Black Jade

sword through my heart — will be more merciful than making me die of thirst!'

At first, Sunji said nothing as to Maram's histrionics. Then he sighed out: 'The desert is hard, and so are our laws.'

Maram made no reply to this as he stood gripping his red crystal in his hand.

'The desert is hard,' Sunji repeated, 'and you are soft. You sweat more than a horse. You wear garments that invite the sun to steal your water.'

'Then let us have these robes of the Zuri,' Maram said. 'Give us water, and we'll leave your lands as quickly as we can.'

'To go where?' Sunji asked. 'If we gave you water, would you let the Masud guide you back the way you came, out of the desert?'

'No,' I said, hoping that I spoke for Maram. 'We must go on.'

'To find this Maitreya that you told of?'

'Yes, he,' I said. I stared toward the canyon's mouth, toward the west. 'He is out there, somewhere.'

'Foolish pilgrims,' Sunji said to me. 'I know nothing of this Maitreya, but much of the desert. You cannot cross the Zuri's lands, not now that you have helped kill the Zuri. Tatuk will be awaiting his warriors' return, and when he sees you instead, he'll stake you to the sand to make you tell what has happened here. The Red Priests, as you call them, have made a slave of Tatuk, I think. I think the Priests have also poisoned the minds of the Vuai in the south, and so you can't go that way either.'

'Then there must be another way,' I said to him. 'Help us.'

Sunji hesitated as he stared at me, but Laisar shook his head at this and said, 'All other ways, you'll find only death. And so helping you would only be a waste of water.'

'At least,' I said, looking at Liljana 'let us take a little water to the children. Whatever our foolishness, you shouldn't condemn them.'

But it wasn't to be that we took water to the children. It was they who brought it to us. As Sunji stood off a few paces conferring with Laisar and Maidro, I overheard one of them murmur, '… no water. The dead are the dead.' Just then, Liljana noticed Daj, Turi and Estrella hurrying down through the ravine toward us. She opened her mouth to scold them for disobeying her and not remaining in the rocks above. She closed her mouth a moment later. For she saw what we all saw: the children each bore water-skins, wet on the outside and sloshingly full of water.

The Avari warriors stood watching in puzzlement as the children made their way past the bodies of the dead straight toward us. The warriors' black, hard eyes told of their suspicion that we had lied to them about our need for water. And then Daj, in his high, piping boy's voice called out: 'Val! Liljana! Master Juwain! Estrella found water!'

The children came up to us, and the whole company of Avari warriors gathered around. The children, having already drunk their fill, gave waterskins first to Atara and Liljana, and then to Maram, Master Juwain, Kane and me. Turi seemed proud to slap one of these wet leather bags into his father's hands. So astonished were the Avari at this turn of events that none of them, not even Laisar or Maidro, thought to object that we were still drinking their water.

]They say she found water,' one of the Avari in the circle around us murmured. 'The girl did, in the rocks above.'

'Impossible,' another warrior said. 'There is no water in these hills.'

'There is water in those skins — where did it come from then?'

After we had all had a deep drink of water, we passed the water-skins to the thirsty Avari so that they might drink, too. Then Sunji asked Estrella to show him where she had found the water. She led us back up through the ravine. We passed over the shelf of rocks where our horses stood and then scrambled up the rocky slope behind it. With quick, lively gestures, Estrella pointed out a dark opening in the side of the hill. Daj explained that in their search for water, Estrella had found a crack in the rocks, which the children had excavated into this hole.

'It's a cave,' Daj said, pointing into the opening. 'It leads down to the water.'

The opening was just barely large enough to let a single man squeeze through it. Estrella led the way into the cave, and we followed. Maram declined this new adventure. As he said, 'In Argattha I went deep into the bowels of the earth, and never again.' Many of the Avari shared his sentiments, and waited outside with him. So did Atara. Whatever wonders the cave held, she would not be able to look upon them.

Estrella led us down through a tube of rock that opened out and up the deeper in we went. Master Juwain pointed out patches of goldish-red lichen growing on the walls and ceiling, and marveled that they seemed to give off a soft, glowing light. This radiance barely sufficed to illuminate the pendants of rock hanging down from the ceiling and the pinnacles rising up from the floor. Master Juwain identified the rock as limestone.

We felt the presence of water before we saw or heard it, for as we descended the air grew ever more humid. Estrella practically ran down and around a bend in the rock, and then drew up short where the cave dead-ended in what seemed a pool of water. But its rushing sound and the movement of the air above gave me to perceive that it was really an underground stream. I knelt down by its edge, and cupped my hands into it. I drank this water; it was cool and sweet just like the water the children had brought to us.

'It is a river of water!' Laisar cried out. 'All glory in the One!'

He knelt down to drink of it, with Maidro and Sunji. Sunji had brought along a dry waterskin, which he now filled. He stood up and looked at Estrella in awe.

'The girl found water,' he said, 'and brought us to it.'

'Udra Mazda,' Laisar intoned, gazing at Estrella. 'All glory in the One.'

'Udra Mazda,' Maidro repeated, bowing to Estrella.

Sunji explained that this strange name meant Water Bringer or Water Maker; among the Avari, no one else was so revered, not even their king.

'You have brought much death with you,' Sunji said to me. 'But also much life.'

He smiled as he pointed down into the darkly gleaming river flowing past us. 'That is life for a thousand Avari.'

In order to drink, Sunji and his two judges had opened their shawls. I could now see their faces, and I marveled at what I beheld: their long noses, broad brows and the stark bones of their cheeks and chins seemed cut out of the same mold as the faces of the Valari. Their eyes were as my eyes. The signs had been there from the first, but I had been too thirsty and too full of dread of battle to see them. Their names recalled those of my dead countrymen: Avram, Laisu and Sunjay. And my brother, Mandru. Avari sounded nearly like Valari, and I suddenly knew that we had come across one of the lost tribes of my people.

As I stared at Sunji, he remarked upon this resemblance that he had noticed in Kane and me from the first, saying, 'When I saw you, Valashu, I wondered if one of my tribesmen might once have sired a child stolen away into another land. And so with Kane. There is a mystery here that I would like to understand. It is written that all men shall be as brothers. I would wish this of you and Kane. And Master Juwain and the boy, too — even the fat one. The women shall be our sisters. And the girl, Estrella, you call her, the Udra Mazda, For the time, at least, you shall all be of the Avari. And then we shall help you cross the desert.'

He did not confer with Maidro or Laisar in this decision, for their bright, black eyes gleamed with their consent. He dipped his hand into the river and used the water to wash the dust from my forehead. Then he clasped his wet hand against mine.

'You must tell me of your homeland,' he said to me. 'You must tell me of your people that you call Valari.'

Then with a smile, gripping his newly-filled waterskin, he turned to walk up back through the cave and show his people the great treasure that Estrella had found.

Chapter 23

Later that afternoon, with the day's heat finally escaping the earth's hold on it, we said goodbye to Yago and Turi. They would set out for the Masud's country and the hadrahs in the south where most of his tribe was encamped.