Black Jade ec-3

by David Zindell

  I sat down on the grass across from the rock, and invited him to sit back down, too. I smiled and said, 'Why don't you call me Arajun?'

  'All right — Master Arajun, then. Where is Garath? Is it time to change his dressing?'

  I looked down the hill toward the field where we had stopped our cart. I said, 'He'll be along in a while. I wanted to take a walk before the sun grew too high.'

  Bemossed nodded his head at this. He pointed at my flute and said, 'To walk and play to the birds? I heard you last night in the square, playing to the people.'

  'You did? I didn't see you there.'

  'I stood near the almond trees.'

  'So far away? But you couldn't have heard very much.'

  'I couldn't come any closer.' He shrugged his shoulders and said simply, 'I am Hajarim.'

  I sat looking at his finely-made head, his deep eyes and long eyelashes. His hands, long and expressive, moved while he spoke as if to music. In manner, he seemed thoughtful and polite. I felt that he had a keen sense of himself that he tried to keep hidden from others. But a certain grace and natural nobility shone out from within him, even so. Except for the black cross tattooed into his skin, it would have been impossible to guess at his lowly birth. 'My companions and I,' I told.him, 'have journeyed to many kingdoms. In other places, there are no Hajarim, nor slaves either.'

  'No Hajarim?' he said, touching the mark on his forehead. 'No slaves? But what lands are these?'

  'The Free Kingdoms, in the north.'

  'Do you mean, the Dark Lands? It is said that men mate with animals there, and eat their own dead.'

  'Do you believe that?'

  Bemossed hesitated as he dared a deep look at me. I felt within him a bright, burning awareness and an incredibly strong will toward the truth. But other things dwelled there, too, and he quickly broke off the meeting of our eyes. And he stammered out, 'It. . is said.'

  He gazed at the dozen goats spread out below us tearing up the grass. I could sense him choosing his words with great care, in Hesperu, speaking bluntly could earn a visit from the Crucifiers and a tearing out of the tongue with hot pincers so that one would never speak the wrong words again.

  'It is a lovely day,' he finally said. He looked farther up the pasture at a grove of cherry trees where a pair of bluebirds sat on a branch singing. 'It will rain this afternoon, though, I think.'

  'Bemossed,' I murmured into the soft breeze.

  This young man who seemed of an age with me forced himself to look at me again, and this time he held the gaze. His eyes shone warm and sweet, and seemed inextinguishable. Something incredibly bright there burned into me like lightning. I felt him trying to turn away from this thing, but one might as well try to keep the earth from turning and stop the rising of the sun. I had a strange sense that he knew exactly what I was about, and wanted to trust me, as I did him.

  'Yes, Master Musician?' he said to me.

  I held my flute up to the sun's onstreaming rays. I said, 'I can play a few melodies, but I'm hardly a master.'

  'All free men are masters to such as I.'

  'I'm hardly free,' I told him. The memory of my family's slaughter, I knew, bound me in a dark prison as surely as any chain. 'Who is free any more? It is said that a Lord Olum is now master of all traveling troupes, and others as well.'

  Bemossed looked at a hawk soaring high on the wind above us. He said, 'The birds are free. People's hearts are free.'

  This, I thought, was a dangerous half-quote from the Darakul Elu: there, it was written that people's hearts were free when they beat in time to the heart of the Red Dragon.

  'A man should always follow his own heart,' I said to him.

  'I heard you following yours last night. In your music. The way you played. I heard such a longing for freedom,'

  Bemossed dared a great deal in what he said to me and the way that he said it. He didn't appear to mind. There was steel inside him, and more, something as brilliant and adamantine as diamond. It was as if he had long since willed himself to act with little concern for what might befall himself. His courage shone out like that of my brothers.

  'You must know what it is like to long for freedom,' I told him. 'They say you ran away from your master when you were younger.'

  'Chedu,' he said, rubbing at the scars on the back of his neck. A darkness fell over his face like a dust-cloud covering the sun, 'He made me do … evil things.'

  'But you do not complain that he did evil things to you?'

  He shrugged his shoulders again. His gaze took in the white flowers nearby, Mangus's house and the village below us, and the hills and sky beyond that. Something inside him flowed all golden like melting honey. Life, I thought, had treated him cruelly, and yet he seemed to have great affection for every part of the world that he beheld or contemplated — almost every part.

  'Chedu,' he said again, 'wanted me to flay a piglet alive. So that he could sell a living skin to rejuvenate the flesh of a great lord, he told me. But I knew he really wanted to grieve me by making me torture a helpless animal, and so I couldn't. After that, I kept thinking about flaying Chedu. So I ran away.'

  'And when he recaptured you, it's said, you refused to obey him.'

  'I would rather have died.'

  'And so he whipped you — nearly to death?'

  Bemossed smiled sadly as he said, 'With a Dragon's Scourge. Have you seen one at work? The Crucifiers tie bits of steel to thongs, and call them the Dragon's Teeth. Chedu wanted to use it to strip the skin off me.'

  'What stopped him, then?'

  The Crucifiers did. A priest, Ra Amru, came along in time to save me.' Now Bemossed's smile grew bright with irony. 'You see, he reminded Chedu that I was Hajarim.'

  The blood of the Hajarim, I remembered, was thought to be so unclean that even the priests of the Kallimun were forbidden to spill it. And so Hajarim were usually burnt, or racked in correction for their errors, or if condemned to death, strangled. The black cross signified that, like animals, the Hajarim weren't even worthy of being crucified. I said to Bemossed, 'You had other masters before Chedu, yes?' He nodded his head. 'Chedu was the worst of them, but not

  the first.'

  'And who would that be?'

  'Lord Kullian. My father served him, and I was born on his estate.'

  The story that Bemossed now told me made me grit my teeth against all the madness and hurts of the world. It seemed that for the first years of his childhood, Bemossed had lived quietly with both his father and mother, in the expectation that he would learn his father's trade of butchering. But then, in one of the wars of the north, Lord Kullian had joined a rebellion against the young King Arsu. King Arsu's soldiers finally came to kill Lord Kullian and confiscate his lands. Bemossed's father died trying to protect Lord Kullian. and Bemossed's mother suffered a broken mouth trying to protect Bemossed. The blood from this wound had defiled the cut fist of one of the soldiers, and his captain immediately ordered Bemossed's mother to be buried alive. Bemossed himself they made to help dig the grave. After that, he was sold as a gong farmer cleaning out the latrines of local notables. And then resold to a succession of masters, ending with Chedu and Mangus.

  I did not know what to say upon hearing of these terrible things. And so I forced out, 'That is war.'

  Bemossed shrugged his shoulders. 'Others have suffered much worse than I.'

  I thought of King Arsu's present campaign, and the thousand men he had mounted on crosses. I looked at Bemossed. 'You say you were born near Avrian?'

  'I think so. I think I was three or four when they killed my parents.'

  'And how old are you now?'

  'Twenty-two, I think. Perhaps twenty-three.'

  'You don't know? Didn't anyone ever tell you the date of your birth?'

  'No — why should they have?'

  The sun falling on his face seemed to bring out much of his essence, and I saw him as many things at once: sad, compassionate, strong, innocent and wise. I thought he lived too close to the dark
, turbid currents of the unknown self that flowed inside of everyone. And yet I felt a wild joy of life surging there, too. And so I said to him, 'Most people celebrate the day they were born.'

  'Most free people, perhaps,'

  I watched as he rose up off his rock and went over to scratch beneath the jaw of one of the goats. I could not imagine him ever using a sharp knife to slit this gentle animal's throat, and I said to him, 'Do you ever think about being free?'

  He looked up at the hawk still circling on the morning's rising wind, I felt him building inside himself a wall of stone to keen his storming passions within — even as I tried to keep those of others without. Then he said a strange thing: 'Does a bird think of flying beyond the sky?'

  I caught his gaze and said, 'You hate your service with Mangus don't you?'

  'But why would you think that?'

  'Because I know about hate,' I told him.

  A gentleness came into him as he looked at me. 'I think you do. Master Arajun. And I think you speak about things that it is best not to speak about.'

  'Then let us not speak but act,' I said to him. 'Tomorrow, after Mangus changes Garath's dressing, we shall leave Jhamrul. We have need of a healer — why don't you come with us?' His eyes grew restless and bright. He called out softly, 'A healer, you say? But I am Hajarim!'

  'Truly, you are. But you must know what the people of your village say about you.' 'They do not understand.'

  'With some power you were born with,' I said to him, 'with some virtue that runs like fire along your blood, you lay your hands on others, and they are healed.'

  He lifted his hand away from the goat's throat and looked at it. 'You … do not understand. I can do nothing to heal anyone. I'm only a slave.'

  I wanted to tell him that he might heal the whole world, But old doubts tore into me, and terrible memories, too, and because I wasn't wholly open with him, he couldn't quite bring himself to trust me.

  'Bemossed,' I said again, rising up off the grass. Then I crossed over to him and took hold of his hand. At the touching of my palm to his, he gasped, in astonishment. His eyes went wide with horror, exaltation, delight and dread. I stared at him deeply as he did me; it was like staring at the sun. 'You. do not know what you do,' he told me. He seemed to be searching for something in me as his hand gripped mine.

  I felt in him a vast, cold loneliness and a wild hope, too 'What do you do?'

  There was a moment. Something inside him seemed to pull me into a place of deep brilliance. I felt time slowing down as the whole world suddenly stopped. The trilled-out notes of the blue-birds hung like drops of silver in the air. The birds themselves brightened with an impossible blue, as if their leathers flamed with a lovely fire that didn't burn. Along the hills, the grasses and flowers shimmered green and pink and white. Everything — the meadow and the goats grazing upon it, the sun above and the earth beneath my feet and Bemossed's hand within mine — seemed to be made of a single substance that kept pouring itself out in a blaze of light. In this splendid land we dwelled nearly forever. But then some fearful thing buried in Bemossed's heart, or perhaps within mine, darkened the meadow and drove us back into the world. I saw that the goats were just goats, the grass was only grass, and the sky shone no bluer than it ever did. And Bemossed was only a man, even as I was.

  He looked at our clasped hands, and I thought that in his whole life since his parents' deaths, no one had ever willingly touched him. He said to me. 'What do you want?'

  'You don't have to remain a slave,' I told him. 'Come away with us, and we'll leave Hesperu.'

  'To go to the Dark Lands?'

  'The only darkness in any land,' I said, 'is what men have brought into it.'

  'And what have you brought into the world … Arajun?' I knew that I could lie to him, in my words, but not in the light oi my eyes. His hold on my hand suddenly tightened. I had spent too many hours of my life gripping a sword, and so I was stronger than he in my sinews and bones. But his will beat at mine with all the fire of the desert sun. I could keep no secret from him. He must have sensed the hatred poisoning me, and more, that I was a slayer of men, for he let go of my hand as he might a heated iron. I stood staring at him in shame. The day before he had washed in the gore of a goat, and yet it was I who had blood upon my hands.

  'Come with us,' I said again. 'My friends all agree that you would be a welcome addition to our troupe.'

  I felt him wanting to leap toward this offer as a starving wolf toward meat. But something stopped him up short.

  'No,' he said, 'I would only be caught, and this time I would be strangled.'

  I did not, at that moment, sense in him any fear of death. But something else grieved him terribly, some dark thing that I could, not see.

  'You won't be caught,' I told him. 'We'll protect you.'

  'But how can anyone protect me?'

  'We won't let anyone take you.'

  He looked down the hill at where the bright colors of our cart blazed in the distance. 'You have weapons hidden away, don't you? You, and the strongman, Taras?'

  I remained silent as I gazed into the luminous centers of his eyes.

  'You would kill, wouldn't you? Kill to keep your freedom?'

  I said nothing to this accusation, and so said everything.

  He looked at me with a terrible longing, as if that which he had sought his entire life lay just beyond his grasp. His voice grew sad almost beyond bearing as he told me, 'I'm sorry, but I can't go with you.'

  'But don't you want to be free!' I cried out to him.

  His eyes pulled away from mine, and seemed to drink in the cherries all red and ripe along the branches of the tree. The sky opened out into an infinite blueness beyond it. I felt him return to that shining place that was his secret home. This time, however, he could not take me with him.

  'I am free right now,' he finally said to me. He looked back at me, and the burning in his eyes brought tears into mine. 'All men are free. They just don't know it.'

  After that, he asked me to play a song on my flute, and this I did. There seemed nothing more to say. When I finished, I bade him farewell and walked back through the meadow's swishing grasses to the field where our cart stood. My friends immediately gathered around me.

  'Well, what did you find out?' Maram asked me.

  'Not as much as we hoped,' I admitted. I turned to Master Juwain and recounted much of what Bemossed had told me. Then I said, 'It could be nearly impossible to trace back Bemossed's owners to anyone who might have known about his birth. Probably anyone who did know was killed or sold off at the pillaging of Lord Kullian's estate.'

  'But we can't he certain of that,' Master Juwain said to me.

  'No, we can't. But we can't either go up around Avrian asking where Lord Kullian's old estate might lie and if anyone thereabouts remembers a slave boy named Bemossed.'

  Master Juwain rubbed at this bald head, gleaming in the morning sunlight. His disappointment seemed as thick as the porridge that Liljana had prepared for breakfast.

  'I'm sorry, sir,' I said to him. 'But likely we will never know the day of Bemossed's birth.'

  'But Master Matai's horoscope — '

  'Has led us this far,' I said. 'And we should be glad for that. For I'm nearly certain that Bemossed is the Maitreya.'

  Kane held a jangling chain in his hands as he inspected its black iron for weak links. Then his black eyes fixed on me, and he said, 'But what of the signs, then, eh? Do you think you are able to tell? Does this goatherd look upon all with an equal eye?'

  I thought of Chedu who had nearly skinned Bemossed alive, and I said, 'Nearly all.'

  'Is his courage unshakeable?'

  'He has little fear of death, I think.'

  'But does he abide steadily in the One?'

  I drew in a long breath as I looked up the green hills above us. I said, 'He could abide there — I'm certain he could.'

  At this. Master Juwain's lips tightened as if he had sucked on a sour cherry. 'But did he give an
y other sign, in his words or manner, that he might be the Maitreya?'

  I smiled sadly as I said, 'He wouldn't even admit to being a healer.'

  Master Juwain sighed at this and said, 'I was afraid it might be thus. Do you remember the verse, Val?'

  I nodded my head, then recited lines from an ancient vesrse that had once perplexed me and led me to make the greatest error of my life:

  The Shining One

  In innocence sleeps

  Inside his heart

  Angel fire sleeps

  And when he wakes

  The fire leaps.

  About the Maitreya

  One thing is known:

  That to himself

  He always is known

  When the moment comes

  To claim the Lightstone.

  'As it was thought with you,' Master Juwain said to me, 'Bemossed is young, and it may be that his time has not yet come to awaken. And so he may not know that he is the Maitreya. Unfortunately, we don't either.'

  I stepped over the cart and drew forth my sword. When I pointed it up the hill toward Bemossed and his goats, its fiery light still ran with glorre. And I said to Master Juwain, 'But we do know. . that he might be the Maitreya.'

  'So might others be. Others with whom we could confirm their hour of birth. Perhaps we should still search for them.'

  'Perhaps we should,' I said, 'but we must take Bemossed with us.'

  'But how, Val?' Maram asked me. He jingled the bells of his fool's cap that he was playing with. 'You said yourself he refused to run off with us. We can't just throw a cloak over his head and abduct him, can we?'

  'No, we can't,' I said. I looked at Estrella, whose deep, liquid eyes seemed to tell me that we were all being fools. 'But we might buy him.'

  This suggestion seemed to shock Maram — and everyone else — as much as it did me. And Maram called out, 'What? What are you saying?'

  'If the priests have been asking after him,' I said, 'he is in great danger here. It would be for the best.'

  'But doesn't he hate emptying bloody basins for that damn Mangus?'

  'He does hate his servitude, yes,' I said. 'But I think there is something he loves greater than his hate.'