Black Jade. David Zindell

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       8

      For a long while, however, we stood on a mantle of ground near the tunnel’s mouth looking in vain for this fabled school. Kane set out along the heights to our left to see what he could see, while Master Juwain picked his way along the rocks to our right. They returned to report that they could descry no sign of the school, or indeed, of any human habitation.

      ‘Perhaps,’ Master Juwain said, pointing at the folded, forested terrain below us, ‘the school is hidden. The lay of the land might conceal it.’

      ‘Then let us find a better vantage to look for it,’ Kane said.

      ‘As long as that vantage lies lower and not higher,’ Maram said. ‘It’s damn cold on these heights.’

      We began making our way down the rugged slope into the valley. We found a line of clear patches through the trees that might or might not have been part of an ancient path. After an hour, we came out around the curve of a great swell of ground, and we gathered on a long, clear ridge that afforded an excellent view of almost the entire valley. All we could see were trees and empty meadows and the river’s bright blue gleam.

      ‘Perhaps your Rhymes misled us after all,’ Maram complained to Master Juwain.

      Master Juwain’s jaws tightened as he readied a response to Maram’s incessant faithlessness. And then, from below us, through the trees, there came the faint sound of someone singing. I could make out a pleasant melody but none of the words. Although it seemed unlikely that an enemy would cheerfully alert us, Kane and I drew our swords even so.

      A few moments later, a small, old man worked his way up the path into view. He wore plain, undyed woolens and leaned upon a shepherd’s crook as if it were a walking staff. I saw that he had the wheat-colored skin and almond eyes of the Sung. Long, thick white hair framed his wrinkled face. Despite his obvious age, he moved with the liveliness of a much younger man.

      ‘Greetings, strangers!’ he called to us in a rich, melodious voice. ‘You look as if you’ve come a long way.’

      His words caused Master Juwain to rub the back of his head as he scrutinized this old man. He said to him, ‘A stranger’s way is always long.’

      ‘Unless, of course,’ the old man said, smiling, ‘he is no stranger to the Way.’

      Now Master Juwain smiled, too, and he bowed to the old man. Having completed the ancient formula by which those of the Brotherhood recognize and greet others of their order in chance encounters in out of the way places, the two of them strode forward to embrace each other. Master Juwain gave his name and those of the rest of us. And the old man presented himself as Master Virang.

      ‘You did well,’ he told Master Juwain, bowing back to him, ‘to find your way here. My brethren will be eager to learn why you have brought outsiders to our valley.’

      He cast a deep, penetrating look at Kane and me, as we faced him with our swords still drawn. I had a sense that he could peel back the layers of my being and nearly read my mind. And Maram said to him, ‘Then this is the Valley of the Sun? We weren’t sure, for we saw nothing that looked like a school. You don’t dwell underground, do you?’

      He shuddered as he said this. Since the Ymanir, who might have carved the mysterious tunnel above us, had also built the underground city of Argattha in these same mountains, it seemed a likely surmise.

      His question, though, made Master Virang smile. ‘No, we are men, not moles, and so we dwell as most men do.’

      ‘Dwell where, then?’ Maram asked. ‘I could swear that there isn’t a hut or even an outhouse in all this valley.’

      ‘Could you?’

      Master Virang kept one of his hands inside his pocket as he looked at Maram strangely. Then he looked at me. The space behind my eyes tingled in a way that seemed both pleasant and disturbing. I found myself, of a sudden, able to make out the trees in the distance with a greater clarity. It was as if I had emerged from a pool of blurry water into cold, crisp air.

      ‘Ah, I could swear it,’ Maram muttered. ‘We’ve looked everywhere.’

      ‘Indeed?’ Master Virang asked. ‘But did you look down there?’

      So saying, he pointed the tip of his staff straight down the slope below us toward the most open part of the valley, where the river ran through its heart. The air overlaying this green, sunny land began to shimmer. And then I gripped my sword in astonishment, for out of the wavering brilliance a few miles away, along the banks of the river, many white, stone buildings appeared. So distinctly did they stand out that it seemed impossible we had failed to perceive them.

      ‘Sorcery!’ Maram cried out, even more astonished than I. He shook his head at Master Virang, and took a step back from him. ‘You hide your school beneath the veil of illusion!’

      Liljana, too, seemed disquieted by the sudden sight of the school – and even more so by Master Virang. In her most acid of voices, she said to him, ‘We had not heard that the masters of the Great White Brotherhood had learned the arts of the Lord of Illusions.’

      But Master Virang only matched her scowl with a smile. He said to her, ‘To compel others to see what is not is indeed illusion, and that is forbidden to us, as it is to all men. But to help them apprehend what is – this is true vision and the grace of the One.’

      He bowed his head to Liljana and added, ‘Our school is real enough, after all. You are tired and travel-worn – will you accept our hospitality?’

      Although he posed this invitation as a question, politely and formally, there could be no doubting what our answer would be. All of us, I thought, bore misgivings as to how the Brotherhood’s school had been hidden from us. Even more, though, we were curious to learn its secrets and ways.

      And so Master Virang twirled his staff in his hand as he led us back along the path. He fairly jumped from rock to rock like a mountain goat. The rest of us, trailing our horses, moved more slowly. It took us most of the rest of the morning to hike down into the valley and to come out of the forest onto the school’s grounds, laid out above the river. We walked through apple orchards, ash groves and rose gardens, and fields of rye, oats and barley. The Valley of the Sun was as warm and bright as its name promised, especially near the ides of Ashte with the full bloom of spring СКАЧАТЬ