Black Jade

replenished our supplies and so conserved them, Berkuar agreed with Kane that we should keep our presence in Acadu a secret, if that was any longer possible. In any case, he and his fellows mostly disdained the soft, farm foods that he might have requisitioned from his countrymen, choosing instead to depend on their bows to put meat on the table, so to speak. Freshly-killed deer, boar and wild sheep, nuts and fruit such as blackberries and apples — this was most of what the Greens liked to eat.

As Pittock told us proudly, the Greens' culinary preferences gave them great stamina and strength, like unto that of roving wolves. He and the others padded along besides our horses through bracken or over old leaves at a pace better managed by four legs than two. But Pittock's two legs, as Pittock told us, were as hard as wood and his breath was like the west wind itself. The Greens could walk thirty miles without stopping, at need, pause for a few bites of bloody venison, and then walk thirty more.

That afternoon, in a district full of cherry orchards all snowy with white blossoms, we came to the Ea River. Berkuar knew of a ferryman who took us across it. Maram, thankful at putting this great water behind us, wanted to give the ferryman a gold piece for his efforts, but Berkuar discouraged such largess. He pointed out that the ferryman was likely already suspicious that we weren't really 'pilgrims' at all, and it wouldn't do for him to think that we were rich as merchants, too.

After traversing some miles of farmland to the west of the Ea, the farms thinned out as the forest gradually thickened. Soon, the ground rose into a more hilly country, where the woods grew even wilder. We chose a good spot to camp for the night beneath some mighty oaks and by a stream that gurgled down from these low hills.

'The mines are not far from here,' Berkuar told us as we unpacked the horses. He pointed into the wall of trees to the west. 'Twenty miles yon way, the hills rise higher, and there the Crucifier's men dig for gold. The line of hills runs thirty miles south, toward the Skadarak.'

'And what is the length and breadth of that place?' Master Juwain asked him as he unfolded his map and smoothed out the creases.

'No one knows with certainty,' Berkuar said. 'But if we make a great roundabout along these hills, as we must if we're to avoid the Crucifiers, for fifty miles, we'll come to the Cold Marshes. There we'll turn west again along the lower edge of the Skadarak.'

Master Juwain then put to Berkuar the very question that a very nervous Maram obviously trembled to ask: 'But if you don't know the precise dimensions of the Skadarak, how do you know there is a way past it, between the marshlands and it?'

'Because,' Berkuar said, 'my father once ventured that way and lived to tell of it. Unless the Skadarak has grown these past years, we'll find the same way that he did.'

'Unless it has grown!' Maram cried out. 'Do you have reason to think it has? Oh, I don't like the prospect of this at all, not even a dram's worth of spit!'

This proved to be a cue for Jastor and Gorman to spit thin red streams at the ground, both at once, for they chewed the barbark nut as did Berkuar and the merciless-looking Pittock. This gaunt mam, whose cheeks were carved with scars, stared at Maram and said, 'Berkuar has told us little more about you than that you are a knight of Mesh, which is said to lie in the Morning Mountains, wherever that is. Do the knights of your land then make such complaint when compelled to face dangers?'

'I was bom in Delu,' Maram told him. 'And, yes, we Delians, being more reasonable, as well as more civilized, do make complaint where complaint is called for. As it is when facing not just dangers, but sheer madness.'

Maram took a sip of water from his cup and swirled it about in his mouth as if he wished it were brandy. And then he added, 'And as for dangers, you can't imagine. I, myself, have stood against the siege of a great city and fought the Lord of Lies' Dragon Guard lance to lance in a great battle. And crossed the earth's highest mountains and fought a fire-breathing dragon and — '

I reached over and laid my hand on Maram's knee to silence him. Berkuar, according to the Greens' way, had told his three fellow woodsmen what they needed to know about us, and nothing more. He, himself, knew very little. But later that night, with the moon brightening the leaves of the trees above us, I joined him by the fortifications of our encampment, and we spoke of many things. I told him what I knew about the Maitreya. He, being a devout man in his crude, violent way, had memorized many passages from the Saganom Elu, though he could not read. He surprised me, reciting to me words that cut me to the heart:

About the Maitreya One thing is known:

That to himself

He always is known

When the moment comes

To claim the Lightstone.

'If this is true, as it must be,' he said to me, 'then since the Crucifier now keeps the Lightstone, the Maitreya would likely not even know himself as he really is. So how will you, Valashu, recognize him?'

And I told him, 'This is not written in the Saganom Elu, but it is true nevertheless. The Maitreya is he who will abide, at all times, under any circumstances, in the One. He will look upon all with an equal eye. And in his heart, like fire, will blaze an unshake-able courage.'

'Such valor,' Berkuar said, gripping the leather wrappings of his bow. 'Such impossible grace. I believe it must be so. But a million men live in Hesperu. You can't search out every one and look into his eyes to find this fire.'

'No,' I said, 'we cannot.'

Then I told him of Kasandra's prophecy that Estrella would show us the Maitreya.

'I see,' Berkuar said as he sucked on a barbark nut. 'Now I understand why you've brought children with you.' 'It seemed the only way,' I said.

'The only way,' he murmured as his eyes caught the gleam of the moonlight. 'Yes, I believe there is a way — there must be This must be the time, then. The Shining One will come forth! I never dreamed that I might live to see such a day!'

In all the miles of our journey from Gladwater, I had not seen Berkuar so excited or happy, or indeed, known that he was capable of such exaltation. I relieved him of his watch then. But he told me that he wouldn't be able to sleep, and so we stood there by the log fence for the next two hours, gazing out into the shimmering woods as we spoke of dreams close to our hearts.

In the morning we set out with a soaring of our spirits that seemed to rise up past the crowns of the trees and spread out like a flock of swans beneath the deep blue sky. The day grew pleasantly warm, and we were full of good food, and none of our enemies seemed too near.

But it is not the way of the world for such contentment to last. Day passes into night; bellies grow empty; clouds darken the sun. As we made our way along the line of hills, south and slightly west, the soft spring wind shifted and began to blow from the north, and the air fell steadily colder. Even so, we made good distance, journeying perhaps thirty miles by the time we stopped to make camp that evening. The drizzle that began sifting down from the gray sky at dusk, however, promised worse weather later that night, and it was so. A cold rain began to fall from a nearly black sky. It smothered our two little fires, and soaked our garments. Berkuar suggested abandoning our encampment to take shelter beneath the thick foliage of a basswood tree, and this we did. Kane didn't like giving up the protection of our wooden fence, but he liked even less the prospect of the children catching the cold of death.

For most of the night, Maram prayed aloud for respite from this icy deluge. His invocations, like thunder, boomed out above the great sound of water striking leaf, rock, log and our sodden wool cloaks, and running in torrents over the earth. Our rain cloths provided us little protection. I could do little more than wrap around my neck the white, wool scarf that my grandmother had once knitted me. And wait. It seemed that I had the very heavens to thank — or perhaps Maram — when the rain softened to a drizzle again just before dawn. The sky, however, did not clear. It grew even colder. After a miserable breakfast of old venison and cheese, we set out as quickly as we could, fairly jogging beside our horses in order to generate a little heat in our benumbed bodies. The wind died, and that was good, but with this quietening came a stifling stillness, as if we were all being smothered by a wet blanket held over our faces. Five miles of dripping woods we passed through, and then ten more, and it seemed that we must be drawing nearer to the Cold Marshes and the corridor of forest where we would turn west past the