Black Jade

he was only a count then — happened to slice off his nose on the tip of it.'

Although Liljana could not smile, her wry words caused nearly everyone else to smile. Then King Jovayl said to her, 'And you call yourself a pilgrim?'

'Then we were truly pilgrims,' she said, 'In quest of the Lightstone. Ulanu killed the best of us — the finest minstrel in the world! — And then nailed him to a cross of wood.'

'And what was this minstrel's name?'

'Alphanderry.'

For the thousandth time, I reflected on the miracle of Flick somehow taking on Alphanderry's face and form. I looked about the room for Flick's twinkling lights, but as always he winked in and out of existence according to a will beyond mine.

'A minstrel,' King Jovayl intoned, 'is the beloved of the One, for his heart sings with the words of the One.'

King Jovayl raised his cup in silent remembrance of our dead companion. Then he said to me, 'I have taken the counsel of our elders. We do not believe that this Lightstone that King Morjin claims can be the Kal Urna. Nor can the Maitreya you seek be the great Udra Mazda — not unless as a child he was once lost to the Avari and taken into the lands outside the desert. And yet we do not have claim upon all wisdom. If we are wrong, the Maitreya must be found and the Lightstone somehow must be taken back. And even if we are right that the Lightstone is only one of these gelstei of yours, King Morjin must be denied the use of it lest he send into the desert even worse things than droghuls. These are strange times, in which strangers can bring an udra mazda to us and new water be found. And so we have decided to help you. But help you how?'

'Help us to cross the desert,' I said simply.

'And how will you, strangers from wet lands, do this impossible thing even with our help?' King Jovayl sat on his cushions looking from Liljana to Maram to Daj.

'You cannot cross it to the far north — the way is too long, and the Sudi would kill you if thirst didn't first. Beyond the Sudi are the Idi, five hundred miles from here as the eagle flies to the northwest. The southern way will take you through the Zuri's or Vuai's country, where the Red 'Priests will surely be waiting for you now.'

'Perhaps,' Maram said, 'we should then reconsider our plans. Perhaps we should go back through the Masud's country, and then turn far south, through Sunguru.'

'No,' Kane barked out. 'In Sunguru, we'll find hundreds of the bloody Red Priests — and even more acolytes under their command. As well, the armies of King Angand.'

I took a sip of wine, then said to King Jovayl. 'How would the Avari cross the desert then?'

'We wouldn't,' he told me. 'We don't.'

'But don't your minstrels sing that the Avari have gone everywhere in the desert, searching for the Kal Urna?'

'That is true, in ages past, we have gone almost everywhere.'

'Even, then, into the Tar Harath?'

At the mention of this immense hell at the heart of the Red Desert, King Jovayl's face grew hard and full of dread. So did the faces of every other Avail sitting down to dinner. King Jovayl said to me, 'I see the turn of your thoughts, Valaysu. But you cannot hope to cross the Tar Harath. That would be madness. Nothing lives there, not even scorpions or flies. There is no water — only rocks and sand, wind and sun. And then sun, and more sun.' 'Then the Avari never go into the Tar Harath?' King Jovayl glanced at Sunji before turning back to me. 'We go into it, for we are Avari and the desert is ours.'

He told that men of his tribe often journeyed to the Golden Highlands to mine skystone out the rocks there. The deep blue skystone, as King Jovayl told us, was precious to the Avari, for it reminded them of the great vault of the heavens from which the Father of the Valari and Ea had once come. A few intrepid warriors had also ventured deeper into the Tar Harath in search of the fabled salt beds of a dried-up lake. As the Avari tell their children: 'Safe is life.' They usually do not say this of water, for that is too obvious. But in the desert, the salt dissolved in the blood and in the sweat pouring forth from the skin's pores was vital.

'In a thousand years, though, no Avari has ever found these salt beds,' King Jovayl told us. 'Just as no one has ever found water.'

Old Sarald pulled at the folds of flesh beneath his chin as he regarded King Jovayl with a bright, knowing look. King Jovayl took note of this and said to me, 'The eldest of the Avari's judges reminds me that I have not told all: it is said that there is water in the deep desert, though no Avari knows where. You must have heard word of this water yourselves, Valaysu.'

'No, we have not,' I said to him. 'Why would you think that?'

'Why, because when Sunji first questioned you, you admitted that you sought the Well of Restoration. That is the name of the water said to lie within the Tar Harath.'

I stared at King Jovayl in amazement. The inspiration for our story that we were pilgrims seeking the Well of Restoration had come from Maram one night on the Wendrush while he was deep into his third horn of beer. It seemed too incredible a coincidence that this name had just popped into his head, as he had claimed. When I turned to him now and caught his eye with a questioning look, he murmured to me: 'Ah, I must have been touched by the spirit of the One. Do you see now the value of brandy and beer? Why do you think they're called spirits?'

I tried not to smile at this as King Jovayl called out to him from the front of the room: 'What are saying, Prince Maram? Speak louder so that we all can hear you!'

'Ah, I was saying that you must be right. Wise King, that it would be madness for us to seek this Well of Restoration that even the hardiest of your warriors has not been able to find.'

Now I stared more intently at Maram, letting him feel my great desire to journey on.

'Ah, and that is why,' Maram continued, 'we must try to cross. the Tar Harath after all — we're all mad, as you must have guessed, even to have come this far.'

Now I couldn't help smiling, nor could King Jovayl or Sunji or even Old Sarald and many others sitting at their little tables. King Jovayl nodded at Maram. 'It may be that only a madman could survive in the Tar Harath. And yet there is a chance for others to survive, one chance only. It may be that the udra mazda could lead you to this water.'

All eyes in the room now turned toward Estrella. This slight girl, with her dark curls and dreamy eyes, sat between Atara and Liljana, eating an orange. She seemed unused to people expecting such great and even miraculous things of her. And yet I knew that she expected great things of herself. What these might be, however, I thought that she could not say, not even to herself.

She put down her orange rind, and looked at me. Her eyes shone like dark, quiet pools. She seemed to have a rare sense of herself, and something more. She nodded her head to me. She smiled, then turned to bow to King Jovayl, too.

'It would be cruel to take this child, or any child, into the Tar Harath,' King Jovayl said to us. 'And yet your way has been nothing but cruel. That the udra mazda chooses this freely is a great thing. We have drunk to her finding water; now let us drink to her finding such great courage.'

He commanded that everyone's cup be refilled again. Maram tried not to show his disgust at the prospect of have to swallow yet more warm milk. Estrella and Daj both seemed delighted to see their cups filled with wine — as far as I knew, their first taste of it.

'To Estrella!' King Jovayl said. 'May the One's light always point her way toward water!'

We all drank deeply then — all of us except the children, as Liljana permitted them a few sips of wine but no more. King Jovayl then called for an end to the feast and commanded that we should go to take our rest.

'Even with an udra mazda to guide you,' he said to me, 'a journey across the Tar Harath will be a desperate chance. I cannot supply you with men, horses and water until I have conferred with the Elders more. So go, rest — tonight and tomorrow. And then tomorrow night, I shall give you my answer.'

My companions and I went down to our rooms then, but I did not sleep very well because I shared a room with Maram, and he slept poorly. Despite his exhaustion, he kept moaning as he tossed and turned in his bed, struggling to find a position that did not put pressure on his sores. He grumbled and cursed and finally fell into oblivion vowing that he would never ogle another woman again.

But the next day, late in the morning, I found him outside leaning back against an orange tree near one of the hadrah's springs. He sat in the shade of this fragrant-smelling tree as he used a shard of a broken pot to scratch at