The boat sailed between the flaming peaks of earth, so close they had to cover their breath with blankets so the ash would not fill them up. Swift he took them past these gates of fire, swift the heat pushed them on. The land opened wide before them, rippling with tall peaks of stone and blanketed with ancient forest. Quiet and deep, it looked like home to Brone and her face lost the years that had been planted there. Ganit delighted, too, in the sight, the bright hunter wanted only to rest a while beneath the trees. He too, thought long of the grandfather, of meeting his death as an old friend does. Resak alone, felt himself lost, a tiny thing beneath those still giants.
As evening drew on, the boat landed and starting a small fire, they ate and talked the three of them, as old friends who had not met in many years. Speaking of their families, of people they missed, of special feast days and favorite companions. Each ached for home. Late in the darkest hours of the night, a great scarlet bloom lit the horizon and spread over the sky, a liquid ruby, as if the sun itself poured out upon the night.
Ganit wondered still of his parents, hoping some miracle had saved them, had kept them for him. That night he dreamed of his father coming to meet him in the center of the frozen sea. Ganit was chilled through, his clothing soaked and he was alone on the great gray plain of the ocean. On the horizon, a small dark figure moved. A moment Ganit watched, and thinking it was Brone began running to meet it. As it grew in the distance he saw it had not her smooth way of walking, had not her quick, light step. And he hesitated, unsure. His heart spoke doom with claws of copper flame and winter's own breath. So Ganit turned and began to run across the smooth ice sea. In his dream his breath didn't catch nor his heart thrum louder, but his feet slid and skidded on the ice and the creak of cold snapped at all of his bones. Ever he looked back and the figure came on, never faster, never slower but always closer than it had been. At last he heard the grandfather's old, hearth-warm voice. "We can meet death as a friend long awaited or we can spend our last days in terror with a stranger, but ever will death come on time. His tide waits not for us." And Ganit knew he had already chosen. He turned to face the stranger, now only a few hundred steps from him. Ganit found it was his father, his arms open, his face smiling, and Ganit walked to meet and embrace him. Ganit's father pressed a toy sailboat into his hand, a flimsy ship, the first they had made together. His father blew warm breath into Ganit's face then turned and walked away toward the horizon.
Resak dreamed of his village. The grainy call of the gulls, the smell of morning bread and salt, the silver-green reflection of water everywhere and the spiny sea grass bending with the wind off the waves. He dreamed the women dressed in fine cloth and ornaments, carrying the smallest children, singing night songs as old as the island. Fathers playing boy-games with their children. He dreamed of his grandfather sitting warm in the sun, watching the tide for his grandson, watching for Resak's return. All the morning was bright and all the people at their most beautiful, their happiest day of all the days of the world, but Resak was not there. He could only wait.
Brone's dreams were darker. She carried a great weight, heavy and awkward but nowhere could she set it down. Ahead was Ganit, calling her, over a crumbling bridge. Slow, she was so slow with the weighty stone. "Drop it!" cried Ganit, "We cannot take it with us." And Brone tried, but it would not come free. Panic consumed her and Ganit shrunk farther in the distance. "Drop it or I will lose you!" he called. At last she cried out, weeping, "I can't drop it Ganit! I must carry it to the end. I have to carry it because-" Brone woke up and was sick on the sand. And then she knew why she couldn't drop the stone. It made her weep in despair.
Ganit woke when Brone became sick and it frightened him to think her ill. He brought her clean water and tried to comfort her. He thought of how to find medicines. He woke Resak to ask him if he knew where to find a healer. At last Brone tried to calm him.
"I need no medicine Ganit. I am not ill."
"But you are, your face is shot through with blood spots from the violence of your sickness."
"No, I am not ill. I carry a heavy weight now and I cannot set it down to rest. It will only grow, this thing that I bear. The world ends and yet life struggles to renew itself. I carry our child Ganit, for good or ill, until the world's end or mine."
Ganit knew not what to say. His heart knew what awaited his sons and daughters and he knew what guilt consumed Brone and ought to burden him too, yet he wished only to rejoice at the news. He embraced her, and said nothing though his eyes wept. Resak watched them and realized where his heart must be at the uttermost end. For his was the ancient world, he understood he could not see the dawn of ours. So he rose from beside the smoking fire and began to unload the gifts of the villagers. Ganit and Brone rose with him to help. Yet when they were done and they carried the good wishes of all the world on their backs, Resak stood silent, unburdened near his boat.
"Is it the boat Resak? We can return for it someday. After this is through," said Ganit.
Resak shook his head and smiled, a mourning stone, a tomb carving, weary and broken. "There is no returning my friends. You are bound for the ends of the earth. Even should you someday return from the edge of doom, you would not find yourselves in the same place, no, not though you marked it fine and true on a map. I can go no further. My choice is made, I will meet my death as near to my home as I can."
"Resak, the fire last night, I think your home is gone. I think you will not find your grandfather anymore. Nor the houses that stood in your village." Ganit clasped Resak's strong shoulder.
"I know what the red fire meant. I know the earth has buried my people in ash. But I know the island, the seas there. If the spirit of my grandfather remains anywhere to guide me, it is there. I know that death has found me. He lets me walk a little longer, but I find I would rather meet him than walk alone into the wild world."
He shook Ganit's hand, rough and warm and smiled in his eyes. He embraced Brone and said, "You may despair of ever seeing this burden borne out, but I know they will walk into a new world, a brighter morning. I truly wish you joy of it."
Resak boarded the boat, Ganit and Brone pushing it from the sandy shore. "Goodbye!" he called, "Mourn not for me, for my way is smooth as a calm sea. Remember us only that is all I would wish."
They watched him until the sail opened and the wind carried him into the horizon. Then Brone and Ganit shouldered their packs and alone again, headed into the deep, silent forest. Resak saw one last glimpse of his vision before the breath of the mountain took him. He saw his grandfather waving, waving in the sunlight, welcoming him home.
Chapter 8
Day and night it plagued her, this tusked, sharp toothed beast. Deep in the pit of her he gnawed, ever hungry as a great rat, a slavering wolf. Kishi, the giant iron horse, the black beast of want was struggling to be brought forth into the light. Ethon waited, holding him back, feeding Kishi pieces of herself, the rotten scars, the old blood of her youth. Longer she wanted for Enik to complete his work, for the conflagration to spread over the earth, to reach the sky. A burnt offering to cleanse the world. But Kishi would not be denied. The dark horse would chew its way out of her chest if it needed. In the midst of a sprawling snowy wood, the last mountain wilderness, Kishi sprang free, his terrible face tusked, his eyes darker than the secret under places of the earth. Stamping his iron hooves he called more and more beasts to him, ravenous and seeking, ever seeking their next meal. Hundreds of them, large and small. Wolf and crow, boar and bear. An army of mouths hung with silver foam, and each a hide over bone, no flesh, no blood, just hunger. Growling and screeching they moved as one, a horde sprinting down through the mountains, slaughtering as they went. Ethon, the copper mare, should have been their first kill but she yet had one more gift, one more son for the world. More dire than the others, her last foal waited, content to let his brothers begin. For he would be all ends, the unmaker. This secret, sacred burden kept Ethon from being devoured and she shuddered, repulsed even by her own child, sleep
ing in the snow covered mountain while Kishi's army ate up the world.
It was long before Ganit spoke. His heart was full with Resak's departure, with children, with Brone. They walked alone in the sharp twinge, the deep slow breath of pines. They walked apart, Brone and Ganit, though their hands could meet. At last Brone spoke first, needing the silence to end, her doubt and grief to melt from her shoulders.
"I have not done this alone, Ganit. Am I to bear it alone? It is too big a weight for one, so one cannot create it."
"A weight? Why should it weigh on you, this precious thing? I think you must see some hope now and then, for man. Why should it not be our children? We have survived many things, Brone, many monsters no others could best. I cannot believe we have done it alone nor without some hope in the end. What is it you see when we reach the grove at the end? Why do you continue?"
"All is flat, featureless and blind Ganit. Empty and silent, never ending. That is all I expect. I continue because I have promised."
"Might it not be the twilight before dawn? Might it not be the garden tilled and waiting to grow? If we are walking toward emptiness, who would know that you failed? What would it matter? I know your heart must hold out a glimmer of light for us." He stopped her and turned her face to him. "I will not let you fall. If you cannot believe that you will save us, then trust that I will, for my heart is stronger even than this destruction."
Brone burst into tears, for in her deepest heart she found no hope. In her deepest heart, Brone continued because she ran from death, because she could not turn and face the end. In spite of all the trials she had faced, the darkness conquered, she knew she was a coward. Ganit comforted her, a silent warmth in the emerald cool of the mountain forest. He was bewildered, for she wept long, for her weeping was not then for the world, but for herself, for Ganit, for the seeds of the new dawn she carried.
At last, when the day seemed brighter to Brone, when despair did not press so hard into her chest, they walked again, together, farther into the moveless trees.
South sped Kishi's horde, a rising tide of famine. Gathering locusts and rats of ill health, mountain cats with blood red fangs, and all that fed upon flesh. Kishi too, the dark abomination, the foul tusken beast, devoured beast and bird and man. Southward over highest jagged mountains, toward the deep desert, the iron hills worn thin, eaten flat as crumbs on the face of a swallowing sea. Villages were picked clean, bleached as old shells in the wake of the black beast's mob. The carrion beasts, the vultures, the flesh beetles and blow flies, ever they followed Kishi gathering, gathering as a mist at dawn. The emptiness drove Kishi, the void of his spirit made him to seek solace, to grind the earth beneath teeth and hoof, though only the bones be left. In the end, if all but stardust were gone, he should eat himself, tail forward in order to halt the pangs of starvation. Hunger infects us, as sure as a plague. And on the tail of Kishi's horde, where it left a corner ungnawed, unhunted, unstripped, there followed starving men, leaping, racing to catch a morsel, even the red-eyed rats, the flesh beetles, any to stay their withering. And these last, these starving men, of all were most dangerous. For they had cunning and wit and sought the unhunted places, stripped the leavings naked as gleaners among the empty fields. They hesitated not to eat the corpse of other men when found among the heaps of bones and dust Kishi's beasts left behind. At last, driven by need and vacant rage, these starving men did not even balk at slaying other men for food, be it strong hunter or small child, all were felled before the Ravening. Many were the people that fought Kishi when he came, many were they that died. And though men carved into his flock, desperate to defend themselves, Kishi drew ever more and more each passing hour. Kishi swept through millions of villages, great and small, leaving nations of hungry ghosts who clung to the world even after their death.
South wended Ganit and Brone, through the gray-green mountains, unknown of any, unknowing that either Kishi with his great black tusks, or his elder brother, the flame eater, the burning maned Enik walked free and greedy amongst the world. Many days, a full moon-turn and more did Ganit and Brone wander in this quiet jungle, feeding from the gifts of Resak's village or from the small bird or beast that Ganit caught, the round red fruit that dropped ever into Brone's open hand. Many long nights they spent under the dark canopy of trees, the soft night noises soothing, as if the world were not in peril as if the wild places stretched on and on beyond the space of a lifetime's footsteps. So peaceful stretched this time, that Brone began at last to think they had reached the end, that she had but to find a silent grove among the trees and leave the seed behind. Yet the grove came not. One morning, in the bright emerald sun that sifted through the corners of the ragged hills and swam through the river of leaves above, Brone and Ganit came to a door way that led nowhere. No walls bordered it, nor panel held it closed. A simple arch of slate and deep green moss, the door from the edge of the mountains into the great river carved plains. Beneath the arch leaning on a bamboo staff, there stood a boy, his eyes closed, clothed in golden yellow, head wiped clean of hair and dust. How old he was, neither traveler knew. His height was Ganit's but his face was round as one whose youth departs not, and in his face was good cheer, with health and hope. He stood as if he slumbered and spoke not as they approached. "Hello?" said Brone softly, "Are you ill?"
"Or lost?" asked Ganit.
The boy opened his eyes and smiled upon them. "No," he said, his voice cool and young,"No I am not ill but this land is. Neither am I lost, though you are."
Brone laughed, her heart lighter. "How can we be otherwise?" she said, "We know not where we must go."
The boy smiled again, "Then I will go with you, for I wander too, until I am needed."
"I am Ganit and this is Brone, but who are you that would travel our lonely path?" Ganit asked and extended an open hand, for his mind might be bewildered but his heart was ever ready for friendship.
"My name will be Lianzi for now, I am happy to have the laughing dawn and the seed grower as companions," his face grew solemn, yet still bright and calm, "The land ahead is filled with the last ghosts that will ever be. Kishi brought them as he swept from the north, he left them here as devouring sentries to guard his rear as he feeds, as his army gluts himself on the earth's corpse. It will not be long before we meet Kishi. But first, we shall face the gray shades, the clinging, sorrowing dusk. Perilous is the road ahead if you succumb to fear." With this he turned and quietly began walking down the path.
Ganit, though he feared not the dead, but only pitied them, wondered much at this Lianzi, this living golden statue. Brone knew she was coming into the twilight lands, and her heart filled with fear that she could not empty. She hesitated in her mind, though her feet would keep treading, ever treading over ground. Death behind and death ahead, and no choice except to face it. Still her fear ran wild, as a drowning mouse, ever seeking some escape. Lianzi knew this, for he saw all that still lay hidden in the world. Yet Lianzi held his peace. Brone would have to spill her fear forth upon the air. The real death lurked inside her and she would have to expel and face it before it swallowed her, swallowed up the world.
They walked that day in a bright river valley, rich with grass and bird and deer, for Kishi did not know this place, had passed it by untouched, turning his beasts to the fat cities, the warm factories and buildings, the full larder of the land. The footsteps of Lianzi guarded it, for long he had wandered here, a golden sun upon the grass, a glowing flower on the river. But soon, he told Brone and Ganit, they would pass from his country. The morning would find them in the gray dust of the winter lands, where wandered the spirits of Kishi's leavings. From this day forth, while he traveled with them, no animal would offer itself into Ganit's hand, no meat would make their meal. Scarce indeed would even grain be, for the army of the tusken horse left only dust. Ganit worried, not for himself, but for the life of his child, for the health of Brone in the face of famine. Lianzi knew the end that Ganit feared, and as a clear mirror only echoed Ganit's own thoughts back in
to his ears: "We have survived thus far. If we meet each day something will arrive to aid us." And though Ganit knew it was no more than an echo of his own hope, he felt sublimely comforted, as if they were words of pure fact. And Ganit went forth calm with open heart, unruffled by fear. But Brone yet doubted the land and herself. Secret was her shame, her panic until sundown, until they went to their rest. It ate her up, threatened to swallow her entire, leaving only darkness and sorrow. At last she said, "I cannot go forth with you into these dead places. I cannot make my feet to walk into ash and shadow where naught breathes or moves."
"You cannot go back, not the bleak and empty way we came." said Ganit.
Lianzi smiled, a gentle, saddened smile. "Will you then stand still Brone? Even then you will not know safety. The world will change around you whether you will it or not. Nothing can stay forever, not even you. Not even I."
Brone was ashamed, but still her fear spoke from her mouth. "It is not me. It is this child, this seed and promise I have made. I must keep this promise, must shield our child."
"Is it you who decides the hour of the end?" Lianzi was still and calm. Unruffled, waiting as the moonless night that listens for the breaking light.
Brone's fear twisted and gnawed at her heart, a growing gloom, a cornered, snarling beast. Her mind raged. "It was not I who asked for this burden. It was not I that plunged the world into darkness. Long have we suffered, that ought to have had rest. Long have we doubted when we ought to have been safe at home with our love. It has been thrust upon me, this charge. I cannot fail."
"All things have suffered Brone. And you had fallen long ago had you not chosen this path. But still you may fail. Look neither ahead nor behind for your death, Brone, it stands ever in your doorway, it is our ever present guest. You must drive out your fear or it will devour you."
The Jade Seed Page 6
