Black Jade

thought, might attract attention rather than repelling it. And so we journeyed on, into the early hours of the evening.

And then, perhaps ten or twelve miles from the village, just as it was growing dark, we came into a stretch of forest. Kane found an old path leading off the road through the trees. The horses struggled to pull the cart down this narrow, rocky strip, and it was an even harder work to get the cart off the path and cover it with a tangle of undergrowth. If anyone pursued us, the cart's tracks would certainly give it away. But at least it wouldn't stand by itself in some field like a colorful beacon announcing what we had done and where we had gone.

We took from the cart only those supplies that we would need for a long, hard ride. Liljana regretted leaving behind a large, cast iron oven that she had acquired along the way, and Maram told her that she had become spoiled. In our search across Hesperu, I thought, we all had, for we had never gone without food or suffered through a rainy night without a roof to protect us. After we had put aside our Hesperuk garb and donned tunics, trousers and traveling cloaks — and gathered up our weapons — it came time to consider one of the most daunting problems that faced us.

'Bemossed,' Kane said, pointing at the man we had bought as a slave, 'can't ride.'

Bemossed stood stroking the neck of Little foot, the gentlest of our horses. If he took any insult from Kane's words, he did not show it.

'He can ride,' I said. 'I've taught him.'

'So, one lesson only. He might be able to sit on that gelding without falling off, but he can't really ride.'

'He'll have to,' I said. 'We'll help him — there's no other choice.'

I looked at Bemossed and smiled, even though I felt heavy doubt pulling at me. I regretted that he had to take his second lesson at night, in the middle of a mosquito-infested wood, but there was no help for it.

'At least we'll have a bit of moon to light our way,' I said as I gazed up through the trees at the glowing sky.

'Perhaps it would be better,' Master Juwain said, 'if we rested and continued on at dawn.'

I shook my head at this. 'When Morjin learns that we entertained King Arsu, he won't rest. And neither will Lord Mansarian and the Red Capes.'

We mounted our horses then, but we did not ride very quickly, for it was dark in the forest and Bemossed had a hard time of things. I had to show him again how to set his feet in the stirrups and hold the reins. His unease communicated to Littlefoot, who nickered nervously and seemed ready to buck Bemossed off his back. It pained me, and all of us, that walking seemed the only pace that Bemossed could safely get out of Littlefoot that night. I told myself, though, that Bemossed was learning quickly and that tomorrow would be a better day. I told myself, too, that any pace at all was a good one if took us away from our enemies.

I intended to ride without much rest straight for the Khal Arrak pass, perhaps sixty miles away. After a while, however I saw that the terrain between here and there was too rough, and would ruin the horses. Worse, Bemossed had no legs for riding, a couple of hours before dawn, when his muscles began cramping along his thighs, I looked for a good place to stop. We came to a stream cutting the road and flooding it; no one, it seemed, had ever bothered to build a bridge here. We moved off into the woods and made camp near the stream's banks. Mercifully, few mosquitoes came out to bite us, not even at daybreak, when I moved over to where Bemossed slept on a pile of leaves and shook him awake.

'Is it time already?' he asked me, yawning. 'It seems that I just closed my eyes.'

He stood with difficulty, and limped like an old man over to Liljana, who handed him a cup of hot coffee. She had arisen an hour before, taking scarcely any rest, just so that she could make him a hot meal of egg pie and maize bread.

We ate quickly as the sun filled the forest with a warm, green-tinged light. The leaves of the oaks and dogwoods about us began to glow, and many birds chirped out their songs. It did not take us long to break camp, for we had not made much of one in the first place. It was a bright day promising much sunshine, and I dared to hope that we might reach the mountains safely by the end of it

Just as we readied to mount, though, Maram let out a cry and jumped away from his horse. He grabbed at his leg and shouted, 'It burns! It burns!'

I feared that he, too, had taken a cramp — or even that a poisonous snake had crawled into his trousers and had bitten him. He continued shouting and jumping about as if he had been dropped down onto a bed of coals, even as he pulled frantically at his trousers. Finally, he managed to undo them and pull them off over his boots. He cast them away from him. He stood there half naked, and I saw that the skin along the outside of his leg had been burned as if seared by the sun.

'What happened?' I cried, rushing over to him. Everyone else made a circle around us.

'It is my firestone!' he said.

Maram usually carried his red gelstei secreted in a long pocket sewn into the leg of his trousers. Now we all watched as this cast-off garment began to smoke and smolder. A few moments later, it burst into flames. It didn't take long for the fire to consume the wool. In the center of the ashes, glowing brightly, the hot, crimson crystal burned against the ground.

'What did you do?' I asked him.

'Nothing!' he said. 'I haven't even thought of using it for a thousand miles.'

'Then what made it come alive?'

My question almost needed no answer. Even so, Master Juwain pointed at the seething firestone and said, 'It is Morjin.'

It seemed that Morjin's power over the Lightstone — and therefore over our gelstei — had grown. It seemed that we no longer needed to wield our sacred crystals in order for him to take control over them.

Daj went to fetch a spare pair of trousers from Maram's saddlebags, and Maram dressed himself again. He stood looking down at the red gelstei, which still poured forth a ferocious heat.

'Oh, my poor flesh!' Maram said, rubbing his leg. He bent to hold his hand above the radiating firestone. 'My poor, poor crystal — how am I to hold it?'

He might as well, I thought, have tried to grasp a heated iron. 'I'm afraid you might have to abandon it,' Master Juwain said.

'Abandon my gelstei? No, no — I can't do that.'

'You can't carry it with you, either.'

Maram stared at the burning stone. 'It will cool — you'll see. It must.'

We waited a few minutes, but the firestone lost none of its torridness. Neither, it seemed, did it grow any hotter. 'We must ride,' I said to Maram. 'Ride now.'

'No, I can't leave it behind. What if some boy wandering through these woods found it? What if Morjin did?'

This objection persuaded all us that we could not simply leave his gelstei burning on the ground here. As we had been told, it might be the last remaining firestone on Ea.

'We won't leave it,' Kane called out. He went over to one of the packhorses and lifted off a waterskin. And emptying its contents on the ground, he went over to the stream, where he bent down to scoop into the skin handfuls of sandy mud. He laid the waterskin on the ground next to the firestone, and he used a rock from the stream to push the firestone point-first down into the opened neck of the mud-filled skin. We waited a while longer, and although the leather skin grew warm, it seemed that the firestone was not hot enough to burn through sand and consume its container. Kane stowed it back on the horse, and he said to Maram: 'If it gets any worse, it will burn the beast and not you.'

His assurance, however, did not console Maram, or any of the rest of us. Maram said, 'I always hoped that if I faced Morjin again, I might burn him with my stone's fire. But now I'm afraid he's coming to burn me.'

I was afraid of this, too. I began to sweat as a familiar and dreaded sensation stabbed through my spine into my belly. It was like being devoured inside by a ravenous snake.

Maram looked straight at me then, and so did Kane and Master Juwain. Bemossed did, too. His soft eyes filled with a grave knowing as he said to me, 'This poison that Morjin put in your blood burns you and bonds you to him, doesn't it, Valashu?'

'Yes,' I said, 'it does.'