Black Jade

Liljana scowled at this as she eyed Master Juwain's hand resting on top of Daj's head. Then she huffed out, 'The serpent does not so much break through as to light up our being from within. And then, when we have come fully alive, like our mother earth turning her face to the sun, we can drawn down the fire of the stars.'

Here she sighed as she shot Master Juwain a scolding look and added, 'And as you should know, the serpent's name is Ouroboros.'

She went on to tell of this primeval imago, sacred to her order. Ouroboros, she said, dwelled inside each of us as a great serpent biting its own tail. This recalled the great circle of life, the way life lived off of other life, killing and consuming, and yet continuing on through the ages, always quickening in its myriads of forms and growing ever stronger. Ouroboros, she told us, shed its skin a million times a million times, and was immortal.

'There is in each of us,' she said, 'a sacred flame that cannot be put out. It is like a ring of fire, eternal for it is fed by the fires of both the heavens and the earth. And our way must be to bring this fire into every part of our beings, and so into others — and to everything. And so to awaken all things and bring them deeper into life.'

So far, Atara had said very little. But now she spoke, and her words streaked like arrows toward Master Juwain and Liljana, and were straight to the point: 'Surely the spirit of Alphanderry's song was that both your ways are important, and indeed, in the end, are one and the same.'

Kane smiled at this in an unnerving silence.

And Maram willfully ignored the essence of what Master Juwain and Liljan had to say, muttering, 'Ah, I've never understood all of this damn snake symbolism. Snakes are deadly, are they not. And the great snakes — the dragons — are evil.'

Master Juwain took it upon himself to try to answer this objection. He rubbed the back of his bald pate as he said, 'Snakes are deadly only because they have so much power in their coils, and therefore life. And the dragon we fought in Argattha was evil; as are all beings and things that Morjin and Angra Mainyu have corrupted. But the dragon itself? I should say it is pure fire. And fire might be used to torture innocents as well as to light the stars.'

I thought his answer a good one, but Maram said, 'Well, I for one will never like those slippery, slithering beasts. Whether they be found in old verses and books, or in long grass beneath the unwary foot.'

Liljana shot him a sharp look and said, 'You're just afraid of them, aren't you?' 'Well, what if I am?'

'Your fear does neither you nor the rest of us any good. Perhaps if you had spent more time practicing Master Juwain's lessons and moving into the higher chakras, you wouldn't be as troubled as you are.'

'But I thought you scorned Master Juwain's way?'

'Scorned? I can't afford such sentiments. We do disagree about certain things, that's all.'

The Sisters of the Maitriche Telu, as I understood it, also taught the quickening of the body's chakras, but they numbered and named these wheels of light differently: Malkuth, Yesod, Tiphereth and seven others. Strangely, Liljana called the highest chakra, Keter, which corresponded almost exactly with the Brotherhood's ketheric body, associated with the crown chakra at the top of the head.

'You dwell too often,' Liljana told Maram, 'in the first chakra, in fear of your precious life. This impels a movement into the second chakra, in a blind urge to beget more life. And there, as we've all seen, you dwell much too often and wantonly.'

'Ah, well, what if I do?' Maram snapped at her.

Master Juwain, allying himself for the moment with Liljana, added to her criticism, saying, 'Such indulgence fires your second chakra at the expense of the others and traps you there. It leaves you vulnerable to lust — and to drunkenness and the other vices that aid and abet it.'

Maram cast his gaze toward the horses, where the brandy was safely stowed within the saddlebags. He licked his lips and said, 'Ah, that's what I can't stand about the Brotherhood and all your ways. You're too damn dry. With your damn dry breath you'd blow out the sweetest of flames in favor of lighting these higher torches of yours. And why? So you can spend your days — and nights — in anguish over a transcendence that may never come? That's no way to live, is it? If I had a bottle in hand I'd make a toast to drunkenness in the sweet, sweet here and now — and a hundred more to lust!'

Again he eyed the saddlebags as if hoping that Master Juwain or I might retrieve a bottle and rescue him from his vow And then he shook his head and muttered, 'Well, if I can't drink to what's best in life, I'll sing to it. Abide a moment while I make the verses — abide!'

Here he held out his right hand as he placed his other hand over his closed eyes. His lips moved silently, but from time to time he would call out to us, 'Abide, only a few moments more — I almost have it.'

As Kane heaped a couple more logs on the fire, we all sat around listening to its crackle and hiss, and looking at Maram. At last he took his hand away from his thick brows and looked at us. He smiled hugely. And then he rose to his feet and rested his hands on his hips as he stared at Master Juwain and called out in his huge, booming voice:

The higher man seeks higher things:

Old tomes, bright crystals, angel's wings.

He lives to crave and pray accrue

The good, the beautiful, the true.

And there he slithers, coils and dwells

In higher hues of higher hells;

In sixth or seventh wheels of light -

There's too much pain in too much sight.

But 'low the belly burns sweet fire,

The sweetest way to slake desire.

In clasp of woman, warmth of wine

A honeyed bliss and true divine.

I am a second chakra man;

I take my pleasure where I can;

At tavern, table and divan -

I am a second chakra man.

As Maram sang out these verses, and others that flew out of his mouth like uncaged birds, he would strike the air with his fist and then lewdly waggle his hips at each refrain. He finally finished and stood limned against the fire grinning at us. No one seemed to know what to say.

And then Kane burst out laughing and clapped his hands, and so did we all. And Atara said to him, 'Hmmph, if you had remained with the Kurmak and taken wives as my grandfather suggested, these second chakra powers of yours would have been put to the test.'

'How many wives, then?'

'Great chieftains take ten or even twenty, but it's said that only a great, great man such as Sajagax could satisfy them.'

Here she smiled at Liljana, who added, 'Our order has discovered that when a woman awakens the Volcano, which we call Netzach, it would take ten or twenty men to match her fire.'

'Do you think so?' Maram said with a wink of his eye and yet another gyration of his hips. 'I should tell you that my, ah, greatness has never thoroughly been put to the test. Perhaps I'm a fool for even considering marriage with Behira only and cleaving to Valari customs.'

'Would you rather try our Sarni ways?' Atara asked him.

'In this one respect, I would. I'd take twenty wives, if I could. And I would, ah, entertain all of them in one night.'

'My tribemates?' Atara said. 'They would kill you before morning.'