Wrapt in Crystal

by Sharon Shinn

  “Now, these are the crystals we are getting ready to take to Saville next month,” the criado said, rummaging in a drawer in a cabinet near the door. “As you know, we do not cut and polish the ojodiosas for the priestesses until they are requested—each crystal is thus custom-made for each Triumphante or Fidele, and each receives the blessing of Ava before it leaves our hands. So I know even now that the Triumphante Bellarosa will wear this pendant and the Fidele Tam will wear this one.”

  He came forward bearing two identical crystals in one hand. Drake could barely make them out by the insufficient light on the wall. In the other hand, the criado carried what looked like an ordinary flashlight. He set the crystals carefully on the table and switched on the torch, placing it on the table so its beam pointed upward.

  “As you also know, to cut and polish the crystals is the highest calling of the criados,” Tomas continued solemnly. “We take great pride in our work, and the older criados spend hours and hours teaching the younger ones the mysteries of our trade.”

  “You sign them,” Drake said suddenly.

  Jovieve looked uncomprehending, but Tomas nodded. “In a manner of speaking. The signature is easily the most delicate part of the whole process, for it requires a dexterity with the laser knife—well, it is too complicated to explain. We know a novitiate is ready to become a criado when he is able to initial his first crystal.”

  “Show me,” Drake said.

  Tomas picked up the loose ojodiosa nearest to his hand and held it over the light. Jovieve and Drake both leaned closer to see. Tiny, spidery and almost impossible to find in the opal heart of the stone, they could detect and finally read faint letters: BELLAROSA/T,CdlD. The letters were so small they could barely be discerned.

  “Tomas, Criado de la Diosa,” Drake guessed. “You inscribed this crystal.”

  “I found it, I pried it from the mountain, I cut it, I polished it, and I engraved it,” Tomas confirmed. “I do not believe the goddess considers it vanity that I am proud of my work.”

  “On the contrary, she is proud of you as well,” Jovieve said.

  Drake restrained himself from grabbing the second ojodiosa. “May we see the other one, just to compare?” he asked.

  “Certainly. This was Roberto’s first project, and I hope you realize what a magnificent job he did.”

  The second crystal, indistinguishable from the first by any other means, in the torchlight had one crucial difference: Its inscription read TAM/R,CdlD. “It is easier to initial an ojodiosa for a Fidele,” Tomas explained, “because the names are so much shorter. But he did fine work, fine. The letters even and straight, as small as the most skilled craftsman might make them. I was impressed, and I told him so.”

  “May I?” Jovieve said, and Tomas laid aside Roberto’s graduation piece. Jovieve held her own pendant above the flashlight, and the letters were clear even thirty years or more after they had been cut in the quartz: JOVIEVE/X,CdlD.

  “Xavier cut my crystal?” Jovieve said, sounding pleased. “I never knew that.”

  “He was a master,” Tomas said.

  Drake was still thinking over the implications. “So,” he said, musing aloud. “Say the killer knows the name of the priestess he’s looking for. That seems odd, if he doesn’t know what she looks like and doesn’t know if she’s a Triumphante or a Fidele, but say that’s true. He randomly grabs priestesses from the streets, kills them, steals the pendants—no, that won’t work. If he’s looking for a specific woman, he wants her for some reason—he’s not going to kill her until he gets from her what he wants.” He looked over at Tomas, a chiaroscuro figure in this shadowy room. “Could he do that? Just grab a woman, fling her to the ground, shine any old flashlight on her crystal and read the letters? Or does it have to be some special light?”

  “It must be a light with an infrared band,” said the criado. “But those are easily obtainable.”

  “But surely she’s struggling,” Jovieve objected.

  “Lusalma said he had very strong hands,” Drake reminded her. “He’s probably strong enough to subdue a young woman for a few minutes while he looks at the crystal. If she’s the wrong one, he kills her so she can’t identify him. If she’s the right one—” He stopped short.

  “Yes,” said Jovieve. “What does he want from her? And who is the right one?”

  Drake turned to Tomas again. “He can tell us,” the Moonchild said softly. Jovieve gave a wordless exclamation of amazement, but Drake continued watching the criado steadily.

  “Can I?” Tomas said. He sounded genuinely surprised. “How?”

  “You were startled to learn that anyone outside the criado compound knew about the inscriptions,” Drake said. “Only two ways anyone could find out. I’m going to go out on a limb and say the first way isn’t how it happened. There have never been any monks who left the order, have there?”

  “No,” Tomas said. “Not since the order was founded.”

  “So it’s not some renegade criado out killing priestesses to find the crystals he inscribed. My guess is that sometime in the past year or so, you or one of your monks told somebody about the crystals. We find that person, we can find out who that person told, and we can follow that chain to the killer.”

  Tomas looked dismayed. “I’ll ask the others,” he said, “but I only know one person outside the order who ever learned about the inscriptions. And I’m afraid that’s not going to help you much. It was eight or nine years ago that I told her.”

  “Who was it?” Jovieve asked. But Drake knew before the bearded old man answered, and a premonitory shiver traveled from his skull to his heels.

  Tomas said, “Diadeloro.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  They flew back under the slanting rays of the late-afternoon sun. Drake would have left immediately after Tomas’s dramatic revelation, but Jovieve, of course, had social business to attend to. She met with half a dozen of the other monks, sharing anecdotes and asking about recent events, bestowing that personal attention and that intimate smile on each one of them in turn. She was the consummate politician or the consummate flirt, Drake was not sure which, but he saw how each man took animation from her smile as water took glitter from the sun, and he could wholly understand their reactions. He did not begrudge her the extra hours.

  The instant they were airborne again, she turned to him with the question he had been expecting all afternoon. “What does that mean?” she said. Not a very lucid query, but he understood.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. I had just begun to believe that she wasn’t connected to the murders at all. I can’t track her past a certain point—I can’t find anyone alive who might want to harm her or harm anyone else on her behalf—I can’t implicate her in the case. And now this.”

  “But what does it mean? Maybe it doesn’t mean anything.”

  “It means that she is one of the few people—maybe the only person—who learned from the criados how to distinguish one goddess-eye from the other. And since our killer also appears to know how to distinguish the goddess-eyes, one has to wonder if she somehow, possibly inadvertently, told him.”

  “But if that’s true, he’s looking for a specific ojodiosa—and, by implication, a specific priestess. Which is incredible!”

  “Why?”

  “For one thing, he doesn’t even know if she’s a Fidele or a Triumphante. For another—who would he be looking for? And why? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It makes sense,” he said grimly. “We just haven’t figured out how yet.”

  Jovieve was silent, and Drake had no more to say, either. The A-S22 was a joy to fly, so light and responsive that he almost did not have to guide it, merely will it in one direction or the other. Many Moonchildren, used to plowing those mammoth silver starships through the star-sewn fields of space, had a sort of friendly contempt for the small planetary fliers that had such a limited range, but Drake loved piloting the li
ttle fliers as well. Altitude, motion and speed. He loved the combination no matter how restricted the abilities of his vessel.

  The A-S flew so smoothly that he could spare at least half his attention for the scenery. From overhead, the ridged dunes and unvarying hue of the sand presented a vista almost as mesmeric and fantastic as the night sky with its uncountable stars. With the mountains far behind and the city far ahead, the landscape below looked limitless, unchangeable, primeval. Drake entertained the notion that they might be suspended motionless above one single acre of desert, or that the world revolved under them at the same speed at which they pushed forward, so that the land which looked so familiar was indeed the same land, and that they would hang here above the desert forever.

  Jovieve was the first to break a silence that had stretched beyond an hour. “It always seems so far,” she said dreamily, her thoughts seeming uncannily to march with his. “So much of—of nothing between the mines and Madrid. I would not like to lose power suddenly way out here in the middle of nowhere.”

  Drake laughed softly. “Well, if we survived the crash, I could probably rig up some kind of device to call for help, using bits and pieces from the flier. Someone would find us.”

  He felt her smile at him, though he did not look over. “Then I hope you’re my pilot if I ever do crash.”

  They flew on for another half hour or so, barely speaking. Impossible as it seemed, a bluish tinge appeared over the horizon, signaling some change in the landscape ahead.

  “Hey,” Drake said, pointing. “What’s that?”

  She leaned forward. “That’s the Agua del Esperanza. The Water of Hope.”

  They had come close enough for Drake to discern the outlines of a wide, flat pool and a cluster of the tall trees so prevalent in Madrid. “An oasis?” he asked.

  “An oasis? Is that the word? I’ve never heard it called anything except the Water of Hope.”

  He guided the flier down slowly, circled once, and picked his spot. Bringing the craft to a smooth halt on the shifting surface of the sand was a little tricky; nonetheless, the landing was not so bad. Drake turned to Jovieve and smiled. “Time to stretch our legs,” he said.

  He helped her from the flier and they walked hand-in-hand to the edge of the pool. From the air, the water had appeared a dark blue. Up close, with the sun’s rays obliquely across it, it seemed to be a metallic gold.

  “I think this must be the only oasis on Semay,” Jovieve said, gazing down at it. “At least, it’s the only one I know of.”

  Drake knelt, pulling her down beside him. “Probably hot as hell,” he said, cupping his hand below the surface of the pond. To his surprise, the water was tepid, but not steaming. “Must be fed by a cold underground stream,” he said. “I didn’t think there was anything on this planet that was naturally cold.”

  “My knees are burning, the sand is so hot,” Jovieve said, coming to her feet. He released her, continuing to kneel beside the water. She wandered over to the shade afforded by the grove of trees. “This isn’t so bad,” she said, sinking down. “There’s some kind of grass here and it’s actually cool.”

  Drake stood. “Let me see if there’s any kind of blanket in the flier,” he said, and trotted back to look.

  He fetched not only a worn, threadbare blanket but the basket of food Jovieve had packed for the journey out. They arrayed themselves in the shade and began snacking happily.

  “A picnic,” Jovieve said, laying back and propping herself up on one elbow. “Just like when we were children.”

  Drake had stretched out on his back and was staring up at the dark green fronds on the trees overhead. He laughed shortly. “Not when I was a kid,” he said.

  “No, I suppose not,” she said, watching him. “You seem to have had a very serious childhood.”

  “There wasn’t much room for frivolity,” he admitted.

  She continued to watch him, waiting for him to say more. “What was it like?” she prompted. “What was your family like?”

  “My mother was sweet-tempered and docile. It was so easy to harm her by carelessness and thoughtlessness that we tried at a really early age not to be careless or thoughtless. We would have done anything to keep that look of hurt from her face, sometimes going to the extent of lying to her just so she wouldn’t become sad—and, of course, we were brought up to believe lying was a sin.”

  “We?” she said.

  “My sister and I. Maya.”

  “You were close?”

  “Very. Maya was a little like my mother—sweet-tempered—but strong-willed, like my father. She was a lot harder to hurt. When she believed in something, she believed in it heart and soul. No turning back. No changing. No doubts.”

  “What became of her?”

  He did not want to talk about this, he did not want to. How had the conversation suddenly turned to his family? “She joined a religious order,” he said reluctantly.

  Jovieve sensed his tension and backed off a little. “And you? You became a Moonchild? How did your family view that?”

  “Oh, they were in favor of it. Our world was a member of Interfed, you understand, and had a large civil guard of its own. It was considered a fine thing for any boy to join the civil army—women were not soldiers, not where I grew up—and for a boy to join the Moonchild forces, well, that was about the highest honor he could bring to his family. I have never seen my father so proud as when I told him I had passed the exams for the EOTA.”

  “EOTA?”

  “Elite Officers Training Academy. Moonchild U.”

  “Your father,” she said. “What was he like?”

  “My father,” Drake repeated. He folded his arms back to make a pillow for his head. “My father was the strongest, the harshest, the best, the most inspiring man I have ever met. To please him was my only goal as a child. Even, for a long time, as an adult. I never feared failure so much for myself as I feared how he would be disappointed in me. I fought that, you understand—when I was about sixteen, I began to resent his influence over me and I tried to be as different from him as I could be. But I never lost the sense that he was judging me, that he was capable of judging me, that only he knew what was right and what was wrong and only he could tell if I was living my life in a manner that was—was worthy.”

  “Some things about you are beginning to become a little clearer,” Jovieve said with a smile. “I am sure you are about to tell me his was a strong moral character.”

  Drake nodded. He did not want to talk about the events of eight years ago, but he found himself wanting to give Jovieve more of his history than he had in the past. “Stern and just, that was my father. Implacably stern and just. I could tell you hundreds of stories, but—well, this one affected me the most. I was ten years old. We lived in a huge house—my father was a wealthy man, you know, a man of some power and influence in his city and his church—and it was common there for extended families to live together in one place. So it was not just my mother and father and Maya and me—my father’s sister and her husband lived with us, and their three children, and my father’s father and my mother’s father. And about ten servants.”

  “Servants!” she murmured. “I wouldn’t have thought you were the type. You don’t seem to have been brought up in luxury.”

  “Well, it wasn’t luxury. There was a sort of austerity to the place, despite my father’s wealth. We didn’t have trinkets and silver and expensive rugs. But my father was an important man in the community and we were constantly entertaining—and the house and grounds were so large that we required almost an army of people to maintain them.”

  “All right. So you lived there with ten family members and ten servants and what did your father do that made such an impression on you?”

  “As I said, I was a boy. I didn’t understand everything that happened at the time. But my aunt—my father’s sister—apparently became involved with another man. I don’t know the ex
tent of the involvement. At the time, my father accused her of having been found ‘in the embrace of another man.’ When I was ten, I thought it just meant she had been hugging someone, although now of course I see that it may just have been high-flown language that meant something else. Anyway, he threw her out of the house—literally, physically, pushed her out the door and slammed it and locked it in her face. She was sobbing, she was screaming—he had to drag her down the staircase and shove her over the threshold—and all the while Maya and our cousins and the servants and I watched from the other doorways and the top of the stairs . . . She stayed outside a long time, pounding on the door and begging to be let in, but my father had locked the door and it would stay locked. Not a soul in that house would have opposed him. Eventually she went away. I suppose it was night by then. I don’t know where she went.”

  “What happened to her?”

  Drake shook his head. “I don’t know. My father never mentioned her again. I know he never saw her again. I don’t know if she wrote or tried to get in touch with him—but if she did, I’m sure he didn’t respond. I’m sure he wouldn’t have given her money. I don’t know what could have happened to her—anything, I suppose. From dying in the streets to making a new life for herself with another man.”

  “And your cousins? And your uncle? They continued to live with you?”

  “Until my uncle died and the boys went away to school.”

  “And they didn’t hate him, resent him for what he had done?”

  “They thought he was right,” Drake said. “Everyone always thought my father knew what was right.”

  “Had he and his sister been close? Before this, had he loved her?”

  Drake smiled. Pulling one hand away from his head, he took hold of Jovieve’s, intertwining their fingers. “As close as this,” he said, holding their clasped hands up.