Black Jade

'There are those that you carry inide your hearts,' Abrasax told him with a smile.

Maram waved his thick hand at Abrasax's attempt to encourage him, and he turned toward me. 'Can't you see it, Val? It's madness, this new quest of ours, damnable and utter madness!'

'Then you must be mad, too,' I told him, 'to be coming with us.'

'Am I coming with you? Am I?'

'Aren't you?'

'Ah, of course I am, damn it! And that's the hell of it, isn't it? How could I ever desert you?'

We returned to our original tables then. Abrasax began a long account of how one of the ancient Maitreyas, on another world during the age-old War of the Stone, had sung to a star called Ayasha to keep it from dying in a blaze of light. We drank many cups of tea. Finally, it grew late. Through one of the windows, I saw the stars of the Dragon descending toward the west. And yet Kane still sat spellbound as he listened to Abrasax's flowing voice, and so did Daj and Estrella. But whereas Kane could remain awake for nights on end, and perhaps longer, the children began yawning with their need for sleep.

'I think that is enough for one night,' Abrasax said. He closed the crystal-paged book from which he had been reading. I sheathed my sword, and my companions hid away their gelstei. 'Tomorrow you must begin preparing for a long journey, and we must help you.'

He turned to look at Atara, Daj and Estrella, and all the rest of us, one by one. At last he rested his gaze on me. 'I believe with all my heart that you will find the Maitreya, as has been prophesied. And I also believe that what will befall then will be ruled by your heart. Remember, Valashu, creation is everything. It is what we were born for.'

He stood up slowly, and stepped over to the pedestal holding up the cup of silver gelstei. After lifting it with great care, he brought it back to our table and set it down. And then he enjoined us: 'Escort the Shining One back to us, here, and we shall help him, too. We shall place this in his hands, if not the true gold. And then we shall see who is truly master of the Lightstone.'

After that we went back to our hostels to rest. For hours I lay awake with my hand on the hilt of Alkaladur, by the side of my bed. A bright flame still blazed inside me. I wanted to pass it on like a strengthening elixir to Atara, sleeping in the little house next to mine, and to Estrella, Liljana, and everyone. I couldn't help hoping that we might bring something beautiful into creation, even though I knew that before us lay an endless road of blood, destruction and death.

Chapter 10

We spent the next days resting and preparing tor what Maram kept calling our 'mad quest', in the warmth of the brightening spring, we feasted on good, solid food to build up our bodies against the trials that would soon come. We tried to strengthen our minds and spirits as well. Master Juwain passed many hours in the school's library studying maps and reading accounts of the lands that we must pass. Liljana held counsel with Abrasax in an unprecedented effort to combine the resources of the Sisterhood and Brotherhood. Master Nolashar taught Estrella and me secret songs to play on our flutes and drive evil humors away. We all sat in the stone conservatory with Master Virang, who guided us through meditations so as to enliven our auras. This unseen radiance, like an armor woven of light, might protect us against the malice and lies of the Red Dragon — against even cold and hunger and the depredations of our own despair.

Alter nearly a week of this practice, the other masters joined us in these meditations, and the Grandmaster, too. The Seven brought forth their crystals and used them to quicken our chakras' fires. As Abrasax told us. this would help open us to the angel fire and greater life.

'That is the power and purpose of the Great Gelstei,' he told us one fine morning with the larks singing in the nearby cherry orchard. 'At least, the purpose of these small stones that we are Privileged to keep. We use them with you as we believe the Star People do: in the creation of angels.'

'Ah. yes,' Maram said as he patted his overstuffed belly and let loose a rude belch, 'I am rather like an angel aren't I? Five-Horned Maram will become Maram of the Golden Wings. Soon, soon, I know, lesser men will have to bow to me and address me as 'Lord Elijin'.'

Abrasax shook his head in reproach for his sarcasm, and told him, 'You need not worry about taking on that burden just now. The Way is very long — long even for the Star People, and we have rediscovered only part of it.'

He looked at Kane as if in hope that he might say more about this ancient path that human beings walked toward the heavens. But Kane just stared at the conservatory's stone walls in silence.

'I must say,' Maram grumbled out, as he pressed his hand against his belly, solar plexus, heart and throat, 'that I feel little different than I did before we began this work.'

'That is because,' Master Storr chided him, 'your fires are blocked and trapped within your second chakra.'

At this, Maram shot Master Storr a belligerent look, and wantonly waggled his hips. Master Storr stared back at him in disdain.

Abrasax, however, was kinder. He smiled at Maram and said, 'Give it time.'

'Ah, time,' Maram muttered. 'How much of it do I have left before the candle burns out?'

He sighed as he stood up and gazed out the conservatory's window at the setting sun. Then he turned to Abrasax and said, 'You seem to have had all the time in the world. Grandfather, and yet that hasn't kept old age from snowing white hair on you, if you'll forgive me for speaking so bluntly.'

Abrasax smiled at this. 'I will forgive you, Sar Maram, but things are not always as they seem. Just how old do you think I am?'

Maram gazed at Abrasax, and I could almost hear him mentally subtracting ten years from his assessment in an effort to repay Abrasax's kindness: 'Ah, seventy, I should guess/

Abrasax's smile widened. He said, 'I was born in the year that the Red Dragon destroyed the Golden Brotherhood and captured the False Gelstei. That was — '

'2647!' Maram cried out. 'But that is impossible! That would make you a hundred and forty-seven years old!'

'Please, Sar Maram — a hundred and forty-six. Abrasax said with a grin. 'I won't have my next birthday until Segadar.'

'But that is impossible!' Maram said again. He looked from Abrasax to Kane. 'Only the Elijin are immortal and — '

'We of the Seven,' Abrasax said, interrupting him, 'have not gained immortality — only longevity. And other things.'

'Ah, what things?' Maram asked with great interest.

In answer, Abrasax stepped over to him, and he laid his long, wrinkled hands on Maram's sides along his chest And then he lifted him as he might a child, straight up into the air. Maram although obviously no angel, did for a moment appear to be flying. He whooped as he beat his arms like wings. I blinked my eyes in disbelief, for with all the eating he had been doing during the past week, he must have weighed twenty stone.

Abrasax set him down, and Maram stared at him as if he too couldn't believe what had just happened. He said to him, 'You look like an old bird, but you're as strong as a bear!'

'Thank you, I think,' Abrasax told him.

Maram clasped Abrasax's hand as if to test its strength. Abrasax squeezed back, and Maram winced and coughed out, 'Did I say a bear? A bull, you are, a veritable old bull. And all this from the work you do with your little crystals? What other, ah, powers have you gained?'

Abrasax smiled at this and said, 'What powers would you most like to gain?'

'Do you need to ask? A bull has only two horns, but I have five! A veritable dragon, I am, and oh how I burn! And so I would strengthen those fires that burn the most pleasurably.'

'There is more to life, Sar Maram, than pleasure. And there is more to pleasure than this little tickle in the loins that you pursue so ardently.'

'Yes, there is beer and brandy,' Maram said. 'And that which bestirs me down there is no little thing — it is