The Jade Seed

by Deirdre Gould

  Chapter 23

  Keram sat long, writing questions in the strange, squat words of Ganit's tongue. His limbs were loose and weary and the drowsy warmth of Ganit's light made Keram long for sleep, thinking of naps in long summer afternoons. When he woke with a small start to find his pen making jagged, half-formed words while he dozed, Keram at last stretched himself upon the warm dirt floor beside the bed. In his dreams, Keram swam through a summer pool and watched the green sunlight spear through the water, through waving forests of lily stalks, and he was in deep comfort for the first time in many, many days.

  Ganit woke in pain, his leg a sudden flare against the heavy ice in his chest. The chattering and bleating, rustling and flapping of the beasts clustered around the small house confused him. For a long moment Ganit could not remember where he was. Glancing up, he caught again the blood-soaked silver nightmare painted over his head and his memory returned. He looked around for his host, and Ganit found Keram below him, his face even younger in his sleep. With a sudden stab of worry, it hit Ganit that they were not so far apart in age. Struggling with his shattered leg, Ganit pulled his blanket off and leaned over to cover Keram with it. He looked again at the quiet face and Ganit felt suddenly homesick and small. Then he thought of Brone, alone somewhere in these vast dark mountains with an army made of madness between them. He choked with panic, wondering if she had been caught in the dark by the ravening wild men or if she lay bleeding with birth in the frozen waste, for her time was near, so near. Ganit wanted to run out into the midnight world calling to her, until he found her or he was overrun, overtaken by the end. The sharp smell of burnt wood recalled him at last, and Ganit found he had charred the wall beside him in his anxiety. Ganit tried to force himself into calmness, tried to convince himself that he still hoped to find Brone, that she was seeking him. But he knew now, how vast the world was, how empty it had become. And he had himself sent Brone away, why should she seek him now? Ganit sat up and swung his rigid leg to the floor. Ganit knew it could not hold him, even now the linen bandages were slipping, the board that bound it straight wriggled fitfully. He stared in disgust at the seeping darkness overtaking the linen where his skin had burst like glass upon the rocks. He wondered how much Keram really knew about healing. If the wounds spoiled Ganit wasn't sure he could remove the leg himself. He looked again at Keram. His face was quiet, unworried, but the illusion of youth was broken for Ganit. Any who were left alive by now would have seen or done worse. A flutter of white on the dark dirt of the floor caught Ganit's eye. Keram still held his questions for Ganit in one hand. On top he had written a short version of his own story, hoping to trade it for Ganit's. Ganit slowly leaned over and gently took the sliding pages. He settled himself back into the bed to read while Keram slept. Outside, the beasts roosted and burrowed, hunted and played in the thawing stream. They somehow sensed that the great pool of warmth and light which burst through the wall cracks and trembled out of the small windows of the silent house had stopped for a while, perhaps had stopped for good.

  Chapter 24

  Doubt clouded her heart for a moment as Brone looked back upon the silent village. Her pack was heavy with food and her body rested, but still Brone lingered. She had heard no voice nor seen any light but the western fire and she wondered if Ganit had given her up for lost. She turned west again. Only one path remained. She could wait on the edge of ruin for him, send up a beacon, burn the village in the dark. But there was no water, just the still, thawless ice. She had thirsted greatly and even now had only a bottle she had chipped as slow as stone from the river bed and thawed in front of the fire. How long could she stay there alone? The children were moving, pressing out against her warm skin, pressing out against the world. The seed had spread farther around her, pulsing with soft violet light, as if it marked her heartbeat or theirs. It had gathered under her breasts, snaked down her back, warm and smooth. How long until it would overtake her? She hitched her pack higher on her shoulders to balance the heavy stone of her belly and began walking down the gentle slope of the road toward the western fires.

  For a time, Brone traveled slowly, concentrating on her feet in the twilight, though her body was invigorated as it had not been for some months. Her heart knew she was moving farther from Ganit, this time without him pushing her on. But after a time she looked up, and seeing the flat valley touched with ancient, brightening gold. A slight, warm breeze brushed against her for the first time in days. She felt more hopeful and knew Ganit was following, that everyone remaining must be following, headed toward the lighter horizon. With great peace, Brone knew she was not at the uttermost end, that she would not be alone for long. She began to walk swiftly and covered a great distance before her thirst drove her to rest near a pool. She made a small fire, chiseling shards of water in great sparkling chunks to thaw in her throat and fill her bottle.

  It was another day before she reached the caravan, the guards almost stumbling into her, for they had met no one in many days and had relaxed their vigilance. Brone heard them along the road hours before she drew near to them. Sound carried great distance in that still world without life to muffle it or strong winds to hide it. She heard the children shouting to each other and the men calling to each other. The steel dragons with their rumbling breath echoed over the plain as the people worked to repair them before moving on. She could smell their cooking and see their fire lights far before they realized she was nearby. Almost, she turned aside, afraid of meeting so many while she was alone. But their voices were pleasant and she missed the sight of fellow faces and she longed to be among others. So she kept to the smooth road and quietly drew closer, hoping to find a friend among them, at least for a short while. The guards, a man and woman were standing in the road, two black shadows in easy slouch against the orange sky. Brone saw them talking but she was only a moving glimmer on the gold touched road and they didn't notice her until she said, "hello."

  Both started, and turned toward her lifting their weapons in warning. "Listen, miss," said the man quietly, "You don't want to come any farther until we can get a closer look at you."

  Brone smiled sadly, "Very well. I will wait until you can bring a light if you like. I haven't got one with me."

  The man walked quickly back to the camp. The woman watched Brone, her weapon still raised. The woman shifted her weight as if impatient. "Who are you? Why did you come this way?" she asked.

  Brone sighed and sat down on the road, her body a heavy boulder. "My name is Brone. I came this way for the same reasons you did I guess. I've got to go west and this road goes that way for now."

  "You can't come with us. We don't have anything you'd want," said the woman angrily.

  Brone held up her hands. "Okay. I just wanted to pass along the road. I don't need food or wood or clothing and I'm no thief. But yours are the first voices I've heard in a very long time. I thought your lights looked pleasant and it might be nice to talk with someone on the road."

  The woman grunted. The man was back with a torch. Brone slowly stood, stretching her back to ease the weight. The guard approached, the torch high over his head. It was a flood of light in the dull evening world. The man stopped a few feet from her, shock plain on his face. "You're alone?" he asked, and glanced quickly around as if expecting an army to slide into light, separating themselves from the deep dark outside the torch's circle of light.

  "I was with another, my husband, but we were . . . separated some time ago."

  "I'm so sorry," said the man. He extended his hand. "My name is Mitchell."

  Brone smiled and shook his hand. "Hello! I'm Brone."

  "You aren't from this region. Where have you come from? Where are you going?"

  "I have traveled many, many miles, over half the world now. Aren't we all going to the same place? I am making for that last burning lamp in the west there. I hope I will reach it in time." She curled her hands around the soft globe of her belly.

  Mitchell glanced at her stomach again and quickly away. "We are al
so from far away. Our families were caught in the dark of this place. Is it this way all the world over then?"

  Brone touched his shoulder with her fingertips. "Where we have come from, all of us, it's gone. There's only the western light, " she looked into his face, "Alas, that will fade too in a short while. We have only a short while now, wherever we go."

  Mitchell looked at the street silently. The woman behind him cried, "Don't listen to her Mitchell. She's lying, she doesn't know."

  Mitchell turned and the light of the torch splashed upon the woman's face. It was heavy with a scowling bitterness, ancient like a thing dug up from the earth, yet she was only Brone's age. "Why should she lie Ruth? We don't know her, it's true, but why would anyone make things out to be worse than they already are?"

  "She's a scavenger. She'll wait until we give up and die and then loot our camp for supplies. She's probably got a band of followers waiting for a signal." The woman spat upon the dry, frozen road.

  Brone sighed heavily. "I've no need of your supplies. As I said, I only want to pass along the road. It's just been many, many miles since I heard another's voice or saw a friendly face. I just craved company is all. Just let me rest a moment here in the road and I'll be on my way." She began to shrug off her heavy pack, but Ruth again raised her weapon and snarled.

  "Don't move. I've no idea what you've got in that pack. You can rest when you get farther from camp. I'm no fool, and you and your friends will have more trouble than it's worth to raid us."

  Mitchell started and stared at his companion. He leaned into her and hissed, "She's heavy with child Ruth, she just wants a rest. How terrible to be alone with such a heavy burden. You are a woman, can you not understand her fatigue?"

  Ruth's whisper was sharp and her eye never left Brone's face, "And if it's a ruse? What of our children. If she's really alone then she ought to have done the kinder thing months ago and got rid of it. We can't let her go knowing where we are."

  "Don't be ridiculous, what are you saying?"

  Ruth leapt at Brone, bringing her long, rusted knife to Brone's throat. "I'm saying we do her and us a favor. You don't want to do this anymore do you, my dear? You said yourself that none of us has much longer anyhow. What's a few days difference?" Ruth flashed a contemptuous smile that felt as rusty and deadly as her knife.

  "Stop! What are you doing?" cried Mitchell, but his limbs were frozen with shock.

  "You're on guard duty Mitchell, you're not here to extend an invitation to any stray that wanders by. We've our own to worry about without extra. We don't have enough for ourselves as it is."

  "She said she doesn't need anything of ours! Just let her go."

  "I know you believe everyone is good at heart, Mitchell, and I'd like to believe that too," the woman's face softened for a few seconds, "but we can't afford to. Everything has changed. We're not going to get up tomorrow to a world that's gone back to normal. The sun is dead, the land is empty and all the ruin of the west burns on its pyre. We need to look to our own if we are to survive. If this woman is any kind of mother she'll understand that we're doing her and ourselves a kindness by ending it now."

  Brone drew herself straight, closed her eyes and breathed deeply. "I can't let you do this," she said, "I have to go on now." She opened her eyes and they blazed deep green, translucent, two spring leaves through which the morning sun shone. Mitchell stepped back, the torch quivering. Ruth tightened her grip on the knife but her face remained grim and unmoved.

  "What did I tell you? She's got a band of marauders waiting to leap upon us."

  "I don't think so Ruth," Mitchell backed slowly away, "see, I'm going, I'll not bother you more." He turned and began to walk quickly back toward the camp. Once more he turned, "I'm sorry," he called and walked on.

  Ruth smiled broadly. "Good, now it's just us girls. We understand each other don't we? You know I can't let you leave. Not only do you know where we are now, but you have things of value that will help us survive." Holding Brone's arm, she flicked the knife and cut the straps of the pack. It fell onto the road with a thud, and Brone sighed as she was released from its weight.

  "You are welcome to what I have, I would have gladly given it if you asked."

  "I don't need to ask," the woman sneered and rested the blade on Brone's throat. Brone could almost taste the sharp tang of the rust.

  "I don't want to hurt you. I've traveled thousands of miles while the world fell into silent darkness around me. Wild beasts have hunted me and midnight has devoured me, yet still I have harmed no man. I beg you not to make me do this now."

  Ruth laughed, but it was cruel and sharp. "You?" she asked, "Unarmed and brimming with the weight of your child? What can you do to me?" And she raised the weapon above her head to strike. The children twisted inside Brone, a quick flutter beneath the branches of her ribs, like birds suddenly freed from long captivity. The vines that had crawled along her back writhed and thickened, swirling now down her smooth arms, twining over her hands and flickering violet like slender flames over her skin. Ruth shrieked and brought the knife down. But she was too late. Long spearing thorns flung themselves forth from Brone's fingertips stabbing the woman throughout her chest. Brone screamed as if she had been the one struck and fell backward onto the road, but the thorns snapped off and wriggled deeper into Ruth's body. She stood as a statue, her mouth open, dark blood beginning to drip like thawing ice onto the dark road. Brone gasped as the thorns branched and grew, piercing Ruth in fresh places, rooting her legs into the stony earth, threading through her palms and fingers like violet star bursts. With a final creaking groan a crown of light burst through the woman's head, a violet corona of snarled, winter twigs. Brone could smell the coppery flat scent of Ruth's blood running away into the roots and she wept at the stark, barren violet star that filled the road where the woman had been. She felt the flutter of her children slowly die away and watched the violet flame of the seed die away on the flesh of her arms. A silent emerald now, the vines curled into soft tendrils around her wrists, but they did not recede.

  Brone heard the alarm of the camp and taking up her broken, heavy pack, she rose and walked westward, tears still blurring the gold of the road into a soft twilight path.

  The weight of the pack pulled Brone to a gradual stop upon a dry tumble of stone, though it carried no more than a few days of food and a blanket. The slope of her belly rippled and clenched painfully. Her lips and throat burned and cracked in thirst, yet still she wept. She stumbled and twisted onto the dust, her hands torn by the rocks as she tried to catch herself. Yet Brone did not notice. She looked back, to the eastern road, left behind hours ago. The violet star burst stood alone in the dark, stabbing her eyes. Her body no longer had water enough to expel her guilt in a gush upon the stone, and all she managed was a ragged coughing as her belly tightened. She lay in the dust for some time without noticing that it was frozen no longer and at last fell into a troubled sleep haunted by a jungle of devouring trees. So deep was her nightmare that Brone did not hear the swift, slight clap of hooves over the rocky ground. The world was a deep gold in the shadow of the western fire, the air already quickening from midwinter into a chilled but living autumn. Yet neither warmth nor color could touch the pallid flesh of the Ghost Horse. It was racing swiftly toward Enik's hungry fires, to aid in the great unmaking. Yet it slowed and discovered Brone in the half light, her lips and face crackling with thirst, her skin, her breath threaded with the threat of new birth. The Ghost Horse halted on its spindle legs. It folded into itself with a flash of dust, like a sudden snowburst, and in its place stood a slim, pale man. He stood over Brone, his long face bemused. Only the blank white of his eyes and the clean snow smell of his skin gave him away. His breath sparkled just for an instant with snowflakes that melted into the golden air. He sat upon Brone's pack and waited.

  Chapter 25

  "I'm sorry I never learned your tongue," said Ganit as Keram sat upon the table facing the bed. "I wish now I had learned many things befor
e they passed away into utter silence."

  Keram's eyes were over bright with tears and Ganit too, felt the hot, small stab of them. "I've read all your story. I wish mine could bring you some comfort, some aid to defeat this beast of madness. Alas, it was only through another that I myself was saved."