Black Jade

brandy.

'No — no more,' Master Juwain said. 'At least not until day's end.'

'This is the end,' Maram moaned. 'I don't know if I can get back on my horse.'

'You can,' I said to him. 'You must.'

'How many more miles, then, until we break for the day? Fifteen? Twenty?'

'It doesn't matter,' I said, smiling down at him. 'It doesn't matter if it's twenty thousand miles — we must keep on going.'

'Oh, Val, I don't know!' Maram said as he beat his fist at the flies attacking his eyes. 'I don't know, I don't know!'

I walked off near the well to confer with Master Juwain — and with Kane, Atara and Liljana. To Master Juwain, I said, 'It is too much for him. Perhaps you should use your gelstei to try to heal him.'

Master Juwain brought out his green stone, which gleamed like an emerald in the strong sunlight. He said, 'No — we've agreed that it's too dangerous to use, now.'

'And dangerous if you don't use it. Maram might die.'

Master Juwain rubbed the back of his head, now swaddled in dusty white wool. He stared at his sparkling crystal and said, 'I'm afraid that the Red Dragon can feel me contemplating using this, even across deserts and mountains.'

'Perhaps he can,' I said as I drew my sword. I nodded at Kane and then Liljana. 'Perhaps we can confuse him then. If Liljana were to put her mind to her gelstei at the same moment that Kane used his, then — '

'Then they both might die even before Maram does.'

These ominous words came from Atara. She stood beneath the blazing sun rolling her scryer's sphere between her hands. I bowed my head because I knew that she was right. And she said to me, 'If any of us should try to distract Morjin, it should be me.'

'No,' I told her, squinting against my sword's brilliant silustria. 'It should be me. Of all of us, Morjin has yet to find his way into my gelstei.'

'And that is precisely why your use of it won't distract him.'

As Sunji and the other Avari warriors looked on and Daj and Estrella watered the horses, I swung Alkaladur in a bright arc against the sky. 'If I could make Morjin feel the true power that I have sensed within this sword, then I might do more than distract him.'

'Yes, you might die,' Atara said to me coldly.

'And you?' I said to her, looking at her diamond-clear crystal. 'Would not using your gelstei be just as dangerous?'

'No, I don't think so. Morjin might try to show me the worst of torments, but what is that against what he has already taken from me?'

I remembered how Atara had once shared with me one of her terrible visions, and I said, 'He might trap you inside a world from which there would be no escape.'

Atara tapped her fingers against her blindfold. With the shawl wrapped over her nose and mouth, the whole of her face was now lost beneath coverings of cloth. 'The world is all darkness now, and what could be a worse trap than that?'

'No,' I said, resting my hand on her arm. I can't let you.'

She pulled away from me and gripped her sphere more tightly as she told me, 'You can't stop me. And you mustn't.'

We all finally agreed that Master Juwain should try to heal Maram, with Atara's help. When we put our proposal to him, he quickly consented, for he did not want to live another day scratching at his sores, or so he said. We helped him strip off his robes. I gritted my teeth against the sight of the bites marking nearly every part of his body. Some had grown scabs but many remained raw and open. Estrella and Daj came over and used cloths to shoo away the flies that buzzed around these ugly wounds. Master Juwain knelt next to Maram; he held his varistei over the cavities that Jezi Yaga had bitten out of Maram's chest. Atara stood ready with her clear crystal cupped in her hands. Sunji and the other Avari looked on in fascination and dread.

Master Juwain closed his eyes in meditation. Atara stood as still as a pinnacle of rock. After a while. Master Juwain looked down upon Maram with intense concentration. He gazed at his green gelstei, which he rotated slightly as if feeling for currents of life inside Maram that only he could perceive. We all remembered how the healing light from this crystal had made whole the arrow wound in Atara's lung and saved her from death.

'Hurry!' Maram said to Master Juwain. Despite the children's best efforts, the flies moved more quickly than their hands, and several flies had already found their way to wounds along Maram's legs and were busy sucking up the fluids that leaked out of him. 'Please, please — hurry!'

In a flash of light, soft green flames streaked out of both ends of Master Juwain's crystal. They bent downward and joined together in a glowing emerald ball. Then, like a fountain, this radiance fell down and filled the whole of one of Maram's wounds. I could almost feel the cool, healing light working its magic on Maram's tortured flesh.

'Oh, the pain!' Maram murmured out. 'The pain is going away!'

I looked over at Atara, all wrapped up in cloth like a mummy. She didn't move; it seemed that she didn't breathe.

'Good!' Maram murmured to Master Juwain. 'Ah, very good!'

I held my breath as the edges of the wound, touched with the fire's mysterious power, drew in and knitted together into a seamless expanse of hairy skin. I couldn't help smiling in triumph at this miracle.

Master Juwain repositioned his crystal above the wound torn out of the other half of Maram's chest. A fiery green light poured out of it. Maram smiled as this light fell upon him and suffused his flesh; then, without warning, his lips pulled back into a grimace. The light flared greener and brighter, deeper and hotter. And then, quickly, even hotter. It grew so hideous and hot that it seemed much more fire than light. Maram shouted to Master Juwain, 'Stop! Take it away! You're burning me, damn it!'

But Master Juwain, it seemed, could not take the crystal away. His fingers locked around it, and he stared down at Maram as a hideous light filled his gray eyes. And still the terrible fire poured out of his crystal and seared deeper into Maram's chest.

'Stop! Please! Stop, damn you! You're killing me!'

Maram, too, tried to move, but it seemed that some terrible thing had a hold of his nerves and muscles so that he could not roll out of the way. Kane and I dosed in on Master Juwain then. We each grabbed one of his elbows and lifted him away from Maram. We carried him ten feet out into the desert. This availed Maram not at all, however, for the fire still erupted from the varistei and now snaked through the air in a streak of green to find its way into Maram's wound.

'Stop! Stop! Stop!'

Almost without thinking, I held out my hand to try to stop this strange fire that might soon kill Maram. It passed right through my flesh without the slightest burn, leaving me entirely untouched. It continued flaring and twisting through the air, and sizzling into Maram's chest.

'Val, your sword!' Kane cried out to me.

I remembered that the silustria, along with its other powers, could act as a shield against various energies: vital, mental or even physical. I let go of Master Juwain and drew my sword again, I sliced it down through the green fire, then held it still, letting the fire rain against it. Like a mirror, its brilliant surface reflected the varistei's light back into the varistei. Master Juwain's crystal grew quiescent then. It took only a moment for the spell to be broken.

Master Juwain's eyes suddenly cleared, and he dropped his crystal down into the dirt. He ran back over to Maram, knelt down and rested his hand on Maram's chest. I expected to see the wound all black and charred; instead, it gaped raw and red as freshly flayed meat. It seemed that the evil fire had drilled deep into Maram's muscle, almost down to the bone. Strangely, the terrible wound bled only a little.

'I'm sorry,' Master Juwain said, brushing back the hair out of Maram's eyes. 'I'm sorry. Brother Maram!'

For a few moments, Maram could do nothing more than grimace and groan. And then he clasped Master Juwain's hand and said, 'It's all right — I forgive you. But please remember that I'm still Sar Maram.'

Master Juwain walked off to retrieve his crystal which he dropped into his deepest pocket as if he never