Black Jade ec-3

by David Zindell

  Estrella, however, had little talent for sewing, and so she played the flute for us to provide music while we worked. Alphanderry came forth and accompanied her, singing out a rather bawdy ballad whose rhythms seemed timed to reinforce the hammering of Kane's nails. Later that day, when it came time to paint the little traveling house that our cart had become, Estrella picked up a small brush while Alphanderry continued entertaining us. As it happened, she had a rare gift for using brightly colored paints to render birds and flowers and the like, though she could not tell us where she had come by it. Alphanderry, of course, could grasp no brush in his hand, nor anything else. But day by day, he seemed to appear ever more substantial, as if he was somehow growing used to the world again. He called out ideas for figures to Estrella, and to Kane and Maram, who also helped with the painting. I took great delight in the delight with which Estrella brought to life a golden astor tree and a rising sun and a dark blue panel full of stars. I had to stop her, though, from depicting a great silver swan. When she discovered that her enthusiasm had carried her away into an error that might have betrayed us, she wasted no time in self-recrimination, but only used her brush to quickly transform the swan into a winged horse. It joined other animal figures, some fantastical and some not: diving dolphins and a chimera; an eagle in flight and a two-headed serpent and a great blue bear. Liljana suggested we paint a dragon against one of the red panels, but it was thought that the Hesperuks might take offence at a golden or green one. None of us could bear to see a red dragon defiling our wildly and beautifully decorated house, though Kane wryly remarked that it would do no harm to paint a red one against red. That way, we could always tell the curious that the great Red Dragon always dwelled within our house, unseen, as it did within the hearts of men.

  It took us four days to complete our preparations. When we were ready to set out again, I stood staring at the cart and admiring the fine detail with which Estrella had embellished a mandolet, a tarot card and the figure of a costumed man juggling seven brightly colored balls. I smiled to see how closely this man resembled Kane. The likeness became even more striking when Liljana brought forth one of the costumes that she had been sewing and bade Kane to put it on. This, with much grumbling and cursing, he did. She then gave him seven leather balls which she had filled with dried rice and stitched shut. Their colors ranged from blood red to a brilliant violet, as of a rainbow.

  As we all stood around watching, Kane tossed the balls into the air, one after the other, and with lightning-quick motions of his hands, kept them streaming in an arc that seemed a rainbow of its own. I knew then that Maram's idea might possibly work: Kane would certainly be our juggler. (And, at need, our strongman, magician and mandolet player.) Atara, who brought forth a clear, gleaming sphere that we had purchased from a glassblower in Ramlan, would tell people's fortunes. Master Juwain would act as a reader of horoscopes and tarot cards, while Liijana would pose as a potionist and Daj as her assistant. I began practicing on a long flute also acquired in Ramlan, intending to accompany Estrella, who held dear the flute that I had given her more than a year ago in Ishka. We both would provide music for Alphanderry, our minstrel. As Estrella also evinced great expressiveness with her eyes, hands and move- ments, she might also act as a mime. And Maram, of course, would be our fool.

  'We needn't actually perform,' he told us after Liljana had helped him try on his silly clown's costume. 'In fact, I'm sure it will go better for us if we don't. But at least we should be able to move about freely — doesn't everyone welcome a traveling troupe?'

  Such troupes of players, of course, had journeyed from land to land for thousands of years. They called no kingdom their own, and no kingdom made claim on their loyalties and rarely dared even to tax them.

  'These Hesperuks are a grim people,' Maram said, 'but at least they haven't yet outlawed entertainment.'

  Daj, however, having been born in the Haraland, took objection to this, saying, 'My people are not grim. In my father's house, there was always wine and song. No one was afraid to laugh. My father, once when I was very young, took us to see one of the troupes that came up from the south. There was a tightrope walker and a man who ate fire. I can't remember their names.'

  Maram reached up to jingle one of the bells hanging down from his yellow and blue cap. He said, 'Well, I hope people will forget our names as readily. But we mustn't, and so let's go over them one more time.'

  Mirustral I was to be no longer, and certainly not Valashu Elahad. Maram now nodded at me and addressed me as Arajun, and Atara as Kalinda. Liljana had chosen the new name of Mother Magda, while Master Juwain was to go by Tedorik and Daj as Jaiyu. Kane had transformed into Taras, and Estrella into Mira. Alphanderry would sing under the name of Thierraval. And Maram had become Garath the Fool.

  We left the woods as we had come, and turned onto one of the Haraland's back roads. Although we journeyed toward no particular destination, we felt the need to complete our quest with all possible speed. Our pace, however, limited by the speed of the heavy cart, proved slow. Its huge, iron-shod wheels left long grooves in the soft roads and from time to time became stuck in mud. Finally, I decided to hitch Altaru to the cart. He hated this new, grinding work, and looked at me as if I had betrayed him. But he was as strong as any draft horse, and had something of a draft horse's look. And this, I thought, might work to our advantage in case anyone questioned us too closely.

  For the next five days, we wandered from town to town asking people if they had ever heard of a place called Jhamrul. No one had. We listened for talk of healers and unusual healings, too. We worked our way into the heart of the Haraland, east and south. As we drew closer to the Iona River, which flowed down from the mountains into the great Ayo, the land grew almost perfectly flat. The Haralanders here cultivated little wheat, but much millet, maize, beans and a sickly-sweet orange root called a yam. The various towns and villages — Urun, Skah, Malku and Nirrun — smelled of cinnamon and chocolate, which the Haralanders ground up with other spices and made into a sort of sauce for chicken, lamb and pork and strange meats such as squaj and kresh, taken from the giant lizards that infested Hesperu's watercourses. At first we encountered no troubles more vexatious than roads flooded from torrential rains and repeated requests that we encamp and give a show. And then, five miles outside of Nirrun, we ran straight into a company of soldiers coming up the road from the south.

  There were fourteen of them, accoutred in heavy, fish-scale armor and riding worn horses. Their captain, a long-faced man named Riquis, waited impatiently while we maneuvered the cart onto a beanfield off the side of the road. The ground was mushy from the recent rains, and instantly mired the cart's great wheels. The soldiers, of course, might have ridden around us with greater ease, but that was not the way of things in Hesperu.

  Riquis' sergeant, a stout man with a thick, black beard that spilled down over the collar of his armor, watched us with a growing interest. His covetous eyes fastened like fishhooks on Altaru and Fire. He said to Riquis: 'My lord I look at those horses! I've never seen finer ones!'

  They are fine indeed,' Riquis said as his calculating gaze fell upon Altaru. 'How does a band of players come by such horses?'

  I stood in the mud by Altaru with my hand stroking his neck. To Riquis, I said, 'A gift, my lord, from a lord of a land far away.'

  I did not tell him that the lord was named Duke Gorador of Daksh.

  'He must have liked your performance marvelously well to have given you such a gift,' Riquis said to me.

  I tried not to look Riquis eye to eye as I said, 'We're but poor players who do as we can.'

  Riquis nodded his head at what he took to be modesty. Then his sergeant said to him, 'Why don't we see how well they can do? It's been half a year since I saw a show.'

  'I would like that,' Riquis said. 'Unfortunately, though, we haven't the time.'

  Although he did not reveal his business, I gathered that his company had been summoned to Avrian, some forty miles to the north on the I
ona River. As we had been told in Senta, King Asru had laid siege to Avrian for two bitter months before he had finally taken the city.

  It's said they've crucified a thousand men,' Riquis told us. 'King Angand has arrived from Sunguru, and has joined King Arsu to witness Avrian's destruction. If you truly wish for an appreciative audience, then you should perform for the King. He is a lover of all arts and entertainments, or so it's said.'

  'Perhaps one day,' I told him, 'we'll be so fortunate.'

  The sergeant returned to the matter that had originally caught his attention. He said, 'If we don't have time for a show, then let's requisition these horses and be done with it, my lord.'

  My hand froze fast against Altaru's warm, sweating neck. I calculated the distance, in inches, to the wagon where I had hidden my sword. I calculated the thickness of the soldiers' armor and the length of their spears, as well, and the slight art they seemed to have with such weaponry. I thought that Kane, Maram and I might possibly kill most of them before the survivors lost heart and fled.

  'Lord Riquis,' I said to this grim captain, 'this horse was a gift, and so it would be bad manners if we ourselves were to give him away.'

  'This horse,' Master Juwain said, nodding at Altaru, 'is our strongest. We would be hard put to find another to draw so heavy a cart.'

  'And where, diviner,' Riquis asked, 'were you given this beast?'

  Master Juwain, who hated lying even more than I did, said, 'The horse comes from Anjo.'

  'And where is that?'

  'It lies in the Morning Mountains.'

  'And where is that?'

  'Far away, northeast, past the White Mountains and across the plains of the Wendrush.'

  'Oh,' Riquis spat out, 'the Dark Lands. Where, it's said, dwell the Valari.'

  This word seemed to hang in the air like a ringing bell. I wrapped my fingers around Altaru's mane as I tried not to look at Riquis.

  'Have you performed for the Valari, then?' Riquis asked. 'Horse or no, you are well away from those demons.'

  Then he quoted a passage from the- Black Book.

  '"All who follow the Way of the Dragon, and follow it truly, are of the Light and shall walk the path of the angels. All who do not are of the Dark, and shall be destroyed."'

  Liljana, who had a mind as sharp as Godhran steel and could use it to rip apart others' arguments, said to Riquis: 'But surely, the Way of the Dragon is open to everyone, even the Valari.'

  'Surely it is,' Riquis said. 'But the Valari, long ago, at the beginning of time, turned away from the Light. Willfully. They poisoned their spirits, and so became demons.'

  'Not all of them seemed so evil when we passed through their realm.'

  'But is it not so with the cleverest of demons? That which is foul often appears as fair, and the darkest of the Dark as Light.'

  Liljana threw her arm around Daj, who stood by her side. And she said, 'But what child is born in darkness? And is it not upon all of us to bring to the errants the — '

  'Do not weep for the demonspawn,' Riquis told her. 'In darkness they are born, and to darkness they shall return. It is coming, Mother — the Great Crusade is coming. The Kariad, when whole forests shall be felled in order to make crosses for the Valari people. Soon, King Arsu will lead our armies into the Dark Lands, into Eanna and the far north. Any day now, it's said, the King will march with King Angand back down to Khevaju, and then we shall need all the good men and good horses to bear them that we can find.'

  This news gave us good reason to reconsider our course, for we had been drifting closer and closer to the Iona River, which it now seemed we must avoid at any cost.

  Riquis drew in a great gulp of the muggy air, and stared at Liljana. And then he surprised me, saying, 'But we also need fine players to keep our soldiers' spirits bright. And so keep your horses. Mother. Perhaps one day you'll return to the Dark Lands to perform for our company when we have raised high the standard of the Dragon over the Valari's graves.'

  As Maram had said, doesn't everyone welcome a traveling troupe?

  Liljana thanked Riquis for his mercy, and presented him and his sergeant with a love potion, which might help them open their hearts and hold their spears up high when they reached Avrian, or so she told them. Riquis and his soldiers rode off quickly after that. And so did we. We turned east and south through the steaming countryside, away from Avrian and the road that King Arsu's army would soon march down along the Iona river. In villages and small farms, we continued inquiring after Jhamrul. As we thought it might arouse too much suspicion to ask directly if anyone knew of any miracles of healing, we spoke of our desire to see Atara made whole again, in hope that somebody might volunteer information that would help us. But when we broached this matter, more than one Haralander stared at us in cold silence. And one woman, a silver-haired grandmother, admitted that she knew of a fine healer up near Sagarun. a young man who had been taken by the Kallimun and never seen again. Even this man, however, she told us, had never been known to heal the blind.

  With every day and hour that we remained within this hateful realm, it seemed less and less likely that we would ever come across Jhamrul, and more and more likely that we would be found out, taken and tortured. Torture seemed the fate of everyone who dwelt here, for the Way of the Dragon not only made cruel use of people's bodies and possessions, but twisted their spirits and scared them with fire.

  As we drove our painted cart down muddy roads and through poor towns whose houses were built of dried mud and straw, we saw men and women wearing placards that proclaimed their errors. We learned to 'read' the various symbols branded into their cheeks or foreheads: a star usually signified minor defiance of some lord or master whereas an eye within a triangle told of the errant's hubris, in aspiring to a station for which he had no claim. Theft, of course, was usually punished by amputation, though minor pilferings or greed might call for nothing more than the searing of a grasping hand into one's flesh. And so with other symbols for other crimes.

  I might have thought that the Haralanders would try to cover these mutilations in shame. But so disfigured were they in their souls that many bore their scars openly and even blatantly: in the village of Dakai, I saw a streetsweeper going about naked but for a loincloth, and proudly displaying a star, triangle, bell, hand, circle, butterfly and other signs branded all across his shiny brown torso, arms and legs. It was as if he used these scars to cry out to everyone: 'Do you see how much I've suffered to try to walk the Way of the Dragon? Do you see how much I've sacrificed in pain that others might learn from my errors?' It astonished me to learn that errants, when facing a branding, were expected to perform this atrocity upon themselves, and that many actually did. It seemed they were burning into their very nerve fibers the imperative that they existed only to execute the will of the Red Dragon.

  We had tramped through the Haraland many days, however, before we came across the first crucifixion. In the town square of Yosun, a slender man had been put up on wood for all to see. I was driving the cart that day, and stopped it on hardpacked earth stained with blood. I climbed down and joined the crowd gathered around the cross. Four soldiers covered in iron scales and bearing spears would not let any of the townsfolk too near the crucified man. I saw that great iron spikes split his hands and feet, and his trembling legs seemed no longer able to push against the footpiece to which he was nailed. He gasped for breath. Two days in the hot Haraland sun had nearly blackened his naked body. His dark eyes stared out as at nothing, and I knew he was close to death.

  Although it was hard to tell because desiccation and anguish had contorted his face, I thought he was of an age with me. To a woman standing near me, I asked, 'What was his error?'

  'He killed his brother,' she told me.

  'Killed his brother!' I cried out. I could think of few worse crimes.

  But there was more to the story than that. From a wheelwright who had known the young man, whose name was Tristan, I learned that Tristan's brother, Alok, had flown into a ra
ge and had struck the local Red Priest. It seemed that the priest, Ra Sadun, upon learning of the defiant ways of a third brother only six years old, had come to take the boy from Tristan's and Alok's house to be raised in the Kallimun school. As the Kallimun say, 'Give us the child, and we shall give you the man.'

  But Alok had not wanted to give away his youngest brother. Perhaps he feared that the Red Priests would castrate him, as they often did with boys so that they might more beautifully sing the praises of Angra Mainyu and Morjin. Perhaps he dreaded even darker things. Clearly, though, he had not believed Ra Sadun's assertion that the abduction of his youngest brother was a mercy, the only way to save the boy. And so he had hammered his fist into Ra Sadun's nose, drawing blood. After Ra Sadun had gone away to summon the soldiers, jgristan took up a carving knife and killed Alok. The dishonor that Alok had brought upon their family, Tristan claimed, was too great for him to bear. Alok's blood, he told everyone, would wash it clean. But many of the townfolk of Yosun believed that Tristan had stabbed Alok to save him from the terrible punishment of crucifixion. Ra Sadun must have believed this, too, for he had ordered the soldiers to seize Tristan and crucify him in his brother's place.

  'The Dragon is not to be cheated,' the wheelwright told me. He was an old whitebeard whose hands seemed as hard as the wooden spokes he worked. He waved one of them at Tristan, fastened to the cross above the square. 'If you ask me, though, Tristan did kill Alok out of honor. He loved his brother, yes, but I say he loved his family's honor even more. And who could suffer anyone to live who had struck a priest?'

  Slayings of honor, of course, had a long tradition in the Haraland. Nobles fought duels over real or imagined insults; men murdered the prurient for staring too boldly at their wives; brothers put to death their own sisters for adultery and other lasdviousness that mocked marriage and brought shame upon their families.