Black Jade

had the luster of lapis and the hint of the ocean's deep currents. Long ago, in another age, it had been forged of blue gelstei.

'Are you asking,' she said to me, 'that I should look into the minds of these Red Knights?'

Just then, out of the blackness beyond the fire. Flick appeared like a tiny, whirling array of stars. His colors of crimson, silver and blue, throwing out sparks, also pulsed in patterns that I took to be a warning. What was this strange being who had followed me across the length of Ea, I wondered? Was he truly a messenger of the Galadin, a little bit of starlight and angel fire? Or did he possess a will all his own, and therefore his own life and his own fate?

Master Juwain, upon glancing at Flick, turned to Liljana and commanded her, 'No, do not use your gelstei!'

Then he brought out his own gelstei: the emerald healing crystal that he had gained on our first quest. He held it up to the fire, letting the flickering light pour through its green-tinged translucency. Although it was hard to tell in the deep of night, a darkness seemed to have fallen over the crystal, as if it were steeped in shadow.

'It's too dangerous!' he said to Liljana. 'Now that the Dragon has regained the Lightstone, too damned dangerous! Especially for you.'

Maram regarded Master Juwain in shock, and so did I, for we had never heard him curse before. Liljana sat looking at her gelstei, cupped in her hands. As if she were holding a newborn, she swayed rhythmically back and forth.

'I won't believe that Morjin can use the Lightstone to taint this crystal,' she said. 'How can that which is most fair abide anything

fouler.

'Surely the foulness,' I said, 'arises from Morjin himself and our weakness in resisting him. He desecrates everything he touches.'

I turned to look at the white cloth binding Atara's face. I couldn't help remembering how Morjin, with his own fingers, had torn out her eyes.

'So, every abomination, every degradation of the spirit,' Kane said, gazing at Liljana's blue stone. 'But things aren't as simple as you think, eh? Don't be so sure you understand Morjin — or the Lightstone!'

'I understand that we must fight him — and not with swords,' Iiljana said.

She was a wise woman, but a willful one, too. And so she clasped her figurine between her fingers and brought it up to the side of her head.

'No,' Master Juwain called out again, 'do not!'

Once, in the depths of Argattha where the very rocks stank of rotting blood and terror, Liljana had touched minds with Morjin. And now, even as Estrella could not speak, Liljana would never smile again.

The moment that the gelstei touched her temple, she cried out in betrayal and pain. The crystal seemed to burn her like a heated iron, and she dropped it onto the grass. Her eyes rolled back into her head, showing the whites. 'Liljana!' I cried out. 'Liljana!'

It took me a moment to realize that not only I had called to her, but Maram, Master Juwain and Atara — even Daj and Kane. And then Atara sidled closer to Liljana and wrapped her arm around her back as she cradled Liljana's drooping head against her breasts. Estrella took Liljana's hand between hers and squeezed it tightly. Their little comforts must have worked a quick magic on Liljana, for soon her eyes regained their focus, and she gathered herself together and forced herself to sit up straight again. She drew in ten deeps breaths, and let each of them out, slowly. She wiped the sweat from her sodden hair. Finally she retrieved her blue gelstei. In her open hand it glinted, and she sat staring at it. Then she cried out: 'He is there!' 'Morjin!' I called back to her. 'Damn him! Damn him!' Daj rose up to one knee and leaned over to get a better look at Liljana's crystal. He asked, 'How, then? Where, then Where?' 'He is everywhere!' Liljana gasped. 'Watching, always watching.' She closed her fist around her stone and put it back in her pocket. Atara still embraced her, and now they both swayed together back and forth, back and forth.

Although I hated the need of it, I put to Liljana the question that must be asked: 'Were you able to open the minds of the Red Knights?'

'No!' she snapped at me. And then, more gently, 'He was waiting for me, Morjin was. Waiting to open up my mind. To twist his soul and his sick sentiments into me. Like snakes they are, cold, and full of venom. I. cannot say. You cannot know.'

I could know, I thought. I did know. When I closed my eyes, the bodies of my mother and grandmother, nailed to wood, writhed inside me. Only, they were not cold, but warm — always too warm as they cried out in their eternal anguish, burning, burning, burning….

I'm sorry,' Liljana said to Master Juwain, 'but you were right.'

Master Juwain sighed as he knotted his small, hard fingers together. 'I'm afraid it's too dangerous for any of us to use our gelstei, now.'

'And dangerous not to,' I said. 'Atara can still see, sometimes, with her gift, but without my eyes, I would be blind.'

And with that, I drew my sword from its sheath. Even in the thick of the night, the long blade gleamed faintly. The silustria from which it was wrought, like living silver, caught the stars' light and gave it back manyfold. It was harder than diamond and double-edged and sharp enough to cut steel. Alkaladur, men called it, the Sword of Sight that could cut through the soul's dark confusions to release the secret light within. The immortal Kalkin had forged it at the end of the Age of Swords, and it had once defeated Morjin. The silver gelstei was said to be one of the two noble stones; it was also said that the gold gelstei that formed the Lightstone had resonance with the silver but no power over it.

'Put it away!' Master Juwain said to me as he pushed out his palm. 'Use it in battle with the enemy, if you must, but until then, put it back in its sheath.'

I held my beautiful sword straight up, pointing toward the stars. A lovely, silver light spilled down the blade and enveloped my arm; it built around me like a luminous sea and flowed out to

bathe the grasses and the cottonwood trees and the other things of the world.

'Valashu!' Master Juwain said to me.

And I said to him, 'Liljana is right: the enemy is here, and everywhere. And the battle never ends.'

I turned to look north and west, toward Skartaru where Morjin dwelled. Although I could not see the Black Mountain among the lesser white peaks leading up to it, I felt it pulling at my mind and memory, and darkening my soul. Then suddenly my sword darkened, too. I held before me a length of gelstei no brighter than ordinary burnished steel.

'Damn him!' I whispered. 'Damn him!'

Now I pointed my sword toward Skartaru, and the blade began to glow and then flare in resonance with the faroff Lightstone — but not as brightly as it once had.

'He is there,' I murmured. 'There he sits on his filthy throne with the Lightstone in his filthy hand, watching and waiting.'

How could the world abide such a being as Morjin and all his deeds? How could the mountains, the wind, the stars? The same bright orbs poured down their radiance on Skartaru as they did the Wendrush and the mountains of my home. Why? And why shine at all? My eyes hurt from staring so hard as I brooded over the conundrum of a star: if it let fire consume itself, it would burn out into blackness. So it was with me. Soon enough I would be dead. A Sarni arrow would find my throat or I would freeze to death crossing the mountains. Or, more likely, one of Morjin's armies would trap me in some land near or faraway, and then I would be taken and crucified. I would descend to that dark, cold realm where I had sent so many, and that was only justice. But it seemed wrong to me, terribly and dreadfully wrong, that with my death, the bright memory of my mother, father and brothers that lived inside me would perish, too. And so those I loved most would truly die, and Morjin would have twice murdered my family and stolen them from the world.

'Valashu!' Master Juwain called to me again.

Where, I wondered, did the light of a candle's flame go when the wind blew it out? Could it be that the land of the dead was not fell but rather as cool and quiet as a long, peaceful sleep? Why should Morjin keep me in this world of iron nails, crosses and fire even one more day?

'Valashu — your sword!'