Читать книгу Black Jade - David Zindell, David Zindell - Страница 11

Idid not welcome my awakening the next morning. My battle wounds – mostly bruises from edged weapons or maces that had failed to penetrate my mail – hurt. The cold wind funneling down the gorge set my stiff body to shivering, and that hurt even more. No ray of sun warmed the gorge directly for the first few hours of the day, as we ate our breakfast and broke camp with a slowness and heaviness of motion. All of us, except Kane, perhaps, were exhausted. It would have been good to remain there all day before a crackling fire, eating and resting, but we needed to gain as much distance as we could from the gorge’s entrance at the gateway to the Wendrush. And so we loaded our horses and drank one of Master Juwain’s teas to drive the weariness from our bodies. Then we set forth into the gorge, winding our way around walls of naked rock deeper into the Kul Kavaakurk’s shadows.

As we kicked our way over the rattling stones along the riverbank, I looked back behind us often and listened for any sign of pursuit. I sniffed at the cool air and reached out with a deeper sense, as well. I heard water rushing along its course and smelled spring leaves fluttering in the wind, but the only eyes upon us were those of the squirrels or the birds singing in the branches of the gorge’s many trees. No one, it seemed, followed us. Nothing sought to harm us. The only enemy we faced that morning, I thought, dwelled within. The horror of what lay behind us in the previous day’s butchery haunted all of us, even those who had not actually witnessed the battle. We feared what lay ahead in the vast unmapped reaches of the lower Nagarshath. Fear, in truth, was the worst of all our inner demons, for who among us did not gaze up at the sky and wonder if the Dark One could devour the very sun?

It was after dinner that evening when Maram finally let fear take hold of him. He rose up from the campfire to tend his horse’s bruised hoof, or so he said. But I followed him and found him in the stand of trees where the horses were tethered, rummaging through the saddlebags of Master Juwain’s remount. Quick as a weasel stealing eggs, he prized out a bottle of brandy and uncorked it. I ran over to him and slapped my hand upon his wrist with such force that I nearly knocked the bottle from his hand. And I shouted at him, ‘What of your vow?’

And he shouted back at me, ‘What of your vow, then?’

I clamped my fingers harder around his massive wrist as he struggled to bring the mouth of the bottle up to his fat lips. And I asked him, ‘What vow?’

‘Ah, what you said when we first met, that ours would be a lifelong friendship. What kind of friend keeps his friend from drinking away his pain?’

‘The kind who would keep him from a greater pain.’

‘You speak as if we have endless moments left to us.’

‘Our whole lives, Maram.’

‘Yes, our whole lives, as long as they will be. But how long will they be? Didn’t you hear anything of what was said last night? Months we have, until Morjin frees Angra Mainyu, perhaps only days. And so why not allow me what little joy I can find in this forsaken place?’

I let go his arm and stood facing him. ‘Drink then, if that is what you must do!’

‘I shall! I shall! Only, do not look at me like that!’

I continued staring through the twilight into his large, brown eyes.

‘Ah, damn you, Val!’ he said more softly. ‘I’ll do what I want, do you understand? What I choose. And what I choose now is not to drink after all. You’ve ruined the moment, too bad.’

So saying, he put the cork back in the bottle and sealed it with an angry slap of his hand. He tucked it back into Master Juwain’s saddlebag. Then he stood beneath the gorge’s towering wall staring at me.

Our shouts drew the others. They stood around us in a half-circle as Maram said, by way of explanation, ‘All that talk last night of Angra Mainyu and worlds ending in fire – it was too much!’

Kane eyed the poorly tied strings of the saddlebag but did not comment upon them. Then he said, ‘Perhaps it was.’

There was a kindness in his voice that I had heard only rarely. His black eyes held Maram in the light of compassion, and that was rarer still.

‘There are only six of us against Morjin and all his armies!’ Maram cried out. ‘Eight, if we count the children! How can we possibly keep the Dragon at bay while we find the Maitreya?’

‘We were one fewer,’ Kane said, ‘when we found our way into Argattha.’

‘But Morjin is stronger now, isn’t he? I saw this. So damn strong. And there is Angra Mainyu, too.’

Kane regarded him as a deep light played in his eyes. And then he snarled out, ‘Strong, you say? Ha, they are weak!’

His words astonished us. I stared at him as I shook my head. He was a man, I thought, who could hold within fierce contradictions, like two tigers in rut locked inside the same small cage.

‘So, weak they are,’ he growled out again. ‘Who are the strong, then, the truly powerful? They who follow the Law of the One, even though their faithfulness leads to their death. They who bring the design of the One into its fullest flowering, for in creation lies true life. But Morjin and his master create nothing. They fear everything, and their own feebleness most of all. So, fearing, thus they hate, and in hating chain themselves to all that is hateful and foul. Daj escaped from Argattha, Estrella, too, but how can the two Dragons ever break free from the hellhole that they have made for themselves with every nail they have pounded into flesh and every eye they have gouged out? From the very chains that they have forged to make themselves slaves? So. So. Knowing this, they would cloak their slave souls in royal robes and seek to conquer others, as proof of their power over life – and death. But the truly free can never be conquered, eh? At least not conquered in their souls. The stars can all die, their radiance, too, but not the light of the One. It is this that terrifies Angra Mainyu, and Morjin, too. And that is why, in the end, we’ll win.’

His words stunned Maram more than they soothed him. But for the moment, at least, they drove back the demons that impelled him to find solace in his brandy bottle. He stood proud and tall staring at Kane, transformed from a drunkard into a Valari knight. And he said, ‘Do you really think we can win?’

‘So, we must win – and so we will.’

Kane, I thought, understood the nature of evil better than any man. But it was the nature of evil, the truly horrible thing about it, that understanding alone would not keep evil from devouring a man alive.

‘We will win,’ Master Juwain affirmed, looking at Maram, ‘so long as we do not let down our guard. Have you been practicing the Light Meditations?’

‘Ah, perhaps not as often as I should,’ Maram said.

‘Well, what about the Way Rhymes, then? Memorizing them would be a better balm than brandy.’

‘Ah, I’m too tired, and it’s too late. My brain aches almost as much as my poor body.’

‘Then I’ll prepare you a tisane that will wake you up.’

‘Ah, what if I don’t want to wake up?’

Master Juwain rubbed the back of his shiny head as he regarded Maram. He seemed at a loss for words.

It was Liljana who came to his rescue. She waggled her finger at Maram, then poked it below his ribs as she said, ‘How many nights have I stayed up cooking and cleaning so that you might go to bed with a full belly? Master Juwain has asked you to memorize his verses, and so you should, for our sakes, if not your own.’

Everyone looked at Maram then, and he held up his hands in defeat – or in victory, depending on one’s point of view.

‘All right, all right,’ he said, ‘I’ll learn these silly rhymes, if that’s what you all want. It will be easier than everyone nagging me all the time.’

Master Juwain’s smile lasted only as long as it took Maram to add, ‘I’ll begin tomorrow, then.’

Kane suddenly took a step closer to him and stood staring at him like a great cat tensing to spring. I knew that he was only testing Maram, and would never lay hands upon him. Maram, however, was not so sure of this.

‘All right, all right,’ he said again with a heavy sigh. He turned to Master Juwain. ‘What verses for tonight, then?’

At Master Juwain’s prompting, I heard Maram recite:

At gorge’s end, a wooded vale …

And so it went as we returned to our places around the fire and drank the spicy teas that Master Juwain made for us. It was much to his purpose that we should learn the Way Rhymes, too, and so we took turns intoning the verses and correcting each other when we made mistakes. We did not continue our practice quite as long as Master Juwain might have wished, for we all were quite tired. But when it came time to retire for the night, we took the words into sleep, and perhaps into our dreams. And that was a good thing, I thought, for the essence of the Way Rhymes was the promise that if a man took one step after another, in the right direction, he would always reach his journey’s end.

The next day dawned clear, as we could tell from the band of blue that slowly brightened above us. We continued our long walk through the gorge, over loose stone and through stands of cottonwood trees that gradually showed a sprinkling of elms and oaks the deeper we penetrated into the White Mountains. Twenty miles, at least, we had travelled since our battle with Morjin and his Red Knights. None of us knew the length of the Kul Kavaakurk, for Master Juwain’s rhymes did not tell of that. But here, deep in this cleft in the earth, where the wind whooshed as through a bellows’ funnel and tore at our hair and garments, the gorge seemed to go on and on forever.

And then, abruptly, as we rounded yet another bend in the stream, the gorge opened out into a broad valley. A forest covered its slopes, gentle and undulating to the north but still quite steep to the south of the river. For the first time in two days, we had all the sun we could hope for; its warm rays poured down upon rock, earth and leaf, and filled all the great bowl before us. Smaller mountains, cloaked in oak and birch with aspens and hemlock higher up, edged the rim of this bowl; beyond rose the great white peaks of the Nagarshath. The valley continued along the line of the gorge, toward the west, and it seemed that our course should be to follow the river straight through it. But there were other exits from the valley that we might choose: clefts and saddles between the slopes around us, through which smaller streams flowed down into the river. Any one of these, I thought, might lead us up toward the Brotherhood’s school, though the way would obviously be difficult and dangerous.

‘Well,’ Master Juwain said to Maram as we walked out into the valley, ‘what is our way?’

And Maram recited:

At gorge’s end, a wooded vale;

Its southern slopes show shell-strewn shale.

Toward setting sun the vale divides;

To left or right the seeker strides.

Recall the tale or go astray:

King Koru-Ki set sail this way.

Maram stood next to his horse licking his lips as he glanced to the left. He said, ‘Ah, who devised these rhymes, anyway? “Its southern slopes sow hell-strewn shale.” Now there’s a tongue-twister for you! I can hardly say it!’

‘But it’s not so hard!’ Daj said, laughing at him. Then quick as a twittering bird, he piped out perfectly:

Its southern slopes show shell-strewn shale.

Master Juwain beamed a smile at him and patted his head. And then he said to Maram, ‘The Rhymes aren’t supposed to be easy to say but to memorize – hence the rhythm and rhyme. The alliteration, too.’

‘Well, at least I did memorize it,’ Maram said. ‘Little good that it would do me if you weren’t here to interpret for us.’

The Way Rhymes, of course, might be meant to be easy to memorize, but they were designed so that only the Brotherhood’s adepts and masters might resolve them correctly. Thus did the Brotherhood guard its secrets.

‘Come, come,’ Master Juwain said to him. ‘These lines are as transparent as the air in front of your nose.’

Maram pointed at the turbulent water rushing past us and muttered, ‘You mean, as clear as river mud.’

‘What don’t you understand? Clearly, we’ve passed the Ass’s Ears and the Kul Kavaakurk, and have come out into this valley, as the verse tells. Look over there, at the rock! Surely that is shale, is it not?’

We all looked where he pointed, across the river at the nearly vertical slopes to the south of us. The rock there was dark, striated and crumbly, and certainly appeared to be shale.

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Maram said to him. ‘You know your stones. But does it bear shells? Who would want to cross the river to find out?’

Kane coughed out a deep curse then, and mounted his horse. He drove the big bay out into the river, which looked to be swift enough to sweep a man away but not so huge a beast. In a few mighty surges, his horse crossed to the other bank and soaked the stone there with water running off his flanks. Kane then rode up through the trees a hundred yards before dismounting and making his way up the steep slope on foot. We saw him disappear behind a great oak as he approached a slab of shale.

‘He’s as mad as Koru-Ki himself,’ Maram said, watching for him. ‘He’d cross an ocean just to see what was on the other side.’

A few moments later, Kane returned as he had gone, bearing a huge smile on his face.

‘Well?’ Maram said. ‘Did you see any of these shells-in-shale?’

‘Many,’ Kane told him as his smile grew wider.

‘I don’t believe you – you’re lying!’

‘Go see for yourself,’ Kane said, pointing across the river.

‘Do you think I won’t?’ Maram eyed the swift water that cut through the valley and shook his head. ‘Ah, perhaps I won’t, after all. It’s enough that one of us risked his life proving out those silly lines. You did see shells, didn’t you? She sells? I mean, sea shells?’

‘I’ve told you that I did. What more do you want of me?’

‘Well, it wouldn’t have hurt to bring back one of these shelled rocks, would it?’

Kane laughed at this and produced a flat, thick piece of slate as long as his hand. He gave it to Maram. All of us gathered around as Maram stared at the grayish slate and fingered the little, stone-like shells embedded within it.

‘Impossible!’ Maram said. ‘I saw shells like these on the shore of the Great Northern Sea!’

‘But then how did they get into this rock?’ Daj asked him.

Kane stood silently staring at the rock as the rest of us examined it more closely. Not even Master Juwain had an answer for him.

‘Perhaps,’ Atara said, ‘there really was once a great flood that drowned the whole world, as the legends tell.’

Kane’s black eyes bored into the rock, and he seemed lost in endless layers of time. He finally said to us, ‘So, the earth is stranger than we know. Stranger than we can know. Who will ever plumb all her mysteries?’

‘Well,’ Maram said, hefting the rock and then tucking it into his saddlebag, ‘this is one mystery I’ll keep for myself, if you don’t mind. If I ever return home, I can show this as proof that I found sea shells at the top of a mountain!’

I smiled at this because it was not Maram who had found the rock, nor had it quite been taken from a mountain’s top. It cheered me to know, however, that he still contemplated a homecoming. And so he held inside at least some hope.

‘Your way homeward,’ Master Juwain said to him, ‘lies through this valley. Are we agreed that we must traverse it?’

‘Toward the setting sun,’ Maram said, pointing to the west. ‘But I can’t see if the valley truly divides there.’

I stood with my hand shielding my eyes as I peered up the valley. It seemed to come to an end upon a great wedge of a mountain rising up to the west. But it was a good thirty miles distant, and the folds and fissures of the mountains along the valley’s rim blocked a clear line of sight.

‘Then let us go on,’ Atara said, ‘and we shall see what we shall see.’

A faint smile played upon her lips, and it gladdened my heart to know that she could joke about her blindness. Then she mounted her horse and said, ‘Come, Fire!’ She guided her mare along the strip of grass that paralleled the river, and it gladdened me even more to see that her second sight had mysteriously returned to her.

And so we followed the river into the west. It was a day of sunshine and warm spring breezes. Wildflowers in sprays of purple and white blanketed the earth around us where the trees gave way to acres of grass. It seemed that we were all alone here in this quiet, beautiful place. Our spirits rose along with the terrain, not so high, perhaps, as the great peaks shining in the distance, but high enough to hope that we might have at least a day or two of surcease from battle and travail.

And so it came to be. We made camp that first night in the valley on some good, grassy ground above the river. While Kane, Maram and I worked at fortifying it, and Liljana, Estrella and Daj set to preparing our dinner, Atara went off into the woods to hunt. Fortune smiled upon her, for she returned scarcely an hour later with a young deer slung across her shoulders. That night we made feast on roasted venison, along with our rushk cakes and basketfuls of raspberries that Estrella found growing on bushes in the woods. Master Juwain chanted the Way Rhymes to Maram, and later Kane brought out the mandolet that he had inherited from Alphanderry. It was a rare thing for him to play for us, and lovely and strange, but that night he plucked the mandolet’s strings and sang out songs in a deep and beautiful voice. He seemed almost happy, and that made me happy, too. Songs of glory he sang for us, tales of triumph and the exaltation of all things at the end of time. He held inside a great sadness, as deep and turbulent as oceans, and this came out in a mournful shading to his melodies. But there, too, in some secret chamber of his heart, dwelled a fire that was hotter and brighter than anything that Angra Mainyu could ever hope to wield. As he sang, this ineffable flame seemed to push his words out into the valley where they rang like silver bells, and then up above the snow-capped mountains through clear, cold air straight toward the brilliant stars.

With the making of this immortal music, Flick burst forth out of the darkness above the mandolet’s vibrating strings. At first this strange being appeared as a silvery meshwork, impossibly fine-spun, with millions of clear tiny jewels like uncut diamonds sewn into it. Strands of fire streamed from these manifold points throughout the lattice, making the whole of his form sparkle with a lovely light. The longer that Kane played, the brighter this light became. I watched with a deep joy as the radiance summoned out of neverness many colors: scarlet and gold, forest green and sky blue – and a deep and shimmering glorre. And still Kane sang, and now the colors scintillated and swirled, then mingled, deepened and coalesced into the form and face of Alphanderry. And then our lost companion stood by the fire before us. His brown skin and curly black hair seemed almost real, as did his fine features and straight white teeth, revealed by his wide and impulsive smile. Even more real was his rich laughter, which recalled the immortal parts of him: his beauty, gladness of life and grace. Once before, in Tria, this Alphanderry, as messenger of the Galadin, had come into being in order to warn me of a great danger.

‘Ahura Alarama,’ I said, whispering Flick’s true name. And then, ‘Alphanderry.’

‘Valashu Elahad,’ he replied. ‘Val.’

Kane stopped singing then, and put aside his mandolet to stare in amazement at his old friend.

‘He speaks!’ Daj cried out. ‘Like he did in King Kiritan’s hall!’

The boy came forward, and with great daring reached out to touch Alphanderry. But his hand, with a shimmer of lights, passed through him.

Alphanderry laughed at this as he pointed at Daj and said, ‘He speaks. But I don’t remember seeing him in King Kiritan’s hall.’

So saying, he reached out to touch Daj, but his hand, too, passed through him as easily as mine would slice air. Then he laughed again as he turned toward Estrella. His eyes were kind and sad as he said, ‘But the girl still doesn’t speak, does she?’

Estrella, her eyes wide with wonder, spoke entire volumes of poetry in the delight that brightened her face.

‘But where did you come from?’ I asked Alphanderry. ‘And why are you here?’

‘Where did you come from, Val?’ he retorted. ‘And why are any of us here?’

I waited for him to answer what might be the essential question of life. But all he said to me was, ‘I am here to sing. And to play.’

And with that, he reached for the mandolet, but his fingers passed through it. It was as hard, I thought, for such a being to grasp a material thing as it was for a man to apprehend the realm of spirit.

‘So,’ Kane said, plucking the mandolet’s strings, ‘I will play for you, and you will sing.’

And so it was. We all sat around listening as Kane called forth sweet, ringing notes out of the mandolet and Alphanderry sang out a song so beautiful that it brought tears to our eyes. The words, however, poured forth in that musical language of the Galadin that even Master Juwain had difficulty understanding. And so when Alphanderry finally finished, he looked at Master Juwain and translated part of it, reciting:

The eagle lifts his questing eye

And wings his way toward sun and sky;

The whale dives deep the ocean’s gloam –

Always seeking, always home.

The world whirls round through day and night;

All things are touched with dark and light;

The dusk befalls on light’s decay;

The dying dark turns night to day.

The One breathes out, creates all things:

The blossoms, birds and star-struck kings;

With every breath all beings yearn

To sail the stars and home return.

The dazzling heights light deep desire;

Within the heart, a deeper fire.

The road toward heavens’ starry crown

Goes ever up but always down.

As Kane put down the mandolet, Alphanderry looked at Master Juwain and smiled.

‘Am I to understand,’ Master Juwain asked him, ‘that these words were intended for me?’

It was one of the glories of Alphanderry’s music that each person listening thought that he sang especially for him.

‘Let’s just say,’ Alphanderry told him, ‘that there might be a sentiment in this song that a master of the Brotherhood would do well to take to heart. Especially if that master guided his companions on a quest through the dark places in the world.’

‘Were you sent here to tell me this?’ Master Juwain asked him.

In answer, Alphanderry’s smile only widened.

‘Who sent you, then? Was it truly the Galadin?’

Now sadness touched Alphanderry’s face, along with the amusement and a deep mystery. And he said to Master Juwain, and to all of us, ‘I wish I could stay to answer your questions. To sing and laugh – and even to eat Liljana’s fine cooking again. Alas, I cannot.’

He looked skyward, where Icesse and Hyanne and the other glittering stars of the Mother’s Necklace had just passed the zenith. In that direction, I thought, lay Ninsun, the dwelling place of the Ieldra – and the light that streamed out of it in the glorre-filled rays of the Golden Band.

‘But if you could remain only a few moments longer,’ Master Juwain persisted, ‘you might tell me if –’

‘I can tell you only what I have,’ Alphanderry said with a brilliant smile. And then he added:

The road toward heavens’ starry crown

Goes ever up but always down.

He reached out to touch Master Juwain’s hand, but this impulsive act served only to brighten Master Juwain’s leathery skin, as with starlight. And then Alphanderry dissolved back into that brilliant whirl of lights we knew as Flick. Only his smile seemed to linger as Flick, in turn, vanished once again into neverness.

‘Ah, how I do miss our little friend,’ Maram said, staring at the dark air.

Kane, I saw, stared too, and his dark eyes wavered as if submerged in water.

‘But I wonder what he meant,’ Maram continued, turning to Master Juwain. ‘His verses are even more a puzzlement than your Way Rhymes.’

Master Juwain held his hands out to the hissing fire. His fingers curled as if grasping at its heat.

‘It is possible,’ he finally said, ‘that Alphanderry sang verses of the true Way Rhymes.’

‘The true Rhymes?’ Maram said.

‘Perhaps I should have said, “the deeper Rhymes”. The higher ones. Just as there are verses that tell the way to many places on Ea, there are those that describe man’s journey toward the One.’

He went on to explain that the path to becoming an Elijin, and so on toward the Galadin and Ieldra, was almost infinitely more difficult than merely finding the Brotherhood’s secret sanctuary.

‘Our order,’ Master Juwain explained, ‘has spent most of ten thousand years trying to learn and teach this way. But we have understood only little, and taught less. The Elijin surely know, the Galadin, too. But they do not speak to us.’

Everyone looked at Kane then. But he sat by the fire as cold and silent as stone.

‘At least,’ Master Juwain went on, ‘the angels do not speak to us, we of Ea. Surely on other worlds, they share with the Star People and the eternal Brotherhood the songs that I have called the true Way Rhymes.’

‘Why are they so favored, then?’ Maram asked, looking up at the sky.

‘It is not that they are favored,’ Master Juwain told him. ‘It is rather that we, of Ea, are not. You see, the true Way Rhymes are perilous to hear. Consider the lesser Rhymes I’ve taught you. If learned incorrectly or in the wrong order, they could lead one off the edge of a cliff. This is even more pertinent of the higher Rhymes that would guide a man on the journey to becoming an Elijin, or an Elijin to becoming a Galadin.’

The fear that flooded into Maram’s face recalled the fall of Angra Mainyu – and that of Morjin.

‘I notice that you say, “guide a man on this journey”,’ Liljana carped at Master Juwain. Her voice was as sharp as one of her cooking knives.

‘It was a figure of speech,’ Master Juwain told her. ‘Of course women must walk the same path as men.’

‘Oh, must we, then?’ Liljana’s soft face shone with the steel buried deep inside her. Then she added, ‘You mean, walk behind men.’

‘No, not at all,’ Master Juwain said. ‘You are to be by our sides.’

‘How gracious of you to accept our company!’

Master Juwain rubbed the back of his neck as he sighed out, ‘I meant only that our way lies onward, together.’

‘Oh, does it really?’

Liljana moved closer to Master Juwain and knelt by his side. She placed her thumb against the tips of her other fingers and held them cocked and pointing at him. From deep inside her throat issued a hissing sound remarkably like that of an adder. And then, quick as any viper, she struck out with a snap of her arm and wrist, touching her pointed fingers against the lower part of Master Juwain’s back.

‘Your way, I think,’ she said to him, ‘is that of the serpent.’

‘And your way is not?’

‘There are serpents and there are serpents,’ she told him. ‘Ours is of the great circle of life, and we name her Ouroboros.’

What followed then, as the fire burnt lower and the night darkened, was a long argument as to the different paths open to man – or to woman. Liljana spoke of the sacred life force that dwelled inside everyone, and of the arts that the Maitriche Telu had found to quicken and deepen it. Master Juwain’s main concern was of transcendence and the way back toward the stars. I did not pretend to follow all the turnings of their contentions and justifications, for there was much in what they said that was esoteric, legalistic and even petty. I understood that their dispute went back to the breaking of the Order of Sisters and Brothers of the Earth long ago in the Age of the Mother. And like siblings of the same family who had set out on different paths in life, they quarreled all the more fiercely for sharing a mutual language and deep knowledge of each other. Both spoke of the serpent as the embodiment of life’s essential fire. Both taught the opening of the body’s chakras: the wheels of light that whirled within every man, woman and child. But each put different names to these things and understood their purpose differently.

Master Juwain, noticing how closely Daj followed their argument, turned to him to explain: ‘We of the Brotherhood teach the way of the Kundala. At birth, it lies coiled up inside each of us. There is a Rhyme that tells of this:

Around the spine the serpent sleeps.

Within its heart a fire leaps.

The serpent wakes, remembers, yearns –

And up the spine, like fire, it burns.

And through the chakras, one by one,

Until it blazes like the sun,

And then bursts forth, a crown of light:

An angel soars the starry height.

‘This is man’s path,’ he said to Daj, ‘and it is a straight one, though difficult and perilous. Seven bodies we each possess, corresponding to each of the seven chakras along the spine, and they each in turn must awaken.’

At this Daj’s eyes widened, and he looked down at his slender hand as he patted his chest. He said, ‘How can we have more than one body?’

Master Juwain smiled at this and said, ‘We have only one physical body, it’s true. But we have as well the body of the passions, associated with the second chakra, which we call the svadhisthan, and the mental body as well.’

‘I never knew they were called “bodies”. It sounds strange.’

‘But you understand that a boy could never become a man until they are fully developed?’

In answer, Daj rolled his eyes as if Master Juwain had asked him the sum of two plus two.

Master Juwain, undeterred, went on: ‘I’m afraid that most men do not progress beyond these three bodies, nor do they ever develop them fully. The physical body, for instance, can be quickened so as to heal any wound, even regenerating a severed limb. It is potentially immortal.’

At this, we all looked at Kane. But he said nothing, and neither did we.

‘But what is the fourth body, then?’ Daj asked him.

‘That is our dream body, also called the astral. It is the bridge between matter and spirit, and it is awakened through the anahata, the heart chakra.’

So saying, Master Juwain reached over and laid his gnarly hand across Daj’s chest.

‘Then, higher still,’ he went on, ‘there is the etheric body, which forms the template for our physical one and our potential for perfection, and then the celestial. There lies our sixth sight, of the infinite. The highest body is the ketheric, associated with the sahastara chakra at the crown of the head.’

Here Master Juwain stroked Daj’s tousled hair and went on to say that each of the bodies emanated an aura of distinctive color: red from the first chakra, orange from the second and so on to the sixth chakra, which radiated a deep violet light. The highest chakra, when fully quickened, poured forth a fountain of pure white light.

At this, Daj exchanged smiles with Master Juwain and recited:

And through the chakras, one by one,

Until it blazes like the sun,

And then bursts forth, a crown of light:

An angel soars the starry height.

‘Yes, that is the way of it,’ Master Juwain said as his voice filled with excitement. ‘When we have fully awakened, every part of us, the Kundala streaks upward and joins us to the heavens like a lightning bolt. And then as angels we walk the stars.’

Liljana scowled at this as she eyed Master Juwain’s hand resting on top of Daj’s head. Then she huffed out, ‘The serpent does not so much break through as to light up our being from within. And then, when we have come fully alive, like our mother earth turning her face to the sun, we can draw down the fire of the stars.’

Here she sighed as she shot Master Juwain a scolding look and added, ‘And as you should know, the serpent’s name is Ouroboros.’

She went on to tell of this primeval imago, sacred to her order. Ouroboros, she said, dwelled inside each of us as a great serpent biting its own tail. This recalled the great circle of life, the way life lived off other life, killing and consuming, and yet continuing on through the ages, always quickening in its myriads of forms and growing ever stronger. Ouroboros, she told us, shed its skin a million times a million times, and was immortal.

‘There is in each of us,’ she said, ‘a sacred flame that cannot be put out. It is like a ring of fire, eternal for it is fed by the fires of both the heavens and the earth. And our way must be to bring this fire into every part of our beings, and so into others – and to everything. And so to awaken all things and bring them deeper into life.’

So far, Atara had said very little. But now she spoke, and her words streaked like arrows toward Master Juwain and Liljana, and were straight to the point: ‘Surely the spirit of Alphanderry’s song was that both your ways are important, and indeed, in the end, are one and the same.’

Kane smiled at this in an unnerving silence.

And Maram willfully ignored the essence of what Master Juwain and Liljana had to say, muttering, ‘Ah, I’ve never understood all of this damn snake symbolism. Snakes are deadly, are they not? And the great snakes – the dragons – are evil.’

Master Juwain took it upon himself to try to answer this objection. He rubbed the back of his bald pate as he said, ‘Snakes are deadly only because they have so much power in their coils, and therefore life. And the dragon we fought in Argattha was evil, as are all beings and things that Morjin and Angra Mainyu have corrupted. But the dragon itself? I should say it is pure fire. And fire might be used to torture innocents as well as to light the stars.’

I thought his answer a good one, but Maram said, ‘Well, I for one will never like those slippery, slithering beasts. Whether they be found in old verses and books, or in long grass beneath the unwary foot.’

Liljana shot him a sharp look and said, ‘You’re just afraid of them, aren’t you?’

‘Well, what if I am?’

‘Your fear does neither you nor the rest of us any good. Perhaps if you had spent more time practicing Master Juwain’s lessons and moving into the higher chakras, you wouldn’t be as troubled as you are.’

‘But I thought you scorned Master Juwain’s way?’

‘Scorned? I can’t afford such sentiments. We do disagree about certain things, that’s all.’

The Sisters of the Maitriche Telu, as I understood it, also taught the quickening of the body’s chakras, but they numbered and named these wheels of light differently: Malkuth, Yesod, Tiphereth and seven others. Strangely, Liljana called the highest chakra, Keter, which corresponded almost exactly with the Brotherhood’s ketheric body, associated with the crown chakra at the top of the head.

‘You dwell too often,’ Liljana told Maram, ‘in the first chakra, in fear of your precious life. This impels a movement into the second chakra, in a blind urge to beget more life. And there, as we’ve all seen, you dwell much too often and wantonly.’

‘Ah, well, what if I do?’ Maram snapped at her.

Master Juwain, allying himself for the moment with Liljana, added to her criticism, saying, ‘Such indulgence fires your second chakra at the expense of the others and traps you there. It leaves you vulnerable to lust – and to drunkenness and the other vices that aid and abet it.’

Maram cast his gaze toward the horses, where the brandy was safely stowed within the saddlebags. He licked his lips and said, ‘Ah, that’s what I can’t stand about the Brotherhood and all your ways. You’re too damn dry. With your damn dry breath you’d blow out the sweetest of flames in favor of lighting these higher torches of yours. And why? So you can spend your days – and nights – in anguish over a transcendence that may never come? That’s no way to live, is it? If I had a bottle in hand, I’d make a toast to drunkenness in the sweet, sweet here and now – and a hundred more to lust!’

Again he eyed the saddlebags as if hoping that Master Juwain or I might retrieve a bottle and rescue him from his vow. And then he shook his head and muttered, ‘Well, if I can’t drink to what’s best in life, I’ll sing to it. Abide a moment while I make the verses – abide!’

Here he held out his right hand as he placed his other hand over his closed eyes. His lips moved silently, but from time to time he would call out to us, ‘Abide, only a few moments more – I almost have it.’

As Kane heaped a couple more logs on the fire, we all sat around listening to its crackle and hiss, and looking at Maram. At last he took his hand away from his thick brows and looked at us. He smiled hugely. And then he rose to his feet and rested his hands on his hips as he stared at Master Juwain and called out in his huge, booming voice:

The higher man seeks higher things:

Old tomes, bright crystals, angel’s wings.

He lives to crave and pray accrue

The good, the beautiful, the true.

And there he slithers, coils and dwells

In higher hues of higher hells;

In sixth or seventh wheels of light –

There’s too much pain in too much sight.

But ‘low the belly burns sweet fire,

The sweetest way to slake desire.

In clasp of woman, warmth of wine

A honeyed bliss and true divine.

I am a second chakra man;

I take my pleasure where I can;

At tavern, table and divan –

I am a second chakra man.

As Maram sang out these verses, and others that flew out of his mouth like uncaged birds, he would strike the air with his fist and then lewdly waggle his hips at each refrain. He finally finished and stood limned against the fire grinning at us. No one seemed to know what to say.

And then Kane burst out laughing and clapped his hands, and so did we all. And Atara said to him, ‘Hmmph, if you had remained with the Kurmak and taken wives as my grandfather suggested, these second chakra powers of yours would have been put to the test.’

‘How many wives, then?’

‘Great chieftains take ten or even twenty, but it’s said that only a great, great man such as Sajagax could satisfy them.’

Here she smiled at Liljana, who added, ‘Our order has discovered that when a woman awakens the Volcano, which we call Netzach, it would take ten or twenty men to match her fire.’

‘Do you think so?’ Maram said with a wink of his eye and yet another gyration of his hips. ‘I should tell you that my, ah, greatness has never thoroughly been put to the test. Perhaps I’m a fool for even considering marriage with Behira only and cleaving to Valari customs.’

‘Would you rather try our Sarni ways?’ Atara asked him.

‘In this one respect, I would. I’d take twenty wives, if I could. And I would, ah, entertain all of them in one night.’

‘My tribemates?’ Atara said. ‘They would kill you before morning.’

‘So you say.’

Atara laughed out, ‘And you would have them call you “Twenty-Horned Maram” I suppose?’

‘Just so, just so. It would create a certain curiosity about me, would it not?’

‘That it would. And you’d be happy satisfying this curiosity with other women who weren’t your wives, wouldn’t you?’

‘Ah,’ he said with a rumble of his belly and a contented belch, ‘at least someone understands me.’

‘I understand that if you practice your ways on the women of my tribe, their husbands and fathers will draw their swords and make you into No-Horned Maram.’

In the wavering firelight, Maram’s happy face seemed to blanch. And he muttered, ‘Well, I don’t suppose I’d make a very good Sarni warrior. I’ll have to practice on other women I meet along the way.’

Atara fingered the saber by her side. And this fierce young maiden told him, ‘If you must – but just don’t think of practicing on me.’

At this, Maram held up his hands in helplessness as if others were always conspiring to think the worst of him. His gaze fell upon Liljana, who said to him, ‘I should warn you that if you brought your horns to a practiced matron of the Maitriche Telu, she would likely kill you – with pleasure. Perhaps you’ll find a nice harridan somewhere in these mountains.’

The ghostly white peaks of the Nagarshath gleamed faintly beneath the stars. It seemed that there were no other human beings, much less willing women, within a thousand miles.

‘Maram would do better,’ Master Juwain said, ‘to practice the Rhymes I’ve taught him. Now, why don’t we all retire and get a good night’s sleep? Tomorrow we’ll journey up this valley and see what lies at the end of it.’

He smiled at Maram and added, ‘Tell me, again, won’t you, the pertinent Rhyme?’

And, again, Maram dutifully recited:

At gorge’s end, a wooded vale;

Its southern slopes show shell-strewn shale.

Toward setting sun the vale divides;

To left or right the seeker strides.

Recall the tale or go astray:

King Koru-Ki set sail this way.

Except for Kane, who took the first and longest of the night’s watches, we all wrapped ourselves in our cloaks and lay down on our sleeping furs. Maram spread out next to me, and I listened to him intoning verses for much of the next hour. But they were not those that Master Juwain hoped for. I smiled as I drifted off to sleep with the sound of my incorrigible friend chanting out:

I’m a second chakra man

I take my pleasure where I can …