Black Jade

by David Zindell

  Master Juwain gazed up as if looking for the point of the great crystal a hundred feet above us. 'Then what are these gelstei for?'

  Kane began pacing around the circle, casting quick glances to his right or left across the cavern, at Babul standing far away on his rocky shelf and the dangling green and yellow crystals of the cavern's ceiling. I could scarcely bear the flood of feelings pouring out of him: curiosity, remorse, anticipation, sorrow and all his wild joy of life.

  'So,' he finally said, 'a day must come when the Galadin will become Ieldra and use the gelstei to sing into creation a new universe. I believe that Ashtoreth and Valoreth - even Asangal and many other Galadin - once came here to sing.'

  He went on say that just as boys practiced with wooden swords before becoming warriors who wielded razor-sharp steel, so the Galadin must prepare themselves for the great task that lay ahead of them.

  'But of what did they sing, then?' Daj asked Kane.

  'Who knows?' Kane told him. 'But this was said about the place called Ansunna: that it held a great magic. Whatever one spoke truly, with the voice of the soul, would be made real.'

  'That would be magic, indeed,' Master Juwain said, 'for wishes to come true.'

  'I didn't say wishes,' Kane snapped at him. 'We wish that our desires be fulfilled, and we desire that which most pleases or benefits us. But the soul has other desires, eh? And its deepest desire is always in accord with that of the One. What does the One will? Discover that within yourself and speak it truly, without wish or regard for yourself, and it will be.'

  Master Juwain rubbed his gleaming head as he thought about this. And then Atara said, 'But only, it would seem for the Galadin for who of us can ever hope to sing as they sing?'

  Kane gazed at Alphanderry a moment before saying, 'Who, indeed?'

  Estrella, who could not sing or even speak, caught Kane's attention with a flutter of her fingers and a smile. Their eyes met, and something seemed to snap inside him like an overstretched bowstring. He said, 'There is singing, and there is singing. The Ieldra do not have voices as men do, and yet from them pours forth the music of creation.'

  In the Loikalii's vild, I had stood staring at the great astor tree, Irdrasil, as a glorre-infused radiance poured out of it. I could almost hear the Ieldra whispering to me still; I knew that the deepest voice of all spoke not in impossible-to-learn tones but in the language of light.

  'This, too, I believe, was said,' Kane told us. His fathomless eyes drank in the cavern's colors. 'That one should not speak of abstractions such as peace, compassion or love. That which is, always is, eh? It partakes of the eternal realm. But that which would be, in creation, comes forth within this realm. Like the world itself, it must be a physical thing.'

  A question seemed to divide him, like a chasm through solid rock. It divided me, as well. How, I wondered, could I distinguish what I wanted from the will of the One? Did I long for Atara to see with new eyes for her sake or my own? And what of my hope that someday I would hear sweet song pouring from Estrella's throat, no less my darker desire to plunge my sword through Morjin's heart? A hundred wants and needs formed up inside me with an almost palpable presence. I tried to listen for the whispering of my soul and to sing out with all my heart my deepest desire. But I felt lost inside this vast cavern, like a sleeper within a dream. There came a moment when I wished for nothing more than to stand outside beneath the stars again, to feel the wind on my face and for Maram to press a cup of brandy into my hand as his great voice boomed out that it was good to be alive.

  As we all stood there in the womb of the earth, staring off in silence, the great gelstei crystals came alive with a deep light. It passed from one crystal to the next, red to yellow, violet to blue, so that each crystal seemed to partake of the radiance of all the thousands of others. The splendor they cast out into the cavern colored the very air so that it shimmered a brilliant glorre.

  And yet, I thought, the crystals shone less brilliantly than they should have. A too-familiar dread crept up my bones into my spine. My sword smoldered with hidden flames, as did my heart, and I felt Morjin's presence here. Surely he knew of this place, even if he had never found the purity of voice to sing his way into it. But now, I sensed, from a thousand miles away he used the power of the Lightstone to sing a different and darker kind of song. The Galadin once might have spoken their desires to these beautiful crystals, as did we; the Red Dragon would speak his demands. And the great gelstei spoke back. When I emptied myself of all wishes and listened hard enough, I heard the saddest song of all. For here the earth herself sang: long, lovely, low and deep. She sang of the Black Jade buried within her flesh like a poisoned arrowhead; she told of Morjin delving down through the rock beneath Skartaru and doing terrible things. She lamented her own darkening, and sang of her dread of the day when Morjin would free the Dark One and the earth would finally sicken and die.

  It came to me that we would never find our way out of the Singing Caves if we stood frozen listening to such tormented songs. I wondered how we would find our way at all. And then I heard another song, or rather a voice, that dashed our hopes of escape. For Babul, high on his slab of rock above us, suddenly called out to us: 'Mirustral! Rowan! Pirro has given the warning! He heard shouts beyond the doors, and says that Sylar comes for us! What shall we do?'

  What indeed, I wondered, as I looked at Kane?

  And then a moment later, Babul shouted out again: 'The doorway! It is closing!'

  We all turned to face the gleaming azure crystals on the curving wall above us. Master Juwain said, 'If we let ourselves be closed in, we'll be safe from Sylar and his men.'

  And Kane snarled at him, 'You mean, entombed!'

  'No - when Sylar finds us vanished, he'll attribute it to sorcery. We can reopen the door another time, and make our escape.'

  'So you say. But what if Sylar does not attribute our vanishing to sorcery? What if that damn Pirro betrays us, and Sylar sets miners to chiselling away here and discovers this cavern?'

  He did not have to add that if Sylar really belonged to the Order of the Dragon, then Morjin would be told of anything he discovered.

  'Good pilgrims!' Babul cried out, 'the doorway!'

  'So, I'd rather die trying to fight our way out,' Kane said.

  'So would I,' I told him. Then I turned toward the stairs. 'Hurry, then, before we are trapped in here.'

  We ran up the stairs to the shimmering doorway. The opening appeared to be gelling into something more solid. I urged everyone through and then jumped after them through the wall into the sixth or Minstrels' Cavern; it was like passing through freezing water.

  'The doors!' Pirro's voice rang out from above us. He stood at the mouth of the fifth cavern shouting down to us. 'They're going to open the doors!'

  I led the way running toward him. I had to pace myself up the stairs, and all the way back up through the other sloping chambers, lest the climb burn up my limbs and wind me. Then I came into the first cavern. There, in that hollow of gleaming crystals, I stood gasping for air. My friends joined me, one by one. At the front of the cavern, the iron doors remained shut, and I could hear no sound from beyond them.

  'What shall we do?' Babul said again, whispering to me. 'We are few, and they will surely be many.'

  Just then something banged the door outside, and there came the jangle of what sounded like keys.

  'Form up!' I whispered, stepping closer to the door.

  Kane, sword in hand, stood by my right side, while to my left, Babul and Pirro pressed close to each other and pointed their spears at the doors. Liljana, Master Juwain, Estrella and Daj gathered behind us. Liljana had drawn the long knife that she wore concealed beneath her robes, while Daj gripped his short sword. Farther to my right and behind me, Atara had stationed herself at an angle to the door. She had cut free from her cloak the three arrows sewn into it, and had nocked one of them to the string of her bow. She pulled back the arrow to her ear, somehow aiming its steel point in the direction of the
crack between the doors. I wondered how long she could hold her great bow at full draw.

  The sound of a key grating inside the iron lock of the doors sent a thrill of fear shooting through me. And Pirro whispered out into the dank, close air: 'I could not tell how many they are.'

  I heard Kane whisper back to him, 'We'll kill them all few or many. We must, be prepared for anything.'

  But I was not, despite Kane's fierce words, prepared for what awaited us on the other side of the doors. Finally, with much creaking, these great slabs of iron began to swing open. Torchlight spilled into the cavern, and limned against its red glow stood a single man. I blinked my eyes in wonder. I could not believe what I saw, although I was overjoyed at the sight that greeted me.

  'My Lord!' a familiar voice called out to me. 'Oh, my Lord!'

  It was Maram.

  Chapter 32

  We hurried out into the scoop of rock called the first cavern. The bodies of Elkar and Harun lay sprawled near the table where Sylar had collected our gold. Elkar's slashed throat oozed blood, while Harun fairly floated in a dark pool building out from a terrible wound in his chest. Just in front of the demon rock slumped another form: Sylar's, I guessed from the gilded armor. His body had been decapitated. Although I looked about the bloodstained cavern floor, I could not see his head.

  'But how did you come to be here?' I asked Maram. We stood over Sylar's corpse gazing at each other in amazement. I noted the blood dripping off Maram's drawn sword. 'What happened?'

  'Ah, Val!' Maram said as he embraced me with his free arm, 'I happened along just in time, I think, else you would have been dead, or worse.'

  He explained that after arriving at the Inn of the Clouds in the dead of night, he had asked after us and learned that we had not returned from the Singing Caves. Thinking to surprise us, he had hurried after us, up the flagstone path leading from the inn beneath the face of Mount Miru. As he had approached the caverns' entrance, however, a cruel laughter had given him warning. And so, like a bear sniffing out a new lair, he had stalked up to the caverns in near silence.

  'As I drew closer,' he told us, 'I hid behind that rock.'

  He pointed at a large boulder ten yards away just outside the cavern.

  Then he pointed at the bodies of Elkar, Harun and Sylar.

  'I heard them boasting that they had locked you inside the caverns,' he went on. He pointed his sword toward Sylar's headless torso. 'That one was their captain, wasn't he? He said that they would be given a great reward for capturing you. I gathered that he had sent another of these guards for reinforcements.'

  Kane sprang up to Maram and grasped his arm. 'Did you hear Sylar say where he sent him?'

  Maram nodded. 'To Hesperu, to return this very night with one of the Red Priests and a cadre of Crucifiers . . .'

  'Did Sylar,' Kane asked Maram with a tightening of his fist, 'say the name of the Red Priest?'

  Maram pried Kane's fingers from his arm and took a step back. He looked down at Sylar's remains beneath the demon's stony, grinning face. 'I waited for him to say it. Or for one of his men. But all they seemed to want to talk about was Mouth of Truth, as. they called it. Sylar lamented that they couldn't test it on you. I couldn't listen to that, do you understand? I couldn't wait forever, and so I did what I did.'

  And what Maram had done, as Maram now told us, was to charge from out behind his rock with his sword in his hand. Before the hapless guards realized that a fierce warrior was upon them, he had slashed open the astonished Elkar's throat with a lightning cut of his sword and then thrust its point through Harun's armor at the shoulder joint, deep into Harun's chest. He had then turned upon Sylar.

  'For him,' Maram said, nudging Sylar's body with his boot, 'I didn't have to use my sword.'

  'Then what happened to him?' Daj asked.

  'I grabbed him,' Maram said, 'before he could draw his sword. He fought like a fish, but I, ah, subdued him. I asked him the name of the Red Priest, but he wouldn't tell me. And so I hammer-locked him, and pushed his head inside this.'

  Maram slapped his hand against the smooth rock carved with the demon's face. I noticed the fresh blood staining the lips of of the Mouth of Truth.

  'You put Lord Sylar inside of Old Ugly?' Babul called out.

  'Just his head and neck,' Maram replied. 'I told him that I'd let him go free if he gave me the Red Priest's name and told me where Tarran was bound; if he didn't, I told him I'd break his filthy neck. I did almost have to break it, too. Finally, though, Sylar gave me a name: Ra Jaumal. I knew he was lying the moment he spoke it.'

  According to Maram, as soon as Sylar had spoken the name of Ra Jaumal, the demon's eyes had flared bright blue and from within the rock had come the sound of whirring gears and metal whooshing through the air. Maram never laid eyes on the falling blade that had severed Sylar's head. But he had felt the impact of steel against flesh and bone through Sylar's shocked body.

  'Lord Sylar,' Babul said, staring down at the bloody stone, 'always wanted to test Old Ugly. But I don't think he really believed it would do its work.'

  'So,' Kane said, gazing at the reddened Mouth of Truth.

  He drew forth a round, reddish rock called a bloodstone, and moved over to Elkar's body. He held the little gelstei over Elkar's forehead; a crimson light pouring out of the bloodstone illumined the secret mark of the Red Dragon tattooed there. It remained a burning crimson in Elkar's flesh even after Kane closed his fist around his bloodstone.

  'I should have used this on him and that damn Sylar before we went into the caverns,' Kane sighed as he rose up again. 'But it's hard to expose our enemies without exposing us.'

  He turned to Maram and asked, 'Do you think Sylar knew who we are?'

  Maram shook his head. 'No, I got no sense of that. He spoke only of having been alerted to look for a band of pilgrims such as us. I believe that it was his own idea to lock you inside and send for the Red Priest. He seemed proud of his initiative.'

  'It may be,' Liljana said, stepping closer, 'that the Lord of Lies deduced that we would come to Senta. And warned whoever Sylar reported to that he should watch for us.'

  'Whoever that is,' Kane said, 'will be warned soon enough if we're not quick. And every other Red Priest in Senta and down into Hesperu.'

  I noticed Babul and Pirro standing in a little too closely and fairly hanging on Kane's every word. I didn't like it that he spoke so freely in front of them.

  'But who are you, then,' Babul asked me, 'that the Lord of Lies would hunt you?'

  I felt a darkness building inside Kane, who said, 'Go ahead and tell them. They might as well know before they join the others.'

  And with that, he drew his sword and turned toward Babul.

  'No!' I cried out. I took a step closer to Kane. 'No ... Rowan!'

  Babul tried to use his spear to defend himself and perhaps thrust its long, gleaming point into Kane before Kane could kill him. But Kane knocked away Babul's spear as easily as he might have parried the thrust of a child. I grabbed onto Kane's arm then before his wrath drove him to do something that he didn't really wish to do. I pulled him back, out the range of Babul's and Pirro's spears.

  'No!' I said to him again.

  He whirled to face me, and his eyes burned into mine. 'They know too much! We can't just leave them behind us!'

  'Perhaps they do.' I told him. 'But we can't just slay innocent men!'

  'Innocent,' Kane spat out, glancing at the badly frightened Babul. 'Who is truly innocent?'

  'We cannot slay them!' I shouted.

  'Would you have us risk everything to preserve the lives of these?'

  In answer, I tightened my grip around his arm. Behind me and to my right, I saw Estrella step in front of Babul as she fearlessly looked up at Kane.

  'So,' Kane said as he gazed at her. I watched as the life in his eyes died into a smoldering rage. He seemed to command his arm to sheathe his sword, and I let go of him so that he could.

  'Good pilgrim,' Babul said to Kane as he
wiped the sweat from his neck. 'I will guard your secrets as I do the caverns themselves, with my life!'

  'Ha - that you will!' Kane snarled at him.

  He took a step closer to Babul even as Babul took a step back. Then Kane sprang forward past Estrella, brushing aside Babul's spear with a savage motion. He opened his fist to let the bloodstone's light shine on Babul's forehead. But the gelstei's radiance failed to bring forth any secret tattoo. A similar test of Pirro proved him also to be free of the Dragon's mark.

  'All right, then, we shall give you our trust,' Kane told them. 'Do not betray it. You know that the Red Dragon hunts us; you do not want me to hunt you. I must leave now, but I will return.

  If I learn you've spoken of us or what lies beyond what you call the seventh cavern, then I shall slay you - you and your families: your wives, your fathers, sisters and children!'

  It was a terrible thing for him to say, and the force of his breath breaking from his lips made both Babul and Pirro quail. Then Kane turned toward the flagstone path gleaming gray-white in the glister of the torches. He caught my eye, and said. 'If I ride fast enough, I may be able to overtake Sylar's messenger before he reaches the Red Priest he's been sent to.'

  'Alone?' I said to him.

  'Yes - I'll do this work better alone.'

  But how will we find you, then?'

  'Follow me tonight, as soon as you can,' he told me. 'Ride quickly, but don't ruin the horses. And tomorrow, I'll find you.'

  So saying, he sprang forward and began running down the path back toward the Inn of the Clouds. He vanished like a great cat into the dark folds of night.

  Babul as if all his strength had bled away, staggered over to the chair behind the table and slumped down into it. He gazed at Sylar's headless body as he used a scarf to mop the sweat from his forehead. He said to me, 'The King will have to be informed of what occurred here. If we're to guard your secrets, what story shall we give him?'