Black Jade

by David Zindell

  Liljana sat facing Abrasax. She must have perceived that of all the Seven, he studied her the most intently. She gazed back at him with all the force of her will, as if commanding him to fix his attention elsewhere. But not even Liljana, it seemed, could stare down the Grandmaster.

  'Your Sisters,' he said to her, 'have always kept too much hidden.'

  'My . . Sisters?' Liljana coughed out. It was one of the few times I had ever seen her at a loss for words.

  'Do you deny,' Abrasax asked her, 'that you are of the Sisterhood?'

  'But why would you think that?'

  'I am a Master Reader, am I not? Your chakras, each of them, give off flames - how should I not be able to read their colors? And to perceive that your aura shimmers like that of one who has been trained in the ways of the Maitriche Telu?'

  Liljana looked at Kane and Master Juwain briefly before glancing at me. She seemed, somewhere inside herself, to cast off a heavy cloak. Then she held her head high as she told Abrasax: 'I am the Materix of the Maitriche Telu.'

  The Seven, all except Abrasax seemed to draw in a single, hissing breath. Master Yasul leaned over to confer in low tones with Master Nolashar, while Master Matai exchanged resentful looks with Master Virang. And then Master Storr called out: 'So this is her secret! And a dark one it is, too!'

  In silence he stared at Liljana, and so did Master Matai and the others - even the gentle-faced Master Okuth.

  But if they thought to intimidate or even shame Liljana, then they did not know her. The more they beamed their disapproval and dread at her, the brighter and stronger she seemed to grow. And then she told them, 'Others have called my Sisters and me "witch" before.'

  'No one has called you that,' Master Storr said. 'Not with your lips, perhaps, but you say it with your eyes.' Master Storr rubbed at his temples a moment before asking Liljana: 'Do you deny that in times past you nearly succeeded in inserting one of your Sisters into Morjin's chambers as a concubine? With the intention of poisoning him, as the Maitriche Telu once poisoned King Daimon and many others?'

  'King Daimon Hastar,' Liljana said to Master Storr, 'was nearly as evil as Morjin. After his untimely death, Alonia enjoyed nearly fifty years of prosperity and good rule.'

  'Poisoners,' Master Storr muttered. And then more softly: 'Witch.'

  'We did what we had to do! When your ways failed to educate and uplift, we were left to deal with one bloodthirsty tyrant after another!'

  I looked to my right to see Kane smiling savagely as his lips pulled back from his long, white teeth.

  Master Storr tried to ignore him, and he snapped at Liljana: 'And your way has been poison, seduction, even the violation of men's minds!'

  'No, that has not been our way - you know nothing about us!' Liljana turned toward Abrasax, and for what seemed an hour she gazed at him, and he at her. His understanding seemed to pour out from him and embrace her. Tears filled her eyes. She was the hardest woman I had ever known, but sometimes the softest, too. Finally Abrasax rose from his cushion and circled the tables until he stood above her. He reached down to grasp her hand and pull her up facing him. With his fingertips, he wiped the tears from her cheek. And then, as we all looked on in astonishment, he bent down to kiss her moist eyelids. To Master Storr and the rest of the Seven, and to all of us, he said, 'War will come soon enough, but let us not allow it into this room. Once, we of the Brotherhood and the Sisters of the Maitriche Telu were as brothers and sisters. I would have it so again.'

  He squeezed Liljana's hand and bowed his head to her. Then, fixing Master Storr with a stem look, he returned to his place.

  The room fell quiet, and for a while, the seven Masters of the Brotherhood sat drinking their tea. Strong sentiments like invisible currents passed between them. At last, Master Storr looked at me and said, 'War, of the spirit, at the very least, Valashu Elahad and his companions must wage, if they make this new quest. Theirs will be a dangerous journey. And one danger we should speak of now, since Liljana Ashvaran has already hinted of it. I would ask to see the rest of their gelstei.'

  I nodded my head at his request, and drew Alkaladur from its sheath. My sword's silvery silustria gleamed in the starlight. Then Master Juwain brought forth his emerald varistei. Liljana set her little blue whale upon her table while Atara sat cupping her scryer's sphere inside her hands. Kane scowled as he reached into his pocket and showed Master Storr his baalstei, cut into the shape of a flat, black eye. And then Maram gently laid his firestone, red as a ruby and as long as his forearm, on his table.

  'Ah, my poor, poor crystal,' he said, gazing at the webwork of fine cracks running through it. 'Ruined in battle with that damn dragon.'

  Abrasax just stared at him. 'That battle, I think, will prove to be as nothing against the battle you still must fight against the Red Dragon.'

  'Ah, I don't want to fight at all,' Maram muttered. Something in Abarasax's manner seemed to encourage Maram to open himself to him. 'It's nearly ruined me, you see. The madness of the world: her stupidities and cruelties. If only I had time enough for love! If only I could heal this beautiful crystal, I might find the way to heal my heart.'

  I'm not sure,' Abrasax said to him, looking around the room, 'that we all see the connection.'

  Maram gazed longingly at his crystal. 'To use the red gelstei is to summon and concentrate fire. Ah, to direct it toward a single target, you see. So with love, and therefore the heart. If my heart were made whole again, I might find the great love I was born for.' Abrasax smiled as he again stood up from the table. He stretched back. His shoulders and drew in a deep breath. Then he walked around Master Okuth and Master Storr sitting at their table with Maram, who turned toward him. Abrasax held his hands above Maram's head for a moment before bringing them down over his shoulders and then his sides. And he said, 'You have a great heart, Sar Maram Marshayk. Flames fill it with a bright green radiance. But they would burn brighter - much brighter - if they weren't so concentrated here, lower down in your svadhisthan chakra.'

  With that he rested his hand on Maram's belly and smiled at him.

  'Ah,' Maram said, nodding at me, 'I suppose this isn't a good time for a recitation of "A Second Chakra Man"?'

  'No,' I said to him, 'I suppose it is not.'

  Abrasax's eyebrows pulled together in concern as he pushed against Maram's belly and told him: 'Between here and your heart chakra is where your sun makes its orbit. And a great whirl of fire it is, blazing orange with streaks of viridian and crimson.'

  As Abrasax's hand continued pressing against Maram, I could almost see this fiery orb that he spoke of.

  'There is nothing wrong with your heart,' Abrasax told Maram.

  'And you do have time for love - all the time in the world. But what I it that you love, above all else?'

  Maram glanced at me nervously and then turned back to Abrasax as he said, 'There is a woman. Somewhere in the world, a woman who can take in my heart and, ah, all of me. The one whose hips and breasts swell like the mountains and seas, like the very curves of the earth: she, whose desire is as boundless as my own. Some men seek the most beautiful of women, others the kindest or the most pure. But I dream of the most passionate.' At this Abrasax cleared his throat and said to him, 'You must be careful what you wish for. Careful even of what you whisper inside your mind. The earth listens. There are powers there that no one fully understands. Her fires feed ours, and what we create inside ourselves, we can bring into being.'

  He pressed his hand against Maram's chest, then walked around the tables again to return to his cushions. He sat gazing at Maram, who wrapped his huge hand around his red crystal and lowered his eyes to study the fine cracks marring it.

  'All of them,' Master Storr said, looking from Maram to Liljana, 'must be careful with their gelstei. Each time they use the sacred crystals, Morjin will use the Lightstone to find his way farther into them and twist their power toward his will.'

  I gazed into the silustria of my sword, and so did my friends study their gelst
ei.

  'Indeed,' Master Storr continued, eyeing our crystals, too, 'I counsel that they surrender their gelstei to us for safekeeping.'

  At this, Maram's hand closed around the cut planes of his fire-stone while I gripped the hilt of my sword more tightly.

  'Surrender this to you?' Maram said, holding his long, red crystal pointing at Master Storr. 'You might as well ask me to cut off, ah, more personal parts of myself so that they don't lead me into troubles.'

  'I know,' Atara said, turning her sphere between her hands, 'that this came to me for a purpose.'

  Kane's response was the simplest and most direct of all of us. He held up his black stone for all to see and then closed his fist

  around it as he called out, 'Ha!'

  Abrasax sighed as he looked at Master Storr and said, 'I told you this would be the way of things, as you of all of us should understand.'

  Master Storr bowed his head, but said nothing as he turned his attention back to the gleam of our crystals. And Abrasax said to us, 'So it goes. Everywhere on Ea, Morjin finds his way into men's minds, and so gains control of their arms, voices and eyes. And no one is willing to give them up either just to thwart him. But I counsel you: if you use your gelstei, Morjin will slowly seize control of them.'

  'Even my sword?' I said, holding up its blade so as to catch the room's candlelight.

  'The silver gelstei,' Master Storr said to me, 'would be last of your crystals to be perverted, if indeed it truly can be perverted. It is possible that only the Maitreya, having gained full mastery of the Lightstone, could touch upon the silustria of your sword – and then only for the highest of purposes. But I don't really know. Therefore I, too, counsel not using it.'

  Kane smiled at this as he gripped his large hands together and said, 'And have you followed your own counsel, then?'

  'What do you mean?' Master Storr said.

  Kane pointed toward the waist of Master Storr, and then at Master Okuth and Abrasax. 'What is it you keep inside your pockets?'

  At this, Abrasax smiled at Master Storr in a knowing way, and then looked at Kane. 'You have keen perceptions - from where do they come? What is that you keep inside yourself ?'

  Abrasax's smile deepened as he studied Kane. I knew that my mysterious friend hated being singled out for scrutiny in this way. His glare fell hot with a barely-contained fury. And then he stood up to face the Grandmaster of the Brotherhood. It took a brave man to hold Kane's gaze, as Abrasax did. I didn't need to be a reader to see the fire that seemed to leap straight out

  of Kane's black eyes. As the candles flickered in their stands and the other Masters drew in deep breaths or held them inside, Abrasax continued staring at Kane. The Grandmaster's eyes grew brighter, like moonlit oceans, and I fancied that I saw this radiance touch his hair and beard and spill down over his tunic in flows of scarlet, orange and other colors. And yet it was nothing against the splendor that enveloped Kane. He stood as beneath a rainbow. Its hues clung to his body like a robe of fire and slowly deepened and brightened into a shimmering brilliance. White light crowned his savage head, and so did flashes of glorre. I stared at him, awestruck. I couldn't believe what my eyes or some other sensing organ told me must be true. It lasted only a moment, this piercing vision into the heart of Kane's being. And then I blinked my eyes, and it was gone. I saw my old friend standing before me as he usually did: fiercely, willfully, joyfully - with challenge toward Abrasax or anything in the world that might try to thwart or even contain him.

  The others of the Seven, with my companions, sat gazing at Kane in wonderment. Master Storr shook his head as he called out, 'No, it cannot be! Not this rogue knight!'

  Then Abrasax bowed to Kane and said, 'I never thought to live so long that my path would cross yours, Lord Elijin.'

  Again, Master Storr said, 'It cannot be!'

  Abrasax drew in a deep breath. He looked from Master Storr to Master Matai, and then at Kane. 'It surely is. This man is no rogue knight. It is, as the Master Diviner and I have deduced, now beyond argument that one of the Old Ones of the Elijik Order journeyed with this company into Argattha. And has found the way into our valley. His name, of old, was -'

  'I am,' Kane growled out, interrupting him, 'not the one you speak of. Once I was, perhaps, but now I am Kane.'

  'Kane, then,' Abrasax said to him. 'But you were, were you not, sent to Ea along with eleven others of your order to find and safeguard the Lightstone for the Maitreya?'

  'So,' Kane said, glaring at him.

  'And of those eleven, only one other survives - Morjin.'

  'So,' Kane said again.

  Abrasax and the others of the Seven sat staring up at Kane. I noticed Master Storr's hard blue eyes drilling into him as he regarded him with dread. He called out, 'If this is that one, then he has fallen nearly as far as the Red Dragon. How can we be sure that if we help him to find the Maitreya, he won't fall even farther?'

  Kane, not deigning to respond to the Master Galastei's terrible doubt, stood as still as a granite carving.

  'How can we be sure what any man or woman will do, in the end?' Abrasax asked, looking at his fellows. 'Master Juwain tells that in Argattha, Kane gave back the Lightstone to Valashu when he might have kept it for himself. Can all of us say that we would have surrendered it so faithfully? Surely Kane has passed the most vital test.'

  His reasoning seemed to persuade even Master Storr, who inclined his head toward Kane. And Kane growled out to Abrasax, 'And what of the Brotherhood's Masters, then? You speak of keeping no secrets, and yet you keep some very powerful baubles hidden inside your pockets, eh?'

  Abrasax smiled at Master Storr. 'Did I not tell you that we could not conceal things from one of the Elijin?'

  And with that he nodded at Master Matai, who reached into his pocket and brought out a small crystal sphere that shone like a ruby. The First, he named it. Master Virang likewise showed us a stone, which he called the Second, which gleamed golden-orange in hue. And so with Master Nolashar and his bright yellow sun stone and Master Okuth's green heart stone, and then Master Yasul's and Master Storr's crystals - colored blue and purple -whose names were the Fifth and the Sixth. And then, finally, Abrasax drew forth a marble-like sphere as clear and brilliant as a diamond. It was, he told us, the Seventh; the last and highest of the crystals called the Great Gelstei.

  'Your crystals,' he said to us, 'are powerful and rare, but on all of Ea there are no other gelstei like these, for they were not made on earth.'

  He went on to say that only the angels, and the Galadin at that, could possibly possess the art of forging the Great Gelstei. Then he held up his clear stone and showed it to Kane. 'The Elijin who were sent here brought these with them, didn't they?'

  'So,' Kane growled out. 'Nurijin, Mayin and Baladin were the stones' keepers. And Manjin, Durrikin, Sarojin - Iojin, too. And all of them killed over the years on this cursed world. I had thought the stones lost.'

  He drew in a long, pained breath and said to Abrasax, 'It must have been a great work to seek these out and bring them here.' 'The work of ages,' Abrasax told him. 'Many Brothers died in this quest.'

  'As you will die if you continue to use them.' 'The Red Dragon, we believe,' Abrasax said, 'does not yet know that we keep them. And use them we must, at least tonight. There are tests still to be made.'

  He sat cupping his clear stone in his hand. It shimmered a soft white, even as the crystals of the other Masters radiated colors of crimson and orange, up through a glowing violet.

  'We have questions for the girl,' Abrasax said, looking at Estrella. Then he turned to me. 'And for you, Valashu Elahad.'

  The room fell quiet, and I nodded at Estrella and then Abrasax. I sat gripping the hilt of my sword as I waited for the seven Masters of the Brotherhood to test me somehow - if not in actual combat, then perhaps in a trial of the soul.

  Chapter 9

  Abrasax oriented his long, stately body toward Estrella, sitting almost motionlessly on her cushion by her table. For
a long time he regarded her in silence. His liquid brown eyes seemed to empty of all thoughts, even questions, even as they filled with a strange and piercing light. The round crystal resting in his open palm gleamed like a little star. Those of the other masters seemed to resonate with it, gathering radiance from it and feeding it back to Abrasax's stone, all at once.

  At last, the Grandmaster's eyes regained their normal focus. And in his deep, strong voice, he announced, 'This girl's aura is like none I have ever seen. So pure: as if the flames of her chakras flow toward one color, in one direction. And bright it is - so very bright.'

  Abrasax continued gazing at Estrella, who sat peacefully on her big red cushion gazing back at him. Estrella's happy smile seemed to warm Abrasax's heart, and his whole face pulled into a smile, highlighting the deep lines around his eyes.

  'Strange,' he murmured as he looked at her. 'There is indeed something strange about this girl.'

  'Then is it possible,' Master Storr asked, 'that she is truly a seard?'

  Abrasax nodded his head. 'I'm certain that she is. Master Juwain has identified her correctly.'

  'But what is a seard?' Daj asked from his place next to Estrella. It was the first time that evening he had dared to speak. 'Master Juwain tried to explain it, but I didn't really understand.'

  'I'm not sure that I fully understand, either,' Abrasax said. 'But from the accounts in the Book of Illuminations, it is clear that seards are great and pure souls, gifted with being able to see deeply into all things and all people, and most especially the Maitreya I believe that Estrella might perceive the Shining One where others could not, perhaps not even himself.'

  He went on to say that where I might be the fated guardian of the Lightstone, and therefore of the Maitreya, a seard such as Estrella was his herald.

  'Then, Grandfather,' Master Matai said, 'you must believe Kasandra's prophecy will prove true, that the girl will show the Maitreya?'

  'I believe the prophecy. She would be drawn to him like a fire moth finding its mate across many miles.'