Black Jade

Strangely, our enemy, riding ever closer, seemed unable to perceive this splendid light.

'The gelstei!' Maram shouted. He seemed stunned as by a hammer blow to his head. He ran over to the horses, and removed his firestone from the waterskin encasing it. He held it up for us all to see. 'My gelstei — look, it cools!'

Liljana and Master Juwain took out their gelstei then,too.

'I won't break the truce,' Maram sighed out, tucking the fire-stone down into the pocket of his trousers. He came back over to me. 'I think you Valari are right, after all. All that really matters is honor — to honor the glory of life. And so if I must die, I must die, too bad.'

Liljana pointed at the gray-cloaked man who rode with the three priests behind Lord Mansarian. 'I doubt if that is really Morjin. He wouldn't trust us to keep the truce. I was wrong, Val. Don't waste the best of yourself on him.'

'I agree,' Master Juwain told me. He seemed able to breathe more easily. 'It is likely some sort of trap.'

Atara moved up next to me, and she reached out blindly to lay her hand on my chest. And she said, 'Do what you were born to do, but not this murder.'

Our enemy came even closer, within the long range of our arrows, and now even Kane put down his bow. He turned to gaze at Bemossed with great dread, and yet with an intense longing, too. I knew that he wanted to weep and laugh and roar out all his wild joy of life, all at once. Finally he said to me, 'Do not use the valarda to slay. Remember the two wolves, Val. Remember who you really are.'

At this, Bemossed smiled. He held out his hand to me.

'Valashu Elahad!' someone called out from far away. The voice sounded raspy, like that of Lord Mansarian. 'Liljana Ashvaran! Maram Marshayk! Atara Ars Narmada! We know that these are your real names!'

And then a deeper, richer voice reverberated across the field. It was bright like silver and as cruel as steel. It rang with a will toward torment and vengeance, and left no doubt who in the body of men riding toward us held command. Too often, in my dreams and in my waking hours, I had trembled with loathing as I listened to the fell, deceptive, deadly voice of Morjin.

'Valashu Elahad!' the man in the gray cloak cried out to me. 'It has been too long — too long since I said farewell to your mother, and to Mesh!'

I turned away from Bemossed then. I could not take his outstretched hand. I noticed Daj staring at my fiery sword.

At a distance of two hundred yards. Lord Mansarian called for a halt and sent the knight bearing the white banner cantering toward us. He rode straight up to the cottage. He drew up in front of our wall, and said to us, 'You are offered a truce, that Lord Mansarian might discuss with you the terms of your surrender.'

'Terms!' I shouted. 'We all know the terms here: our deaths, or yours!'

The knight looked at Bemossed standing next to me. He said, 'Lord Mansarian has asked me to assure you that he will do all he can to spare the life of the Hajarim. Will you speak with him?'

Kane, standing on my other side, snarled in my ear: 'It's a trap!

Don't let that Morjin thing come any closer!'

I fought to quiet the wild pounding of my heart. I remembered how Lord Mansarian had protected Bemossed at our performance for King Arsu — likely at great risk to himself. I said to Kane, 'He might spare him.'

'He won't, damn it! Don't let them close, I say!'

'No,' I whispered. 'I want them all as near as they can be.' I nodded at the knight. 'All right — tell Lord Mansarian that he can approach us, and we will honor the truce.'

But the knight shook his head at this. He sat holding up the white banner, and he said, 'First, put down your bows and come out from behind that wall. My lord will not meet beneath the threat of your arrows.'

'All right,' I said again. 'We will come out — twenty yards only.' I nodded to Kane and Maram, and we began walking toward the door. And the knight pointed at Atara, and said, 'The princess, too.'

'But she is blind!' I said.

'So are bats blind,' the knight said, 'and yet somehow they fly through the air straight as arrows. My orders are clear on this: the princess must put down her bow.'

Atara smiled coldly, and she laid her bow on top of the wall. She, too, moved over toward the door. So did Bemossed. He said to me, 'Let me come with you.'

I looked for the golden cup in his hand, but I could no longer see it. The radiance pouring out of him seemed lost to the hellish glare of the sun. I told him, 'No, you must stay here. It will be all right.'

I told the knight that we would meet with his master, and he turned to gallop back to Lord Mansarian.

I drew in a long, deep breath of burning air. I clamped my fingers around the hilt of my sword, and I tried not to look at Bemossed. Then, with Maram, Kane and Atara close behind me, I stepped through the doorway out into the brilliant sunlight.

Chapter 41

My friends followed me out across the grass to a distance of twenty yards. There we waited.

Lord Mansarian and his knights, with Morjin and the priests behind them, came within a hundred yards of us, and then fifty. If they should break into a charge, or at any time draw their swords, we could beat a quick retreat back into the cottage.

At twenty yards, I called out, 'That is far enough! Come down from your horses!'

'What!' Lord Mansarian wheezed out. 'Who are you to issue commands here?'

'We are not mounted,' I told him, 'and we will not hold parlay with you speaking down to us.'

Lord Mansarian looked behind him at the man in the gray cloak. This mud-spattered traveler threw back his hood to reveal a shock of golden blond hair and a beautiful face that I knew too well. His golden eyes burned into mine. In the manner of the Grays, he had affixed to his forehead a flat, dark stone: a black gelstei. It seemed to suck at my will to resist him. He, himself, seemed to swell with an enormous will to crush anyone who stood against him. I felt a weakness run through my legs as if my body were being drained of blood.

'Lord Morjin?' Lord Mansarian said to this man.

'We will dismount,' he said. His beautiful voice pounded through the air like a great hammer. 'Let the Elahad have his way.'

His motions as he came down from his horse were sure and swift. He seemed as full of life as a young lion. I felt sure that Morjin had lost the power of illusion over me, and so he could not disguise the hideousness of his true appearance as a rotting old man — if indeed he still appeared so. I doubted this. Looking at him, I suddenly doubted all that I knew to be true. I wondered, again, if he had used the Lightstone to remake himself as he had been in his body long ago. As for his soul, I thought, nothing could ever expunge its foul, terrible stench. I could not tell if he was really Morjin. Indeed, in this hateful creature who stood glaring at me, it seemed that Morjin and his droghul might have become as one.

'We demand your surrender!' he called out to me. 'Throw down all your weapons, your gesltei, too, and your lives will be spared!'

I let my hand rest on the hilt of my sword. I wondered if I could whip free my blade and charge him, and cut him down before the six dismounted knights standing near Lord Mansarian stopped me. If I cut his cloak and tunic to bloody shreds, I wondered, would I find the Ltghtstone secreted there?

'How long will you let us live then?' I asked him. 'Long enough for your priests to nail us to crosses?'

It shouldn't have surprised me that Arch Uttam, at Morjin's right, had found the hardiness to ride with the Red Capes in our pursuit, so great was the malice that he held for us. On the other side of Morjin stood my old enemy, Salmelu. Although he called himself Haar Igasho now, and he wore a red robe instead of armor and the emblem of a prince of Ishka, his ugliness of face and spirit were the same. He smiled at me as if my plight gave him great satisfaction.

'If you don't surrender, Eiahad,' Salmelu told me, 'you will be crucified!'

Arch Uttam turned to cast him a venomous look. I sensed his jealousy that Salmelu had the privilege of accompanying their master.