Black Jade

'There is always hope,' I said as I touched the scarf that my grandmother had made for me.

'Not always,' the droghul said with a smile. 'Without my leave, you'll never get past the Skadarak.'

I nodded at Berkuar and said, 'Our companion knows the way.'

'He may know the way that once was, but the Skadarak has grown.'

'We will find a way through it,' I said to the droghul 'and go on.'

'On to search for the Maitreya? Perhaps I should let you pass.'

'You have great power over men,' I said to him. I looked at my sword doubtfully as it flared bright silver. 'Perhaps over the gelstei, too. But you've no power over the earth itself.'

'Don't I?' The droghul stood up straighter against the pull of the rope binding him. 'I am Lord of the Lightstone, am I not? And thus Lord and Master of the earth.'

Again, I looked at my sword blazing so brilliantly. And I said, 'No, not yet, you aren't.'

The droghul smiled without humor as he said, 'No, not yet — it's true. But soon, and then utterly and forever.'

Kane, not wishing to hear such proud speech, made a fist as if to strike the droghul. Again, I laid my hand on his shoulder.

'Until then,' the droghul said, 'I am master of the gelstei, and that is why you'll never get past the Skadarak. He knows.'

The droghul aimed his eyes at Kane, who pulled away from me and stared out over the fence toward the dark forest to the west. He would not look at me.

'It is the Black Jade,' the droghul said. 'The great black gelstei.' He went on to tell of the War of the Stone and of the glory of his master, Angra Mainyu. He claimed that Angra Mainyu wanted only to vanquish the Great Lie and bring about a new creation — and to take his rightful place in it as the one called the Marudin. But the Galadin, he said, grew envious of him. And so Kalkin had stolen the greatest of the black gelstei to use against him: the very same stone that had defeated Angra Mainyu at the Battle of Tharharra. And then the Galadin bound the brightest being in all Eluru on the black wasteland of Damoom. With this crime, a doom was laid upon the Black Jade: that it would betray Kaikin and bring Damoom's darkness down upon Kane's soul and those of all who followed him.

'Kalkin tried to flee the vengeance of the Black Jade,' the droghul told us. 'He brought the crystal here, to Acadu, in hope that such a beautiful place might help him escape the crystal's pull. But he might as well have tried to flee from his own damned eyes. The Black Jade only darkened everything around it — even all of Ea, as we all have seen. In despair, Kalkin cast the crystal away. Here, in Acadu, it has dwelled for thousands of years. And so become the Skadarak.'

For a moment I thought that Kane had heard nothing of what the droghul had said. He stood staring at the droghul with eyes as empty as dry wells. Then he burst into a fury of motion, turning to stalk over to the fire and grab up a flaming brand. He came back over to the droghul and cried out, 'Speak one more lie, and you'll die in fire!'

'I will speak what I must speak,' the droghul said, 'whether you threaten me or not. But I speak the truth.'

'No, you lie!' Kane shouted. 'Others like you, at Angra Mainyu's command, poisoned my wine with poppy. And then when I slept, the Black Jade was stolen from me and brought here to aid him!'

Kane's face, like that of a snarling animal, was terrible to look upon. I was afraid that it might be he who lied, while the droghul told the truth.

And the droghul said to me: 'Even if you escape the Skadarak now, in your persons, you won't escape it in your souls. Look on Kane! Look on me and behold yourselves! Soon, very soon, the Dragon will use the Black Jade to make anyone he wishes into a ghul.'

'Damn you!' Kane roared out. 'Damn you!'

He moved to thrust the brand at the droghul, but I stepped between them and tore it from his hand. For a moment it seemed that I looked upon a legendary beast. Kane, as ever, shook with all the rage of a lion; his eyes flashed as fiercely as any eagle's while his long white teeth seemed as powerful as those of a shark. And then my eyes cleared, and I remembered who this dangerous friend of mine really was.

'Why trade words any longer with the Lord of Lies?' I said to him. I breathed deeply the night's dark air, hoping it would clear my mind of much of what I had seen and heard. 'Let us tear off a rag and bind his droghul's mouth.'

'And what then, eh?' Kane said as he glared at me. 'Will you leave him tied up here for the bears to eat?'

We could not leave him as Kane had said. But neither, I thought, could we drag this bound and hateful creature all across Ea, and we certainly could not free him. That seemed to leave us only one choice.

I stood before the droghul and gripped my sword with both hands. How many men, I wondered, had I slain? Although I had kept no count of the numbers, the faces of each one burned inside me. One more, surely, would poison my soul only a little more. And yet I had never put sword to a bound and helpless man. I knew that Kane would be glad to execute the droghul in my stead. Bui it seemed that the duty was upon me.

'Free me,' the droghul said to me. He cast a beautiful smile at Atara. 'Lead me to the Maitreya, and your woman shall be restored.' 'You do not have that power,' I told him. 'I have the Lightstone,' he reminded me. 'And so I have all the power in the world.'

'No,'

'Free me, and you shall be elevated to your rightful place. For you, Valashu, there will be no death.'

For a moment, the hilt of my sword seemed to soften, and then buckle as it came alive and writhed like the coils of a snake. I nearly cast it from me. I said to the droghul 'You lie — as ever, you lie.'

'Is this a lie: that you know my heart as no other man ever has? Even as I know yours?' 'No, no.'

The droghul with his soft, golden eyes looked at me in all the terror of death — and something more. Something deep and beau-tiful inside him called to me. It was a plea to be as brothers. And yet something else, dark and vile, denied him this brotherhood and shouted down to me that he would be satisfied only with my submission, flattery and adulation.

'How can I kill him?' I said to Kane — and to myself.

'So, Val, so — give me your sword and I'll give you his head!'

I hesitated. I remembered Kane once telling me how Morjin had a sense of how he might have been noble and great, and still might be.

I said to him: 'There is good in you — I can feel it!'

As I spoke these words, a darkness fell over his eyes. His whole body jumped against his bonds and then shuddered. I had sense of hard scales and burning relb and terrible, black claws seizing hold of his heart. 'There is good in you!' I insisted again.

'Is there?' he asked me. His voice had fallen hard as ice.

My eyes locked onto his, and the whole world seemed to disappear. 'Yes,' I said.

'Damn you, Elahad! Do not look at me that way!' he snarled out. 'Always, you and your kind presume too much!'

'But it is the will of the One!' I told him.

'The One be damned!' he shouted at me. 'Do you want to know about the One? Then I shall tell you.'

He drew in deep breath, and then let it out in a torrent of words that was more like a fiery blast than true human speech: 'The One calls all things into being, from worms to men to myself. We are given freedom of will — those who do not surrender it to someone greater. But because being itself, in this hell that is the world, is cruel and hard, some few of us, the truly great ones, will ourselves to be even crueller and harder. Some call this evil. Some men — and Master Juwain and his order are among these — teach that the strong and the great do evil only out of ignorance, in the mistaken belief that we are doing good. At the worst, they say, our kind are cruel despite knowing what we do is evil, as if there is no help for it. No one wants to know the truth: that the One made this to happen when he made this hell for me to live in and gave me my perfect will to be the Red Dragon. I do what I do because it is evil. I like it.'

He paused to let these words pierce me like so many nails. His eyes were as hard as hammers; all the light