The Jewel and Her Lapidary

by Wilde, Fran

  Sima opened her mouth to protest.

  “No, Sima,” Lin said quietly. She caught Sima’s hands and held them. “This is my choice. It is what I can do for my kingdom.”

  Sima nodded, though her heart ached. She’d keep her vow.

  “Jewels belong to the valley. The gems too,” Lin said gently. “Not the other way around. Nal wants the Jewel, the valley, and the gems. She wants to make her son a king. She wants the gems to control the people. I must make her choose.”

  A lapidary who betrays her Jewel is shattered.

  Sima remembered her father’s voice causing the cabochon to glow whenever he’d said its name. Such control. Such power. Soon it had glowed all the time. She remembered how her father had sent to the mountains for supplies he needed to cut new stones to strengthen the kingdom. Aqua fortis, muriatic.

  “We must use the cabochon against Nal first. To compel her to leave.” A lapidary must. Sima swallowed her fear and gathered the lesser gems from the pit floor, sparkling in their bezels. She sparked the torch and began to solder the chains around the Star Cabochon’s bezel. The veil, which had hung loose, pulled taut against Lin’s back and neck. “Is it too much?” she asked.

  “Keep going.”

  Sima placed the lesser gems in the chains of Lin’s veil, wherever they fit. She invoked them as best she could. When moonlight sifted through the grate, the set gems whispered: opals spoke of rebellion; the topaz of revenge. Only the Star Cabochon was silent.

  “This could doom you,” she whispered to Lin.

  “You are not your father. No hidden faults. No secret temptations. The gems bent him, and the mountains too.”

  Sima nodded, hoping Lin was right. She set a final stone in Lin’s cuff.

  Lin watched and mused, “Would you help me now if you weren’t oath-bound to me?”

  Her words hung in the dark air. Sima remembered the crunch of gravel beneath her feet, the sound of the distant river beyond the burning village. Her hands smoothed the chains on Lin’s veil. Her fingers counted the stones: an opal from Lin’s mother’s ring; a blue topaz from Lin’s brother’s sword, chipped and bloodied.

  No greater honor in the valley than to have the gems speak to you, Sima remembered. The greater the gem, the greater the honor. The greater the risk. The engraved bands said so. Father too.

  “I will not leave you again,” Sima vowed. “My birth binds me, as does yours.”

  As she said it, she felt the strength of this vow in her bones. All the gems fell silent.

  “Will you attempt speaking the cabochon?” Lin asked, kneeling so that Sima’s mouth was close to the ruby’s curved dome.

  Sima moistened her lips. If Lin asked it, she would.

  “Star Cabochon,” Sima whispered, “bound by your bezel, obey.” Her words sank into the ruby and pulled her breath with it. The star pulsed once in the dark and her heart quickened. “Obey,” she repeated, focusing harder than ever before, though her voice faded. The ruby stole her breath but remained silent.

  Sima coughed and gagged. She was not strong enough.

  Lin sank to the damp ground to comfort her attendant. “You help me in other ways.” She sounded so tired.

  Of course, thought Sima. A lapidary must. Sima spoke the gems she could: Breathed on two opals set at Lin’s ears: Rest; Whispered the perfectly faceted topaz she’d cut herself: Peace.

  As she did so, Sima wished for a gem that could stop time. Or one that would bring back the dead. What facets would need to be cut to return the Jeweled Court? She had charms against fear, but nothing more potent. She was worse than useless if she could not protect them both from the morning.

  Lin calmed. “You are so good with the pleasant gems,” she murmured. “Tomorrow, Sima, we will see what they choose.”

  A lapidary obeys her Jewel. Sima bit back a sob. Fear. And loss. She didn’t need gems to amplify those. She concealed her tools in her sleeve and let Lin lean against her, pressing the chains between them into her skin.

  * * *

  Local Walks: The Jeweled Valley Artisans. As cottage-crafts have again become fashionable, a valley visitor may ask at the Band and Chain for directions to local artisans. The region has few options as compared to other towns mentioned in this guide. However, traditional jewelers still practice local methods for setting semiprecious and precious stones, from wrapping to bezel-setting. When offered the opportunity to purchase a real Jeweled Valley gemstone, note that chips and shards made available to visitors are, at best, of ill quality and, at worst, colored glass. Inquiring after gemstones that sing or speak will not endear you to the local population.

  . . . from A Guide to the Remote River Valleys, by M. Lankin, East Quadril

  * * *

  When she woke, Lin lay still, so Sima would think she still dreamed. Her lapidary could not protect her from dreams, she knew. She shrugged off the dark gauze of her nightmare: her brothers and sisters, kissing her on her wedding day and then turning to ash.

  A Jewel must put kingdom first and self second. This is what Aba should have told her. Instead Aba whispered about beautiful children and fine palaces. About duty and grace. About love. Lin, for her part, had dreamed of seeing the Eastern Seas. She’d looked forward to knowing the world beyond the valley. She had hoped she would grow to love her betrothed and his people.

  The gaze of her own valley people had terrified her when she first went through the streets with her father. Behind her veil, she felt their eyes desperate for a glimpse of more than her profile. Their hopes for her sat heavy on her brow. She’d recoiled, and her father had noticed.

  A people’s love is not an easy thing. You must return it in kind or it will devour you.

  A lapidary’s love too. For there was Sima, always watching her. Finding new ways to protect her, to soothe her.

  Lin thought how her fingers might feel unencumbered by baubles. Her brow unmarred by a crown. How she might pass through the streets unrecognized, without her lapidary by her side.

  If she could have laughed now, without rousing Sima, she would have.

  From the corner of her slitted eyes Lin saw her father’s feet covered in a purple robe. Sima thought her too delicate to tend her own father.

  Well. Weren’t most Jewels too delicate? Relying on gems for their influence. Making gems that kept the valley from danger instead of confronting it. Her father had allowed the royal lapidary almost every duty, from assigning courtiers to the design and purpose of new gems. Even the selection of diplomats and traders to negotiate prices on valley goods had been left to lapidaries. Father was interested in the well-being of the people, nothing more. He loved them. And the people loved him for it.

  But when Lin peeked through a part in the royal hall’s tapestries, she could see the royal lapidary looking at her father as if he were a prize gem, shaped and bound.

  What had Aba said about the lapidaries? That they’d once sat on the amber throne, in the days when the gems ruled the valley. Lin didn’t want to believe that. She saw how they bound themselves in their vows to keep the gems’ voices at bay. How they stood between the Jewels and their gems, controlling them and controlled by them, so that the Jewels could rule without damaging their own minds.

  So much sacrifice. For what?

  She felt Sima’s arm press against her side as the lapidary dreamed.

  When she’d asked Aba, What would set the lapidaries free? Aba had distracted her with a lesson on gem properties. Then she’d gone to have a talk with the king.

  Lin had formed a theory. She’d heard enough whispers when she was listening behind curtains. There was one thing that would free the lapidaries and the people. Now it would thwart Nal too. The gem mines must be destroyed. Without the mines, the existing gems would grow old and eventually chip or break. Some in the valley might hear raw gems, but those, still set deep in the earth, wouldn’t strain to compel a person to their will. They wouldn’t need to be controlled. So many of the great gems, the ones that had caused all the prob
lems in the past, were now destroyed. Except for the cabochon.

  Perhaps, Lin thought, the gem veins underground had waned. It was true that few powerful gems had been found in recent years. Few that could be cut and bound, fewer still that would bring great power to a dangerous person. She’d overheard her father’s lapidary wanting to arm the valley, to consolidate power; her father had muttered something and stormed out. The lapidary had paced, trapped.

  If the mines were shut, eventually the voices would quiet and the lapidaries would be free.

  At least one would.

  The valley would have to learn to stand on its own.

  What would Sima choose? Lin wondered. If she could speak the powerful gems and control them as her father had? Would she choose never to hear them again?

  The thought made Lin afraid for herself, a little.

  What would Nal choose if she gained the power of the gems? If she gained a lapidary of her own? Lin shuddered and vowed the valley would never find out.

  Lin slowly sat up, and Sima woke. The two stared at each other silently. Then Sima sat up too. “I don’t want you to suffer, Lin,” she said. Lin heard the tremble in her voice and felt a lump in her throat. They were two alone, against an army.

  Before that horrible night, Sima had slept at her bedside. Tended her every need. She was still tending Lin, trying to fulfill her vows. Lin searched for a way to reply, words that would mean something. “I want you to be free,” she finally said. “Of the gems. Of the Jewels.”

  Sima’s face folded in confusion. “That is not my path. We are joined.”

  “You’ve never wanted more?”

  Her lapidary was silent. Of course she had. Everyone wanted more. Even Lin. She’d wanted to see the Eastern Seas. To remove her veil in public. To fall in love.

  Jewels didn’t fall in love. Aba had said so.

  Long ago, Lin had seen one of her brothers with his lapidary. She’d known from the way their eyes did not meet that there was no love when they kissed. That what passed between them was just a service. Another bauble.

  Lin had wondered what it would be like. Maybe not with Sima, but with someone. Her chain-veil pressed cold against her cheeks. “Would you marry?”

  “I might.” Sima’s voice was a whisper.

  “Who?”

  In the past, when Sima shrugged, her vows had clattered and chimed softly. A merry sound, a bit like laughter. Now, her gesture was silent. She clasped Lin’s hand and the chains around it. “I am bound, like the gems.” She leaned against Lin’s shoulder. Pressed her lips against the veil and Lin’s cheek beneath. “Do not dwell on it, my Jewel.”

  Lin felt the warmth of Sima’s mouth on her skin through the chill metal chains. Then Sima gasped and grabbed her head with both hands.

  “My Jewel!” she whispered. “I overstepped.” Her eyes darted this way and that, as if she listened to something poisonous. The lesser gems?

  Lin couldn’t hear them, but she knew the signs.

  “I liked it,” she said, taking Sima’s other hand. “It’s all right.”

  Sima blinked. She breathed calmer. Lin felt a twinge of surprise. She’d settled the gems with her own reassurances.

  They sat holding hands for a long time.

  The first morning light angled into the pit and gilded the edges of the bone pile. A guard climbed down a rope ladder. He gestured to them, and they stood up together. Walked side by side toward the ladder.

  * * *

  Carefully, so as to keep from tripping on her chains, Lin climbed from the pit first. Her veil chimed with each step. Her gems, even those crusted with gore, sparkled in the morning light. Sima followed her, silent. When Lin halted before the amber throne, Sima stopped too. She turned to look at the new court of the Western Mountains commander. They’d been assembled behind a wall of ironclad soldiers, many among them familiar townspeople. Heads bobbed and whispers filled the room when people saw what sat upon the Jewel’s brow.

  Sima tried to put her failures in the pit, as far from her thoughts as the gems’ whispers.

  Lin kept her eyes focused on the amber throne and Commander Nal, who now sat upon it, talking to a young boy beside her. He looked so like Nal, Sima did not doubt this was her son.

  “For the last time, Jewel Lin, remove that veil so that I may present your betrothed, my son Remir.” Commander Nal did not rise from the throne. She barely looked at Lin, at first. Then her gaze caught on the cabochon.

  For once, Nal was speechless. She stared. Sima caught a glint of something beneath the anger. Fear. Then the commander ground her heel into the floor. “You dare to flaunt that ruby? After denying you had it.” Her fingers curled around the throne’s arm as if she wished to pluck the Star Cabochon from Lin’s forehead like a fruit.

  Meantime, the boy stared at Lin, dazzled. He could not have been more than twelve years old. Sima held her breath.

  “Once again, Commander, I cannot remove the veil.” Lin’s cloaked face gave nothing away.

  Sima let her breath out and whispered to the Star Cabochon: Compel them to leave. The six-arm star glowed deep inside the ruby’s polished dome and made no reply. Sima felt defeat tear at her throat once more.

  A lapidary must know her limits when invoking the gems of the court.

  Lin turned her head left, then right, acknowledging the valley artisans gathered beyond the rows of guards. The tiny chains of her garment rang softly as she turned again. She paused when her eyes reached Remir.

  So young, Sima thought. He will not lead. His mother will.

  The boy, clothed in bleached goat leather, stared at Lin’s golden skin, barely visible between the platinum links and gemstones that wrapped her from head to ankle. He cleared his throat. When he spoke, his voice pitched high and cracked. “Why can’t you?”

  Nal turned to address her son, but Lin spoke first.

  “My father did not need the Star Cabochon to command our people. He had their love. You have tried to take the valley by stealth and force. And now by marriage. So you must choose: the Star Cabochon, or me.”

  Lin lifted her arms, and chains ran like silver rivers up her arms to the thick bezel at her brow. “My lapidary spoke shatter charms. Breaking the chains will destroy the cabochon. You are right that we cannot do it ourselves, but you can.”

  Remir’s mouth opened. He cocked his head, listening. Lin’s chains jangled, the only sound in the hall. Then the meaning of Lin’s words swept across the moonstone tiles, around the white-jade pillars. Sima heard stifled gasps. Guards in battle-scarred mail gripped the hilts of their swords.

  But it was Remir’s reaction that was most interesting to Sima. He swayed before the Star Cabochon. And the star glowed in return. Unless Sima was seeing things.

  Sima felt her heart race. Perhaps Remir could hear gems. Perhaps he could hear a stone that she could not. With no training. And no vows.

  Lapidaries must train all those who hear the stones.

  The engraved bands demanded this duty of all lapidaries. Could Sima manage it where she had failed in so many things? Sima jumped, startled from her thoughts when Nal’s fist slammed against the amber throne.

  “When we made our offer, Jewel Lin, it was in good faith. You present us with a false promise of your own.”

  Lin did not answer. She did not look up. Days ago, she would have cried in fear or looked to her brothers for help. She had already learned more than a youngest Jewel should ever know. An opaque diplomacy, Sima thought. While I have gained little skill with the Star Cabochon.

  Remir turned to Sima, his voice clear and high. “You made these chains. You can undo it. Set her free.”

  A lapidary who betrays their Jewel is shattered.

  Sima’s fingers flexed. She willed them still. That was not Lin’s command. Sima would be no better than her father if she betrayed her Jewel.

  The doors to the royal hall—now reinforced with iron—creaked open. Across the hall, ten guards pushed an enormous rock crystal vase. Mountain r
anges and a river valley had been carved into the vase’s sides. Metal wheels rattled over the moonstone tiles, groaning under the weight of the vase. When the guards stopped before the amber throne, the wheels squeaked and the crystal resonated with a high-pitched tone.

  “Your wedding gift, Jewel Lin,” Nal said. She held out a hand to her son, who looked at the vase, then back to Lin, his eyes wide. Nal’s dark gaze took in the assembled court. “Do you not see the Western Mountains’ wealth and strength?”

  The vase towered over Lin and Sima. Its value was beyond measure.

  Lin, in a clear voice, said, “The valley’s strength is its people, Commander. Not in gems or armor.”

  Nal tutted. “Surely you’ve learned from your father’s example, Jewel Lin?”

  Sima shivered at the memory of the bodies in the pit and the night spent watching over their broken bones.

  The commander drew a deep breath. “We need the valley, its artisans and miners, its mail. The armies of the east threaten us even now.” Her eyes hardened to two dark stones. She pressed her lips together. “There is one way through. We have brought with us more aqua fortis for refining gems and metal. We have muriatic from our iron and salt mines.”

  Nal turned to Sima. “Do you know what happens when you combine muriatic and aqua fortis, lapidary?”

  “Aqua regia.” Water of kings. The words escaped Sima’s mouth before she could seal her lips. She’d used the combination once under her father’s instruction to dissolve a gold setting from around a stone. Later she’d poured off the gold and recaptured it. But not before she’d burned skin from her arm with the acid. She swallowed, remembering. Lin’s veil made a shifting sound, but the Jewel did not speak.

  Remir paled. “You wouldn’t. Can’t you hear them?”

  His mother ignored him. She should be careful, Sima thought.

  But then Nal ordered Sima, “You will cut her out of this and in no way damage the Star Cabochon. What happens to the Jewel is of waning interest to me.”