Black Jade

I paused to take a sip of tea, and I looked at Abrasax. Then I said, 'Morjin crucified my mother and grandmother, and that was the most evil thing that I have ever suffered. And yet it led to the beginning of my understanding of him, which is a good thing, yes? This burning sense of the soul that sometimes I love, and sometimes I hate above all else. With it, I saw how I might strike a kind of light into Morjin. He could not bear it, for he sees in the compassionate and the beautiful all that is weak. And so it drove him to make a mortal error. I did. You could say that I used a good thing to kill the droghul, which is an evil act in itself. And yet only through this evil and the slaughter of many men were we able to make our escape from Hesperu and bring Bemossed here — which you count as the greatest of good.'

Abrasax considered this as he ran his finger around the rim of his tea cup. Then he stood, and walked over to the conservatory's western wall. Into its smooth stone had been carved a yanyin: a simple circle, bisected by a sigmoid line, like the curve of a snake. Its right side was set with quartz, as white as snow. A piece of black obsidians made up the other half. I couldn't help noticing how the black part of this ancient symbol swelled like a wave into the white as if to push against it, as the white did into the black.

Abrasax touched his hand to it, and said, 'This reminds us that light and dark are inextricably interwoven in the creation of the world. So it is with good and evil.'

'Yet you speak of good's inevitable triumph,' I told him. 'As do I.'

'As you say, it is no simple matter. I believe that life will always entail suffering, even after this age is ended and the Age of Light begins. But the suffering that man makes out of pride, ignorance and hate, which we call evil, that must surely end.'

He looked across the room as if to ask Bemossed to help explicate the deepest mysteries of life. Bemossed could not help laughing at the Grandmaster's obvious expectation. After bowing his head to Master Virang and Master Matai, he looked at Abrasax and said, 'You are the scholars and philosophers, men of well-chosen and beautiful words. Who am I? A Hajarim whose only gift is to keep burning like a torch so that you don't forget to light a fire of your

own.'

He smiled at me, then shrugged his shoulders as to cast off a great weight pressing upon him. Then he said, 'All right, I will try.'

He took a sip of tea, and his eyes grew sad and bright.

'I learned in the desert that water is the source and substance of all life,' he told us. 'As the One is the source of all things. It flows through us and all around us, like a river leading down to the ocean. And that bright infinite sea is what we all long for most deeply, isn't it? We have only to plunge into the river and let it take us there. But what man or woman has the courage to do that? It seems simpler, in our thirst for water, to wade out and try to empty the river bucket by bucket. But our thirst is infinite, is it not? Who has not known merchants who have amassed gold a thousand times in excess of their needs while their slaves starve to death, or kings who slaughter tens of thousands as they press on ever to conquer new lands? Or even once-great Elijin lords such as Morjin who seek unbounded power to fill the emptiness inside them? The ways of bringing hideous wrongs into this world are themselves nearly infinite. And so the ages go on, as the river goes on, and we continue to try to stand against it or to direct its currents for our own need. Why should we be surprised when it pulls us down into the mud and muck, and drowns us? Why can't we be content to discover how the river will flow? If we could do that we wouldn't have to speak of good and evil.'

In the quiet of the conservatory, we all looked at Bemossed. The candles' light brought the soft features of his face aglow. At times he seemed a plain and simple man, and at other times, something much more.

Abrasax, still standing by the symbol-carved wall, said to him, 'Why not, indeed? Might I ask, then, where this great river will carry the Maitreya?'

'That is no easier for me to determine than for anyone else,' Bemossed said. 'But for now, I will remain here, Grandfather.'

'And you, Valashu Elahad? Will you and your companions stay with us, too?'

I took hold of my sword, and stood up to work off some of the restlessness building inside me. I paced around the room, looking at the various glyphs and the crystals set into the walls. I came to where Abrasax stood by the yanyin, with its gleaming curves of black and white. I drew my sword, and for a long few moments I watched the silver blade flare with a deep glorre. Then I thrust it straight into the heart of the yanyin. Its point, almost infinitely sharp, came to a rest in the fine crack between the yanyin's white quartz and black obsidian without chipping off the slightest sliver of stone or marring the yanyin in any way.

And I said to Abrasax, and to the other masters still sitting at the table, 'No, I will return to Mesh.'

'To Mesh?' Abrasax said. 'But your own warriors turned away from you and cast you out.'

'I cast myself out. But now the river that Bemossed has spoken of is carrying me back home.'

'Are you sure?'

I looked at my bright sword, and nodded my head. 'As sure as I am of anything.'

'But to what end?'

'To the end … of ending Morjin's terror,' I told him. 'There are those of my people who would still follow me.'

'To war, then?'

I drew in a long breath, and I remembered the lessons that my father had once taught me. I said, 'I must strike now, while Morjin is compromised, where he is the weakest.'

'To strike with that sword?'

I lifted up Alkaladur, and pointed it toward the starlight streaming in through one of the windows. 'This sword he fears like death. But there is another sword that is not so easy to see. He fears that one even more. It remains half-forged, and I still do not know how to wield it.'

Abrasax sighed and regarded me with his deep, perceptive eyes. 'It is a dangerous path that you've chosen.'

'Have I chosen it, Grandfather?'

He looked at the thing of silustria and light that I held in my hand, and he said, 'When you first came here. Master Storr accused you of being of the sword. That is still true, isn't it?'

'Yes,' I told him. 'I bear two swords now, and I will use either one, or both, against Morjin.'

'Will you not content yourself to see if Bemossed can prevail against him?'

I bowed my head to my new friend. 'Bemossed will do what he can do, and I will do what I must.'

'What is it then that you hope to accomplish?'

I looked at Estrella sitting beside Daj as she calmly ate a piece of lemon cake; I looked at Maram steeling himself for yet another journey, and at Atara abiding with a deep and lightless silence. Then I looked at Kane. I smiled and said, 'Nothing less than Morjin's utter defeat. I believe in a victory so final and complete that even the stones buried miles down in the muck of the earth will sing with joy and light.'

'Ha!' Kane suddenly shouted. His deep voice set the walls of the conservatory to ringing. 'Ha! — the stars will dance and the earth itself will sing!'

He sprang to his feet and crossed the room almost in one blinding motion. He knelt before me as he laid his calloused hand on the flat of my sword's blade.

'So — I've waited too long to hear you say that,' he told me. 'To Mesh we'll go, and then if we must, to the gates of heaven or hell!'

Abrasax sighed at this. Then he, too, dared to touch my sword. He called out into the room, 'The river might flow to the sea, but it seems that it takes many turnings to reach it.'

He asked Kane and me to go back to the tables and sit back down. Then he stepped over to the door. He opened it to ask something of a Brother Hannold who waited outside. After taking his place again next to Master Storr, he folded his hands beneath his chin as he patiently waited.

After some time. Brother Hannold entered the room bearing a dark, dust-stained bottle- Another Brother followed after him carrying a tray of tinkling glasses. Brother Hannold set one of these deep-bodied glasses in front of each of us, even as he gripped the bottle in his other hand. I guessed that it must contain one of those sweet- bitter infusions of herbs that the Brothers favored in place of more convivial drink.

Then Brother Hannold uncorked the bottle.

'Ah, brandy!' Maram said as pushed out his fat nose to sniff across the table. 'Excellent! Excellent!'

'Brandy!' Master Storr cried out. 'It cannot be!'