Black Jade

Master Juwain led us in a light meditation, and that seemed to ward off the worst of the gloom eating at us, at least for a while. I restated my belief that we could simply walk out of this wood whenever we chose. Liljana's response to our predicament was more practical: she willed herself to set to cooking us the best meal she possibly could. We sat down late that night to roast venison and cakes sweetened with some of the apple butter and jams that the Brothers had given us. We had figs for dessert, and then Liljana brewed up some rare mugs of coffee.

This feast should have been enough stuff any man, but Maram ate as for three, cramming food into his mouth with a gluttony that was excessive, even for him. He had the grace, however, to compliment Liljana's cooking and the cunning to extol her sacrifice in working hours late into the night for the sake of our bellies and bodies, to say nothing of our spirits: 'Ah, bless you, Liljana, bless you. No one else could have summoned up such delicious fare in such a place, and no one else would even have tried. I'll go to bed a better man tonight.'

His words brightened Liljana's spirits more than could any of Master Juwain's meditations. She even insisted on staying up late to clean the pots herself so that we could get a good night's rest, and this was no little thing considering that she had little water for the task. She went to work contentedly, almost happily — that is, until she discovered that Maram had appropriated a jar of strawberry jam and consumed all its contents himself. She found this cast-off container in some leaves at Maram's place by the fire. As she held up the empty jar and shook it at Maram, her mood instantly fell from good will toward all men into a rare and shocking fury: 'How can you have gobbled all this down in one meal yourself? Don't tell me there wasn't enough else to eat!'

Maram stammered out, 'I… I, ah, I ate as I always eat! Do I need to ask your leave to have a little jam?'

'You ate all the jam — there is no more!'

'Ah, no more strawberry, perhaps, but we've jars of blueberry and cherry, and apple butter, too.'

'But strawberry was Daj's favorite! You knew this, and you ate it all, even so.'

'Well, I'm sorry,' Maram said. 'Believe me, I can't tell you how sorry I am.'

'You're sorry you got caught, that's all,' Liljana shrilled at him. 'You've no more care for Daj than you do for me — else you would have saved at least a little jam.'

Daj, awed by Liljana's rage, stood beside her and looked up at her as if she had transformed into a she- wolf.

'You're a hog,' she said to Maram. 'A great, fat hog of a man, and you've no care for anyone or anything except what's in the trough in front of you!'

Such words can put poison in the soul; in truth, they can poison the soul of the one who utters them, as well. Liljana stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at Maram as he glared back at her. Finally, he muttered something about having to comb down the horses, and stalked off away from the fire.

I took Liljana aside and pressed her hand into mine, trying to draw off some of her fire. I said to her, 'You, of all of us, must keep us together, not drive us apart.'

My words seemed to calm her, but only slightly. She said to me, 'All that I said to Maram was true!'

'Yes, it was true,' I told her. 'But you must know that you shouldn't say it precisely because it is true.'

'I do know that,' she said, glancing down at the ground. Then she looked at me. 'Thank you for reminding me. The Materix before me — Anahita Kirriland — warned me that I could be as murderous as Morjin if provoked, and I've always known she was right. But that Maram provokes me so! Sometimes I think he hates me!'

'No,' I said, smiling at her. 'He regards you as he would his own mother.'

'Do you really think so? But sometimes he has so little respect.'

'Don't you think he knows that? Don't you think he knows who he is and wishes to be better, as we all do?'

Liljana's face softened as I said this, and she might have smiled if Morjin hadn't stolen from her this grace. She returned to the task of washing her pots with a lifting of her spirits, if not exactly good cheer. And I went off to speak with Maram.

I found him thirty yards away from our camp, sitting in the dark on a log near a blighted tree. At my approach, he gave a jerk and thrust his hand under his cloak. He moaned out to me, 'Ah, Val, Val — that woman hates me!'

'Of course she doesn't hate you,' I said, stepping closer. 'She's just not herself — none of us are.'

'No, I think she's too much herself, if you know what I mean. Oh, too bad, too bad.'

Maram's self-pity swept over me in waves that made me sick in the belly. As he opened his mouth to bemoan his fate for the thousandth time, something else swept over me as well: a blast of brandy-tainted breath.

My sudden fury shocked me as I shouted to him: 'You've been drinking!'

'Ah, well so what if I have!' he shouted back. 'Where's the bottle then?'

From beneath his cloak, Maram withdrew a bottle of brandy unstoppered and half-full judging from the sloshing sound of its contents. The sight of it further inflamed my fury. I lashed out with my fist, knocking his forearm and dislodging the bottle from his hand. It bounced off the log and fell to the forest floor, where its dark brandy ran out onto the ground.

'What have you done?' he cried out.

He lunged for the bottle as if hoping to rescue at least a few drams of brandy. But I caught hold of his arm and jerked him up short.

'What have you done?' I yelled back at him. 'Your vow — '

'My vow be damned!' he cried out. 'As we're all damned in this damnable woods!'

For a moment, I wanted to slap the despair from his face. But then the outrage and sense of betrayal that poured out of him stilled my hand. I made a fist again, and bit my own knuckles. And I said to him, 'I.. am sorry. Please forgive me.'

Then it was my turn to go marching off into the woods. As my boots squeezed the moisture from mildewed old leaves, I tried breathing deeply, as Master Juwain had taught me. I tried meditating upon the brilliance of the rising sun, as he had also taught me in one of his light meditations. Nothing seemed to help. I leaned against the trunk of a twisted tree, and I could not calm the beating of my heart, which jumped in my chest like a hare fleeing a ravenous predator.

'Morjin,' I whispered. 'Morjin.'

I knew that somehow |e was attacking us, through the Black Jade. This cursed crystal called to me through the blackened forest. The very earth beneath my boots seemed to despise me, and promised soon to rot my flesh and bones.

How was it possible, I wondered, that I had nearly struck my best friend? The dark earth of the Skadarak called to the darkest part of me: Valashu...

I had impulses. All people do. I wanted to run in terror from the beast snapping its jaws at the back of my neck, even as I wanted to pretend that Liljana was my mother and fall weeping into her lap. Whenever I looked at Atara, my arms trembled to crush her to me and kiss her beautiful lips, to carry her off and fill her with the seed of our child. The wound in my back was an outrage that demanded protest. All the wounds that I had taken since I was a child to my body and my soul, gave voice to agony. The pain of the kirax burning up my blood was a fire I could never escape. It made me want to scream at the immense torment of life. My fingers ached to tear out Morjin's liver and cast it to the dogs, as my tongue tingled to taste his blood. As the night deepened and I stood alone in the lightless woods, I wanted to free all these impulses and a hundred more as I might uncage rabid rats — even the darkest and deadliest impulse of all.

Sometime after midnight, I returned to our camp. Master Juwain sat by one of the fires with his eyes fixed upon a page of the Saganom Elu. He seemed to be reading the same lines over and over again. Atara was by herself near the other fire seeking knowledge of another sort. When I sat down beside her, her whole body gave a start, and her fingers fumbled to find my hands and face. 'What's wrong?' I asked her. 'It's all dark, now,' she told me.

The heart of this brave woman sent out pulses of fear. 'We'll find our way out of here,' I promised. 'Tomorrow, we will.'

'It won't matter if we do,' she said. 'It's all dark as if there will never be light again. As if there never