Black Jade

to fear this and to live in dread of my gift of valarda. In a hundred ways, perhaps even through the Black Jade, he had attacked my will toward all that was good and true. And so I spoke with what honesty I dared, but softly and weakly, in words that were often at least partial lies.

'Father-killer!' the warriors around me called out. 'Sorcerer! Well-poisonerl'

'What else is there to say?' the droghul shouted. It seemed that he had given up struggling against Morjin. 'These men and their kind are well-poisoners! Give them to us that we might give them justice!'

Morjin, I suddenly knew, wished to torture out of me and my friends our knowledge of the Maitreya even more than he wished our deaths. If the droghul and the Red Priests got their hands on us, I wondered how they would be able to crucify us to a land without wood? Perhaps they would settle on cutting apart Daj and Estrella piece by piece, knowing that I could never bear this.

'Well-poisoners! Well-poisoners! Kill the well-poisoners!'

What is truth? It is not merely faultlessness and honesty, the uncovering of facts, but rather the urge toward these things, and much more, the primeval drive to bring forth into the light of existence the deepest designs of the real. It is as clear and perfect as starlight, and it blazes with all the fierceness and power of the sun.

Well-poisoner! Sorcerer! Father-killer! Father-killer! Father-killer!

In the black centers of the droghul's eyes, Morjin sat on his Dragon Throne shouting these words at me. Then, at last, I drew in a deep breath of fiery air and shouted back at him: 'My father died defending our land from your armies! My brothers, too! My mother was nailed to wood by your bloody priests! They put my grandmother next to her! You, with your own fingers, tore out my beloved's eyes! I. . could not stop this! I tried, with all my might, but I could not!'

I drew my sword, and red flames swirled about its shimmering silustria. With tears nearly blinding me, I told the assembled warriors more, things that I did not want to tell anyone, not even myself. I admitted that it was I who had led Atara and my other friends into Argattha, and so shook my fist at the stars. Although I hadn't slain my family I had brought about their deaths through hubris and hate. I loved the world, yes, and wanted to bring an end to war, but even more I hated Morjin and wanted with every breath to thrust my sword into his heart and make him die.

To the judges staring at me with their black, blurred eyes, to Sunji and Yago and all the warriors looking upon me in awe, even to the sky, I told of things simply as they were. There was no

manipulation in this, no calculation to achieve a certain end. I wanted only that my judges, and the whole world, should know. Sorrow tore the truth from me. I held nothing back: all my anguish, guilt and grief came pouring out of me. Al my love, and all my hate. The sun was a fierce thing in the sky, burning with a white-hot light, but this was more terrible, more beautiful more real.

When I could speak no more, Sunji sat on his horse regarding me from beneath the shawl that covered most of his face. His bright, black eyes shone with a deep lucidty. After glancing at the droghul, he turned to the judges and told them, 'King Morjin is right — what more is there to say?'

He drew in a deep breath of air as he called out to everyone: 'The well-poisoner, and those who helped him, must be served justice. Laisar, what do you say?'

Laisar's old eyes grew hard with judgment as he pointed at the droghul and shouted, 'I say that this man, whether he is King Morjin or his mind-slave, is the poisoner!'

'I say this, too!' Maidru called out.

'And I,' Avraym said. 'Let the poisoner be served!'

All at once, the Avari warriors up and down their line began shouting out:. 'Well-poisoner! Well-poisoner! Kill the well-poisoner!'

But the Zuri warriors, trapped between the Avari and the rocks where Maram and my other companions stood, kept their silence. It is one thing to hear the truth, and another to act upon it.

All eyes now fell upon the droghul, who held up his hand and cast his dreadful gaze to the right and left. He cried out: 'You must listen to me! The Elahad lies! It is he, not I, who is the-'

'Sorcerer! Well-poisoner! Well-poisoner! Kill the well-poisoner!'

Sunji, having heard from the judges, swept his sword from the droghul to Oalo, and then out to the Zuri warriors as he pronounced their doom: 'You have heeded too well the words of this sorcerer and poisoner, and those of his priests. But we have all heard the power of these words — the power of these lies. I cannot believe that you knew of the poisoner's deeds. Therefore you shall be spared his punishment. Lay down your swords, and you shall be free to go back to your home!'

'We won't lay down our swords!' Oalo shouted, drawing his saber. Its polished steel flashed in the sun. 'We wont make it easy for you to slaughter us here!'

'Truce-breaker!' Avraym called out to him, 'Drop your sword now, or die along with the Poisoner and his priests!'

'Throw down!' Laisar shouted at Oalo. He turned to the Zuri warriors and told them, 'All of you — throw down your swords!'

The sixty Zuri warriors hesitated for a moment. They looked from the droghul and Maslan at the center of the field to the four other Red Priests waiting with them in their line. It seemed that they feared these men more than they did Sunji and the Avari. And so they drew their swords and pointed them at the Avari rather than throwing them down.

'Damn you!' the droghul cried out to Sunji as he drew his sword. Torment ate at his eyes as he seemed for a moment to struggle against his distant master. But then his face hardened once again as he screamed out, 'Damn you, Avari! I'll poison your wells! I'll send armies to crucify your women and children, and make you drink their blood!'

As he screamed out even more vile threats, Laisar, Avraym and Maidro drew in closer to Sunji; with battle now imminent, ten Avari warriors galloped out from the line to join Sunji and the judges. They positioned themselves facing Oalo, Maslan and the droghul, forming a sort of wall protecting Kane, Yago and me.

'This is no trial by combat!' Sunji called out again to the Zuri. 'Throw down your swords!'

The droghul, however, pointed his sword straight at me. Only his hatred of Morjin's control of him, I thought, had so far kept him from trying to ride me down and hack me apart in full fury. But now he and Morjin were as one.

'Damn you, Elahad! You killed my daughter!. My only girl! I executed your family, and so destroyed your past, but you have taken from me my hope for the future!'

'It was you who took this!' I called to him. 'You killed Jezi when you touched her with your foul hands!'

'Damn you!' he screamed at me. 'This time you die!'

And then, even as the Red Priests goaded the Zuri warriors to attack the advancing Avari line, the droghul spurred his horse straight at me.

Chapter 22

Two of the ten Avari warriors that Sunji had called forward moved to stop him. But the droghul, with a thrust of his sword quicker than a striking snake, stabbed one of these warriors through the throat. His sword flashed out a moment later, cleaving the other warrior's skull. Then Sunji, the three judges and the other eight Avari closed in on him.

As the warriors of these two tribes came crashing together in a riot of gleaming sabers and darting horses, it seemed impossible that the Zuri could hold against the Avari. The Avari sat higher on larger horses, and their swords were longer, too. I had never seen warriors wield their swords with such prowess — no warriors except my own people, that is. In each of many individual duels, with saber clanging against saber, an Avari warrior slashed through his foe's defenses again and again. In truth, few of these duels remained individual, for the Avari were merciless and fell upon the outnumbered Zuri in twos and threes. Bright steel sliced through cotton garments, skin and bone. Men screamed in agony. The hardpacked earth of the desert ran red with blood.

I hoped to stay out of this battle, leaving matters to the Avari and Zuri. I sat on top of Altaru, holding back