Black Jade. David Zindell

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      The next day’s dawn came upon the world with a red, unwelcome glare. We ate a hasty breakfast of rushk cakes smeared in jelly and some goose eggs that Liljana had reserved for especially difficult work. And our riding that morning, while not nearly so fast or jolting as that of the previous day, was difficult enough. We set out parallel to the mountains, and our course here took us southeast over ground humped with many hummocks and rocky crests. We crossed streams all icy cold and swollen into raging brown torrents that ran down from the great peaks above us. All of us, I thought, rode stiffly. We struggled to keep our tired horses moving at a good pace. Often I wondered at the need, for no matter how quickly or slowly we progressed, our enemy in their carmine-colored armor kept always a mile’s distance behind us.

      ‘Surely they don’t intend to attack us,’ Maram puffed out as he nudged his horse up beside me. ‘Unless Bajorak is right and they are only waiting for reinforcements.’

      Toward this contingency, Bajorak had sent forth outriders to search the grassy swells and sweeps of the Wendrush.

      ‘Of course,’ Maram added, ‘it seems most likely that they only intend to follow us into the mountains.’

      ‘We cannot go into the mountains,’ I told him, ‘so long as they do follow us.’

      ‘Ah, it seems we cannot go at all unless we find this Kul Kavaakurk. Where is this gorge, then? How do we know it really exists?’

      Maram kept on complaining at the uncertainties of our new quest as his eyes searched the folds and fissures of the rocky earth to our right. His voice boomed out into the morning, and Master Juwain caught wind of our conversation. He rode up to us and told Maram, ‘It surely does exist.’

      ‘Ah, sir, but you are a man of faith.’

      ‘I have faith in our Brotherhood’s lore.’

      ‘But, sir,’ Maram reminded him, ‘it is our Brotherhood no longer.’

      ‘And that is precisely why you are ignorant of this lore.’

      ‘Lore or fables?’

      ‘The Way Rhymes are certainly no fables,’ Master Juwain said. ‘They are as true as the stories in the Great Book of the Ages. But they are not for the common man.’

      He went on to speak of that body of esoteric knowledge entrusted only to the masters of the Brotherhood. As he often did when riding – or sitting, standing or even sleeping – he clutched in his hand his travelling volume of the Saganom Elu.

      ‘Ah, well,’ Maram said to him, ‘one of the things that I could never abide about the Brotherhood was this madness for books.’

      ‘A love for books, you mean.’

      ‘No, it is more of a bibliolatry.’

      ‘But the Way Rhymes are recorded in no book!’

      ‘And that is precisely the point,’ Maram said, needling him. ‘The Brotherhood makes an idol of the very idea of a book.’

      Master Juwain’s homely face screwed up in distress. ‘It is one of the noblest ideas of man!’

      ‘So noble that you withhold this lore from men? Should not all that is best and most true be recorded in the Saganom Elu?’

      Now Master Juwain’s lips tightened with real pain. And he held up his worn book as he tried to explain to Maram: ‘But all is recorded there! You must understand, however, that this rendering of the Saganom Elu is only for men. It is said that the Elijin have a truer telling of things, recorded on tablets of gold. And the Galadin as well have theirs, deeper and truer still, perhaps etched in diamond or read in starfire, for they are deathless and cannot be harmed, and so it must be with their writings. And the Ieldra! What can any man say of those whose being is pure light? Only this: that their knowledge must be the brightest reflection of the one and true Saganom Elu, the word of the One which existed before even the stars – and which was never created and therefore cannot be destroyed.’

      For a while, as our horses made their way over the uneven ground at a bone-bruising trot, Master Juwain continued to wax eloquent as his ideals soared. And then Maram rudely brought him back to earth.

      ‘What I always detested about the Brotherhood,’ Maram said, ‘was that you always kept secrets from lesser men – even from aspirants such as I when I, ah, still aspired to be other than I am.’

      ‘But we’ve had to protect our secrets!’ Master Juwain told him. ‘And so protect those who are not ready for them. Is a child given fire to play with? What would most men do if given the power of the Red Dragon?’

      I turned in my saddle to look at the Red Knights trailing us as if bound to our horses with chains. I wondered yet again if Morjin rode with them; I wondered what he would do with the unfathomable power of the Lightstone.

      Maram must have sensed the trajectory of my concerns, for he said to Master Juwain: ‘And so like precious gems, like gelstei hidden in lost castles, you encode these precious secrets in your rhymes?’

      ‘Even as we encode the way to our greatest school.’

      Maram sighed at this, and he sucked at his lip as if wishing for a drink of brandy. ‘Tell me again the verses that tell of this school.’

      Now it was Master Juwain’s turn to sigh as he said, ‘You’ve an excellent ear for verse when you put yourself to it.’

      ‘Ah, well, I suppose I should put myself since you have honored me with this precious lore that you say is no fable.’

      ‘It is СКАЧАТЬ