by Wilde, Fran
Now came the hardest decision.
Sima said nothing, so her voice could not give Lin away. She did not smile, though no one would see her if she did. A lapidary must remain resolute at all times.
Nal’s guards lifted a vat of clear muriatic to one side of the vase and a vat of clear aqua fortis to the other. The smell burned Sima’s nose.
“This is your final chance, Jewel.”
Sima heard Remir rise to his feet. She held her breath. She could not put him to sleep now. What would he choose?
“Please,” begged the boy. Sima thought of the words she’d once worn, of teaching Remir to solder, to bind gems with metal. “Please,” the boy said again. “Do what you need to, but get the gems.”
Sima pressed her lips together.
Using iron grapples, the guards poured the vats’ contents into the vase. The combined acids turned orange as they merged at Sima’s feet. A cloud of acrid gas rose and burned her eyes. Beyond the vase’s walls, she heard scrambling. Someone retched.
Sima bit her lip, vowing to stay silent as the Jeweled Valley at dawn. The burn on her arm pulsed with remembered pain. Aqua regia sluiced over the platinum chains. A small gem fell from its setting and clinked to the vase’s base. Lin’s older sister’s rare green topaz: love. An opal: truth. Sima’s eyes could not see it in the cloud. She could hear them singing. Her legs began to buckle. The pain turned her jaw to amber, her ears to opal. The topaz pulsed in her hand as the reign of the valley Jewels ended.
When Sima could bear no more, she snapped the chain mail link she’d filed nearly in half the night before. She felt a crack against her forehead.
Remir shrieked. The edge of his voice softened to a wordless howl.
Yes, whispered Sima and the gem together. Go, Sima whispered. Freedom, said the gem. Yes.
With a noise like a mineshaft collapsing, a scream, and a fire all at once, the Star Cabochon of the Jeweled Valley shattered in its cage.
* * *
“Who are you?” the riverman’s wife repeated, her voice breaking on the last word. She reached for a thick piece of wood. Behind her, the boats still burned.
“Malin,” the girl said, the name gem-hard in her mouth. But her heart softened with each syllable. She would carry both their memories, beyond the castle wall.
The riverman’s wife held out a cautious hand, taking in Malin’s courtier clothing. “You are from the palace.” It was not a question.
“Not anymore.” Malin took the woman’s hand and walked toward the river with her.
Each step farther from the palace echoed with memories and loss. The Jewels. The gems. Sima. The sun rose and they heard a sharp sound, distant and muted. A shattering sound. She bit hard on her lip. Forced herself to stay strong.
Malin let the woman lead her past the burning boats, to a cave mouth where locals once gathered beside a small stone formation. Malin ate a few bites of food with the woman, though it tasted like ash in her mouth. Once night fell, valley men and women joined them. They asked her of news from the palace. She looked at their faces, their bruises and wounds. “The palace is lost. The Jewels are lost.”
She let them weep. Held her own tears back, still, though she was desperate to mourn. That would come later. After the valley was safe. When the people had quieted, she prepared to speak. “Before she died, the last Jewel said we must shut the mines.” She let her words sink in. “We must begin to break the Mountain’s grip, and the gems’ hold on us, from within.”
The men and women who were left of her people began to make plans, their eyes as sharp and shining as gemstones: blue and gold and deepest amber. Malin let them speak to her.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Tor.com for giving this book its proper setting. To my editor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, and to Irene Gallo, for their vision; to Lee Harris, Mordicai Knode, Tommy Arnold, Christine Foltzer, Carl Engle-Laird, and Lauren Hougen.
To Paul Race and to Chris Wagner, who let me mess about with metals, stones, and oxygen-acetylene torches. To Tom Wilde, who won’t let me have an oxygen-acetylene torch in the house but who answers any chemistry question put to him and only then asks, “Why do you want to know?”
To E. Catherine Tobler, Kelly Lagor, Nicole Feldringer, Chris Gerwel, Lauren Teffeau, Alex Shvartsman, Siobhan Carroll, Rachel Winchester, and A. C. Wise, who were all very patient with facets of this story.
To anyone who dreams about the layered histories of a familiar place, or an unfamiliar one, this is for you.
About the Author
Photograph by Dan Magus
FRAN WILDE’s acclaimed short stories have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction and Fact, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Nature, and Tor.com. Her first novel, Updraft, debuted from Tor in 2015. She’s worked as a science and engineering writer, as a programmer and game developer, as a sailing instructor, and as a jeweler’s assistant. She writes about technology, culture, family, and reading for GeekMom, The Washington Post, and SF Signal; she blogs and podcasts about the intersection of food and fiction for Cooking the Books at franwilde.net. Wilde lives in Pennsylvania with her family. You can sign up for email updates here.
Also by Fran Wilde
Updraft
Cloudbound (forthcoming)
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Begin Reading
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Fran Wilde
Copyright Page
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novella are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE JEWEL AND HER LAPIDARY
Copyright © 2016 by Fran Wilde
Cover art by Tommy Arnold
Cover designed by Christine Foltzer
Edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden
All rights reserved.
A Tor.com Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
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New York, NY 10010
www.tor.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN 978-0-7653-8497-3 (ebook)
ISBN 978-0-7653-8983-1 (trade paperback)
First Edition: May 2016
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