Black Jade. David Zindell

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СКАЧАТЬ oppressive care for her and her desire to teach her good manners obviously pleased her, as did almost everything about the people she loved. Her will to be happy, I thought, was even greater than Liljana’s urge to remake the world as the paradise it had been in the Age of the Mother. It must have vexed Liljana that our quest depended utterly upon this wild, magical child.

      ‘She was a slave of the Red Priests,’ Kane said to Liljana. ‘So who can blame her for not wanting to be your slave, too?’

      As Liljana paused in stirring the stew to glare at Kane, more wounded by his cruel words than angry, Master Juwain cleared his throat and said, ‘The closer we’ve come to Argattha, it seems, the more she has relished her freedom.’

      We were, I thought, much too close to Morjin’s dark city, carved out of the dark heart of the black mountain called Skartaru. Our course across the Wendrush had inevitably brought us this way. And it seemed that it had inevitably brought the knights of Morjin’s Dragon Guard upon our heels.

      As Estrella began passing out rushk cakes to everyone, Liljana called for Atara to sit down, and she began ladling the stew into wooden bowls. From out of the darkness at the edge of our encampment where our horses were hobbled, a tall woman appeared and walked straight toward us. And that, I thought, was a miracle, because a white cloth encircled her head, covering the hollows which had once held the loveliest and most sparkling pair of sapphire-blue eyes. Atara Ars Narmada, daughter of the murdered King Kiritan and Sajagax’s beloved granddaughter, moved with all the prowess of the princess and the warrior-woman that she was. In consideration of our quest, she had cast off the lionskin cloak that she usually wore in favor of plain gray woolens. Gone were the golden hoops that had once encircled her lithe arms and the lapis beads bound to her long, golden hair. Few, outside of the Wendrush, would recognize her as one of the Sarni. But in her hand she gripped the great, double-curved bow of the Sarni archers, and the Sarni knew her as the great imakla warrior of the Manslayer Society. I knew her as a scryer who had great powers of sight, in space and time, and most of all, as the only woman I could ever love.

      ‘Vanora, Suri and Mata,’ she told me, naming three of her sisters of the Manslayers, ‘will take watches tonight, so we won’t have to worry about the Zayak trying to steal the horses.’

      For the thousandth time that day, I looked back in the direction where our enemy gathered. As Atara knew very well, I worried about much more than this.

      She sat down between Liljana and Master Juwain, and picked up a bowl of stew. Before permitting herself to taste any of it, she continued her report: ‘Karimah has set patrols, so there won’t be any surprises. Bajorak has, too.’

      In the deepening night, the steppe’s grasses swayed and glowed beneath the stars. There, crickets chirped and snakes slithered, hunting rabbits or voles or other prey. There, forty yards to our left, Bajorak and some thirty Danladi warriors sat around their fires roasting sagosk joints over long spits. And forty yards to our right, Karimah and her twelve Manslayers – women drawn from half a dozen of the Sarni tribes – prepared their own dinner. It was our greatest strategic weakness, I thought, that the Manslayers disdained camaraderie with the Danladi men. And that both contingents of our Sarni escort neither really liked nor trusted us.

      ‘I would sleep better tonight,’ Maram told her, ‘if the enemy weren’t so close.’

      ‘Hmmph, you sleep better than any man I’ve ever known, enemy or no enemy,’ Atara said to him. ‘But fear not, we Sarni rarely fight night battles. There won’t be any attack tonight.’

      ‘Are you speaking as a Sarni warrior or a scryer?’

      In answer, Atara only smiled at him, and then returned to her dinner.

      ‘Ah, well,’ Maram continued, ‘I should tell you that it’s not the Zayak who really concern me, at least not until daybreak – and then I shall fear their arrows, too bad. No, it’s those damn Red Knights. What if they charge straight into our encampment while we’re sleeping?’

      ‘They won’t do that,’ Atara reassured him.

      ‘But what if they do?’

      ‘They won’t.’ Atara looked up at the bright moon. ‘They fear arrows as much as you do. And there’s enough light that they would still make good targets, at least at short range.’

      I touched the hilt of my sword, sheathed beside me, and I said, ‘We can’t count on this.’

      ‘In three days,’ Atara said, ‘they’ve kept their distance. They haven’t the numbers to prevail.’

      ‘And that is precisely the point,’ I said. ‘Perhaps they are waiting for reinforcements.’

      ‘So, just so,’ Kane said as he squeezed his bowl of stew between his calloused hands. ‘And so, if there must be battle, we should take it to them before it’s too late.’

      For three days and nights, I thought, my friends and I had been arguing the same argument. But now the mountains were drawing nearer, and a decision must be made.

      ‘We may not have the numbers to prevail, either,’ Atara said. She positioned her head facing Estrella and Daj, who sat across the fire from her. ‘And what of the children?’

      The children, of course, were at risk no matter what course we chose: attacking our enemy would only expose them to recapture or death all the sooner. It was that way with all children everywhere, even in lands far away and still free. With Morjin in control of the Lightstone, uncontested, it would only be a matter of time before everyone on Ea was either put on crosses or enslaved.

      ‘I can fight!’ Daj suddenly announced, drawing out his small blade.

      We all knew that he could. We all knew, too, that Estrella had a heart of pure fire. Her great promise, however, was not in fighting the enemy with swords but with a finer and deeper weapon. As her dark, almond eyes fixed on me, I felt in her an unshakeable courage – and her unshakeable confidence in me to lead us the right way.

      ‘We must either fight or flee,’ I said. ‘But if we do flee, flee where?’

      ‘We could still go into the mountains,’ Maram said. ‘But farther south of the Kul Kavaakurk. And then we could turn north toward the Brotherhood school. We’ll lose our enemy in the mountains.’

      ‘We’ll lose ourselves,’ Master Juwain put in. ‘Try to remember, Brother Maram, that –’

      ‘Sar Maram,’ Maram said, correcting him. He held up his hand to show the double-diamond ring that proclaimed him a Valari knight.

      ‘Sar Maram, then,’ Master Juwain said with a sigh. ‘But try to remember that this school has remained a secret from the Lord of Lies only because our Grandmaster has permitted knowledge of it to very few. No map shows its location. I may be able to find it – but only from the gorge called the Kul Kavaakurk.’

      For the thousandth time, I scanned the ghostly, white wall of mountains to the west of us. Could we find this secret school of the Great White Brotherhood? And if by some miracle we did reach this place of power deep within the maze of mountains of the lower Nagarshath, would we find the Grandmaster still alive? And more importantly, would he – or any of the Brotherhood’s masters – be able to tell us in which land the Maitreya had been born? For it was said that this great Shining One might be able to wrest the Lightstone from Morjin, if not in the substance of the golden bowl, СКАЧАТЬ