Black Jade

Maram's words both pleased and wounded Liljana. She looked at him and huffed out, 'I said nothing to that greedy cooper that wasn't true.'

'Ah, is that true? Would you really like to greet Morjin upon this road?'

The harsh lines that seamed Liljana's face hinted at how badly she would like to greet Morjin: with the full fury of her mind pouring itself out through the lens of her blue gelstei. Even as Atara would like to greet him with arrows and I would like to give him the blessings of my sword.

'One thing seems clear,' Liljana said. 'We can't go about this land telling everyone we're seeking the Well of Restoration. That surely is an error.'

'I'm afraid that we can't tell everyone, either, that we're seeking the Red Dragon,' Master Juwain said. 'I would not want the Kallimun to hear that we eight pilgrims were asking after him.'

'Perhaps,' Maram said, scratching his beard, 'it's too dangerous for us to pose as pilgrims at all. I think we need a new guise.' 'What, then?'

As we clopped along down the road into a wall of moist, hot air, Maram looked up at a lark perched on the branch of a teak tree and singing out its sweet song. And Maram smiled as he said, 'I have an idea.'

Later that day we came to a town called Sumru, where we spent the night camping out in the surrounding woods. Before dawn, with the air still nearly black and whining with mosquitoes, we roused ourselves and turned west onto a narrow load leading out of Sumru through the forest. The great teak trees and thick undergrowth, we hoped, would hide us from the eyes of our enemies, if any had been sent to spy upon us. After a few hours of swift riding, we came into a more populous region, and turned northwest onto a muddy little road that took us into a town named Ramlan. There, with the last of our money, we went about the various shops making purchases: bright bolts of cloth and colored swatches of leather; herbs and paper and ink; paints of various colors, and brushes, large and small; a great cart that it would take two horses to pull, and a load of planks of cured wood to fill it. And other things. Kane went to a swordsmith and ordered knives made according to precise specifications. From one of Ramlan's blacksmiths, Hartu the Hammer, as he was called, he also ordered chains and a cask of nails. We had to wait all the rest of that day and half the next for Hartu to pound out the nails from long strips of glowing red iron. Which he had finished this hot, sweaty work, he gave the cask to Kane, and tried to dispel his uneasiness toward him, and us, by saying, 'I haven't made so many nails since Lord Mansarian came through here five years ago to punish the errants up toward Yor. You haven't said what you want all this iron for; I should think the nails are too small for putting anyone up on wood, even children — ha, ha!'

I didn't like his nervous laughter, or the way he looked at Daj and Estrella. I didn't like the way the people of Ramlan looked at us, as if wondering why pilgrims had left the Senta Road to go wandering about the countryside. I was glad to help hitch two of pur packhorses to the cart, and then lead the way out of Ramlan even deeper into the Haraland.

We spent the rest of the day working along muddy farm roads, turning left or right, north or south, so as to confound any who might witness our passage and want to report us. Toward dusk we entered a large wood and found what seemed an old track leading into the heart of the trees. It seemed perfect for our needs. While Kane guarded our rear, I rode on ahead to look for footprints or other sign of habitation, but it seemed that no one had used this track for a long time. We finally came into a clearing. The heap of stones at its center looked to be a cottage that had fallen in upon itself ages ago. Kane wanted to set to work immediately, but we had to use the last light of day to make our camp.

In the morning, though, Kane rose at dawn, and began banging nails into the wooden planks with a great noise that awoke everyone. I helped him build a sort of small chalet onto the bed of the cart, and so did Daj and Maram. While we sweated in the humid morning air, Liljana took out scissors, needle and thread to shape and sew the bolts of cloth together. Atara helped her. This surprised me, for I had not known she possessed such skills. As she put it, 'I was once a princess, and my father expected me to learn the womanly arts — so that I could marry well and provide him with grandchildren.'

Estrella, however, had little talent for sewing, and so she played the flute for us to provide music while we worked. Alphanderry came forth and accompanied her, singing out a rather bawdy ballad whose rhythms seemed timed to reinforce the hammering of Kane's nails. Later that day, when it came time to paint the little traveling house that our cart had become, Estrella picked up a small brush while Alphanderry continued entertaining us. As it happened, she had a rare gift for using brightly colored paints to render birds and flowers and the like, though she could not tell us where she had come by it. Alphanderry, of course, could grasp no brush in his hand, nor anything else. But day by day, he seemed to appear ever more substantial, as if he was somehow growing used to the world again. He called out ideas for figures to Estrella, and to Kane and Maram, who also helped with the painting. I took great delight in the delight with which Estrella brought to life a golden astor tree and a rising sun and a dark blue panel full of stars. I had to stop her, though, from depicting a great silver swan. When she discovered that her enthusiasm had carried her away into an error that might have betrayed us, she wasted no time in self- recrimination, but only used her brush to quickly transform the swan into a winged horse. It joined other animal figures, some fantastical and some not: diving dolphins and a chimera; an eagle in flight and a two-headed serpent and a great blue bear. Liljana suggested we paint a dragon against one of the red panels, but it was thought that the Hesperuks might take offence at a golden or green one. None of us could bear to see a red dragon defiling our wildly and beautifully decorated house, though Kane wryly remarked that it would do no harm to paint a red one against red. That way, we could always tell the curious that the great Red Dragon always dwelled within our house, unseen, as it did within the hearts of men.

It took us four days to complete our preparations. When we were ready to set out again, I stood staring at the cart and admiring the fine detail with which Estrella had embellished a mandolet, a tarot card and the figure of a costumed man juggling seven brightly colored balls. I smiled to see how closely this man resembled Kane. The likeness became even more striking when Liljana brought forth one of the costumes that she had been sewing and bade Kane to put it on. This, with much grumbling and cursing, he did. She then gave him seven leather balls which she had filled with dried rice and stitched shut. Their colors ranged from blood red to a brilliant violet, as of a rainbow.

As we all stood around watching, Kane tossed the balls into the air, one after the other, and with lightning- quick motions of his hands, kept them streaming in an arc that seemed a rainbow of its own. I knew then that Maram's idea might possibly work: Kane would certainly be our juggler. (And, at need, our strongman, magician and mandolet player.) Atara, who brought forth a clear, gleaming sphere that we had purchased from a glassblower in Ramlan, would tell people's fortunes. Master Juwain would act as a reader of horoscopes and tarot cards, while Liijana would pose as a potionist and Daj as her assistant. I began practicing on a long flute also acquired in Ramlan, intending to accompany Estrella, who held dear the flute that I had given her more than a year ago in Ishka. We both would provide music for Alphanderry, our minstrel. As Estrella also evinced great expressiveness with her eyes, hands and move- ments, she might also act as a mime. And Maram, of course, would be our fool.

'We needn't actually perform,' he told us after Liljana had helped him try on his silly clown's costume. 'In fact, I'm sure it will go better for us if we don't. But at least we should be able to move about freely — doesn't everyone welcome a traveling troupe?'

Such troupes of players, of course, had journeyed from land to land for thousands of years. They called no kingdom their own, and no kingdom made claim on their loyalties and rarely dared even to tax them.

'These Hesperuks are a grim people,' Maram said, 'but at least they haven't yet outlawed entertainment.'

Daj, however, having been born in the Haraland, took objection to this, saying, 'My people are not grim. In my father's house, there was always wine and song. No one was afraid to laugh. My father, once when I was very young, took us to see one of the troupes that came up from the south. There was a tightrope walker and a man who ate fire. I can't remember their names.'

Maram reached up to jingle one of the bells hanging down from his yellow and blue cap. He said, 'Well, I hope people will forget our names as readily. But we mustn't, and so let's go over them one more time.'

Mirustral I was to be no longer, and certainly not Valashu Elahad. Maram now nodded at me and addressed me as Arajun, and Atara as Kalinda. Liljana had chosen the new name of Mother Magda, while Master Juwain was to go by Tedorik and Daj as Jaiyu. Kane had transformed into Taras, and Estrella into Mira. Alphanderry would sing under the name of Thierraval. And Maram had become Garath the Fool.