Black Jade

by David Zindell

  But then we forced ourselves to ride on another mile and crested yet another line of dunes. The air grew moist, as of a breeze off the sea. The shimmer out on the blinding sands suddenly fell from quicksilver to a bright and beautiful green.

  'So,' Kane said. 'So.'

  Now the veils of mirage finally parted to reveal an astonishing sight: great trees pushed their green crowns high above the desert's sands. And above this unbroken canopy hung thick layers of clouds rising up even higher into the sky. From the streaks of gray slanting downward toward the trees, it seemed that it must be raining.

  'It cannot be,' Maidro murmured. 'It cannot be!'

  He, and all of us, stared in wonder at the miles-wide forest in the middle of nowhere. His gaze fell upon Estrella, and he said, 'Bless the udra mazda!'

  Sunji, Arthayn and Nuradayn all bowed their heads to Estrella, and so did I. Then Maidro nodded at me and added, 'Bless the Elahad, too. Without him, how would we have found the will to go on?'

  The Avari seemed enraptured, even terrified, for although a few spindly trees grew in their hadrahs, they had never imagined anything like these lush, magnificent woods. Estrella smiled at them as if to say that the impossible was not only possible, but inevitable. Then she urged her horse forward, down toward the cool, abiding greenness of the Vild.

  Chapter 26

  We rode straight from the desert into the shelter of giant trees rising almost two hundred feet above the forest floor. The air grew instantly cooler, and although the light dimmed, everything seemed strangely more clear. We all breathed more easily; the parched linings of our mouths and throats fairly drank in the moisture from the breeze wafting through the great oaks and maples. The sweet scent of flowers - anemone, tril-lium, honeysuckle and many others - nearly intoxicated us. Birds sang from all around us; I noticed Sunji's eyes grow wide with astonishment at the blue jays, yellow-breasted warblers and scarlet tangagers whose like he had never seen before, or even imagined. The four Avari, I thought, rode as if in a dream. Their terror at the mighty trees gradually bled away, to be replaced by awe and wonder.

  'All glory in the One!' Maidro repeated like a mantra. 'And I have never seen such glory!'

  'Out on the sand, I think we must have died,' Nuradayn said. 'And here, we've been reborn on earth a million years hence, after the desert has been restored.'

  'Either that,' Arthayn said, 'or we all still remain out in the desert, hallucinating our final vision before death.'

  Maidro shook his head at this as he unwrapped the shawl from his face. He breathed in deeply and said, 'No, this is real. In all my life, I have never felt anything as real, except perhaps the light of the stars. Behold those flowers, the white ones with the nine points! It's as if they hold starlight itself. Everything here - the grasses, the leaves, the bark on the trees - it all shines as from a light within!'

  I smiled because I had rarely heard the taciturn Avari wax so poetic, or indeed speak so many words in one breath. Then Sunji, too, uncovered his face and smiled as he said simply: 'If this is death, give me more of it. I have never felt so alive.'

  We dismounted and walked beside our horses over the soft, green grass. The power of the earth here was as palpable as the beating of my heart. Its fires did not burn, but seemed to stream into me like an elixir through my legs, mouth, eyes and the very pores of my skin. A new strength, vast and deep, touched my blood. I noticed Daj and Estrella stepping with a happier gait, while Liljana and Master Juwain got the best of their exhaustion and managed to drive the pains from their old bones. Atara, tapping her unstrung bow ahead of her to feel her way through the woods, trembled with a new hope. Even Kane seemed more alive here, if that were possible. He shook out the dust from his white hair and wiped the sweat from his savage eyes - and for a moment he stood revealed as an angel of bright and indestructible purpose.

  It was Maram, however, who gave me the greatest joy. I nearly wept to see him open his eyes and croak out: 'Vraddi! Vraddi!'

  I could not tell if he realized that we had once again entered one of Ea's magic woods. It didn't seem to matter. He was still alive, and even the bluebirds on the branches of the trees seemed to sing of this miracle.

  After about a mile or so we came to a place where many crystals, like flowers in a garden, sprang up from the grass: rubies, amethyst, tourmaline and even diamonds. Master Juwain knelt down to examine a particularly lovely green crystal, and determined that it was an emerald. Then he turned to another nearby which looked just like it and added, 'And this is a varistei.'

  Maidro shook his head in disbelief at this new wonder. I knew it must seem impossible to him that precious gems, much less magical gelstei, could simply grow out of the ground.

  'But how can you tell it is a varistei?' I asked Master Juwain.

  In answer, he drew out his green crystal - the one that had so nearly killed Maram.

  'I can feel the life of this gelstei,' he said, holding his crystal down toward the rock garden, 'seeking out the life of that gelstei.'

  Liljana, too, brought forth her crystal, and held the little whale figurine up to the side of her head. She told us, 'I can't hear Morjin breathing his filthy lies in my ears. I don't think he has power over our gelstei here.'

  Her words prompted Atara to cup her scryer's sphere in her hand. She stood holding it in front of her blindfold. Then she announced, 'He can't see us here! It's as if a dark eave has hidden us from him!'

  She put away her kristei, and tucked her bow into the holster strapped to her horse. Then she walked straight over to where a starflower grew beneath a huge, old elm tree. She bent down to touch her finger precisely upon one of the filamentous stamens flowing out from the center of the starflower's white petals. She gathered up a bit of pollen on her fingertip and fairly ran back over to me, crying out, 'Oh, Val - you were right! I can see again!'

  Her laughter filled the forest with a music sweeter than even the trilling of the birds.

  'I am still afraid to try to heal Maram again,' Master Juwain said, gripping his gelstei in his hand. 'It may be that the Lord of Dragon Fire has only turned his sight away from us for a time.'

  He said that it might be enough for us to find a pool or pond, and cover Maram's outraged skin with mud. Then, if we could use the brandy to moisten his mouth and throat enough for him to drink, we might slowly bring him back to life.

  'That is good, good!' a high, piping voice called out to us as if from nowhere. I fairly jumped back five feet as a small, nut-brown man stepped out from behind an old oak tree. He wore a skirt of some silk-like fiber, and nothing else. It seemed that he had been eavesdropping on us. 'But it would be better, better for Anneli to tend to him.'

  He presented himself as Kalevi, and said that he had been sent to take us to a place of healing deeper in the woods. There gathered many of his people, whom he called the Loikalii. He spoke with a strange accent so thick and lilting that I could barely make sense of his words. He gave us to understand that the Loikalii had been anticipating our arrival for many days.

  'Those who come out of the desert,' he told us, 'are always burnt like unwatered plants, and always need healing.'

  'Then have others come here before us?' Master Juwain asked him.

  'Other giants, do you mean?' Kalevi said, looking up at Master Juwain, who was not a large man. 'No, no - they do not come. Never, never. But sometimes, we Loikalii go out into the desert. And sometimes, we even return. Now, come, yourselves, before it is too late for that one.'

  So saying, he pointed at Maram, who lay on his litter savoring the dram of brandy that Liljana had slowly dripped into his mouth.

  There was nothing to do then except to follow Kalevi through the forest The four Avari all seemed amazed that our story of little people and giant trees had proved true. We walked in a line strung out beneath the leafy boughs above us. By the time we had gone another mile, the trees seemed to grow even higher. More flowers adorned the grass, and the lights of the Timpum appeared and twinkled brighter a
nd brighter. These strange beings, with their swirls of ruby radiance, silver and many other colors, were everywhere. Sprays of gleaming amethyst filled the buttercups and tulips; splendid teardrops, like sapphire necklaces glittering in the sun, encircled the trunk of a maple sapling and a much larger birch. Some of the Timpum were as tiny as particles of diamond dust, while others encompassed whole trees like a raiment woven of pure light. No two of the Timpum seemed exactly the same, any more than the face of one man exactly resembled that of another, even though they be twin brothers. All of the Timpum, however, blazed with a deep and beautiful life. They spun and danced all around us, in all their fiery millions, in sheer delight.

  Master Juwain, never one to offer up simple explanations where an arcane verse would serve as well, looked from the mystified Sunji to Maidro and then at Nuradayn as he recited an old, old rhyme that my companions and had heard more than once:

  There is a place 'tween earth and time.

  In some forsaken desert clime

  Of woods and brooks and vernal glades,

  Whose healing magic never fades.

  An island in a sandy sea,

  Abode of secret greenery

  Where giant trees and emeralds grow,

  Where leaves and grass and flowers glow.

  And there no bitter bloom of spite

  To blight the forest's living light,

  No sword, no spear, no axe, no knife

  To tear the sweetest sprigs of life.

  The deeper life for which we yearn,

  Immortal flame that doesn't burn,

  The sacred sparks, ablaze, unseen –

  The children of the Galadin.

  Beneath the trees they gloze and gleam,

  And whirl and play and dance and dream

  Of wider woods beyond the sea

  Where they shall dwell eternally.

  'I have changed a few of the words,' Master Juwain told Maidro and Sunji, 'to suit the circumstances of this Vild. As for the Timpum, they are all around you, though you cannot see them. But they are of the same substance, I believe, as Flick.'

  At this, Flick suddenly flared into sight. The Avari gazed at him once more in wonder. So did Kalevi - but for different reasons. He cried out, 'One of the Bright Ones walks with you! How is it that you can see him?'

  I told him of how Master Juwain, Maram, Atara and I had found one of the Lokilani's Vilds in faroff Alonia and had eaten the sacred timana, which had gifted us with vision of the Timpum.

  'Good, good!' Kalevi said. Then he swept his hand toward Sunji and the other Avari and added, 'But these men did not eat the timana, yes? And they behold the Bright One, even so. Why? Why? It must be because he is so bright - the brightest I have ever seen!'

  As he spoke, the bits of light making up Flick's form blazed like tiny suns. Glorre radiated out from his center and filled the woods.

  'This color!' Kalevi cried out. 'We have seen it before, but never here - never, never! The Loikalii must look upon this one! Come, come!'

  He urged us onward, beneath the giant trees. With every furlong that we walked deeper into the woods, they seemed to grow even higher. We came upon the first astors, much smaller, but more beautiful than even the white birches, for their leaves shone golden and their bark gleamed with the soft shimmer of silver. Some bore clusters of timanas: small, round, golden fruits, sweet to the tongue and even sweeter to the spirit. Their flesh could open doors to another world, but could also kill.

  At last we entered a glade ringed with silver maples and filled with lovely astor trees. The Loikalii had all gathered there - all who lived in this Vild, or so Kalevi said. Three hundred men, women and children dressed much as Kalevi spread out in a great circle to welcome us. In our entrance to the Alonian Vild, their kinsmen had aimed arrows at us; these people, instead, held out to us their small, brown hands cupping gourds filled with water. 'We have been waiting for you,' a regal-looking woman called out to us. She stood in front of the ring of her people. She seemed of an age with Liljana, with graying hair and wrinkles creasing her wise face, but her eyes were as green and as full of life as spring leaves. She- presented herself as Maira, and told us: 'Our water is yours.'

  These words made a good impression on the Avari, who bowed their heads to honor Maira and her people. The Loikalii closed in upon us then, and we spent some time accepting the gourds from them and drinking water as sweet and cool as the sap running through a tree. Then Maira presented to us a beautiful young woman named Anneli, who was taller than most of the other Loikalii. Her hair flowed in black waves over her shoulders and back, and she wore a great green stone around her neck. I sensed that this crystal must be a varistei; so did Master Juwain. When Maira announced that Anneli was a great healer, Master Juwain inclined his head toward her in respect.

  'Anneli,' Maira said to us, pointing at Maram, 'will take the burnt one inside her house to be made whole again - if it is not too late.'

  'Vraddi,' Maram croaked out from his litter as he looked up at Maira. Then his gaze fell upon the lovely Anneli, and his voice grow louder: 'Vraddi!'

  Anneli misunderstood what Maram was asking for. She came over to him and held out her slender hand to keep back one of the Loikalii women trying to get Maram to drink from her gourd. Then Anneli tenderly brushed back the filthy hair plastered to Maram's forehead. In a voice like a song, she piped out: 'This flower needs much water, but too much too soon will drown him.'

  Maira nodded her head at Anneli, and then looked at my companions and me. She told us, 'Houses have been made ready for the rest of you. You must sleep now, and eat and drink, and then sleep some more. And then we will speak: of the Burning Lands and the Bright One you call Flick - and of the Dark One we call Asangal and others name as Ang Ar Mai Nyu. And of his disciple, the Morajin. Until then - and after, after! - the Forest shall be your home.'

  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.