Black Jade

swung my sword and cut the rope. Master Juwain came forward and held his hand to the droghul's throat to make sure that he was really dead. But I knew that he was.

After that, Kane used an axe to cut the droghul into pieces. He insisted that we bury each one in its own hole dug into the moist forest floor. We buried Jastor as well. With the droghul destroyed, it seemed safe to untie Pittock and Gorman.

But we would never really be safe. While Maram let loose a cheer that we had slain yet another monster, Atara walked off by herself a dozen yards into the woods. Dawn had come an hour since, and filled the trees with a smothered gray light. She stood beneath an old oak with her hand on her blindfold, shaking her head. I could almost feel the coldness that fell upon her whenever she was gifted with a vision. And then her words chilled me even more as she told us: 'This droghul was only the first. There will be two more, each more terrible and more powerful, as Morjin gains power over the Lightstone.'

That was all she said to us. That was all she would say, no matter that Maram cajoled her and told her that it wasn't fair that she should reveal only part of the future. But that was the way of things with scryers, who had their own code and lived with mysteries that no one else could understand.

'Well, I hope never to see a droghul again, despite what you prophesy,' Maram said to Atara. He stared off into the woods to the west. 'If we go that way, I think our passage will be bad enough.'

He looked to me then as if I might relent in our choice of routes through the Acadian forest. But I shook my head and dashed his hopes. Although the day was cool and gray and promised ill weather for travel I said to him that we must take no terror from what the droghul had told us, and go on undeterred into that dark swath of woods called the Skadarak.

Chapter 15

We did not, however, venture forth that morning or afternoon. The encounter with the droghul had exhausted all of us, and Kane and I had wounds that must be tended. Mine was the lesser of these. In the coolness of the damp morning, Liljana and Master Juwain helped me remove my armor and its leather underpadding. The force of the arrow that either Gorman or Pittock had fired at me had split the leather and the flesh along my spine as well. At least, as Master Juwain told me, the wound was not very deep. As I sat on a fallen log shivering at the mist that horripilated my naked skin, he cleaned it and rubbed in one of his foul-smelling ointments before sewing it shut. After that I could not sit up straight — much less move — without a sharp pain like that of a sword stabbing through my back.

As for Kane, Master Juwain was able to draw the arrow only with difficulty, for its barbed head caught up in his veins and tendons. Master Juwain determined that the arrow had torn the nerve chakra lying between the round of Kane's shoulder and his chest. Master Juwain's gray eyes clouded with concern, and he bit at his lip; he said that such a wound was much worse than it looked, for the fires of feeling would not be able to flow in and out of Kane's arm. Most men, suffering such an outrage to their flesh, would lose the use of their arm, which would wither and hang limp by their side.

'Perhaps,' Master Juwain said, taking out his green varistei, 'I should try to heal you with this. Although I must tell you that I am afraid to use it.'

'Ha, put your crystal away!' Kane said to him. He looked down at his arm, resting in the sling that Master Juwain had fashioned to support it. 'I've healed myself of worse wounds than this.'

Gorman and Pittoek came, forward to apologize for loosing arrows at us. It proved to be Gorman's arrow that had pierced Kane, and Gorman said to hiin, 'Forgive me, but I saw a dragon leap the fence and trample you to the ground, I loosed the arrow to keep it from rending you with its claws, or so I thought.'

He pounded his fist against his head as if to punish himself for his eyes' betrayal. Pittock likewise told of how he had seen a flaming werewolf grab hold of me. As he put it, 'I'd heard that the Crucifier was also called the Lord of Illusions but I never thought he had such power.'

With the droghul dead, Master Juwain reiterated his opinion that Morjin was unlikely to be able to inflict illusions upon either Pittock or Gorman — or any of the rest of us. To be safe, though. Master Juwain gave Pittock his warder to wear, as Atara gave hers to Gorman and Liljana draped her blood-red crystal around Berkuar's neck. Master Juwain's mind was as strong as a diamond; Liljana's was perhaps even stronger, and should be proof against any illusion so long as she didn't open herself to danger by using her blue gelstei. As for Atara, eyeless in eternity, Morjin had no power to make her see anything at all, for she had no power in this herself.

We spent the afternoon resting, drinking hot teas and later eating a thick venison stew that Liljana prepared for us. I dreaded going forth, into the Skadarak with Kane having the use of only one arm. What monsters, I wondered, would we find to fight there, and how would we fight them with the mightiest of us hardly able to wield his sword?

Other questions vexed me as sorely. I kept thinking of what the droghul had said to me. Finally, that night as we all sat close to the fire, we had a chance to speak of this.

'You've told that Angra Mainyu's people poisoned you with poppy and stole the Black Jade,' I said to Kane. He sat to my right with his bad arm cradled in a sling. 'But why, then, was it brought to Ea?'

His black eyes grew even blacker as he glared at me. He snarled out, 'So, do you think I know everything?'

At this, Master Juwain, ever a peacemaker, cleared his throat and began speaking in the most reasonable of voices: 'In answer to this question, I believe that we should consider the prophecy of Midori Hastar: that Ea will give rise to the greatest and last Maitreya. We all pray that this is so, even as the Baaloch and his kind must dread it. It's likely, is it not, thai the Dark One sent the Black Jade here to help defeat this Maitreya or prevent him from ever coming forth?'

'I should think that it is likely,' Liljana said, for once agreeing with him. 'And so it makes good sense that the Galadin must have then sent the Lightstone to counteract the power of the Black Jade.'

Kane only stared into the fire. Although he made no response to this hypothesis, his silence seemed to confirm the spirit of what Master Juwain and Liljana had said.

'What I wonder at,' Maram called out into the cool evening air, 'is what the droghul said about a doom laid upon the crystal. Was this only another lie? If it wasn't, who laid such a doom, and how?'

Kane waited a long few moments as he sat watching the crackling fire. Then he said, 'The droghul spoke truly in this, though he twisted the truth to make a lie. The Daevas themselves laid the doom in their zeal to execute Angra Mainyu's will. It was they who poisoned the crystal. The black gelstei contains the great darkness itself, eh? So, it will drink in all that is dark from any who try to wield it, and who is darker than the Daevas who follow Angra Mainyu except the Dark One himself?'

Even from three feet away, I could feel Kane's heart moving against his chest bones like an animal trapped in a small, lightless room.

'But is it possible,' Maram persisted, 'for Morjin to use the Black Jade as the droghul has said? For him to make people into ghuls?'

Kane's words, as he turned to Maram, were more chilling than the dank night air: 'So, it is possible.'

He drew in a deep breath, as did I, and Atara sitting on my other side. And then he continued, now speaking in a more kindly tone: 'But first, he would have to master the Lightstone.'

'Master it or merely gain more power over it?' Maram asked. 'If Morjin could do to us what he did to his droghul, through the Black Jade, then it should found and destroyed.'

It took a few moments for Maram to realize the implications of his words. Atara oriented her face toward him, and said, 'Are you suggesting we search for it and destroy it?'

'Am I suggesting that?' Maram said as if speaking to himself. His audacity seemed to astonish him. 'Well, we're close to it, aren't we?'

'That we are,' Kane said holding out his good hand as if to feel the air. 'And if we get too much closer, the