Black Jade

and dung running off sun-baked fields into muddy rivers — and of blood, fear, decay and death.

I had thought Kane Inured to such things — indeed, to anything and everything that might distress a man. But I sensed a great pain gnawing at his insides like a rabid rat. Thai night we made camp in a wood by a wheatfield, and alter dinner I stood with him at the edge of the trees looking out at the stalks of wheat glimmering in the starlight. And I said to him, 'I've never seen you like this.'

He stood like a statue frozen by Jezi Yaga. Finally, a little light came into his face, and he said, 'How much of me have you really seen, eh?'

'Was it Tarran, then? What happened with him?'

'So, death happened, as it does to us all,' he growled. 'And before the end, just as I put my knife into him, despair. I saw it in his eyes, Valashu. I smelled it fouling his soul. This black, black, cursed thing.'

I rested my hand on his shoulder and said, 'But you did what you had to do. How many times have you killed at need?'

'So, how many times, eh?' He stared out into the wavering silver and black wheat. 'I tell you, if every blade of grass here were a man, then I've mowed down a thousand fields, ten thousand. And all unripened, don't you see?'

I thought I did see, and I rested my other hand on the hilt of the sword that Kane himself had forged so long ago. And I said to him, 'It must all come to an end — the killing must.'

'Yes, it must. And soon, Valashu, soon.'

The black centers of his black eyes seemed to drink up what little light the stars cast down to earth here. And he said, 'The one we seek is close — I know he is. He is waiting for us. We must find him. I must. Morjin slaughtered Godavanni in front of my eyes, but this time, if I must, I'll send all his armies to hell to keep the Maitreya safe.'

I gazed south and west at the other farms and woods stretching out to the horizon. 'The man told of in Jhamrul might or might not be the one we seek. It might be harder than we hope to find him.'

'Hard, yes — but we will find him.'

Behind us, Estrella sat around the fire with our other friends drinking tea. I inclined my head toward her, and asked Kane, 'Do you believe that she will show us the Shining One?'

'I do. And in the end, the Shining One will show himself. Do you remember the three signs by which the Maitreya will be known?'

I nodded my head. 'In his looking upon all with an equal eye, and his unshakeable courage at all times. And in his steady abidance in the One.'

'So. So it must be. The Maitreya dwells, always, in the realm of the One.'

I said to Kane, 'I know what you say must be true, but I don't really understand it. In Tria, I was told that the Maitreya was of this realm. He is always one of the Ardun, born of the earth.'

Kane smiled at this and said, 'That ghost told you this, eh? The Urudjin whom the Galadin sent to deliver that verse. Do you remember it? Can you recite it for me, now?'

I nodded my head again. Then I drew in a deep breath and called out:

The Ardun, born of earth, delight

In flowers, butterflies, bright

New snow beneath the bluest sky,

All things of earth that live and die.

Valari sail beyond the sky

Where heaven's splendors terrify;

In ancient longing to unite,

They seek a deeper, deathless light.

The angels, too, with searing sight

Behold the blazing, starry height;

Reborn from fire, in flame they fly

Like silver swans: to live, they die.

The Shining Ones who live and die

Between the whirling earth and sky

Make still the sun, all things ignite -

And earth and heaven reunite.

The Fearless Ones find day in night

And in themselves the deathless light,

In flower, bird and butterfly,

In love: thus dying, do not die.

They see all things with equal eye:

The stones and stars, the earth and sky,

The Galadin, blazing bright,

The Elijin, Valari knight

They bring to them the deathless light.

Their fearlessness and sacred sight;

To slay the doubts that terrify:

Their gift to them to gladly die.

And so on wings the angels fly,

Valari sail beyond the sky,

But they are never Lords of Light,

And not for them the Stone of Light.

'So,' Kane said, his eyes agleam, 'the Maitreya dwells, always, in this world, as well. Ultimately, as Abrasax told us, the realm of the One and the realm of the earth are not two.'

I thought about this for a while, then said, 'But I still don't understand why the Maitreya is never a Valari or even one of the higher orders, but always born of the Ardun.'

'Do you remember what I told you in the Skadarak, that the Galadin must overcome their fear of death?'

I nodded my head as I listened to the crickets chirping fast and loud in the fields. Behind us, I heard Atara laughing at some lewd joke that Maram had made. Liljana busied herself roasting up some honey-lemon tarts for our dessert, and their pungent fragrance wafted out into the air. For a single moment, the whole world seemed infinitely sweet.

'So,' Kane said, 'this overcoming is hard. The path toward becoming an Elijin and Galadin is itself almost impossibly hard and long beyond measure. For everyone, that is, except the Shining One.'

'But the Maitreyas are never of the Galadin!' I said.

'No, they are not. But they could be, eh? That is the beauty of Shining Ones, their sweet, sweet, terrible beauty. A long lifetime it takes for a man to advance to the Elijin, and sometimes ages for an Elijin to progress to the Galidik order. But for the Shining Ones, this becoming could occur in the flash of a moment.'

An old verse came unbidden into my mind:

And down into the dark, No eyes, no lips, no spark. The dying of the light, The neverness of night.

I told these words to Kane, then said, 'The Maitreya chooses death, then. Death over infinitely long life.'