David Zindell - Black Jade

'But she is blind!' I said.

'So are bats blind,' the knight said, 'and yet somehow they fly through the air straight as arrows. My orders are clear on this: the princess must put down her bow.'

Atara smiled coldly, and she laid her bow on top of the wall. She, too, moved over toward the door. So did Bemossed. He said to me, 'Let me come with you.'

I looked for the golden cup in his hand, but I could no longer see it. The radiance pouring out of him seemed lost to the hellish glare of the sun. I told him, 'No, you must stay here. It will be all right.'

I told the knight that we would meet with his master, and he turned to gallop back to Lord Mansarian.

I drew in a long, deep breath of burning air. I clamped my fingers around the hilt of my sword, and I tried not to look at Bemossed. Then, with Maram, Kane and Atara close behind me, I stepped through the doorway out into the brilliant sunlight.

My friends followed me out across the grass to a distance of twenty yards. There we waited.

Lord Mansarian and his knights, with Morjin and the priests behind them, came within a hundred yards of us, and then fifty. If they should break into a charge, or at any time draw their swords, we could beat a quick retreat back into the cottage.

At twenty yards, I called out, 'That is far enough! Come down from your horses!'

'What!' Lord Mansarian wheezed out. 'Who are you to issue commands here?'

'We are not mounted,' I told him, 'and we will not hold parlay with you speaking down to us.'

Lord Mansarian looked behind him at the man in the gray cloak. This mud-spattered traveler threw back his hood to reveal a shock of golden blond hair and a beautiful face that I knew too well. His golden eyes burned into mine. In the manner of the Grays, he had affixed to his forehead a flat, dark stone: a black gelstei. It seemed to suck at my will to resist him. He, himself, seemed to swell with an enormous will to crush anyone who stood against him. I felt a weakness run through my legs as if my body were being drained of blood.

'Lord Morjin?' Lord Mansarian said to this man.

'We will dismount,' he said. His beautiful voice pounded through the air like a great hammer. 'Let the Elahad have his way.'

His motions as he came down from his horse were sure and swift. He seemed as full of life as a young lion. I felt sure that Morjin had lost the power of illusion over me, and so he could not disguise the hideousness of his true appearance as a rotting old man — if indeed he still appeared so. I doubted this. Looking at him, I suddenly doubted all that I knew to be true. I wondered, again, if he had used the Lightstone to remake himself as he had been in his body long ago. As for his soul, I thought, nothing could ever expunge its foul, terrible stench. I could not tell if he was really Morjin. Indeed, in this hateful creature who stood glaring at me, it seemed that Morjin and his droghul might have become as one.

'We demand your surrender!' he called out to me. 'Throw down all your weapons, your gesltei, too, and your lives will be spared!'

I let my hand rest on the hilt of my sword. I wondered if I could whip free my blade and charge him, and cut him down before the six dismounted knights standing near Lord Mansarian stopped me. If I cut his cloak and tunic to bloody shreds, I wondered, would I find the Ltghtstone secreted there?

'How long will you let us live then?' I asked him. 'Long enough for your priests to nail us to crosses?'

It shouldn't have surprised me that Arch Uttam, at Morjin's right, had found the hardiness to ride with the Red Capes in our pursuit, so great was the malice that he held for us. On the other side of Morjin stood my old enemy, Salmelu. Although he called himself Haar Igasho now, and he wore a red robe instead of armor and the emblem of a prince of Ishka, his ugliness of face and spirit were the same. He smiled at me as if my plight gave him great satisfaction.

'If you don't surrender, Eiahad,' Salmelu told me, 'you will be crucified!'

Arch Uttam turned to cast him a venomous look. I sensed his jealousy that Salmelu had the privilege of accompanying their master.

'That is for Lord Morjin to decide,' he reminded Saimelu. 'Lord Morjin, the Merciful and Compassionate!'

He gazed at Morjin as if he did not suspect that this creature might be only a soulless droghul. I wondered, however, if he truly believed that Morjin could be the Maitreya.

'Surrender, Valashu Eiahad.' Morjin called to me, 'and you have my promise that you won't be crucified. You will live as long as you can.'

The command in his voice stunned me. I thought it an abom-nation that he too, possessed the gift of vaiarda. He poured all of his power into willing me to submit to him.

'You lie,' I said. I stood there sweating and fighting for breath. 'And so we will surrender only when we are dead.'

'Is it death you want so badly? Would you bring it upon your friends and everyone you encounter?' He drew in a deep breath, and then roared out: 'Ra Zahur!'

The third priest, a man as squat and hairy as an ape, struggled with the tarp that he had taken down from the packhorse. He moved with a great strength, as if he spent the hours of the day lifting stones. At last, when he had the bundle standing upright, he used a knife to slash the rope binding it. He pulled down the tarp to reveal the face and body of a boy about fourteen years old.

'Taitu!' Bemossed cried out from behind the cottage's wall.

'Why? Why.'

He came running, and although I yelled for him to go back inside, he paid me no heed. It was all I could do to catch him and hold him fast before he closed the distance toward Morjin and his filthy priests.

I stared out at Lord Mansarian, hating him as well as Morjin. Taitu, I saw, had been stripped naked, and he could not stand of his own. I thought it a miracle that the hard ride slung over the back of a bounding horse hadn't killed him outright. I sensed, though, that he didn't have long to live: the horse's backbone had crushed Taitu's organs as surely as had the mule's kick, swelling out his belly again with blood. His soft eyes had grown glassy, and he seemed to cry out silently for Bemossed to help him.

'It is said,' Arch Uttam called out, 'that the Hajarim healed this boy with a laying on of his hands. That power is the Maitreya's only, and so all who have conspired in this lie have committed an Error Mortal. The boy's father and sister have already paid the price, and even now hang on crosses in their village.'

'No!' Bemossed cried out. 'It is you who lie!'

'Be quiet, Hajarim!' Arch Uttam spat out. He moved over and drove his fist into Taitu's belly. He waited a long time for Taitu to finish screaming. Then he said, 'As you can see, the boy is not healed. But we are merciful, as always. Ra Zahur! Help him!'

While I held Bemossed fast with my arm, Ra Zahur plunged his knife into Taitu's belly, and ripped him open. A great gout of blood poured out of him, along with his ruptured organs. From the cottage behind us, I heard Liljana cry out in grief. Kane cast Morjin a look that seemed blacker than any gelstei, and wondered if he had hidden in his pocket one of his throwing knives. Nearly two hundred yards across the field, Lord Mansarian's red-caped soldiers in their quiet, mounted lines gazed upon this horror. Surely they had seen worse crimes. As for Morjin, he watched Taitu die with all the compassion he might have held for a worm. I sensed that he cared nothing for Taitu, but took great pleasure in Bemossed's

pain.

'Once,' Bemossed said to Morjin, 'I thought you were the

Maitreya. But now I see what you are.'

Bemossed stood staring at Morjin, and a terrible sadness welled up out of him. I marveled that he seemed able to suffer great anguish and sorrow and yet remain open to the deep light that filled his eyes. I could not. I felt only acid burning a hole through my heart. Bemossed seemed to sense this, and he turned his attention toward me. I thought that he feared nothing, for himself. But for me, everything. I knew that he did not want to lose me to the dark, twisting thing ripping me open. 'No,' he murmured to me. 'Not this way.'