Black Jade

a worm to take back to her hatchlings.'

'Listening?' Berkuar said as we watched the robin cocking her head, this way and that. 'But how could you know that?'

'Mirustral knows things,' Maram said as he squeezed my shoulder. 'And the animals know that he knows. It's the way that he calls to them.'

I looked up at Maram and shook my head in warning. It wouldn't do to tell Berkuar, or any other stranger, too much about my gift of valarda.

Now Berkuar seemed suddenly very interested in me. He pointed up past the crowns of the trees at the blue sky. There, a hawk soared above us and called out its harsh, screaming kee yarr. And Berkuar said to me, 'Let's hear you call to that hawk, then. Not many can do well the cry of a red-shouldered hawk.'

'Neither can I,' I said.'I've never been able to mimic animals.'

'Then how is it that you can call to them?'

In answer, I stood and turned my face to the sky. I looked up at the hawk even as he looked down at me. In the meeting of our eyes was a shock of recognition, like the flash of a lightning bolt. It seemed as if the hawk and I had known each other for a million years and would be as brothers for a million more.

'Come!' I whispered in the silence of my heart. 'Ashvarii. come to me!'

It was said that if you called out an animal's true name, he would do as you asked.

Again, the hawk gave voice to its screaming hunting cry; I felt this sound deep within my own throat. Suddenly, without warning.. the hawk pulled back his wings and dived straight down toward me. I held my arm straight out. At the last moment, it seemed, the hawk's wings beat the air in a feathered fury as he settled down onto my forearm and wrapped his talons around my cloak and the steel mail buried beneath it.

Daj and Estrella came running to witness this little miracle, and Maram's eyes widened in surprise.

The hawk turned his bright black eye toward me. Ashvarii, my grandfather used to call this kind of hawk. He was a beautiful bird; true to his name, his feathers were rufous around the shoulder, and his wings were barred black and white. Five thin white bands marked his black tail. Nature had designed this sleek bird to hunt along the wind, flying as straight and true as an arrow. He looked at me for a long moment, as if to ask me why I remained so heavy and earthbound? Then he cried out again, and in a burst of muscles and feathers, pushed off my arm into the air. He flew up and up, toward the crowns of the trees.

'Strange,' Berkuar said, looking at me in a new light. 'Very strange.'

It occurred to me that I had not called animals in this way for a long time. It gave me hope that the lies and killings of the previous year hadn't completely sullied me. Would Ashvarii have come to me if I were forever tainted with hate? How was it possible, I wondered, to hate at all in sight of such a great being?

And then a shadow fell over my eyes as it came to me that Morjin would hate this bird solely because it claimed a realm that could not be his and flew so wild and free.

'Strange,' Berkuar murmured again. 'We of Acadu do not summon these hunting birds as you have done, but it is said that in-other lands they practice such arts. Is that your bird then, trained from a hatchling?'

'I've never seen him before,' I told him. 'And that bird belongs to no one and nothing except the sky.'

After that we resumed our journey to the west. We did not come across the hawk again. But the woods were full of other birds: warblers and ravens, sparrows, shrikes and starlings. We saw many four-legged animals as well, and many of these were deer. What evening we feasted on a young buck killed by Berkuar. He spent most of an hour washing its still form in fresh water and chanting over its spirit before he would allow us to dress and cook it. Maram, it seemed, had developed a liking for this strange man and his ways. He was overeager to take the first watch; he even offered to stand Master Juwain's and my watches, as well. The night passed peacefully, with Daj and Estrella curled up in each other's arms between Atara and Liljana in front of the fire. Toward midnight, the wakeful Berkuar called out to a great horned owl somewhere in the woods. The owl's deep, hooing answer seemed as natural as the wind, but it disturbed me even so.

Just before dawn, I came awake to the urgent press of Kane's hand. He knelt over me, gripping his strung bow as waves of anger poured out of him. When my eyes finally cleared, he bent his head low and whispered to me, 'There are men, all around us, in the woods.'

As I roused myself up and grabbed for my sword, Kane whipped about and drew an arrow. He fit it to his bowstring, which he pulled back, aiming the arrow straight at Berkuar standing guard by the wooden fence that protected our encampment. I quickly woke the others, even Daj and Estrella. Atara and Maram armed themselves, too, then joined Kane and me as we stood facing Berkuar.

'So, you've led us into a trap!' Kane snarled at him.

The day's first light barely sufficed to show the gray trunks of trees all around us and the bracken low and grayish green along the forest floor. The morning mist filled the silent woods. Between the trees, I saw, through the swirls of mist stood men in a great circle around us. There must have been more than thirty of them. They wore long, hooded cloaks and bore bows and arrows, which they pulled back on almost invisible strings. They seemed to be waiting for a signal or call.

'Kill me,' Berkuar said to Kane, 'and you'll die with a dozen arrows in you — your friends, too!'

Maram, crouching low as if he hoped our flimsy fortifications would be enough to shield him, cried out, 'Is it the Grays, then? No, no — there are too many for a company of Grays, and the Stonefaces bear knives, not bows, don't they?'

'We are the Greens,' Berkuar told him. Then he turned to Kane. 'We are the Keepers of the Forest, and it is upon us to keep the enemy out of Acadu. If you are one of them, then this is indeed a trap.'

'We've told you who we are!' Kane said as he tightened the tension on his bow.

It was a rare man who could stare down Kane in all his fury, but Berkuar seemed unconcerned with the prospect of his imminent death. He said to Kane, 'You've told of a quest to find the Well of Restoration and names that I do not believe are yours.'

'We killed your enemies!'

'You killed that traitor, Harwell, and his cursed Crucifiers, and they were our enemies. But were they really yours, as well? Or did you arrange the attack on Gladwater and sacrifice them to win my confidence? The Kallimun have done more deceptive things, and worse, to try to win their way into the trust of our society.'

The mist thinned to reveal the men surrounding us. Kane finally blinked his eyes then. But he did not loose his arrow. I felt his consternation, like an acid, at being confronted by a man even more suspicious than he was.

'Val,' he whispered to me.

He nodded at me as if to confess that his own evil mistrust had brought these men down on us. With his eyes, he sought my forgiveness and looked to me to put things aright.

Then Berkuar let loose a whistle like that of a goldfinch. Kane turned his attention back to him and to the Greens, about thirty of them, who slowly began advancing upon us through the woods like a tightening noose.

'What is your name?' Berkuar asked me. 'The one you were born with?'

I hesitated only a moment, then said, 'Valashu Elahad. Of Mesh.'

Then I gave him the names of my companions and the lands that had birthed them, as far as I knew. Estrella could not tell of her origins, and as for Kane, no one knew what name his father and mother had spoken on the hour of his birth — perhaps not even Kane himself.

'And what of this Well of Restoration then? Do you really seek it?'

My breath rose and fell as I looked into Berkuar's blue eyes, now gray in the early light. His breath, too, came quickly, like a bird's, as he looked back at me. There dwelled within me, I knew, a great power: that if I told the truth, utterly and completely, with all my heart, men would believe me.

'We seek the Lightstone,' I said to him. 'Or rather, the one who can wield it who is called the Maitreya.'

As quickly as I could, in a low voice that he strained to hear, I told Mm of our struggles against Morjin and of our quest to faroff Hesperu.

'What is he saying?' one of the Greens beyond our encampment called out to us. This proved to be a big man named Gorman, who was as thick and shaggy as a sagosk. 'Give the word and we'll fill him with arrows!'

'Let us kill them all, anyway, and be done with it!' another said. This man, almost as tall as I, was thin and angular like a piece of overly whittled wood.