The Pearl Diver

by Jeffrey Quyle

  He proved to be a formidable opponent by the standards of the club, much to his surprise. He had never found Ruten so easy to best as the members of the club proved to be, and he faced a constant stream of challenges and rematches through the afternoon, especially later in the afternoon, when more members filtered in through the weather and took up the cause of defending the club’s honor.

  He grew worn and sweaty from his continual work on the practice floor, and finally begged off so that he could return to see Mata, though he promised to be back at the armory the following day. Afterwards, he stood outside in the rain and let the continuing downpour wash away the perspiration and grit that his body was bathed in. Finally, he walked up the stairs to the fifth-floor room that was his short-term home.

  Mata was sitting by the window, looking out at the falling rain.

  “You are soaking wet!” she exclaimed, as water dripped off him and puddled on the floor at his feet. She looked out the window and then back at him again. “I feel very guilty to ask, but could you go to the market and get some fresh food? I’m craving greens – I haven’t had anything fresh since they put me in prison weeks ago.”

  Silas smiled. He was both annoyed at the request, as well as understanding of her wish after her long imprisonment, and then seclusion in the warehouse room. He asked what she wanted, then trudged down to the street and visited the market, leaving the shopping area with celery and apples.

  The pair ate food, then Mata asked to look in the mirror to see Jade.

  The sister in the palace was waiting. Silas heard Mata squeal as she first saw her sister when the mirror emerged from his pack. He gave Mata the pad and stylus so that she could communicate with Jade, then he went to sit in a chair at the table, and closed his eyes to relax as the sisters carried on a conversation through written replies, with occasional verbal comments and retorts uttered by Mata.

  “She says they won’t come over tonight because of the rain, but perhaps tomorrow night. Gwen is putting pressure on the princess to not sneak out any more,” Mata reported after she laid the mirror down at the end of the conversation.

  The pair of fugitives slept that night, and noticed a reduction in the force of the storm the next morning when they awoke. After a lazy morning, Silas left again to return to the armory, for further competition. He lost matches from time to time, but managed to win enough to impress the competitors who came through the rain for the chance to practice against him.

  When Silas re-entered the warehouse apartment, he noticed two things. The room seemed smaller and smaller every time he entered it. For Mata, he supposed it had to feel less confining than her prison cell, but small and closing in nonetheless. When he looked over at the girl sympathetically, his eyes bugged wide in shock.

  Mata was looking up at him, her eyes filled with guilt. In her lap she held his mirror, while her hands held his pad and stylus.

  “I’m sorry, I got bored,” she apologized instantly. “I was so bored, I just couldn’t help myself, so I decided to try to talk to Jade.”

  “Does it work?” Silas asked.

  “Yes and no,” Mata replied. “It works, but I’m not talking to Jade right now.”

  Silas looked at her in surprise. “Is it the Princess? Gwen?” he asked. He could conceive that the princess might find the mirror interesting to use, though he harbored no illusions that the hard-nosed, practical Gwen would bother with the device.

  “No, it’s the healer lady, Dianu,” Mata shocked him again by informing him. “Just a second; let me telling her why I’m not writing,” she scribbled for several seconds, then showed the note to the mirror.

  She stared down at the sheet of glass for several seconds, then looked up.

  “Dianu says to tell you hello, and that you did a great job mixing all the medicines for me. She’s leaving now,” the girl in the room added, then put down the writing implements she held.

  “I know I shouldn’t have done that,” Mata said in a low voice, as she lifted the mirror and slid it back into the pack that lay on the bed in front of her.

  Silas looked at her, his mind grappling with the dual tracks of thoughts he felt. He felt unprepared to learn that his pack had been so easily opened and rifled through. He knew he had nothing of great value or importance – other than the mirror – but still felt a sense of violation. Yet he equally felt the boredom that Mata must have felt. The formerly active pearl diver had been reduced to being an unwilling captive in a prison cell, and now was in better, but not perfect, conditions as a hidden escapee from the authorities.

  Mata rose from the bed and came over to Silas, then rested her arms on his shoulders as she stood close. “I didn’t mean to violate your trust,” she told him.

  They stood looking at each other, then Silas placed his hands on Mata’s hips, and let them slide around to the small of her back, pulling her even closer.

  A second later, they began to kiss, their lips touching, the rain dampness upon his face transferring to hers.

  The knife on Silas’s belt vibrated.

  The kiss did not feel right. Silas hadn’t had much experience with kissing girls, but he knew he should feel exuberance or thrills or pleasure or at least comfort.

  His kiss with Mata tasted good; she tasted pleasantly salty, or perhaps minty, or maybe both, he couldn’t decide on a word that described the flavor. But there was nothing else – no emotional flood or release. It was only a physical action.

  He looked at her, and saw that she seemed just as unimpressed as he was.

  “I thought it would be more special than that,” Mata said softly. She averted her eyes, casting them down, as her hands slipped off his shoulders, while his own arms slipped ever so gently away from the embrace they had held.

  “We’re still friends, aren’t we?” Silas asked uncertainly.

  “I don’t see why not,” Mata turned away from Silas for a moment, then turned back with a smile.

  “I expect we’re still friends; we just had to check to make sure nothing like love would get in the way, that’s all,” she declared.

  “Phew, I’m glad that’s settled,” Silas stripped off his wet shirt, turning away from Mata to hang it on a hook to dry. “Okay friend, what do we do now?”

  “Those stripes are so fascinating,” Mata said. “I think I take your eyes for granted now, but those stripes still are eye-catching.

  “And speaking of eye-catching, why don’t you see if Jade can tell you on the mirror what time she’ll be here? And ask her to bring some clothes for me; I don’t know why I haven’t asked before,” Mata was suddenly conscious of, and uncomfortable in, her minimal wardrobe.

  “You can go ahead and try to reach her in the mirror,” Silas offered, with a nod of his head. He couldn’t be mad at her for using the mirror after all.

  Minutes later, Mata reported that Jade, the princess, and Gwen were all on their way, and bringing clothing with them, a vast expansion of her wardrobe.

  “So, I can put on a fashion show for you!” she grinned as she slid the mirror away. “You can give them a few minutes before you go down to lead them up here; they’ll walk slower in the rain, with trying to dodge puddles and all.”

  Silas wrung his shirt slightly drier, then pulled it back on after waiting and thinking about the ineffectual kiss. It didn’t seem like a failure, or an embarrassment, or an impediment to his friendship with Mata. It almost seemed like the right thing to do, to try and then simply accept the outcome.

  He said good bye, then slowly descended the stairwell, and finally went outside into the darkness to guide the guests back up.

  He stood against the wall of the warehouse, seeking whatever minimal protection it provided from the rain, his eyes trained on the roadway that led from the palace to the harbor. He soon saw the three women, huddled together as they cautiously trod among the slippery granite paving stones of the road surface.

  As he watched, his extraordinary night vision saw that four other people were walking down the road
not far behind the women, and he saw two more people emerge from the alleys and also head towards his position.

  It looked like an ambush. It seemed impossible that it would be coincidental that nine people could suddenly come together at the same time in the same place amidst the deserted streets near the empty harbor.

  Silas let his hand fall to the hilt of his knife, and he held it at the ready, waiting to see trouble start, and trying to anticipate which way it would come from.

  “Silas, is that you?” Jade’s voice called through the rain, as the girl’s ordinary eyesight barely spotted his figure waiting in the rainy dimness.

  “I’m here,” he took a step forward. He put his hand on his knife as he approached his meeting with the visitors, sure that some trouble was at hand.

  “Jade,” he began to warn of the men around them as he stepped within easy earshot of the women, but his warning was interrupted.

  “All of you turn over all your money and all your valuables,” a voice came out of the darkness behind Silas.

  The man who spoke was just a few yards behind Silas, while the rest of the approaching circle of assailants were further still, virtually unseen yet by the others, whose eyesight in the dark rain was limited.

  “Gwen, it’s a trap,” Silas warned.

  “What are you talking about?” the guard replied dismissively. “He’s one man. I’ll take care of this; he doesn’t know what he ran into,” she hissed dismissively, then charged past Silas, drawing her sword in the process.

  “Jade, princess, run to the left,” Silas urged, noting where the largest gap in the encirclement was, and hoping he could lead the pair to safety. He reached out and grabbed Jade’s arm with his free hand to lead her to safety.

  “Follow us, princess,” he urged.

  “Silas, what are you doing?” Jade resisted his efforts.

  “Get away, scum,” Gwen’s voice threatened the robber who had spoken.

  Jade’s delay allowed the other robbers to step closer, and the gap that Silas eyed seemed to grow perilously small.

  “Who’s that?” Gwen’s voice called. Silas turned and saw that a pair of other assailants were enveloping Gwen, while he and the other two women were finding themselves growing endangered.

  “Come over here,” Silas pulled Jade towards Gwen. It was better to stay together and fight as a single group, he concluded.

  “Who are those people?” the princess asked, more alert to the danger as the circumstances changed and the other men around them became visible.

  Silas saw a man approaching Gwen’s back, and he threw his knife.

  The man shrieked, then fell to the ground with the knife sticking from his back.

  “Silas! What did you do?” Jade shouted in dismay.

  A moment later, Silas released his grip on her and stepped over to the dead man, pulling his knife free from the body, and confiscating a sword from the man as well. He turned and saw that another of the robbers was close to the princess; without hesitation he flung his knife again, and cringed for a moment as he saw the twirling blade flip over the princess’s shoulder before striking the closest of her assailants in the neck.

  He turned and slashed his confiscated sword, striking another man’s blade as the man lunged at Jade.

  “Kill them all; we’ll get our share later,” one of the robbers shouted over the continuing sound of the rain striking the cobblestones.

  “You’ll die first!” Gwen bellowed a challenge, and the sound of her sword striking another rang to emphasize her point.

  Silas used all the moves and tricks that Ruten had taught him with the sword, turning and dodging and moving about, trying to protect the two women who were unarmed, while also wanting to retrieve his knife.

  “Come with me again!” he grabbed and tugged Jade with one hand, as he circled around the frightened princess, so that he could retrieve his knife once more.

  “Can you use a sword?” he asked Jade.

  “No,” she answered, as he parried a sword attack with his knife.

  “I can,” the princess said confidently.

  “Here, take this,” he handed over the sword he held, and then used the magical qualities of his knife to allow him to charge into a trio of men, twisting, dancing, evading, and fighting with confidence, relying on his knife’s superb ability.

  And then he relied too much. As he faced the last two of the trio, he attacked one, but felt the sword of the other slice across his back. He flipped the knife backward, causing his attacker to scream. Both the man and Silas fell to the ground simultaneously, one dead and the other injured.

  The sound of the rain striking the pavement seemed to grow in intensity.

  “Silas!” Jade screamed his name loudly, as he fell forward from his knees to the puddling water on the ground.

  He heard nothing but the sound of the rain striking the pavement, then he felt hands on his face.

  “He’s hurt!” Jade’s voice cried.

  “He’s lucky to be alive, fighting like that,” the princess’s voice replied.

  “What’s happening? The rest have run away if they’re not dead,” Gwen’s voice was above him.

  The women lifted him carefully to his feet as he gasped in pain, then he haltingly gave directions as they propped him up and took him inside the warehouse, out of the rain.

  “I suppose you expect me to carry him up the stairs,” Gwen said grumpily, though she made no further complaint as she lifted him onto her back and slowly trudged up the dark flights to reach the correct floor.

  “What took you so long? Oh goodness! Silas?!” Mata’s annoyance at the long delay changed to alarm as she saw his bedraggled body carried into the room. She leapt to her feet and directed placing him on the bed, then she and Jade undressed him as he moaned from the painful wound.

  “he went to fight three swordsmen using just a knife!” the princess exclaimed to Mata as the examined his wound.

  “It’s a deep cut, Silas,” Jade told him. “What do we do?”

  Silas thought about the medicines he had used to treat Mata’s injuries when he had brought her back from the prison, the mixtures he had put together thanks to Dianu’s tutelage. He was about to tell the women to look on the table for the remainder of the treatments, when he remembered the cuts he had received on his chests, the mysterious, self-healing wounds that had cured within a matter of moments, leaving only yellow and purple streaks on his body.

  “Just wait. Don’t do anything,” he said through gritted teeth. If there was to be self-healing, he hoped it was going to happen soon, to release him from the pain he felt.

  And then there was a spark, as if a finger had poked the lower end of the cut.

  “Oh goodness!” Princess Lumene exclaimed.

  Silas felt an end of pain at that lower point, which suddenly turned into a moving, cool relief from the agony, rolling up his back.

  Jade shrieked.

  And then it all was over. The pain was ended, and the women were silent. Silas groaned in relief at the absence of pain, then rolled partially over to look at the women.

  They all stood with wide eyes, staring at him. Mata and the princess had faces that were extremely pale, while Jade’s face was red. Gwen stood with her knife drawn.

  “What are you?” she growled.

  Silas breathed deeply. “I’m just a boy; I was trapped in a cave with gasses and fumes that did strange things,” he began.

  There was a thumping noise at the window, making everyone jump in surprise, and then Silas’s knife came flying in through a narrow opening, and landed in his hand.

  “Strang things like this,” Silas held up the knife, while the others backed away.

  “And the mirrors, and the eyes, and the way my body heals. It’s a yellow and purple scar back here, isn’t it?” he bent his arm and patted his back.

  Mata nodded her head silently.

  “He’s good. He’s not a monster,” she said.

  “He saved our lives just now,” J
ade pointed out.

  “He has been faithful, and honorable, hasn’t he?” Princess Lumene asked Mata, looking over at the girl, who blushed.

  “We both have,” she agreed.

  “Then Gwen shall put away her weapon, and we all will sit down to discuss this evening,” Lumene said.

  “Someone knew you were coming,” Silas spoke up. “There must have been ten men in that attack,” he pointed out.

  “There were some guards, some maids, a few folks who could have figured out you were leaving, or followed you,” Gwen pointed out. “A princess cannot stay anonymous for long.”

  “You can’t come see me anymore if it’s not safe,” Mata insisted.

  “Here,” Lumene reached into her robe and pulled a small bag from a pocket within. “Here’s the money to allow you to buy passage on a ship. There’s enough for two to travel,” she looked at Silas.

  “I’ll go with her,” he nodded.

  “You take him!” Jade exclaimed to her sister. “You should have seen him fight in the street!”

  “And I’m wearing three layers of clothes for you; I think the last layer may still be dry. Is there someplace I can take these off?” she pulled her own shawl free from her body, looking around uncertainly, without looking at Silas.

  “I can step out into the hall,” he offered, and did so.

  “Come back in,” Mata’s voice floated out through the open door a few minutes later, as she opened it to allow a portion of the dim light of the apartment space to spread out into the hallway. Silas returned, to find Mata wearing a robe of light material for the first time since her rescue, while other clothes lay on the bed, and Jade was adjusting the clothing she had put back on herself.

  “We can’t come back here again,” Gwen said matter-of-factly. “And we need to get back to the palace soon. It’s time to say our goodbyes.”

  “Mata, I’m going to miss you, but I’m so glad you’re going to live a free life. I know I’ll see you again someday,” Jade embraced her sister in a tight, prolonged, tearful hug.