Black Jade

'Ah, well, I suppose I did,' he said. He looked at Bemossed. 'But that was then.'

In the end, however, Maram saw the reason of our arguments, and he grudgingly accepted the need for prudence. It was, as he said, the greatest disappointments of his life. It consoled him somewhat that he had Alphanderry the greatest minstrel of the age, to sing for him in the caverns' stead.

'I'll come back,' he promised himself, looking up at Mount Miru.

'Someday, Morjin will be finally and utterly defeated and I'll come back and make a true pilgrimage here.'

We spent most of that day crossing the tiny kingdom of Senta, or rather, skirting it, for we rode in a great circle around Senta's farmland and forests, keeping close to the mountains. We encoun-tered only a woodcutter and a few farmers, who gave us leave to cross their fields. At the end of the day, we made camp m a wood northeast of the city, just below the pyramid mountain that had pointed our way toward Senta. We spent the next morning working our way up through the pass around this icy peak, and so we left the civilized realms of Ea's far west behind us.

We came down into the thick forest of that wild upland where no people lived. For the rest of that day and part of the next, we picked our way with great care ever downward, searching through the trees and huge rocks for the road by which we had approached Senta. Kane had an excellent memory for terrain, and so did I. and so we had no trouble finding this road, in its broken segments, or the long valley through which it led. The Valley of Death, Maram called it, for it disquieted him to wonder what had happened to the people who had once lived here. But as before, on our journey toward Hesperu, this broad, green swath through the earth proved to be just the opposite, for we took from it ripe apples and wild, golden wheat, as well as antelopes and boar and other game that sustained our lives.

It was here, during the warm, sunny days of early Ioj, that Bemossed finally learned to ride. Here, too, he began putting to the test whether we had truly dealt Morjin a significant defeat. Day after day. as we rode down the grass-filled valley, he would gaze out at the rocks and the golden-leaved aspen trees as if looking for the Lightstone's radiance in all things. Twice, as during the battle with Morjins droghul. I saw the Lightstone appear and Bemossed reach out to grasp it. He seemed still to lack the power to make it his own and wield it as he had been born to do. We all however, felt a change in our gelstei: Maram's firestone cooled to the temperature of warm bread while Atara found her kristei to be suddenly lighter and almost free of taint — and so with our other crystals. We all dared to hope that Morjin might be losing his power over them.

After twelve days of easy travel the valley grew drier as we approached the canyon that gave out onto the Red Desert. None of us wanted to recross this wasteland. Maram, especially, sought for arguments to put oft this passage or avoid it altogether.

'But Bemossed is making such excellent progress here!' Maram said to us. 'If we go into the desert, he'll have to light the dreadful heat, and so he won't have the wherewithal to fight Morjin.'

'But we can't just remain in this valley forever,' Liljana told him.

'Why not? There is enough game to feed us forever — and wild wheat that could be brewed into a good beer.'

Liljana, I thought, almost smiled at this. Then she said to him. 'But I haven't seen any grapes from which we could make wine, and so brandy. And courtesans there are none.'

Maram considered this. 'But we could at least wait until Ashvar, couldn't we? Or even Valte, when the desert grows a little cooler?'

'The desert must be cooler now than it was in Marud,' I told him. 'We must cross it as soon as we can, and you know why.'

At this, Maram raised up his hands in surrender, and said, 'All right, my friend, but if I die of heatstroke in the Tar Harath, you'll never forgive yourself.'

The next afternoon, we came down into the Dead City, half buried in the desert's swirling, reddish sands. Hundreds of miles of emptiness opened before us, to the north and east. Here grew a little ursage, rock grass and other tough plants. It was said to rain here in Segadar and the other months of winter, but we would be unlikely to see any moisture fall from the sky unless Estrella worked her magic again.

For three days, we rode east, taking water from the Yieshi wells that we came to. We saw no men or women of this tribe, not even at the easternmost well where Manoj and his family had dwelt with their little black tents and stinking goats. We speculated that he might have gone off to make war with the Zuri, but we didn't really know. We filled our waterskins almost to bursting from his well, still nearly full from the storm that Estrella had summoned. We left no coins to pay for it. As Atara reminded us, we had given the Yieshi a great deal of water, which in the desert was a hundred times more valuable than gold.

After that, we went into the Tar Harath. This immense country of sun-scorched rocks and blazing dunes proved to be not so hellishly hot as Maram had feared — which is to say that the torrid air did not quite sear our lungs or steam the flesh from our bones. But the days waxed more than hot enough to make us sweat and swear and suffer. Somehow, we bore it. Maram, who had ventured this journey in the opposite direction alone, found the grace to remark that our companionship made the miles and the days pass more easily. Then, too, as he put it with his wounds healed, he had only to endure a more or less human measure of pain.

This grew greater and greater the deeper that we pushed into the Tar Harath. Miracles we had found in abundance all along our way, but we had no magic to keep the sun from sucking the moisture from our bodies and emptying our waterskins a little more with every passing mile. Finally, our water ran out altogether. Then Estrella took out the blue bowl that Oni had given her, and she tried to call the clouds to her from out of nowhere. She failed. We were never able to determine exactly why. Some things, it seemed, especially the ways of the wind and the human heart, would always remain a mystery.

We might have despaired then, but we did not. I reminded Maram, and myself, that on our outward passage Estrella had led us to the Vild, and she would again. So it proved to be. Our course across the drifting desert sands had held straight and true, and less than a day later we came upon the giant oak trees and olindas that grew by the greatest of magics in the middle of a wasteland. And so we entered the Loikalii's wood, parched and dust-worn but still gloriously alive.

When Maira, with Anneli and others of her small people, came to greet us, she called out in delight: 'The seekers return! With the bright one they sought! We must make a feast!'

It took two days of eating and drinking for us to consume all the succulent fruits, nuts, wines and other things that the Loikalii brought to us from their fecund woods. We rested as much as we wished, and then arose to eat, drink and sing some more. I unpacked a bottle of old brandy, bought in Hesperu, that I had been saving for many miles. As I had promised Maram, I filled our cups with this marvelous liquid, and made a toast to love. Toward the end of bringing more love into the world, Maram renewed his acquaintance with Anneli, who wanted again and again to hear the story of how Bemossed had healed his unhealable wound. At last, on the third day of our sojourn, we all gathered around Oni's magic pool that she called the Water. Bemossed had a hard time believing that I had fallen into it, only to emerge onto the banks of another much like it on another world. As we stood over it looking down into its still, silvery waters, I said to him, 'Why don't we put it to the test? Why don't you dive in and see what you can see?'

Just then the amethyst towers and golden buildings of the city called Iveram appeared from out of the pool's shimmering water. Bemossed gasped at the wonder of it, and he said, 'No, thank you — I am a man of this world.'

He planted his feet on the bank of the pool and grabbed hold of my arm to steady himself, and he stared in amazement as the faces and forms of the Star People came into view. I recognized the noble Ramadar, Eva, Varjan and others of the true Valari whom I had met on their world of Givene. No words did they speak, nor could any common language pass through the water that connected our two worlds, or so I thought. I knew, however, that the Star People recognized Bemossed for who he was. Their black, brilliant eyes blazed with great rejoicing.

And then the pool shimmered like silustria, and the Star People disappeared from our sight. Through the clear water other things took shape: the great, golden astor tree, Irdrasil, and the two perfect white mountains, Telshar and Vayu that framed it in the distance. Although the Galadin of Agathad did not make themselves visible to us, I had a sense that Ashtoreth and Valoreth — and others of their order — were aware of much that occurred on Ea, and elsewhere. If they had faces like other men and women, they surely smiled to behold Bemossed and know that all of Eluru had a new Lord of light.