Black Jade

and stood staring at his open palm and five fingers in wonder. It was as if he were seeing himself for the first time and beholding long-desired possibilities.

Pirro likewise endured this trial that I urged upon him; afterwards, strangely, he seemed not to hate me but only to be glad to have found new resolve and a courage to match Babul's. He said to me, 'Senta will never fall, at least not from within as Galda did. If you pass back this way and I am still a guard here, you will be welcome. Perhaps next time, I'll even dare to go into the cavern that I will not speak of and does not really exist.'

He smiled as he bowed his head to me, and I bowed back. Then Babul assured me that he and Pirro would wait a few more hours before making their report in order to give us time to ride away from here. I felt certain that they would do as they promised.

We said farewell, and turned to make our way back down the path. When we reached the Inn of the Clouds, we had no need to awaken the innkeeper, for Kane already had. As the innkeeper told us, Kane had galloped off into the night less than half an hour before.

'It's unheard of,' the small, pot-bellied man told us, 'for our guests to flee like thieves in the night before they've even slept in their beds. I hope your accommodations didn't disappoint you?'

I assured him that his inn was the most splendid we had ever seen, but said that urgent business called us elsewhere. According to Kane's instructions, the innkeeper had our horses saddled and ready outside the white colonnades fronting the portico of this rather grandiose inn. Without further explanation, we mounted and trotted off down the road. In the light of the stars, we followed this well-paved track that led down from Mount Miru and wound around its rocky mass to the east, where it joined the road to Hesperu.

It was now well past midnight, and no other travelers ventured forth, neither southward towards Hesperu nor from it. We clopped along over smooth, star-washed stones. Fields ft rippling wheat opened out on either side of us. The crickets there chirped with a million tiny voices. As we passed by farmhouses standing alone beneath the black and silver sky, dogs barked out their warnings into the night.

When I was sure that no one had followed us, I called for a halt and turned toward Maram. I said to him, 'Well?'

'Well, what?' he called back.

Master Juwain, Atara and everyone else reined in their horses around us in the center of the deserted road. And I said to Maram: 'How did you find us? And why did you leave the Vild? And what did you — '

'Ah, Val, Val!' he said, holding up his hand and smiling. 'I'll tell you everything, though there's really very little to tell. I left the Vild because I could not remain. You see, I knew you would need me.'

The story he now related was indeed neither long nor complicated. It seemed that two days after the rest of us had ridden out of the Vild into the desert, a great disquiet had come over Maram. He realized that even though he cherished Anneli and loved the quiet peace of the Vild, other things remained even dearer to him. And so upon steeling himself for a long and solitary journey, he had said goodbye to the weeping Anneli and the other Loikalii, and went out into the desert. He found the Tar Harath to be just as hot and hellish as he had remembered. He followed our tracks west and then came upon the well of Manoj and his family. Manoj, when he learned that Maram was our companion, was only too happy to give him stores and water from his well, still full from the storm that Estrella had summoned. He told him, too, of the Dead City and the road leading up into the mountains. Maram had followed this road, even as we had, up through the lovely green valleys of the Crescent Mountains. He had searched out our old camps, one by one. He travelled as quickly as he could, trying to eat up our lead, for an unusual urgency drove him on. At last, he had found his way into Senta. Since Kane had spoken of the Inn of the Clouds, Maram had first looked for us there. 'It was strange,' he told me. 'There I was in the Loikalii's wood one fine morning eating cherries with Anneli, and I heard you calling to me. And on the road, all those days, I felt you wishing that I hadn't stayed behind. You did wish this, didn't you? You did call me?'

'Yes, Maram, I did,' I told him. But I didn't quite know how to explain that I had wished this most intently and called out the loudest scarcely an hour before is the cavern called Ansunna, where one's dreams and deepest desires might be made real.

Master Juwain, I noticed, was looking at me with great curiosity, as was Liljana. Then Maram insisted that we climb down off our horses, and so we did. He brought out two cups and the very last of his brandy. Alter filling them, he gave one into my hand and raised up the other. Starlight illumined the wide smile breaking upon his face, and the wind whipped at his hair. Then he clinked cups with me, and drank down his brandy, as did I. He embraced me as he thumped my back and cried out, 'Val, Val — It's good to see you again! It's good to be alive!'

Was it possible, I wondered? Could it be that what I had wished for most fervently in the seventh cavern had somehow come to pass?

When I remarked upon the mystery of how Maram could have acted upon my wish many days before I even wished it. Atara turned toward me and said, 'Time is strange. In the eternal realm, that of the One, there is no time. But even in this realm, all things of the world take their being from the One, and there are moments when past, future and present are as one. If I can cast my second sight into time that is yet to be, why shouldn't you be able to sing your wishes into the past?'

Why not, indeed? I wondered as I watched Maram licking drops of brandy from his moustache.

Our talk of wishes and singing impelled a recounting of what we had found inside the Singing Caves. I almost couldn't bear to tell Maram of the marvels he had missed. He was a man who loved music and beauty almost as much as he did women and wine. If he had stood in the great cavern of the Galadin by my side and had sung out with his great heart, I wondered what he would have wished for?

'Ah, but it's too bad I didn't hear all those songs,' he said to us. 'Maybe we should consider going back, then. We still have some hours before daybreak. Wasn't the whole idea of passing through Senta to gain some sort of idea as to where we might find the Maitreya?'

I was about to tell him that we had heard thousands of mentions of the Maitreya, all to no avail, when Daj straightened up on top of his horse, and called out in his high voice, 'But we do know! At least, we know where we might look for him.'

We turned to stare at Daj. I said to him, 'What do you know? And why didn't you tell us before?'

'I'm sorry,' he said to me, 'but I heard someone singing of this in the Minstrels' Cavern just as we were passing back through it. I thought that there would soon be a battle, and when there wasn't, when the doors opened and we found everyone dead and Kane hurried off, and then we did, too — well, there hasn't been time to tell you.'

'We've time now,' I said, looking up at the stars.

And Daj told us, 'It was a woman's voice — I never heard her name. She came to Senta to sing praises of a man, a healer who had saved her daughter. Some incurable disease it was, and the daughter was wasting away. Just a year ago! She never spoke the healer's name, either. But she said that he had brought a bright light back into her life, and she called this man her 'Shining One'.'

'Oh, excellent!' Maram said. 'A nameless women praising a nameless man for a miracle that occurred we know not where.'

'But we do know where!' Daj said to Maram. 'The woman said that her husband had crossed the whole north of Hesperu to bring her daughter to this healer. In a place called Jhamrul.'

Daj, though he had been born in Hesperu's Haraland, could not tell me if Jhamrul might be a district, city or village, nor did he have any idea where we might find this place. Master Juwain got out his maps then, but the light of the stars proved too little to read by. But Master Juwain had an excellent memory, and he could not recall any marking on his maps of that name.

'We'll have to ask after this Jhamrul, then,' he said. 'When we reach Hesperu, surely someone will have heard of it.'

According to his maps and what he had learned through making inquiries, it was nine miles from the Singing Caves to Hesperu's frontier, and then another nine miles down from the mountains into the populated parts of the Haraland. Without wasting any more words, we resumed our journey. We all hoped, I thought, that we were nearing its culmination, if not its end.

Only one road led from Senta into Hesperu. We followed it through the rocky bowl in which this tiny kingdom was sited to the southern wall of sheltering mountains. Weariness worked deep into me so that I felt every jolt of my horse down into my bones. It was even worse for the others, and I feared that we were all too tired to ride through the night. We could not, however, remain within the reach of King Yulmar should Babul and Pirro break their