Black Jade

Chapter 30

The first thing I noted upon entering the next cavern was not sound but light. A soft, variously-hued radiance seemed to pour forth from the curving cavern walls and ceilings from no single source. A closer inspection revealed that the crystals studding the cavern's smooth rock each glowed from within. There were millions of them. Some were nearly as tiny as grains of sand; the largest were the size of Master Juwain's varistei, which nearly fit into his opened palm. They glittered through the whole of the cavern in a rainbow of colors: carmine; orange; citron; emerald; azure; indigo and violet. Most of the crystals were clear, like precious jewels, though many swirled with piebald or iridescent patterns, more like opals or pearls. Among these. Master Juwain identified many music marbles, touch stones and thought stones, all of the same family of gelstei. He guessed that the other crystals in this chamber were of some sort of related gelstei, but he did not really know.

The cavern had been shaped like a bubble of blown glass, only pinched-in and elongated as it opened down into the earth. We made our way slowly toward its center. This required us to move down steps that had been cut into the floor of the cavern long ago, a rather difficult feat since the cavern's splendor drew the eye not downward but out and up. A few crystals did sprout up from the floor like glowing mushrooms, but we guessed that most there had long since been broken off or chiseled out to make room for the pathways and open spaces upon which pilgrims might stand. There was nothing to do here, I thought, but to stand and stare in awe — and to listen.

As Kane had promised, thousands, perhaps millions, of voices filled the air. Not all of them, or even most of them, sang. I heard wails and laments, chants, thanksgivings, cries of joy and invoca-tions. The bray of an old warrior telling of his victories vied with the shrillness of a bereft woman wondering why plague and war had taken the lives of her nine children. At first this cacophony nearly drowned me like an ocean's wave slamming my body underwater against hard sand. The raw emotion in the multitude of voices, all speaking with passion and truth, nearly crushed the blood from my chest. I threw my hands over my ears to block out [this immense Sound. It helped only a little, for I could feel my flesh and my very hand bones vibrating in harmony with the voices filling up the cavern, and pushing the sound only deeper into me. I saw Master Juwain put his finger to one of the wall's vibrating crystals, which he had named as a touch stone. I remembered that the lovely, variegated touch stones recorded and played people's sentiments, instead of music, for others to feel.

'This is madness!' I cried out, looking at Kane. 'I cannot even hear myself think!'

Kane's jaws ground together as he glared back at me and slowly nodded his head.

'How do you bear it?' I asked him. My words seemed lost into the great noise about us. My other companions, however, did not seem as troubled by it as I was. Master Juwain told me that he could make out a voice reciting in ancient Ardik the long lost epic of Azariel — as well as another speaking in Marouan of the forging of the first of the blue gelstei. He did not pause to await my response, for two streams of sound sufficed to fill him to overflowing. I marveled that he seemed able to concentrate his awareness on only two, to the exclusion of the many others. So it seemed with Daj, who would not tell of what sounds enchanted him. He only stared at a cluster of aquamarine crystals as if soaring through a dream. Liljana asked if I could hear the voice of Seki the First telling of the building of the Temple of Life in the Age of the Mother. And of a boy asking after his missing father and a young woman singing of her love for a man named Seasar — and a dozen other threads of utterances that she somehow sorted out within herself and wove into a pattern making sense to her. Atara likewise shared this gift, and so, perhaps did Estrella. This slender girl seemed to open herself to the thousands of voices echoing through the cavern as if she somehow could hold each of

them inside her.

'If I remember aright,' Kane shouted at me, 'it gets better in the lower caverns. So, let's get on with things, then.'

He turned to walk down the steps where they cut through a particularly steep stretch of the cavern's floor. I followed him gladly, and so, less gladly, did the others. The deepest part of the cavern narrowed into a tube, as of a corridor connecting two parts of a castle. Here, no crystals arose from the smooth rock encasing us, and the voices died almost to a murmur. I breathed out a sigh of relief. I felt myself building stony walls inside my heart against the surge of sound and people's passions that would surely assault me upon our entrance to the next cavern.

The third cavern proved much smaller than the second: barely the size of a serving woman's chambers, with great, inward bulges in its crystal-lined walls that made it feel even smaller. The seven of us crowded in together only with difficulty, and we did not long remain. I noted, though, that the crystals in this cavern grew larger, some reaching nearly a foot in length. Strangely, the voices grew fewer in number and less strident, though perhaps I was learning to block out the sounds and words that most vexed me.

In the fourth cavern, deeper still, pink and silvery crystals grew out of the walls and floor like swords. The path through them cut steep and narrow, and we had to move with care lest we impale ourselves on their glittering points. Atara took my hand, and asked me if I could make out the voice of a minstrel singing in Old High Lorranda the Gest of Nodin and Yurieth. I could not. I wondered that we each seemed to apprehend different voices. I had a strange sense that the crystals here possessed desires of their own. Somehow the crystals, I thought, as of a gosharp's strings resonating with each other, attuned themselves to something deep and individual inside each of us and directed the sounds that pleased them into our ears and hearts.

Daj hadn't yet learned Lorranda, which Maram had called the language of love. He lifted his face toward the ceiling, hung with long, amethyst-like pendants and pulsing golden crystals. And in his high, piping boy's voice, he called out: 'I have a song for you! It's called the Gest of Eleikar and Ayeshtan, Princess of Khalind. It tells of how Eleikar slew the wicked King Ivar and gained Khalind's throne.'

Upon the sound of his bold words, Alphanderry appeared out of the cavern's close air. He stood in the radiance pouring down from the thousands of gelstei gleaming upon the cavern's ceiling and walls. He smiled at Daj, and said, 'Hoy, the song — let's hear the song!' Master Juwain, however, was not so pleased by Daj's enthusiasm, nor did he appear eager to listen to the story that Daj, Estrella and Alphanderry had nearly finished making. He turned his lumpy face toward the boy, and chastened him, saying, 'Your story still incomplete.'

Daj shrugged his shoulders as he cocked his ear toward a particularly large ruby crystal pointing down from the ceiling thirty feet above our heads. He said, 'Other stories are incomplete, too. Other songs are. The story of the whole world … has yet to be finished.'

'There is a time for singing, and a time for listening.'

'But I just want to sing of Eleikar, and listen to these stones sing back! Maybe the next people passing through will hear it and know how to complete the story if we don't — and if Eleikar himself doesn't, or even dies before he has the chance.'

'Dajarian,' Master Juwain said to him, 'Eleikar cannot really die.' 'That's just it, sir — we can't let him die.'

'He cannot die because he is not real.'

'He's real to me, sir.'

Master Juwain sighed as he rubbed the back of his shiny head and regarded Daj. Not two years ago, when we had rescued Daj from the Dragon's clutches, the horrors of Argattha had killed something precious and innocent in him, and he had been more callous of countenance and soul than a battle-hardened warrior. Now, the boy lived within him again, and a world of beauty and hope, and it gladdened my heart to see that.

'It is said,' Master Juwain explained to him, 'that only words spoken truly and with deep conviction can be recorded here.'

'I will speak the truth,' Daj assured him.

'But your story is an invention.'

'But what of Nodin and Yurieth, then?'

'Well, they are real. It is almost certain that they lived in the vanished kingdom of Osh, during the Age of Swords.'

'But Eleikar and Ayeshtan live inside me! A story doesn't have to be really real to be true.'

Master Juwain sighed as he rested his gnarled hand on a small purple crystal sprouting out of a rocky rise in the floor. It would have been an easy thing, I saw, for him to snap it off and put it in his pocket.

'All right,' he said to Daj. 'Speak as you will, and let us hear if these stones speak back.'

Daj stood up straight, and without hesitation, in a voice as steady and full of fire as the desert sun, recited the first verses into which he and Alphanderry, with Estrella's assent, had rendered their story:

In Khalind, once upon a time,

A boy's revenge, upon a crime…

We all stood listening as Daj sang out his story. After he had completed the first three stanzas, he fell into a silence. He stared at the lacy, white crystals adorning the wall before him. He waited lor them to begin sparkling like diamonds.

An echo, reflected back from a mountain's rock, reaches the ear faster than any bird can fly. We waited for a good ten count, and then thrice that long, and the only voices that any of us heard belonged to departed wanderers, minstrels, merchants and queens, but not to boys barely ten years old. And then, with a suddenness that froze the breath in my throat, the space about us fell dead quiet. The cavern itself seemed to be listening. And then Daj's words, in Daj's earnest voice, fell out of the air like perfectly formed jewels:

In Khalind, once upon a time,

A boy's revenge, upon a crime

So dark the demons shriek and sing

The torment of a wicked king...

When the song stones had finished speaking back Daj's verses. Master Juwain rested his hand on top of Daj's tousled hair and smiled at him. 'Well, lad, I must admit that I was wrong. Very wrong. There is truth, and then there is truth.'

'I told you,' Daj said, beaming at him.

'And then there is that which we came here to find,' Master Juwain said. He looked from Daj to Liljana, and then at Atara and me. 'Well-made verses, whether old or new, are always a delight to hear. But has anyone heard tell of the Shining One?'

We all had. Over the centuries, many had come into the caverns to sing of Ea's Maitreyas. Most of their songs were ancient and told of miracles of healing: In the third cavern, I had listened intently as a nameless woman gave praise to Godavanni the Glorious, relating how he had laid his hands upon her son's withered leg and made it whole again. A master of the Brotherhood — a man who called himself Navarran — told of his reverence for Alesar Tal's powers of soul and uplifting others' spirits. He had wondered if Alesar might be the Maitreya foretold for the end of the Age of the Mother, but. he had never determined this, for Alesar had never caught sight of the lost Lightstone and had died in obscurity, just another healer who lived out his life in one of the Brotherhood's schools. Liljana, as she informed us, had heard a song praising a Maitreya known simply as the Erikur. As the Maitreyas born near the endings of the known ages were accounted for, Liljana concluded that the Erikur had worked his wonders during one of the Lost Ages, after Aryu had slain Elahad and men and women lived nearly wild in lands whose names were lost to time.

And then there was Issayu. Born in the year 2261 of the Age of the Swords on the island of Maroua, he had grown into manhood talking to the dolphins and healing the blind. Of him it was sung that 'his hands were like the ocean's waters and his eyes like the sun'. Thaddariam, the Grandmaster of the Brotherhood, upon testing Issayu, had proclaimed him as the Shining One. Many looked to Issayu to end the terror of that age and bring a time of peace and healing. But after Morjin had conquered the Elyssu in 2284, he had captured and seduced Issayu, promising to bestow upon him the Lightstone and the gift of immortality. Of course Morjin had never actually allowed Issayu to hold the Cup of Heaven in his hands. The Lord of Lies had slowly perverted Issayu by requiring him to do darker and darker deeds in hope someday of becoming a great Wielder of Light. In the end, when Issayu had discovered how Morjin had twisted his heart and poisoned his soul, he had despaired and had killed himself by throwing himself out of a tower upon the rocks overlooking the sea.

All these accounts, and there were thousands of them, were ancient. But others seemed less old. Many people had come into the caverns to sing of their hope for the coming Maitreya, the Cosmic Maitreya — the last of the Shining Ones who would bring an end to the dark ages of Ea and herald in the Age of Light. Their many prayers and chants were variations of these words:

Hail Maitreya, Lord of Light,

Open up our deepest sight.

Shine like sun, forever bright.

Bring an end to darkest night.

At least fifty voices were new, for they told of King Kiritan's calling of the great Quest and how the Lightstone had been found. Soon, it was sung, the Cup of Heaven would find its way into the hands of the Maitreya. Indeed, this great-souled being might already have come forth: in the person of a blacksmith's son in Alonia or a fisherman on one of the Islands off Thalu or a Galdan healer — or even in the unlikely form of a prince of Mesh named Valashu Elahad. As I stood beneath purple and white crystals vibrating like a mandolet's wrings, I tried to take in the dozens of hints as to where the Maitreya might have been born and who he might be. So, I thought did Master Juwain and Liljana and my other friends. We listened most intently for accounts of healings and other miracles out of the lands in the north of Hesperu.

'Let us go deeper,' Kane finally said as he looked toward the passage to the next cavern. 'Let us hope that as the songs grow deeper, we will hear what we came to hear.'

We followed his lead. The fifth cavern twisted off sharply to the right, and down, many more feet into the earth. Virescent crystals the length of spears stuck up from the floor and hung down from the ceiling above our heads. A few of these flowed from the celling to the floor like delicate, translucent pillars. As I made my way through this narrow chamber, I seemed able to pick out single songs and concentrate my awareness upon them. In the sixth cavern, full of pendants, plumes and other lovely rock formations glistering with the fire of opals, individual verses and words became ever clearer even as the thousands of distracting voices faded to a murmur. It seemed that I had the power to let live within myself only those songs that touched me most deeply.

'I wonder,' Alphanderry said, 'if this is where Venkatil heard the voice telling him to seek for the Lightstone in the Tower of the Sun. I wonder if he also knew where the Maitreya might have been born.'

At last we came into the seventh cavern, nearly as round and vast as King Kiritan's hall in faraway Tria. The air fell quiet as over a field just before a battle. A hundred feet above our heads, amethyst, turquoise and rose crystals hung silent and still. Great pinnacles, jacketed in some pearly white substance, pointed up from the floor. They caught the glittering greens, reds and blues pouring off the cavern's curving walls; they caught the light of our eyes and seemed to drink in our breath and the sound our beating hearts,

'Why can't I hear anything here?' Daj whispered to Master Juwain.

Master Juwain, however, stood staring up at the brilliant dome above us and rubbing at his jaw in deep concentration, and so it was Alphanderry who answered Daj's question.

'What do you want to hear?' he asked Daj. 'This is the seventh cavern, and it's said that here a man may apprehend anything he wishes, as long he truly wishes it.'

'I don't know what I want to hear,' Daj told him. He watched, as did I as Alphanderry's form glittered with scarlet and silver lights. 'Something about the Maitreya?'

'You don't sound very certain.'

'Well that's what I should want to hear, shouldn't I?'

'Only you know that,' Alphanderry told him. His luminous eyes seemed to look right through Daj's hard-set face. 'Is there someone you'd rather hear about?'

Daj stared off at ohe of the opalescent pillars connecting the floor to the domed ceiling high above us, and he nodded his head.

'Who, then?'

And Daj whispered, 'My mother.'

Alphanderry thought about this and told him, 'Then you must listen deeply, and you will hear of her.'

'But how is that possible? No one who knew her. .could have come here to sing of her.'

'No, Daj, many have come: minstrels from across Ea for thou-sands of years. This chamber is known as the Minstrels' Cavern. Here they have sung of everything that can be sung.'

'But my mother — '

'She still lives, in the songs the minstrels have sung of their mothers. Listen, and you will hear.'

As Daj fell silent, casting his eyes down upon the marbled stones about us, Alphanderry turned to Liljana and asked, 'What song would most brighten your spirits?'

Without hesitation Liljana told him, 'A song of the Mother.'

Alphanderry slowly nodded his head, then looked at Master Juwain.

'What do you wish to hear?'

And Master Juwain told him, That which cannot be heard.'

'And you, Kane?' Alphanderry asked, peering over at our grim-faced friend.

But Kane stared at him in silence, answering him only in the fury of his blazing eyes.

'Atara?' Alphanderry asked, looking away from him. Atara smiled as she said, 'Why, a love song, of course.' Alphanderry paused regard Estrella, who gazed right back at him with a soft radiance lighting up her face. I thought she might be happy listening to, any song, or to all of them. And then Alphanderry turned toward me.

'Val — what do you most want to hear?'

What did I wish to hear, I wondered? The location and identity of the Maitreya? The secret of life and death? Words assuring me that Daj and Estrella would somehow grow up in safety and that Atara would have all the love that she could bear? Or did I wish even more to learn of a cure for the poison burning up my soul?

I drew in a deep breath of the cavern's cool air, and I said, 'I want to hear how Morjin might be defeated.'

At this, Kane smiled savagely, baring his glittering white teeth. Atara's hand reached out to grip mine. Liljana and my other companions looked at me quietly. Finally, Alphanderry said to me, 'I do not know what minstrel would have sung of that, but why don't we all listen, even so?'

And so we did. We found a clear place on the cavern's floor near its center, and positioned ourselves facing whatever part of the cavern called to us. And then we waited.

At first, there was nothing to hear — nothing more than the susurrus of our breaths and a faint drumming that sounded almost like the Heartbeat of the earth. I set my hand upon the leather wrapped around the hilt of my sword; I could smell the sweat and oils worked into it, as I could the moistness of stone. There was a strange taste to the air. Across the cavern from me, where its walls gleamed with silver swirls, the light pouring out of the crystals grew suddenly stronger. The crystals themselves rang out like chimes, and voices fell out all around us.

As before, there were many of them. But here, in the seventh cavern deep in the earth, they did not resound as a multitudinous noise or even as chords, but rather progressed like the notes of a melody, one by one. I listened as the rich baritone of one minstrel gave way to the booming bass of another, only to be followed by an even deeper voice trolling out in verse or song, and then yet another. Many of the minstrels had not put their names to their compositions or the ancient ballads and epics they recited; others had: Agasha, Mingan, Kamilah, Hauk Eskii Mahamanu and Azureus. In the Minstrels' Cavern, I thought names mattered less than the virtue of the voices that spoke them. I sensed that minstrels from across Ea had come to this place, century after century, age after age, to vie with one another in singing the most beautiful song. No gold medallion would be given to the winner of this age-old competition, for it remained ongoing, and living minstrels might always hope to outsing even the greatest of the ancients. It was enough, I thought, that their words would live on long after they themselves had died, perhaps to the very ending of the world.

For an hour, it seemed, I stood nearly as still as one of the cavern's stone pillars, listening. I thought it would be impossible ever to single out any one minstrel's song as being the most beautiful or true. Some of their voices trilled out high and sweet, like the piping of birds, and soared up to the sky; other voices rang out low and long like gongs or bells that resonated with something deep inside my heart. Once or twice the minstrels attained to the truly angelic, and in the rhymes they intoned and the rhythms of their strange words, I caught hint of the grace of the language of the Galadin.

It was the singing of one of these ancient minstrels that most drew me. I couldn't help listening, for his voice was clear and strong, and rang out with the brightness of struck silver: In his heart-piercing song, I heard much that seemed lovely, but even more that was plaintive and pained. The immense suffering of this nameless minstrel made my throat hurt. His words cut open my soul, and burned with a terrible beauty that drove deep into me and filled my blood with fire.

At first, I took little sense from these blazing words, for the minstrel sang them in ancient Ardik, a language that I never translated easily. But the more he chanted out his verses, the more I could apprehend. I found myself drawing my sword nearly a foot out of its sheath. Alkaladur's shimmering silver gelstei seemed to resonate with something in the minstrel's music, and within the minstrel himself. A strange thing happened then: the meaning of the minstrel's words suddenly became utterly clear to me, as though light shone through a diamond. And the mystery of the minstrel's identity stood revealed.

His name was Morjin. But he was not the Morjin that I had battled in Argattha and had hated ever since, nor did his voice sound the same as that of the man who had taken on the mantle of the Red Dragon. No, I thought, this was a different Morjin, a younger Morjin not yet completely corrupted by the evils he had wrought upon the world. His voice was sweeter, gentler and less sure of itself. It reverberated with a different pitch and tone. In its plangent insistence on trying to uncover the truth, I heard almost as much-love as I did hate.

This Morjin of old had a story to tell, and he had come here to tell it. He had come to open his heart, and perhaps something more, too. In the most exquisitely sad music that I had ever heard, these words of an immortal who had once belonged to the Elijik order sounded out deep inside the earth:

Let none hear my voice except my brothers in spirit, for only they will understand: I have slain a man. I, of those who are not permitted to slay, have done this thing which cannot be undone. In the dark of the moon, on a black night in winter with the wolves howling in the hills, I bade a man to look out the window upon the stars, and I put a knife into his back, into his heart — how else to slay this man who was more than a man? To slay? Why do I bite my tongue to keep from saying the true word for what I have done? And that is murder. Let me shout that, here, in the hollow of the earth to these pretty stents, as I soon must shout it to the stars: That is murder! And I am therefore a murderer — at last.

Iojin. You were my brother, in spirit, and my brother in a great quest. You always knew my heart. How could I hide from you that which had begun to live inside me, with a ferocity like unto starfire feeding upon an infinite scarce? I burned, and so you burned, in touching my heart. You knew what golden source of light blazed in all my thoughts so that I could not sleep. You knew that I must someday try to claim IT — I think you knew this before I knew it myself. I burned, and so you burned, with compassion for me. I wept to know that you did not hate me for this dragon fire that consumed me, but only loved me. But you feared me, too, even as I feared myself.

How could you, Iojin of the Waters, not have wanted to go to the others in fear of me, in fear for me, and in fear for what we had come here to do? In fear for the world? Did you count this as betrayal? No, I do not think you would have, for you loved me as a brother, and would never have suffered anyone or anything to have grieved me. And yet, Garain, I think, would have betrayed me to the Bright Ones who sent us here. And Kalkin even worse: you, so gentle of heart, could never look into his heart, as fiery as a star, as black as death. He, the mighty Kalkin, might have murdered me. He would have — I feel this in my heart. When I claimed IT, he proved his baseness by murdering men, lesser men, before I slew him and cast his body into the sea.

Upon these words, I couldn't help looking over at Kane, who stood grinding his jaws together as he wept silently, perhaps to the sound of some song that I could not hear. And then Morjin's beautiful voice captured me again:

And so, by evil fate, I had to murder my brother. When I stabbed you, you screamed and screamed — I didn't know it would hurt so badly or take you so long to die. I watched the light go out of your eyes. Your beautiful eyes, like bright pools, beloved by all, and not just me. But the last light was for me. I set it still, like the setting of the moon, and cannot forget. Just as I cannot forget the burn of blood that stained my hands, for it was so warm and bright. I cannot wash it away, nor do I wish to. For your blood became my blood, my very life. It fed me, and feeds me still. Out of your death, the Dragon was born, and that is a very great thing.

If your eyes could look into mine now, would I see forgiveness there? Would you understand? I think you would. You, who loved me and would have died for me, and did die, without my asking you. You always wanted me to shine like the Bright Ones themselves; now I do. But I think I would see tears in your eyes, too. You would weep for yourself as I weep. You would weep for me, your friend, your brother, who screamed himself at the agony of the knife and died even as you died.

I think always of both these men: their beauty, their goodness, their grace. Their… innocence. I cannot bear that they should be cast into a black pit, never again to smell the honeysuckle in high summer or to gaze upon the brilliance of the winter stars. Never again to sing. I cannot bear that the One made the world so. Now that I am who I am, I will not bear it. I will breathe all my fire into this hateful creation, and out of its immolation, as the silver swan is reborn out of the ashes of its death pyre, I will make things anew.

This, though it will be no consolation to you now, I promise: that I will use the stone of light to bring only good things into the world — as good and beautiful as you. I will bring peace to Ea. And peace to the stars and every part of Eluru. When my work is done, I will turn all my thoughts and memories upon you. All my will. For nine score days and nights, I have asked myself if I have done the right thing. I have kept the knife always close to me. How shall I use it? Only you can tell me. And so I have come here to sing, that you might live again. If my heart is true, there will be an opening. I will enter into a cavern, not icy and dark, but gleaming with great crystals and full of tight And I will sing. If my words are perfect, if the music is as beautifully made as were you, I will breathe my breath into you. And you will live again. I will clasp your hand in mine: I will touch my hand to your wound and make it whole. I will look once more into your eyes, full of wonder, full of forgiveness, full of light. And I will live again, too, and all will be well.

Music poured forth from Morjin's throat then, and its lovely notes seemed to rise and seek form in the music of the Galadin. I heard in Morjin's voice a terrible striving for pure tones and all that was beautiful and good. But something deep in the sounding of his soul hissed with self-deception and untruth. I grit my teeth against the poisonous lie built into the very heart of his song.

A faint sound from somewhere in the caverns above us caused me to break my concentration oft this eulogy — or perhaps it was a prayer. I stood breathing hard against the sharp pain stabbing through my chest. I turned my head, and Morjin's anguished words died to a whisper. Kane still stood beside me, weeping freely now, as did Daj and Estrella behind him. Master Juwain stared up at the cavern's crystalline ceiling as if listening to some impossibly brilliant song. Atara leaned back against the opalescent pillar to my right. The smile that broke upon her face warmed my heart; I sensed that one of the immortal minstrels had given her a love song as beautiful as her dreams. Liljana, however, seemed also to have been startled out of her rapture. She cocked her ear toward the opening to the sixth cavern above us, and said to me, 'Did you hear anything?'

Her voice broke the spell woven by the minstrels' songs. Kane, through blurry eyes, peered at the stairs leading up to the sixth cavern, and his hand fell upon the hilt of his sword.

The sound of boots slapping against stone now clearly echoed out into our cavern. As we waited, this noise grew louder. Then, from out of the corridor at the top of the stairs, one of the Stewards of the Caves appeared. He grunted as he made his way down the stairs, followed by another guard, as dark and thin as he was fair and fat. Between grunts and the banging of his spear butt against the stone steps, he called out to us, 'Good pilgrims! Good pilgrims!'

When they had come closer, winding their way between the sharp crystals projecting up from the floor, an annoyed Liljana called back to him, 'You disturb us, good steward! Did we not agree that we were to be left here, alone, for as long as we wished?'

'But Madam Maida!' he said, fairly shouting out the name Liljana had given the stewards, 'that is just why we have come: we have been left alone. I fear treachery!'

The steward, whose name was Babul, came panting up to us. He stood next to the second steward, Pirro, and explained what had happened:

'After you went into the caverns,' he said, 'Lord Sylar posted Pirro and me by the doors while he held conference with Tarran, Elkar and Hakun. I tried to hear what he said to them, but I couldn't. I didn't like the sound of his voice. I never liked him — King Yulmar made him Lord of the Caves only because he married the King's niece. There was always something wrong about him. He spoke of the Red Dragon too often, if you know what I mean. He never trusted me, either, nor Pirro here. I didn't want to do as he bade us, but he is my lord, and I had no choice.'

Liljana quietly listened to his story, inviting him to say more in the openness of her manner. But Kane finally lost patience, and grabbed hold of Babul's arm: 'So — out with, man: what did Lord Sylar bid you to do?'

Babul swallowed, and I saw the apple of his throat pushing up and down beneath the folds of fat there. He could not look at Kane as he said, 'After the sun had set and it was dark, Lord Sylar sent Taran riding off — where, I don't know. He came up to me and Pirro, and told us that you were a band of thieves — as clever as rats, he said. He had sworn an oath, he said, to protect the caverns' treasures, and wasn't about to let you defile them. He sent Pirro and me to find you. We were to tell you that Lord Sylar had discovered one of Madam Maida's coins to be counterfeit: of gold-plated lead. You were to pay us another, or to leave the caverns for good. We were to escort you back to the first cavern, and there you would be arrested. Lord Sylar had Elkar and Harun make ready the chains.'

'So,' Kane growled, squeezing Babul's arm more tightly. 'You were to capture us with this ploy of Sylar! So much for speaking the truth!'

'He told us you were thieves!' Babul said, his face reddening.

'What could we do?'

'What did you do, then? What happened, that you decided to betray your lord to us?'

Babul looked over at Pirro, who seemed to be trying to restrain his hand from grasping the hilt of his sword. And Babul told Kane: 'As soon as we had gone a dozen yards into the second cavern, Lord Sylar had Elkar and Harun close the doors behind us. He locked us in! I heard them laughing outside. I don't know why they imprisoned us, along with you.'

'No, you don't know,' Kane muttered as his knuckles grew white against Babuls arm. 'But you suspect, don't you? You said there was something wrong about this Sylar, eh?'

Babul nodded his head. He licked at his lips and told us, 'This is a bad time in Senta — a bad time everywhere, I think. It's said that the Dragon's Red Priests have many friends in Sent a, secret friends they call themselves. Spies, I call them. Traitors and snakes. It's said that they are everywhere. I am afraid that Lord Sylar is one of these.'

Kane suddenly released Babul, who stood rubbing his arm. Kane looked straight at Liljana, who returned his stare. I could see the question in Kane's eyes: was Babul's story to be believed or was it only a ploy within a ploy?

Liljana nodded almost imperceptibly to signal her belief that Babul was telling the truth. And then Kane snarled out, 'Back, then! Back up to the doors!'

Without waiting a moment longer, he bounded like a great cat for the stairs leading up to the sixth cavern. The rest of us followed him. Master Juwain could not move as quickly, and he managed to cut his leg on one of the crystals lining our path. Babul, practically dragging his spear behind him, fell far back as he puffed and panted for air. Although he was as fat as Maram, he seemed to possess none of Maram's stamina and strength. I held back near him, and Pirro, to make sure they didn't decide to put their spears into our backs.

But it seemed that they intended no treachery toward us. It seemed as well that we must hurry to escape from the caverns, or be trapped here to await whatever priest or assassin Sylar might have summoned.