Black Jade. David Zindell

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СКАЧАТЬ – half-Sarni! And she is your companion in arms who has yet to fulfill her vow! You cannot be betrothed to her!’

      ‘No, we are not betrothed,’ I forced out. ‘But we are promised to each other.’

      ‘Promised how, then?’

      I watched Atara giving Estrella a drink from her water horn, and I said, ‘Promised with our hearts.’

      I did not really expect this savage Danladi warrior to understand such deep and tender sentiments, for the Sarni beat their women when they displease them and rarely show them kindness. And so he astonished me once more when he said, ‘I am sorry, Valashu, I will not look at her again. But I, too, know what it is to love this woman.’

      I glared at him and said, ‘My father taught me that one should not mistake lust for love.’

      ‘No, one should not,’ he agreed. ‘But it surprises me to hear a Valari speak of love.’

      ‘I have heard,’ I told him, ‘that you Sarni speak of love only for your horses.’

      He patted the neck of his brown stallion as he smiled sadly. ‘That is because you know little about us.’

      Some hurt in his voice – seething and keen and covered with layers of scar – made me feel my way past my jealousy deeper into his being. And what I sensed pulsing inside him so fiercely was only love. Love for Atara, love for his family, for his horses or the beautiful land over which they rode, I could not tell. It didn’t matter. For this bright flame filled my blood and broke me open, and I could never scorn him again.

      ‘And you,’ I said to him, ‘know little about us.’

      His eyes softened, and he looked at me strangely as he said, ‘I have heard what the Red Dragon did to your land. What he did to your mother and grandmother.’

      My eyes filled with a hot stinging, and the green grasses of the steppe beyond Bajorak’s wild, mournful face grew blurry. I swallowed against the lump in my throat and could not speak.

      Now he wiped at his own eyes, and his throat seemed raw and pained as he said, ‘When I was twelve years old, the Zayak crossed the Jade to raid for women. They surprised us, and many were taken. My mother, my sister, too – Takiyah was her name. But they would not consort with the Zayak, and so their chieftain, Torkalax, scourged them with his quirt and gave them to Morjin. But they would not be slaves in Argattha either, and they tried to kill themselves to keep Morjin’s priests from possessing them. It mattered not. The filthy Red Priests ravished them all the same. And then Morjin crucified them for the crime of trying to steal the use of their bodies from the priests. It is said that he set them in his great hall as an example to others. A gem seller who did business with my father brought us the news of their torture. And on that day my father made me vow that I would never make peace with the Zayak or with Morjin.’

      Out on the steppe, a lion roared and a meadowlark chirped angrily – perhaps the same bird whose nest Altaru had destroyed. And I said to Bajorak, ‘Our enemy is one and the same, and so there should be no quarrel between us.’

      ‘No quarrel, perhaps. But the enemy of our enemy is not always our friend. Were it so, we would make cause with the Marituk, who hate the Zayak as much as we do.’

      ‘It is hard,’ I said to him, ‘for a Valari and a Sarni to be friends.’

      ‘And yet you and the Manslayer call each other “friend”, if nothing more.’

      I saw him searching for something in my eyes as he gazed at me. And I searched for something in him. I found it beneath his gold-studded armor in the sudden surge of his blood. It was the promise of life, the very pulse of the world and breath of the stars. When I opened my heart to him, I felt it beating strong, wild and true.

      ‘Friends,’ he told me, ‘do not keep secrets from each other.’

      ‘No, they do not,’ I said.

      It came to me then that I had a sort of Scales of my own, for I gave great weight to what my heart told me was true. One either had faith in men, or not. As Bajorak looked at me so openly, without entreaty or guile, I knew that I trusted him and that he would never betray me.

      ‘The name of the gorge we seek,’ I told him, ‘is the Kul Kavaakurk.’

      I went on to explain the nature of our quest. Only the Maitreya, I said to him, could contend with Morjin for mastery of the Lightstone. We had no idea where on Ea to search for this great-souled being, but the Grandmaster of the Great White Brotherhood in their ancient school in the mountains above us might know.

      ‘It is a small hope,’ I said to him. ‘But unless the Maitreya is found, it won’t matter if the Danladi or Kurmak or Valari refuse to make peace with Morjin. For Morjin and all his allies will make war against us and destroy us one by one.’

      ‘No, that will not be,’ he said. ‘Morjin may indeed destroy us. But not one by one.’

      And with that, he leaned out away from his horse and extended his calloused hand toward me. I grasped it in mine, and we sat there for a few moments testing each other’s resolve. With a gladness that he could not contain, he looked at me and smiled as he said, ‘Friend.’

      I smiled, too, and nodded my head. ‘Friend.’

      Each telling of the truth, I suddenly knew, was like a whisper that might grow into a whirlwind.

      ‘It is a strange thing you do,’ he said to me, ‘seeking this Maitreya instead of gold, women or war. And you, a great warrior, or so it’s said.’

      ‘I’ve seen enough war to last to the end of my days if I lived another ten thousand years.’

      And Bajorak surprised me once more, saying, ‘So have I.’

      I took in the paint on his face, the saber thrust through his braided gold belt and the great horn bow strapped to his back. I said to him, ‘I have never heard a Sarni warrior speak so.’

      Again he smiled, an expression made difficult by the scars cutting his cheeks. And he said, ‘I have wives and daughters, and I would not see them violated by any man. I have a son. I would hear him make music.’

      My eyes filled with amazement as I smiled at him.

      ‘Promise me, Valashu Elahad, that you will not tell anyone what I have told you here. For me to speak of love is one thing. But if my warriors heard me speak of ending war, they would think me mad.’

      ‘All right,’ I said, clasping hands with him again, ‘I promise.’

      He nodded his head to me, once, fiercely, and then turned his horse about and rode back to his warriors. And I returned to my friends, who were gathered in a circle on top of their horses between the Bajorak’s Danladi and our Manslayer rear guard.

      ‘Well?’ Maram called out to me as I came up to them. ‘What was all that about?’

      Kane, however, needed no account of my meeting with Bajorak to know what had transpired. His black eyes were like two disks of heated iron as he said to me, ‘So, you told him.’

      ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I had to.’

      ‘You СКАЧАТЬ