Black Jade. David Zindell

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СКАЧАТЬ Daj told him: ‘North, I think. Didn’t King Koru-Ki set out to find the Northern Passage and the way to the stars?’

      ‘You know he did,’ Liljana said to him. ‘Didn’t I teach you that the ancients believed that the waters of all worlds flow into each other? And that there is a passage to other worlds at the uttermost north of ours?’

      As Daj looked at Liljana, he slowly nodded his head.

      ‘Very good, then,’ Master Juwain said. He smiled at Maram. ‘We’ll turn north, tomorrow – are we agreed?’

      ‘Ah, we were agreed before we reached this place. This Rhyme, at least, was easy to unravel.’

      ‘Indeed it was. But the Rhymes grow more difficult, the nearer we approach our destination. Let’s make camp here tonight and ponder them.’

      And so we did. That evening, after dinner, I heard Maram repeating the verses to the Way Rhymes as well as those of his epic doggerel that he insisted on adding to. Over the next few days, as we continued our journey, the Way Rhymes, at least, guided us through the maze of mountains, valleys and chasms that made up this section of the lower Nagarshath. Through forests of elm and oak, and swaths of blue spruce, we rode our horses up and up – and then down and down. But as the miles vanished behind us, it became clear that our way wound more up than down, and we worked on gradually higher. Each camp that we made, it seemed, was colder than the preceding one. On our fourth day after the King’s Divide, as we called it, it rained all that afternoon and turned to snow in the evening. We spent a miserable night heaping wood on the fire and huddling as close to its leaping flames as we dared, swaddled in our cloaks like newborns. The next day, however, the sun came out and fired the snow-dusted rocks and trees with a brilliance like unto millions of diamonds. It did not take long for spring’s heat to melt away this fluffy white veneer. We rode up a long valley full of deer, voles and singing birds, and we basked in Ashte’s warmth.

      And then, just past noon, we came upon a landmark told of by the Rhymes. Master Juwain pointed to the right as he said, ‘Brother Maram, will you please give us the pertinent verses?’

      And Maram, making no objection to being so addressed, said:

      Upon a hill a castle rock,

      Abode of eagle, kite and hawk.

       From sandstone palisades espy

      A tri-kul lake as blue as sky.

      As Altaru lowered his head to feed upon the rich spring grass blanketing the ground, I sat on top of his broad back and stroked his neck. And I gazed up at the hill under study. A jagged sandstone ridge ran along its crest up to some blocklike rocks at the very top, giving it the appearance of a castle’s battlements.

      ‘This is surely the place,’ Maram said, holding his hand against his forehead. ‘But I see no eagles here.’

      And then Daj, who had nearly the keenest eyes of all of us, pointed to the left of the hill at a dark speck gliding through the air and said, ‘Isn’t that a hawk?’

      And Kane said, ‘So, it is, lad – and a goshawk at that.’

      ‘If I were an eagle,’ I said, looking at the crags around us, ‘I think I would make my aerie here.’

      ‘If you were an eagle,’ Maram told me, pointing to the north, ‘you wouldn’t have to climb that hill to spy out the terrain beyond it, as the verse suggests.’

      ‘You mean, we wouldn’t have to climb it, don’t you?’

      ‘I? I?’ Maram said. He rested his hands upon his belly and looked at me. ‘Surely you’re not suggesting that I dismount and haul my poor, tired body up that –’

      ‘Yes, I am.’

      ‘But such ascents were made for eagles or rock goats, not bulls such as I.’

      ‘Bulls, hmmph,’ Atara said from on top of her horse. ‘You eat enough for an elephant.’

      Maram ignored this jibe and said to me, ‘You are the man of the mountains.’

      ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and so I’ll go with you. And then you can recite for me the next verse.’

      Maram sighed at this as he grudgingly nodded his head. We decided then that Maram, Master Juwain and I would climb the hill while Liljana and the others worked on preparing lunch for our return.

      Our hike up the hill proved to be neither as long or arduous as Maram feared. Even so, he puffed and panted his way up a deer trail and then cursed as he nearly turned an ankle on some loose rocks in a mound of scree. To hear him grunting and groaning, one might have thought he was about to die from the effort. But I was sure he suffered so loudly mainly to impress me. And to remind both him and me of the great sacrifices that he was willing to make on my behalf.

      At last, we gained the crest, where the wind blew quickly and cooled our sweat-soaked garments. We stood resting against the sandstone ridge that topped it. We looked out to the northwest, where a great massif of snow-covered peaks rose up along the horizon like an impenetrable white fortress. But between there and here lay a country of rugged hills and lakes that pooled beneath them. All of them were blue. Which one

      might be the lake told of in the Rhyme, I could not say. ‘A tri-kul lake,’ Maram intoned, looking out below us. ‘Very well, but what is that? A “kul” is a pass or a gorge, and I can’t say that any of these lakes is surrounded by three such, or even one.’

      ‘Are you sure the verse told of a tri-kul lake?’ Master Juwain asked him.

      ‘Are you saying I misheard the Rhyme?’

      ‘Indeed you did. The word in question is drakul.’

      ‘But why didn’t you correct me before this?’

      ‘Because,’ Master Juwain said, ‘I wanted to give you a chance to puzzle through the Rhymes yourself. Our goal will never be won through memory alone.’

      ‘But what is a drakul, then? I’ve never heard of such a thing.’

      ‘Are you sure? Think back to your lessons in ancient Ardik.’

      ‘Do you mean, try to remember lessons in that dry, dry tongue that I tried to forget, even years ago?’

      Master Juwain sighed and rubbed his head, now covered with a wool cap. And he said, ‘Why don’t you give me the next verses, then? How many times have I told you that clues to a puzzle in one verse might be found in those before or after it?’

      ‘Very well,’ Maram said. And he dutifully recited:

       The Lake’s two tongues are rippling rills

       That twist and hiss past saw-toothed hills;

      A cold tongue licks the setting sun,

      But your course cleaves the shining one.

      ‘No, no,’ Master Juwain said to him. ‘You’ve misheard the final line here, too. It should be: “Your course cleaves the shaida one”.’

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