Black Jade (84 page)

A dozen yards out in the square, whose shiny cobblestones seemed to have been scrubbed of the stain of horse dung and swept clean of the tiniest particle of dirt, a few of the other townsfolk passing along had turned their curious faces toward us. I decided that this would be an excellent time to make our farewell and be on our way.

But just as I took a step toward my horse, Goro called out to me: "Just a moment, pilgrim! We were discussing
errors,
and yours at that.'

In looking at the stubbornness of censure that befell Goro's face, I had a keen sense that things would go worse for us if we fled instead of remaining. And so I, and my friends, waited to hear what Goro would say.

'Let us,' Goro told, 'read the relevant passages in the Black Book. Will you oblige me, pilgrim?'

He stared straight at me, and it took me some moments before I realized that he was referring to that compendium of evil and lies called the
Darakul Elu.
Morjin had written it himself in mockery of the
Saganom Elu.
Most editions of it were bound in leather dyed a dark black, hence its more common name.

'We are traveling light,' I told him, 'and it seemed wise not to burden ourselves with books.'

I glanced at Master Juwain; this was one time where his copy of the
Saganom Elu
was nowhere to be seen, and I silently gave thanks for that.

'A
burden
!' Goro cried out. He turned to Vasul and said, 'Do you see? They willfully keep themselves in ignorance. Is that not an Error Mortal?'

'It might be,' Vasul said, 'if they were of Hesperu. But other lands have other ways.'

His words, however, which were meant to placate Goro, seemed only to anger him. Goro's dark face grew darker as he barked out: 'My son, Ugo, was killed last year, in Surrapam, fighting the errants so that our priests might bring the Way of the Dragon to the north. His blood washes clean the ground where he lies. After the campaign is finished, all the errants there who haven't been crucified will turn to the Way. And so it will be, soon, in all lands. And so these pilgrims would do well to learn
our
ways, since their journey has afforded them so great a chance.'

Now a man whose clay-stained hands proclaimed him as a potter stepped closer, and so did a middling old woman and a much younger one with a baby girl in her arms: a mother, daughter, and granddaughter, or so I guessed. I wanted badly to jump on Altaru's back and gallop out of this trap of a town, but it was too late for that.

'All families,' Goro instructed me, 'must keep at least one copy of the Black Book. If you are pilgrims bound by blood or oaths, you count as a family.'

'Then we should treat them as a family,' Vasul said to him. 'Where is our kindness to these strangers? Where is our hospitality?'

'The best kindness we could offer them is to correct their errors.'

'Then let us help them,' Vasul said to Goro. 'Wait here with them, won't you?'

With that, he disappeared into his shop, and then came out a few moments later bearing a large, thick book. Gold leaf had been worked into the edges of its pages; a large dragon - of a red so dark it gleamed almost black - had been embossed upon the book's leather cover. More leaf, I saw, had been used to render the dragon's eyes a brilliant gold.

'One of my scribes,' Vasul said to us, 'finished lettering this only last week. As you can see, it is beautifully illuminated.'

He opened the book to show us golden characters through which sunlight streamed as through glowing windows. He came to a page worked with the brilliant figure of the angel, Asangal, giving the Lightstone into Morjin's outstretched hands. Another page depicted the crucifixion of Kalkamesh. The scene's vividness nearly made me weep: a great being nailed to stone on the side of a black mountain, as above him a dragon beat the air with his leathery wings and used his talons to tear out Kalkamesh's liver.

'Here,' Vasul said to me, coming to a page near the middle of the book. 'This passage is from the
Healings,
under
Miracles.
Read it to us, won't you?'

He gave the book to me, and tapped a gold-ringed finger against the top of the page. The finely-wrought letters inked into the paper burned my eyes like fire. I could not bring myself to give voice to the words; it was like holding in my mouth pure poison.

'Read!' Goro told me. 'It's nearly noon, and I've a barrel to finish.'

More people had now gathered around. I began mumbling out the words of the passage.

'Louder!' Goro barked out. 'I can't hear you!

I drew in a deep breath, and with greater force, if not enthusiasm, I recited:

" ' If a man should lose limb or eye, let him not despair or drink the potions of conjurors or witches. Let him turn the eye of his soul toward the One's light and he who brings it to earth, for the only true restoration lies in the hands of the Maitreya."'

I finished reading, and Goro suddenly shouted at me: 'The only true restoration is in the hands of the Maitreya! Remember this, pilgrim! This Well of Restoration you seek is a figment. And your desire to seek it must be corrected.'

I told Goro that I would surely remember the passage. But this wasn't good enough for him.

'Read it again!' he commanded me.

'What?' I said.

'Read it again, nine times more, and louder.' He turned to look at Master Juwain. 'And the rest of you shall recite it, ten times each!'

'By what authority,' I asked him, 'do you demand this of us?'

By now, Goro had so swollen up with righteous anger and pride that it seemed his head might burst. And so it was Vasul who answered for him, saying. 'It is upon everyone to correct the errors of each other, and especially their own. That is the Way of the Dragon.'

Vasul, and others crowding in close, waited to see what I would do. But Goro lost patience, and called out: 'Read the passage!'

And so I did. Nine more times I read out loud these duplicitous words of Morjin. I gave the book to Master Juwain, and he reluc-tantly recited to Goro and Vasul, and to the crowd, as well. So did Maram, Liljana and Daj; so, in a quavering voice that nearly broke my heart, did Atara. When she failed to pass the book to Estrella, Goro berated her.

'All
of you shall recite the verse,' Goro commanded.

If Atara had still possessed eyes, she would have fired off arrows of hate with them. She snapped at Goro: 'But the girl is mute!'

At the sharpness of her voice, Goro's fingers clenched as if he longed to correct her contempt with his fist. But then he asked Atara, 'Can she see still read?'

'No, she never learned the art.'

'Can she still hear?'

Atara looked at Estrella and nodded her head.

'Good,' Goro said. 'Then she will have heard the passage enough that she might recite it within her heart. Ten times.'

He turned his gaze on Estrella, who stood there on smooth cobblestones staring back at him. In the silence that fell over the square, everyone waited as they watched Estrella. She remained almost motionless as the leaves of the nearby almond trees fluttered in the breeze. Whether or not she recited Morjin's words within herself, not even the wind could know.

Finally, Goro grabbed up the book and extended it toward Kane. 'Read!' he told him.

Kane did not move. His eyes looked past the big black book and fixed on Goro's eyes. I thought he might be ready to tear them out of his head.

'Read, now, pilgrim! We haven't got all day!'

I felt Kane's fingers burning to grip the hilt of his sword. I knew that he could whip it out of its sheath and strike off Goro's head before Goro had time to change the expression of his belligerent face.

At last, with a furious motion, Kane took hold of the book. By bad chance, it seemed, it fell open to the illumination of Kalkamesh's crucifixion. Kane stared for a long few moments at the dragon's bloody talon ripping open Kalkamesh's side. I knew he trembled to cut off Goro's life years before its time, and Vasul's life, too - and the lives of a nearby baker and barber and all the other townspeople gathering in the square. The fire In Kane eyes told me that he had returned to his savage self, and I hated myself for liking him better that way. 'So,' Kane growled. 'So.'

His blunt fingers fairly tore through the book's pages. When he came to the passage that we had all read, he snarled out:

'"If a man should lose limb or eye, let him not despair or drink the potions of conjurors or witches. Let him turn the eye of his soul toward the One's light and he who brings it to earth, for the only true restoration lies in the hands of the Maitreya."'

'There!' he shouted at Goro.

'Good!' Goro said to him. He shot Kane a dark smile. 'Now complete the passage for us.'

'What!'

'The passage is incomplete. You'll find the words that should come next, if you search in your heart for them.'

If Kane searched in his heart just then, I thought, he would find a ravening beast that would tear both Goro and himself apart.

'I don't know what you're talking about!' Kane said.

'Then I shall help you.' Goro seemed very satisfied with himself as he smiled and drew in a breath of air. Then he recited the selfsame passage, ending with:

'"For the only true restoration lies in the hands of the Maitreya ... and his name is Morjin
!
"'

'But that is not written!' Kane said, smacking his knuckles into the book.

Vasul pulled at his rings of oiled hair, and said to him, 'It
is
written, surely. The
Darakul Elu
is a living text, dwelling within the heart of the One, and therefore within the hearts of men. It always grows, even as a child grows to a man and then to an angel. And surely, Lord Morjin is the Shining One.'

A gray-haired woman standing in close called out in an awed voice, 'The heralds came with the news just last month, on the thirteenth of Marud: Lord Morjin has claimed the Lightstone and has been revealed as the Maitreya. And so his dominion is not just all of Ea, but over men's minds and hearts, as well.' And over our destinies!' another woman shouted.
'"He is the coming of the sun after night,"
someone else quoted.
"He is the bringer of the new age."'

'He is
coming,
himself!' the potter called out. 'It is said that Lord Morjin will soon visit Hesperu, and honor King Arsu for his conquest of Surrapam. He brings blessings for all those who have battled the errants.'

This news, if news it really was, caused many crowding the square to let out a great cheer of anticipation. But not everyone seemed to shout with equal enthusiasm. I felt sure that the cobbler standing behind the potter loudly praised Morjin only so that he could be
heard
praising Morjin. So it was with the woman holding the baby, and the barber, and others. A few failed to join the chorus altogether. One of these, a large man bearing an iron-shod staff, rubbed at the scar of a dragon that had been branded into his cheek. As it had been in Sakai, too many of the people here bore signs of torture: brandings, amputations, tongue clippings and eyes put out. I prayed that none of these mutilations were the correctives for Errors Minor.

Goro still waited for Kane to recite the passage - and the noxious amendment that he had added to it. I thought that Kane would rather die than say these words, but he surprised me, spitting them out nine more times to Goro's and Vasul's satisfaction. Then he turned to climb on top of his horse.

'Where are you going, pilgrim?' Goro said to him. 'We're not finished here.'

'No? Are we not?'

Kane's hand crept closer to his sword's hilt. I felt sure that he was about to commit an Error Mortal.

'What would you have of us?' I asked Goro as I grabbed Kane's arm.

'It's not what
I
would have,' Goro said. He looked at Vasul. 'I believe their errors call for, at the very least, a payment to the Dragon.'

'I agree,' Vasul said, smiling at me. 'I should think a dragongild of at least twenty ounces. Gold ounces, of course.'

'Twenty gold pieces!' Maram cried out. 'That is robbery!'

'No,' Vasul told him, 'it is only correction. As it is said in the Black Book, gold washes clean the stain of error.'

Various mumblings and protests from the crowd gave me to understand that this was also said of pain and blood.

'How can
our
gold filling
your
pockets,' Maram asked him, 'wash anything clean?'

Where his question angered Goro, it seemed only to wound Vasul. He held out his hands as if to ask why fate had driven him to deal with unreasoning errants. Then he explained. 'The book I have given you would sell for five gold ounces itself, and is in any case priceless. The dragongild that we ask of you will be given to the Kallimun school up on Crow's Hill, that the children of Nubur shall be educated to avoid errors in all their forms. In the end, all belongs to the Dragon, anyway.'

'So,' Kane said to Vasul, 'since you
ask
this dragongild of us, we are free not to pay it, eh?'

Goro stood eyeing Kane as if wondering if he had the strength to crush the breath out of him. But it was one thing, I thought, to heft barrels all day and another to grapple with Kane.

'You're free to commit any errors you wish,' Goro snapped at him. 'We've only suggested these correctives to help you. If you disagree with our assessments, we can always go up to the Kallimun castle. It's said that Ra Parvu is the one of the wisest of the Red Priests. He is far more skilled than we in distinguishing Errors Minor from Errors Major.'

Out in the crowd to my left, I took note of a pot-bellied man I recognized as a carpenter. I overheard him proudly telling someone that he had kept the Red Priests well supplied with crosses as correctives to Errors Mortal.

Liljana stepped up closer to Goro and told him, 'We don't
have
twenty gold pieces. We're only poor pilgrims trying make our way to Iskull.'

'Iskull?' Goro said. 'But you told that you were trying to find a Well of Restoration.'