Black Jade (94 page)

'No, no,' he murmured as he gazed at her. 'No, no.'

I grabbed onto his hand and pulled him so that he looked back at me. I said, 'He is the Red Dragon, the Lord of Lies. He is the Great Beast. It was Morjin, with his own hands, who took her eyes!'

I told him of how we had gone into Argattha to gain the Lightstone, and of how Morjin had tortured Master Juwain, Ymiru and Atara. I knew that he heard the truth of what I said. His fingers grasped at mine as his whole body began to tremble and he wept without restraint.

Then he asked Atara, 'Is it as Valashu has said?'

'It is worse,' she told him.

'I'm sorry,' he said to her. He took hold of her with his free hand. 'The Dragon took your eyes, and yet it is I who have been blind.'

'You've nothing to be sorry about,' she told him.

'I don't know - perhaps I shouldn't have run away.'

He stood up to face her, and he lay his hands over her temples, where the white bandage pressed her golden hair. He looked at her with great gentleness, even as something hard and hurtful knotted up inside him.

And she said to him, 'We had hoped. . .'

He took his hands away from her and shook his head sadly. 'I cannot be the one you hope me to be.'

'But we had heard that you healed a great lord's daughter. When she was near to death. You laid your hands upon her and -'

'No, you don't understand,' he said. 'I can heal no one. It is not as you must think.'

'How is it, then?'

Bemossed held his hand up to the sun's rays burning down through the thinning mist. He said, 'A spectacle's lens gathers light and strengthens it, but in itself illuminates nothing. I am such a lens, and nothing more. There are times ... when everything is utterly clear. Then there is Ughtij§ there is always tight, but sometimes it shines so brilliantly. Within it is everything. The design for all things, in their wholeness, in their being, in their joy. This light is such a joy. It is that which touches those I lay my hands upon, not I. But when I am utterly clear, I touch upon it, for a moment. It is like touching the One itself. It is like . . the whole world is beautiful and can never be full of ugliness or hurt again. Then, and only then, I am perfect. Then it all passes through me, like lightning, and sometimes people are healed. They call this a miracle.'

He fell silent, and we gazed at him in utter silence. At last Master Juwain said to him, 'So it would be with the Maitreya.'

'But so it is with many people,' Bemossed said.

'No, not many - your gift is quite rare.'

'Surely it is not. Surely many others can do as I do. They just don't speak of it.'

He went on to say that once he had lived in the south, near Khevaju, and had known of three young healers who had disappeared into the Kallimun fortress there.

'Everyone is afraid to appear as different, and who can blame

them?'

'In the Free Kingdoms,' Master Juwain said, 'people have no such fear, and yet I know of no one able to heal as you do.'

Bemossed smiled sadly at this and said, 'If they do not fear the Kallimun, then they fear themselves. That which they will not touch. Surely, no man or woman exists who cannot be open to what shines from the One?'

'If that is true,' Master Juwain said, 'then what is the Maitreya?'

Bemossed shrugged his shoulders and said, 'He is not the lens, but the light.'

The two of them contended in a like manner for a while. I joined in this argument, and so did Maram and Liljana. We could not quite convince Bemossed that he might be the Maitreya; we could not quite convince ourselves. But there still seemed no better course than to take him away from Hesperu. And so I finally said to him, 'You now know what we feared to tell you, and with good reason. What will you do? Will come with us?'

Bemossed picked another scab of mud off his skin, and then looked off into the forest. He said, 'This is my land. As cruel as it is, as cruel as it has been to me, it is still my home.'

'Then come back to it,' I said. 'In strength, after we've stopped Morjin. You can do nothing for your people, now.'

'I don't know,' he said. 'There was Taimu, the miller's son, whose leg was shattered almost beyond repair. There was Ysanna, who was only a breath away from dying.'

'In the lands we must pass through,' I told him, 'you will find no lack of people who are ailing or close to death.'

'I don't know,' he said, looking up at the sky.

Master Juwain gripped a pair of tweezers in his hand, and said to him, 'Whatever you are, whatever your gift might be, I believe that the Grandmaster of my order might be able to help bring it forth in all its glory. With the aid of the gelstei we call the seven openers. Then you might be able to claim control of the Lightstone, even across a thousand miles. Think what a lens that would be!'

I felt Bemossed's heart quicken, and his eyes brightened. But he shook his head as if he couldn't believe what Master Juwain had said might be possible.

'I don't know,' he said again. 'I just don't know.'

He stared at the mad colors of the cart as he seemed to listen to the weet-trit-weet of a swallow singing from the branch of a nearby tree. Then he looked at me and asked, 'Why have you kept the minstrel hidden all these days?'

I started to give the usual excuse about Thierraval's shyness and retiring ways, but Bemossed's hurt look reminded me that I must try to be truthful with him in all things.

And so I said, 'The minstrel's real name is Alphanderry. And he is not as other men.'

'What is wrong with him?' Bemossed asked.

'Nothing is wrong,' I told him. I sensed in him a strange dread burning through his belly. So I asked him, 'What is wrong with you?'

'Only that I feared you had done something to the minstrel. As I supposed you wished to do to me.'

'What do you mean?'

He shrugged his shoulders and smiled at me. 'Because you are from the Dark Lands, as I thought of them, I supposed you wanted to use me in some evil rite. It is said that demons there castrate men against their will and make of them women for their pleasure, and do even worse things.'

I stared at him in disbelief.

'I have been marked,' he said, touching the black cross tattooed into his forehead. 'In any case, people have always singled me out. I see the way they look at me. I know there is something about me they can't bear. And so who better to choose for a strange rite?'

I wanted to laugh at this almost as much as I wanted to weep. Instead, I asked Maram to open the door to the cart. Then I called for Alphanderry to come out and make Bemossed's acquaintance.

From twenty yards away, seemingly attired in rich velvets and wool, Alphanderry appeared much as any other man. But as he came closer, the colors of his skin and curly hair seemed to grow ever more vivid and almost too real. When he closed the distance and stood next to the log upon which Bemossed sat, he fairly glowed. His large eyes filled with light - and so did his lips, cheeks and forehead.

'Bemossed,' he said, bowing, 'it is my pleasure.'

Bemossed stared at him in wonder. He said to him, 'They call me the Maitreya, but it is you who shines!'

Alphanderry laughed at this in a rich musk that poured from his throat. He seemed to look deep into Bemossed's being as if layers of flesh were as nothing to him.

'Who are you?' Bemossed asked him.

'Hoy - who are you? The Maitreya, they say. Well, we can only hope.'

It came time to tell of the Timpum, those strange, luminous beings that shimmered through all of Ea's vilds. Were they really the children of the Galadin or seeds of light that the Galadin had bestowed upon the earth? And could these seeds somehow blossom into a human being whose substance seemed pure radiance? We didn't know. All that we could explain to Bemossed was that Flick had somehow become very much like our old friend, Alphanderry.

'What are you?' Bemossed asked him.

Alphanderry's warm, wide smile invited friendship, even intimacy. Bemossed gathered up his courage and reached out to take hold of Alphanderry. With his delight of touching of hand to hand, he was like a child with a new game. But it was still impossible to apprehend Alphanderry in this way. Bemossed's hand passed right through him as if he had thrust it into a pool of glimmering water.

He almost fell off his log then. And he said to Alphanderry, 'If you are made of light, you must be the Maitreya-'

'The Maitreya?' Alphanderry said. 'Hoy - I am a minstrel.'

'But -'

'You are made of light, too. Everything is. I heard you tell Valashu this.'

'But -'

'I am not here to argue,' Alphanderry said, 'but to sing. What shall I sing of?'

He didn't wait for an answer, but only smiled as he intoned:

The Shining One

In innocence sleeps.

Inside his heart Angel fire sleeps,

And when he wakes

The firre leaps.

About the Maitreya

One thing is known:

That to himself

He always is known

When the moment comes

To claim the Lightstone.

Alphanderry stopped singing and looked at Bemossed. And he asked him, 'What will it take, I wonder, to wake you up?'

And with that, he vanished into nothingness.

An astonished Bemossed stood up, looked around and asked, 'Where did he go?'

'I don't know,' I told him.

I stared at the cross shining from his forehead, and I couldn't help remembering my mother's arms stretched out and her hands nailed to a piece of wood.

Where does the light go
, I wondered,
when the light goes out?

Bemossed stared back at me, at the lightning bolt scar cut into my forehead, and the deeper wound cut into my eyes. I never told him, with words, how desperately I needed him by my side in the final battles that soon must be fought. He knew it even so. A lovely light came into his eyes as he smiled me. I felt my heart quicken and my breath whispering like a cool wind even as the old pain in my chest died away.

'Valashu,' he said, holding out his hand to me. 'I have decided: I will come with you as far as the Brotherhood's school, and perhaps farther.'

We clasped hands then and stood there smiling at each other. In him I sensed much of Karshur's strength, Yarashan's verve and Asaru's grace and goodness. He was like the brother I no longer had.

'And I,' I told him, 'will go with you, even to the end of all things.'

After that he clasped hands with each of the others as we welcomed him into our company. It grieved me only a little to see him embrace Atara and kiss her lips. Then Kane shocked him, coming up to crush Bemossed's slender body to him and kissing him. And he growled out, 'When you ran, I fell mad like a rabid dog. Will you forgive me?'

'Will you forgive me for biting you?'

They laughed together then, Bemossed's gentle tones as warm as a summer rain and Kane's voice breaking from him like thunder. It was a happy moment, full of soaring spirits and hope.

It took most of the next two hours for Liljana to help clean up Bemossed and Master Juwain finally to tend his wounds. After we had broken camp and everything was packed away, I hitched Altaru to the cart and patted his neck as I told him, 'All right old friend. Let's see if we can find our way back home.'

But this, it seemed, was not to be. Just as we were setting out, I heard an unwelcome noise through the trees, and quickly drawing closer. From the direction of the road came the beat of horses' hooves against stone. Then soldiers burst into the clearing again, and this time there were many more of them.

At the head of these armed men rode Lord Rodas, who was now in command of this district's magicians, alchemists, dancers, augurers and courtesans - and traveling troupes such as ours. It seemed that he had grown in power in the days since he had extorted silver from us on our crossing of the Black Bridge. Upon seeing this scrawny New Lord in his silks and gold embroidery, I gathered that he had been successful in a scheme to slander Lord Olum and see him ruined. He made his way toward our cart as if he had been elevated to lordship over all the Haralanders, and not just a few ragged outcasts. His six hirelings in their hideous purple and yellow livery accompanied him as before, but so did twenty of King Arsu's men-at-arms. They wore weapon-scarred bronze armor and bore shields and lances that looked well-used. It seemed that Lord Rodas had begged King Arsu to detach this company in his charge in order to 'escort' us to the army's encampment just outside of Orun.

Lord Rodas's gaze swept from the cart to Bemossed, now wearing a fresh tunic that hid most of his scrapes and cuts. Lord Rodas said to me: 'I see you've acquired this man since our last meeting. You must be doing well, though with the price of slaves falling so low, I suppose even
poor
players such as yourselves can afford one, if only a Hajarim.'

He brought out a purse full of jangling coins and bounced them in his hand.

'The King has asked to see you, and has given me coin in pledge of your performance,' he told us.

'We
are
honored that King Arsu requests this,' I said, feeling the sweat running down my sides, 'but our way lies opposite from Orun.'

'It is not the King's
request,'
Lord Rodas told me, 'but his
command.
And mine. As it is also my command that your way not take you out of the Haraland. Now, come! The King is returning to his encampment, and we must prepare for his arrival.'

I eyed the twenty soldiers sitting on top of their horses. Unless we were willing to fight them all and managed to kill them to the last man, we had no choice but to go with Lord Rodas into the very last place in Hesperu that we wished to go.

I nodded at Kane then, and he nodded back his affirmation that a battle at this time would be too great a chance.

And so, with ten of the soldiers riding behind us, and ten more with Lord Rodas and his hirelings out in front, we made our way onto the Ghurlan Road. A stiff wind rose up to blow away the mist from the walls of trees lining our way. The birds nesting there chirped and sang in the peace of the late morning. Bemossed sat with me on the seat of the cart, and appeared to be listening to them - or perhaps to the drumbeat of his heart. The grinding of the cart's wheels turning over worn stone reminded me that time itself was grinding on and on, and pulling us inexorably toward our fate.