The Pearls

by Deborah Chester

  “Tylik!” a voice shouted.

  Startled, Lea dropped the dainty scrap of underlinen she was washing and had to lunge quickly to keep it from floating down the stream.

  “Yo,” her guard replied lazily.

  “Got anything to bet? Cleef wants to play Serpent’s Tongue.”

  From the corner of her eye, Lea saw Tylik stand up on his rock to talk to the man who’d joined him.

  “What? He find a snake’s nest?”

  “Pretty little striped ones, all wrapped up in a cozy knot. You in?”

  Tylik licked his mouth and glanced at Lea. “On duty.”

  “You can still bet, can’t you?”

  “Dunno.” Tylik glanced at Lea again while she kept at her washing, pretending not to listen. “Cleef’s got a hide like a beetle. What would bite him?”

  “Said he’d put his hand in the nest and pull one out. Challenged Brofy to do the same.”

  “Brofy?” Tylik howled with laughter, slapping his leg. “I want to see him holding a snake’s tail. Bet you fifty he’ll squeal and dance around like a Penestrican witch.”

  “Done!” the other man said. “Come on.”

  “Can’t. Got duty.”

  “Watching her? That ain’t duty. That’s a pleasure.”

  The way he said the last word made both men snigger. An icy chill prickled along Lea’s spine. She tensed, her fingers tight around a stone.

  “Got sentries posted, Tylik. She can’t get away. Hurry and let’s see this. With any luck, the commander will never know you took your eye off her.”

  “Wish I had more of me on her than that,” Tylik said, as he followed the other man away.

  As they left, Lea eased out her breath and ducked her head in an effort to master her anger. She slammed the stone once, very hard, against the ground. “Earth spirits!”

  One came, as though it had been waiting for Tylik to leave her. She felt, then saw, the ripple in the ground, and the soft dirt at the stream’s edge bulged slightly next to her.

  At once she pressed her palm to the soil, feeling the sun-warmed surface, then the coolness beneath that. Rough and gritty to her touch, the earth spirit trembled like something half-wild.

  With her mind, she soothed it, even as she calmed herself. With her quai gathered around her, she saw the spirit’s brown face peering up at her.

  “You are Lea,” it said into her mind.

  “I am,” she whispered.

  “Lea, queen of us, welcome. Many treasures have we to share.”

  “Thank you, but not now, please,” she whispered urgently, knowing she had little time. “I accept your tribute with thanks, but do not bring it to me now.”

  “It is brought already.”

  And she saw the soil’s surface sparkle, as though diamonds were catching the sunlight. Disappointment caught at her throat, but she made herself say, “How lovely.”

  “You do not like,” the spirit said flatly. “This tribute offends you.”

  “No, I accept it with thanks.” Anxious to make amends, she scooped up the diamonds and held them cupped in her palm. They were all very small and rough-edged, but their centers held fire. She only wished they were gli-diamonds, but these possessed no magic to help her.

  “I need gli-stones.” She knew it was wrong to ask for a gift, for anything specific. The earth spirits bestowed on her whatever they wished, and could not be directed. “Forgive me, but I am in trouble. That is why I ask. Gli-stones could help me.”

  “There is no gli here. You ask for what cannot be given.”

  Disappointment unbalanced her quai, and she struggled to maintain it. “Can you take me from here? Can I ride your back between?”

  Tiny nuggets of gold gleamed in the soil before her. She picked them up, one by one, mixing them with the diamonds.

  “You ask for what cannot be given,” the earth spirit said. “Our tribute is small.”

  “I accept your tribute with gratitude,” she replied formally. “I am in trouble. Will you tell the Choven I am here?”

  The spirit stared at her, brown and impassive, but it did not speak.

  She felt her heart beating faster, and tried to stay calm. “Please tell the Choven I am here.”

  “What is Choven?”

  “Wanderers. People of the—”

  “No.” Another diamond appeared, larger than the others and yellow in hue. “You ask for what cannot be given. There are no wanderers.”

  In the distance, the men whooped with laughter, and wild oaths rose above the noise. Lea lost her concentration, and the earth spirit vanished with a faint rumble of disturbed soil.

  Dismayed, she curbed her impulse to call after it, for she knew it would not return. Had she been wearing her gli-emeralds, it might have obeyed her. Without them, she was lucky it had come to her at all. She knelt there, fighting back tears, and wished she could summon a dozen spirits to shake the very ground, destroying the camp and her captors with it.

  They roared with fresh laughter.

  “What are you doing?”

  She jumped, her heart in her throat, and saw the commander in his black armor looming over her. Refusing to remain kneeling before him, she scrambled to her feet. Her face burned, and she would not look at him.

  His dark gaze swept her, the meager amount of washing, and the setting itself. Without his helmet, he looked younger but no less formidable.

  Clean-shaven, his black hair cropped extremely close to his skull, he stood before her now with bleak eyes, thinned mouth, and a jaw of granite. For a guilty moment she wondered if he’d seen her communicating with the earth spirit. But then he always looked at her with suspicion. Laughter rarely lit his face. No gentle manner ever softened him. His force of will was a hammer that beat his ruffians into submission day after day, so that they marched where he led them, made do with short rations when he gave them no time to hunt, and obeyed him without question.

  Bending over her, he took her clenched hand and forced her fingers to uncurl. The diamonds and nuggets were revealed, bright in the sunshine.

  His gaze sharpened. “Where did you get these?”

  Haughtily she lifted her palm to him, offering him the jewels and gold without answering his question.

  He did not take them. “Where did you get these?”

  “Does it matter? You want them. Have them.”

  Still he did not move. His dark eyes narrowed on her. “You are generous with your wealth today. Why?”

  “Would it matter if I wanted to keep my belongings?”

  A muscle twitched in his jaw, telling her the insult had registered. Slowly he took the diamonds and gold from her hand and pocketed them, his eyes daring her to protest.

  She dusted off her hands, despising his arrogance, and transferred her disappointment with the earth spirit into anger at him.

  “Where is your guard?” he asked.

  Shrugging, she gathered up her small amount of washing.

  He dashed it from her hand. “I asked you a question!”

  Furiously, she picked up the two pieces of damp white linen and snapped them to shake off the dirt and mud. “I’m not responsible for your men.”

  “You are, if you’ve spirited one into thin air.”

  “Is that what you think I can do? Why haven’t I spirited myself away, then?”

  “You will,” he said grimly. “Given the chance, that’s exactly what you’ll do.”

  Fresh guilt crawled through her. She felt as though her thoughts were branded on her face for him to read.

  “What have you been up to?” he asked.

  “Nothing!” She shook her head. “My washing. That is all.”

  “Liar. If you’ve harmed—”

  “I wish I could harm him! And you!” she said, losing her temper. “I wish I had these magical powers you think I possess. Then I would show you. I would teach you—”

  Realizing what she was about to say, horrified by her loss of inner harmony, she choked back the words and bent to
immerse her garments in the stream.

  He remained silent behind her for a few moments, then strode away. Shortly afterward, she heard the men’s laughter cut off and his voice, as cold and level as a frozen pond, speaking to them.

  Tylik came scurrying back through the trees, scowling as he took up his position on the rock. He clutched his money purse in one blue-tattooed hand and was mumbling and cursing to himself. Catching her looking at him, he shouted an insult that burned her ears.

  Trembling, she gathered up her things quickly. As she left, heading back to camp, Tylik followed her, his eyes insolent and insulting.

  There had to be a way to escape these brutes, she thought. If only she could get her necklace away from the commander. If only she could just run. However, she dared try nothing foolish, for if ever opportunity came to her it would do so only once.

  In camp, a man lay sprawled on the ground among their makeshift tents and rickety shelters made from cut tree branches. He was twitching and moaning, clutching his hand that had swelled to twice its normal size. The others stood around him, watching him suffer. No one went to his aid.

  Appalled by the sight, Lea stumbled to a halt.

  She saw an enormous, thick-shouldered brute with a shaved head kneel beside the snakebit man and grasp the front of his tunic.

  “Pay up, Brofy,” he said. “Where’s your stash?”

  The injured man moaned and thrashed. Lifting his head, he tried to speak, but could not utter any coherent words.

  “Come on! You owe me good. Pay up before you die.”

  Unable to bear more of this, Lea hurried forward. “Help him!” she cried. “Give him water. Cut the wound and let the poison out. Don’t—”

  A rough hand caught her shoulder and pulled her back just before she could shove her way into their midst. It was the commander, grim-faced, who held her. His dark eyes glittered with an expression she did not understand. Despite her efforts to twist free, he would not let her go.

  “Stay out of this,” he said.

  “But he’ll die if he isn’t treated quickly.”

  “It’s drakshera. The game of fate.”

  “Why won’t you help him?”

  “It’s nothing to do with you. He chose to play. Let him alone.”

  She stared up at the commander, seeking some hint of mercy or compassion in his hawkish face. “Please. Please.”

  Brofy screamed and thrashed, then lay still. A bestial howl rose from the throat of the last lurker in their company, and the creature—terribly malformed and awful to see—burst into the open and darted back and forth in a kind of dementia. The men cheered, shrieking Brofy’s name, while his competitor ripped open the dead man’s pockets and even gashed the soles of his boots. It was there that he found two large coins. Jumping to his feet, he held them aloft in triumph and began dancing a jig.

  Lea thought they’d all run mad. How, she wondered, could they view death like this? How could they celebrate it?

  The man with the shaved head whirled around, grinning hugely to reveal rotted teeth. “Who’s on for another go? You, Armar? You, Tylik? Come on, Tylik! Play Serpent’s Tongue with me.”

  Tylik yelled back an insult, and then they were all shouting, egging each other on in a kind of frenzy. Lea drew back from them, instinctively moving closer to the commander.

  “Come.” He led her away, and she went with him willingly to the camp’s edge.

  “Why—why—” She paused for breath, swallowing hard. “Why do you not stop them?”

  “Why should I?” he asked.

  She stared up at him in consternation. “But you are their leader. Don’t you care what they’re doing?”

  “Not much.” His black eyes held little patience. “It’s the way of soldiers, something to pass time.”

  “There are plenty of other ways to do that.”

  For an instant the commander almost looked amused. “What? Reading to improve their squalid minds, perhaps?”

  “Now you’re making fun of me.”

  “Because you are naive, a child ready to tell the world what to do when you’ve lived cloistered behind safe walls all your life.”

  “That’s untrue!” she said sharply.

  “Is it?” His voice was flat and uninterested.

  She opened her mouth to persuade him and then stopped herself. There was nothing she needed to explain, she thought. Nothing he needed to know.

  For days he’d pushed them all at a difficult pace. Branch-whipped and bruised, scarcely allowed time to eat, forced to sleep on hard ground or a pile of prickly pine boughs with only her cloak and blanket to keep out the cold, denied the opportunity to wash or change her travel-stained clothes, Lea had ridden day after day on the withers of her abductor’s warhorse, her shoulder bumping into his breastplate, her booted feet dangling by his armored knee. For days she’d found his proximity unbearable, yet she’d had no choice but to endure it, to endure his arm holding her close. Day after day, she prayed for enough strength to suppress her tears before his dark, critical eyes, to reveal as little of her shaken emotions as possible, to stay strong.

  How, she wondered, could he be a part of her destiny? From that shocking moment of inadvertent sevaisin inside the Hidden Ways, she’d known her future to be tied to his. Yet how could her fate be entwined with this brutal war monger? This thief and kidnapper? This mercenary who dared wear the medal of praetinor, a medal he’d probably stolen from a true hero?

  She’d never doubted her own powers of insight before, never doubted one of her visions or glimpses of the future. Since meeting him, she’d prayed with all her heart to be wrong, just this once. To be completely mistaken and in error.

  On this bright day, he seemed to blot the sun from her world, and no matter how many times she closed her eyes and chanted in her mind, “It cannot be true. It cannot be true. It cannot be true,” she had only to steal a peep at his stern face to feel the cold shudder of certainty.

  He could not be wished away. He could not be ignored. That’s why she was trying desperately to find some trace of good in him, some element that was salvageable.

  But at this moment, when he stood here cold and unmoved after watching one of his men die, it did not matter that he watched over her safety or made sure she was given adequate food, a fire for her comfort at night, her hands never tied, or his cloak thrown over her in shelter from rain or pelting sleet. Such acts of kindness were motivated by his goal of delivering her as a living hostage, in good health, and still of value. He cares for nothing and no one, she thought.

  He swung about to face her now, and one of his brows lifted in a quizzical way she hadn’t seen before. Contempt tightened his face. “Have you stared your fill?”

  Embarrassed heat swept up and over her, making her ears roar. She saw his mouth curve in a mocking little smile, but she was unwilling to back down, no matter how mortified she might be. Steeling herself, she struggled to meet his sardonic gaze.

  A few times, she’d tried to fight back against his sarcasm, but it was like prodding a scorpion. She never knew what he might do, this man who constantly strove to control himself, a man so fierce, so violent, so guarded inside with a thicket of iron root and brambles covering his innermost secrets that she could not see his heart. There were very few people or creatures that she could not see straight through.

  Whatever his secret, she knew it to be too terrible to accept. A man who cast no shadow was himself shadow. Not just shadow sworn, but actually a physical manifestation of Beloth’s evil. How he could exist with the shadow god destroyed she did not understand. How he could stand here in the sunlight and speak to her as though he were still a man, she did not know.

  And how, how, how could he be part of her future? Was she to be corrupted by the people who had hired him to abduct her? Was her soul going to be smashed, her morals broken, her life reduced to ruin? Or did the vision mean something else?

  “Why,” he said, breaking the silence so abruptly that she flinched, “will
you not leave this alone? Why do you keep probing and asking your damned questions?”

  “I’ve asked nothing,” she said quickly.

  He frowned. “You never stop trying to sense what lies inside me. Am I supposed to be flattered? I’m not. There is nothing for you to see, Lady Lea. Nothing!”

  The violence and self-loathing in his voice made her eyes widen. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “but I think there must be. I hope so.”

  “Keep your hopes to yourself. Keep your questions to yourself. You’ve been docile enough thus far, and I’ve given you as much liberty as I dare, but continue with this and I swear you’ll ride the rest of the way gagged and bound.”

  She remembered that first night, when she’d defied him, and he’d forced her to walk half the night through ankle-deep snow.

  “Yes,” he said as though reading her thoughts. “You know I don’t make idle threats.”

  “I know you are harsh and sometimes cruel, but you are also fair. You have treated me kindly as your prisoner.”

  “Honeyed words will gain you nothing.”

  “The more mystery you make of yourself, the more curiosity you provoke,” she said, although reluctant to admit it. “That’s all.”

  He grunted as though he didn’t believe her. “Curiosity and hope do not mix well together. Frequently they bring disaster.”

  “Riddles?”

  In two strides he was on her, gripping her arm so hard she gasped, and shoving her backward to pin her against a tree trunk. “I don’t play games,” he growled, his voice rough with a savagery barely under control. “This is no court flirtation.”

  “Stop it!” she said in angry shock. “How dare you!”

  “I’m trying to protect you, girl. You’re too stupid to see it, but the less you know, the better chance you have of being ransomed out of this.”