Black Jade. David Zindell

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      The room fell quiet, and for a while, the seven Masters of the Brotherhood sat drinking their tea. Strong sentiments like invisible currents passed between them. At last, Master Storr looked at me and said, ‘War, of the spirit, at the very least, Valashu Elahad and his companions must wage, if they make this new quest. Theirs will be a dangerous journey. And one danger we should speak of now, since Liljana Ashvaran has already hinted of it. I would ask to see the rest of their gelstei.’

      I nodded my head at his request, and drew Alkaladur from its sheath. My sword’s silvery silustria gleamed in the starlight. Then Master Juwain brought forth his emerald varistei. Liljana set her little blue whale upon her table while Atara sat cupping her scryer’s sphere inside her hands. Kane scowled as he reached into his pocket and showed Master Storr his baalstei, cut into the shape of a flat, black eye. And then Maram gently laid his firestone, red as a ruby and as long as his forearm, on his table.

      ‘Ah, my poor, poor crystal,’ he said, gazing at the webwork of fine cracks running through it. ‘Ruined in battle with that damn dragon.’

      Abrasax just stared at him. ‘That battle, I think, will prove to be as nothing against the battle you still must fight against the Red Dragon.’

      ‘Ah, I don’t want to fight at all,’ Maram muttered. Something in Abarasax’s manner seemed to encourage Maram to open himself to him. ‘It’s nearly ruined me, you see. The madness of the world: her stupidities and cruelties. If only I had time enough for love! If only I could heal this beautiful crystal, I might find the way to heal my heart.’

      ‘I’m not sure,’ Abrasax said to him, looking around the room, ‘that we all see the connection.’

      Maram gazed longingly at his crystal. ‘To use the red gelstei is to summon and concentrate fire. Ah, to direct it toward a single target, you see. So with love, and therefore the heart. If my heart were made whole again, I might find the great love I was born for.’

      Abrasax smiled as he again stood up from the table. He stretched back his shoulders and drew in a deep breath. Then he walked around Master Okuth and Master Storr sitting at their table with Maram, who turned toward him. Abrasax held his hands above Maram’s head for a moment before bringing them down over his shoulders and then his sides. And he said, ‘You have a great heart, Sar Maram Marshayk. Flames fill it with a bright green radiance. But they would burn brighter – much brighter – if they weren’t so concentrated here, lower down in your svadhisthan chakra.’

      With that he rested his hand on Maram’s belly and smiled at him.

      ‘Ah,’ Maram said, nodding at me, ‘I suppose this isn’t a good time for a recitation of “A Second Chakra Man”?’

      ‘No,’ I said to him, ‘I suppose it is not.’

      Abrasax’s eyebrows pulled together in concern as he pushed against Maram’s belly and told him: ‘Between here and your heart chakra is where your sun makes its orbit. And a great whirl of fire it is, blazing orange with streaks of viridian and crimson.’

      As Abrasax’s hand continued pressing against Maram, I could almost see this fiery orb that he spoke of.

      ‘There is nothing wrong with your heart,’ Abrasax told Maram. ‘And you do have time for love – all the time in the world. But what is it that you love, above all else?’

      Maram glanced at me nervously, and then turned back to Abrasax as he said, ‘There is a woman. Somewhere in the world, a woman who can take in my heart and, ah, all of me. The one whose hips and breasts swell like the mountains and seas, like the very curves of the earth: she, whose desire is as boundless as my own. Some men seek the most beautiful of women, others the kindest or the most pure. But I dream of the most passionate.’

      At this Abrasax cleared his throat and said to him, ‘You must be careful what you wish for. Careful even of what you whisper inside your mind. The earth listens. There are powers there that no one fully understands. Her fires feed ours, and what we create inside ourselves, we can bring into being.’

      He pressed his hand against Maram’s chest, then walked around the tables again to return to his cushions. He sat gazing at Maram, who wrapped his huge hand around his red crystal and lowered his eyes to study the fine cracks marring it.

      ‘All of them,’ Master Storr said, looking from Maram to Liljana, ‘must be careful with their gelstei. Each time they use the sacred crystals, Morjin will use the Lightstone to find his way farther into them and twist their power toward his will.’

      I gazed into the silustria of my sword, and so did my friends study their gelstei.

      ‘Indeed,’ Master Storr continued, eyeing our crystals, too, ‘I counsel that they surrender their gelstei to us for safekeeping.’

      At this, Maram’s hand closed around the cut planes of his firestone while I gripped the hilt of my sword more tightly.

      ‘Surrender this to you?’ Maram said, holding his long, red crystal pointing at Master Storr. ‘You might as well ask me to cut off, ah, more personal parts of myself so that they don’t lead me into troubles.’

      ‘I know,’ Atara said, turning her sphere between her hands, ‘that this came to me for a purpose.’

      Kane’s response was the simplest and most direct of all of us. He held up his black stone for all to see and then closed his fist around it as he called out, ‘Ha!’

      Abrasax sighed as he looked at Master Storr and said, ‘I told you this would be the way of things, as you of all of us should understand.’

      Master Storr bowed his head, but said nothing as he turned his attention back to the gleam of our crystals.

      And Abrasax said to us, ‘So it goes. Everywhere on Ea, Morjin finds his way into men’s minds, and so gains control of their arms, voices and eyes. And no one is willing to give them up either just to thwart him. But I counsel you: if you use your gelstei, Morjin will slowly seize control of them.’

      ‘Even my sword?’ I said, holding up its blade so as to catch the room’s candlelight.

      ‘The silver gelstei,’ Master Storr said to me, ‘would be last of your crystals to be perverted, if indeed it truly can be perverted. It is possible that only the Maitreya, having gained full mastery of the Lightstone, could touch upon the silustria of your sword – and then only for the highest of purposes. But I don’t really know. Therefore I, too, counsel not using it.’

      Kane smiled at this as he gripped his large hands together and said, ‘And have you followed your own counsel, then?’

      ‘What do you mean?’ Master Storr said.

      Kane pointed toward the waist of Master Storr, and then at Master Okuth and Abrasax. ‘What is it you keep inside your pockets?’

      At this, Abrasax smiled at Master Storr in a knowing way, and then looked at Kane. ‘You have keen perceptions – from where do they come? What is that you keep inside yourself?’

      Abrasax’s smile deepened as he studied Kane. I knew that my mysterious friend hated being singled out for scrutiny СКАЧАТЬ