Black Jade

‘But there is more,’ Master Storr said, ‘that she might tell us and –’

‘Please – it hurts!’ Estrella said. ‘It hurts, it hurts, it hurts …’

Abrasax regarded her only for a moment before bowing his head to her. Then he closed his fingers around his clear gelstei, which seemed to quiesce and lose its light. The other Masters took this as a cue to put away their stones. Estrella immediately sat up straighter. I felt her plunge into a deep, silent pool. Her face lit up with a smile of contentment that spoke more than entire rivers of words.

Then Abrasax motioned to Master Storr, who reached down by his side. He lifted up a cracked, ebony box and showed it to us. He called for Estrella’s table to be cleared. After Liljana and I helped Masters Nolashar and Yasul move tea cups and plates to our table, Master Storr stood up and stepped over to set the box in front of Estrella. With great reverence, he opened it. One by one, he took out various artifacts: a glass pen, a jade spoon, a chess piece (the white king) carved out of ancient ivory, a plain gold ring. He stood gazing at the items gleaming faintly on the table.

‘One of these things,’ he said to Estrella, ‘once belonged to the last Maitreya, Godavanni the Glorious. Can you recognize which one? Or, that is, show it to us?’

His face hardened into an iron-like mask, so as not to give hint which item this might be. So it was with the other Masters. They hardly dared to breathe as they waited to see what Estrella would do.

As quick as the beating of a bird’s wings, she clapped her hands together. Her face brightened as she smiled with delight. Then, without hesitation, her hands swept forward and closed around the wooden box.

‘Excellent!’ Master Virang cried out. ‘Most excellent!’

‘A seard, indeed,’ Master Nolashar said.

Master Storr’s lips tightened as if someone had forced a sour cherry into his mouth. He looked from Estrella to Liljana, and said, ‘You didn’t, Materix of the Maitriche Telu, teach this girl to read minds, did you?’

In answer, Liljana only glared at him. Master Storr clearly didn’t like what he must have seen in her mind, for he turned away from her and stared at the box cupped in Estrella’s hands.

‘It is known,’ he announced, ‘that Godavanni kept three song stones inside this box. The stones have long since been lost, and perhaps the songs as well, but at least we still have this.’

Estrella set the box back on the table, and smiled at him. And then Abrasax said to Master Storr, ‘This is enough, do you agree? I believe the girl will show us the Maitreya.’

Master Storr rubbed his jaw as he stood eyeing the box. ‘I am coming to believe that, too. But the question that must be answered above all others is: can Valashu Elahad lead her to him?’

And with that, he turned to regard me.

‘Tell me where he might be found,’ I said to Master Storr, ‘and I will lead Estrella there, along with the rest of my friends – and even yourself if you don’t trust me.’

‘Bold words, Prince Valashu,’ Master Storr said. ‘We have heard how you put yourself forward as the Maitreya, with great boldness, and claimed the Lightstone for yourself. To what purpose, we must wonder? You would have made yourself warlord of a grand alliance, commander of a hundred thousand swords, a king of kings – is it your hope now that finding the Maitreya will help you claim this authority?’

The look of scorn on Master Storr’s face made me grind my teeth. Wrath filled my heart then, and to the seven old masters gazing at me I said, ‘What man can say in truth that his purpose is as pure as damask, unstained by any desire for the good regard of other men or influence upon them? Who can declare that every act of his life has flown straight and true as an arrow toward a single target? Did you, Master Storr, Master of the Gelstei, join the Brotherhood solely out of a love for knowledge and service, with no thought at all of excelling and being recognized for your efforts? Do you never doubt if your study of the gelstei conceals a deeper urge to control and wield them? You have heard a great deal about me, it seems, but know very little. I am of the sword, as you have said. I would break it into pieces, if I could. All swords, everywhere. There was a time when I wanted nothing more than to enter the Brotherhood, as you were privileged to do, to play the flute and spend my life making music. But I had duties: to my family, to my father, to my land. To all lands. Fate called me to recover the Lightstone, with the help of my friends, and then to see it stolen by the Crucifier. Was there not one moment when I desired to lead armies against him and see him cut into pieces? Do I never long, now, by force of arms to cut the Cup of Heaven from his bloody hand? If I said no, you would hear the lie in my voice. Hear, then, the truth: six brothers I had, and I would have shouted in gladness if any of them had become king of Mesh before me. A mother, father and grandmother I had, and they are all dead because of me. Four thousand of Mesh’s bravest warriors, too. Everyone knows this. I am an outcast, now. And so I cannot hope to be king of Mesh, let alone lord of a great alliance. All that remains to me is to try to stop the Red Dragon from doing the worst. It is why I think and feel and breathe. I do not dare even to hope that a time may come when I can cast this into the sea and take up the flute once more.’

So saying, I lifted up my sword, and looked at the seven Masters who regarded me. Master Storr stared at me with his cold, blue eyes, and I sensed that he saw only my fury to defeat Morjin.

Abrasax, however, saw other things. He studied me from across our table as he pulled at his beard. ‘We know there were signs that you were the Maitreya.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘there were signs.’

‘But you ignored, didn’t you, the even stronger sign of the truth inside yourself?’

I held my breath in disquiet that he could read me so keenly. Then I said, ‘Yes, I always knew. But I didn’t want to know. I wanted … to make everything right. And so I claimed the Lightstone.’

And upon this crime, destruction and death had followed like an evil wind. Abrasax, I thought, understood this very well, as he understood me. He had no need to act as my accuser and judge when I had already condemned myself so damnably. But he was not ready to see me act as my own executioner. I felt forgiveness pouring out of him, and something else, too: an admonition that hatred of myself could destroy me more surely than any weapon or poison of Morjin’s. Abrasax’s eyes were soft yet unyielding upon my face. Looking into these deep, umber orbs made me want to trust him without question.

‘I didn’t know,’ I told him, ‘who the Maitreya is. Or what he is. And despite what Estrella has told us tonight so beautifully, I still don’t.’

I looked over at Estrella to see if my words disappointed her, but she just smiled at me.

‘Master Juwain,’ Abrasax said, ‘has given an account of the akashic crystal that you found in the little people’s wood. It is too bad that it was broken: you might have gained the knowledge that you sought. But there are other crystals.’

I looked across the room at the golden, False Lightstone resting on its marble pedestal beneath the window; I looked at the seven Masters of the Brotherhood who kept hidden the Great Gelstei. I said, ‘Do you possess an akashic crystal, then?’

‘No, we don’t,’ Abrasax told me. ‘But there is this.’

So saying, he drew forth a book from beneath the pile of cushions behind him and showed it to me. Its cover seemed made of some shiny, hard substance like lacquered wood. Bright golden glyphs shone from it, but I could not read them, for they were of a script unfamiliar to me. Abrasax laid the book on our table. He opened it, and my eyes fairly burned with surprise, for its pages were like none I had ever seen. Abrasax riffled through them, and I thought that there must be thousands of them, each thinner than a piece of rice paper and as clear as a window pane. It seemed that Abrasax’s strong fingers must easily rip or fracture these tinkling, tissue-like wisps. When I expressed my fear of this, he smiled and said, ‘The pages are quite sturdy. Here, try turning them yourself.’

I put my thumb and finger to one of the pages; it felt strangely cool to the touch and as tough as old parchment.

‘I read this long ago,’ Abrasax said. ‘After speaking with Master Juwain earlier, I asked Brother Kendall to retrieve it from the library that we might make reference to it tonight.’

‘You read it how?’ Maram called out. ‘The pages have no letters!’

‘Do they not?’ Abrasax asked him with a smile. ‘Perhaps you are just not looking at them right.’

And with that, he opened the book to a page he had marked, and he held his hand over it. Then Maram gave a little gasp of astonishment, and so did I, for the clear crystal of the page suddenly took on an albescent tone as of the white of an egg being fried. Hundreds of glyphs, like little black worms, popped into view and crowded the page in many columns.

‘Sorcery!’ Maram called out to Abrasax. He thumped his hand down upon our table near the book. ‘I would accuse you of sorcery, as I did Master Virang, but I suppose that you’ll just tell me, ah, that you’re only helping me to see what was already there to see?’

Abrasax exchanged smiles with Master Virang, then turned his attention back to Maram and the book. ‘No, this time the explanation is simpler, for the writing was not there to see. Only one who possesses the key to the book can unlock it and bring the script into sight.’

‘But you made no move to unlock it, unless waving your hand like a conjuror constitutes such. Where is the key?’

Abrasax pointed his finger at his forehead and told Maram, ‘Inside here. Each book is keyed to open to a phrase, which must be memorized and held inside the mind or sometimes spoken.’

‘Like one of the Way Rhymes?’

Abrasax nodded his head at this. ‘The Brotherhood must protect its secrets. And its treasures.’

‘But I never heard that the Brotherhood kept such treasures!’ Maram said as he regarded the book in wonder.

‘Neither,’ Master Juwain said, studying it as well, ‘did I.’

‘But what is its secret?’ Maram asked. ‘Obviously, the pages are made of some sort of gelstei – what sort, and how do you make it?’

‘It is called the vedastei,’ Abrasax informed him as he ran his finger down the page’s glyphs. ‘And I did not say that we made this – only that we protect it. And cherish it for what it contains. It is that knowledge, of the Maitreya, that concerns us now.’

He cleared his throat and pressed his finger at the writing near the middle of the page as he read to us: ‘“He is the Shining One who dwells in two worlds; he is the light inside darkness, and the life that knows no death.”’

Against one of the windows above us, I saw Flick spinning about in a whirl of silver lights. I remembered how, in Tria, the Galadin had sent this luminous being to bring me word of the Maitreya, in verses that I now recited to Abrasax:

The Shining Ones who live and die

Between the whirling earth and sky

Make still the sun, all things ignite –

And earth and heaven reunite.

The Fearless Ones find day in night

And in themselves the deathless light,

In flower, bird and butterfly,

In love: thus dying, do not die.

I finished speaking and nodded at Abrasax. He tapped his book as he said to me, ‘Do not these words concord with your verses and what Estrella has told us tonight?’

Without warning, Maram thumped his hand upon the table, rattling our cups. He looked at Abrasax and grumbled out, ‘Estrella said nothing of two worlds. I, for one, know this world, and that should be enough, shouldn’t it? And yet you of the Brotherhood are never satisfied unless you can speak of another.’

Abrasax’s response to this was to flip through the pages of the book. He must have found the passage that he was seeking, for he suddenly nodded his head. He said to Maram, ‘These words were written by Master Li of the Avasian Brotherhood.’

‘The Avasian Brotherhood? Ah, I’ve never heard of such.’

‘That is because,’ Abrasax said, without further explanation, ‘it existed on another world, that of Varene, many ages ago. Now listen, for this bears most pertinently on the matter of the Maitreya.’

His eyes gleamed as he pulled at his fluffy white beard. Then he read to us:

‘“Two realms there are: the One and the manifold. The first is causeless, inextinguishable, infinite – and some say as blissful as the sun’s light on a perfect spring day. The second realm is created, and all things that dwell there suffer, age and die. It is all nails and fire, beauty that fades, a few moments of sweetness and noble dreams. Some call this the world and others hell. It is man’s path to strive ever upward, toward the heavens, toward the sun. But to go beyond the world toward the One, we must go beyond ourselves. It is almost like dying, is it not? A newborn ceases to exist in becoming a child, as a child does in becoming a man. And as all men must do if they are to walk the path of angels. And then, the greatest death of all when the Galadin perish in their bodies and die into light in the creation of a new universe. Who has utter faith in the goodness of such a sacrifice? Who would not fear that such a path might lead to the utter obliteration of one’s being?”’

Abrasax finished reading and looked at me. ‘And yet we must not fear. Overcoming fear is the cardinal task of any warrior, be he of the sword or the spirit. Many fail. Even the angels.’

He paused to take a drink of tea and moisten his throat. Then he said to me, ‘In Tria, you learned the truth of Angra Mainyu, didn’t you?’

I shrugged my shoulders at this. I glanced at Kane. ‘Can any man know very much about the Galadin?’

‘We know this, I think,’ Abrasax said. ‘Angra Mainyu, and too many of his kind, came to dread the Galadin’s fate. And so he clung to his form as a leech does to living flesh. And so rather than becoming infinitely greater in giving himself to the universe, he tries to suck the blood from all things and take the universe into himself – and so becomes infinitely less.’

I considered this for a moment, then asked him, ‘And the Maitreya?’

‘The Maitreya is sent to heal those such as the Dark One and to keep others from falling as he has.’

I remembered the blood rushing from my father’s lips as he died, and all the thousands of men lying still upon the reddened grass of the Culhadosh Commons. I felt Morjin’s baleful eyes nailing me to a fiery cross, and all the while my heart drummed with a dreadful sickness inside my chest. And I said to Abrasax, ‘Is that possible?’

‘It must be possible.’ He glanced over at Estrella sitting happily at her table. ‘The Maitreya, in great gladness of life, is sent to show all beings the shining depths of themselves that can never die. And that, ultimately, the two realms are one and the same.’

Maram seemed not to like what he was hearing, for he knocked the bottom of his tea cup against the tiled table as if to announce his annoyance. He caught Abrasax’s attention and asked him, ‘Are you saying that when we pass into this infinite realm of yours, that some part of us keeps on shining? And that therefore, there is no true death?’

‘That,’ Abrasax told him, ‘is my belief.’

Maram gazed into his empty teacup as he muttered, ‘And therefore, I suppose, there is nothing to fear.’

‘You understand, then,’ Abrasax said, smiling at him.

‘I understand that there is nothing to fear, and that is precisely what I do fear: the great, black void at the end of life that swallows us all. You say this neverness is full of light. The Shining Ones, if we’re to believe you, say this in their gladness. Ah, all your books say it, too. But who, I ask you, has ever returned from the land of the dead to tell of it?’

Abrasax seemed to have no answer to this; for a moment he turned his attention to sipping his tea. Then his eyes grew hard and bright, and he called out: ‘Master Virang! Master Matai! Master Storr!’

He issued instructions for a repositioning of the tables and of everyone in the room. Atara, Estrella and Daj moved over to join the rest of our company at our two tables, while the Seven took their places with Masters Yasul and Nolashar at theirs. The artifacts still resting there were put back into the treasured ebony box – all except the ivory chess piece. This carved, ancient ‘king’, four inches long, Abrasax set precisely at the center of the table. Then he and the other masters once again brought forth their seven round crystals. They sat in a circle holding out these stones around the chess piece.

‘I must now say more about the Great Gelstei,’ Abrasax told us. ‘Is there anyone who does not remember the account of creation in the Beginnings?’

‘Do you mean,’ Daj piped in, ‘how the Ieldra sang the universe into existence?’

He beamed with pride at his recently acquired knowledge as Abrasax smiled and nodded his head at him. And then Abrasax said, ‘The account in the Saganom Elu is poetic and magisterial, and certainly true. But not all has been told there. Exactly how, we might ask, did the Ieldra bring the One’s design into its full flowering?’

He looked at Kane and added, ‘You must surely know.’

‘So – I have forgotten, if ever I did know.’

Abrasax smiled sadly, and then he told us that many books in the Brotherhood’s library contained knowledge as to this arcane subject. He related an amazing story, part of which had been revealed to my companions and me the year before in the amphitheater of the Urudjin outside of Tria: ‘Seven colors there are, and they create all the beauty of the world and all that we see. And the seven notes that we summon out of trumpet or mandolet ring out the melodies of all music. So with the seven Openers and the creation of the world. The gelstei that crystallized out of the primeval fire were infinitely greater than these little stones that we of the Brotherhood are privileged to keep. And they opened up all the infinite possibilities of life. For as the Ieldra sang, the great crystals vibrated like the strings of a harp, and brought into being and form all things.’

Maram gazed at the gelstei shining in the Masters’ hands. He asked, ‘Are you saying that these stones partake of the power of the mythical gelstei?’

‘They are not mythical,’ Abrasax told him. ‘They exist somewhere, out in the stars, beyond Agathad.’

‘But do they still have the power to create?’

‘Yes – and to uncreate. Even as these stones do.’

He nodded at Master Matai, whose red crystal lit up like a glowing demon’s eye. Then Master Virang’s stone, the Second, flared with an orange fire, and so with the other Masters’ gelstei in a progression of hues. As Abrasax’s clear stone spat out a fierce white light, the crystals all began pouring forth sound as well. It might have been called music, but the harsh tones and shrills that vibrated from the crystals filled the chamber with a terrible stridor more like a wail of death than a song. It built louder and ever more jangling upon ear and nerve until I felt compelled to throw my hands over my ears. I watched in amazement as the ivory of the chess piece seemed to lose its substance and began wavering in the candles’ soft light. And then, suddenly, with a skreak like breaking metal, it vanished into thin air.

‘Sorcery!’ Maram cried out. He moved over to the Masters’ table, and rudely wedged his body between Master Yasul and Master Storr. He ran his hand around the table’s bare surface where the chess piece had sat.

‘It’s gone!’ Daj cried out. ‘The king is gone – but where?’

‘Ah, gone into nothing,’ Maram muttered. ‘Into hell. It would seem it has been annihilated, like a man’s soul when life’s candle blows out.’

The seven Masters seemed to meditate upon their gelstei. And Abrasax said to Daj, and to Maram, ‘Wait.’

A few moments later, with a chiming like that of struck bells, the chess piece winked back into plain view. I sat blinking my eyes. Maram reached out to snatch it up with his fat fingers before it disappeared again.

‘More sorcery!’ he cried out. He gripped the carved ivory hard in his hand as if to reassure himself that it was real.

And Abrasax said to him, ‘Don’t be so sure you know what existence is – or isn’t.’

Maram waved his hand at this. ‘I think you must have somehow hidden from our sight what was there all along. And then caused us to see it once again.’

Abrasax held out his hand to take the chess piece from Maram as he shook his head. He showed us all the gleaming white king.

‘No, that was not the way of things,’ he said. ‘This, for a moment, was truly unmade. But our gelstei, being small, possess only a small power. We of the Seven possess even less. It is not the province of man to unmake things.’

‘So,’ Kane growled out. His black eyes seemed to grow even blacker, like two bits of neverness that might swallow up not only a chunk of carved ivory but entire worlds.

‘And it is not,’ Abrasax said, looking from Kane to Maram, ‘the province of the Elijin, or even the Galadin. To the Ieldra, and only to the Ieldra, is given the power to create and uncreate.’

‘I wish the Ieldra would just uncreate Angra Mainyu,’ Maram said. ‘And Morjin – and every other evil creature in the world.’

‘That is not the way of things, either,’ Abrasax told him, giving him back the chess piece. ‘The Ieldra, according to the One’s design, sing the universe into creation. But once it is created, no single part may be unmade. All is necessary. Nothing may be subtracted just because it seems to be hateful or bad.’

I sat watching Maram twirl the chess piece between his fingers, and I said, ‘If Morjin got his hands on those gelstei of yours, he’d try to use them to subtract us from the world. And much else that he hates.’

Abrasax nodded his head at this. ‘And with Angra Mainyu, it would be much worse. Once freed from Damoom, he would try to use the Lightstone to seize the greatest of the Great Gelstei and unmake the Ieldra themselves. He would, I think, fail. But out of his failure would come cataclysm and fire, and he would cause the Ieldra to have to destroy all things.’

I turned to look out the chamber’s windows up at the faraway stars. And I said, ‘But why? I don’t understand.’

‘I’m not sure I do either,’ Abrasax said with a heavy sigh. ‘At least not completely. It seems to me, though, that the Ieldra abide the evil of the world because out of it, sometimes, comes great good. But once all is fallen into darkness, forever, what would be the purpose of making everything suffer without redemption or end?’

What, indeed? I wondered, as I thought of my mother hanging all broken and bloody from a plank of wood.

As Maram continued playing with the chess piece, Abrasax looked at me and said, ‘I think we have an answer to both Sar Maram’s question and yours. If this king can return from the realm of the unmade, then so can a prince vanquish his fear of death – and so in dying, will not die. But only, I believe, with the help of the Maitreya.’

‘If you do believe that,’ I said to him, ‘then for love of the world help us to find him!’

At this, Master Storr’s fingers closed around his gelstei, and he said, ‘It is for love of the world – and much, much else – that we must be sure of you. Wine poured into a cracked cup not only is wasted but helps destroy the cup.’

‘I will not fail!’ I half-shouted at Master Storr.

‘Bold words,’ he said to me. ‘But what if you do fail?’