Black Jade

As Lightning lit the mountains and fire sheathed my sword, my friends tried to reason with me. I could hardly listen. For I felt Morjin's presence too near me. The flames of his being writhed and twisted as they ever did, in shoots of madder, puce and incarnadine, and other colors that recalled his tormented soul.

'I know it is he!' I said, to Atara and my other friends.

Then Liljana moved closer and told me, 'Your gift betrays you. As mine betrayed me.'

All my life, It seemed, I had felt others' passions, hurts and joys as my own. Kane called this gift the valarda: two hearts beating as one and lit from within as with the fire of a star. He had also said it was impossible that Morjin should be here, in our enemy's encampment scarcely two thousand yards away. But it seemed impossible that the malice, decay and spite I felt emanating from that direction could have its source in any man except Morjin.

'Do you remember Argattha?' I said to Liljana. 'There Morjin soaked his skin with the essence of roses to cover the smell of his rotting flesh. But he could not cover the stench of his soul. I. . smell it here.'

Liljana pointed at my sword, at the flames that still swirled up and down its length. And she said to me, 'Is that really what you smell?'

I noticed that Flick, spinning like a top in the air beyond my reach, seemed to be keeping his distance from me.

Liljana brushed past Master Juwain, and laid her hand over the steel rings that encased my chest. And she said, 'I think you hate Morjin so much that you always sense him close now. Here, in your own heart.'

I held my breath against the pain that her words caused me. My sword dipped lower, and its flames began to recede.

'There is a great danger for you here, Val,' Master Juwain said to me. 'Do you remember the prophecy?: "If a man comes forth in falseness as the Shining One concealing darkness in his heart, if he claims the Lightstone for his own, then he shall become a new Red Dragon, only mightier and more terrible.""

'But that's just it, sir!' I said to him. 'I have proved that I am not the Maitreya!'

'Yes, you have. But have you proved that you could not become like unto the Red Dragon?'

I watched the flames working at my sword, and I could not breathe.

'Do you not remember your dream?' Master Juwain asked me.

I slowly nodded my head. Once, in the innocence of my youth, I had vowed to bring an end to war.

'But there's no help for it!' I gasped out. 'The more I have sought not to kill, the more I have killed. And the more war I have brought upon us!'

Master Juwain squeezed my shoulder, and then pointed out toward the Red Knights' campfires. And he told me, 'Killing, even at need, is an evil of itself. But killing when there may be no need is much worse. And killing as you feel compelled to kill, in vengeance and hate … that is everything you've been fighting against.'

'But there's no help for that either!' I said. I blinked my eyes against my sword's searing flames. 'Ten thousand men Morjin crucified in Galda! He is poisoning the world!'

I went on to say that Morjin would use the Lightstone to master men: their lusts, fears and dreams, even as he was trying with our gelstei. And then soon, perhaps in another year, perhaps less, all of Ea would be lost — and much more.

'You know,' I said to Master Juwain. 'You know what will happen, in the end.'

'I do not know about ends,' Master Juwain said. 'I only know that it is as it ever was: if you use evil to fight evil, then you will become evil.'

'Yes,' I said, gripping my sword, 'and if I do not, the whole world will fall to evil and be destroyed.'

It grew quiet in our encampment after that. The fire made little crackling sounds, and from out on the grasslands an owl hooed faintly, but none of us spoke. I stood staring at my burning sword. It was strange how the blue and red flames licked at the bright silustria but did not seem to really touch it.

Then Liljana said to me, 'Morjin has long tried to make a ghul of you. It may be that, through your sword, he could seize your will.'

'No, I won't let him,' I said. Then I smiled grimly. 'But if he does, then Kane will have to kill me — if he can.'

'Ah, Val, Val!' Maram said to me as sweat beaded on his fat cheeks. He cast his eyes upon Kane. 'Don't make jokes, not at a time like this!'

No one, I thought, not even Liljana, could read the look on Kane's face just then. He stood as still as death, gazing at my sword as his hand rested on the hilt of his own. Like coals, his black, blazing eyes seemed to burn open the night.

And then this strange man said a strange thing: 'Hate is just the left hand of love, eh? And so with evil and good. So — Val hates Morjin, even as Morjin hates him. Don't be so sure what will come of it.'

I pointed Alkaladur toward the Red Knights a mile away I said, 'There Morjin watches us and waits. Let us end things now if we can.'

Kane followed my gaze, and I felt his insides churning with an unusual disquiet. 'Don't be so sure he is there. The Lord of Lies has laid traps for us before, eh? Let us ride tomorrow, for the mountains, as fast as we can.'

Master Juwain nodded his head at this and said, 'Yes, surely he has conjured up confusions, somehow. Let us ride, as Kane has said.'

Maram, naturally, agreed with this course of action, and so did Liljana, Atara and even Daj. It was not Estreila's way to pit her will against mine or even to make a vote by painting towards or away from the Red Knights. But she knew with a quiet certainty that she had a part to play in our decision. She came up dose to me, heedless of my burning sword. Against the curve of the dark world, with her fine features and wisps of black hair, she seemed small and slight. She stood gazing at me, her lovely eyes looking for something bright and beautiful in my own. She was a seard, I remembered, gifted with finding things and the secrets inside them; a dying scryer had once promised me that she would show me the Maitreya. Since the night I had met her, it been both a grace and a torment that she had also shown me myself.

'Don't look at me like that!' I said to her. I stabbed my sword out toward the steppe. 'If Morjin is there, he won't expect us to attack. When we do, you and Daj will ride with Liljana and Master Juwain toward the mountains. You'll be safe there. After we've won, we'll meet up with you. And then it will all be over… everything. We'll regain the Lightstone, and much else besides.'

Evil, I know, speaks in the most seductive of voices. It plays to our lusts, fears, delusions and hates. There is always a part of us that wants to heed this voice. But there is always a deeper voice, too, which we might take to heart if only we would listen. As Estrella looked at me with so much trust, I heard it whispering, like the songs of the stars: that war could be ended; that I could grip my sword with hate's right hand; that darkness could always be defeated by shining a bright enough light. 'Estrella,' I whispered, 'Estrella.'

I would give anything, I thought that she should grow into womanhood without the blight of murder and war.

Then she called back to me in her silent way, with a smile and a flash of her eyes. She placed one hand over ay heart and the other upon my hand that held my sword. I watched as its fires

dimmed and died.

'All right, we won't attack — not tonight, not like this,' I said. I slid my sword back into its sheath. 'But if Morjin is out there, it will come to battle, in the end.'

After that, I sat back down with my friends to finish our dessert of fresh berries. Maram brought out his brandy bottle; I heard him muttering to himself, commanding himself not to uncork it. He licked his lips as he held himself proud and straight. In the west, lightning continued to torment the sky, but the threatened storm never came. As I watched our enemy's campfires burning with a hazy orange glow, far into the night, the wolves on the dark grass about us howled to the stars.