Black Jade

Chapter 16

For a while, as we waited near the fires and the mist grew thinner, Berkuar stared at me. Maram, I knew, did not like the accusation in his eyes because he came to my defense, saying, 'It's not Val's fault.'

'Did I say it was?' Berkuar asked him. 'The Skadarak might well have grown so that it would be impossible not to wander into it. All that matters now is how we will find our way out.'

This proud woodsman did not say what was obvious: that he had become lost in the mist, and could not tell north from south. Neither did his sharp eye for mosses and the like give hint of direction, for none such grew on these diseased trees.

Above us the clouds still gathered so thick and gray that no glow of white marked the position of the sun. Gorman told us that it was often this way in Acadu, in late Ashte, for weeks on end.

'That way is west,' I said, pointing straight ahead of us. I drew my sword, which glowed faintly when I pointed it toward my right. 'Do you see? Argattha should be to the north of us here, and Alkaladur confirms this.'

Once, my shining sword had led us to Argattha where the Lightstone resided.

'Let us go on,' I said.

'If you're wrong,' Pittock said, 'we could walk straight into the heart of the Skadarak.'

'Yes, that's true,' I told him. 'But so long as we walk straight, eventually we'll come out on the other side. Now let's be off.'

We smothered the two fires with some stinking muck and resumed our hike toward what I was sure was west. The walking was easy here, with no bracken or bushes to trip us up; with the lifting of the mist, the drizzle dried up, too, and it grew cool rather than cold. The afternoon's journey might even have been pleasant but for the horror of the blighted woods and our dread of what had made it so. It was a dark wood, to be sure — darker even than the Vardaloon. The trees about showed but little green. They grew black like burnt firewood, and their worm-eaten leaves showed shades of brown and blood-red. But the worst of it, I thought, came not from the omnipresent clouds blocking the sun or the blackening of tree bark; rather, it felt like something from within was stealing their life and dimming their essential light.

As it was with the trees, so it was with us. We walked on into the woods, and we all felt a gradual dampening and draining of our life fires. The earth itself seemed to call us down into herself, and her voice was long, dreadful and deep. By the end of the day, we had to struggle to keep our limbs moving. It was like trying to fight our way out of a lake frozen with slush.

'I'm cold,' Maram grumbled as we trudged along. 'I'm tired and I'm hungry, too. And thirsty. Surely this is a night for a little brandy?'

'Remember your vow,' I said to him. My voice, even to myself, sounded as raucous and repetitive as a parrot's. 'The brandy is to be used only for medicine, and there's nothing wrong with you.'

'Is there not? My whole body feels like one big bruise.' He paused as his glazed eyes took in the darkening woods around us. 'Ah, besides, it's not my body that really needs medicine, but my soul.'

We found no clear brook or stream upon whose banks to break our journey, and so we made camp that night in the middle of the featureless forest. Maram was keen enough to build up a great fire, but Kane had to drive him — and Gorman and Pittock — to gather deadwood for our fortifications. In truth, there seemed no need. Mostly to frighten Maram into activity, Kane spoke of maddened panthers or bears made into ghuls, or even demons that might come for us in the night. But for all that afternoon we had | seen not a single animal larger than a worm. We had seen no sign of men, either, nor did we expect to, for who would be foolish enough to enter such a doomed wood? Kane warned that after our encounter with the droghul, Morjin might send a company of soldiers after us or even the second droghul that Atara had told of. But as a despondent Maram pointed out in a heavy voice, 'Why should he bother, when this damned dark place will do his work for him?'

Master Juwain led us in a light meditation, and that seemed to ward off the worst of the gloom eating at us, at least for a while. I restated my belief that we could simply walk out of this wood whenever we chose. Liljana's response to our predicament was more practical: she willed herself to set to cooking us the best meal she possibly could. We sat down late that night to roast venison and cakes sweetened with some of the apple butter and jams that the Brothers had given us. We had figs for dessert, and then Liljana brewed up some rare mugs of coffee.

This feast should have been enough stuff any man, but Maram ate as for three, cramming food into his mouth with a gluttony that was excessive, even for him. He had the grace, however, to compliment Liljana's cooking and the cunning to extol her sacrifice in working hours late into the night for the sake of our bellies and bodies, to say nothing of our spirits: 'Ah, bless you, Liljana, bless you. No one else could have summoned up such delicious fare in such a place, and no one else would even have tried. I'll go to bed a better man tonight.'

His words brightened Liljana's spirits more than could any of Master Juwain's meditations. She even insisted on staying up late to clean the pots herself so that we could get a good night's rest, and this was no little thing considering that she had little water for the task. She went to work contentedly, almost happily — that is, until she discovered that Maram had appropriated a jar of strawberry jam and consumed all its contents himself. She found this cast-off container in some leaves at Maram's place by the fire. As she held up the empty jar and shook it at Maram, her mood instantly fell from good will toward all men into a rare and shocking fury: 'How can you have gobbled all this down in one meal yourself? Don't tell me there wasn't enough else to eat!'

Maram stammered out, 'I… I, ah, I ate as I always eat! Do I need to ask your leave to have a little jam?'

'You ate all the jam — there is no more!'

'Ah, no more strawberry, perhaps, but we've jars of blueberry and cherry, and apple butter, too.'

'But strawberry was Daj's favorite! You knew this, and you ate it all, even so.'

'Well, I'm sorry,' Maram said. 'Believe me, I can't tell you how sorry I am.'

'You're sorry you got caught, that's all,' Liljana shrilled at him. 'You've no more care for Daj than you do for me — else you would have saved at least a little jam.'

Daj, awed by Liljana's rage, stood beside her and looked up at her as if she had transformed into a she-wolf.

'You're a hog,' she said to Maram. 'A great, fat hog of a man, and you've no care for anyone or anything except what's in the trough in front of you!'

Such words can put poison in the soul; in truth, they can poison the soul of the one who utters them, as well. Liljana stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at Maram as he glared back at her. Finally, he muttered something about having to comb down the horses, and stalked off away from the fire.

I took Liljana aside and pressed her hand into mine, trying to draw off some of her fire. I said to her, 'You, of all of us, must keep us together, not drive us apart.'

My words seemed to calm her, but only slightly. She said to me, 'All that I said to Maram was true!'

'Yes, it was true,' I told her. 'But you must know that you shouldn't say it precisely because it is true.'

'I do know that,' she said, glancing down at the ground. Then she looked at me. 'Thank you for reminding me. The Materix before me — Anahita Kirriland — warned me that I could be as murderous as Morjin if provoked, and I've always known she was right. But that Maram provokes me so! Sometimes I think he hates me!'

'No,' I said, smiling at her. 'He regards you as he would his own mother.'

'Do you really think so? But sometimes he has so little respect.'

'Don't you think he knows that? Don't you think he knows who he is and wishes to be better, as we all do?'

Liljana's face softened as I said this, and she might have smiled if Morjin hadn't stolen from her this grace. She returned to the task of washing her pots with a lifting of her spirits, if not exactly good cheer. And I went off to speak with Maram.

I found him thirty yards away from our camp, sitting in the dark on a log near a blighted tree. At my approach, he gave a jerk and thrust his hand under his cloak. He moaned out to me, 'Ah, Val, Val — that woman hates me!'

'Of course she doesn't hate you,' I said, stepping closer. 'She's just not herself — none of us are.'

'No, I think she's too much herself, if you know what I mean. Oh, too bad, too bad.'

Maram's self-pity swept over me in waves that made me sick in the belly. As he opened his mouth to bemoan his fate for the thousandth time, something else swept over me as well: a blast of brandy-tainted breath.

My sudden fury shocked me as I shouted to him: 'You've been drinking!'

'Ah, well so what if I have!' he shouted back. 'Where's the bottle then?'

From beneath his cloak, Maram withdrew a bottle of brandy unstoppered and half-full judging from the sloshing sound of its contents. The sight of it further inflamed my fury. I lashed out with my fist, knocking his forearm and dislodging the bottle from his hand. It bounced off the log and fell to the forest floor, where its dark brandy ran out onto the ground.

'What have you done?' he cried out.

He lunged for the bottle as if hoping to rescue at least a few drams of brandy. But I caught hold of his arm and jerked him up short.

'What have you done?' I yelled back at him. 'Your vow — '

'My vow be damned!' he cried out. 'As we're all damned in this damnable woods!'

For a moment, I wanted to slap the despair from his face. But then the outrage and sense of betrayal that poured out of him stilled my hand. I made a fist again, and bit my own knuckles. And I said to him, 'I.. am sorry. Please forgive me.'

Then it was my turn to go marching off into the woods. As my boots squeezed the moisture from mildewed old leaves, I tried breathing deeply, as Master Juwain had taught me. I tried meditating upon the brilliance of the rising sun, as he had also taught me in one of his light meditations. Nothing seemed to help. I leaned against the trunk of a twisted tree, and I could not calm the beating of my heart, which jumped in my chest like a hare fleeing a ravenous predator.

'Morjin,' I whispered. 'Morjin.'

I knew that somehow |e was attacking us, through the Black Jade. This cursed crystal called to me through the blackened forest. The very earth beneath my boots seemed to despise me, and promised soon to rot my flesh and bones.

How was it possible, I wondered, that I had nearly struck my best friend? The dark earth of the Skadarak called to the darkest part of me: Valashu...

I had impulses. All people do. I wanted to run in terror from the beast snapping its jaws at the back of my neck, even as I wanted to pretend that Liljana was my mother and fall weeping into her lap. Whenever I looked at Atara, my arms trembled to crush her to me and kiss her beautiful lips, to carry her off and fill her with the seed of our child. The wound in my back was an outrage that demanded protest. All the wounds that I had taken since I was a child to my body and my soul, gave voice to agony. The pain of the kirax burning up my blood was a fire I could never escape. It made me want to scream at the immense torment of life. My fingers ached to tear out Morjin's liver and cast it to the dogs, as my tongue tingled to taste his blood. As the night deepened and I stood alone in the lightless woods, I wanted to free all these impulses and a hundred more as I might uncage rabid rats — even the darkest and deadliest impulse of all.

Sometime after midnight, I returned to our camp. Master Juwain sat by one of the fires with his eyes fixed upon a page of the Saganom Elu. He seemed to be reading the same lines over and over again. Atara was by herself near the other fire seeking knowledge of another sort. When I sat down beside her, her whole body gave a start, and her fingers fumbled to find my hands and face. 'What's wrong?' I asked her. 'It's all dark, now,' she told me.

The heart of this brave woman sent out pulses of fear. 'We'll find our way out of here,' I promised. 'Tomorrow, we will.'

'It won't matter if we do,' she said. 'It's all dark as if there will never be light again. As if there never could be light again.'

I tried to lift her fingers toward my lips but she pulled her hand away from me. The coldness that flowed out of her would have frozen the very rays of the sun. 'Atara,' I whispered.

'No, don't say anything,' she whispered back. 'Go to bed and gather some strength for tomorrow. Let me be alone.'

As she wished, I said goodnight to her, but I could not go to sleep. I left her sitting silently by the fire, eyeless in eternity.

As I paced about near the quiet forms of Daj and Estrella, I brooded over all the ways that I might kill Morjin. Once, Atara had warned me that his death would be my own. My fate seemed to be hurtling toward me like a great black stone cast by a cata-pult. I could not step aside to save myself. It made me sweat with a sick, black fear, but I almost didn't care.

Much later my pacing carried me over to the western edge of our encampment where Kane stood leaning out over the fence. He faced the black forest to the west. Where Master Juwain had stared at the same verses in his book, Kane simply stared — at nothing.

'Valashu,' he finally said to me. His voice rolled like a deep and distant thunder. 'Why are you here?'

'I keep thinking of Morjin,' I confessed to him. So do I,' he told me. 'And of Asangal.'

'Why do you speak of the Dark One by that name?'

'I was trying to remember what he was like before … before.'

I listened to the sound of a drunken Maram snoring by the fire, and I asked, 'What was he like, then?'

'I think he was much like you,' He turned so that the flames of the fire licked at the centers of his black eyes. 'He thought about death too much, too.'

He stood staring at me as the world upon which we stood pulled us even deeper into night. His dark gaze seemed to grab hold of me and pull me into a flight of stairs that twisted down and down through a hole in the black earth, on and on, and deeper and deeper, forever.

'Asangal feared it,' he told me in a deep and almost dreamy voice. 'So, and fearing it, he denied it.'

And in denying it, as Kane said, Asangal had gone on to fight what he called the Great Lie with every breath in his body. The results we could see and feel all around us, in the poisoned earth of the Skadarak and in our souls.

'But Valashu,' he said to me, 'a man, before he becomes one of the Elijin, must overcome his fear of death — do you understand?'

The Elijin, he went on to say, were destined to become Galadin, even as the Galadin themselves were doomed to die into greater beings. Some, such as Ashtoreth and Valoreth, found glory in this becoming. But for others this distant fate, if feared, would fester and grow over the ages into a crushing torment.

'Do you understand why?' Kane said to me.

I thought I understood very well why. And so I spoke to him Morjin's words to me — now my words to myself: 'Because who can bear the thought of being erased? Who can bear the never-ness of night without end?'

'So, who can bear that?' he snarled out. 'But that is not the worst of things — no, neither the deepest dread nor the worst.'

'What could be worse than that?'

In answer, he bent down and scooped up a handful of moist earth. His hand tightened around it and he said, 'As a man lives, on and on, he takes more and more of the world into himself. If he lives truly, he opens himself to great beauty, all the glories of the earth. So, he creates these glories, eh? And in creating, as a father with a child, he comes to love what he puts his hand to, more and more deeply. And so he hates being sundered from it in death.'

I thought of Atara's beautiful blue eyes and the children that Morjin had taken from us when he had gouged them out. Worms of fire ate at my own eyes, and I said, 'He killed her, a part of her, even as he killed my mother and grandmother, forever. Damn him — and damn death then, too!'

Kane shook his head at this as he took my hand and pressed a clod of earth into it. 'Morjin speaks thus, and so Angra Mainyu, but you must not.'

'How should I speak, then?'

He shook his head again and said to me, 'So, the One means death to be a gift, not a curse. Why? Because in living forever, a man would want to behold all things, taste all things, drink in the whole of the world and create his own. But man, even though he be a Galadin, is only ever a finite being, eh? And so this lust for the infinite would grow vaster and vaster in a sick heat and consume him in a terrible flame. Then, despite his love for the world, that which was sweet would become bitter; the new would too-quickly grow old; things of light would fade in darkness, and the bright, green shoots of love turn into a twisted and blackened hate. Then a man will say "no" to all of creation, and most of all to himself.'

He looked about our encampment at the reclining forms of our friends. In a low voice, he told me, 'So, Val, so — there are a thousand ways to hate life, but only one way to truly love it.'

And with that, he clasped his hand around the clod of dirt cupped in mine, then returned to his vigil, staring out at the dark and silent woods.

The morning came only a few more hours after that, but it seemed to take forever for the trees around us to brighten to a sort of blackish-gray. Maram groaned upon being awakened, and complained of a terrible headache; we all moved as if we had drunk wine poisoned with poppy. Setting out into the woods was a torment of heavy limbs nearly drained of purpose, and spirits as confused as a flock of birds at an eclipse of the sun. Here, I knew, the very earth was sick and had gone mad. Soon it became clear that we were hopelessly lost. I drew my sword in order to light our way, but its silustria gleamed only dully in whatever direction I pointed it, and then faded with the miles so that it seemed it would never gleam again. My sense of direction, strangely remained strong, and I led us on and on, five miles across the poisoned earth and then two more. Due west called to me through the sodden gray woods as clearly as a bell. Why, I wondered, did it seem that we were only working our way deeper and deeper into the Skadarak?

Because here, a voice inside me whispered, your sense of direction has been twisted.

For a long while, I did not want to heed this deep voice. But then, around noon, with Atara stumbling over tree roots and the children staring out at the stunted oaks with dark, empty eyes, I called for a halt. While Pittock and Gorman went off to look for sign of direction, I turned to Berkuar and said, 'This wood is cursed. Here, north seems west, and west turns south and then east. And all directions, it seems, lead ever and only one way.'

'Toward the Black Jade,' he muttered.

'It is calling me,' I told him.

'It's calling all of us,' he said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. He moved his jaw as if to spit, and then swallowed a gout of barbark juice instead.

Just then a great, bellowing shout sounded from farther in the woods. I turned to look past the blackened trunks of the trees at Pittock and Gorman. Gorman stood backed up to an old elm; Pittock had thrust his long knife into his belly, and stood there beside him, pushing and twisting the knife in deeper.

'Pittock!' Berkuar cried out. 'Damn you, Pittock!'

He drew his own knife and set out bounding through the woods straight toward them.

I followed him a moment later, and so did Kane. But we could do nothing. Before we could draw within ten yards, Pittock ripped his knife free from Gorman's body and let him fall dying to the ground. He shook his bloody knife at the forest and shouted out, 'He killed my cousin, so damn him, and his father and mother — and damn the whole world for whelping them and all their line!'

And with that he turned his long knife upon himself, thrusting it up beneath his ribs into his heart. He died slumping down toward the ground, and leaving bloody marks as he clawed at the bark of the elm tree.

'It was their old quarrel,' Berkuar said, going forward to stand over his two men. He spoke these words with an acceptance of the inevitability of murder, and I hated him for that. 'Let's bury them then.'

Only Estrella wept for these two ill-fated woodsmen or had the kindness to look for flowers to put on their graves. In the blighted forest, she found none.

It took all our will to get out shovels and dig two long holes and lay Gorman and Pittock in the earth. There seemed no point to interring them this way. In truth, there seemed no point to anything.

'We're lost,' Atara said as she fumbled for the reins of her horse. She was the last of us I would have expected to give voice to despair. 'I can't see our way out of this.'

'That's because there is no way out,' Maram muttered. He glowered at Master Juwain and snarled, 'Tell me if you know of any Way Rhymes for this place!'

But Master Juwain only shook his head at this and gripped the leather binding of his useless book.

'It may be,' I said, 'that the only way out is in.'

'No, Val,' Kane said to me.

'If it's the Black Jade that is truly calling us,' I said, 'then let us answer this call. We'll find the dark crystal and destroy it.'

At this Kane drew his sword and thrust it down into the ground. 'Can you destroy the very earth to which it's welded?'

'It might be that with the crystal destroyed, the earth here would have less power over us.'

'Can't you see,' Master Juwain said to me, 'that Morjin would want you to think like this?'

'I can see it well enough,' I said to him, hating the hauteur in my voice. 'We'll destroy the crystal even so, and someday, Morjin himself.'

The dark fire that filled my eyes then easily ignited the coals inside Kane. A savage smile split his face as he gazed at me and said, 'So — perhaps this is the only way.'

Estrella stepped up to me and grasped my hand. I was sure that she wanted to tell me that she would help me find the Black Jade. Then she shook her curly hair away from her tear-filled eyes as she looked up at me with a terrible fear.

Daj, speaking for her, came up to me and said, 'Do we have to go looking for this crystal? Why can't there be another way?'

Master Juwain rested his rough old hand on Daj's head and said to me, 'Abrasax told us that we mustn't listen to the call of this crystal. You agreed to this, Val.'

'If I did, then I was a fool,' I closed my eyes against the dark hateful drumbeat of my heart. 'You see, I don't know how not to listen.'

I opened my eyes to gaze at Master Juwain in silent accusation. 'Well, first and last,' he told me, 'there are the Light Meditations.' 'Did they help Gorman or Pittock?' I asked him. 'Have they helped you?'

The sick look on Master Juwain's face told me that these meditations had availed him little.

'The truth is,' I told him, 'I must listen. How are we to destroy evil if we don't understand it?'

If the logic of my words failed to persuade Master Juwain, the force of my will bent him to our new course. A gleam came into his gray eyes as he nodded his head to me and told me, 'In truth, I don't know how not to listen either.'

And so without a backward glance at the graves of Gorman and Pittock, we resumed our journey. After another few miles, we paused in order to look through the twisted trees that trapped us. Liljana passed around a waterskin. Master Juwain walked off into the woods to look for a way out of them, or so he said.

Just as it came my turn to drink, I noticed Liljana pat her tunic's pocket with a sudden and rare panic, and then thrust her hand inside. And she cried out, 'My gelstei! It's gone!'

'Are you sure?' I called to her. I hurried over to her, and so did Kane and Maram.

'It is gone!' she cried out again.

'Ah, it must have fallen out,' Maram said to her. 'Perhaps while you were sleeping.'

She pressed her lips together, then hissed at him, 'It did not fall out! I would never let that happen. And so it must have been taken out.'

She stared at him with a dark and deadly look.

Just then Master Juwain came to Maram's defense, saying to Liljana, 'I'm afraid it did fall out. I found it late last night while you were snoring.'

With that, he took his hand from his pocket and held up Liljana's little blue figurine.

'But why didn't you wake me then?' Liljana shouted at him. 'And why did you go the whole day without telling me?'

She came up close to him, and her hand darted out as quick as the head of a striking snake. But Master Juwain proved quicker, for he snatched the crystal away from her, out of her reach.

'Master Juwain!'

Maram and I both called out his name together. Then we hurried up to Liljana and grabbed her arms to keep her from thrusting her fingers into Master Juwain's throat or some other deadly vulnerable chakra.

'Give it back to her!' I shouted at Master Juwain.

'But I was only trying to keep it safe,' he huffed out. 'And to keep her safe. In these woods, so dark, the temptation to use it must be very-'

'Give it back to her!' I shouted again.

He stared straight back at me as his fingers tightened around the crystal so hard that his whole arm trembled. Then he seemed to will himself to extend his fist and drop the figurine into Liljana's outstretched hand. She immediately thrust it deep into her pocket as she glared at him.

'You,' she said to him with an acid contempt, 'tried to use it, didn't you? To look inside Morjin's mind?'

'His mind,' he said as if intoning a magic word. His eyes glazed over as if dazzled by a bright light. 'What do we really know of it? He was an Elijin, once, but is he so different than mortal men in his mentations? Perhaps. Perhaps. I know that his words strike us as evil, even mad, but there must be a logic beneath it all. If we could discover the source of his onstreaming intelligence, which I admit is great, then we might discover the whys and ways of the great Red Dragon. The whys and ways of much more. The secrets he keeps! He has knowledge unknown to men. Perhaps knowledge of the mystery of mind itself … or at least his own. What if one could dive down and find the currents that give rise to it? I can almost see it! They would form up, each individual thought, like waves upon the sea. At times, one must swell larger than another, and drown it out, and then another and another — an infinitude of digressions, distractions and side-thoughts, as with any other man. But always, the deeper logic, revealed through analysis of perceptions, indications and manifestations, these endless technics and deductions, you see. There must be a way to peel back the waves to understand how they birth each other and impinge on each other, even overwhelming and annihilating as they ever form and reform, ever shaped by the source of all waves: the way that the very mind of the One forms thoughts, and causes all things to burst into creation. Morjin must seek this deepest of secrets, the final one, shining like a perfect jewel, which lies beneath the endless layers and depths of watery waves, down and down and — '

'Master Juwain!' I cried out. I grasped hold of his arm, hard and shook him. Then his madness for pure thought left him at least for the moment and his eyes cleared. And I asked him, 'Did you use Liljana's gelstei?'

He shook his head, then admitted, 'Almost I did. If Liljana hadn't been so suspicious of me — '

'Me, suspicious of you!' Liljana cried out.

I called out, 'This dispute must end here and now. Or else we'll all end up like Gorman and Pittock.'

I thought that Master Juwain wanted to argue with me, but then he bit his Up and nodded his head. Liljana only scowled at him — and at me. Then she turned to stomp off back toward the horses.

After that, I led us deeper into the woods. No one spoke, and we walked on into a terrible silence. The trees of the Skadarak began thinning out and grew ever more stunted and blackened with the disease that blighted them. Some sort of stinking, greenish-black fungus clung to the forest floor and fouled our boots. We were hard put to encourage the horses to set their hooves down into it and keep them moving forward. As for ourselves, it was a misery to keep going on and on, but there seemed no help for it. For a deep voice, I sensed, sounded inside all of us. It promised us endless fascinations and sweet drink to quell the fire of existence; in truth, it promised us everything. It kept calling to us in a dark and dreadful tone that none of us could resist.

How, I wondered again, could I not listen? I tried putting my hand to my sword and bringing to my mind all the light that was inside it. It was not enough. I listened for the sound of Atara saying yes to a marriage troth and heard our children playing happily in the yard of a little house by a stream, and that was not enough either. I remembered promising my grandmother that I would not let my burning for Morjin's death destroy me, and still the fell voice called me on.

We came to a place where the trees would not grow, nor would any other living thing. The ground before us was bare and blackened, littered with many bones, mostly human. I felt a strange, sick heat emanating as from the center of the earth.

Altaru suddenly reared up and whinnied as he struck the air with his hooves. I stroked his neck and murmured to him: 'Ho, friend, peace — it will be all right.'

I told him that we were both strong enough to walk straight into this black hell and walk out again. I could listen to the voice of the Skadarak, just a little, and take from it the knowledge to undo it. It could have no power over me, for only I, in the end, had power over myself.

'So,' Kane said, staring out into this swath of death-scorched earth.

His black eyes seemed perfectly to mirror the blackness before us. The rest of our company looked at me then to see if I would lead us into it.

'It's all right, Estrella,' I heard Daj whisper. He stood with her by their horses, holding her hand as she blinked back the tears from her eyes.

I knew then that if I took one more step and set foot into this wasteland, I would never find my way out again. There are some holes so black and deep that there can be no escape. It didn't matter. The Black Jade, I told myself, must be dug up and destroyed. I turned my face toward the heart of the Skadarak.

No, a voice whispered to me. No.

My eyes lost themselves in a great, blackened bloom of hate. The kirax burned me; I could feel Morjin trying to make me into a ghul. The One be damned, I thought, for shaping my fate so. I knew that even if by some miracle I did escape this place, it would leave its evil sear in my soul. I would have no more mercy for anyone else than I did myself. I would put to the sword my enemies, even though they begged quarter of me; I would torture captives with heated irons to make them tell me their secrets; any and all who opposed me I would slay with the bright fire of valarda.

And then another, even darker thought came to me: I didn't care. Morjin had spoken of three levels of evil, but I knew that there was a fourth: simply not caring if one's actions were evil. I would do what I must do, what I wanted to do, and the world be damned. There seemed no help for it. I steeled myself to take the final and fateful step.

No.

I looked at Berkuar, who seemed more than willing to follow me into this black hell. But I could feel his raging resentment at me for leading him here; I knew that he would be thinking that this was a trap and that I had betrayed him after all. Treacherous people were always keen to suspect others of treachery. And weren't the Greens veritable demons of treachery, as Gorman and Pittock had proved? Truly, they were, and so very soon, at the first sign of Berkuar moving against me, I would have to draw my sword and cut him down. Likewise I must slay Kane, for I knew that he would be heeding the same dark call as I and would be compelled to put his sword into me before I fell upon him. Maram I must send on, here or perhaps in the desert, because someday his selfish ways would get us all killed. Master Juwain was doomed to fall beneath my blade, too, for I knew that very soon he would be tempted again to look into Morjin's foul mind. And Atara. Wouldn't killing this poor, tormented woman be a mercy? It would be the hardest thing I'd ever had to do — one quick stab through the heart — but in a way, the kindest, too. What one must do out of love, I thought, occurs beyond good or evil. I must kill Atara, as I would kill for her a thousand times a thousand times — even as I would gladly die for her. And I would soon die, by my own hand, for I was truly damned for even thinking of killing the one I most loved. But before I took my sword to myself, I must stab and hack to pieces all my enemies. They were everywhere. For war was everywhere and would never end. My part in this eternal war would grow only deeper and more murderous as my enemies became greater in power and numbers. And here, in the heart of the Skadarak, dwelled my most terrible enemy of all. He must be slain. All things born of this damned and twisted earth must be slain, and most of all the treacherous earth itself. I had not made the world so. But I must take my part in its unmaking, slashing out with my unquenchable sword through the flesh of all who opposed me and the blackened skin of the earth itself, feeling the heat of their blood flowing like red lava, killing all that lived in order to fulfill my fate, killing and killing …

Valashu.

The whispering of my soul had fallen so faint and faroff that I could scarcely hear it. The dark, fell voice of the Skadarak called to me in a thunder like that of a fire mountain bursting in two. How, I wondered for the hundredth time, could I not listen to it?

'Mother,' I whispered. 'Ashtoreth.'

Did the woman who had given me birth truly dwell with the Galadin beyond the stars? Could she hear me call to her, or was she as deaf and doomed as I was?

'Mother,' I whispered again. And then another name, that of an old friend, came almost unbidden to my tongue: 'Ahura Alarama.'

With this simple movement of my breath past my lips, Flick appeared. This being of twinkling lights whirled before me, and his colors quickly brightened and solidified into a form I loved very well. In a click of the fingers, Alphanderry stood between me and the bone-strewn circle of black earth.

He seemed every inch my companion of old: His curly black hair was tangled like a mop, and flopped down over his soft brown eyes. His skin glowed with rich browns and golds and the underlying tone of glorre. His voice, too, sounded out all bright and full of his great gladness of life. He did not wait for the stunned, soul-sickened Kane to bring forth his mandolet and accompany him. He simply sang to us. He smiled, and his sensuous lips parted, and from deep within his throat sounded a beautiful song. It rose, like the wind, and built higher and higher, and ever more lovely like the very songs of the stars. In its pure and golden notes was praise of all life — even of ourselves. We listened until tears sprang into our eyes. And still Alphanderry kept singing, like an ocean emptying itself, singing and singing. .

'Valashu,' I heard a voice whisper to me. It was the voice of my blood, the very sound and soul of my throbbing heart. 'West is that way.'

I turned to face to my left and slightly behind me. Beneath the shield of Alphanderry's immortal song, my sense of direction lived again. Or rather, I could feel it within me once more: bright, steady and warm, for some things can never really die. I heard my fate, my true fate, calling me on. If we set forth through the trees behind us, we could walk straight out of the Skadarak.

La sarojin yil alla valhalla ….

As Alphanderry continued to pour forth music into this desolation of blackened trees and bone-cursed earth, I came to hear all of myself more deeply, and I remembered who I really was.

'Atara,' I called out to my blind, beloved companion who stood near me. I called the names of all my friends beside me. 'We cannot go into that,' I said, pointing into the heart of the wasteland. 'Let the Black Jade lie as it has. There are some things beyond the power of any man.'

For a moment, the whole world seemed to stop and hang poised on the point of a sword's blade. Maram wiped the sweat from his brow, and Master Juwain rubbed at the back of his head. Liljana closed her eyes as she fought a terrible battle with herself. Kane stared into blackness. His whole body trembled as with a tiger about to spring.

'Kane!' I called to him as I laid hold of his arm. 'Kane!'

Then he looked at me, and his eyes flashed with triumph. 'So,' he said to me. 'So.'

Liljana murmured, 'There are some things beyond any woman.'

Master Juwain said, 'You're right, Val. Why should we invite it to destroy us?'

He moved over to Liljana and took her hand in his. 'I'm sorry that I borrowed your gelstei. It will never happen again.'

'I'm sorry that I yelled at you,' Liljana told him. And then, 'If I should die along this journey, I want you to take my gelstei and keep it safe.'

They bowed to each other and embraced each other. At this, Berkuar laughed out in relief and spat happily upon the ground before us. Then Maram said to me, 'But we're still lost, aren't we? How can we ever find our way out of here?'

'We are not lost,' I told him. I drew Alkaladur and pointed my shining sword in the direction my blood whispered to me: the direction of my fate. 'That way will take us out of the Skadarak, and on to the desert and Hesperu.'

'Are you sure?' Maram asked me.

I closed my eyes a moment to listen to Alphanderry's strong, clear voice and the even deeper one that sounded within me. Then I looked at Maram and told him, 'Yes, I'm sure.'

I pulled gently on Altaru's reins and pointed my great, trusting horse toward the west. We walked through the nearly-dead forest over blighted, blackened ground. Alphanderry, like an angel, walked with us. And all the miles of the seemingly endless Skadarak, he never ceased singing his beautiful, inextinguishable song.