The Jade Seed

by Deirdre Gould

  "And then? Who will sing of their bravery then? Who will read their words or remember their names?"

  "Alas, Ganit, I know not what will remain, unless it be the wind itself. Something has found us wanting. Something has decided we should be unremembered. Unmourned, uncreated. That all the world forget we ever walked upon it." Brone wept for herself as well as all the rest. Along the bank, the madness of Hadur broke upon the morning, ever and again, the wolf men meeting, and tore each other asunder as Brone and Ganit watched. Ganit was silent in doubt and grief, but Brone spoke on, cleansing herself of regret, spilling her sadness into the air.

  "I cannot save them. I know not why I saved you. I have only made our way longer. We ought to have died in the dark, in madness ungrieving. Without knowing. Then both of us would be wending towards the sea, among our brothers, sleeping at last. Instead I have brought us farther, lengthened our death and heaped grief upon us. I am sorry for the dawn that came for us today. For the many endless dreams and regrets to come."

  He reached for her hand then, as they watched the wild men die, as they watched madness plunge after them into the foul, stinking waters. "I would not give up today, though despair must catch us at the last, " he said, and a sad smile lit his eyes, "I don't believe we shall be utterly erased. We shall not perish from the record of the world, no not though we die unto the last man. Our footsteps remain, the relics of our homes, the yew will remember, the mountains we carved, the shining metal we wrought. Though these things cannot speak of us, Brone, they remember we were here." But in her heart, Brone knew that everything, even stone and steel would wear away in time. all would come to dust and wind and nothing would care that man had gone, a flame extinguished leaving naught but smoke and ash. She kept her hand in his a long while, just to feel its solid, human warmth.

  Though he knew it not, without Ganit, Brone would have died. She had already faded to deep autumn warmth, already shivering against the winter heralds. Her heart failed her, sank as the Bone Ship had risen. She was weighted with the memory of man, her trappings and her packs, but Ganit pulled her back. Gently, as sun creeps over stone he warmed in her mind, this bright hunter she ought to have left behind. She despaired for no good could come of it, no long slow love could remain. All that could be left were the golden motes of glowing afternoon, the dregs of dusk before the night. So she pushed him far and far out of thought, dismissed it as that false need that comes from aloneness, that comes from terror. But Ganit persisted in her heart, deep down, where her thoughts did not stray, where the end of the world could not touch or wear away.

  In the chill of the Bone Ship, Ganit fished the wooden debris of man from the foul waters, he and Brone laid the bones of trees to dry in the arid winter air. Together they made a pyre, both night and day, burning away the filth of the old world. Warming themselves on dead men's memories. Ganit felt deep the guilt of Hadur's madness, to the end of his days it was a scar in his mind, itching him there, driving his heart to goodness. So he took great care with Brone, and with his fellow men. Her breath became precious to him, he was jealous to preserve what he had almost destroyed. As the land closed in, made a narrow channel of the flood, they saw work that Hadur wrought. Villages untouched by the shaking of the earth still burned with the touch of men, the weak wept long and piercing, and the strong hunted, even to the Bone Ship the remnants of their fellows, all to slake their bleeding hunger. Those nights were terrible, for the pyre drew the man beasts as the swarming gnats. Ever scenes of war and blunt cruelty pressed them, forced themselves behind their eyelids, into their ears. As if the madness of Hadur no longer needed the horse. As if it spread without infection. As the land began to choke the waters, Brone and Ganit slept not but huddled near each other in the dark, each yelling and waving off the men as one punishes a dog. But the beasts were overbold, flinging themselves into the foul depths to reach the Ship. Many times Ganit or Brone waved bright brands of flame to ward them off, and many froze in the trailing breath of the ship. So they slept in sunlight, the Bone Ship still blazing as the star of death across the flood. Sleeping thus, they saw not the copper horse that sought them, sweating rivulets of dark blood, her eyes deep red and rolling. Exhausted with the extra weight of three, Ethon still chased, on and on, hunting them. Many days, many nights she followed them, fighting bloody battles of her own against Hadur's herds of beasts. No contest though, between the mighty mare and the cowering, slavering wolf men. Always she tore them asunder with the hatred only horses know for dogs, wild, biting things.

  In the Bone Ship, Ganit and Brone hungered, but knew not what could be got from the foul waters. No fish could live that swam those rancid waves, no bird approached the Bone Ship, and fast they flew, on and on, unable to disembark, unable to reach the beasts of land. So at last, Brone cleaned the dust from underneath her fingernails, the dust from the roots of the yew, the Messenger's blood, and long she kneaded it, as mothers do bread, long and long she breathed warm and sweet on this small ball of earth, warming it, moistening it. After a time she flattened it, she and Ganit stretched it, spread it over the bare bones of the ship. Warm again she breathed onto it, this small floating garden, thin as it was. Warm Ganit kept it with the pyre of man. And from the earth grew the stretching lace of Lecanora, as frost flowers on the cold bone barge. Sweet bread, this flowing moss, as the ash tree's fruit, as the clover sweet. It worried Ganit, eating this leprous skin of icy bones, but hunger overcame them both at last and he ate of it. On this they lived until the foul waters washed them out into the sea. But many days saw them still within the maddened land. The cities burned, their reek overspreading all the sky and all that moved walked in red shadow, weeping and ash, madness and despair. Even the night stars, the holy moon shone scarlet, heavy with storms, heavy with the flaming funeral barge of man.

  At last they came to the wide waters, many days past the island of the yew came the end of the maddened land. At the edge of the sea they saw Ethon, her flanks heaving, sparkling maze of drying blood and copper scar. Brone held her breath still, deep in her belly. Ganit saw and wondered at her terror. "What is it?" he asked.

  "That horse, I've seen her before. But she was so heavy, so full. I thought she must stop, yet here she is, still burdened with the unborn. I think she is following me."

  "What?" he said,"This beast has hunted us?" Ganit shuddered watching the red rolling eyes, the sharp hooves dashing on the shore. "Look, though, she can follow us no more. See, she waits there on the edge of the wide water. Even that mighty mare cannot walk on waves, nor swim the vast and endless sea."

  Brone saw that he spoke truly and her heart knew peace for the first time in many days. Ethon stood on the brink of the wide water watching the deathless ship sail into the silent sea.

  Chapter 4

  They were free from the foul, dead water of the river, free from the dead which dropped away upon the shore. And at last they sailed free of the clamor and terrible visions that Hadur's men had pressed upon them. The moon sparked bright upon the green water and the breeze was fresh and soft. Brone breathed more easily and Ganit did not pace over the smooth slick deck any longer. They slept again in the dark under a silent sky. A day only was given Brone and Ganit of peace, one day, more precious than any of the long, long ages of men, for on this day did Ganit give himself to Brone, on this day, were our eldest grand sires begotten. The waters swirled warm and clean in the sun. For a time, the Bone Ship sped so fast, the sun hung still in the sky, and stretched the day full long. Ganit, the bright hunter, caught them a sparkling fish, a shining flash of light for a morning meal. They cooked it as the pyre died, having no more of the ribs of villages to feed the flame. Full and warm Brone and Ganit sat on the edge of the Bone Ship, light flicking over the dancing sea. "It would be nice to swim, to wash ourselves clean of these days." said Brone.

  "I think we would lose the boat," said Ganit sadly.

  "Yes, we had better not," but still she thought about it a while. "Will you tell me of your family?" she
asked, trying to lift herself out of a stupor.

  "There is not much to tell, it seems their stories are cut short. A mother and father is all I had. I shouldn't have gone back. We should have taken the boat where we met."

  "You had to go back," said Brone, "You had to know. As I had to go back to the grave of my parents, to the pedestal of the Messenger."

  "yes," he sighed, "I had to know. And yet I still know nothing. Might they still be somewhere? Looking for me?"

  Brone shook her head. "No Ganit. Do not believe them still alive. Alive they must be the beasts of the silver stallion."

  He shuddered. "No, I hope they were not alive for that." He was silent a time, and Brone reached for his hand to tell him she still was there with him. She worried about the time that he would die, that the world would end for him, and felt again the deep despair that there were none of all the world she could save.

  Stretching, Ganit washed his hands in the flowing water and mad with the desire to cleanse the old smoke, the dried,wanton air of violence off him. Ganit threw off his clothing and leaped into the sea. He thought not of losing the boat, thought not of how far he could swim. Swift the Bone Ship pulled itself away, with Brone calling after him to return, to swim back. They say she was desperate not to be lonely in the dark, empty sea, that she would have followed any companion over the brink, but Ganit always hoped it was him she wanted then, the loss of him alone that stirred her to abandon the ghastly ship. However it happened she leapt in after, a few hundred yards from him, without all the trappings she had carried for so long. And there the Bone Ship stopped, dead in the deep sea, moveless as islands, a pale, bleached beacon in the midday sun, smoking with cold. Brone saw and her fear melted and she laughed with ease.

  The water was bliss, warm and smooth, and their grief fell away as snake scales. Peace overtook them, and they heeded no memories beyond the day. Long they played in the ocean as otters do. As the unexpected summer heat in late autumn, they warmed their bones through as they had not done, even with a blazing pyre in their days on the Bone Ship. When at last they grew weary, as the day slid by, they approached the ship again, but at the first touch, it burned Ganit's skin with frost. They despaired of being able to enter again. The pyre, at last, was dying, only coals left. But still, their day of peace had not ended. And in the sun, not so far from the cruel dead ship there rose a lotus, large as our traveling homes, flushed coral as the dawn, smelling sweet as dreams. Having no place to go, unclothed and weary as they were, they swam to the floating lotus, leaving all behind. Reaching it they climbed inside, its petals smooth and waxen. Tall and still, it was a floating temple of blushing light, warm as the day. There they lay, weary and laughing, shielded only by the thin wavering lotus. For a time they forgot the ending of the world, forgot the coming night.

  "At last, we are clean and warm again. I feel again as men should feel." Ganit smiled and stretched where they reclined on the immense petals.

  "We should stay here. Enclosed in our glowing temple."

  "Did you do this? Did you call it from the sea?" He looked at her then, her skin a solid weighty warmth against the translucent wall. She smiled.

  "No, I don't think so. But I think it is for us. For this day." Brone looked away a moment, struck with a violent sadness that it should be this day only, a last sweet sip of living before the dark descended. But it passed, as a bird passing beneath the sun, and she saw the glow of sky through the opening peak of the lotus. "Look," she said, "it is opening already. You can see the sky."

  But Ganit did not watch the sky, but only her. He touched her fingers and she turned her face to him. "I know you think that we are meant for ruin only, that we will pass away, our memory scattered, our voices gone from all time. You said something has found us wanting." He saw her face become grave and she raised her hand to her neck, as if a weight had been dropped there anew. He hurried on, to undo the moment, "I know that's what you believe Brone. But I think something else is saving us, a little at a time. You did not call this lotus, yet here we are, inside an impossible dream. Something brought a message to you, waited centuries to give you this." He traced the tiny linen packet resting on her neck. It was warmed with her skin and he reluctantly pulled away. He was silent a moment, but held a deep breath, and Brone waited knowing there was more. At last he breathed into the reddening dusk. "It was not pointless, this tiny seed, long and long it has waited to be born. Even if the world should entirely end, whatever it is will bloom, will carry us in its root. There is a reason you saved us at the yew, and why you leapt from the boat today after me. Something brought me to you on the brink of another sea. I know where you are walking to Brone, and it frightens me, for I am no fool. But after the wild men and now the silent, endless sea- it frightens me more to think of you so utterly alone. I think I was given to you for this task until the end. Perhaps I am not what you would have chosen, but I will walk with you into this storm until a truer, stronger companion should come along."

  And then Brone kissed him, and her heart shattered anew for him, though even then she did not speak of it. He was surprised and his deepest heart quickened. He smiled and she embraced him as the sun reddened their petaled cathedral, made bright bursts upon their skin. There in the sweet lotus dream, that warm evening out of time, the Grower and the laughing dawn made the seeds that were our ancestors. Brone carried us, every one, deep in the fire of her belly, though she knew it not. It was not Ganit alone that gave of himself for us, in that night Brone filled his chest with her sweet breath, and ever after Ganit was suffused with the light of dawn, he walked as an unconsuming flame, unflickering, as if he had been steeped in sunlight. Ganit slept in gladness undimmed and Brone wept, for she feared to lose him, him above all others. So the dark came, cool and sudden waking them to the world. Softly, one by one, but swift as if in a heavy gale, the lotus petals dropped away, scattered and what the evening wrought was clear, waking them with the cold.

  The Bone Ship anchored, had frozen all the liquid sea. Miles of unbroken ice, thick as land. Pale the stars glanced off it, nothing broke through. There, naked in the night, were Brone and Ganit. Swift and clear Brone called the blue flamed moon wort, burning through the ice, a leather path unto the Bone Ship. No where else was left them, so they trod the warm blue carpet back to the dead ice. Clothed again, they waited, each warmed only by the other. But the Bone Ship never moved again.

  "What shall we do? We cannot stay to freeze and starve. What direction shall we strike when all is blank plain, flat and moveless ice?" Ganit looked all around in vain for some mark, some bright star to guide them. But the world was dark, lit by faint violet snow-light.

  Brone worried not but waited. "The Bone Ship and the Lotus, they came when they were needed most. Our next adventure too will come."

  At length they heard many times the mighty crack of ice, deep and long, ever closer. Until over the horizon walked the first of the ice giants crackling as he came. Still small with distance, shining white an angered angel striding ever toward them. Behind him and then gradually from all around more came, closing in on the Bone Ship.

  Side by side stood Brone and Ganit, facing the mighty silver men. Their breath was white mist, flowing away, ever away from them. "What shall we do?" asked Ganit.

  "I don't think I have any tricks this time," answered Brone.

  "My turn then," Ganit picked up the last piece of wood, a door from a dead village. He blew on the dead coals of the pyre, thinking he saw a glow there still, blew the breath of dawn back into them though they had been cold as stone, and set the door ablaze. "Which way do we go?" he asked.

  "I don't know, I don't know, we must get to the end." Brone cried, panicked by the rime giants.

  "Then we're going straight ahead, straight past the bow. Follow me" Ganit was guttural, a growling lion, jealous to protect her. Tight he held the door handle, tight he held the hinges, on he plunged across the ice of the wide waters. Brone kicked the carven prow, hard and smashing as Ethon's heels,
and a man's leg bone broke free from its caulking of ice. Close she followed the flaming Ganit, close on the heels of the bright hunter came the unburdened Eve. Swift came the answer of the frozen men, as huge, shattering winter boulders smashed the ice around Ganit's shield. On they sped, sliding over the smooth, dark glass of the sea. Colder than our cruelest winter, that night that froze the ocean. A night to stop the blood. The icy steps of the Frost Giants roared in the ears of Ganit and his fingers burned with snow cold on the dead metal of the door, even as it flamed. But he knew Brone was behind him, and the warmth of her breath was life to him. The winter came then, flying stars in the dark, sparks of white fire leaping from the sky, dizzying the dark, hiding the giants in bewildering swirls.

  Closer sped the ice men, and the door sizzled and popped against the flying snow. The first of the ice men towered over them at last, his face grim with hate, his eyes the cold gray emptiness of the north wind, and all of him as deadly diamond, hard as mountain stone. Ganit swung the fiery shield against the knees of the winter man, so small were he and Brone in that wide, unsheltered space. It shattered in a blazing arc of fiery slivers, thin and glowing in the night. It did naught against the giant, so hard, so cold was he. Ganit roared and held Brone at his back. But ever, the other giants pressed in. The gray eyed man, the north wind's breath stood over them but did nothing. Still as mountains looking down he stood, but the circle was already closing. No way out for Brone and Ganit, they stood side by side.

  "What is he waiting for?" asked Brone, but Ganit just shook his head. "With all the world ending, why us? Why here?" she asked and threw the dead man's bone at another ice giant. It glanced off and skittered over the smooth, dark sea. And with that the giants stopped, a full circle, a spiny crown of winter, huge and unbending.