Black Jade ec-3

by David Zindell

  I drew my sword and pointed it at him. Its silver blade flared with a brilliant flame. If the valarda was the gift of empathy, I thought, then Alkaladur was the weapon of compassion. Not this length of silustria, sharper than any razor, whose diamond-bright polish drove the sunlight into Morjin's eyes. But the true Alkaladur, wrought of a purer substance, as radiant as the stars. The Sword of Light shone within me, as yet only half-forged. All that I had suffered had gone into its making. All that my friends had suffered with me infused its essence as well. Even now, as Liljana, Master Juwain and the children looked on from behind the wall of the cottage, and Kane, Maram and Atara stood by my side, I felt all their courage, kindness and great will toward life. They seemed to pass these fundamental forces to me through their eyes and in their throbbing hearts, in flames of red, orange and yellow, green and blue, indigo and violet. The whole world seemed to pass its fire to me. Somehow, Bemossed seemed to weave it all together into a pure, white blaze that streaked through my sword and me straight up into the sky. Hotter and brighter, it built, until it flared a brilliant glorre. Then this perfect color gave way to a single, clear, indestructible light. And so at the last, Bemossed's love for me, no less Morjin's hate, had put into my hand the greatest weapon in the universe.

  'Damn you, Elahad!'

  All the fire and force of my soul I poured into this sword. Alkaladur blazed like the sun. Across the distance between us, it struck into Morjin's heart. He gasped and grabbed his chest; he raged and cursed and wept. He stared at me with his golden eyes, now wild and maddened with anguish. I almost couldn't bear it. He had told me once that the only way I would ever free myself from suffering would be to inflict even greater suffering upon another. It was not so. As I drove the Sword of Light deeper and deeper into Morjin, my agony burned through me, and all of Morjin's incredible pain, too. I thought that it might kill me. It killed something in Morjin. I felt him longing desperately for some impossible thing: perhaps that he and the world could somehow be different. I felt him longing for something even more. He looked at me strangely. He cringed away from me as a black, bottomless terror took hold of him. I knew then that there was one thing that he feared above all else.

  'Elahad!' he screamed out to me.

  He continued screaming until his voice grew hoarse. He ranted and bit his tongue, and spat out a bloody froth. He sweated; from nearly twenty yards away, I could smell his foulness and fear. He told of how he would torture me in a dozen hideous ways. The debasement of this powerful man to a snarling, suffering, craven beast stunned all of us looking on.

  And then Morjin returned to himself — or perhaps he found sustenance and strength in the being of his droghul. He drew in a deep breath, and stood up straight. He wiped the blood from his mouth. He turned to Lord Mansarian, and said, 'The truce is over. You have heard the Elahad say that they will not surrender. Therefore you will attack, and kill them all.'

  'All except the Hajarim,' Lord Mansarian said, looking at Bemossed.

  Morjin looked at him, too. But Bemossed's bright face seemed only to drive him to a new- fury. 'Especially the Hajarim! You are to kill him outright, or deliver him, bound in chains, to me!'

  'That was not what you promised!' Lord Mansarian rasped out.

  Arch Uttam turned toward this grim, red-caped man in astonishment. So did Atuan and Roarian, and Lord Mansarian's other captains. It seemed that they had never dared to think that any soldier of Hesperu would openly contradict the great Red Dragon.

  'You must have misunderstood me,' Morjin said to Lord Mansarian. His silver voice trembled with dismissal and undertones of threat, too.

  'I misunderstood nothing,' Lord Mansarian said. 'The Hajarim was to be given to me, for whatever corrective that I might contrive.'

  'He will be crucified!' Morjin snarled out. 'Alive or dead.'

  'But Hajarim are never crucified!' Lord Mansarian reminded him.

  'This one,' Morjin said, pointing at Bemossed, 'will be crucified. You have my promise.'

  Lord Mansarian looked at me, and I sensed that some part of my suffering over my family's death called him to remember the slaughter of his own. He met eyes with Bemossed, and I felt his intense gratitude for what this man had done. And something more. As Bemossed smiled at him. Lord Mansarian's dark, doomed soul began to sparkle with hope once again.

  'No,' Lord Mansarian told Morjin.

  'No? You say this to me?'

  Morjin's ferocious will beat down upon Lord Mansarian like a battle axe. Lord Mansarian stood there sweating. But he finally found the courage to say, 'The Hajarim saved my daughter's life. And so I owe him his life.'

  'You owe him nothing! You owe me everything!'

  Lord Mansarian let out a long sigh, and then traded looks with Atuan. Remorse gnawed at his eyes. He seemed suddenly unable to bear Morjin's lies and spite. Then he said to him, 'All that I have done in King Arsu's service is wrong. I will not dishonor myself, ever again.'

  'You are wrong!' Morjin shouted at him. 'All honor is to be found in loyalty: to your king, and to his king!'

  As the tone of command reverberating through Morjin's voice grew almost too great to resist. Lord Mansarian hesitated. And Arch Uttam warned him, 'Be careful of what you say, warrior. You speak errors. Major and Mortal.'

  'I speak the truth,' Lord Mansarian said. 'And I have no king.'

  At this, Morjin spat on the grass in front of Lord Mansarian and told him, 'You, and all of the Crimson Companies who are gathered upon this ground today, are under King Arsu's command! And therefore mine!'

  'Are they?' Lord Mansarian said, nodding at Roarian. 'Let us see about that.'

  He turned and hurried over to his horse. He quickly mounted, as did Roarian and Atuan. They pointed their horses facing away from the cottage.

  Now Morjin's whole body trembled as his jaws clamped together with great enough force to break his teeth. He spat again, in a spray of blood, straight at me. His face contorted with rage as he screamed, 'Damn you, Elahad!'

  Then he and his priests, with the four other captains and the banner-bearer, climbed onto their mounts. They all whipped their horses to a gallop, and began a wild race with Lord Mansarian back toward the lines of Lord Mansararian's red-caped knights.

  'Ah, I suppose the truce is over,' Maram said as he looked from Kane to me. 'What do we do now?'

  'Go back,' I said. 'Let us go back inside the house.'

  I placed my hand on Bemossed's shoulder to urge him to haste. But he stood facing our enemies across the field as if he would not be moved.

  'You have already worked one miracle today,' I said to him. 'I know what you want, and I want it, too. But as long as Morjin lives, he'll drive men to war.'

  'You do not know that, Valashu. If I held the Lightstone — '

  'So,' Kane growled out to him, 'you'll hold the Lightstone only if you live. Which you won't if you stand here dreaming impossible dreams, eh?'

  He turned back toward the cottage. So did Maram, who took Atara's hand. Then Bemossed looked down upon Taitu's body and called out, 'Wait! Let us not leave the boy here like this to be trampled by horses.'

  I nodded my head, and we quickly wrapped up Taitu again in the tarp — now his shroud. We bore him back into the cottage. Kane immediately grabbed up his bow and nocked an arrow to its string.

  'They are within range,' he said as he looked out over the crumbled cottage wall.

  I looked, too. Those who had come to us under the banner of truce had reached Lord Mansarian's companies. The neat lines of knights on their horses had collapsed into a chaos of men and mounts swarming around Lord Mansarian and Morjin. Angry shouts rang out across the field.

  'Two hundred yards?' Atara said to Kane. 'That is too long a range. You can't be sure of hitting Morjin at that distance.'

  'I'll hit someone,' Kane growled. 'And that will be one less to fight corning over these walls.'

  'Why fight at all?' Maram said. He nodded at Estrella, who stood by the horses. 'Why don't we flee, while t
hey argue?'

  'No,' I said, shaking my head. 'If we do that, we might end their argument for them and force them to make common cause again. And we would expose our backs to them.'

  'What shall we do then?'

  And I told him, 'Wait.'

  While the pasture rang out with shouts that grew louder and more numerous, Master Juwain examined Taitu's body to make sure that he really was dead. Estrella stood by my horse, feeding him some grain. Liljana, not knowing what else to do, went around with a waterskin so that we all might quench our thirst. Daj drank thankfully, then gripped his sword as he stood next to Maram behind the wall.

  Then one of Red Capes near Morjin drew his sword and plunged it through the throat of a knight shouting at him. As if a trumpet had sounded, all the knights gathered around Morjin drew swords or brought their spears to bear. Dozens of them paired off, and began hacking or stabbing at each other. They fought fiercely as their enmity for each other drove them to a maddened melee.

  'They'll kill each other for us!' Maram said.

  He put his hand on Kane's bow as if to restrain him from loosing an arrow. But Kane had already come to the same conclusion, and he muttered, 'So they might.'

  We all watched then as Lord Mansarian ripped free the crimson cape from his shoulders and cast it to the ground. He cried out: 'Captain Atuan! Captain Roarian! All my companions who would follow me! Let us be free!'

  Perhaps eighty of the two hundred knights also cast off their capes. The green grass soon gleamed with a carpet of red. Those knights loyal to Lord Mansarian gathered near him, if they could. I clenched my fist to see Lord Mansarian's companions so badly outnumbered.

  'Estrella!' I called out. 'Bring Altaru to the door!'

  'Yes,' Maram said. 'Now we can flee.'

  'No, we can't,' I told him. I nodded at Bemossed, and said, 'Our new friend might be the Maitreya, but he still can't ride well enough to escape from Morjin.'

  'Then what shall we do?' Maram asked. And I told him, 'We'll fight. Kane and I will.'

  'But why?'

  I pointed across the grass, where hopes trampled red capes with their hooves and men clashed sword to sword, trying to murder] each other. The melee had now grown into a battle. I said simply, 'If Lord Mansarian can prevail, then we will live.'

  'But what about us?' Maram said, looking at Liljana and Estrella. 'You can't just leave us undefended!'

  'We won't leave you,' I told him, clapping him on the shoulder. 'Kane and I will fight better mounted. And you will guard the wall.'

  I told him to fire off an arrow at any of Morjin's knights who came within thirty yards of it. After we got the horses out of the doorway, I watched as Daj helped Atara into position facing this rectangular opening. She stood with an arrow nocked to her bow's string, waiting. If anyone should try to force the doorway, Daj would direct her to loose an arrow blindly at zero range.

  Then Kane and I mounted our horses. Just before we rode forward, however, I turned toward the wall in hesitation. Bemossed stood there looking at me. He told me, 'Go and do what you must, Valashu. You are a warrior. And as you have said, war is still the way of this world.'

  Altaru, smelling blood and battle, drove his hoof into the earth as he let loose a great whinny. I drew my bright sword. I said to Kane, sitting on top of his big brown horse beside me, 'We've no armor, and so you will have to watch my back.'

  'Ha — and you mine!'

  We hardly had to touch our horses to urge them into a gallop toward the mass of men before us. Many had already fallen, and their bodies lay sprawled upon the grass, along with many bright red capes. Knights, whether fighting for Morjin or defending Lord Mansarian, called out challenges and curses to each other as they hacked and stabbed and screamed and died. In seconds we drew within a hundred yards, and then fifty, and now I too smelled blood spraying out into the air. The wind whipped at my face, and carried to me other hateful scents. I could hardly bear these men's rage to kill each other. And then Kane and I charged straight into the heart of the madness.

  A red-caped soldier spurred his horse toward me as he tried to intercept me with a spear thrust through my chest. I parried the spear with my forearm, then cut right through the bronze armor covering his belly. He cried out in agony, even as one of his companions tried to impale me, too. Him I cleaved from shoulder to side. A nearby soldier, seeing this, called out, 'The musician has a sword! Such a sword!'

  Many of the men riding about now looked upon Alkaladur in astonishment and terror. My sword's silustria shone with a dazzling white light. They shrank back from it, and from me. Morjin, twenty yards away, surrounded by a wall of horses and knights fighting ferociously to protect him, looked toward me as he cried out, 'It is the Elahad! Kill him — kill him now!'

  A dozen knights charged forward to carry out this command. And Lord Mansarian, off toward my left, shouted to his men: 'Spare the musician, the juggler, too! Protect them, if you can!'

  If any of the knights who had remained loyal to Morjin still thought of Kane as just a juggler and knife-thrower, he now gave them cause to change their minds. With three blindingly quick strokes of his sword, he cut down three knights that had come too close to us, and then whirled about in his saddle to cleave the arm off a fourth knight trying to spear me through my back. His black eyes flashed with a wild joy, and for a moment met mine. Then he struck out again and again, even as my sword sliced through fish-scaled bronze as if it was leather.

  'The errants are demons!' an enemy knight cried out. 'Demons from the Dark Lands!'

  'They are from Hell!' another knight shouted. 'The musician's sword blazes like the sun!'

  Demons Kane and I might be, I thought. But we were also something more. We had fought together in terrible battles, side by side and sword synchronizing with sword. And now, together, striking with steel and silustria in perfect rhythm, slaying in a fury of lightning cuts and thrusts, we fought as true angels of death. Our enemies gave way before us. Although they had been trained to war, they were not Valari. A few wielded their weapons with skill, but their heavy armor weighed them down and slowed their motions. It seemed they had spent too many campaigns hunting down poorly armed errants instead of sharpening their virtues against true knights. Kane and I charged at them with a practiced passion to slay, and so they fell before us and died.

  Lord Mansarian used the terror that we created to deploy his knights around the mass of men protecting Morjin. They fought fiercely, pressing Morjin's men closer together. This offset their superior numbers, for soon Morjin's knights bunched together so closely that those nearest Morjin at their center could hardly wield their spears. It was possible, I saw, that through this strategem Lord Mansarian's men might actually prevail.

  And then Morjin cried out to his knights, 'Move aside! I need no protection! Move, I say!'

  As he had commanded, his men tried to make room for him, whipping or spurring their horses out of his way. He pushed his mount through the gaps between the horses around him, straight toward me. Then Lord Mansarian's knights tried to close in on him. He killed two of them with two quick cuts of his sword; another he stabbed through the throat. He fought with a fearful skill nearly equal to that of Kane.

  'Damn him!' Kane shouted from next to me. He shook his sword at Morjin, and drops of blood went spinning through the air. 'Let's finally kill this beast!'

  We urged our horses toward Morjin, even as five of his knights pressed toward us to cover his flank. Morjin turned to stare across the field at Kane and me. The black stone stuck to his forehead began glowing with a dark light. A vast, black chasm seemed to open in the ground before me. I felt it pulling at me, down through the layers of earth into death.

  'Elahad!' Morjin screamed at me. 'Valari!'

  And then, without warning, he unleashed a new weapon, dreadful and terrible. From deep inside his throat he let loose a sound like nothing I had ever heard. In its ear-shattering tones was something of an eagle's scream and the hyena's hideous call — and the shriek
s of millions of men and women dying in torment. This cry pierced straight to the heart and turned hot blood to ice. I grasped my chest, and clung to my saddle. And all the while, Morjin cried out in a voice of death:

  'Aiyiiyariii!'

  Two of Lord Mansarian's knights spurred their horses toward Morjin; He whipped about in his saddle, and directed his voice toward the first of these, who froze in terror as he gasped for breath. Then he fell from his horse, dead. Morjin now screamed at the second knight, who clutched at his throat as he choked and died, too.

  'Aiyiiyariii!'

  Morjin now screamed out his death voice at me. I had a sense that he could strike out this way only at one person at a time. I sensed, too, that this weapon was new to him, awkward and untested. Perhaps what I had done to him earlier had broken open his being in such a way that all his evil and hate could now be carried through the air in a hideous sound, it fell upon me like a blast of dragon fire, and nearly killed me.

  'Father!' I gasped. 'Mother!'

  Sweat ran from every pore on my body, and I fought back the urge to vomit up blood. My heart beat with such a hard and violent pain that I thought it would burst. I wanted to drop my sword and clasp my hands over my ears. But it was my sword, I believe, that saved me. As often when I was near to death, I drew strength from it. I felt Alkaladur's bright silustria feeding into me the very life of the sun and the earth. I raised it up just in time to block a sword from slicing off the top of my head. Then Kane came forward to kill the knight who had so nearly killed me. He, too, I sensed, fought a desperate battle against Morjin's death voice, which now fell upon him.

  'Val!' Kane shouted at me. 'Keep hold of your sword!'

  Perhaps Alkaladur gave me the will to resist Morjin's voice; or perhaps years of battling him had inured me to the worst of its power. Whatever the cause of the new strength pouring through me, I found myself able to keep to my saddle and fight off the men who suddenly assaulted me. Seeing this, Morjin came forward to attack me with a more mundane and substantial weapon. In a fury of motion he drove his horse against mine and thrust his sword at my chest. It would have killed me if Altaru hadn't reared back, striking air with his iron-shod hooves. Morjin worked his horse around to my side and slashed at me, again and again. I didn't know how I parried his ferocious strokes. Any one of them, without the protection of my armor, might have cut me to the death. Kane moved in from the other side to help me, but Morjin — or his droghul — nearly chopped the edge of his sword through Kane's neck. I had never seen Kane lift his sword so slowly, so desperately, as if he were fighiing his way through an icy, raging sea.