The Sapphiri

by R Gene Curtis

  Karl leaves the others and runs over to me. He takes the basket from me, gently, and puts the last dropped roots into it. Then he hefts it onto his shoulder and carries it the rest of the way to the cave. He talks to me, asks me how our journey went, and tells a similar story about Keeper.

  He follows me into the cave and assesses the supply of food we’ve acquired in their absence. “Wow, you’ve made some great progress here,” he says approvingly.

  I like that.

  And then he sees Somrusee.

  She runs up to him and falls right into his arms.

  And he pulls her close and kisses her on the cheek. He didn’t pull me close and kiss me like that.

  And then I feel stupid. The book, the talk with the silly castle girls. What was I thinking? I’m Karl’s friend, and even though it doesn’t feel like enough, that’s what I am.

  I walk away, embarrassed when I pass Tavi just outside the cave. I run then, tears making their way down my face.

  “What happ…” I hear her start to ask, but her voice trails off. She must have turned around and seen Somrusee and Karl. I keep going.

  I knew I shouldn’t have let their words affect me, but I believed, just for a minute, that Karl might be mine. That he might marry me instead of Somrusee. I even believed the stupid fairy tale about the magic water talking.

  I’m such an idiot.

  And now I’m going to find a quiet place to hide and cry like a fourteen-year-old girl.

  I’m pathetic. This isn’t even the first time I’ve cried over this guy. No wonder everything failed when I tried to be the queen. I find a bush and hide myself from the world.

  Hours pass. I stay hidden much longer than I should, and I’m sure they’re all wondering where I am. If I don’t go back soon, I won’t be able to help with dinner, and then I’ll really start to put people out. I gear up my courage and am about to stand up when I hear someone coming. I sink back into the bush and stay still. I don’t want anyone to find me here. Not now. I want to wash my face before I go back to camp.

  I can see them now. It’s Karl. He’s with Somrusee, who holds his hand possessively.

  She owns him. She said something to him that I can’t hear.

  He laughs.

  And then they stop. Right next to me.

  I don’t need copper to hear what they’re saying.

  “Karu,” Somrusee says. “I love you. It happened that day you saved my life. It happened again when you brought me with you here. I think about you. I want to be the one to be there when you get home each night. You must know that this is the desire of my heart, yet I feel like you distance yourself from me.”

  She leans her head back. The look in her eyes. I can’t see Karl, but I know what that look means. He’s going to kiss her. I can see it already. He’s going to make out with her, and then he’ll drop to one knee and propose. And somehow, I’m trapped here for this moment. I close my eyes. Maybe I can fall asleep.

  Not likely.

  Karl doesn’t kiss her. And he doesn’t propose. Instead he shifts awkwardly on his feet.

  “Somrusee, I’ve been thinking a lot about us,” he says. “You’re my friend. My really good friend. I wouldn’t trade the memories we have together for anything. And I would do just about anything for you. But, I’ve decided I can’t marry you. It’s nothing you’ve done. It’s all my fault. Maybe someday it could be possible, but not now, and I don’t want to string you along.”

  Somrusee nods and looks at the ground. “I will never stop loving you Karu,” she says. “Know I will be here when you need me.”

  “Please, move on,” he says. “That would be better for everyone.”

  But she shakes her head. “I know how you feel, Karu. I know why you feel that way. And I know how I feel.”

  Slowly she walks away.

  Karl stands silently, looking after her for a long time. I barely dare to breathe as the sun gets lower in the sky. He doesn’t move and neither do I.

  Finally, he leaves. I stay in the bushes for another ten minutes, and then I head back to camp.

  What did Somrusee mean when she told him that she knew how he felt?

  Karl isn’t with Somrusee. Po and Tavi think he’s mine. And he is my friend, and he spent all that time back at the castle looking after me. And there’s the look he gave me when he saw me this afternoon.

  When I get back to camp, I can barely look at Karl, and I avoid him all evening. I help with dinner, and I help with clean-up. I sit in the back when Karl tells the others about finding Keeper. Arujan destroyed it, too. The mountains are almost completely empty. I don’t make any comments or bring any attention to myself.

  Karl’s eyes find me as he talks. They find me when others talk. They invite me to respond; he wants me to contribute.

  I can’t. I don’t say anything.

  Later, we’ll put together a plan and we’ll figure out what to do next. But, I’m done for tonight; I’m going to sleep. I’m going away from Karl. I leave in the middle of the conversations and hide in the girls’ room. After a while, maybe an hour, Somrusee comes in and lies next to me. The fire dims and the light from the moon shines into the cave. Somrusee rolls over and our eyes meet in the white light. We’re both still awake.

  She reaches out and feels around until she finds my hand, which she squeezes and then holds. “I’m your friend,” she says.

  I squeeze back. “And I’m yours,” I say.

  19 Arujan

  Karl

  Lydia’s been acting strangely all morning. I’ve tried at least four times to get the group together to talk about our plan for going against Keeper, but each time she’s avoided me or the subject and nothing’s happened.

  Even last night when we got in, it was like she didn’t even care about the information we spent more than a week attempting to procure. She got up in the middle of our report and went to bed! Didn’t she wait for us for more than a week?

  Women. I’ve never understood them, and I probably never will. Not only is Lydia acting strangely, Somrusee is, too. I tried to break up with her last night, and she acted like it was just temporary. I was trying to do the right thing—it’s not fair to her for me to keep leading her on like I’ve done. But, it didn’t take. She still smiled at me this morning, sat next to me at breakfast, and even tried to take my hand.

  So strange. And Lydia won’t even talk to me.

  I find her behind the cave, washing dishes.

  “Lydia, we should really spend some time talking about what to do next.”

  Her eyes flit up to mine and then back down at her work. “I know.”

  What is she so uptight about? I stand next to her and look over her work. My hand comes up towards the small of her back, but it falls back to my side before it reaches her. “How many more dishes do you have to wash?”

  Her eyes stay focused on her work. She sets a plate on her drying rock and sighs. “Not many, but I’m out of water. I’ll have to go down to the stream.” She picks up her tub of water, tosses the remaining water onto a tree, and then turns to go.

  “Can it wait?” I ask.

  She doesn’t turn as she walks slowly down the trail towards the stream. “If I don’t finish this now, the food will get stuck on the plates and it will be a lot harder to remove. Without sinks and dishwashers, we need to make sure we wash everything right away.”

  I hurry to catch up to her and fall into stride next to her. “Where did we get plates anyway? We didn’t bring them from Sattah.”

  “From Watch,” she says simply.

  “How is Watch?” I heard a few details about Watch from the other women, but I want to hear what Lydia is thinking.

  “Burned down to the ground.”

  “Is that why you’ve been so grumpy lately?”

  Her head snaps up, and I finally see a little life in her eyes. “Who says I’ve been grumpy?”

  I smile. It’s nice to see her show a little emotion. “Me. You’ve been avoiding me ever since we got back.
I want to know how you are and what you’re thinking. How are you feeling about what happened in Watch? What are you hoping for moving forward? I can’t just touch you and know what you’re thinking.”

  She stops, and her eyes lock with mine. Confusion is how I would best describe the look in them. “Why would you care about any of that?” she asks, before beginning her descent down the trail again.

  “Isn’t it enough to say that I do?”

  “No. I don’t believe you.”

  I let out a long breath. “If I help with these last plates, can we have our talk about next steps?”

  She shrugs, but she lets me take the basin.

  I jog ahead and down to the stream.

  How do I manage to always say the wrong thing?

  * * *

  As soon as the plates are washed, Lydia calls everyone together. She starts talking as soon as everyone is seated, avoiding eye contact with me, though she looks at everyone else in turn.

  “OK. What do we know about Keeper?” she says, all business-like.

  “Arujan destroyed it,” I say. “We talked to some people outside town, and they said he’s killed or taken almost everyone who used to live in the mountains. Supposedly no one is left anywhere in the North, and you’ve verified that Watch is empty.”

  “How many people are in hiding?”

  We talked about this last night—I guess she wasn’t paying any attention. What would she have been thinking about?

  “Not many.” It’s Quint who responds. His job was to get an idea of the population size. “I think less than a hundred.”

  “The people who are left didn’t want to be under Arujan’s rule,” I say. “But apparently many followed him to Sattah, which is where the people think he is now.”

  Lydia nods. “I think things are different here than they were in Sattah.”

  “Yes,” I say. “The people don’t hate you the way the people in Sattah hated you. These mountain people have been waiting for an Azurean to deliver them for centuries, while the people in the valleys were oppressed by one.”

  Lydia thinks for a minute, and then she proposes that we join the refugees outside Keeper. That stirs up quite the debate, as Quint still is holding on to the hope that we’re returning to Sattah, and others feel like joining up with any group poses a potential risk to all our lives.

  After an hour discussing it, we’ve only agreed on one thing. We need to act sooner rather than later because we need a place to camp for the winter. But, other than that, we all have our own opinions.

  “Let’s take a break,” Quint finally suggests. “I think we’re getting tired and we’re not getting anywhere.”

  Lydia agrees, and we split up. Lydia decides to go for a run. A few of the men decide to hunt for food with Tavi and Po. Somrusee sticks around, and so does Quint and another of his men. I decide to take a nap—we pushed ourselves hard the past few days to get back here as soon as we could. And, I don’t want to be alone with Somrusee today.

  I wander into the cave and settle down onto the mat covering the hard floor. It was nice the women brought back so many supplies from Watch. Maybe those arguing to just stay here for the winter and leave Keeper alone are right. After all, we could do it.

  I lie down and sigh. I’m tired.

  Someone screams outside. I push myself up, but only silence follows. I start to let myself back down, but then decide against it and stand up. I walk to the mouth of the cave and then outside. As I cross the threshold, someone lands on top of me, apparently having jumped from the rock over the entrance. I stumble, and then I’m hit from the right and from the left. Men wrap thick cords around my wrists, and before I can cry out, someone secures a gag over my mouth.

  I don’t recognize any of the men, and they completely overwhelm me. I barely put up a struggle before I’m completely trapped. After I’m securely bound, two men pick me up. Everyone else at the cave has been captured as well. There are two men carrying each man, and one man carries Somrusee on his back.

  So much for us having escaped. These men must be Arujan’s. Of course, he would know about this cave and that we’ve been here before. I curse our stupidity. How could we have been so careless?

  They don’t carry us far before they stop near a meadow. They take each of us to different parts of the meadow and then tie us to the surrounding trees. After that, the men all scatter, though I don’t believe that they’ve left. Occasionally, I hear the snap of a branch or a rustle in the trees. They aren’t very good, though despite their lack of stealth, they’ve certainly trapped us. I struggle against my bands, but they’ve been effective tying us down.

  We’ve been thoroughly beaten. I bite the gag and struggle against the bands. My wrists hurt, and I feel like throwing up with all the cloth in my mouth. I stop biting it. Throwing up into the gag would surely make things worse.

  There’s nothing to do. We got caught by surprise and we’ve been beaten. But they don’t have Lydia yet. As long as Lydia is out there, we still have a chance.

  I’ve been tied up before, and I don’t like it any more this time. The hot sun beats down through the trees, and my wrists get sweaty underneath the rope. I pull against the rope, and I’m rewarded by scraping my back against the tree.

  I decide to scream—maybe Lydia will hear me. Most of the sound is muffled by the gag, but maybe some of it gets out. Maybe.

  When I can scream no more, I lean my head against the bark and try to catch my breath. I close my eyes, and when I open them I see a large, brown beetle climb off the tree and onto my forehead. I yell into the gag and try to shake it off, but it moves over my eyes and stops on the bridge of my nose. It sticks its little tongue out and tastes my nose. It doesn’t bite me, but it takes its time before it crawls across my cheek and then moves over to my neck and down my shirt.

  Once it’s in my shirt, I scrape my back against the tree and kill the thing. I feel its smashed body dripping down my sweaty back and wonder if it was better when it was alive.

  That’s when I feel another creature leave the tree and scuttle onto my ear.

  I close my eyes and try to think of an appropriate word to describe the situation. I can’t find one in either language.

  Where is Lydia?

  It’s another brown beetle, and he suffers the same fate as the first. I hope the beetle paste on my back isn’t toxic. It would be just my luck to get a rash or something from those stupid critters.

  After a few hours, the same men show up again, this time with the two sisters, Po and Tavi.

  Still no sign of Lydia. The men seem nervous, and that’s a good sign.

  I hope she’s more careful than we were. She’ll be able to save us or get away. The battle isn’t over until they have her.

  Three beetles later, Arujan shows up in the meadow. It’s not a consolation prize to see him and have my suspicions validated. There are times in life it would be nice to be wrong, and this would have been one of those times.

  Arujan looks around the meadow, and his face splits into a huge grin when he sees me. He waves to the other men and then runs across the meadow to come up to my tree.

  “Karu, I’m grateful you’re as big a fool as you have always been.” He laughs. “You managed to get yourself and all your friends captured in the perfect trap for the blue princess.”

  I bite the gag in my mouth, but I don’t give him the satisfaction of watching me squirm or yell. This is the calmest I have been all day. Arujan wouldn’t be here if Lydia wasn’t still on the loose. He hasn’t won yet, and we both know that.

  Arujan paces in front of me, his hands behind his back, his lackeys now visible throughout the grove, watching him, straining to get close enough to listen.

  “Let’s see, she went running, did she? Well, she’ll need to know something is wrong when she gets back. We wouldn’t want her to think that you’ve just all gone for a little walk, now would we?”

  Arujan takes out his knife and puts it up to my neck. I feel the cool metal against
my skin and close my eyes. It would be so easy for him to end my life like he has so many others.

  “You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for this moment. You’ve given me so much trouble over these past few months.” His nasal voice is uncomfortably high, his beady eyes about to pop from his head. He applies more pressure to the knife, and it slices into my skin, like a needle at a flu shot clinic. I feel the warm blood leave my neck. It tickles as it trickles down my front. Now I have blood in the front and beetle guts in the back.

  I meet Arujan’s eyes. I’ve faced death over and over since I arrived here, and maybe today is the day it will catch me. Does Arujan see terror? Or, does my face show the bravery I’m trying to feel?

  Arujan takes the knife away from my neck. “But I can’t kill you yet,” he says. “We need you around when the blue princess shows up. She needs to care about someone here.”

  He spins and walks to the tree next to mine. His arm pulls back, and then flashes forward with a fury that only comes from Arujan. The knife slices through the man tied to the tree. His name is Lyle. He doesn’t struggle, his arms don’t even strain against the ropes. Arujan twists the knife, and Lyle’s head falls. I strain against the ropes, and then fall back and force myself to look away.

  “Quickly,” Arujan shouts. “Take him to the cave entrance and leave his body there. Let his blood leave a trail, so the blue princess knows the way to us. And get back here as soon as you can. We’ll need every man in position by the time she arrives.”

  Two men step forward and move quickly to take Lyle away. He survived so much! The raid at the castle, the escape to the mountains, everything. Only to die here. I shake my head from the shock of it all. Unless Lydia can save us, we will all die like Lyle. I picture Arujan standing over me, thrusting his knife into my ribs like he did with Lyle. I shudder at the thought and look back at the monster.

  He’s glowering at the three women, tied up separately, away from the rest of us. I shudder when I think about what he will do with them if Lydia can’t save us. Images of Cadah flash into my mind. Even after more than a year, the images are just as sharp as they were the day we found her, beaten and murdered by Arujan in Watch.