The Pearl Saga - Mistress of the Pearl Part 68

"Perhaps it is not my place to say, First Mother." Konara Ingress' head was down, her eyes averted.

"But while he was recovering the Nawatir said some things."

"What things?"

"About the disagreement you had before you left."

"You are right," Giyan said coldly. "It is not your place to say. Now go and-"

"But I must say it," Konara Inggres blurted out. "He resents your keeping secrets, is hurt when you push him away. It makes him think that you do not love him anymore." Her eyes flicked up for just an instant.

"Go fetch him," Giyan said in a half-strangled voice.

Watching Konara Inggres as she bent over the Nawatir to whisper in his ear, she wondered how far things between them had progressed. Had they spoken into each other's eyes, had their lips met? Had their bodies twined in carnal l.u.s.t? That Konara Inggres loved the Nawatir she had no doubt. The question was how did the Nawatir feel. Despite his blowup, she knew what she and the Nawatir had together. How could that be torn asunder in the s.p.a.ce of a few weeks? And yet, the vision haunted her,undermining her faith.

"Nawatir," she said as he came up to her, "how are your wounds?"

"Never mind my wounds," he said. "Inggres tells me you are feeling poorly."

Inggres, is it? she thought. "Let us go into the garden. I am in need of some fresh air."

Beneath the cold clear stars they sat on a carved stone bench. The treetops rustled. The black bulk of the Djenn Marre loomed in the background. They were utterly alone.

He has to tell me. I will not ask him. But the moment she thought this she knew she had committed the sin of pride, and was ashamed.

She took his hand in hers, steeled herself. "What happened while I was gone?"

For a long time, it seemed, he said nothing, and Giyan felt herself to be in an agony of suspension and lost longing. What would she do if he loved another?

"It began," he said at last, "when you refused to share your burdens with me."

"Nawatir, please. There are reasons-"

"I know the reasons. Inggres explained them to me."

"She did?"

He nodded.

"And what of Inggres?"

"She is a great leader, a stalwart Ramahan, an exemplar of the faith."

"What else is she?"

"Giyan, she is true to you, to Miina. Sometimes I think she possesses more faith than the two of us combined. She will not allow anything to sway her from her chosen path."

"Even you."

There was a small silence. What Giyan had really wanted to ask was: Has anything happened? But of what use would the answer be to her? And then she realized that in his own way he had already provided the answer, and her heart melted.

"Giyan, I beg you to forget this. If she knew what we exchanged here, it would crush her. She lives to serve Miina, and you."

"I will say nothing, do nothing to jeopardize our confidence."

He brought her hands to his lips. "Thank you." Gazing into her eyes. "Giyan, I will ask you one question, and that will be the end of it, all right?"

She nodded, swallowing hard.

"Do you love me?"

At once, her eyes filled with tears, and she threw her arms around him. "Oh, Rekkk, I love you most fiercely." Her eyes closed as she felt his warmth envelop her.

"It's all right then," he whispered, pulled her closer. "Everything is all right."

Krystren, the stout boards of her brother's s.h.i.+p beneath her boot soles, was thinking of Courion. She went around the captain's fan-shaped cabin-Courion's cabin-touching the runes carved into the wooden walls, the metal surfaces, the etched windows. She held in her warm palm small objects Courion had collected-bright sh.e.l.ls, a tiny preserved coral crab, a bronze sculpture of a paiha-the mythic gold-and-black bird of prey with healing powers-a pair of lapis warrnixx dice, a tiger-eye sphere incised with runes-feeling their weight and their heft, the smoothness or roughness of their surfaces, wondering what lay beneath. She smelled her brother's spices, the sharp aroma of onaga wax. Staring at the dragonfish in its spherical tank, she poured herself a tumbler of Sarakkonian brandy, drank deeply of it, wondering if Courion had drunk from that very tumbler. Skirting the bunk, over which spread the lacquered wings of a monstrous searay, she pa.s.sed before a mirror and paused as if suspended in the moment.

She stared at the face reflected there, searching each feature as if the image were of someone she had heard about but never actually seen. Whose sea-green eyes were those, whose thick hair? She downedthe rest of her brandy and went up on deck.

The sky was enormous, a pellucid cerulean. Grey-and-white seabirds dipped between the masts, called raucously to each other, keeping a keen eye out for dumped offal. Clouds building on the southern horizon felt to her like harbingers of home. Though, surprisingly, she had made friends-good friends and true-on the northern continent, still she was anxious to see the port of Celiocco.

The Sintire plot to gain power had been thwarted, but what worried her was her own a.s.signment.

Why had she been sent to deliver an infinity-blade wand to Courion? Was it as benign an a.s.signment as helping him defend himself against the Sintire incursion, a way to even the odds? Or was there a more sinister purpose?

The breadth of the sea had provided the s.p.a.ce to think about recent events in a clearer light, and what she saw disturbed her deeply. What if the infinity-blade wand was the beginning of Onnda's own push to gain the secrets hidden in Za Hara-at? Would Courion have been a party to such aggression? She hoped not, but she had to admit to herself that she could not be certain. How well had she known her own brother? About as well, she surmised, as he had known her. Which was to say not well at all.

Every aspect of her journey had opened her eyes to the world around her, which was full of wonders beyond the imagining of the Krystren who had set sail from Celiocco in search of her brother. The most astonis.h.i.+ng thing of all was that during the journey she had discovered not only friends, but herself. She had become someone whom she doubted even Courion would recognize.

The wind was up, the sails snapping. They were making good headway. She turned her gaze back into their wake, to the smudge on the horizon, low and long, all that remained of the northern continent.

Whatever Onnda's plans, she knew she had been changed by this mission, by her contact with Giyan, Riane, and Eleana. It had been unexpectedly difficult to leave them. When Giyan had asked her to stay she had almost said yes. And when she had asked Riane whether, perchance, she had come across Courion in the Underworld, Riane had been so kind. The cube of worn red jade rolled across her fingertips, from Orujo to Courion to her. With the merest flick of her wrist she sent the cube flying over the taffrail into the oncoming waves, where it vanished without a ripple or a wake. Time to acknowledge that Courion would, unlike Orujo, never return.

She tilted her face into the sun, made a sound the wind took away. Already, she missed her newfound friends. What a curious and marvelous sensation! She knew she could never be a part of something that might hurt them. They had awakened emotions in her she thought long dead, feelings she was unwilling to give up even for her discipline. She never thought she would have friends, never thought she was capable of having them. If Onnda was, indeed, plotting its own way into Za Hara-at, planning to kill and to steal, she knew she would have to find a way to stop it.

From beneath her leather jerkin she withdrew Varda's crystal dagger. Running her fingertips over it, she thought of Bryn and of Minnum, and for a moment, at least, they were alive again, fiery as the sun in her mind. Was that a tear in her eye? Presently the calls of the crew drew her back to the world.

The comforting roll and pitch of the Omaline, the great expanse of aquamarine swells, the rigging singing in the wind all came to her, and she turned her face to the south. It was still a long way off, but if she breathed deeply she thought she could already smell the heady scents of home.

I have a place inside my head where I put the things I want to remem-Iber," Riane said. "You taught me how to do that, didn't you?"

Asir smiled. "In fact, no. You inherited that gift from me."

Amitra put her arm around Riane's shoulders. "But we gave you the tools to use that gift."

"The palace of memory."

Her parents nodded in concert. "We showed you how to construct it."

On the broad back of Seelin, her beloved Dragon, in the midst of a howling ice storm, she had arrived at the Abbey of Summit Window. With her, she brought the two infinity-blades Asir's agents had found and lost to the Sarakkon. One she had taken from Lujon, the other Krystren had willingly given her. Inher mouth, Seelin carried the nine banestones safe and secure in their seawater-filled container.

Asir, Amitra, and Thigpen had greeted her with tears and great hugs. Her parents accepted the bounty she brought with both delight and a grave sense of responsibility. They all spent some time with Seelin, finding her fascinating but reticent, save with Riane.

"This is an enormous victory," Asir had said.

"More even than we could have hoped for," Amitra had said.

"I knew you could do it." Thigpen bounded into her arms, nuzzling her with her black-and-red muzzle while Seelin's breath fulminated. The Dragon was polite but eager to be reunited with her brothers and sisters.

Now they were seated at a table, eating a hearty meal of polar-seal stew and hot spiced mead. They used wedges of a flat, unleavened bread to sop up the gravy and smaller bits of savory meat while Riane held them spellbound as she told her fabulous tale.

Afterwards, because it weighed even more heavily on her mind now that Seelin was safe and the banestones recovered, she had turned the subject to memory. "Still, after all that has happened, I find myself wondering whether it is all there, whether I will ever have access to my own memories." Riane shook her head. "There are so many rooms inside the palace closed off to me, locked with the word Oblivion."

"There is certainly enough empirical evidence that severe trauma can have that effect on minds such as ours," Amitra said.

"Is there no hope, then?"

"Of course there is hope." Asir rose. "Do you feel up to trying?"

She nodded, and they left the table.

She allowed him to lead her into the densely forested area. Past the tinkling waterfall there was nothing save a pearly mist billowing. Immersed in it, she quickly lost touch with direction or any sense of where she was.

Taking her hand, he said gently, "This is your home."

"I know that."

He stopped their progress through the mist. "You know it intellectually, I have no doubt of that. But do you feel it, here?" He touched her heart.

Home. How could one solitary word create such a wellspring of emotion? Home. How long had she been searching for this place in her mind? Now she was home. She was compelled to say it.

"Home."

"Yes, Riane," Asir said. "Now face into the mist and feel that you are home."

She turned her face into the billows of mist, but there was nothing to see. For a moment, she grew afraid-of the future, of the past, both unknown. And the present, so perilous and uncertain. For that moment, she felt like a s.h.i.+p fogbound, unable to read the sun or the stars. Lost at sea.

Then a wind came up. She felt Asir at her back, felt her mother's love, and the unsettling feeling pa.s.sed. She heard her father's words and felt herself home. Felt hard, felt with all her might.

And gradually the mist parted or, then again, perhaps something was emerging from its depths. In any case, its symmetrical outline grew clearer with every moment as her unconscious mind conjured up her memory palace.

Amitra could scarcely contain herself. "Oh, darling!" And put her arms around her daughter. Hugged her tightly to her. "You see, Asir, there it is! Perfect! Intact! There is nothing wrong with her."

"This is what saved you." Asir stood by her side, huge, imposing, oh so comforting. "Whatever happened to you, Riane, over the past two years, whatever ill fortune may have befallen you, you are here now, the core of you, because of this, of what we taught you, what you yourself created."

"Here is where you reside," Amitra said, as they began to walk toward the memory palace. "To whatever faraway climes your destiny may lead you, home is always with you."

Riane reached out, opened the gate, brought her parents into her sacred precincts as she must have done many time before, because it was they who had taught her how to build it stone by stone, for it existed not only in her mind but also in one of the billions of interstices that lay between worlds. Her ownmind acted as the portal for her, and for those she wished to bring there.

On the edge of this unknown, she felt compelled to ask them the question that had been in her mind ever since they had shown her their great underground engines.

"It was you who had the technology," she said. "It was you who had the power."

"Yes, of course, we could have fought the Ramahan." Asir and Amitra once again exchanged glances.

"But that only would have proved their point, that we did not believe, that we were, therefore, anathema to Miina. The bulk of Kundalan society would have turned against us. No, far better to leave. Despite what the Ramahan think, we believe in Her, in the Prophecy of The Pearl and the Dar Sala-at. We would not interfere with Her design."

"What design?" Riane fairly shouted. "There is no Pearl!"

"How would you know that?" Amitra said.

"Dear Miina," Asir whispered. "She has spoken to the Hagoshrin."

Amitra stared at Riane. "You were inside the Storehouse."

"The Pearl was a bauble confected by Miina." It was astonis.h.i.+ng how profoundly she was offended by the thought, how full of rage she was again at being so duped. She hated Miina, if the G.o.ddess actually existed or ever had existed, could not comprehend such cruelty. "The vaunted Prophecy in which millions of Kundalan believe, which was their only hope, is false."

"You are only half-right," Asir said. "It is true that The Pearl the Hagoshrin showed you was nothing more than a bauble, but as for the Prophecy of the Dar Sala-at and The Pearl, that is as true as it ever was."

"How?" Riane shook her head. "The Hagoshrin cannot lie."

"Indeed. But the Hagoshrin can be deceived by Miina. However, I see the doubt in your face." Asir held out his right hand, palm up. "Behold."

A coruscating light formed just above his palm. It spun, throwing off jeweled pinpoints of light. And when it slowed and eventually stopped Riane could see that it was identical to The Pearl that had come from the Hagoshrin's navel. He held it out to her, and she took it, discovered that it was, indeed, the same bauble.

She looked at Asir. "You made The Pearl?"

Asir laughed. "Oh, I am not that ancient, Riane. My great-greatgrandfather. Your great-great-great-grandfather manufactured it to Miina's specifications."

"Then the Great G.o.ddess exists."

"Oh, yes. Indeed, She does."

"I hate Her," Riane said.

"You do not know Her," Amitra began, but Asir stopped her.

"This was prophesied," he said. " The Dar Sala-at will at first see only needless cruelty in the death and suffering that has preceded her."

"Oh, my dear!" Amitra gathered Riane to her, enfolded her in her arms.

Riane's face was pressed into the side of her mother's neck. She inhaled the scent of her skin, her hair and felt intoxicated by the familiarity. That peculiar warmth had stolen over her again, and she reached around, hugged her mother as tight as she could. She never wanted to let go.

"It has all happened for a reason." Asir standing, looking at them. "The decision to climb Snake Face instead of trekking the long way through the coll. The friable ice, the sudden thaw. You being taken away from us by the avalanche and now returned. In each and every one of these things I see Miina's hand. It was meant to be. It could not have happened otherwise. It was part of the process of creating the Dar Sala-at."

Riane, her eyes tightly shut against the tears, wanted to believe him, but she couldn't. She opened her eyes, looked at him. "What about The Pearl? It's a fake, a conjuror's trick. It doesn't exist."

"This, yes." Asir snapped his fingers, and The Pearl vanished. "A conjuror's trick, as you say. But let me ask you something. Do you think Miina foolish enough to create something of such power and scope as The Pearl, then let everyone know where it is?"