The Jade Seed

by Deirdre Gould

  Indeed, they had reached the charred edge of the burned countries before she woke. Arvakir had stopped his shrieks, for this land needed only the thrum of his hoof beats to crumble into fine soot. But the dust now rose as if it still were cinder, muffling the air and sliding like burning water into Brone's lungs. She began to cough and shuddered to see her breath a dull emerald cloud upon the air. It blew and floated, a million spores swirling and mixing in the ash. She could taste the sharp, sweet green of new grass sprouting, of tomato vines in early spring. Brone wondered if the seed at last had pierced her breast and filled her with growing things. Yet she felt no stabbing pain, but a coarse grating of ash that made her cough long and ceaselessly. At last she felt herself sliding from the back of the Ghost Horse, so strong was the tinge of ash upon her lungs, so draining her interrupted breaths. But he had stopped and knelt in the damp dust beside a dark, sooty pool. Brone slid down and folded onto her hands and knees beside the water. She coughed still, and green mist filled all the air around her. She felt the soft spears of grass poking beneath her hands and a cool cushion of moss spread and brushed the face of her belly, but she could not see, her eyes clenched and watering as she coughed. She could hear the creak of trees bursting up around her, could feel the droop of vines touch her back. Brone felt a smooth hand upon her chest and her breath slowed and cooled as if she drew it like water. She opened her eyes and at last sat up. Arvakir held a pale cupped hand to her lips and it was filled with clear water, though the pool was still cloudy with ash. The water was chilled and earthy as if she drank from a stone cup instead of flesh, and it smoothed the ragged shards of her throat.

  "Thank you," she said at last, her breath still catching. The air was warm and thick with rosy light. Already, willows were peering at themselves in the dark water as if it were high summer a decade after their planting. Reeds gathered in the corners of the pond and grass and moss covered the banks and clustered thickly around the roots of the trees.

  "What's happening?" Brone asked.

  "Spring is coming."

  Brone wiped her mouth and was frightened to see a streak of emerald upon her hand, as if the grass had stained it instead of her lips. She held it out to Arvakir. "I thought you said my time wound not come when I was alone." Her voice was sharper than she had meant it to be and weariness crawled over her, a cloud of heavy thoughts and fears that crept like a cloud of insects upon her skin.

  Arvakir pointed a long hand toward the western sky. There, scattered in a long arc were the bright, fractured pieces of Ganit's fire, the brilliant bow of stars, the oldest in our skies. "There," he said, "is the sign of him you have long sought. Great is the price he paid to place that message in your eye. Great is the price he pays to reach you before your time."

  "And will he reach me? Shall I see him? Or will it come upon me in these fiery plains when I am utterly alone?"

  He touched her cheek and Brone felt a crisp feathering of frost across her skin and then it was gone, as if it were a sudden breeze or a kiss in the dark.

  "You are not alone," he said and pulled the blankets from her pack. "You should rest now. We must press on soon, but first you must sleep." He swept the blankets over her and walked away toward the farther shore of the pond. Brone knew he would cover many miles while she slept. She watched the gray, young light of the west and those still, unblinking sparks that hovered high above the horizon. As she fell into dream, she wondered if Ganit was alone and what he was suffering to find her. She felt a deep, acid ache in all her flesh, a many limbed tree of sorrow that branched up and tore her from within the ball of her heavy belly.

  Chapter 29

  Keram was tearing the bristles from a broom when Ganit woke, his leg a flame upon his thoughts. He sat up and watched as Keram smoothed the last bristles from the wood. "What are you doing?" Ganit asked.

  Keram walked over to the table and began writing, his free hand playing with a few soft lumps of candle wax that lay there.

  "We must go west, both to stop Hadur and to find the woman. I want to show you something," Keram wrote, "But we will first rest for a few days while you heal. In the meantime, you should try to learn my hand signs. There will be no time to sit and write where we are going."

  Keram paused a moment while Ganit read and then began again to write. "There is something else- from what you have said, you are not immune to Hadur's power and I have not the woman's power to save you. I think we must make you deaf like me." Keram looked up at Ganit and waited.

  "That's what the candle wax is for?" Ganit asked. Keram nodded.

  "What if something else creeps upon us in the dark and I cannot hear?" Ganit was calm but solemn.

  Keram tried not to smile as he wrote, "I may be deaf, but I'm not helpless. Besides, there is no dark for something to creep up in around you. There is another reason our death will not surprise us . . . but I want you to see for yourself when you are strong enough. Is that your only concern?"

  Ganit flushed and laughed at himself. He was surprised to find that he felt better than he had in many days. "I'm sorry, I was not thinking. I just did not like the idea of being caught unaware. Even that would not have stopped me from trying," he said. Keram smiled and years dropped from his face.

  "All right," Ganit continued, "But how shall we find the beast? There are hundreds of miles of jungle it could be in."

  Keram's smile faded and Ganit's skin pricked and pinched as he read Keram's response: "Not anymore."

  "Have you discovered how to kill it? Even if we will not fall victim to his madness, there will be an army around him that will leap upon us without mercy."

  Keram looked grim. "One thing at a time," he wrote and held two small lumps of wax to Ganit.

  Ganit spent the night and next day learning hand signs as quickly as he could, but he forgot more than half and the two men resorted to a piecemeal mix of signals and lipreading. Their conversation was broken and a forlorn sense of solitude descended over the two men.

  Ganit was bewildered in the silence. He had not heard a human voice since Brone had sent her "Good Night" echoing and echoing in his heart. But the animals around him had fluttered and padded, the drip of thawing water had been bells upon his ear, the small pop of flame upon the hearth had filled him somehow. Now his world was only his heartbeat and the blazing pain in his leg. It crowded everything else out, making it difficult to pay attention to what Keram was teaching him or even to plan their journey. His mind flew from thought to thought but drew ever back to the incessant pound of his blood and the aching absence of his leg. Even Brone could not long occupy his mind. At last Keram saw his discomfort and gave Ganit the last of their medicine to help him sleep.

  Keram wrapped the bare broom in a strip of cloth and lopped off part of the handle to make a crutch for Ganit. But looking at Ganit's pained face as he slept, Keram knew the situation was dire. He gazed again upon the barren plain, but nothing new appeared. They had little food already and no medicine now. The beasts that gathered in Ganit's light had eaten the hillside almost bare. "If we stay here," he thought, "We will have to eat the animals. But they will hardly last longer than our existing food and maybe we shall be eaten by them. Perhaps Hadur is close by or perhaps it will not be so barren as it appears." Yet in every direction Keram looked, he could see only dust and dark water, naught but the bone and vein of the world remained.

  "We must leave tomorrow," he thought, "If we can get into the plain perhaps we will see more."

  Keram returned to the hut and began to pack what little remained for them to carry, but the loneliness at last overwhelmed him and he fell into a troubled doze until Ganit woke.

  "Come and look," Keram said, and handed Ganit the crutch.

  "What am I looking for?" asked Ganit. But Keram's signs were too complex and Ganit felt desolation crush him again. He saw it too, in Keram's face. The last two men on earth and they couldn't speak to each other. Still, there was comfort in the face of the other, and in knowing who the other had been, once
. What they had been able to say before, what they must now be capable of thinking. Ganit smiled sadly and shrugged. He pointed at the door. Keram clapped him on the shoulder and helped steady him as he hobbled to the edge of the hill.

  Even Keram gasped at the sight of the empty waste of the world, for now the full, clear light fell upon it and stretched to the horizon which bled a flickering rose. Ganit would have collapsed, had Keram not held him up. Ganit looked at Keram.

  "I know," Keram signed, "It's bad. But-" he pointed at Ganit's leg, "No more hills to climb." Keram smiled and Ganit laughed but both felt a sharp bitter snap in their chests.

  "Stand back," said Ganit and handed Keram the wooden crutch. "I want to look farther."

  Keram nodded and ran down the western slope, finding cover behind one big stone. Ganit struggled to balance himself for a moment, and then, in gentle, growing waves, like a fast returning tide, his light brightened. As light and heat broke over the hillside and spilled like a flood over the plain, Keram watched beasts scatter and flee past him. the slowest, a water buffalo, heavy with a calf, stumbled over a frayed rope still tied around her neck. Keram caught it and led the cow behind his rock outcropping. Its eyes rolled in the heat, but Keram made it lie in the cool dust until Ganit's light faded and the soft light of early dawn was all that remained.

  Keram led the beast carefully up the slope. It held back and stalled at first, pulling itself back down the hill, but Keram calmed it and coaxed it back up toward the hut. It was many minutes before he returned to Ganit. Keram was alarmed to see him sitting on the dirt of the hill, but coming closer, he saw that Ganit's face was younger and happier than he had ever seen it. Ganit stared west and tears streamed from him, but his mouth was gentle and smiling. Keram thought for a horrifying moment that the sight of so much destruction had driven Ganit mad. He would sit and wait until it devoured them both, no matter how Keram tried to persuade him to leave. But the cow flicked her tail and the movement caught Ganit's eye and turned to Keram.

  "I found her," he said.

  "The woman? You saw her?" Keram's heart beat quickly. If the woman was out there, then there must be a way to -

  "No. But the west is green."

  "What?" Keram's smile faded.

  "You can't see it yet, it's too dark still, but it's green and growing."

  Keram looked puzzled.

  "Don't you understand?" Ganit asked and Keram could see him twitching with excitement. "She is the one doing it! Brone is filling the western dark with spring. She must know we are coming. She must be doing it to help us on our way. Don't you think?"

  Bewildered though he was, Keram could see the treacherous edge of hope spreading before Ganit's feet. Whatever was said next, Keram knew, would decide whether they left together now, or if Ganit would stay and starve upon the hill. Keram did not think he could make Ganit understand that he believed the woman must be dead, that Ganit was seeing a mirage his own light had created. It was not that Ganit would not understand these signals, nor that Keram desperately wanted them to start moving. There was a naked need to believe that this woman was out there somewhere, waiting to save them on Ganit's face and it stopped Keram from speaking. He wondered again why this man would try so hard to find a woman who had left him for dead, alone in the cold dark. But he said nothing, just smiled and helped Ganit up.

  "Can we leave soon?" asked Ganit. Keram could see him shaking.

  "Let's go." he said and pulled the buffalo back toward the hut for their supplies.

  Keram had prepared well, but the water buffalo had been a stroke of good fortune. He wasn't sure how long the cow would last, for they had nothing to feed it, but it could carry what few supplies they had for now, and if the worst came, well they might eat it, he supposed. Keram shuddered at this but knew he could kill the beast if he must. Though Keram worried that it came of madness, Ganit's cheerful eagerness was catching and soon they were standing near the edge of the western slope again. Keram helped Ganit onto the back of the buffalo. She rolled her large eyes and lowed in fear, but Ganit was careful and his heat did not touch the beast. She soon grew calm in the clear steady light, though she looked fretfully for grass as Keram led her down the slope and onto the dusty, gritty plain.

  Chapter 30

  Arvakir was sitting beside her, still but unsleeping when Brone woke. The light from the west shone scarlet and gold now, living flame that burned away the sky at its edges. The light lent a soft warmth to Brone's skin, but it passed over Arvakir as if he were not there. His skin still shone with the pale blue light of snow in the morning. Brone shuddered and he looked toward her. The blank expanse of his eyes told her nothing, but his voice was kind when he spoke.

  "It's time to go now, Brone. We must reach the fires of my brother today."

  He stood and then reached down to help her raise her swollen body from the ground. Brone flinched, but took his arm.

  "I'm sorry I still frighten you. I know not how to calm your fears."

  "It's just that nothing of this world seems to mix with you. Light does not warm you, nor dust cling to you, even time touches you not for you can feel no exhaustion. You are outside it all and you can carry us, me, outside it too. It is a little disturbing. But I do not envy you. It must be like looking into a happy home from the cold, dark night."

  "Ah, so it is not me you fear really. You think it is worse, this existence that I'm in. That is what frightens you, not death, but what comes after."

  "What does come after. Do you know?"

  Arvakir laughed and was bright, like icicles shattering. "I'm not allowed to say."

  But he stopped laughing because Brone's face was stricken with sorrow and fear. He touched her cheek and again she felt a quick flicker of frost on her skin.

  "I cannot say, Brone. But I will tell you something that will perhaps ease the sad thoughts I see heavy upon you. It is like looking through a window but it is rarely a happy scene I see. And most of the time, it is I who open the window to let the suffering out. They may be fearful as you are, those that I take, but they are glad in their deepest hearts."

  "If only I knew what to expect, even were it the worst, I could face it with a calm heart."

  Arvakir began walking, but his face was solemn, melancholy. Brone walked beside him in silence, her heart a deep throated hum of loneliness. After many moments he stopped and turned to her.

  "I have met many of your kind. So many I cannot recall even half of them. Century after century, life after life, yet I am only one of many, many brothers. In all those years, in all those lives we have never broken our oath. We have never spoken of what comes after."

  Brone was shocked to see him weeping again, small icicles shattering at the corner of his eyes. "But why?" she asked, distressed, "Why must it be secret?"

  "Because you are a world of explorers. The joy of discovering is the essence of you. Without it, without the need to discover, you would cease to be." He touched the seed casing on her neck where it glowed like a star. "You are not the first to seek out the ends of the earth. Nor what lies beyond. Almost all of you have wondered, have explored. But some of you . . . some of you are too frightened to make the leap when it happens. Some of you stay trapped, stay suffering because you think it's safer. O! Be brave Brone! I am in grave peril indeed. Never before, in all the long, long ages have I wished to break my oath. But you, you were kind in my hour of need, though you knew me for a foe. And you have treated me as friend though you know my task, though you have a task of your own. Be brave and do not ask again. For I will break my oath if you do."

  He sighed heavily and turned away, walking rapidly west. Brone followed as she could but she was slow with worry and with her children. A wave of pain thudded against her belly, squeezed between her thighs and she gasped and stopped. But then it was gone, even the memory of it lightening, failing within seconds. But Arvakir had heard her and he turned back to help her.

  "It's almost time," he said, "We must move quickly or they will come too so
on." He placed his hand upon her belly and she could feel its coolness seep through her thick clothing. The babies stretched and she felt a quick burst of pain again.

  "This is no place to have a child," she said. Arvakir took her arm and they walked as fast as Brone could manage, stopping only when some fresh pain overtook her. The pains were short and the distance between them was long, but still Brone was worn out when the reached the western fires. She felt its heat building mile by mile and her hair was wet and clingy with sweat. Arvakir's cold fingers on her arm, his frozen breath upon her cheek as he spoke to comfort her, were all that anchored her to the world. She felt herself falling into exhausted sleep even as she walked, but he pulled her back each time. At last, after a sharp stab of pain clutched at her, she stopped and could not walk again.

  "Look," he said, "Just a few more steps."

  She raised her eyes but slowly shook her head. They had come to a bridge of twisting black glass. Close to the edge, Brone could see a half built structure of stone. Around it was a litter of broken rock, metal tools upon them as if the mason had walked away for just a moment. Brone realized she had not seen a building since that terrible frozen village, that she wished to lie under some shelter from the terrible bleeding sky. Yet the pain held her and all around she heard the crackle of angry flame. She felt dry as a desert, as if she would curl and burst into fire like a fold of birch bark if she did not move. She tried to sink down upon the hard baked earth, but Arvakir pulled her back upon her feet.

  "We have to get inside," he said, "I must go, there is no more time. I must finish my work and your childbirth is approaching. There is a woman inside who can help, who can wait with you."

  "I cannot. I'm sorry. I'm so tired."

  So Arvakir gathered her up and carried her into the temple. She felt as if she had fallen naked into a bank of snow and she held her breath in relief. She slept at last, in comfort and Death departed from her.