Black Jade

'That is for Lord Morjin to decide,' he reminded Saimelu. 'Lord Morjin, the Merciful and Compassionate!'

He gazed at Morjin as if he did not suspect that this creature might be only a soulless droghul. I wondered, however, if he truly believed that Morjin could be the Maitreya.

'Surrender, Valashu Eiahad.' Morjin called to me, 'and you have my promise that you won't be crucified. You will live as long as you can.'

The command in his voice stunned me. I thought it an abom-nation that he too, possessed the gift of vaiarda. He poured all of his power into willing me to submit to him.

'You lie,' I said. I stood there sweating and fighting for breath. 'And so we will surrender only when we are dead.'

'Is it death you want so badly? Would you bring it upon your friends and everyone you encounter?' He drew in a deep breath, and then roared out: 'Ra Zahur!'

The third priest, a man as squat and hairy as an ape, struggled with the tarp that he had taken down from the packhorse. He moved with a great strength, as if he spent the hours of the day lifting stones. At last, when he had the bundle standing upright, he used a knife to slash the rope binding it. He pulled down the tarp to reveal the face and body of a boy about fourteen years old.

'Taitu!' Bemossed cried out from behind the cottage's wall.

'Why? Why.'

He came running, and although I yelled for him to go back inside, he paid me no heed. It was all I could do to catch him and hold him fast before he closed the distance toward Morjin and his filthy priests.

I stared out at Lord Mansarian, hating him as well as Morjin. Taitu, I saw, had been stripped naked, and he could not stand of his own. I thought it a miracle that the hard ride slung over the back of a bounding horse hadn't killed him outright. I sensed, though, that he didn't have long to live: the horse's backbone had crushed Taitu's organs as surely as had the mule's kick, swelling out his belly again with blood. His soft eyes had grown glassy, and he seemed to cry out silently for Bemossed to help him.

'It is said,' Arch Uttam called out, 'that the Hajarim healed this boy with a laying on of his hands. That power is the Maitreya's only, and so all who have conspired in this lie have committed an Error Mortal. The boy's father and sister have already paid the price, and even now hang on crosses in their village.'

'No!' Bemossed cried out. 'It is you who lie!'

'Be quiet, Hajarim!' Arch Uttam spat out. He moved over and drove his fist into Taitu's belly. He waited a long time for Taitu to finish screaming. Then he said, 'As you can see, the boy is not healed. But we are merciful, as always. Ra Zahur! Help him!'

While I held Bemossed fast with my arm, Ra Zahur plunged his knife into Taitu's belly, and ripped him open. A great gout of blood poured out of him, along with his ruptured organs. From the cottage behind us, I heard Liljana cry out in grief. Kane cast Morjin a look that seemed blacker than any gelstei, and wondered if he had hidden in his pocket one of his throwing knives. Nearly two hundred yards across the field, Lord Mansarian's red-caped soldiers in their quiet, mounted lines gazed upon this horror. Surely they had seen worse crimes. As for Morjin, he watched Taitu die with all the compassion he might have held for a worm. I sensed that he cared nothing for Taitu, but took great pleasure in Bemossed's

pain.

'Once,' Bemossed said to Morjin, 'I thought you were the

Maitreya. But now I see what you are.'

Bemossed stood staring at Morjin, and a terrible sadness welled up out of him. I marveled that he seemed able to suffer great anguish and sorrow and yet remain open to the deep light that filled his eyes. I could not. I felt only acid burning a hole through my heart. Bemossed seemed to sense this, and he turned his attention toward me. I thought that he feared nothing, for himself. But for me, everything. I knew that he did not want to lose me to the dark, twisting thing ripping me open. 'No,' he murmured to me. 'Not this way.'

I gripped the hilt of my sword. I sensed Alkaladur burning in its scabbard, where I had sheathed it. If it grew as hot as a fire-stone, I wondered, would it melt straight through the scabbard's thin metal?

Morjin kicked his boot into Taitu's fallen body. He smiled at me. He nodded at Bemossed and asked me, 'Well, Elahad? Will you surrender and spare your friends such agony?'

I knew then that he wanted Bemossed to live: so that he could torture out of him the secret of how the Lightstone might be used to its fullest power. He wanted, too, for me to draw my sword.

'We will never surrender to you!' I called out. 'I told you this in Argattha!'

Morjin — or his droghul — smiled at Atara, who stood next to Kane. He told her simply, 'Surrender, and I will restore what I took from you.'

But she shook her blindfolded head, and said softly, 'Liar.'

I felt a pressure filling up my belly and pressing at my brain behind my eyes. Water, I thought, builds within a cloud until the thunder sounds and the lightning flashes to let it out. I suddenly knew that I must strike out with the valarda. Morjin — Lord Mansarian and the priests, too — stood close enough that they would feel its full force.

'Surrender,' Morjin demanded of me again, pointing toward the cottage at Estrella, 'or I will do to the girl what I let Haar Igasho and my soldiers do to your mother.'

I found myself floating in empty space as if I had been abandoned on the only world left in the universe. For a moment, everything grew cold and dark, I felt only a single thing: the terrible.

fire of life that tormented me. I knew then that I loved slaying in righteousness evil men such as Morjin. I would slay him, I vowed. I would thrust the bitter sword of my malice straight through him. He would die, like a worm caught in a holocaust of flame. And then there would be light again, and an infinitude of stars — and I would find peace at last.

'Morjin!' I cried out, 'you will never harm any of my friends again!'

His smile grew wider and brighter, and I knew that he would try to turn my hate against me. He would try to seize my will and make me into a ghul. I didn't care. I wanted to howl out all the rage inside me that I could not hold. I would then live as a maddened beast or a monster, but at least Morjin would be dead.

'Look at him!' I heard Arch Uttam say to Ra Zahur as he pointed at me. 'The only heir of King Shamesh, and he can't even decide what to do.'

'It was like that in Mesh,' Salmelu said. 'But you'll see, in the end he'll betray his friends as he did his own father and mother.'

Salmelu's face soured in contempt for me, and I knew that I would kill him, too, as I should have in the red circle of honor in King Hadaru's hall. I would kill all the creatures of Morjn, in their red robes and their shining armor, in all their hundreds and their thousands, in every land of the world. All those who stood against me in mockery and evil deeds, as Salmelu did, I would destroy.

No.

Molten silustria, I thought, must burn far hotter than even white-hot steel. With it, my silver sword had been forged. And with some substance infinitely hotter than this, I had been forged, the silver of my soul — and it flowed with a hellish fury in the center of my heart.

No, Valashu — you were born for more than murder and hate.

When I listened hard enough, and deeply enough, I could hear rny mother whispering to me, for she, too, dwelled within me. She did not call for vengeance. She cried out to me only that I should live, in pride and joy, as the son whom she loved.

'Valashu,' Bemossed said to me. And once again, he held out his hand to me.

I stared at his slender palm for what seemed forever. Then finally, I took hold of it. The moment that my calloused hand touched his softer fingers, my fury to destroy brightened into a rage to live. Something dark and ugly inside me burned away in a fiery light. I felt instantly lighter, as if a great weight had been lifted from my chest. The air I breathed seemed sweet. I took a great gulp of it, and howled out, not in hate but in utter freedom: 'Morjin! I won't betray them! Not my friends! Not my father and mother, or my brothers!'

The blood cleared from my eyes, and I saw many things. I knew that if I struck Morjin dead, Lord Mansarian and the priests, too, I would only incite Lord Mansarian's men to a killing frenzy of revenge, for that was the way of the world. But there were other ways, as well. And Morjin, I suddenly sensed, could be defeated.

'I won't betray you!' I shouted at him. Kane stared at me in disbelief, for these were the strangest words that I had ever spoken. ''All men shall be as brothers' — so it is written in the