Black Jade. David Zindell

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СКАЧАТЬ handed the mug back to Maram, who stood looking into its hollows.

      ‘Ah, well, I suppose one of us should have savored it,’ he said to Kane. ‘It pleases me that it pleased you so deeply, my friend. Perhaps someday I can return the favor – and save you from becoming a drunk.’

      Kane smiled at this as Maram began laughing at the little joke he had made, and so did Master Juwain and I. One mug of brandy had as much effect on the quenchless Kane as a like amount of water would on all the sea of grasses of the Wendrush.

      I looked at Kane as I tapped my finger against Maram’s cup. I said, ‘Perhaps we should all forbear brandy for a while.’

      ‘Ha!’ Kane said. ‘There’s no need that I should.’

      ‘The need is to encourage Maram to remain sober,’ I said. I couldn’t help smiling as I added, ‘Besides, we all must make sacrifices.’

      Kane looked at Maram for an uncomfortably long moment, and then announced, ‘All right then, if Maram will vow to forbear, so shall I.’

      ‘And so shall I,’ I said.

      Maram blinked at the new moisture in his eyes; I couldn’t quite tell if our little sacrifice had moved him or if the prospect of giving up his beloved brandy made him weep. And then he clapped me on the arm as he nodded at Kane and said, ‘You would do that for me?’

      ‘We would,’ Kane and I said with one breath.

      ‘Ah, well, that pleases me more than I could ever tell you, even if I had a whole barrel full of brandy to loosen my tongue.’ Maram paused to dip his fat finger down into the mug, moistening it with the last few drops of brandy that clung to its insides. Then he licked his finger and smiled. ‘But I must say that I would wish no such deprivation upon my friends. Just because I suffer doesn’t mean that the rest of the world must, too.’

      I glanced at the campfires of our enemies, then I turned back to look at Maram. ‘In these circumstances, we’ll gladly suffer with you.’

      ‘Very well,’ Maram said. Then he nodded at Master Juwain. ‘Sir, will you be a witness to our vows?’

      ‘Even as I was once before,’ Master Juwain said dryly.

      ‘Excellent,’ Maram said. ‘Then unless it be needed for, ah, medicinal purposes, I vow to forbear brandy until we find the one we seek.’

      ‘Ha!’ Kane cried out. ‘Rather let us say that unless Master Juwain prescribes brandy for medicinal purposes, we shall all forbear it.’

      ‘Excellent, excellent,’ Maram agreed, nodding his head. He held up his mug and smiled. ‘Then why don’t we all return to the fire and drink one last toast to our resolve?’

      ‘Maram!’ I half-shouted at him.

      ‘All right, all right!’ he called back. The breath huffed out of him, and for a moment he seemed like a bellows emptied of air. ‘I was just, ah, testing your resolve, my friend. Now, why don’t we all go have a taste of Liljana’s fine stew. That, at least, is still permitted, isn’t it?’

      We all walked back to the fire and sat down on our sleeping furs set out around it. I smiled at Daj, the dark-souled little boy that we had rescued out of Argattha along with the Lightstone. He smiled back, and I noticed that he was not quite so desperate inside nor small outside as when we had found him a starving slave in Morjin’s hellhole of a city. It was a good thing, smiling, I thought. It lifted up the spirit and gave courage to others. I silently thanked Maram for making me laugh, and I resolved to sustain my gladness of life as long as I could. This was the vow I had made, high on a sacred mountain above the castle where my mother and grandmother had been crucified.

      Daj, sitting next to me, jabbed the glowing end of his firestick toward me and called out, ‘At ready! Let’s practice swords until it’s time to eat!’

      He moved to put down his stick and draw the small sword I had given him when we had set out on our new quest. His enthusiasm for this weapon both impressed and saddened me. I would rather have seen him playing chess or the flute, or even playing at swords with other boys his age. But this savage boy, I reminded myself, had never really been a boy. I remembered how in Argattha he had fought a dragon by my side and had stuck a spear into the bodies of our wounded enemies.

      ‘It is nearly time to eat,’ Liljana called out to us. Her heavy breasts moved against her thick, strong body as she stirred the succulent-smelling stew. ‘Why don’t you practice after dinner?’

      Although her words came out of her firm mouth as a question, sweetly posed, there was no question that we must put off our swordwork until later. Beneath her bound, iron-gray hair, her pleasant face betrayed an iron will. She liked to bring the cheer and good order of a home into our encampments by directing cooking, eating and cleaning, even talking, and many other details of our lives. I might be the leader of our company on our quest across Ea’s burning steppes and icy mountains, but she sought by her nature to try to lead me from within. Through countless kindnesses and her relentless devotion, she had dug up the secrets of my soul. It seemed that there was no sacrifice that she wouldn’t make for me – even as she never tired, in her words and deeds, of letting me know how much she loved me. At her best, however, she called me to my best, as warrior, dreamer and man. Now that the insides of my father’s castle had been burnt to ashes, she was the only mother I still had.

      ‘There will be no swordwork tonight,’ I said, to Liljana and Daj, ‘unless the Red Knights attack us. We need to hold council.’

      ‘Very well, then, but I hope you’re not still considering attacking them.’ Liljana looked through the steam wafting up from the stew, straight at Kane. She shook her head, then called out, ‘Estrella, are those cakes ready yet?’

      Estrella, a dark, slender girl of quicksilver expressions and bright smiles, clapped her hands to indicate that the yellow rushk cakes – piled high on a grass mat by her griddle – were indeed ready to eat. She could not speak, for she, too, had been Morjin’s slave, and he had used his black arts to steal the words from her tongue. But she had the hearing of a cat; in truth, there was something feline about her, in her wild, triangular face and in the way she moved, instinctually and gracefully, as if all the features of the world must be sensed and savored. With her black curls gathered about her neck, her lustrous skin and especially her large, luminous eyes, she possessed a primeval beauty. I had never known anyone, not even Kane, who seemed so alive.

      Almost without thought, she plucked one of the freshest cakes from the top of the piles and placed it in my hand. It was still quite hot, though not enough to burn me. As I took a bite out of it, her smile was like the rising sun.

      ‘Estrella, you shouldn’t serve until we’re all seated,’ Liljana instructed her.

      Estrella smiled at Liljana, too, though she did not move to do as she was told. Instead, seeing that I had finished my cake, she gave me another one. She delighted in bringing me such little joys as the eating of a hot, nutty rushk cake. It had always been that way between us, ever since I had found her clinging to a cold, castle wall and saved her from falling to her death. And countless times since that dark night, in her lovely eyes and her deep covenant with life, she had kept me from falling into much worse.

      ‘The girl never minds me,’ Liljana complained. ‘She always does just as she pleases.’

      I СКАЧАТЬ