Black Jade

And Maram sighed out, 'Well, what about the brandy? That's mostly water, isn't it?'

Master Juwain shook his head at this and said him, 'I've told you before: spirits only dry out the body, worse than sea water. Please put this out of your mind.'

After another hour, when it grew bitterly cold, the children gave up their search in order to take a little rest, lying down with Maram, Master Juwain, Atara and Liljana. Yago continued prowling about the rocks above us. I tried to sleep but kept waking up in want of water to ease the burning in my throat. The stars shone down brightly through air that was too clear.

Then, near dawn, I heard Kane call out from where he stood watch above us: 'They come!'

I rose up stiffly from the rocky ground and climbed to where he stood on a prominence looking down through the canyon to the open desert in the west. Even two miles away we could see the light of what must be torches, moving closer.

'So, so,' Kane said, stringing his longbow.

I tried to find some moisture in my mouth with which to wet my tongue. I said, 'I'm afraid I'm too parched to fight another battle.'

'Battle?' he growled out. 'Well, it might come to that yet. It all depends on whether our enemy has enough water to wait us out.'

When the torches began moving up through the mouth of the canyon, I woke up the others. The children, with Liljana, renewed what seemed a hopeless quest to find water. Maram and Yago joined Kane and me at the edge of the rocky shelf. So, a moment later, did Master Juwain and Atara, who used her unstrung bow to feel her way over the broken ground. She had hardly spoken ten words for all the last day. Now she came up to me and whispered in my ear. Her words burned with the rage of helplessness: 'I still can't see. I should break my bow and cast away the pieces!'

'It will return,' I whispered back to her. 'It will all return.'

She stood in the silence of the dark, shivering in the cold and shaking her head. She said to me, 'Tell me what you see.'

And so I did. As the night drew to an end, a faint light warmed the world. It slowly grew brighter. I tried to describe the way the sun's first rays touched the desert with a golden-red glow. It was all strangely beautiful, I said. This luminosity worked its way east until it filled the canyon's mouth and set its stark rocks on fire. Now, I told her, our enemy had no need of their torches. In the hard light of day, they tracked us more surely and swiftly. A mass of horsemen, perhaps sixty strong, worked their way up toward us. It seemed that they still hadn't seen us, half-hidden as we were behind the boulders on the rocky shelf. But I could easily see them. Most of the horsemen wore billowing white robes like unto Turi's and Yago's. Five of them, though, showed the bright carmine of tunics or surcoats: the color of the Red Priests. I could not guess what kind of garment covered the droghul of Morjin.

'The Poisoner comes!' Yago said from next to me as he pointed his saber down the ravine. 'Which one is he, Mirustral?'

'I can't quite tell,' I said to him. 'They are still too far away.'

'Not for long,' Maram muttered. 'We might as well jump up and announce ourselves so as to make things easier.'

He turned to stare at the slope of mountain looming large and dark behind us. I turned, too, looking for Liljana and the children. It seemed that Liljana must have pulled the children down into the cover of the rocks higher up.

'The sun will be up soon,' Maram muttered. He put down his bow and took out his red crystal instead. He looked down at the horsemen moving slowly up the canyon. 'Well, let them come, then! They must be hungry after riding all night — I'll give them fire to eat!'

'No,' Master Juwain said, coming over to rest his hand on his arm. 'It's too dangerous.'

'The droghul comes,' I said to him. I blinked against the sick heat of my blood burning into my eyes. 'He surely comes, and he'll kill you with your own fire.'

'It might be our last chance,' Maram said as he pointed his crystal down into the canyon.

'No,' I told him. 'He'll turn your fire and kill us all.'

Yago turned to regard Maram, puzzled by the turn of our talk. It seemed that he knew nothing of the gelstei. There was no time to educate him, however, for just then a cry rang out through the canyon as one of the white- robed men below us pointed straight up the ravine toward our position.

'Maybe,' Maram said, 'I can at least burn that damn droghul before he burns me.'

The enemy moved still closer, and now I caught a gleam of yellow hair to match the yellow tunic of a man riding near the lead of the horsemen. The fire that whispered in my mind told me that this must be yet another incarnation of Morjin.

'So,' Kane's voice rumbled. 'So.'

'No fire,' I said to Maram. 'Not yet — let's see what they'll do.'

When the horsemen came to the ravine, they stopped and began dismounting. Some of them shouted up to us. I could not make out what they were saying. Kane nocked an arrow, and drew it back to his ear. Then he shook his head as he eased the tension on the bowstring. It was a long shot down to the men below us, about a hundred yards. Atara might possibly be able to pick off targets at such a distance, but Kane hated wasting arrows.

'You were right, Mirustal,' Yago said to me. 'This Poisoner and the Red Priests have their stingers sunk very deep into the Zuri. I didn't really think they would dare to cross the Avari's lands.'

A Zuri warrior, holding up a white banner of truce, began making his way up the ravine. One of the priests walked to his left. So narrow was this rocky chute that another man would have had difficulty fitting in beside them.

They came within thirty yards, close enough that I could see the priest's smooth, sunburnt face. He had red hair and blue eyes, like the men of Surrapam. Kane pulled back on his bowstring again, sighting his arrow upon him.

'No!' I called to him. 'They come under truce!'

'Truce?' Kane growled out. 'The bloody Red Priests would break it as readily as they'd squash a bug. Let me at least kill one of them and lighten our work.'

'No!' I said again. 'Let's hear what he has to say.'

'Lies, he'll say. How many must we listen to?'

The two men halted their climb twenty yards below us. The Zuri warrior had the look of Yago's people, with his black beard and dark, hard features. When I remarked that he looked much like the Masud I had seen at the well, Yago took insult saying, 'Can you not see how his eyes are too close together, like a snake's? Look at his narrow forehead! And the cut of his robes, which are …'

As Yago began describing the different cut and stitching of the robes of the various tribes of the Ravirii, the much-fairer Red Priest called up to us: 'Well-poisoners! My name is Maslan, and I speak on behalf of Oalo, whom Tatuk has sent to bring you to justice! Lay down your weapons and surrender, and you shall be spared the punishment decreed for poisoners! Your children shall be taken into the Zuri tribe and well cared for.'

'Never!' Yago shouted back at him. 'Give my son to you? It is the yellow-hair you ride with who is the well-poisoner!'

Maslan turned to the warrior beside him as if to say: 'Do you see how they lie?'

Then he called up to us again: 'You are trapped here! I think you have no water. We can wait here until you drop of thirst.'

'Then wait!' Kane shouted down to him. 'Or send up as many as you please! We've arrows enough for you all!'

Maslan took from the Zuri warrior a waterskin, which he held up to his lips. He swished some water around in his mouth, then spat it out into the ravine. He called out: 'Any who surrender may have all the water they wish. Any who do not are welcome to lick these rocks.'

That was all he said to us. He turned his back to us, and led the Zuri warrior back down the ravine to the mass of our enemy gathered in the canyon below.

'Val,' Maram said to me. 'Put your sword through my throat! It will be better than dying of thirst or whatever torture the Red Priests have planned for us.'

'Be quiet,' I said to him, trying to think. 'There must be a way out.'