Black Jade

by David Zindell

  'Were you sent here to tell me this?' Master Juwain asked him.

  In answer, Alphanderry's smile only widened.

  'Who sent you, then? Was it truly the Galadin?'

  Now sadness touched Alphanderry's face, along with the amusement and a deep mystery. And he said to Master Juwain, and to all of us, 'I wish I could stay to answer your questions. To sing and laugh - and even to eat Liljana's fine cooking again. Alas, I cannot.'

  He looked skyward, where Icesse and Hyanne and the other glittering stars of the Mother's Necklace had just passed the zenith. In that direction, I thought, lay Ninsun, the dwelling place of the Ieldra - and the light that streamed out of it in the glorre-filled rays of the Golden Band.

  'But if you could remain only a few moments longer,' Master Juwain persisted, 'you might tell me if -'

  'I can tell you only what I have,' Alphanderry said with a brilliant smile. And then he added:

  The road toward heavens' starry crown Goes ever up but always down.

  He reached out to touch Master Juwain's hand, but this impulsive act served only to brighten Master Juwain's leathery skin, as with starlight. And then Alphanderry dissolved back into that brilliant whirl of lights we knew as Flick. Only his smile seemed to linger as Flick, in turn, vanished once again into neverness. 'Ah, how I do miss our little friend,' Maram said, staring at the dark air.

  Kane, I saw, stared too, and his dark eyes wavered as if submerged in water.

  'But I wonder what he meant,' Maram continued, turning to Master Juwain, 'His verses are even more a puzzlement that your Way Rhymes.'

  Master Juwain held his hands out to the hissing fire. His fingers curled as if grasping at its heat.

  'It is possible,' he finally said, 'that Alphanderry sang verses of the true Way Rhymes.'

  'The true Rhymes?' Maram said.

  'Perhaps I should have said, "the deeper Rhymes". The higher ones. Just as there are verses that tell the way to many places on Ea, there are those that describe man's journey toward the One.'

  He went on to explain that the path to becoming an Elijin, and so on toward the Galadin and Ieldra, was almost infinitely more difficult than merely finding the Brotherhood's secret sanctuary

  'Our order,' Master Juwain explained, 'has spent most of ten thousand years trying to learn and teach this way. But we have understood only little, and taught less. The Elijin surely know, the Galadin, too. But they do not speak to us.'

  Everyone looked at Kane then. But he sat by the fire as cold and silent as stone.

  'At least,' Master Juwain went on, 'the angels do not speak to us, we of Ea. Surely on other worlds, they share with the Star People and the eternal Brotherhood the songs that I have called the true Way Rhymes.'

  'Why are they so favored, then?' Maram asked, looking up at the sky.

  'It is not that they are favored,' Mas|er Juwain told him. 'It is rather that we, of Ea, are not. You see, the true Way Rhymes are perilous to hear. Consider the lesser Rhymes I've taught you. If learned incorrectly or in the wrong order, they could lead one off the edge of a cliff. This is even more pertinent of the higher Rhymes that would guide a man on the journey to becoming an Elijin, or an Elijin to becoming a Galadin.'

  The fear that flooded into Maram's face recalled the fall of Angra Mainyu - and that of Morjin.

  'I notice that you say, "guide a man on this journey",' Liljana carped at Master Juwain. Her voice was as sharp as one of her cooking knives.

  'It was a figure of speech,' Master Juwain told her. 'Of course women must walk the same path as men.'

  'Oh, must we, then?' Liljana's soft face shone with the steel buried deep inside her. Then she added, 'You mean, walk behind men.'

  'No, not at all,' Master Juwain said. 'You are to be by our sides.'

  'How gracious of you to accept our company.'

  Master Juwain rubbed the back of his neck as he sighed out, 'I meant only that our way lies onward, together.'

  'Oh, does it really?'

  Liljana moved closer to Master Juwain and knelt by his side. She placed her thumb against the tips of her other fingers and held them cocked and pointing at him. From deep inside her throat issued a hissing sound remarkably like that of an adder. And then quick as any viper, she struck out with a snap of her arm and wrist, touching her pointed fingers against the lower part of Master Juwain's back.

  'Your way, I think,' she said to him, 'is that of the serpent.'

  'And your way is not?'

  'There are serpents and there are serpents,' she told him. 'Ours is of the great circle of life, and we name her Ouroboros.'

  What followed then, as the fire burnt lower and the night darkened, was a long argument as to the different paths open to man - or to woman. Liljana spoke of the sacred life force that dwelled inside everyone, and of the arts that the Maitriche Telu had found to quicken and deepen it. Master Juwain's main concern was of transcendence and the way back toward the stars. I did not pretend to follow all the turnings of their contentions and justifications, for there was much in what they said that was esoteric, legalistic and even petty. I understood that their dispute went back to the breaking of the Order of Sisters and Brothers of the Earth long ago in the Age of the Mother. And like siblings of the same family who had set out on different paths in life, they quarreled all the more fiercely for sharing a mutual language and deep knowledge of each other. Both spoke of the serpent as the embodiment of life's essential fire. Both taught the opening of the body's chakras: the wheels of light that whirled within every man, woman and child. But each put different names to these things and understood their purpose differently.

  Master Juwain, noticing how closely Daj followed their argument, turned to him to explain: 'We of the Brotherhood teach the way of the Kundala. At birth, it lies coiled up inside each of us. There is a Rhyme that tells of this:

  Around the spine the serpent sleeps.

  Within its heart a fire leaps.

  The serpent wakes, remembers, yearns –

  And up the spine, like fire, it burns.

  And through the chakras, one by one,

  Until it blazes like the sun,

  And then bursts forth, a crown of light:

  An angel soars the starry height.

  'This is man's path,' he said to Daj, 'and it is a straight one, though difficult and perilous. Seven bodies we each possess, corresponding to each of the seven chakras along the spine, and they each in turn must awaken.'

  At this Daj's eyes widened, and he looked down at his slender hand as he patted his chest. He said, 'How can we have more than one body?'

  Master Juwain smiled at this and said, 'We have only one phys-ical body, it's true. But we have as well the body of the passions, associated with the second chakra, which we call the svadhisthan, and the mental body as well.'

  'I never knew they were called "bodies". It sounds strange.'

  'But you undertand that a boy could never become a man until they are fully developed?'

  In answer, Daj rolled his eyes as if Master Juwain had asked him the sum of two plus two.

  Master Juwain, undeterred, went on: 'I'm afraid that most men do not progress beyond these three bodies, nor do they ever develop them fully. The physical body, for instance, can be quickened so as to heal any wound, even regenerating a severed limb. It is potentially immortal.'

  At this, we all looked at Kane. But he said nothing, and neither did we.

  'But what is the fourth body, then?' Daj asked him.

  'That is our dream body, also called the astral. It is the bridge between matter and spirit, and it is awakened through the anahata, the heart chakra.'

  So saying, Master Juwain reached over and laid his gnarly hand across Daj's chest.

  'Then, higher still,' he went on, 'there is the etheric body, which forms the template for our physical one and our potential for perfection, and then the celestial. There lies our sixth sight, of the infinite. The highest body is the ketheric, associated with the sahas-tara chakra
at the crown of the head.'

  Here Master Juwain stroked Daj's tousled hair and went on to say that each of the bodies emanated an aura of distinctive color: red from the first chakra, orange from the second and so on to the sixth chakra, which radiated a deep violet light. The highest chakra, when fully quickened, poured forth a fountain of pure white light.

  At this, Daj exchanged smiles with Master Juwain and recited:

  And through the chakras, one by one,

  Until it blazes like the sun,

  And then bursts forth, a crown of light:

  An angel soars the starry height.

  'Yes, that is way of it,' Master Juwain said as his voice filled with excitement. 'When we have fully awakened, every part of us, the Kundala streaks upward and joins us to the heavens like a lightning bolt. And then as angels we walk the stars.'

  Liljana scowled at this as she eyed Master Juwain's hand resting on top of Daj's head. Then she huffed out, 'The serpent does not so much break through as to light up our being from within. And then, when we have come fully alive, like our mother earth turning her face to the sun, we can drawn down the fire of the stars.'

  Here she sighed as she shot Master Juwain a scolding look and added, 'And as you should know, the serpent's name is Ouroboros.'

  She went on to tell of this primeval imago, sacred to her order. Ouroboros, she said, dwelled inside each of us as a great serpent biting its own tail. This recalled the great circle of life, the way life lived off of other life, killing and consuming, and yet continuing on through the ages, always quickening in its myriads of forms and growing ever stronger. Ouroboros, she told us, shed its skin a million times a million times, and was immortal.

  'There is in each of us,' she said, 'a sacred flame that cannot be put out. It is like a ring of fire, eternal for it is fed by the fires of both the heavens and the earth. And our way must be to bring this fire into every part of our beings, and so into others - and to everything. And so to awaken all things and bring them deeper into life.'

  So far, Atara had said very little. But now she spoke, and her words streaked like arrows toward Master Juwain and Liljana, and were straight to the point: 'Surely the spirit of Alphanderry's song was that both your ways are important, and indeed, in the end, are one and the same.'

  Kane smiled at this in an unnerving silence.

  And Maram willfully ignored the essence of what Master Juwain and Liljan had to say, muttering, 'Ah, I've never understood all of this damn snake symbolism. Snakes are deadly, are they not. And the great snakes - the dragons - are evil.'

  Master Juwain took it upon himself to try to answer this objection. He rubbed the back of his bald pate as he said, 'Snakes are deadly only because they have so much power in their coils, and therefore life. And the dragon we fought in Argattha was evil; as are all beings and things that Morjin and Angra Mainyu have corrupted. But the dragon itself? I should say it is pure fire. And fire might be used to torture innocents as well as to light the stars.'

  I thought his answer a good one, but Maram said, 'Well, I for one will never like those slippery, slithering beasts. Whether they be found in old verses and books, or in long grass beneath the unwary foot.'

  Liljana shot him a sharp look and said, 'You're just afraid of them, aren't you?' 'Well, what if I am?'

  'Your fear does neither you nor the rest of us any good. Perhaps if you had spent more time practicing Master Juwain's lessons and moving into the higher chakras, you wouldn't be as troubled as you are.'

  'But I thought you scorned Master Juwain's way?'

  'Scorned? I can't afford such sentiments. We do disagree about certain things, that's all.'

  The Sisters of the Maitriche Telu, as I understood it, also taught the quickening of the body's chakras, but they numbered and named these wheels of light differently: Malkuth, Yesod, Tiphereth and seven others. Strangely, Liljana called the highest chakra, Keter, which corresponded almost exactly with the Brotherhood's ketheric body, associated with the crown chakra at the top of the head.

  'You dwell too often,' Liljana told Maram, 'in the first chakra, in fear of your precious life. This impels a movement into the second chakra, in a blind urge to beget more life. And there, as we've all seen, you dwell much too often and wantonly.'

  'Ah, well, what if I do?' Maram snapped at her.

  Master Juwain, allying himself for the moment with Liljana, added to her criticism, saying, 'Such indulgence fires your second chakra at the expense of the others and traps you there. It leaves you vulnerable to lust - and to drunkenness and the other vices that aid and abet it.'

  Maram cast his gaze toward the horses, where the brandy was safely stowed within the saddlebags. He licked his lips and said, 'Ah, that's what I can't stand about the Brotherhood and all your ways. You're too damn dry. With your damn dry breath you'd blow out the sweetest of flames in favor of lighting these higher torches of yours. And why? So you can spend your days - and nights - in anguish over a transcendence that may never come? That's no way to live, is it? If I had a bottle in hand I'd make a toast to drunkenness in the sweet, sweet here and now - and a hundred more to lust!'

  Again he eyed the saddlebags as if hoping that Master Juwain or I might retrieve a bottle and rescue him from his vow And then he shook his head and muttered, 'Well, if I can't drink to what's best in life, I'll sing to it. Abide a moment while I make the verses - abide!'

  Here he held out his right hand as he placed his other hand over his closed eyes. His lips moved silently, but from time to time he would call out to us, 'Abide, only a few moments more - I almost have it.'

  As Kane heaped a couple more logs on the fire, we all sat around listening to its crackle and hiss, and looking at Maram. At last he took his hand away from his thick brows and looked at us. He smiled hugely. And then he rose to his feet and rested his hands on his hips as he stared at Master Juwain and called out in his huge, booming voice:

  The higher man seeks higher things:

  Old tomes, bright crystals, angel's wings.

  He lives to crave and pray accrue

  The good, the beautiful, the true.

  And there he slithers, coils and dwells

  In higher hues of higher hells;

  In sixth or seventh wheels of light –

  There's too much pain in too much sight.

  But 'low the belly burns sweet fire,

  The sweetest way to slake desire.

  In clasp of woman, warmth of wine

  A honeyed bliss and true divine.

  I am a second chakra man;

  I take my pleasure where I can;

  At tavern, table and divan –

  I am a second chakra man.

  As Maram sang out these verses, and others that flew out of his mouth like uncaged birds, he would strike the air with his fist and then lewdly waggle his hips at each refrain. He finally finished and stood limned against the fire grinning at us. No one seemed to know what to say.

  And then Kane burst out laughing and clapped his hands, and so did we all. And Atara said to him, 'Hmmph, if you had remained with the Kurmak and taken wives as my grandfather suggested, these second chakra powers of yours would have been put to the test.'

  'How many wives, then?'

  'Great chieftains take ten or even twenty, but it's said that only a great, great man such as Sajagax could satisfy them.'

  Here she smiled at Liljana, who added, 'Our order has discovered that when a woman awakens the Volcano, which we call Netzach, it would take ten or twenty men to match her fire.'

  'Do you think so?' Maram said with a wink of his eye and yet another gyration of his hips. 'I should tell you that my, ah, greatness has never thoroughly been put to the test. Perhaps I'm a fool for even considering marriage with Behira only and cleaving to Valari customs.'

  'Would you rather try our Sarni ways?' Atara asked him.

  'In this one respect, I would. I'd take twenty wives, if I could. And I would, ah, entertain all of them in one night.'

 
; 'My tribemates?' Atara said. 'They would kill you before morning.'

  'So you say.'

  Atara laughed out, 'And you would have them call you "Twenty-Horned Maram" I suppose?'

  'Just so, just so. It would create a certain curiosity about me, would it not?'

  'That it would. And you'd be happy satisfying this curiosity with other women who weren't your wives, wouldn't you?'

  'Ah,' he said with a rumble of his belly and a contented belch, 'at least someone understands me.'

  'I understand that if you practice your ways on the women of my tribe, their husbands and fathers will draw their swords and make you into No-Horned Maram.'

  In the wavering firelight, Maram's happy face seemed to blanch. And he muttered, 'Well, I don't suppose I'd make a very good Sarni warrior. I'll have to practice on other women I meet along the way.'

  Atara fingered the saber by her side. And this fierce young maiden told him, 'If you must - but just don't think of practicing on me.'

  At this, Maram held up his hands in helplessness as if others were always conspiring to think the worst of him. His gaze fell upon Liljana, who said to him, 'I should warn you that if you brought your horns to a practiced matron of the Maitriche Telu she would likely kill you - with pleasure. Perhaps you'll find a nice harridan somewhere in these mountains.'

  The ghostly white peaks of the Nagarshath gleamed faintly beneath the stars. It seemed that there were no other human beings, much less willing women, within a thousand miles.

  'Maram would do better,' Master Juwain said, 'to practice the Rhymes I've taught him. Now, why don't we all retire and get a good night's sleep? Tomorrow we'll journey up this valley and see what lies at the end of it.'

  He smiled at Maram and added. 'Tell me, again, won't you, the pertinent Rhyme?'

  And, again, Maram dutifully recited:

  At gorge's end, a wooded vale;

  Its southern slopes show shell-strewn shale.

  Toward setting sun the vale divides;