The Pearl Diver

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “Shall we take him home?” she asked her companions, who quickly joined her in circling around Silas – before he could protest about the honesty of his story – and whisked him back into the dark nothingness of the sprites’ travel.

  Chapter 25

  When Silas and his companions returned to the platform above the city, they found that both the platform and the sky above were empty. The first thing Silas noticed however was that the unsecured piece of the platform that he had maintained in place had buckled significantly in his absence.

  The second thing he noticed was a reedy cheer that rose from the ground. Only a smattering of the earlier crowd remained in place around the city center, but those that remained cheered at the sight of the return of he and the quartet of sprites.

  “We must return to our homes now, sprite-friend, but we thank you for your hospitality. We’ll be back in one hundred years; will we see you again then?” Dewberry asked.

  Silas grinned, though a part of him wondered if the question was meant to be taken seriously.

  “Oh sprite-friend Silas!” Dewberry laughed a light and bell-like laugh. “You look so serious!

  “Do not fear, it will not be one hundred years. I will come visit you someday to laugh with you and admire your eyes and perhaps even invite you to travel with us back to the spring water of great dreams!”

  “I would like that,” Silas said politely, and then he bowed to the princess, not sure what protocol called for.

  “How will you find me?” he asked after he was upright once more.

  “I will visit your queen and ask where her handsome young dancing master is,” Dewberry explained.

  “But I am not likely to be her much longer,” Silas announced. “As your god told you, he had to try to trick me to keep me here long enough to build the platform.”

  “The platform that you did not build very well,” Odare uttered the comment in a low voice, with a significant nod of her head in the direction of the creased portion of the platform.

  “Let me see your hand,” Dewberry said authoritatively.

  Silas held his hand out in front of him and the sprite floated in close, then took it in her hands for a moment of tender examination, her fingers gently tracing the creases across his palm.

  And then she bit it, hard enough to draw blood.

  “Ow!” Silas jerked his hand free. “Why did you do that?”

  Dewberry poked her finger onto her lips and left a small smear of Silas’s blood, then started to press the tip of the finger at Silas, who craned his neck backwards.

  “Stop! Stop being a baby,” Dewberry ordered, then jabbed the finger at Silas’s mouth. He felt a twinge of a spark as she made contact, then pulled her hand away.

  “There; now I’ll be able to call you, and you’ll be able to hear my voice and answer. When that happens, we’ll be able to find each other,” Dewberry explained. “But you have to answer, or it won’t work.”

  Silas shook his wounded hand.

  “Oh, stop being a baby! Just put a splash of the healing spring water on it and you’ll be fine,” Inseat mercilessly instructed. “I’m going home now, my princess,” she advised, and then was gone.

  Moments later, the rest of the squad was also gone, and Silas stood alone in the wind that swept across the platform, his damp robes giving him a chill. He walked close to the edge and looked down at the street level below, then walked over to the creased piece of the platform. Workers would be able to fix it all after he was gone, if the platform even remained in place. Its purpose was over, and he’d never asked what would come next.

  He walked next to the windows of the center tower, and decided to climb inside, then descend the building on one of the platforms as everyone else in the city did. He’d used his energy enough for the day.

  And then, after one stop, he’d return to his apartment and see Mata and they could enjoy each other’s company.

  But he would make the one stop first. He’d go to a temple, and he’d ask whichever deity it was devoted to to explain the conversation Kai had with the elvish goddess at the spring. The words had concerned him in particular, and he didn’t understand what the two goddesses had said about him. They had spoken of L’Anvien, and something the evil spirit had done to Silas, it seemed. It was confusing, and worrying, and something he wanted to understand better than Kai’s explanation had allowed.

  He pulled the window sash upwards, then stepped over the sill and into the room, the same room Queen Preeanne had used to reach the platform.

  And the queen was another nagging mystery. He either knew her, or she remined him of someone familiar, but he couldn’t remember who.

  Silas surprised a guard in the hallway of the building when he opened the door and stepped out. Silas gave a friendly salute and passed by the man, who waited until Silas was several steps down the hall, then peered inside the room, seeking to understand where the boy had come from.

  He walked down a few floors of stairs to the level where an open lobby held the people waiting for the flying platform to come and carry them downward to the ground. Silas quietly took a stool and sat facing the wall, keeping his eyes averted from any others in the lobby, while he allowed his astonishing memories of the afternoon to replay and he ruminated on the things he had seen.

  He had seen another god, another deity, and one who was an elf as well! He didn’t think either of his parents or anyone from the village of Brigamme had ever even heard the voice of a god, and now he had seen and spoken with three, as well as apparently been manipulated by a fourth. Depending on whether the evil entity L’Anvien was a god, perhaps he even had some exchange with a fifth.

  Gods! His world was one that interacted with gods. He wished there was someone he could talk to, someone he looked up to, someone who could explain what it all meant, how he should react, what his future held if he was facing the tasks assigned to him by divine powers. Ruten would have offered some pithy advice, if Silas was still with the caravan, but the wagons were far away, and his role in life seemed quite different.

  There was a subdued banging at the end of the lobby as the platform arrived and gates were opened. The calm and quiet of the lobby disappeared as arriving passengers disembarked, and the waiting passengers lined up to begin their descent. Minutes later, Silas was on the ground; he looked over at the Mover who sat in the elevated chair and was watching over the loading dock, then he left the city center and strolled towards his apartment and his opportunity to see Mata once again.

  Until he passed a temple of Krusima by happenstance and stepped inside. He wanted to ask his questions.

  A priest approached him as Silas stood in the lobby and momentarily adjusted to the dim light of the building interior, but his unique eyes made the transition quickly, and he moved on into the sanctuary before the priest could reach him. Silas stopped and looked at the large stone statue of the god that the temple held – it portrayed a male figure holding a pickaxe and a shovel, sure representations of the god of the earth, whether it was factual or not, Silas reflected. He’d not ever seen Krusima to know the god’s appearance, unlike the unforgettable Kai, whose dazzling beauty was seared in the boy’s memory.

  “What were they talking about, my lord?” Silas was barely on his knees a moment later before he submitted his first question to the god of the temple. “What did Kere and the lovely Kai mean about L’Anvien doing something to me in my mother’s womb, and you picking me as champion?” Silas recollected Krusima making some vague comments about Silas having a grand future role, but the comments of the goddesses had seemed more matter-of-fact regarding the prospect of Silas facing the hostile evil being in combat. It was a disconcerting prospect.

  “Kai has communicated the conversation, and your conversion, as Kere termed it,” Krusima’s voice instantly echoed inside Silas’s skull. “I’ve studied you, and see what she means. It was a timely and meaningful chance that you happened to go to Kere’s spring and experience the healing. It foretells that fat
e is on our side.

  “Isn’t that a coincidence?” the god added. “Fate – Kere is Fate.”

  “But what does it all mean? What healing? I wasn’t ill before,” Silas protested.

  “No, not ill, but not able to reach your potential,” Krusima answered. “Your core, the identity that you were born with, and that shapes you, had been altered, in very small ways, ways that interfered with the potential you could reach. It was an impressive and terribly intrusive act by someone to prevent you from being all that you might have been,” the god’s voice explained. “But you must not focus on that. The healing spring has unraveled the knots that tied you down.”

  “What kind of potential was blocked?” Silas asked, a sinking feeling telling him the answer in a burst of intuition. “The potential to be a Tracker?” he asked.

  “Yes, that is something that I observed,” the god affirmed.

  “This L’Anvien is the reason that I never developed my Tracker skills?” Silas asked the question in even blunter terms.

  “Yes,” Krusima repeated.

  “But,” Silas struggled to draw his incoherent thoughts together. His mind was whirling, thinking of his parents, and the village, the mineral springs, and his friends, and again of the masked disappointment of his parents. Then he thought of the exile to Heathrin and the training to be a Speaker, and the failure there, followed by all that had happened.

  “If the evil one had not touched me, I would have become a Tracker, and I would have been satisfied with that. It’s all I ever wanted,” Silas thought aloud as the racing concepts in his mind slowly coalesced. “I would never had gone to Heathrin; I never would have joined the caravan; I never would have fallen into the cave and gained Speaker power and Mover powers and night vision and a magical knife.

  “In a twisted way, I’m stronger than I ever would have been if he had left me alone,” Silas found the conclusion racing up to slap him in the face.

  “It is a most peculiar twist of fate, isn’t it?” Krusima agreed. “And you must make sure that you do not waste all that has been done for you. You are the crucial weapon that can contribute so much to the fight against L’Anvien.”

  “I will!” Silas cried aloud. “I’ll fight his evil!”

  He heard shuffling steps on the floor, perhaps someone disturbed by his outburst in the quiet temple.

  “Your time is approaching, and you will be able to fight, in ways large and small, sooner and later, when you expect to and when you don’t,” the god told him. “But first you must learn to control your abilities, and your passions. Learn to be poised and thoughtful in what you do.

  “Now go back to your young lover. Your call to action is waiting for you,” the god spoke one last time, and then Silas could sense that he was gone.

  He knelt for a minute longer, waiting just in case there was some last instruction, while he let the turmoil within him settle down. Then he rose and left the temple, and returned to the Movers Guild hall.

  Mata was waiting on the balcony of their apartment and waved when she saw Silas enter the courtyard. Her wave was urgent, and there was no smile on her face.

  Silas hurried up the stairs, anxious to tell his tales of the day, and anxious to hear Mata’s own story.

  “Silas!” she rushed to him as soon as he opened the door and stepped into the room.

  “It’s okay; I’m back,” he told her. “Is everything okay here?”

  “It’s Jade!” the words popped out of her mouth in a rush. “I used the mirror while you were gone with the sprites – I didn’t know if you’d ever come back. I spoke with Jade. The invasion is real! Ivaric has seized control of the city and the palace! They’ve sent the prince of Ivaric, Jarvis, to rule the island. He’s trying to persuade the princess to marry him!” the girl was beside herself with emotion, and cried as she spilled out the terrible news.

  “Is Jade herself okay?” Silas asked. “Are you okay?”

  “She hasn’t been harmed yet,” Mata answered for her sister.

  “We have to leave immediately! You promised we’d go back and take care of her; now is the time. Your work here is done, isn’t it? There’s no reason to stay,” the girl in his arms was anxious to help her sister.

  “No,” Silas agreed softly, “there’s no reason to stay.”

  It was true, totally and absolutely. The mission to construct the platform for the sprites was done, as was the ceremony, for that matter. The infatuation spell of the sprites’ god was dissolved. Silas had received all the training he could accept for his telekinesis.

  And perhaps, he realized, the brokenness within him was the reason why he hadn’t been able to grasp the Mover energy readily and regularly. Perhaps the visit to the healing spring had fixed that within him as well. That would be another reason why they might be ready to leave Faralag. He could perhaps begin to apply all the lessons Cover had made him learn about the arts of the Movers.

  “And this note came for you,” Mata belated recollected a delivery. She broke from his grasp and picked up a thick, creamy-colored envelope on the table, then handed it to Silas.

  It was sealed with wax, and an imprint, Silas saw as he turned it in his hands. He broke the seal and opened the flap, then pulled out a card with a crown, a mountain, and green leaves all contained in a seal at the top of the paper.

  “Her Royal Highness, Preeanne, Queen of Faralag, and Protector of the Eastern Lands, summons you to the palace court at your earliest convenience,” the card read.

  Silas let the card slip through his fingers. “We won’t have time for that,” he shook his head.

  “You must!” Mata’s tears stopped as she knelt to pick up the card. She was aghast at the thought of ignoring the royal summons. “Just go in the morning, see what it is, say good bye, and then we can leave,” the girl described matter-of-factly.

  Silas shrugged his agreement.

  “What happened to you today?” Mata managed to turn her attention, and Silas proceeded to amaze her with his story. They talked and listened, went and ate dinner, and talked and listened more, until after dark as they discussed all the implications of Silas’s news, as well as Mata’s, and how the two might prove to interact. And then they went to bed, ready to wake up and start an entirely new chapter in their adventure together.