Black Jade

'Such as the Black Bog? Kane told that in our passage through that accursed swamp, we were walking on other worlds.'

'So you were — and Dark Worlds at that. The Black Bog is known to lead into such places, just as the ocean, toward the North Star, flows into the seas of the worlds where the Star People dwell.'

'Then you believe the legend of King Koru-Ki?'

Master Storr's eyes gleamed as he said, 'All worlds are connected by water, on the physical plane, as they are by the aethers on the others.'

'But that still doesn't explain the tunnel.'

Master Storr, I thought, did not like Maram's impatience to learn the truth of things, and a note of irritation crept into his voice:

'As I've said, there are other ways of making these connections. Whoever built this tunnel must have forged a gelstei that opened up the earth chakra over which the tunnel was built. And so

directed its fires to open other chakras in other places so that a passage might be made.'

'Then is it possible to pass to other worlds this way?'

'Not through this tunnel at least so far as we've been able to discover. But there may be other tunnels through other mountains somewhere on Ea that lead to the Star People's worlds.'

'But might it be possible,' Maram asked, 'to pass to another part of this World through this tunnel? Ah, perhaps to journey to Hesperu in a click of a moment?'

Again, he snapped his fingers, and again Master Storr looked at him with disapproval. He said to Maram, There are no tunnels like these that we know of in Hesperu, or indeed outside of the White Mountains. But if you discover any such on your journey, you must be sure to let me know.'

'I shall, I shall,' Maram muttered as he looked into the tunnel's glowing mouth. 'But I still don't understand how walking into here will result in our walking out there — when 'there' is not just one other tunnel, but any one of seventeen.'

'Haven't you been listening to anything of what I've told you?' Master Storr asked him. 'There is really only one tunnel, interconnected in its seventeen parts. But connected how? Geometrically, yes, certainly, in ways that we don't fully understand. But we know they are also connected through thought and will. This is the key, Sar Maram. When you were looking for our school and went back inside the tunnel, which the sun had brought to life, its gelstei sensed your desire to reach us, and so brought you out into our valley. If you had willed a different destination and held it strongly enough in your minds, you would have found that place instead.'

'Ah, but what if the tunnel came alive, and we willed nothing?' Maram's voice boomed out and disappeared into the curved, pulsing walls of gelstei ahead of us. 'Because we were frightened or confused?'

'That is an experiment we haven't wanted to make,' Master Storr said. 'Presumably, you would eventually come out into one lost valley or another.'

'But what of Morjin then? Aren't you afraid that he will learn to control the tunnel's gelstei?'

'He might know nothing of it,' Master Storr said. 'He is not omniscient, you know. Now. if you will please forbear and let Brother Lorand learn the ways of these tunnels.'

None of us, I thought, was pleased at the prospect of Master Storr utilizing our circumstances to teach his young student, but that was the way of the Brotherhood. In truth, however there was little danger of Brother Lorand guiding us wrongly, for Master Storr guided him, holding his concentration on the rustlike gelstei even as he encouraged Brother Lorand with a ready smile or a kind word. Our passage through the tunnel was much as before. We lined up in order behind Master Storr; I took the lead of my companions, followed by Atara, Liljana, Daj and Estrella, with Master Juwain and Maram riding closely behind this irrepressibly joyful girl. Kane, in the rear, kept a close watch on what Estrella watched, gazing into the flowing hues of the gelstei on the walls in hope that she might discover something of note. The horses, which we had blindfolded, clopped along nervously as each of us fought the spinning sensation in our heads and the sickness that crept into our bellies. Maram moaned to see Master Storr waver like a ghost and then reappear a moment later. It seemed that we walked a long time and an even longer way over the road's cold stones. But in the end, as Master Storr kept promising Maram, we drew closer and closer to the spot of light at the tunnel's end.

We came out, as before, into a valley — but a very different one than the Valley of the Sun. Below us, down steep and heavily wooded slopes, ran a long, deep groove between two ridgelines of jagged mountains. It was higher here, and colder, and crusts of snow whitened, the rocks above the treeline. The blueness had fled from the sky, to be replaced by a solid sheet of grayish-white clouds.

We stood by our horses on the rocky ground outside the tunnel, trying to catch our breaths as we scanned this rugged terrain. Maram leaned across his knees as if he might lose his breakfast. And then he pointed down into the valley as he gasped out, 'But which way is that? I can't see the damn sun! North, I would guess, but it seemed that we were walking south, or perhaps east.'

Master Storr came up beside him and placed his old hand on his-shoulder. And he said, 'It is north by west. The line of the valley curves off due west, just around the base of that domed mountain. It will take you down into Acadu.'

'Are you certain of that? What if we get lost?'

'Would it reassure you if I taught you a Way Rhyme to guide you?'

'Ah, is that really necessary?'

'No, it. is not,' Master Storr said, smiling at him. 'From here, you can't help but walk straight into Acadu, but you'll have to find your own way through the great forest, as your circumstances will determine.'

He embraced Maram then; and me and the others as well. And he told us, 'You must undertake this quest with only one end in) mind. But if you should come across any new gelstei on your journey, I would be forever grateful if you would return them to our school for study. You seem to have a knack for finding gelstei — let us hope that also holds for finding the Maitreya.'

As Abrasax had, he enjoined us to walk in the light of the One. Then he gathered in the reins of his horse, and with Brother Lorand, moved back into the tunnel.

'Well,' Maram said to me as we looked off into this new valley, 'shall we get this over with?'

I nodded at him, then turned to pull on Altaru's reins and go down into the dark forests of Acadu.

Chapter 11

For the rest of the morning, we worked our way down into the valley. The going was rough. The road here, as ancient as any I had ever seen, had mostly disintegrated into a long, twisting slip of broken rock and dirt. Near the bottom of the valley, where a river rushed between steeply cut banks, the forest swallowed up the road altogether. We had to take care where we stepped, lest a rock hidden in the undergrowth or a root turn an ankle or hoof. We moved slowly, from need, guiding our horses over this bad ground. And yet a greater need drove us like a match flame slowly growing hotter inside us. We each knew that our quest had little chance of success in any case, and none at all if we wasted a week coddling ourselves — or perhaps a day or even an hour.

After a quick lunch of ham and cheese sandwiches, washed down with a bubbly apple cider, it began to rain, and this added misery to the difficulty of our descent. As we came down near the river and the ground flattened out, Maram let out a grunt of thanks — and then he began cursing as the rain suddenly drove down harder in stinging sheets that made him, and all of us, squint and shiver as we hunched down into our cloaks.

'I'm tired and cold,' he complained late in the afternoon. 'And I'm getting hungry again, too. Why don't we break for the day, and see if we can roast up some of that lamb the Brothers packed for us before it rots?'

Kane, however, insisted that we plod on another hour before making camp, and so we did. But by the time we found a level spot above the river and began unpacking the horses, Maram had grown quite surly with hunger — and fairly wroth when he discovered that every twig, stick and log that he could find rummaging around in the woods was soaking wet. As the day darkened into night he spent another hour fumbling with matches and strips of linen, trying to get a fire going. He finally gave up. He sat on a large, wet rock feeling as sorry for himself as he was ashamed at failing the rest of us. Then he took out his firestone and held it between his hands as he might a dead