The Pearl of the Soul of the World

by Pierce, Meredith Ann

  "We had best get back. I left those two fools at the camp, though they wanted to help me search. I told them they would as likely fright you away again as find you."

  As Maruha started down the corridor, the pale girl hesitated.

  "Come. All's well," said the duarough, turning. "I've forbidden Brandl any more barding. He won't frighten you again."

  She let Maruha draw her away down the dark and narrow hall.

  They were nearing where Maruha said the camp must be. All the corridors looked the same to the girl. The duarough called out a greeting, but only silence answered.

  "That's odd," she murmured.

  She had extinguished her fingerlamp, since the pearl gave a more constant light, with none of the jump and shadow of flame. Maruha quickened her step until, rounding the bend, she halted dead. The campsite lay in disarray, the cooking lamp overturned and deep ruts in the sand, as though made by running, slipping feet. The duarough hurried forward, pulling the girl along.

  "This was not the way I left them!" Maruha exclaimed. "They had put the camp back in good order after you fled. Collum? Brandl?"

  Only stillness replied. Collum's pack rested far off to one side, as though dragged there, or thrown.

  Tools lay scattered about. Brandl's harp gleamed, tilted upside down against one tunnel wall. Maruha caught it up in passing, then fell to her knees beside the upturned cooking lamp.

  "Ravenna preserve us," she whispered. "I should never have left them! We are in strange territory, long deserted by our folk. None of our wards operate here, and no telling what is loose in these halls."

  Frantically she snatched up Collum's tools, throwing them willynilly into the pack along with the harp and the cooking lamp. She slung the strap over one shoulder beside her own and grasped the pale girl's hand again.

  "The sand is so dry and scattered, I cannot find a good print. The lamp's still half full. This could not have happened long ago at all. We heard nothing of struggle, but these twisting tunnels distort the sound."

  Reaching into her sleeve pocket, she pulled out a dirk, slim and narrow shafted—more stiletto than dagger—with a hollow point. It gleamed in the light. Astonished, the upperlander drew back from it: ugly, poison-filled weapon. It reminded her of what the black bird had carried in its bill...Maruha paid no attention, only pulled her along hard behind.

  "Hurry, child," the stout little woman urged. "Brandl and Collum are doubtless in jeopardy. I only pray we are not too late!"

  Snarls and coughlike barking, the scratch of boots on sand and the grunt of men hard-pressed quickened Maruha's pace to a hurtling run. She dragged the pale girl after her down the wide white corridors. A jumping lampflame and shadows on the wall around a sharp turn in the tunnel made the duarough catch in her breath. Rounding the corner, she dropped the upperlander's hand.

  The girl stumbled to a halt. They stood at the junction of several corridors. All looked old and unused, the masonry of the arches crumbling. She saw Collum and Brandl with their backs to a blank stretch of wall, cornered by the snapping, snarling creatures that crouched sinuously before them. Brandl had a shortsword, Collum a hollow dirk like the one Maruha held. Both men wore fingerlamps, holding them high for light and occasionally driving back their attackers with fire instead of blade.

  The creatures that had cornered them were large and white with stubby legs: two before, two behind, with an extra pair at midbody. Their blunt snouts emitted a doglike coughing. Patches of black masked their fierce red eyes and tipped their long, thick, tapering tails. They traveled low to the ground, their bodies so long that they humped in the middle. Their gait was an odd, fluid undulation, deceptively agile.

  There were nearly a dozen of them. The upperlander recoiled.

  "Weaselhounds!" cried Maruha sofdy. "Part of the Witch's brood."

  Flinging off her packs, she rushed forward and stung one of the creatures from behind widi her dirk. It turned like a whiplash to snap at her. Maruha stung it again across the muzzle. It shrank away, scratching its mask with long-nailed paws. The pale girl stood mesmerized, not daring to move.

  Before her, too hard-pressed to look up, Collum and Brandl seemed not to have noticed Maruha yet.

  One weaselhound leapt and caught hold of Brandl's sleeve. He brought his fingerlamp down on its skull with a crack. The white creature released its grip, but the impact had jarred loose the lamp. It fell to the floor and went out. One of the beasts seized it in its jaws and slung it away. Collum cursed.

  He drove his hollow dirk into the neck of one of the animals as it lunged for his leg. The creature gave a yip and sprang back, shaking its head. Then it stumbled and sank. Two of its fellows dragged its still form out of their path and plunged again at the duarough men. The weaselhound Maruha had stung now lay still as well. She waded forward and pricked another on the ear.

  "Maruha!" Collum looked up in startled disbelief. His joy quickly vanished. "It's no good—there are too many…"

  "Save yourself!" Brandl shouted above the growling. "We'll hold them as long as we can—"

  "I will not," Maruha flung back, kicking one of the weaselhounds in the ribs so that it turned and pricked itself upon her poisoned dagger. It sprang away with a yelp. Its fellows, aware of the duarough woman now, turned on her.

  "Run, Maruha. It's hopeless!" cried Brandl.

  He stumbled backward into Collum beneath the furious onslaught of two of the hounds. Collum lost his footing in the fallen masonry. As his arm struck the cave wall, his lamp, too, went out. All three of them gasped, as though expecting to be plunged into darkness, but the cool, steady light of the pearl now filled the chamber. The duaroughs looked up, and the weaselhounds turned suddenly, all of them, to stare.

  The pale girl stood shaking. The Witch's creatures terrified her—yet they seemed arrested by her light. Unsteadily, she reached into her garment and drew out the pearl, so that its wan glow might shine more strongly. The pin behind her ear pricked warningly, but the red eyes of the weaselhounds frightened her more than the prospect of pain. The light, she realized, would hold them at bay.

  As if sensing her defiance, the pin bit down viciously until she gasped—but she refused to return the jewel to its hiding place. Gritting her teeth, the upperlander held up the pearl. Circling, watching her every move, the Witch's beasts began to yip and howl. They cowered before the pearl's dim blue light. Maruha stabbed two with her poisoned dirk before they slunk snarling into the nearest of the tunnels. Collum and Brandl stood open mouthed. Though the pain intensified with every step, the girl forced herself to follow the weaselhounds, herding them.

  Whining and snapping, the Witch's brood retreated farther down the hall. Drawing his pick, Collum sprang onto the pile of rubble that lay to one side of the tunnel's collapsing arch. Barely short of the entryway, the pale girl halted, panting with the effort of defying the pin and gazing after the snapping hounds that milled and paced just beyond the first intensity of the light. Collum struck the keystone of the arch.

  "Get back, girl!" Brandl cried, rushing forward.

  Above them, the arch collapsed with a roar. The upperlander clutched the pearl to her as Brandl shoved her clear. She lay on the hard ground a moment then, her head still one great throbbing ache.

  Choking, the young duarough held his sleeve over his nose. Collum threw a handful of something into the air, and in a moment, the dust abruptly settled. From the other side of the rubble, the girl heard the weaselhounds gargling and digging. Bruised and shaken, she straightened. Brandl picked himself up, still staring at her.

  "What is that light, that jewel she carries?"

  Maruha shook her head. Collum was kneeling beside her, examining a wound on her wrist. The sleeve was bloody, torn. "It's nothing," she told him and pulled away. Then, to Brandl, "I know not. But it can be nothing Witch-made, that I vow, since her creatures shun it."

  She knelt, rekindling fingerlamps, handing Brandl his harp and Collum his pack.

  "Do you still say sh
e must be one of the Witch's?" she demanded tartly. The bearded duarough flushed.

  "I know not what she is," he answered at last. "But I know she has saved us this day."

  Brandl put up his shortsword and stowed the harp. He glanced uneasily at the new-made wall. "That'll not last long against their claws."

  Shaking, the upperlander put away the pearl. The pain in her head did not subside. Angrily, she stood. She was tired of this blankness of memory and the torment of the pin-tired of being terrorized and controlled! Who was she? How had she come here? She needed answers. Wincing, she ignored the pain and surveyed the scene around her.

  The concussion of the tumbling arch had shaken loose other stones as well. The blank wall against which Collum and Brandl had made their stand was cracked now with a spiderweb of fissures. Near the ceiling, a slab of plaster had sheared away to reveal a great starburst carved into the stone. It occurred to the pale girl that most of this wall might be plaster, not stone at all.

  "But which path?" Maruha was saying. "If weaselhounds are afoot, you can be sure all the paths hereabouts are overrun with them."

  The girl moved nearer, drawn to the starburst. The pin throbbed ever more fiercely, but furiously she disregarded its signal to retreat. As she lifted one finger to touch the starburst, the fissure below it deepened, and a crumbling brick of dried clay fell with a thunk, leaving a hole in the wall. Darkness and emptiness lay beyond, and the scent of stale air. Collum was fishing for the map in his sark. Unfolding it, he and Maruha bent over it. The pale girl grimaced as the pin twisted down. Defiantly, she pulled another brick from the wall.

  "This way leads on to other paths, as do these," the duarough woman murmured.

  "They could lead to weaselhounds as well..."

  With growing determination, the girl dug more bricks from the opening. The pain was nearly blinding now, but she kept on. Despite the heavy cost, she found that thwarting the pin brought her an immense satisfaction. Though it could still torture her, the Witch's weapon no longer possessed her will.

  The wall's opening was now wide enough to admit the upperlander's head and shoulders. Leaning through, she felt a sudden peace washing over her, better than food or drink or rest. She halted, stunned as the pain behind her ear abruptly ceased. Before her, the pearl's light revealed a very broad, straight corridor stretching away into the distance. The walls were carved with figures of duaroughs and machines.

  "Whatever path we take, let us take it quickly," Brandl, behind her, was urging.

  Carefully, the pale girl glanced around. If she removed her head from the opening, she knew, the pain of the pin would return. His back to her, Brandl eyed the shifting rubble of the rockfall nervously. The growling of weaselhounds and the sound of their digging on the other side grew more vigorous. Collum bent over his fingerlamp, trimming the wick. Neither of them took any notice of the girl.

  "No path is safe," Maruha told them, rattling the map one-handed in exasperation and nursing her wounded arm. "We must choose one and go."

  Without another moment's hesitation, the upperlander turned from the duaroughs and crawled through the opening into the adjoining corridor. Here! she wanted to call. Here lay the path they must take. But the pin still prevented her from speaking—even if it could no longer cause her pain. The ceiling overhead rose beyond her reach. The carvings ran in a low, narrow band along either wall. The Shadow would never find her here. She was certain of it. Faintly behind her, she heard Brandl cry out.

  "Where's the girl?"

  Maruha gave a shout. Their voices sounded remote, like words whispered into a copper bowl.

  Curses. The sound of busding.

  "She was standing just there—" Brandl started, then: "Look!"

  Exclamations. Murmuring. Silence.

  "A false wall!" That was Maruha. "Boost me up, Collum, so I can see."

  Scrabbling. The girl turned to glimpse the duarough woman staring at her through the hole. She smiled at Maruha, trying to show them by her expression what she could not put into words: what a miraculous place this was. Her serene feeling of contentment grew. They would all find what they were seeking here—or if not quite here, then somewhere very close at hand. Perhaps at the end of the corridor.

  Maruha vanished. A frantic rattling of parchment.

  "That's Ravenna's Path," Collum was exclaiming. "One of the pilgrims' roads to the City of Crystalglass! See, it's marked here on the map. It must have been walled off when the City was sealed."

  "It's very wide and straight, with beautiful carving along the walls. The girl's in there," said Maruha.

  "Let's follow her, then," Brandl hissed, "and seal it after us: quick! Before the 'hounds break through.

  We can hide in there until they move on."

  Scrabbling again. The youngest duarough wriggled through the hole and dropped to the ground with a breathless oof. He glanced at the girl, who smiled radiantly back. He stared a moment, obviously puzzled, then shook his head as if too pressed to wonder at it now. But she noted a trace of a smile beginning to tug at his own lips, as though he, too, were starting to feel the strange tranquillity of the pilgrims' road. Picking himself up and turning to stand on toes, he called cheerfully back to Maruha and Collum. "Pass me the bricks and the packs!" Smiling still, the pale girl turned away from him and wandered down the hall, aware of a gentle, inexorable tug pulling her on. A Call. Sweet, feerie euphoria continued to steal over her. She ran her fingers along the wall carvings: small, squat figures that were surely duaroughs, here and there taller figures like herself, and occasionally one very much taller than the rest—human-shaped, but strangely garbed.

  They all meant nothing to her, but she felt sure now that all her questions would be answered if only she could discover the source of that which summoned her. Behind her, Collum had boosted Maruha through the crack and let her pull him up after. The two of them stood furiously shoving clay bricks back into place, while Brandl, grinning ecstatically himself now, exclaimed in wonder, holding his fingerlamp up before the frieze. The girl kept moving, farther and farther from the false wall and the duaroughs.

  "No, wait. It's no good!" Brandl cried suddenly, his smile washing away. "The 'hounds will know we're in here—they'll follow our scent."

  "Not if we confuse their senses," replied Maruha grimly.

  Glancing back, the upperlander saw her drawing from her sark a glass ampoule. Brandl retreated swiftly. Kneeling on Collum's shoulders, Maruha shook the amber globe, then tossed it through the last brickhole. The girl glimpsed a phosphorescent flash. Coughing and shielding her nose with her sleeve, Maruha shoved the last brick into place and jumped down. Collum guided her after Brandl. Presently a stink like rotten toadstools drifted past. Uninterested, the pale girl turned away.

  Come. The Call reached out to her down the broad corridor: Come.

  4

  Crystalglass

  Collum and Brandl swung their picks, chipping furiously at a round metal aperture in the low ceiling above their heads. They were no longer in the broad pilgrims' hall, but in a smaller, narrower way.

  Though the duaroughs' initial plan had been only to hide and wait, the fantastical carvings upon the walls of the pilgrims' road had drawn them on and on. The Call had begun to affect them, too—though not so strongly as the girl. The pale upperlander refused to stop, even when Maruha stumbled, faint with wound fever, and Collum and Brandl had to support her between them.

  "Stay with the girl," Maruha insisted, her voice a croak.

  They had come upon more weaselhounds—even there, on Ravenna's Path. Luckily only a pair of them this time, which Collum and Brandl laid low in a rush. Thereafter, the duaroughs kept a constant, darting watch. When the upperlander, oblivious to all protests and entreaties, turned off the main way into a little side corridor, they had no choice but to follow—for the inexorable Call tugged at them all and allowed them no rest.

  Still the girl smiled, padding relentlessly on. They were all but carrying Maruha by then
. When they heard gargling and barking in the passageway behind, accompanied now by a deeper, inhuman grunting and snuffling, Brandl's eyes widened.

  "Is it… ?" He glanced at Collum, who nodded grimly.

  "Aye, lad. Trolls. No eyes and twice again our size—they hunt by scent alone."

  Maruha managed to raise her bowed head from her breast. "We must find an exit soon, or we're all done for," she whispered. "Blind trolls won't shun the pale girl's light."

  But for the moment, they could only bolt deeper into the unknown tunnel. The narrow side passage wormed through the stone without intersection. Cursing between their teeth, the duaroughs had soon outstripped the girl, whose pace never quickened, never slackened. Now they worked desperately at the metal portal overhead, its surface overgrown with hard lime and stone daggers. It was the first exit they had found—was, in fact, their only chance of escape, for the corridor ended a half dozen paces beyond.

  "Perish the lime," Collum grated. "Wherever this leads, it hasn't been used in years."

  A great mass of stone daggers peeled from the aperture's rim under the onslaught of his pick and shattered on the floor. Behind him, Maruha groaned and wiped her brow with her sleeve. She reclined to one side, breathing shallowly, her wounded arm cradled to her breast. The flesh of her wrist was puffed and red, her face flushed.

  "Just as well," she answered hoarsely, "or likely they'd have sealed it properly."

  She cast an exhausted, harried glance back down the corridor. The sound of shrill, whistled baying and low, throaty whuffling was louder now. Brandl struck off another dagger, and Maruha weakly tugged the upperlander back as it, too, broke upon the floor, throwing fragments that rattled against the walls.

  "There," Collum said at last. "Let us see if it will turn."

  Teeth gritted, he handed his tool to Brandl and grappled with the hub. A little of the stone still encrusting it crumbled, but the cover itself did not budge.