly without shame so that we could regard him. Although he was much thinner than when we had set out from Mesh, he was still Maram: thick of bone and thew, and radiating a raw, rude vitality. All the sores were gone from his flesh - all save one. Neither Anneli nor Master Juwain had been able to heal the terrible burn that Master Juwain's gelstei had seared into his chest. A large leaf covered this wound. But the rest of Maram's skin, even his hands, had taken on their usual ruddy color and showed little of the more angry red of a sunscalding or other burn.

Maram gazed at Anneli as if utterly enchanted by this lovely woman who had healed him. His desires had obviously moved on from brandy to more fiery things.

Maira ordered a feast to celebrate Maram's recovery and to honor us. That evening, we gathered beneath the astor trees, whose leaves gave off a soft, golden light. The whole tribe of Loikalii sat themselves down around many large mats placed throughout the grove. As at our other feasts in the other Vilds, these mats would serve as tables on which the Loikalii set bowls full of their simple yet sustaining food.

'In many ways,' Master Juwain remarked as we and the Avari joined Maira, Anneli, Kalevi and several other Loikalii around a particularly large mat, 'these people are quite similar to their kinsmen. But in other ways. . .'

His voice trailed off as Maira shot him a sharp, penetrating look. She seemed much more knowledgeable about us, and the world outside, than the other Lokilani whom we had met. Although she exuded congeniality and sweetness, I sensed that she could also be as forceful and determined as any of Ea's queens. When we had finished filling ourselves with nutbread and honey and other delicious things, she passed me a gourd full of elderberry wine with a graceful motion of her hand and the most radiant of smiles. She would not abide Master Juwain's protestations that Maram should be denied strong drink; she passed Maram wine too: more than one gourd's worth, and then more than three. She seemed not to mind the way that Maram gazed at Anneli, though a couple of the other Loikalii present could not countenance his obvious infatuation. She smiled at him in amusement and then directed our conversation toward matters that we had put off discussing for five days.

'Tell us, Val'Alahad,' she said to me, 'of yourselves and your journey.'

And so I did. While the Loikalii at our table and the others nearby turned toward me, I told of our quest, as much as I thought wise. The hours flowed into evening, and evening turned toward night. The radiance of the astor leaves lit the grove, and it fell cool. No mosquitoes, however, came out to Be the Loikalii's nearly naked bodies. It seemed that they allowed into their woods only those living things that pleased them. Other things, however, darker things, they could not keep out.

'We have
seen
the Morajin,' she told us. 'The Earthkiller, our cousins call him. The Burning One that
you
call the Red Dragon: he burns, inside, as if his blood is on fire. It is worse than the scorching of the sun, for that can destroy only flesh. But the Morajin's soul! It is all black and twisted, like a worm dropped onto hot coals. We have seen this! He would kill all that displeases him, even the best of himself. He sends his armies throughout all lands, killing and killing until the earth cannot bear it. Soon, soon, we fear, all of the earth's trees will be cut down and her soil burnt barren. It will be as it is in the Burning Lands outside of the Forest.'

She seemed to blame the desolation of the desert on Morjin, and on his master, whom she called Ang Ar Mai Nyu. How she knew of either of them - or of anything outside of her woods -was not clear. I could not imagine any of her delicate, gentle people crossing the desert to lands so faraway and forbidding as Sakai in the heart of the White Mountains.

Her words disturbed all of us, and Master Juwain especially. He rubbed at his smooth scalp as he looked at Maira and said, 'Surely the desert has causes other than the hand of the Red Dragon. Why, the Crescent Mountains, to the west, which block the moisture from the ocean. The pattern of the winds, which blow -'

'The winds blow enough moisture our way,' Maira said, cutting him off. She smiled at him nicely, but I could tell that she had little patience for his perpetual questioning and turning things over and over in his mind. 'Grass could grow where now there is only the sand. And more moisture could be summoned - enough to make the Forest grow across the whole of the Burning Lands.'

Here she glanced to her right at an old woman named Oni. Oni had white hair and withered breasts, but her eyes still held much life. She cupped between her hands a small, bluish bowl that looked something like frozen water. I wondered immediately if it were made of some kind of gelstei that I had never seen before.

'If you can truly summon the clouds,' Master Juwain said, addressing both Maira and Oni, 'as it seems you can, then why hasn't the desert been made green again?'

'The Loikalii,' Maira said to us, 'long, long ago were sent to this place to re-enchant the earth. A great evil occurred here, long past long ago. It opened up the earth to the deep fires, the black fires which scorched the soil, out and out across the Burning Lands.'

Master Juwain nodded his head in deep contemplation; I could almost hear him wondering what kind of evil event or sorcery could have channelled the telluric currents so as to create a wasteland hundreds of miles wide.

'But you have succeeded
here
,' he said, looking at the astor trees above us. 'I have never known a more enchanting place.'

'We have
not
succeeded here,' Maira said. 'We have sent our people out on the sands to plant seeds so that the Forest might widen. All have failed. Even in this place, if we did not fight to make the Forest grow, the trees would wither and die and be lost into the sand.'

She went on to tell of an ancient dark thing, perhaps a crystal, buried beneath the soil somewhere on earth. She said that it had the power to draw life from the earth and allow its inner fires to burn unchecked and wreak destruction upon all things. Kane scowled at this, and his eyes found mine; it was obvious that Maira must be speaking of the Black Jade. I recounted then of our crossing of the Skadarak and what we knew of this powerful gelstei.

'The Black Jade,' Maira said as she looked from Oni to Anneli and then back at me. 'You have named it well. We have felt how the Morajin seeks his way deeper and deeper into its heart. We know that Ang Ar Mai Nyu aids him. Why, why, we have asked ourselves? Soon, we fear, the Morajin will loose the earth's fires and burn open the very sky. Then the evil that created the Burning Lands will blight the stars. Their earths - so many, many! - will be burnt too. The Forest that covers them will die. It will be as you said it was at the heart of the Skadarak: everything blackened and covered with bones. And then it will be as it is here, beyond our trees: nothing but burning sands, Everywhere and forever.' I gazed at her in wonder of how her dread of the future so nearly matched my own. Then she took a sip of her wine and shook her head furiously. 'But we must not let this
be
! If the Morajin gains power, utterly, over the Black Jade, he will invade the Forest. First with his eyes and with dark dreams. And soon after, with steel and fire.'

Here she glanced at the hilt of Kane's sword and shook her head in loathing. A similar look on Oni's face told me that, in some ways at least, the Loikalii did not welcome our presence in their woods.

I took a sip of wine, too, and then said to Maira, 'You know a great deal about matters of which we have learned only with difficulty. And that few others even suspect. How, then? Are there scryers among you?'

Maira looked quickly at Oni, who spoke in a cranky, quavering voice saying, 'Do you see, Maira? I told you they would want to know.'

Oni's angry, relentless stare seemed to disconcert Maira, who glanced at Atara and said, 'No, none of us can see the future, not as you can. But sometimes, we can see things far, far away.'

'How, then?' I asked again.

Now Oni stared at me as she shook her head. She said to Maira, 'No, no - they mustn't see!'

Her hands gripped her crystal bowl, and I suddenly knew that it had been Oni who had sent the sandstorm that had so nearly killed us. There was something wild about this old woman, I thought like the wind. I sensed that she acted by the force of her own will and no one else's, not even Maira's.

'I believe that they
must
see,' Maira said to her. 'How else are they to find the Shining One they seek? And how else to keep the Morajin from using the gelstei they call the Lightstone?'

'No,' Oni said, as stubborn as a stone. 'The giants are clumsy and stupid, and bring an evil of their own into the Forest.'

She stared at the hilt of my sword; after a while, she raised up her angry old eyes and stared at me.

'They are
not
stupid,' Maira said to her. 'And whose heart is wholly pure?'

'No, no - they must not see!'

'I
have seen this,' Maira said to her. 'And you have, too; that the time is coming when either the Forest will grow across the Burning Lands, or the Burning Lands will devour the Forest - and soon, soon. Which will it be?'

While the evening deepened, they argued back and forth, but no word or reason from Maira could prevail against Oni's obduracy. And then there occurred a miracle beyond reason or resistance: Flick fell out of the night like a comet. He hovered in the air radiating an intense glorre. This light seemed to draw many other Timpum from out of the trees around us. It touched them so that they glowed with glorre, too. Then these thousands of splendid beings passed the fire back to Flick so that he blazed ever brighter. Back and forth it passed, many, many times. Flick feeding the Timpum and they feeding him until the whole host of little lights shimmered with great brilliance.

'Do you see?' Kalevi cried out, pointing at Flick. 'The angel fire - I did not imagine it! The giants call it glorre!'

'Glorre! Glorre! Glorre!' the many Loikalii at their tables chanted.

'It is a sign!' Kalevi cried out again, turning to Oni. 'You must take them to the Water!'

'Take them! Take them! Take them!' his tribesmates chanted.

I drew my sword and held it up toward Flick. Its mirrored surface seemed perfectly to reflect his fiery form. Whether it picked up the glorre pouring out of him or shone from within with this singular color was hard to tell.