Black Jade

'The passage is incomplete. You'll find the words that should come next, if you search in your heart for them.'

If Kane searched in his heart just then, I thought, he would find a ravening beast that would tear both Goro and himself apart.

'I don't know what you're talking about!' Kane said.

'Then I shall help you.' Goro seemed very satisfied with himself as he smiled and drew in a breath of air. Then he recited the selfsame passage, ending with:

''For the only true restoration lies in the hands of the Maitreya … and his name is Morjin!''

'But that is not written!' Kane said, smacking his knuckles into the book.

Vasul pulled at his rings of oiled hair, and said to him, 'It is written, surely. The Darakul Elu is a living text, dwelling within the heart of the One, and therefore within the hearts of men. It always grows, even as a child grows to a man and then to an angel. And surely, Lord Morjin is the Shining One.'

A gray-haired woman standing in close called out in an awed voice, 'The heralds came with the news just last month, on the thirteenth of Marud: Lord Morjin has claimed the Lightstone and has been revealed as the Maitreya. And so his dominion is not just all of Ea, but over men's minds and hearts, as well.' And over our destinies!' another woman shouted. ''He is the coming of the sun after night,' someone else quoted. 'He is the bringer of the new age.''

'He is coming, himself!' the potter called out. 'It is said that Lord Morjin will soon visit Hesperu, and honor King Arsu for his conquest of Surrapam. He brings blessings for all those who have battled the errants.'

This news, if news it really was, caused many crowding the square to let out a great cheer of anticipation. But not everyone seemed to shout with equal enthusiasm. I felt sure that the cobbler standing behind the potter loudly praised Morjin only so that he could be heard praising Morjin. So it was with the woman holding the baby, and the barber, and others. A few failed to join the chorus altogether. One of these, a large man bearing an iron-shod staff, rubbed at the scar of a dragon that had been branded into his cheek. As it had been in Sakai, too many of the people here bore signs of torture: brandings, amputations, tongue clippings and eyes put out. I prayed that none of these mutilations were the correctives for Errors Minor.

Goro still waited for Kane to recite the passage — and the noxious amendment that he had added to it. I thought that Kane would rather die than say these words, but he surprised me, spitting them out nine more times to Goro's and Vasul's satisfaction. Then he turned to climb on top of his horse.

'Where are you going, pilgrim?' Goro said to him. 'We're not finished here.'

'No? Are we not?'

Kane's hand crept closer to his sword's hilt. I felt sure that he was about to commit an Error Mortal.

'What would you have of us?' I asked Goro as I grabbed Kane's arm.

'It's not what I would have,' Goro said. He looked at Vasul. 'I believe their errors call for, at the very least, a payment to the Dragon.'

'I agree,' Vasul said, smiling at me. 'I should think a dragongild of at least twenty ounces. Gold ounces, of course.'

'Twenty gold pieces!' Maram cried out. 'That is robbery!'

'No,' Vasul told him, 'it is only correction. As it is said in the Black Book, gold washes clean the stain of error.'

Various mumblings and protests from the crowd gave me to understand that this was also said of pain and blood.

'How can our gold filling your pockets,' Maram asked him, 'wash anything clean?'

Where his question angered Goro, it seemed only to wound Vasul. He held out his hands as if to ask why fate had driven him to deal with unreasoning errants. Then he explained. 'The book I have given you would sell for five gold ounces itself, and is in any case priceless. The dragongild that we ask of you will be given to the Kallimun school up on Crow's Hill, that the children of Nubur shall be educated to avoid errors in all their forms. In the end, all belongs to the Dragon, anyway.'

'So,' Kane said to Vasul, 'since you ask this dragongild of us, we are free not to pay it, eh?'

Goro stood eyeing Kane as if wondering if he had the strength to crush the breath out of him. But it was one thing, I thought, to heft barrels all day and another to grapple with Kane.

'You're free to commit any errors you wish,' Goro snapped at him. 'We've only suggested these correctives to help you. If you disagree with our assessments, we can always go up to the Kallimun castle. It's said that Ra Parvu is the one of the wisest of the Red Priests. He is far more skilled than we in distinguishing Errors Minor from Errors Major.'

Out in the crowd to my left, I took note of a pot-bellied man I recognized as a carpenter. I overheard him proudly telling someone that he had kept the Red Priests well supplied with crosses as correctives to Errors Mortal.

Liljana stepped up closer to Goro and told him, 'We don't have twenty gold pieces. We're only poor pilgrims trying make our way to Iskull.'

'Iskull?' Goro said. 'But you told that you were trying to find a Well of Restoration.'

'We,' Liljana said, looking from Kane to me, 'have realized that it cannot exist, after all. And we thank you for helping us see our error.'

Goro's beady eyes bored into Liljana to determine if she was mocking him. Although Liljana no longer possessed the means to smile at him in reassurance, her kindly, round face filled with sincerity and a great calm. She seemed genuinely grateful to Goro and Vasul. All her skills as the Materix of the Maitriche Telu, I thought, went into this persuasion. I marveled at how the pitch of her voice seemed perfectly calibrated to pump up Goro's vanity even while soothing his belligerence and urge toward cruelty. I sensed that she waited for me; to help things along. I needed only to smile at him and bow my head in acquiescence, and most of all, to nudge his heart with the slightest touch of the valarda. But I could not. And so, for a moment, our fate hung in the balance.

'If you determine that we should give all our money to the Dragon,' Liijana said to Goro, 'then we won't be able to make the journey to Iskull. And so we won't be able to greet Lord Morjin as he comes up the Senta Road, as we would like to do. And so what chance would we have of seeing sight restored to our poor companion?'

At this, Liljana gazed at Atara. Her words pleased the crowd and softened the hearts of both Vasul and Goro. In the end, Liljana was able to bargain down our 'dragongild' to ten gold pieces: a true miracle, considering that we were in no position to bargain.

'Ten gold ounces, then,' Goro finally said to Liljana. 'Alonian archers, is that right?'

Although Goro and Vasul might not like strangers bringing dangerous sentiments into their realm, they had no objection to good Alonian gold. As we would learn, the Hesperuk currency had been debased to near worthlessness to pay for the Surrapam war.

'Good!' Goro called out as Liljana counted the coins into his hand. 'Then I would like to wish you well on your pilgrimage. May the mercy of the Dragon be upon you!'

Vasul and others in the crowd repeated this blessing, then bade us farewell. As quickly as we could without appearing overhasty, we mounted our horses and made our way out of the square. We said nothing as we rode through Nubur's streets to the edge of the town. Even through the wheatfields and farmland stretching on for five miles to the south, we kept our mouths shut and our eyes upon the road. The iron shoes nailed to our horses' hooves beat against worn stone, again and again. Then, at last, as we entered a forest full of cluttering blue and yellow birds, Maram sighed out: 'That was close.'

'The mercy of the Dragon, indeed!' Kane snarled as he looked at Atara riding on in silence. He turned in his saddle to gaze back toward Nubur. 'I'd like to steal back there tonight and rouse those two thieves from their beds with a little of my mercy. How many other travelers do you think they've squeezed gold from with their little game, eh?'

'Their little game might have gotten us killed,' Maram said, 'but for Liljana's cleverness. And deceit.'