Black Jade

wagged his bony finger at him as he addressed King Arsu: 'I'm sure this man is as strung as everyone says. I'm sure we would all like to see him break his chains, but is this wise? It might give the slaves bad ideas.'

Something ugly in his voice grated as if the whole world irritated him. I watched as he forced a thin smile upon his face. I thought for a moment that he might be joking, although he did not seem capable of any sort of levity.

King Arsu took him seriously enough. He sipped some of his sweetened milk as he seemed to consider what Arch Uttam had seemed to offer as a suggestion. Then he said to Kane. 'You are a juggler as well, aren't you? Well, then, juggle for us, good Taras.'

He waved his hand at him as if that settled the matter. Then Daj brought out a little basket filled with Kane's seven colored balls. For a while Kane entertained King Arsu and the other luminaries in the box — and the soldiers and townspeople, too — with the blur of his hands and a stream of leather-covered spheres. He sent them high up into the air on a rainbow arc, and then whirled about in a full circle, catching them with perfect timing and passing them even lower and faster as the balls flowed in an unbroken streak of crimson and orange, indigo and violet. I thought it likely that no one present in the square had ever seen such juggling.

At last, though, everyone grew tired of this amusement, as people do. And so Kane put his balls away, and went about performing feats of prestidigitation. I had never come across anyone so skilled at this sleight of hand. He dared to ask Lady Lida for a gold coin, and then made it vanish into thin air. After showing Lady Lida his naked palm, he made a fist and blew on it. When he opened his hand again, two gold coins gleamed there.

'Marvelous!' Lady Lida said, clapping her hands together.

'Marvelous?' Arch Uttam said. He tried to make himself smile again. 'Let us hope it is not sorcerous.'

I never learned how Kane worked this magic, and he never told me. Although I found some measure of wonder in it, as did Lady Lida and King Arsu, it seemed only to bore Arch Uttam. He stared at Kane with his soulless eyes as he steepled his thin fingers beneath his chin; something about Kane seemed to vex him. It was the King's prerogative to command entertainments, but that didn't stop Arch Uttam from rudely speaking out.

'I'm sure we have all had enough of this man's tricks,' he said. He turned to look down his thin nose at Kane. 'We have heard, player, that your skill with knives is something to be seen.'

Kane could not keep his old hate from burning through him. He growled out, 'Even as was yours, priest.'

Arch Uttam sat staring at Kane as if he could not believe what he had just heard. Finally, he barked at Kane: 'What was that?'

Kane smiled his savage smile, showing his long white teeth. And then, to Maram's horror, and mine, he said, 'Today, I only cast my knives at a wooden target. But you put yours through that girl's throat with a precision we all must wonder at. She couldn't have suffered much, eh? Who else has such skill but a high priest of the Kallimun?'

Kane managed to say this without obvious sarcasm but only the greatest seeming sincerity. Even so, he walked a knife blade's edge between condemnation of Arch Uttam and compliment. A fool such as Maram might be able to get away with such wordplay, but Kane was Kane. Arch Uttam stared at him again, and his eyes finally came alive with hate.

'You revere Lord Morjin's priests, do you?' he said to Kane.

'Even as I do Morjin himself,' Kane said. 'What would the world be without him and the truest of his servants?'

With many eyes now gazing upon Arch Uttam in witness of this singular interchange, it seemed that he had no choice but to interpret Kane's words as praise. But I felt the poison in his voice as he snapped at Kane: 'The world will be a paradise when we all doserve him truly. As you may serve him now by showing us what is possible through years of discipline and great concentration.'

Kane bowed his head at this. Then he beckoned toward Estrella, standing with the rest of us by the cart. She walked toward him bearing a velvet-covered tray on which sat seven gleaming knives. It was her job to hold the tray up to Kane as he plucked up the knives one by one and hurled them at the target. And again, to retrieve the knives and stand many paces farther back as Kane repeated a remarkable feat: planting six of the knives in a perfect hexagram around the edge of the innermost circle while the seventh knife transfixed its center.

Arch Uttam stared at the target, and for the moment seemed disinclined to speak.

King Angand, however, clapped his hands and said to Kane, 'If you could learn such skill with the sword, we would be glad to have you ride with our army.'

'And ours,' King Arsu said. 'There are always errants to deal with.'

'Yes,' Arch Uttam said to Kane. He smiled at him. 'Then you could put steel through flesh instead of wood.'

I prayed that Kane would let Arch Uttam have the final word in this deadly duel forming up between them. For at least ten of my heart's beats, Kane did not say anything, and he did not move.

And then he growled out to him, 'I'm just a simple player, eh? Throwing knives is one thing; facing swords in the heat of battle is another. As you have said. Arch Uttam, I can only hope to master my fear. And someday, by the One's grace, to witness the defeat of those who have turned away from the Light.'

He bowed then, not so much to Arch Uttam or King Arsu, but to the sun burning like a circle of white-hot steel above their silk-covered box. Without another word, he turned about and walked back toward the cart.

'What is wrong with you?' I whispered to him as he moved up close to me.

'So, Morjin is wrong,' he muttered. He cast a quick, killing look at Arch Uttam. 'It's wrong that the Beast himself isn't here instead of his lackey. Then I'd put a knife into each of his damn eyes!'

We hoped to end our performance with Alphanderry singing a few songs. King Arsu agreed with this plan, and waved his hand at the cart's door as if commanding it to open. When Estrella walked over and turned the handle to let out the mysterious minstrel known as Thierravai, everyone around the square fell silent. They watched as Alphanderry positioned himself in front of King Arsu's box — but not too near it. Then Kane took up his mandolet and Estrella and I our flutes, and we all gathered together to play for the King.

Three songs we gave to King Arsu and his companions, and to the many soldiers looking on and listening in wonder. For we made, I thought, a wondrous music — or rather Alphanderry did. While Kane and I, with Estrella, summoned out of our instruments ancient melodies, Alphanderry sang out with the much finer instrument of his voice. No words poured forth from his golden throat, not even those of the Galadin. The perfect tones that his lips shaped and shaded had something of the form of words, and something of their meaning, too, but seemed to go far beyond them and touch upon that deep, resounding place in which words had their source. It was a true magic that he worked that day. His songs pierced the hearts of all who listened. Each person in the square, I thought, heard in them what he most wished to hear: yearning for love or exaltation of war; chants pealing out like bells and hymns to life and lamentations of the dead. Even as I breathed into my flute and played to accompany Alphanderry's marvelous singing, I couldn't help thinking of the astonished look in Yismi's eyes as Arch Uttam had sliced his knife across her throat. So it was, I sensed, with many of those who listened to Alphanderry. Something in his brilliant voice seemed rip through the thin veil that separated life from death, and the earth from the starry heavens. By the time he finished the last of his songs, many people were weeping and many more stared at him as, if they could not believe what they had just heard.

In the vast silence that came over the square, as King Arsu and King Angand stared at Alphanderry stunned and unable to speak, Alphanderry bowed his head to them and quickly returned to the cart, Estrella walked over with him to shut the door. Then she came back over to where Kane and I stood in front of King Arsu's box, and we made our bow together.

At last, King Axsu returned to himself. He smiled at us even as a thunder of applause rang out from around the square. He reached for his purse with its golden coins. But then Arch Uttam stopped him, laying his bony hand on King Arsu's arm. He raised his other hand to silence the soldiers who were shouting, clapping and calling for Thierraval to come back out of the cart to sing for them again. Now the air fell so deathly still that I could hear the flies buzzing around the foodsellers' stalls. Arch Uttam's scabrous eyes looked from Kane to Estrella to me, then settled upon the cart. He looked at King Arsu. And then, in a bone-chilling voice, he called out: 'There is error here.'

Hundreds of people seemed horrified to hear this. Hundreds of pairs of eyes now turned their heat upon us. I sensed Kane readying himself to respond to Arch Uttam's dreaded accusation. I shook my head slightly to warn him