Black Jade

Chapter 10

We spent the next days resting and preparing tor what Maram kept calling our 'mad quest', in the warmth of the brightening spring, we feasted on good, solid food to build up our bodies against the trials that would soon come. We tried to strengthen our minds and spirits as well. Master Juwain passed many hours in the school's library studying maps and reading accounts of the lands that we must pass. Liljana held counsel with Abrasax in an unprecedented effort to combine the resources of the Sisterhood and Brotherhood. Master Nolashar taught Estrella and me secret songs to play on our flutes and drive evil humors away. We all sat in the stone conservatory with Master Virang, who guided us through meditations so as to enliven our auras. This unseen radiance, like an armor woven of light, might protect us against the malice and lies of the Red Dragon — against even cold and hunger and the depredations of our own despair.

Alter nearly a week of this practice, the other masters joined us in these meditations, and the Grandmaster, too. The Seven brought forth their crystals and used them to quicken our chakras' fires. As Abrasax told us. this would help open us to the angel fire and greater life.

'That is the power and purpose of the Great Gelstei,' he told us one fine morning with the larks singing in the nearby cherry orchard. 'At least, the purpose of these small stones that we are Privileged to keep. We use them with you as we believe the Star People do: in the creation of angels.'

'Ah. yes,' Maram said as he patted his overstuffed belly and let loose a rude belch, 'I am rather like an angel aren't I? Five-Horned Maram will become Maram of the Golden Wings. Soon, soon, I know, lesser men will have to bow to me and address me as "Lord Elijin".'

Abrasax shook his head in reproach for his sarcasm, and told him, 'You need not worry about taking on that burden just now. The Way is very long — long even for the Star People, and we have rediscovered only part of it.'

He looked at Kane as if in hope that he might say more about this ancient path that human beings walked toward the heavens. But Kane just stared at the conservatory's stone walls in silence.

'I must say,' Maram grumbled out, as he pressed his hand against his belly, solar plexus, heart and throat, 'that I feel little different than I did before we began this work.'

'That is because,' Master Storr chided him, 'your fires are blocked and trapped within your second chakra.'

At this, Maram shot Master Storr a belligerent look, and wantonly waggled his hips. Master Storr stared back at him in disdain.

Abrasax, however, was kinder. He smiled at Maram and said, 'Give it time.'

'Ah, time,' Maram muttered. 'How much of it do I have left before the candle burns out?'

He sighed as he stood up and gazed out the conservatory's window at the setting sun. Then he turned to Abrasax and said, 'You seem to have had all the time in the world. Grandfather, and yet that hasn't kept old age from snowing white hair on you, if you'll forgive me for speaking so bluntly.'

Abrasax smiled at this. 'I will forgive you, Sar Maram, but things are not always as they seem. Just how old do you think I am?'

Maram gazed at Abrasax, and I could almost hear him mentally subtracting ten years from his assessment in an effort to repay Abrasax's kindness: 'Ah, seventy, I should guess/

Abrasax's smile widened. He said, 'I was born in the year that the Red Dragon destroyed the Golden Brotherhood and captured the False Gelstei. That was — '

'2647!' Maram cried out. 'But that is impossible! That would make you a hundred and forty-seven years old!'

'Please, Sar Maram — a hundred and forty-six. Abrasax said with a grin. 'I won't have my next birthday until Segadar.'

'But that is impossible!' Maram said again. He looked from Abrasax to Kane. 'Only the Elijin are immortal and — '

'We of the Seven,' Abrasax said, interrupting him, 'have not gained immortality — only longevity. And other things.'

'Ah, what things?' Maram asked with great interest.

In answer, Abrasax stepped over to him, and he laid his long, wrinkled hands on Maram's sides along his chest And then he lifted him as he might a child, straight up into the air. Maram although obviously no angel, did for a moment appear to be flying. He whooped as he beat his arms like wings. I blinked my eyes in disbelief, for with all the eating he had been doing during the past week, he must have weighed twenty stone.

Abrasax set him down, and Maram stared at him as if he too couldn't believe what had just happened. He said to him, 'You look like an old bird, but you're as strong as a bear!'

'Thank you, I think,' Abrasax told him.

Maram clasped Abrasax's hand as if to test its strength. Abrasax squeezed back, and Maram winced and coughed out, 'Did I say a bear? A bull, you are, a veritable old bull. And all this from the work you do with your little crystals? What other, ah, powers have you gained?'

Abrasax smiled at this and said, 'What powers would you most like to gain?'

'Do you need to ask? A bull has only two horns, but I have five! A veritable dragon, I am, and oh how I burn! And so I would strengthen those fires that burn the most pleasurably.'

'There is more to life, Sar Maram, than pleasure. And there is more to pleasure than this little tickle in the loins that you pursue so ardently.'

'Yes, there is beer and brandy,' Maram said. 'And that which bestirs me down there is no little thing — it is more like dragon fire!'

Abrasax said nothing to this as he studied Maram with his keen eyes.

'Pure dragon fire, I tell you! And I can direct it as I will, no matter what Master Storr says about me being blocked!'

'Can you? Then perhaps you wouldn't mind if we put it to the test?'

'What kind of test?'

'One that should prove more enjoyable than one of your drinking duels.'

'Truly? Truly?' Maram smiled as he considered this. 'Then when do we begin?'

Abrasax stepped over to Master Okuth to murmur something in his ear. Master Okuth bowed, excused himself, and left the room. We waited with the other Masters around the tea tables for him to go about his business, whatever it was. Half an hour later, he returned. He produced a small vial containing some dark, reddish substance, which he poured into Maram's cup of tea and stirred with a little silver spoon. Then he gave the cup to Maram to drink.

'Ah, I must say,' Maram called out, sniffing his tea, 'that this potion of yours seems suspiciously like blood.'

'It is a tincture made from the pineal gland of the adil serpent,' Master Okuth told him. 'It will help dissolve your blockage so that the kundala can rise within you.'

Maram sniffed it again. 'Are you sure it won't poison me? Ah, like a snake's venom, paralyzing me?'

'It will only paralyze your resistance.'

I gazed at Maram, waiting for him to drink, or not — as did Kane, Master Juwain and Liljana. The Masters of the Brotherhood studied him as well. And then Maram, challenged once again to drink as part of a trial, shrugged his shoulders and downed the red-tinged tea.

'Aach!' he cried out, coughing. 'Ohhh — oh, my Lord, that was vile!'

He looked to Master Okuth for sympathy for his sufferings. But Master Okuth just looked at him sternly as he brought out his small, green heart stone. The other Masters held out their gelstei as well, and they beckoned for Maram to stand up and gathered around him.

Then Abrasax instructed Maram: 'You must try visualizing that which you most love. Hold this image inside yourself, and let it call to you.'

'Ah, you mean visualize her whom I love. Make her call to me.'

'No, Sar Maram,' Abrasax said. 'I do not mean that. We have other potions and other exercises designed for the realization of fancies and dreams. You have told us that you are a man of this world. There is something in this world — something that you've held in hand and heart — that you love above all else. Hold it in your heart now. And in your mind. Let it call to your life's deepest fire and draw it upward, even as the kundalini strikes upward, toward the heavens.'

Maram smiled at me then, and I understood that he took great satisfaction in keeping secret whatever it was that he found most to love. Was it Behira, I wondered? The Galdan brandy that Vishakan, chief of the Niuriu, had once poured for him? The smell of the earth on the most perfect day of his life? I thought that I would never know.

Then Maram closed his eyes, and the Great Gelstei of the Seven began to sing to Maram in a rainbow of fire. The Masters worked their magic upon Maram for most of an hour. Finally, there came a moment when I felt something inside of Maram break open I sensed a great gout of flame moving up from his first and second chakras into his third, fourth and higher ones, as with companions passing from hand to hand a bright torch. Hotter and hotter it grew, like the sun in Soldru. At last Maram opened his eyes, and looked straight at me in triumph. He let out a shout of delight that shook the stones of the dome above us. His face seemed to light up as with fireworks as he cried out, 'It's as if the ecstasy of my loins is burning throughout my whole body and brain! You were right, Grandfather: this is more enjoyable than beer, or even brandy!'

'Even more enjoyable,' Atara prodded him, 'than women?'

'Ah, perhaps, perhaps.' Maram breathed deeply and raggedly as he held his hand over his heart. Then his eyes glazed with doubt. 'But it's almost too pleasurable, if you know what I mean.'

Liljana, whose Maitriche Telu possessed other means of igniting the body's fires, said to him, 'And now you know why my sisters are dreaded.'

'Dreaded or desired?'

Liljana pointed her finger at him as she shook her head. 'It's good that we've taken shelter here rather than at one of our sanctuaries. If you weren't careful, my sisters would kill you with just such pleasure.'

'Truly? Well, I must die sometime, I suppose, and I can think of no better way.'

Whatever fate awaited us on our quest, however, during our final days at the Brotherhood's school, we had only thought and feeling for more life. As the spring quickened and the warm sun poured down its light into the valley — and the Seven continued pouring their gelstei's radiance into us — we gained strength like the new shoots of the cherry trees fairly singing with sap. My companions and I all felt more vital. We found ourselves needing less sleep, and during our waking hours we seemed more awake Although we did not gain the miraculous regenerative powers of Kane, whose flesh I had once seen regrow a severed ear. Abrasax told us that we might bear up beneath insults and wounds would kill lesser beings.

'But it is your spirits, I believe, that will suffer the greatest trials,' he told us one fine morning. It was to be our last day in the valley of the Sun, and we had gathered with the Masters in the cherry orchard beneath a tree covered in snowy blossoms. 'The Lord of Lies will attack them, and more, try to drink your very souls. We must speak of this now. If your path is to take you through Acadu, there is one danger that you must avoid above all others.'

Maram's face blanched while Master Juwain sat on the white-petaled grass with his hands folded like a closed book. And Master Juwain said, 'And what is that. Grandfather?'

Abrasax looked at Master Juwain for a long moment as his lips pressed together. Then he said, 'I would like to give you a full account of this. Would you be willing to come with me into the library?'

'Of course,' Master Juwain told him.

'Estrella,' Abrasax said, turning toward the girl, 'there is a book that I believe will tell more than I can about this danger. It is, in a way, lost in the library's stacks. Would you help me locate it?'

Estrella smiled as she nodded her head.

The rest of us, curious as to how this new mystery might unfold, stood up and followed Abrasax as he led us toward the library. This building rose up near the center of the Brotherhood's grounds, and was made of the same white stone as every other building in the valley. Tall pillars fronted it. Its rear wall fairly pushed into the side of a hill. Although larger even than the great hall, it wasn't nearly so grand as the library of King Kiritan's palace — to say nothing of the vast, burnt-out Library of Kaisham.

We followed Abrasax and the other masters up the seven stairs leading to the doorway and into the library's single room. There, sitting at long wooden tables, a dozen Brothers bent over reading old tomes; a dozen more worked hard to preserve the knowledge of the oldest and most fragile of them, transcribing words onto new paper with ink-blackened quills. This scratching sound filled the quiet room. The many dusty, crumbling books stacked on the shelves along the four walls seemed to await renewal at the Brothers' hands. I counted some seven thousand of them. As we learned, every one of them had been indexed and accounted for. I did not understand how one of them could have been lost.

I looked in vain for the marvelous, crystal-paged books like the one from which Abrasax had read that night in the conservatory. I wondered if the Brothers might keep them locked away somewhere in a cabinet, but Abrasax did not say anything about this. He led us straight across the room to the far wall. Between two of the great shelves rising six feet above our heads, there hung a tapestry depicting one the greatest events of Eaean history: King Julamesh giving the Lightstone into the hands of Godavanni the Glorious. With great care, Abrasax moved aside this tapestry to reveal a small door set into the wall's stone. Without a word of explanation, he opened the door, which swung inward on creaking hinges to the passage beyond.

'Ah, secret doors and dark passages,' Maram said with a nervous cough. 'This reminds me too much of Argattha. Where are you taking us, Grandfather?'

Abrasax paused to turn and smile at us. 'Why, into the library.'

'What do you mean?' Maram said, waving his hand at one of the ink-stained Brothers hard at work on a book. 'What do you call this place?'

'It is only the reading room,' Abrasax told him. He turned to step through the doorway into the passage beyond. 'This is the library.'

We followed him down an unlit stone corridor. A soft radiance suffused the opening twenty yards ahead of us. The Masters passed through this opening, out into the chamber beyond, and then so did I. I shook my head in disbelief. My belly fairly fluttered up into my throat as if I had jumped off a cliff into a pool, for I found myself gazing out into a vast, open space so deep that I did not want to look down for its bottom. I gathered with my friends and the Masters in a sort of loggia affording a view of this immense cavern. It was good that stone railings had been built at the edge of the loggia; otherwise it would have been easy for anyone, sick with the heights, to step off the edge and plunge downward-

'Oh, Lord!' Maram said as he looked out over the railing. 'Oh, Lord!'

The loggia proved to be part of the uppermost tier carved into the rock of this cylindrical pit and running around its circumference. It seemed half a mile, as a bird might fly, straight across to the tier's other side. There were many, many tiers: two hundred eighty-four, as Abrasax told us. Bands of rock separated each tier, and glowed with a pearly substance that could only be some sort of gelstei. It provided a soft, white light that illumined the entire library and its many books.

There must have been millions of them. Each tier, twelve feet high, contained ten shelves which had been carved as even deeper recesses into the cavern's solid rock. As with any library, books packed each shelf. Abrasax led us out of the loggia into the first tier, and I ran my hand across the bindings of the old books. All were of leather and paper, and seemed no different from any of the other books that I had read. And they were all, in this section of this tier, as I could see from their titles, copies of various versions of the Saganom Elu or commentaries upon it. I had never dreamed that so much could have been written about this Book of Books, neatly arrayed on smooth, granite shelves curving off nearly to infinity.

'I can see,' Master Juwain said to Abrasax, 'how a book might become lost here. If all the levels contain as many volumes as this one, there must be more than thirty million books!'

'There are forty million, ten thousand and forty-three,' Abrasax informed us with a smile. 'To be precise.'

'But that is more than the Great Library held!'

'It is. But we Brothers have had longer to collect our books than did Khaisham's Librarians.'

'But how did you acquire so many, Grandfather? And where are the crystal books that you call the vedastei? And who built your library, and how was it made?'

Master Juwain had other questions for Abrasax, which Abrasax tried to answer as he led us back into the loggia, and then down a flight of stone stairs connecting to a loggia on the second tier.

'None of us,' Abrasax said, nodding at Master Storr and Master Yasul, 'has been able to determine who built this library. When our order established itself here in the Age of Law, Grandmaster Teodorik discovered the library much as you see it today. It is possible that the Aymaniri — they call themselves the Ymanir now — melted out this cavern with firestones even before they built Agarttha. Or it might be older still: much, much older. Some of us believe it might be a wonder from the Elder Ages.'

'But the books,' Master Juwain said, 'cannot date from the Elder Ages!'

We had passed down to the eighth tier, and Master Juwain's hand swept out as he pointed outside the loggia at ancient tomes recording the Epic of Kalkamesh, the Gest ofNodin and Yurieth and other famous narratives, which were very much part of Eaean history.

'No, you are correct,' Abrasax said to Master Juwain. 'These books we have gathered from across the world like any others. But it may be that the vedastei are not of this world.'

He led us down ten more tiers, and the sound of our boots slapping against stone steps vanished into the immense open space of the library. I could almost hear Maram formulatmg his complaints as to the inevitable climb back up the many stairways. He must have wondered, as did I, if the library's makers had indeed been angels who could simply fly from tier to tier. It would have required hours, I thought, to retrieve a book from the lowest tiers and make the arduous climb back up into the reading room. As I watched Master Yasul and Master Virang follow Abrasax effortlessly down the stairways, it came to me that Brothers had endless hours and years to go about their work — and nearly bottomless stamina.

We made our way down to the twentieth and then the twenty-fifth tier. Here the books of leather and paper gave way to those made from crystal. Abrasax told us that most of the books on these levels, as far as the Brothers had been able to determine, were of poetry and songs. At last we came out into a loggia on the thirty-third tier. Abrasax led the way out Onto this narrow curve of stone. We walked in near-silence past shelves of the marvelous vedastei. I could not guess at their subjects, for I could not read the script engraved into their colored and lacquered covers.

'Ah, I've never seen so many damn books!' Maram murmured to me. 'Not even in the Great Library.'

We moved through two more of the twelve loggias on this tier. Then we came out upon a section of shelves, all of whose books bore the same title. Abrasax pulled one of them off its shelf, and he traced his finger along the golden characters etched into its blue cover. Then he said to us a single word: 'Skaadarak.'

'Do you mean, the Skardarak?' Master Juwain said to him, carefully pronouncing the name of the great doom at the end of time when the universe would fall into a final dark age.

'Perhaps,' Abrasax said. 'You see, we have been able to translate the book's title, but its contents remain unknown to us.'

He opened the book and flipped through its hundreds of fine crystal pages. They remained as blank as sheets of ice.

'But can't you just unlock it?' Maram called out.

'We cannot. We have tried, and we shall continue to try, but we have been able to discover keys for only a fraction of the vedastei.'

He went on to tell us that the Brothers had discovered word keys for perhaps three thousand of the vedastei, and most of these were located on the higher tiers.

'All these books,' he said as his hand swept along the shelf, 'are a mystery to us.'

He looked out over the stone railing down into the glowing pit that made up the rest of the library. 'The books below this level remain unread, and all are vedastei, going down to the one hundred and twenty-first level.'

'And below that?' Master Juwain asked.

'Below that, there are no books.'

'But you said that there were two hundred and eighty-four levels?'

'There are, indeed. And most of their shelves stand empty.'

'But why? Did the library's makers hope to acquire so many more books?'

'We don't know,' Abrasax said. Then he held up his precious vedastei. 'Just as we don't know what lies within this book.'

Master Juwain nodded his head at this, and said, 'If the vedastei were truly written in the Elder Ages and brought to Ea, then how is it you believe that one of them might tell of some danger of the Acadian forest of our time?'

Master Yasul, the Brotherhood's greatest remembrancer, answered for Abrasax, saying, 'It may be that some of the vedastei were not actually written. With a few of the books that we have managed to open, we've had the experience of the text changing upon different readings, according to different knowledge that we were seeking and different questions that we held in our minds. Indeed, it might be more accurate to say that we don't read the vedastei as much as they read us.'

He went on to say that the vedastei might somehow transmit the Akashic Records, which was a sort of memory of all that had ever occurred in the universe.

'Ah, there are certain things that should never be recorded,' Maram said as he eyed the book that Abrasax held in his hand. 'And never read by another, if you know what I mean.'

Abrasax smiled at Maram. 'You needn't fear that anyone will learn of your exploits in this book — unless it is your valor in facing the unknown.'

Abrasax put it back on its shelf, then turned to Estrella, who stood with Daj near the railing as they looked out into the library. He said to her, 'We have reason to believe that one of these books entitled, Skaadarak, contains the knowledge we seek. Would you be willing to try to locate it for us?'

Estrella looked at the book-stuffed shelves opposite the railing, and she made a motion with her fingers and cocked her head. And Daj translated for her, saying to us: 'Estrella would like to know how many of these Skaadarak books there are?'

'Nearly three hundred,' Abrasax told us. Then he showed us the place where the first of the books in question was shelved, and he moved along the tier a dozen feet and tapped his finger against the spine of the last of the books, gleaming a dark red on one of the middle shelves.

Estrella smiled as she nodded her head. Then she began walking slowly in front of the shelves of books. What she was looking for she could not say, and we could not guess, for the covers of the books were all etched with the same fine script. At last, she came to a halt. Her eyes beamed brightly as gazed at the line of books just above her head. Then her hand darted out to grasp one of the vedastei there. Abrasax helped her pull it off the shelf. Its cover, carved with brilliant red glyphs, shone as black as obsidian.

'A seard, indeed,' Master Matai said, bowing his head to her.

Master Storr, however, looked at Estrella doubtfully, as if she might have picked this book at random with the hope that no one would ever know the difference.

Abrasax lifted back the cover to show us its clear, empty pages. And Master Juwain asked him, 'But if you don't possess the key, how will you ever open it?'

'A seard,' Abrasax said, smiling at Estrella, 'might be able to find more than just things. We have elucidated, over the centuries, hundreds of keys to these books, and many are related to another or are even nearly identical.'

He drew in a long breath, and then recited:

To gain the gelstei's mastery,

To free the perfect memory

From Heaven's ageless library,

The perfect word will prove the key.

'Estrella — can you tell us if any of these words are close to the ones we seek?'

But Estrella just shook her head as she stared at the book. 'But what of this rhyme, then? Listen:

The Master Reader sought the key

To Heaven's unbound folio;

A million words he spoke, then he

Said, 'Open' — and it was so.

Estrella held out her hands helplessly as she again shook her head. And Maram groaned, 'This could take all day!'

So it went for the many other keys that Abrasax wished to test as he recited to her verse after verse. She seemed to warm to only a couple of them. Although it did not take Abrasax quite all day to run through his list of rhymes, it took long enough. We stood there for what seemed hours packed together on a ribbon of stone between the tier's shelved books and the railing that kept us from plunging down nearly half a mile to the library's lowest level. Our legs grew crampy, and we shifted our weight from foot to foot even as Abrasax's deep voice spilled out into the immense cavern.

'But this is impossible!' Maram finally called out to Abrasax. 'We might as well set monkeys to scribbling on paper in that room of yours upstairs in the hope that one of them will eventually chance upon the right rhyme.'

'Nothing is impossible, Sar Maram,' Abrasax said. 'Estrella has indicated that two or three of the rhymes might lead to the key to this book. We've had less to go on with other keys and other books. There are references to be checked, permutations of words to be made. In time — '

'But how much time do we have?' Maram said. 'Aren't we supposed to set out tomorrow? I, for one, want to get this mad quest over with as soon as we can, if we truly must go off questing again. Can't you just tell us what kind of danger we must avoid in Acadu without giving a complete account of it?'

Abrasax sighed as he traded looks with Master Virang and Master Matai. He said, 'I suppose I'll have to.'

He drew in a long breath as he pressed his finger against the scarlet characters graven into the book's cover. And then he told us, 'I believe that Skaadarak is the root word of two others: the Skardarak, when all will grow dark forever. And a place of darkness in Acadu that the people there call the Skadarak.'

In the quiet of the library's endless stacks of books, this word seemed to hang in the still, musty air. We all waited for Abrasax to say more. Then Maram finally called out, 'But what is the Skadarak, then?'

'It is,' Abrasax said, 'a blackness of the earth's aura so abysmally black that light cannot escape it. There is a dark thing there, like a hole through the world's soul. It blackens the very earth.'

'A thing?' Maram cried out. 'What kind of thing?'

Abrasax looked at the book in his hand, and then at Master Storr. He said, 'Unfortunately, we don't really know. We have only stories and our reading of the earth's aura. Those whom we have sent into Acadu to shed light on this mystery have not returned.'

'Oh, excellent!' Maram said. 'I suppose this dark mystery of yours swallowed them up as with the Black Bog?'

'I believe,' Abrasax said, 'that what lies near the heart of Acadu is worse than the Black Bog. You see, it calls to people.'

'Oh, excellent, excellent!'

Master Juwain thought about this, then asked, 'But what could have caused the Skadarak? An opening to one of the Dark Worlds? Some sort of gelstei?'

'I know of no gelstei,' Master Storr said, 'that has such power.'

'But what of the black?' Master Juwain asked, looking at Kane.

And Master Storr said, 'I've never heard of a black gelstei that can call to people as the Skadarak is said to do.'

Liljana, ever the most practical of our company, said to Abrasax, 'If you know where this place is, then surely we can avoid it. If it calls to us, then we won't listen.'

Abrasax nodded his hoary head and told her, 'North of Varkeva near the Ea River it lies, or so we believe. We also believe that each of you has the power not to listen. And that, in the end, is the heart of our battle with the Red Dragon and the Dark One bound on Damoom.'

He let out a long sigh as he turned to Master Juwain. 'You, Master Healer, over the years have most counseled turning a deaf ear to Morjin's words. And why? Because it is you who most wants to hear them.'

Master Juwain rubbed at his bald head a moment before saying, 'Yes, I'm afraid you are right, Grandfather. I've always thought that the Red Dragon, as with any man, would intimate what he really knows in what he says or writes. The secret knowledge that he must possess, you see.'

'That which you speak of is a dark knowledge,' Abrasax told him.

'And how could it be otherwise, for how can we truly understand the light without the knowing of the dark?'

'I think you've always been too curious about this dark.'

'Yes, you are right. It is my vice.'

'Promise me, then, that you will continue to fight against it.'

'Very well, Grandfather.'

Abrasax smiled at him, and said, 'All of you, as you approach the Skadarak, will grow more vulnerable. Especially through your gelstei.'

He turned to look at Atara. 'You, Princess, must be careful of what you see in your crystal if you really must look. Morjin will try to build a perfect world and show it to you. And trap you within it. Thus has he seduced kings and even wise men.'

Atara stood up straight and stiffly, and a coldness came over her as she gripped her scryer's sphere and said, 'The Lord of Lies gave up the power to seduce me when he took my eyes. But I shall take your counsel to heart, Grandfather.'

Abrasax sighed again, and then addressed Liljana and Kane, and each of us, in turn, warning of the ways that Morjin might strike at us through our crystals and our weaknesses to twist us to his will as he had so many others. Then he patted the black book that Estrella had found on its shelf, and he told us, 'I will take this back to my chambers and meditate upon it. Perhaps I will find the key that will open it, and be able to tell you more.'

I said nothing as I looked at Abrasax and promised myself that whatever the Skadarak truly was, and wherever it lay, I must lead my companions away from it at all costs.

'Go now,' Abrasax said to us. 'Go and sit outside in the cherry orchard or walk in the sun, as you will. Enjoy this day in peace.'

And so we did. We all left the library as we had come. Abrasax retired with his book to his chambers, and the other Masters left us alone to go about their business. That afternoon, my companions and I wandered the grounds of the school making our goodbyes with those of the Brothers whom we had come to know. They gave us gifts: jars of apple butter and rare teas and spices for our food, and other such things to sustain us on our journey. We went to bed early that evening and awoke just before dawn on the twenty-third of Ashte. The sky was a clear and luminous blue that promised fine weather for travel.

Abrasax and the rest of the Seven gathered in the yard outside the stables to see us off. As the cocks crowed and new season's insects let loose a noise of buzzing and clicks, the Grandmaster apologized to us for being unable to unlock the book that told of the Skadarak.

'I remained awake all night,' he told us, 'but some of the books have taken months or even years to open — those that we have been able to open.'

'It's all right, Grandfather,' I said. 'Surely the Skadarak can't be any worse than Argattha, and we survived that.'

I regretted my words almost the moment that I spoke them. I felt Atara stiffen inside as I awaiting a mortal blow. Although she had truly survived Argattha, even as I had said, something within her had died.

"Try to remember,' Master Virang said to me, 'that the Skadarak will only be one of the dangers you face, and perhaps not the worst. It is a long way to the end of your quest, and you must armor yourself against the Lord of Illusions' assaults.'

'We would have a better chance,' Master Juwain said to Master Virang and then Abrasax, 'if you would come with us to Hesperu. Will you reconsider your decision?'

It seemed almost silly to think of these seven old men setting out on a perilous journey through Ea's wilds. But then I recalled how easily Abrasax had lifted Maram off the ground and Master Virang's ease at climbing steep hills, and I thought that it would be the essence of wisdom for any or all of them to accompany us.

'I'm sorry,' Abrasax told us, looking out into the valley, 'but our place is here.'

Then his eyes grew mysterious and deep as he tried to explain: 'Just as the body has higher chakras and realms of being, so does the earth. It is in these realms, above all others, that we must battle the Red Dragon's evil — and we can only do this from a place of great power, where the earth's fires burn the brightest.'

Master Juwain bowed his head in acceptance of this, and Abrasax took his hand and said, 'Just be sure to keep your fires burning, and we shall look forward to your return with the one who burns the most brightly of all.'

He smiled then, and clasped each of our ands in turn and kissed our brows, even Kane's. And then he told us, 'Farewell, and may you walk in the light of the One.'

I climbed on top of Altaru, whose coat was like a black sheen in the early morning light. He drove his hoof into the earth impatiently. My friends mounted their horses, too; our remounts and packhorses, heavily laden with supplies, were strung out behind us. A young student had also brought out a couple of nags from the stable. Master Storr and one of his adepts, a Brother Lorand, would be accompanying us so that they might show us the way out of the valley.

Our slow ride toward the mountains took only a few hours, and we savored each of them, drinking in the warmth of the sun and the sweetly scented air. Flowers grew in sprays of pink and purple along our way. From somewhere in the woods around us, a lark piped out its high, tinkling song. Never in my life, I thought, had a day seemed so lovely and bright. Kane rode his big brown horse beside me, fairly beaming out his fierce will to triumph against any odds. And yet I was keenly aware that our high spirits could not last. Whenever the shadow of such doubts fell across my heart, all of Kane's assurances of victory, as well as my own fierce hopes, seemed utterly in vain, the foolish longings of desperate men who refused to admit defeat.

We made our way back to the tunnel as we had come, winding back and forth up a steep slope. The horses' hooves kicked at loose rocks and sent them rattling down the road. Just outside the tunnel's entrance, where an arch of precisely cut stone invited us inward and onward, we paused to take a drink of water and eat

some currants.

'Ah, here we are again at another entranceway,' Maram said, squinting at the sun in the east. 'But it's well past dawn, isn't it?'

Master Storr's fair skin was flushed from our ride, and he ran his fingers back through his wispy hair. He smiled at Maram and said, 'The sun at dawn at the ides of Ashte is only one of the things that animates the tunnel's gelstei. There is the light of the Seven Sisters, conjuncting the moon. And there is this.'

He removed from his pocket a crystal about as long as his finger. It was opaque, with a reddish patina that reminded me of rust.

'What is it?' Maram asked. 'One of your secret gelstei?'

'It's a key,' Master Storr told him. 'And yes, it is a gelstei.'

He pointed it toward the tunnel, and we watched as the dark circle before us filled with a milky white light. I felt a pulsing, as from deep inside the tunnel's rock — and along my veins as my heart began beating more quickly.

'Well, why don't we go inside?' Master Storr said. 'The way in is easy enough.'

'Ah, I don't like this,' Maram said. 'I don't like this at all. We can find our way in easily enough, it's true. It's finding the way out that worries me.'

Master Storr handed the crystal to Brother Lorand, a reedy young man with a long, narrow head and a serious look stamped into his face. And Master Storr instructed him, 'Hold your concentration as I've taught you. We wouldn't want to leave Brother Maram behind.'

His rather pitiless smile, showing his small, yellowed teeth, did nothing to reassure Maram, or the rest of us. But Master Storr was not a cruel man — only a cautious, difficult and guarded one. As we set forth into the tunnel, he explained to us certain of its secrets that he had so far withheld: 'There are seventeen such tunnels throughout this part of the White Mountains, as far as we've been able to determine. The Grandmaster thinks it most likely that the Aymaniri built them. But Master Yasul and I are more inclined to believe that they are a Work of the Elder Ages, like the library. All that we have really divined of them is that they connect to other tunnels through other mountains.'

'But connect how?' Maram asked. 'And how can that be possible?'

Master Storr regarded Maram with his hard blue eyes and said, 'How should that not be possible? All things are connected in their deepest part, in their hearts, to each other. That is why we call the One as we do, and not the Two or the Three.'

This was almost the first time we had heard Master Storr make any attempt at humor, and we all smiled at him. Then Maram continued his questioning: 'If all things are connected to everything, then that really explains nothing. How is it that I should still be standing in this lost valley in your company, as pleasant as it is, instead of enjoying a glass or two of good Meshian beer with my beloved, merely at a click of my fingers?'

So saying, he snapped his middle finger against his thumb, and looked about as if disappointed that this rude gesture hadn't magically transported him from the valley.

Master Storr kept on staring at him, and said, 'The key, of course, is in discovering how things are connected. We know, for instance, that Ea touches upon other worlds in places of power such as the Vilds or where the earth fires have been disturbed or concentrated.'

'Such as the Black Bog? Kane told that in our passage through that accursed swamp, we were walking on other worlds.'

'So you were — and Dark Worlds at that. The Black Bog is known to lead into such places, just as the ocean, toward the North Star, flows into the seas of the worlds where the Star People dwell.'

'Then you believe the legend of King Koru-Ki?'

Master Storr's eyes gleamed as he said, 'All worlds are connected by water, on the physical plane, as they are by the aethers on the others.'

'But that still doesn't explain the tunnel.'

Master Storr, I thought, did not like Maram's impatience to learn the truth of things, and a note of irritation crept into his voice:

'As I've said, there are other ways of making these connections. Whoever built this tunnel must have forged a gelstei that opened up the earth chakra over which the tunnel was built. And so

directed its fires to open other chakras in other places so that a passage might be made.'

'Then is it possible to pass to other worlds this way?'

'Not through this tunnel at least so far as we've been able to discover. But there may be other tunnels through other mountains somewhere on Ea that lead to the Star People's worlds.'

'But might it be possible,' Maram asked, 'to pass to another part of this World through this tunnel? Ah, perhaps to journey to Hesperu in a click of a moment?'

Again, he snapped his fingers, and again Master Storr looked at him with disapproval. He said to Maram, There are no tunnels like these that we know of in Hesperu, or indeed outside of the White Mountains. But if you discover any such on your journey, you must be sure to let me know.'

'I shall, I shall,' Maram muttered as he looked into the tunnel's glowing mouth. 'But I still don't understand how walking into here will result in our walking out there — when 'there' is not just one other tunnel, but any one of seventeen.'

'Haven't you been listening to anything of what I've told you?' Master Storr asked him. 'There is really only one tunnel, interconnected in its seventeen parts. But connected how? Geometrically, yes, certainly, in ways that we don't fully understand. But we know they are also connected through thought and will. This is the key, Sar Maram. When you were looking for our school and went back inside the tunnel, which the sun had brought to life, its gelstei sensed your desire to reach us, and so brought you out into our valley. If you had willed a different destination and held it strongly enough in your minds, you would have found that place instead.'

'Ah, but what if the tunnel came alive, and we willed nothing?' Maram's voice boomed out and disappeared into the curved, pulsing walls of gelstei ahead of us. 'Because we were frightened or confused?'

'That is an experiment we haven't wanted to make,' Master Storr said. 'Presumably, you would eventually come out into one lost valley or another.'

'But what of Morjin then? Aren't you afraid that he will learn to control the tunnel's gelstei?'

'He might know nothing of it,' Master Storr said. 'He is not omniscient, you know. Now. if you will please forbear and let Brother Lorand learn the ways of these tunnels.'

None of us, I thought, was pleased at the prospect of Master Storr utilizing our circumstances to teach his young student, but that was the way of the Brotherhood. In truth, however there was little danger of Brother Lorand guiding us wrongly, for Master Storr guided him, holding his concentration on the rustlike gelstei even as he encouraged Brother Lorand with a ready smile or a kind word. Our passage through the tunnel was much as before. We lined up in order behind Master Storr; I took the lead of my companions, followed by Atara, Liljana, Daj and Estrella, with Master Juwain and Maram riding closely behind this irrepressibly joyful girl. Kane, in the rear, kept a close watch on what Estrella watched, gazing into the flowing hues of the gelstei on the walls in hope that she might discover something of note. The horses, which we had blindfolded, clopped along nervously as each of us fought the spinning sensation in our heads and the sickness that crept into our bellies. Maram moaned to see Master Storr waver like a ghost and then reappear a moment later. It seemed that we walked a long time and an even longer way over the road's cold stones. But in the end, as Master Storr kept promising Maram, we drew closer and closer to the spot of light at the tunnel's end.

We came out, as before, into a valley — but a very different one than the Valley of the Sun. Below us, down steep and heavily wooded slopes, ran a long, deep groove between two ridgelines of jagged mountains. It was higher here, and colder, and crusts of snow whitened, the rocks above the treeline. The blueness had fled from the sky, to be replaced by a solid sheet of grayish-white clouds.

We stood by our horses on the rocky ground outside the tunnel, trying to catch our breaths as we scanned this rugged terrain. Maram leaned across his knees as if he might lose his breakfast. And then he pointed down into the valley as he gasped out, 'But which way is that? I can't see the damn sun! North, I would guess, but it seemed that we were walking south, or perhaps east.'

Master Storr came up beside him and placed his old hand on his-shoulder. And he said, 'It is north by west. The line of the valley curves off due west, just around the base of that domed mountain. It will take you down into Acadu.'

'Are you certain of that? What if we get lost?'

'Would it reassure you if I taught you a Way Rhyme to guide you?'

'Ah, is that really necessary?'

'No, it. is not,' Master Storr said, smiling at him. 'From here, you can't help but walk straight into Acadu, but you'll have to find your own way through the great forest, as your circumstances will determine.'

He embraced Maram then; and me and the others as well. And he told us, 'You must undertake this quest with only one end in) mind. But if you should come across any new gelstei on your journey, I would be forever grateful if you would return them to our school for study. You seem to have a knack for finding gelstei — let us hope that also holds for finding the Maitreya.'

As Abrasax had, he enjoined us to walk in the light of the One. Then he gathered in the reins of his horse, and with Brother Lorand, moved back into the tunnel.

'Well,' Maram said to me as we looked off into this new valley, 'shall we get this over with?'

I nodded at him, then turned to pull on Altaru's reins and go down into the dark forests of Acadu.