by Jane Kindred
She’d bought the plain scarf in the market on the way back from the bathhouse, along with a little bag of glass seed beads in the hue of antiqued gold, and spent the evening sewing the beads in a spiral pattern on the bottom half to give it glitter and weight as she wrapped it across her throat and over her shoulders. In being chosen to be received by a Meer, as in everything, appearance mattered.
She arrived at the court just before sunrise, where a sizeable queue was already forming, pleased to see that heads turned as she emerged from her hired cab. The more attention she received from other petitioners, the more she would attract the attention of those in charge of selecting petitioners from the crowd.
The doors onto the Meer’s altar room opened just as the sun crossed over the threshold of the cut crystal windows surrounding it. Ume had chosen her colors carefully to maximize the early morning light so she would be impossible not to notice, but she hadn’t counted on Pearl’s brilliance. He sat as she’d first seen Alya, on a sparse throne raised above the height of the crowd on a simple dais. The sunlight made a halo of his hair of gleaming platinum. Not as long as it had been in the single glimpse she’d had of him in Nesre’s cage, it hung over one shoulder below the collarbone, the ends braided with crystal-blue topaz beads to match his eyes.
Tears sprang to hers at the sight of him. She hadn’t expected the eyes to be so like Alya’s, penetrating and wise despite the distance, like little glittering gems. Everyone bowed on one knee, whether out of instinct or custom, she wasn’t sure, but Ume did the same without a second’s thought. There was no question that they were in the presence of majesty.
The Meer’s regent stepped down from his side and walked back and forth before the crowd, selecting a handful of petitioners with a silent gesture. Ume raised her head, determined to give him a look he couldn’t resist, but as their eyes met, both Ume and the regent gave a slight start. She’d seen him before, and despite his fancy clothes and polished appearance, she had no trouble recalling where.
This was the Meerhunter, Pike, whose men had nearly killed Cree when they’d abducted Ume to bring her to him. Nesre had paid the Meerhunter to find out if Ume knew where the newly renaissanced MeerRa was hiding. He’d used very crude methods in the attempt. She was still holding a grudge over the lovely sapphire velvet gown he’d ruined by holding her head under the frigid water of an abandoned mill in Mole Downs last winter.
Pike composed himself swiftly and moved on, not selecting her among the group of petitioners to see the Meer this morning. Filthy bastard. He obviously didn’t fear her exposing him. The overlooked petitioners were dismissed to return to the queue outside the building in hopes of being selected when the Meer received the next round of petitioners in the afternoon.
Ume joined the disappointed crowd, fuming over the slight. Maybe she ought to expose him, call him out so the entire assembly knew he was a Deltan Meerhunter who was now apparently profiting off the very practice he and his kind claimed to abhor. No doubt he believed her reluctance to be exposed herself would deter her.
And it might, at that. Would it jeopardize the slim possibility she had of getting close to Pearl if her role in the Expurgation were known? She hadn’t used her real name at the rooming house for fear her fame might have reached these shores and would still be remembered. The aftermath of Alya’s murder had been the worst months of her life and she had no wish to relive them.
While she stood contemplating what to do, someone touched her on the shoulder, and Ume turned to find a uniformed official of the court addressing her.
She understood only two words. “Come, please.” There was no explanation given, and Ume wasn’t sure if she was being arrested or just escorted away from the court entirely as the officer took her by the arm and led her firmly out of the queue.
“Where do we go?” she asked haltingly in Szofelian, having learned a few words and phrases on the ship. “I am a free citizen of the Delta.”
She couldn’t make out his reply, but he continued walking with her around the side of the building to a service entrance, where he handed her off to another officer who barked at her in rapid Szofelian and took charge of her much less respectfully, gripping her upper arm as he marched her inside. Being arrested, then. Damn Pike.
Protesting against the rudeness and discomfort of his grip proved pointless, as no one seemed to understand her poor Szofelian, and Ume hurried to keep up in order to avoid stumbling. She suspected this one would simply continue dragging her if she did. He deposited her inside a small room on the second floor that held a row of hard wooden seats and no windows, and Ume sat with resignation when he pointed at the seats and snapped at her.
Left on her own, she waited over an hour with no one coming to interrogate her, trying the door once and finding it locked. There was a side door leading to another room, and Ume tried this one also to no avail. If this was torture by boredom, it was working. By the time the interior door opened, Ume was ready to confess to anything just to get out. She’d never been the patient sort.
Pike stood on the other side of the door, and he swept it aside with a mock bow. “If it isn’t the illustrious Maiden Sky. Do come in.”
Ume leveled her iciest courtesan stare on him, the one reserved for patrons or prospective patrons who transgressed the bounds of propriety in the courtesan-patron relationship. No one had ever received that stare from Ume without withering in one way or another.
“What in the name of MeerAlya are you up to?”
Pike’s cocky smile faltered and he took an unconscious step back. “Come in and sit down, Maiden Sky. We are both people of enterprise. Let’s discuss this civilly.”
“Civilly.” Ume continued the stare for a moment before sweeping past him into the receiving room. “I’m not sure our definitions of civility are compatible, Mr. Pike.” She sat stiffly on the edge of a bench upholstered in blue velvet, which was the least comfortable seat she could find—she would do nothing that implied he was her peer—while he sat in the high-backed leather chair opposite her. “As I recall, our only encounters have involved you threatening me and physically assaulting me in your brutish attempts to obtain information I did not have. Standard operation in your trade.”
“You have your methods of persuasion. I have mine.”
“Your communication skills are sorely lacking.” Ume calmly removed her gloves and laid them beside her on the bench, keeping her unsmiling eyes on him. “You haven’t answered my question. What is your business in Soth Szofl with Pearl?”
Pike raised an eyebrow. “I might ask you the same, among other topics of interest. Such as how you know the boy calls himself Pearl.”
“Nesre told me.”
“I highly doubt that. He considered the child a nameless thing and used methods even one such as myself would balk at to condition him never to speak.”
Ume used every ounce of the courtesan’s restraint not to show how this affected her. “And you, who have made a career of hunting phantoms, what do you consider him?”
“As Nesre did, I consider him a means to an end. A necessary evil. I acquired him to obtain the whereabouts of MeerRa. He’s robbed me twice of my bounty through his trickery, so I am now employing his skills to recoup my losses.”
Ume couldn’t withhold a derisive snort. “By setting him on Szofl’s throne.”
Pike shrugged. “Things have taken a rather more public turn than I’d expected. I’ve adapted. When the favor of the masses turns against him, as it no doubt will, I’ll revise my strategy.” He rested the heel of one boot on the opposite knee and wriggled slightly as if he needed to adjust himself, obviously ill at ease in his courtier’s clothing. “Your turn, Maiden Sky. Why are you here?”
“No.” Ume gave him a curt gesture of negation with her chin. “You haven’t finished. How did you happen to get your hands on Pearl? And how are you inducing him to do your bidding?”
P
ike smiled. “MeerZarafet and I have an arrangement. That is all you need to know. That, and the fact that I could simply instruct him to dispense with you if I consider you a threat. So I suggest you answer my questions.”
That didn’t bode well. If Pike was controlling Pearl somehow, it was what the Hidden Folk had feared.
Ume gave him a slight sideways nod of her head as if conceding his point had merit though she didn’t concur. “You’ve made your living exploiting the paranoia of the Deltan subconscious, born of their guilt, collecting your bounty for hunting down anyone the former templars put a price on. But there are other parties concerned with the fate of the Meer. I represent their interests.”
Pike laughed heartily, letting his foot drop back onto the floor. “You would have made an excellent court solicitor, Maiden Sky. I suppose Lord Minister Merit of Rhyman put you up to this. Found his little prize missing and employed you to find him.” His amused expression turned more serious. “Since I have no intention of turning the boy over to you, and I can’t have you running back to the Delta to send an army after me to retrieve him, we have a bit of a problem.”
Ume nodded with equal seriousness. “I see the difficult position you’re in. You could kill me, but Pearl would see it. That’s what he does. Sees things. I doubt he’d be pleased.”
“Pearl does what I say. It wouldn’t matter. He can’t harm me.” It wasn’t delivered with smugness, merely offered as a calm statement of fact. Pike was a practical man.
Ume could be practical too. “To be perfectly honest with you, Lord Minister Merit doesn’t even know I’m here. I came because I wanted to see Pearl for myself. When I saw him in Nesre’s cage, I was quite moved, because Pearl looks remarkably like his father. You know that I had a history with Alya.”
“Of course. It’s why Nesre sent me after you. Stands to reason that if you were associated with one Meer, you would ally yourself with another, given the chance, and Ra was known to be in your corner of the world. Yet you’ve persisted in your claim that you know nothing of MeerRa.”
“I don’t. But perhaps you’re right. Perhaps if I’d met him, I would have been drawn to him as well. We’ll never know. All I am certain of is that once I knew of Pearl’s existence, I felt compelled to be near him. I tried to ignore it, leaving the Delta for the north to get as far away as possible. But it was useless to resist whatever Meeric influence it is that Alya imprinted upon me. I returned to Rhyman to see Pearl for myself, to understand this obsession, but found him gone. And something drew me to Soth Szofl.”
Pike’s doubtful expression turned to one of disdain. “You realize he’s only a child. And a neutered one at that.”
Ume took umbrage, no playacting necessary. “It’s nothing tawdry like that, you swine. It’s devotion. I can’t explain it to one such as you, who have probably never felt a sincere devotion to anything in your life but gold coin. But Meeric power is real, and Alya marked me with his. As his. And whatever it is that makes one a Meer, that power is inherited.” Ume managed a deep blush of humility. “I am Pearl’s slave, and I must serve him in whatever capacity I can. That is why I am here.”
Pike studied her shrewdly, obviously looking for some sign that she was trying to pull one over on him. He was nobody’s fool. But what she’d said held enough of a grain of truth that she managed to meet his sharp gaze unflinchingly. She was devoted to Pearl, just not in the way she’d claimed.
“I left Cree.” She lowered her gaze as though ashamed as Pike continued to regard her with suspicion. “She couldn’t understand. I have no one else. I want only to remain at Pearl’s side, as Alya would have bidden me. I wish to serve my Meer. I ask nothing more than that.”
After a moment more of scrutinizing her, Pike nodded, thoughtful. “Perhaps our Meer does have a use for you.”
No one had been allowed near him before now. Pike had been afraid Pearl would conjure a vetma for someone who had not been thoroughly vetted if anyone besides Pike himself were alone with him.
But today, Pike sent him a personal servant. Because of Pearl’s delicate looks, the people of Soth Szofl had assumed MeerZarafet was a girl, and Pike had chosen not to correct them. The servant, appropriate for such a deity, was a handmaiden. If she was to dress him, she would know what he was, would see that he was merely a mutilated boy, but Pike seemed unconcerned about this.
“MeerZarafet, I give you Ume,” he said as he ushered her into Pearl’s chambers. “She served in Ludtaht Alya in the days before the Expurgation.”
Pearl studied her with interest. She had known his father. Ume’s hair was covered in a concealing headscarf of the style worn in Szofl, but from within it, she looked back at him through a pair of warm golden eyes like a huntress cat. They were bright with moisture, as if she were moved to some depth of emotion.
“Meneut.” Ume bowed low, and seemed to tremble at the sight of him. “I am honored to serve you.”
“Ume will be very discreet,” said Pike. “But don’t conjure anything for her. She’s here to do your bidding, not to seek favors of you. And your will serves mine.”
Pearl gave him a nod from his seat before the vanity, turning back to it. He’d been drawing, and Pike had interrupted. The paper and drawing implements were tucked into the vanity drawer. There was nothing disobedient about his drawing them; he couldn’t have drawn them if there were. But he knew Pike would question him, and these presaged something he couldn’t name and didn’t want to.
Pike noticed nothing amiss and took his leave, and Ume stood in waiting. Her eyes on him were a bit intense, but Pearl decided she wasn’t the sort to tell tales of him to Pike. The Meerhunter might have meant for her to be, but she wasn’t here as Pike’s spy. Pearl would have sensed it. He opened the drawer and took out his drawing once more.
“Your father liked to draw,” said Ume. “He drew me once.”
Pearl paused with the pencil in his hand and turned his head. She had known Alya more closely than he’d assumed.
“You look very like him. Though he was quite tall, and his hair hung past his waist. But I expect you’ll favor him in that as well as time goes on.”
Pearl wanted to ask her questions. He’d never seen images of Alya in the flow, and hadn’t even known of his existence until Ra had told Pearl he was MeerAlya’s son. But questions meant words, and he had his drawing to finish. Pearl turned back to it.
He could feel Ume’s eyes on him. She’d been hoping he would ask her questions. It distracted him from the drawing, and Pearl hunched over it, trying to shut everything out. He had an image fixed in his mind from the last vision he’d seen in the platinum reflections, a dark creature climbing over the rooftops of the revenant buildings, but he didn’t want to draw it. Seeing the mad face made him feel ill.
Instead, he concentrated on the details of a decorative pillar, intricate scenes, carved in soft jade and beryl, of vengeful demons destroying armies of men, and of gargoyles engaged in sexual congress with human partners. Beautiful in their artistry, but terrifying in their graphic depictions. Even so, these didn’t disturb him as much as the mad face of the creature climbing over them.
He’d forgotten Ume was there until she spoke. “May I see what you’re drawing?”
Pearl raised his head and evaluated this request. Was it a vetma? He decided not, and nodded, moving his arm away from the paper. Ume stepped closer to the vanity and peered over his shoulder, and Pearl watched her face to gauge her reaction. Her catlike topaz eyes widened, but she didn’t recoil.
“That’s fantastic,” she said in a soft voice. “I mean, both the subject matter and your skill. I’m in awe.”
Pearl wasn’t sure how to respond to this. He blinked up at her through the hair that had fallen over his eyes, and she smiled such a genuine, lovely smile at him—fondness mixed with pride—that it nearly crushed his heart. It was the sort of smile a mother gave to her child. Overwhelmed with sa
dness that he couldn’t explain, Pearl felt his eyes welling with tears, and he tried to look away before she could see them. Ordinary people found them upsetting, he knew.
But Ume’s eyes were shrewd ones, and she caught him brushing away a sliver of blood on the tip of his finger.
Ume crouched by his chair and laid her hand on the edge of the seat, but respectfully didn’t touch him. “Can I do anything for you, meneut? I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Pearl shook his head. She was worried that he was upset instead of being upset by his tears? She’d known another Meer, of course, so perhaps she’d seen them before. Though he couldn’t imagine someone as great and mysterious as MeerAlya having cause to weep.
She lifted her hand and fleetingly touched his hair before drawing back. “Pearl,” she said, very quietly, but distinctly. Pearl gazed wide-eyed at her. She knew his name. “I’ve come here from Soth Rhyman, from the House of UtMerit. I’m a friend of Ahr’s. I don’t know how you came to be here with Pike, but I know you aren’t here of your own free will. And something has happened to erase you from Ahr’s and Merit’s memories. I don’t know how I can, but I want to help you. I mean to free you. Somehow.”
Pearl studied her kind eyes, hope fluttering in his chest. But Pike wouldn’t allow it. Pike would take her away if he knew. He shook his head again, this time emphatically, and pulled a piece of scrap paper out from under his drawing, writing a message on it. I must obey the master.
The words seemed to anger Ume. “He is not your master. You have no master. You are Meer.”
Pearl regarded her a moment and wrote again. The Meer have always had masters.
“Well, you shouldn’t,” said Ume. “No one should. No one has the right to own anyone else. Your father would be heartbroken if he knew how you’d been treated by these selfish men. I’ll find a way to break his hold on you, Pearl. I promise. By MeerAlya, I promise.”
