Black Jade

He pressed his hand against Maram’s chest, then walked around the tables again to return to his cushions. He sat gazing at Maram, who wrapped his huge hand around his red crystal and lowered his eyes to study the fine cracks marring it.

‘All of them,’ Master Storr said, looking from Maram to Liljana, ‘must be careful with their gelstei. Each time they use the sacred crystals, Morjin will use the Lightstone to find his way farther into them and twist their power toward his will.’

I gazed into the silustria of my sword, and so did my friends study their gelstei.

‘Indeed,’ Master Storr continued, eyeing our crystals, too, ‘I counsel that they surrender their gelstei to us for safekeeping.’

At this, Maram’s hand closed around the cut planes of his firestone while I gripped the hilt of my sword more tightly.

‘Surrender this to you?’ Maram said, holding his long, red crystal pointing at Master Storr. ‘You might as well ask me to cut off, ah, more personal parts of myself so that they don’t lead me into troubles.’

‘I know,’ Atara said, turning her sphere between her hands, ‘that this came to me for a purpose.’

Kane’s response was the simplest and most direct of all of us. He held up his black stone for all to see and then closed his fist around it as he called out, ‘Ha!’

Abrasax sighed as he looked at Master Storr and said, ‘I told you this would be the way of things, as you of all of us should understand.’

Master Storr bowed his head, but said nothing as he turned his attention back to the gleam of our crystals.

And Abrasax said to us, ‘So it goes. Everywhere on Ea, Morjin finds his way into men’s minds, and so gains control of their arms, voices and eyes. And no one is willing to give them up either just to thwart him. But I counsel you: if you use your gelstei, Morjin will slowly seize control of them.’

‘Even my sword?’ I said, holding up its blade so as to catch the room’s candlelight.

‘The silver gelstei,’ Master Storr said to me, ‘would be last of your crystals to be perverted, if indeed it truly can be perverted. It is possible that only the Maitreya, having gained full mastery of the Lightstone, could touch upon the silustria of your sword – and then only for the highest of purposes. But I don’t really know. Therefore I, too, counsel not using it.’

Kane smiled at this as he gripped his large hands together and said, ‘And have you followed your own counsel, then?’

‘What do you mean?’ Master Storr said.

Kane pointed toward the waist of Master Storr, and then at Master Okuth and Abrasax. ‘What is it you keep inside your pockets?’

At this, Abrasax smiled at Master Storr in a knowing way, and then looked at Kane. ‘You have keen perceptions – from where do they come? What is that you keep inside yourself?’

Abrasax’s smile deepened as he studied Kane. I knew that my mysterious friend hated being singled out for scrutiny in this way. His glare fell hot with a barely-contained fury. And then he stood up to face the Grandmaster of the Brotherhood.

It took a brave man to hold Kane’s gaze, as Abrasax did. I didn’t need to be a reader to see the fire that seemed to leap straight out of Kane’s black eyes. As the candles flickered in their stands and the other Masters drew in deep breaths or held them inside, Abrasax continued staring at Kane. The Grandmaster’s eyes grew brighter, like moonlit oceans, and I fancied that I saw this radiance touch his hair and beard and spill down over his tunic in flows of scarlet, orange and other colors. And yet it was nothing against the splendor that enveloped Kane. He stood as beneath a rainbow. Its hues clung to his body like a robe of fire and slowly deepened and brightened into a shimmering brilliance. White light crowned his savage head, and so did flashes of glorre. I stared at him, awestruck. I couldn’t believe what my eyes or some other sensing organ told me must be true. It lasted only a moment, this piercing vision into the heart of Kane’s being. And then I blinked my eyes, and it was gone. I saw my old friend standing before me as he usually did: fiercely, willfully, joyfully – with challenge toward Abrasax or anything in the world that might try to thwart or even contain him.

The others of the Seven, with my companions, sat gazing at Kane in wonderment. Master Storr shook his head as he called out, ‘No, it cannot be! Not this rogue knight!’

Then Abrasax bowed to Kane and said, ‘I never thought to live so long that my path would cross yours, Lord Elijin.’

Again, Master Storr said, ‘It cannot be!’

Abrasax drew in a deep breath. He looked from Master Storr to Master Matai, and then at Kane. ‘It surely is. This man is no rogue knight. It is, as the Master Diviner and I have deduced, now beyond argument that one of the Old Ones of the Elijik Order journeyed with this company into Argattha. And has found the way into our valley. His name, of old, was –’

‘I am,’ Kane growled out, interrupting him, ‘not the one you speak of. Once I was, perhaps, but now I am Kane.’

‘Kane, then,’ Abrasax said to him. ‘But you were, were you not, sent to Ea along with eleven others of your order to find and safeguard the Lightstone for the Maitreya?’

‘So,’ Kane said, glaring at him.

‘And of those eleven, only one other survives – Morjin.’

‘So,’ Kane said again.

Abrasax and the others of the Seven sat staring up at Kane. I noticed Master Storr’s hard blue eyes drilling into him as he regarded him with dread. He called out, ‘If this is that one, then he has fallen nearly as far as the Red Dragon. How can we be sure that if we help him to find the Maitreya, he won’t fall even farther?’

Kane, not deigning to respond to the Master Galastei’s terrible doubt, stood as still as a granite carving.

‘How can we be sure what any man or woman will do, in the end?’ Abrasax asked, looking at his fellows. ‘Master Juwain tells that in Argattha, Kane gave back the Lightstone to Valashu when he might have kept it for himself. Can all of us say that we would have surrendered it so faithfully? Surely Kane has passed the most vital test.’

His reasoning seemed to persuade even Master Storr, who inclined his head toward Kane. And Kane growled out to Abrasax, ‘And what of the Brotherhood’s Masters, then? You speak of keeping no secrets, and yet you keep some very powerful baubles hidden inside your pockets, eh?’

Abrasax smiled at Master Storr. ‘Did I not tell you that we could not conceal things from one of the Elijin?’

And with that he nodded at Master Matai, who reached into his pocket and brought out a small crystal sphere that shone like a ruby. The First, he named it. Master Virang likewise showed us a stone, which he called the Second, which gleamed golden-orange in hue. And so with Master Nolashar and his bright yellow sun stone and Master Okuth’s green heart stone, and then Master Yasul’s and Master Storr’s crystals – colored blue and purple – whose names were the Fifth and the Sixth. And then, finally, Abrasax drew forth a marble-like sphere as clear and brilliant as a diamond. It was, he told us, the Seventh: the last and highest of the crystals called the Great Gelstei.

‘Your crystals,’ he said to us, ‘are powerful and rare, but on all of Ea there are no other gelstei like these, for they were not made on earth.’

He went on to say that only the angels, and the Galadin at that, could possibly possess the art of forging the Great Gelstei. Then he held up his clear stone and showed it to Kane. ‘The Elijin who were sent here brought these with them, didn’t they?’

‘So,’ Kane growled out. ‘Nurijin, Mayin and Baladin were the stones’ keepers. And Manjin, Durrikin, Sarojin – Iojin, too. And all of them killed over the years on this cursed world. I had thought the stones lost.’

He drew in a long, pained breath and said to Abrasax, ‘It must have been a great work to seek these out and bring them here.’

‘The work of ages,’ Abrasax told him. ‘Many Brothers died in this quest.’

‘As you will die if you continue to use them.’

‘The Red Dragon, we believe,’ Abrasax said, ‘does not yet know that we keep them. And use them we must, at least tonight. There are tests still to be made.’

He sat cupping his clear stone in his hand. It shimmered a soft white, even as the crystals of the other Masters radiated colors of crimson and orange, up through a glowing violet.

‘We have questions for the girl,’ Abrasax said, looking at Estrella. Then he turned to me. ‘And for you, Valashu Elahad.’

The room fell quiet, and I nodded at Estrella and then Abrasax. I sat gripping the hilt of my sword as I waited for the seven Masters of the Brotherhood to test me somehow – if not in actual combat, then perhaps in a trial of the soul.

9

Abrasax oriented his long, stately body toward Estrella, sitting almost motionlessly on her cushion by her table. For a long time he regarded her in silence. His liquid brown eyes seemed to empty of all thoughts, even questions, even as they filled with a strange and piercing light. The round crystal resting in his open palm gleamed like a little star. Those of the other masters seemed to resonate with it, gathering radiance from it and feeding it back to Abrasax’s stone, all at once.

At last, the Grandmaster’s eyes regained their normal focus. And in his deep, strong voice, he announced, ‘This girl’s aura is like none I have ever seen. So pure: as if the flames of her chakras flow toward one color, in one direction. And bright it is – so very bright.’

Abrasax continued gazing at Estrella, who sat peacefully on her big red cushion gazing back at him. Estrella’s happy smile seemed to warm Abrasax’s heart, and his whole face pulled into a smile, highlighting the deep lines around his eyes.

‘Strange,’ he murmured as he looked at her. ‘There is indeed something strange about this girl.’

‘Then is it possible,’ Master Storr asked, ‘that she is truly a seard?’

Abrasax nodded his head. ‘I’m certain that she is. Master Juwain has identified her correctly.’

‘But what is a seard?’ Daj asked from his place next to Estrella. It was the first time that evening he had dared to speak. ‘Master Juwain tried to explain it, but I didn’t really understand.’

‘I’m not sure that I fully understand, either,’ Abrasax said. ‘But from the accounts in the Book of Illuminations, it is clear that seards are great and pure souls, gifted with being able to see deeply into all things and all people, and most especially the Maitreya. I believe that Estrella might perceive the Shining One where others could not, perhaps not even himself.’

He went on to say that where I might be the fated guardian of the Lightstone, and therefore of the Maitreya, a seard such as Estrella was his herald.

‘Then, Grandfather,’ Master Matai said, ‘you must believe Kasandra’s prophecy will prove true, that the girl will show the Maitreya?’

‘I believe the prophecy. She would be drawn to him like a fire moth finding its mate across many miles.’

Although I could not behold Estrella’s aura just then as Abrasax did, she seemed the brightest being in the room, and her eyes outshone even the silustria of my sword.

‘It’s a pity,’ Master Matai said, ‘that she cannot speak to us. I would like to know where she was born, and when. A seard’s stars would be close to those of a Maitreya.’

‘It is a pity that she cannot speak,’ Master Okuth said. He was a smallish man who seemed to hold inside his kind green eyes whole rivers of compassion. ‘For pity’s sake, and her own, I would like a chance to heal her of her affliction.’

Master Juwain held up his varistei and said to him, ‘More than once, before the Red Dragon regained the Lightstone, I tried to use this to heal Estrella – in vain. Of course, I am only a Master Healer; you are the Master Healer.’

‘I believe you have done as much as any of us can do,’ Master Okuth told him. ‘At least until the Maitreya is found and comes into his power. My power is now constrained. I am entrusted with a green gelstei, as are you, but the Red Dragon knows that we keep this stone, and I do not dare to use it.’

‘Then how do you propose to heal Estrella?’

‘In truth, I don’t. At least not here, and not tonight. But it may be that through the Great Gelstei, she could speak to us in a way that we can understand, for a short while.’

‘And the cost to the girl? What if she doesn’t want to speak?’

All eyes now turned on Estrella, sitting calmly as she nibbled on a cake crumb and regarded Master Okuth.

‘There should be no cost,’ Master Okuth said.

‘Just the opposite,’ Master Matai said. ‘Those whose chakras have been opened by the Great Gelstei feel strengthened and enlivened.’

‘And you believe that engendering speech,’ Master Juwain said to Master Okuth, ‘is it merely a matter of opening the girl this way?’

‘It is indeed more complicated than that,’ Master Okuth told us. ‘Much more complicated. But let us just say that the power of the seven Openers projects through sound and resonates with the secret music that inheres in all things.’

Kane scowled at this, and looked at me. I knew that my savage friend hated it when the Brothers spoke so esoterically.

‘You have my promise,’ Abrasax assured us, ‘that this test will leave Estrella unharmed. But will she consent to it?’

Estrella looked at him with complete trust. Then she quickly nodded her head.

‘Good,’ Abrasax said. ‘Then why don’t we begin?’

He held his hand, cupping his clear gelstei, out toward Estrella. The other Masters did likewise with their crystals. Estrella sat very straight and still, not knowing what to expect. She seemed at once curious and bemused by the powers of these seven old men and their mysterious crystals.

As we all waited, breathing deeply, the seven Openers began to luminesce. I sensed, rather than saw, the seven wheels of light along Estrella’s spine scintillating in response to the gelstei’s touch. The red of the First, Master Matai’s stone, seemed to give its fire to Estrella’s lowest chakra even as something deep inside Estrella called out to it. And this calling we all heard as a single, clear, plangent note. It played back and forth between Estrella and the gelstei. The other Masters with their stones likewise opened Estrella’s other chakras, and a beautiful music poured out into the chamber’s cool air. I could almost see the colors of this music. Master Storr’s gleaming purple stone, I thought, struck deep chords with some secret organ of speech within Estrella’s head. Master Yasul’s gelstei, the Fifth, as blue as a sapphire, blazed more brightly than did any of the others. It seemed to summon a bright song from within Estrella’s throat. Without warning, she began laughing out loud: a delightful sound like the tinkling of bells. And then her mouth opened as perfectly formed words began pouring from her lips like a silver stream:

‘I’ve wanted to talk so badly, to tell you things, Val, Maram, Atara, everyone, to tell you everything, and now there is all the time in the world, but so little time. Now, I can speak again, and that’s a miracle but it won’t last because nothing does and yet everything …’

She continued chattering on in a like way as we all sat listening in amazement. Her voice was sweet, passionate and perfectly clear. It flowed with a musical quality, bright as the notes of a flute. It partook of Atara’s diction and phrasing, and Liljana’s, too, as if she patterned her speech after that of these two women whom she adored. And yet, this torrent of sound fairly soared with a wild joy that was all her own. It seemed that she wanted to cram the entire world into a few, quick, rushing breaths:

‘… it’s all so beautiful, and I’m so grateful, Val – Val, Val, Val! – so grateful to you for saving my life. For life. I’ve wanted so badly to sing with you, and Kane, our bright, bloody, beautiful Kane, and all of you, to sing and laugh: to laugh at Maram and his silly, stupid, wonderful jokes. To weep with Atara. No eyes, no tears, no hope, it seems, but love – love, love, love! There is so much to say. But so little, really, only one thing, and I should be glad I can speak again, almost as I did inside, not in words but in a kind of music that gives birth to words. Do you know what I mean? It’s like the singing of the birds: so pretty, so pure, so here … and now, and yet always and forever. This beautiful, beautiful thing – it sings me! I am so happy! And so I can’t help singing, too, to the birds and the sky and the world, and everything sings back, in rubies and rainbows, in songs to the sun, and sometimes even in silence. The silence. It’s pulling me back, soon, too soon, but don’t feel sorry for me, please! These fires that the old men’s gelstei lit inside me flare like little suns, but soon they will fade, I can feel it, quickly burning out but never quite out. Because it always blazes, even in dark things: black gelstei and burnt crosses and hate. Val! – even in the dead! In your father and mother, and mine, wherever they are, because no one is ever really dead and there is a light that always shines, the light, the light, the light …

As the candles’ flames cast dancing shadows on the room’s graven walls, we all sat regarding Estrella. At last, she seemed to run out of things to say. She sat peacefully on her cushion with her fingers laced together. I could not tell if she had fallen quiet for a moment or had returned to the deeper silence of the mute.

And then Abrasax nodded his head and said to her, ‘That was remarkable.’

‘Yes, remarkable,’ Master Storr agreed. But his voice swelled with a patronizing tone, and he seemed to regard Estrella as if she might be simpleminded. He said to her, ‘I’m sure that we were all touched by your … enthusiasm. But I’m not sure that any of our questions has been answered.’

‘But you haven’t asked me any questions yet!’ she said to him. She smiled at him, and then laughed softly, and I felt her voice box vibrating like the strings of a mandolet.

‘You must know, child, what we wish to know.’

Estrella looked at the Brotherhood’s seven masters, who studied her every expression. She said, ‘I think you want to know everything.’

Even the sour, serious Master Storr smiled at this. ‘No, not everything – at least not tonight. But we would like to learn more concerning the Maitreya. Can you not tell us anything about him?’

‘But I already did!’

Master Storr rubbed at his eyes and stared at her. ‘To speak once again after so long a silence must be a strain on you. On your throat, on your lungs … even on your mind. I’m not sure that we all understood what you said.’

Her response to this was to smile at him as if she felt very sorry for his inability to apprehend the most simple of things.

‘And so,’ Master Storr continued, as his face reddened, ‘we still have questions that we would –’

‘But why don’t you just ask them, then?’

Master Storr drew in a long breath as he squeezed his fingers around his purple crystal. And he said to Estrella: ‘You are a seard – this seems beyond any doubt. But how is it that a seard can recognize the Maitreya?’

‘How should I know,’ she said, ‘since I haven’t recognized him yet?’

‘But you must have some idea!’

Estrella brushed back the dark curls from around her eyes and glanced at Abrasax. ‘How do you recognize the Grandfather when you meet him walking down a path?’

‘But I know him! I’ve known him, now, for nearly fifty years!’

‘I’ve known the Shining One for fifty thousand years. As long as the stars have shined. Really, forever.’

Master Storr waved his hand in the air, and shook his head. He seemed to give up hope of understanding anything that she told him.

And then Master Matai steered the questioning along a different tack as he asked her, ‘Can you tell me where you were born, and when?’

‘I’m sorry, but I don’t remember. Perhaps it was in the Dark City.’

‘In Argattha? But didn’t anyone ever tell you how old you are?’

‘No, I don’t think they did. Does it matter?’

‘It might help in corroborating the Maitreya’s horoscope.’

‘But if you’ve drawn up his horoscope, you already know how old he is and where he was born!’

Now it was Master Matai’s turn to throw up his hand in frustration.

Then Abrasax said to her, ‘Estrella, do you have any idea where the Maitreya might be found?’

With a quick, glad motion, she nodded her head.

‘Where, then?’

And she told him, ‘Here.’

‘Here?’ Abrasax said. ‘Do you mean, on Ea? In these mountains?’

‘No, here, with us in this room, I hope. He is.’

Abrasax’s eyebrows pulled together. He seemed as mystified by Estrella as were Master Matai and Master Storr. He asked her, ‘But who is the Maitreya, then?’

Without hesitation, she looked at me and said, ‘Val is.’

My heart suddenly pounded inside my chest with hard, painful beats. I did not want to believe what I had heard her say.

And neither, it seemed, did Abrasax. He said to Estrella, ‘You were with Valashu in Tria when it was finally proved that he could not be the Maitreya. And now you are telling us that he is?’

‘Yes, he is,’ Estrella said smiling at me. She turned to look at the table to the right of mine. ‘And so is Maram.’

‘Sar Maram Marshayk!’ Abrasax said.

Maram’s eyes widened in astonishment as he patted his overstuffed belly and belched.

‘Yes, he – he is!’ Estrella said. ‘And Master Storr, too.’

The Master Galastei shook his head as he looked at Abrasax. And then Master Okuth, sitting next to him as he held out his green crystal, announced, ‘The girl is tiring, and so we should conclude the test.’

‘The girl is more than tired,’ Master Storr said. ‘She suffers from delusion.’

‘No, only from confusion, I think,’ Master Okuth said. ‘We know that the Red Dragon, in making her mute, did mischief to her mind. Our gelstei have let her summon up words but it seems have not undone the harm. There is something about her words and our understanding of them, and vice versa, that doesn’t quite go together. It is like oil and water.’

‘Her words,’ Master Storr said, speaking in front of Estrella as if she were only one of the room’s ornaments, ‘are as unreliable as thin ice over a pond. I do not see how we can trust her to recognize the Maitreya.’

Liljana, sitting next to me, had finally had enough of Master Storr’s rudeness. She leaned over to the table next to her, and threw her arm around Estrella as she said, ‘You speak of words, and yet fail to use them precisely. Kasandra prophesied that Estrella would show the Maitreya, not merely recognize him.’

‘I’m not sure I see the difference,’ Master Storr said.

‘I’m not sure you do,’ Liljana said, drawing Estrella closer as she glared at Master Storr. ‘And so who is deluded?’

At this, Abrasax held up his hand as if to ask for peace. He said, ‘And I’m not sure that words, or any understanding of them, will help Estrella fulfill the prophecy. Her mind might or might not have been harmed, but not her eyes and certainly not her heart.’

‘Then why don’t we,’ Master Storr huffed out, ‘conclude the test as we had agreed?’

Abrasax inclined his head at this, and said to Estrella, ‘Are you willing?’

‘Yes, I am,’ Estrella said, nodding back to him. She slumped on her cushion, slightly, and rubbed at her eyes. ‘But I am tired. I’d like to talk and talk all night, and maybe you’d understand, but I’m so so tired, and it was all so bright and warm inside, but now its getting cold, and it hurts, and so will you please give me back the silence?’