Black Jade. David Zindell

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СКАЧАТЬ elucidated in Mesh, Valashu’s horoscope is nearly identical with that of Godavanni. Valashu’s stars, as they determined, are those of a Maitreya.’

      ‘Then you should not blame him,’ Maram half-shouted, ‘for having believed that he might be the Maitreya!’

      Master Matai shot him a sharp look and shook his head to silence him. And then he went on: ‘As we say, the stars impel; they do not compel. There are always other signs. And there are other stars.’

      ‘I’m afraid I still don’t understand,’ Master Juwain said, resting his elbows on the table to examine the horoscope, ‘where Master Sebastian went wrong.’

      ‘That is because he didn’t,’ Master Matai said. ‘On all of Ea, there is hardly a better diviner, especially when it comes to astrology. No, Master Sebastian made no error, at least of commission. But it must be said that an omission has been made, and a critical one at that.’

      So saying, he brought forth a second parchment and unrolled it on top of mine.

      ‘Always, at the end of ages, the Maitreyas are born,’ he told us. ‘And at the end of this age, the last age that will give birth to the Age of Light, or so we hope, the stars are so strong. I have studied this for years, and for years I believed the Maitreya’s star would rise over the Morning Mountains. But I have found a brighter one that rose in another land. Twenty-two years ago, now, at the same time that the Golden Band flared as it never had before and has done only once since.’

      I glanced at the date that Master Matai had inked onto the parchment: the ninth of Triolet in the year 2792 – the same day as my birth.

      Master Juwain studied the symbols inscribed in the great circle, and he asked, ‘And for which land has this horoscope been prepared?’

      ‘Hesperu. In the Haraland, in the north, somewhere below the mountains, to the east of Ghurlan but west of the Rhul River.’

      ‘Hesperu!’ I wanted to cry out. I could think of few lands of Ea so far away, and none so difficult to reach.

      ‘But we can’t journey there!’ Maram bellowed. ‘It’s impossible!’

      ‘So, it would be difficult, not impossible,’ Kane said, his eyes gleaming.

      He went on to tell us that we could complete our transit of the White Mountains and cross the vast forest of Acadu. And then choose between two routes: the southern one through the Dragon Kingdoms, or the northern route across the Red Desert.

      ‘Oh, excellent!’ Maram said. ‘Then we’ll have our choice between being put up on crosses or dying of thirst in the desert.’

      I turned to look at Maram. I didn’t want him to frighten the children – and himself.

      ‘But think, Val!’ he said to me. ‘Even if the Maitreya was born in Hesperu, he might long since have gone elsewhere. Or been taken as a slave or even killed. It’s madness, I say, to set out to the end of the earth solely according to another astrological reckoning.’

      I waited for the blood to leave his flushed face, and then I asked him, ‘But what else can we do?’

      ‘Ah, I don’t really know,’ he muttered. ‘Why must we do anything? And if we do do something, wouldn’t it be enough to work in concert with the Brotherhood? Surely the Grandmaster has alerted the schools in Hesperu to look for the Maitreya. Let them find him, I say.’

      Master Juwain looked over his shoulder at Maram and asked him, ‘Have you forgotten Kasandra’s prophecy?’

      ‘You mean, that Val would find the Maitreya in the darkest of places?’

      Hesperu, I thought, under the terror of King Arsu and the Kallimun, no less Morjin, seemed just about the darkest place on Ea.

      ‘There is more that you should know,’ Master Matai said as he pressed his finger against one of the symbols inked onto the parchment. ‘The Maitreya’s star, I believe, will burn brightly but not long.’

      I looked at Maram as he looked at me. Sometimes decisions are made not in the affirmation of one’s lips but in the silence of the eyes.

      ‘But we’ll die reaching Hesperu!’ he moaned. ‘Oh, too bad, too bad!’

      And with that he hammered his fist on the table behind him hard enough to rattle the teacups and to shake from them a few dark, amber drops. ‘Why can’t I have at least one glass of brandy before I’m reduced to worm’s meat? Are there no spirits in this accursed place?’

      ‘There are those that you carry inside your hearts,’ Abrasax told him with a smile.

      Maram waved his thick hand at Abrasax’s attempt to encourage him, and he turned toward me. ‘Can’t you see it, Val? It’s madness, this new quest of ours, damnable and utter madness!’

      ‘Then you must be mad, too,’ I told him, ‘to be coming with us.’

      ‘Am I coming with you? Am I?’

      ‘Aren’t you?’

      ‘Ah, of course I am, damn it! And that’s the hell of it, isn’t it? How could I ever desert you?’

      We returned to our original tables then. Abrasax began a long account of how one of the ancient Maitreyas, on another world during the age-old War of the Stone, had sung to a star called Ayasha to keep it from dying in a blaze of light. We drank many cups of tea. Finally, it grew late. Through one of the windows, I saw the stars of the Dragon descending toward the west. And yet Kane still sat spellbound as he listened to Abrasax’s flowing voice, and so did Daj and Estrella. But whereas Kane could remain awake for nights on end, and perhaps longer, the children began yawning with their need for sleep.

      ‘I think that is enough for one night,’ Abrasax said. He closed the crystal-paged book from which he had been reading. I sheathed my sword, and my companions hid away their gelstei. ‘Tomorrow you must begin preparing for a long journey, and we must help you.’

      He turned to look at Atara, Daj and Estrella, and all the rest of us, one by one. At last he rested his gaze on me. ‘I believe with all my heart that you will find the Maitreya, as has been prophesied. And I also believe that what will befall then will be ruled by your heart. Remember, Valashu, creation is everything. It is what we were born for.’

      He stood up slowly, and stepped over to the pedestal holding up the cup of silver gelstei. After lifting it with great care, he brought it back to our table and set it down. And then he enjoined us: ‘Escort the Shining One back to us, here, and we shall help him, too. We shall place this in his hands, if not the true gold. And then we shall see who is truly master of the Lightstone.’

      After that we went back to our hostels to rest. For hours I lay awake with my hand on the hilt of Alkaladur, by the side of my bed. A bright flame still blazed inside me. I wanted to pass it on like a strengthening elixir to Atara, sleeping in the little house next to mine, and to Estrella, Liljana, and everyone. I couldn’t help hoping that we might bring something beautiful into creation, even though I knew that before us lay an endless road of blood, destruction and death.

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