David Zindell: Black Jade

In the deepening night, the steppe's grasses swayed and glowed beneath the stars. There, crickets chirped and snakes slithered, hunting rabbits or voles or other prey. There, forty yards to our left, Bajorak and some thirty Danladi warriors sat around their fires roasting sagosk joints over long spits. And forty yards to our right, Karimah and her twelve Manslayers — women drawn from half a dozen of the Sarni tribes — prepared their own dinner. It was our greatest strategic weakness, I thought, that the Manslayers disdained camaraderie with the Danladi men. And that both contingents of our Sarni escort neither really liked nor trusted us.

'I would sleep better tonight,' Maram told her, 'if the enemy weren't so close.'

'Hmmph, you sleep better than any man I've ever known, enemy or no enemy,' Atara said to him. 'But fear not, we Sarni rarely fight night battles. There won't be any attack tonight.'

'Are you speaking as a Sarni warrior or a scryer?'

In answer, Atara only smiled at him, and then returned to her dinner.

'Ah, well,' Maram continued, 'I should tell you that it's not the Zayak who really concern me, at least not until daybreak — and then I shall fear their arrows, too bad. No, it's those damn Red Knights. What if they charge straight into our encampment while we're sleeping?'

'They won't do that,' Atara reassured him.

'But what if they do?'

'They won't.' Atara looked up at the bright moon. 'They fear arrows as much as you do. And there's enough light that they would still make good targets, at least at short range.'

I touched the hilt of my sword, sheathed beside me, and I said, 'We can't count on this.'

'In three days,' Atara said, 'they've kept their distance. They haven't the numbers to prevail.'

'And that is precisely the point,' I said. 'Perhaps they are waiting for reinforcements.'

'So, just so,' Kane said as he squeezed his bowl of stew between his calloused hands. 'And so, if there must be battle, we should take it to them before it's too late.'

For three days and nights, I thought, my friends and I had been arguing the same argument. But now the mountains were drawing nearer, and a decision must be made,

'We may not have the numbers to prevail, either,' Atara said. She positioned her head facing Estrella and Daj, who sat across the fire from her. 'And what of the children?'

The children, of course, were at risk no matter what course we chose: attacking our enemy would only expose them to recapture or death all the sooner. It was that way with all children everywhere, even in lands far away and still free. With Morjin in control of the Lightstone, uncontested, it would only be a matter of time before everyone on Ea was either put on crosses or enslaved.

'I can fight!' Daj suddenly announced, drawing out his small blade.

We all knew that he could. We all knew, too, that Estrella had a heart of pure fire. Her great promise, however, was not in fighting the enemy with swords but with a finer and deeper weapon. As her dark, almond eyes fixed on me, I felt in her an unshakeable courage — and her unshakeable confidence in me to lead us the right way.

'We must either fight or flee,' I said. 'But if we do flee, flee where?'

'We could still go into the mountains,' Maram said. 'But farther south of the Kul Kavaakurk. And then we could turn north toward the Brotherhood school. We'll lose our enemy in the mountains.'

'We'll lose ourselves,' Master Juwain put in. 'Try to remember, Brother Maram, that — '

'Sar Maram,' Maram said, correcting him. He held up his hand to show the double-diamond ring that proclaimed him a Valari knight.

'Sar Maram, then,' Master Juwain said with a sigh. 'But try to remember that this school has remained a secret from the Lord of Lies only because our Grandmaster has permitted knowledge of it to very few. No map shows its location. I may be able to find it — but only from the gorge called the Kul Kavaakurk.'

For the thousandth time, I scanned the ghostly, white wall of mountains to the west of us. Could we find this secret school of the Great White Brotherhood? And if by some miracle we did reach this place of power deep within the maze of mountains of the lower Nagarshath, would we find the Grandmaster still alive? And more importantly, would he — or any of the Brotherhood's masters — be able to tell us in which land the Maitreya had been born? For it was said that this great Shining One might be able to wrest the Lightstone from Morjin, if not in the substance of the golden bowl, then at least in the wielding of it.

'There must be such a gorge,' I told Master Juwain. 'We will certainly find it, if not tomorrow, then the next day.'

'We would find it the easier,' Atara said, 'if we took Bajorak into our confidence. Surely he would know what gorges or passes give out onto the Danladi's country.'

'He might know,' Master Juwain agreed. 'But he might not know it by that name. And if we can help it, he must not know that name.'

He went on to say that Bajorak, under torture or the seduction of gold, might betray the name to Morjin. And that might key ancient knowledge of clues as to the school's whereabouts.

'If the Red Dragon discovered our greatest school so close to Argattha,' he told us, 'that would be a greater disaster than I can tell.'

The fire, burning logs of cottonwood that we had found by a stream, crackled and hissed. I stared into the writhing flames as I marvelled at the near-impossibility of pis new quest. There were too many contingencies that must fall in our favor if we were to succeed. Would Estrella, I wondered, when the time came, really be able to show us the Maitreya, a had been prophesied? And if she did. was it not the slenderest of hopes that we would be able to spirit him to safety before Morjin succeeded in murdering him?

'All right,' I said, 'we cannot go south, as Maram has suggested. Our choices, then, are either to turn and attack or to lead the way into this Kul Kavaakurk and hope that we can lose our enemy before we betray the way to the school.'

Master Juwain's lips tightened in dismay because either alternative was repugnant to him.

'Or,' Maram put in, 'we could still try to outride the Red Knights. If you're concerned about me lagging and can't bear to see me make a stand against them, I could always turn off in another direction and try to meet up with you later.'

I leaned over to grasp his arm, and I said, 'No, you'd only make yourself easy prey, and I couldn't bear that. Whatever we do, we'll all stay together.'

'Then perhaps we should make our way to Delu and stay there until next year.'

He went on to say that his father, King Santoval Marshayk, would provide us shelter — and perhaps even a ship and crew to sail the lands of Ea in search of the Maitreya.

I stared at the sky in the west over the mountains leading to Skartaru, and in my mind's eye, I saw a great hourglass full of sparkling sands like unto stars. And with every breath that I drew and every word wasted in speculation — with every minute, hour and day that passed — the sands fell and crashed and darkened like burnt-out cinders as Morjin gained mastery of the-Lightstone.

'We cannot wait until next year,' I said. 'And we are agreed that our bell hope of finding the Maitreya lies in reaching the Brotherhood school.'

'In that case,' Maram said, 'our dilemma remains: do we flee or fight?'

Atara had now finished her stew, and she sat quietly between Liljana and Master Juwain as the fire's orange light danced across her blindfolded face. Sometimes, I knew, she could 'see' the grasses and grasshoppers and other features of the world about her, and other times she was truly blind. Just as sometimes she could see the future — or at least its possibilities.