City of Pearl

by Alys Clare

  It was a man, his age difficult to determine. He was older than me, younger than my father. He had an oval face beneath a broad forehead, and his eyes were a clear golden brown. He was lightly bearded. His features were regular, and the overall effect was of a handsome man. I could not accurately determine his height and size while he was sitting, but the impression was that he was neither tall nor short; neither fat nor thin. His brown hair was worn long, to his shoulders, and it was streaked with white; it was the contrast of this with his smooth, unwrinkled, tanned skin that made it hard to decide how old he was. He was dressed, as were many people in the City of Pearl, in a long brown robe beneath which I could see the white of his undershirt. He smelt clean; he smelt of lemons.

  He sat in quiet patience under my scrutiny. Then he said – and his voice was quiet, soft and with an accent I did not know – ‘You were thinking, among many other things, of the water from the stream.’ He shook his head, and the small gold coins that hung on a chain from his ear jingled together gently. ‘Do not be frightened. There is no need, for no harm will come to you now.’

  I digested the strange statement. Did he mean he knew I’d been made sick by some substance added to the water I’d found when we were so desperate, and it wasn’t going to happen again? But I hadn’t imagined that it would, for the stream I had just drunk from emerged straight from the side of the hill, clear, fast-flowing and so cold it had made my head ache. Unless it was poisoned at source, it was impossible for anyone to have introduced something harmful into it.

  ‘I am not concerned. Well, not about that,’ I said.

  ‘What are you concerned about?’

  ‘I’m worried about Gurdyman’ – somehow I knew he would know who Gurdyman was – ‘and I fear Salim is right when he says he won’t ever recover his full health.’

  ‘He will not,’ said the man. ‘A portion of his strength and his power has gone out of him.’ He was looking at me with a peculiar intensity as he said this. ‘It is this rather than any intrinsic problem with his heart that has made him so unwell, and now he is trying to adjust to living as he will be from now on.’

  ‘So he’s not going to die?’ Until I asked the question, I hadn’t realized how much the possibility had been preying on my mind.

  The man smiled. ‘We shall all die, some sooner than others. Gurdyman has a good number of years left to him.’

  I was so glad to hear it that I didn’t think to ask him how he could be so sure.

  Then he said, ‘The substance that was put into the water cask made you sick?’

  I thought back. ‘I wasn’t actually sick, but I felt nauseous and my head was swimming.’ I turned to him. ‘I saw visions and they were very frightening.’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, that is to be expected.’

  ‘You know, then, what the substance was?’

  ‘Oh, yes, for it was I who put it in your water.’

  I don’t know why I wasn’t horrified. Why I didn’t get up and run away or, at the very least, leap up to remonstrate with him for what he’d done and demand to know why. But I did nothing, other than to say calmly, ‘I see.’

  ‘The fact that your body did not reject the substance is the proof that was required,’ the man said. ‘And that, indeed, was the reason for administering it.’

  ‘Did not reject … you mean I didn’t vomit it up or purge it via the bowels?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But … What was it?’ Now I was alarmed. I’d worked with Gurdyman long enough to know the risks of ingesting substances that altered the mind, which it seemed was what I’d been given.

  He shook his head. ‘I will tell you and, in due course I hope, demonstrate to you how it is acquired and the method of preparation. For now, though, the name would mean nothing, for it is not found or, I believe, used in your land.’

  ‘You know where my land is?’ This was becoming more weird by the moment.

  ‘Of course!’ He smiled again. ‘You live in a house in a narrow little alley off the town’s market place, and originally you come from the wet, watery fens – you have a strong affinity with water, in fact – and—’

  ‘I haven’t!’ I protested. ‘My web of destiny shows me to be a being of air and fire, and—’

  ‘How, then,’ he said with relentless logic, ‘do you account for your ability to see the safe ways across the marshland?’

  I had no answer.

  He knew so much about me. He must be a friend or acquaintance of Salim, and learned all the details about Gurdyman and me from him.

  I have never understood my extraordinary willingness to accept such flimsy explanations …

  After quite some time he said, ‘I am called Itzal.’

  ‘Lassair,’ I responded.

  ‘I know,’ he breathed.

  Of course he did.

  He stood up, raising a hand to shade his eyes as he looked out down the long slope of the foothills to the city below and, beyond it, the plains and the sunset. The sun was low, I was surprised to see; I – we – had been sitting there far longer than I had thought.

  Itzal turned and held out his hand. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘It is time to go.’

  ‘Very well.’

  He jumped down from the rocky outcrop where we’d been sitting. Instead of turning downhill towards the city, however, he headed off the other way. He was still holding my hand, and willingly I went with him. Very soon the climb became steep and difficult, and I began panting.

  He stopped and reached inside the leather bag slung over his shoulder, pulling out a silver flask. ‘Would you like something to help?’ he asked.

  I stared into his light brown eyes. I didn’t answer; couldn’t answer, for I had no idea whether or not to accept.

  He studied me. ‘It is the moment, I think,’ he said. ‘You must now decide if you can trust me. It is my intention – my duty – to take you on a journey; one that will change you for ever and that is the next stage in your path. This has been laid out for you.’

  ‘Laid out for me?’ I whispered.

  He nodded. ‘Just now, I am offering you nothing more than a draught that is an old stimulant long used by those who live in the mountains, but you have only my word for that. You will, I hope, accept, and discover that I am telling the truth. This will, I further hope, confirm to you that I truly mean you no harm: quite the contrary.’

  We stood there face to face for what sometimes in retrospect seems an age; sometimes no more than a few heartbeats.

  And then I saw my own hand reach out for the silver flask. I held it for a moment, then put it to my lips. The liquid within was quite sweet – a touch of honey? – but it also had a refreshing sharpness. There were other tastes, too, but I could not identify them. I drank a sip, two, three, four, and it felt as if a great source of energy was all at once flooding through my body.

  ‘Enough, I think,’ Itzal said, taking back the flask. He too took a mouthful, and his lips were where mine had just been. No doubt they had been there before, and the thought of that small intimacy between us did not in the least dismay me.

  He was looking at me again, the clear brown eyes catching the dying sun and shining now with little lights of gold.

  When he turned away at last and resumed the climb, it didn’t occur to me for an instant not to follow.

  My path had been laid out for me.

  We were walking by moonlight now. We stopped to rest briefly and I looked back the way we had come. I gasped, for I hadn’t realized we had climbed so high. We were out of the foothills and in the mountains, and if I hadn’t been so hot from the exertion, I would have been shivering with cold.

  I opened my satchel and took out my shawl, wrapping it close around me beneath my cloak and tying the ends in a loose knot. The soft wool against my skin brought my beloved sister Elfritha to mind, and I felt her there beside me. She gave me a hug.

  I thought, She is not concerned for my safety. She is happy, smiling.

  It was a further reassurance.
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  Itzal was watching me. He offered the flask again and I took another few sips. Then he handed me a piece of bread in which there was a chunk of cheese and some onion. It was delicious, and I wolfed it down as swiftly as if somebody was threatening to take it away. I wondered how far we would walk, and where we were going.

  ‘We have completed the climb,’ Itzal said in reply; had I asked him out loud? ‘Now we descend, on the north side of the mountains, to the place where I left the horses. It will be very late when we get there, however, and so we shall sleep then and go on in the morning.’

  ‘Go on where?’

  He studied me for some time. ‘To what awaits you, deep within the painted darkness.’

  THIRTEEN

  When I woke up, dry and warm in one of the stalls in a small stable block on the edge of a little settlement, whatever influence had held me the previous afternoon, evening and night had eased off. My first thought, even before I had properly taken in my surroundings, was, Oh, dear Lord, Gurdyman will be so worried! And Salim, and Hanan too, they will—

  ‘They know where you are going,’ said Itzal.

  I turned in the direction of his voice. He was sitting on a straw bale, looking refreshed and smiling gently.

  ‘They don’t,’ I protested. ‘They can’t!’

  ‘Do you wish to go back?’

  ‘Yes!’ I cried. But then almost instantly, as an irrepressible flare of excitement shot through me, ‘No.’

  ‘Have some food, then.’ He handed me warm bread, a slice of ham, a small and wrinkle-skinned apple. There was also a mug of milk, still slightly warm. I took the food and the milk from Itzal’s hands, glancing around as I did so. Edild’s stern training made it hard to eat and drink amid filth, but the stable block was well-maintained and reasonably clean. Raindrops fell in a steady rhythm from the low-sweeping roof, and my heart sank at the thought of setting off in wet weather.

  Again, Itzal read my thought.

  ‘It is a fine morning,’ he said. ‘There was a heavy dew, that’s all.’ Then, with a nod, he got off his straw bale and left me to my food.

  I wondered how long it was going to take me to get used to him.

  As I ate, I was thinking. Trying very hard to make sense of the extraordinary. Gurdyman had brought me here, not explaining why we were making the journey, and naively I had believed that it was because of my sorrow and distress; that his intention was to take my mind off grieving for the two men I had lost and give me something exciting and challenging to do. I knew now that this wasn’t the truth; or, at least, not the whole truth, for it had become clear that Gurdyman had a purpose in returning to this land, and that this purpose – vitally important to him and somehow connected to the terrible fate that had befallen his parents – had summoned him back to the City of Pearl. The place and at least some of its inhabitants were involved in the mystery, for they were part of his past.

  The entire trip wasn’t at all what I’d thought it was.

  And now it seemed there was also a hidden plan for me.

  Had Gurdyman known what would happen, then? Had he understood that I would meet Itzal – whoever Itzal was – and go off with him to whatever awaited me?

  Yes, a voice said in my head.

  I did not know who had spoken, but it was comforting.

  It meant, apart from anything else, that I didn’t have to visualize Gurdyman’s shocked horror when he discovered I’d gone.

  Because it was rapidly becoming clear that this was what he’d intended for me all along.

  I had finished the food. I went outside to find a private place to pass water, and when I returned, I bathed my hands and face in a trough outside the stable. Itzal was leading out two horses, already bridled, and now he went back inside to fetch their saddles. The horses were similar in build to the pony that had drawn the cart I’d purchased for Gurdyman, only these were a little longer in the leg and considerably more elegant.

  I returned to the place where I had slept to gather up my belongings. On impulse, I drew the shining stone out of my satchel. I sat down in the clean straw and crossed my legs, resting my open palms on the folds of my skirts with the stone upon them.

  It was dark and quiet at first. Perhaps it wasn’t going to respond.

  Ask something, my inner voice prompted.

  Am I doing the right thing? I said silently.

  A single flash of brilliant, dazzling gold lit the stone.

  Perhaps it was simply the early sun striking a spark, but I chose not to think so.

  I’d rarely had such instant, certain confirmation.

  Carefully I wrapped the stone and put it away in its habitual place among the remedies and simples I always carry. I packed my folded shawl on top. I stood up, straightened my skirts, brushed off the straw and swung my cloak round my shoulders, then went outside to join Itzal and to see what would happen next.

  ‘We shall be crossing what is in effect a high bowl-like plateau, its sides formed by the range of mountains we have left behind us, the Pyrenees far away to the north-east, and the long range of the coastal mountains straight ahead,’ Itzal said as we rode down the last of the slopes and set off across level ground. ‘Our destination is in those mountains’ – he pointed dead ahead – ‘and we have rather more than two hundred miles to go.’

  ‘Two hundred!’ I could barely envisage such a distance.

  He smiled. ‘You have travelled more than that already in the journey to the City of Pearl from where you made landfall,’ he remarked.

  ‘Yes, and it took days! Weeks!’ I cried.

  He thought for a moment. ‘Three or perhaps four weeks. Certainly not much more. And it was accomplished in the company of an elderly man, who at first walked very slowly on his two feet and was then borne in a cart drawn by a single pony.’ He glanced at me. ‘Now you travel with someone who is not infirm, and we have horses who are used to covering many miles in a day at a fair speed. We shall reach our destination in ten days at the most, probably less, provided the weather is reasonably kind.’

  A dozen questions flew into my mind about this destination, but I knew there was no point in asking them. I’d tried already, as we’d been saddling up and setting off, and Itzal had simply smiled his inscrutable smile and replied, ‘There is nothing to fear, Lassair, and, for you, everything to gain.’

  He had made quite a lot of those enigmatic remarks, and I’d known him – no, been in his company, for I certainly couldn’t claim to know him – for less than a day. The weird thing was that I trusted him.

  We rode on, an easy silence between us. I quickly discovered that my horse – a bay mare with a long mane and tail – was well-behaved, willing and a very comfortable ride, so I felt confident in losing myself in my thoughts. So I asked myself why I trusted Itzal.

  My total lack of fear, or even unease, could be attributed to that great flash of brilliant golden light from the shining stone. Over the years I’d learned to put my trust in the stone; to perceive that in some way I didn’t understand, it and I were linked. It knew, was the best I’d ever been able to come up with. It was my ally, and it would not let me go too far wrong.

  That, anyway, was my belief and my hope.

  The other factor that contributed to my absence of unease was that I was warming to my strange companion.

  He had all but admitted he’d been following Gurdyman and me as we made our slow and, latterly, painful way from the village where his parents’ inn had been to the vale before the City of Pearl, and it was very possible he’d picked up our trail as soon as we left the ship at Corunna. A dark little voice in my head reminded me that he knew all about the fens, and Cambridge – even the location of Gurdyman’s house – so it was at least possible he could have been watching us even before we set out.

  And he had also admitted to putting some substance into our drinking water; perhaps not the poison that Gurdyman said it was, but something designed to test me, as Itzal had claimed, to see if my body had the power to deal with i
t … It was an unpleasant thought, and I could still recall all too vividly the dreams, visions and hallucinations I’d suffered.

  But when I really thought about my various emotions on that long journey, I couldn’t honestly say I’d felt true fear; not, at least, once we’d left the village where they’d driven us out with sharp stones and hissed words. Now, with some new depth of understanding I hadn’t had before, I could see that the villagers had been a lot more frightened of us than we were of them.

  They remember the fire, the voice in my head said. They were terrified that it would come again. That the magician all at once in their midst, uninvited, unwanted, would make the terrible blue flames and everyone would die.

  But Gurdyman wasn’t there when the fire happened!

  They thought he was.

  Brujo meant magician. I knew that from Gurdyman. And llama azul – I knew now with utter certainty and without anyone telling me – meant blue flame. Oh, yes, it made sense; the villagers, suspicious and afraid, saw someone they had once known come walking back into their lives. His reputation had no doubt grown in the course of the decades since he’d last been seen, augmented and exaggerated by scary fireside tales told on dark winter nights. They’d have gossiped, muttered behind their hands, reminded each other of the peril he brought with him, and then the whispers would have begun, shortly followed by the hostile confrontation that had driven us away.

  Once we were far enough away for the fear of the villagers to be just a nasty memory, the mood had subtly changed.

  I had worried about our lack of food, about Gurdyman being so sick, about having absolutely no idea where we were or where we were bound, but I hadn’t felt frightened.

  It was quite a realization, and it told me very firmly that I was right to trust Itzal. I’d been helpless as I lay beside the cart lost in visions and he could have killed me if he wanted to. Instead I’d just seen a panoply of horrors prompted by my own mind. And, I reminded myself, also by whatever he had put in the drinking water.

  Trust him, my inner voice said. But be wary.

  For now, it was the best that my inner voice and I could come up with.