by Jane Kindred
“Perhaps you don’t understand who I am,” said Pike calmly. “My job is to obtain information for those with coin to pay for it, and the way I obtain information is generally not agreeable to the one giving it to me. You, however, present a unique predicament. You are a Meer, and thus to be dealt with as one would a dangerous, feral beast. But you are also a child, and I am not in the habit of cutting children to bits to get what I want.” He met Pearl’s eyes with a frank, appraising stare. “It’s up to you whether I find it necessary to take that unpleasant path. If you force me in that direction, I’m likely to be angry about it, which most certainly means you will suffer the more. Let’s not find out what that looks like, shall we?”
Pike released Pearl and let him fall back onto the seat. Pearl considered. He was accustomed to taking beatings, and he knew that however severe they might be, they were finite and he would heal. But he’d never had pieces of himself cut off slowly to maximize his suffering and prolong his torment, which he saw in Pike’s mind was the Meerhunter’s usual method. But it was unthinkable that he betray Ra.
Pearl took up his pencil once more, turning the parchment over to begin a new drawing. He conjured up the dark city in ruins he’d done for Merit. It was his last work, and thus fresh in his mind. It was also a destination Pike had never seen, and one that was likely to intrigue him. Pearl needed to intrigue enough that Pike would make his own assumptions about the significance of the place without Pearl having to specify the reason he’d drawn it.
Pearl’s pencil found new vistas in the same image that had come to him before, as though the place he’d drawn was ancient and he now saw it as it existed in the present. It still had the look of a soth that had suffered some cataclysm in the distant past, but its ruins had been built upon slowly over time, the new soth juxtaposed over the old. There was a hint of the innovation of MeerAlya in it now, though nothing so modern as In’La.
People rode on mechanical bi-wheeled contraptions alongside drays drawn by horseback, and on the covered wooden walkways beside cobblestone streets, clockwork machines cranked out fruit ices and bubbling soda waters and roasted nuts, all operated by the drop of a coin and the turn of a handle. Clockwork poppets performed on little stages, and musical instruments played of their own accord, all through the workings of a wind-up spring.
Conjuring in graphite the visions in his head, he forgot he was drawing for Pike, eagerly sketching the lingering Meeric architecture among these oddities about the former temple square. Each surface he rendered yielded more detail, and he thought he might understand the ancient influence on this place if he could only see just a little bit farther; if he could draw just a little piece more.
Caught up in the Meeric trance, Pearl was startled when Pike pulled the drawing away from him once more to peruse it. “That’s more like it. Where is this?” When Pearl gave him a look of disdain, or tried to, the Meerhunter chuckled. “Yes, I realize you can’t speak. But you can write. Show me the name of this place.” Pike’s hand closed over Pearl’s in a hard grip of warning before Pearl set the pencil to the paper once more. “No attempting to write curses, or I’ll break your fingers.”
Heaving a sigh through his nose that made his throat feel even more parched, Pearl wrote the name in block letters, giving each shape the substance of his will to keep Pike from asking any questions Pearl couldn’t answer, the dark strokes designed to mesmerize.
“Soth Szofl,” Pike mused, reading as Pearl’s pencil spelled it out. “Across the Southern Sea?” It was a question, but he didn’t seem to need an answer. He murmured to himself, studying the drawing. “Should have known she’d try to slip away there, where no one would recognize one of her kind. All those seaside performers and magic shows. It’s the perfect camouflage.”
The Meerhunter took the parchment and rolled it up, slipping a band of string around it to hold it in place. “A sea crossing, though. That’ll be a bit of a journey. Question is, what to do with you in the meantime?” He studied Pearl as he tucked the scroll into his vest, and seemed to see him for the first time as something other than a meal ticket. “You’re looking a bit paler than normal, boy. Thought you could go without food longer than ordinary folk.” Pike rubbed his thumb against Pearl’s palm as he removed the pencil from his hand. “Dry as parchment. Are you thirsty?”
Pearl nodded, unable to hide his eagerness at the thought of having something to drink.
“That’s a problem, isn’t it? It might be better to take your head off after all. Easier to transport, and worth more to me. But I don’t relish it.” Pike drew a second sheaf of parchment from the cupboard beside him and slid it toward Pearl, holding out the pencil once more. “Will you make me a promise? Write the words I say, and they’ll bind you, yes? Don’t bother lying, as I can slit your throat quicker than you can speak should I decide to remove the gag and you attempt to betray me.”
Pearl nodded, too exhausted and thirsty to put up even the pretense of a fight.
“Good, then. Write this down: ‘I will do as you say.’”
Pearl thought about it only a moment. He couldn’t bear the rough cotton of the gag or the dryness of his throat another instant. What difference did it make? He wrote the words obediently.
Pike put the piece of parchment with the other in his vest pocket. “Very well, boy.” He rose and stepped behind Pearl’s chair to unlock the tether on the bit, but held it in place a moment longer. “I want to hear you say the words you just wrote when I remove this. That’s your first command. The second is that you will not speak at all unless I bid you to, and then only the words I provide. Are we clear?”
Pearl nodded emphatically, desperate now that relief was near. Pike took a knife from his belt and pressed it tight against Pearl’s throat as he let the bit drop into his other hand and pulled on the rag. It had stuck to the insides of Pearl’s mouth and it burned as it came away. Pearl gagged involuntarily and coughed, which proved to be more painful than helpful. Pike pressed the blade deeper. Pearl had to say the words. Under the best of circumstances, they were many for him, though at least not long ones.
He opened his mouth, but a fit of coughing seized him and pain shot through his throat at the air forced through it. What voice he had, he’d temporarily lost. He looked helplessly at Pike, trying to convey without words that he had no words.
The knife jerked up hard beneath his jaw and temple. One movement from Pike and Pearl’s blood would be pouring onto the ground. “You’d best not be fucking with me,” Pike growled in warning. “Can’t you speak?”
Wishing he could weep but knowing there wasn’t enough fluid in him to do it, Pearl swallowed and tried again, to no avail. He shook his head, as much as he was able to in Pike’s grip.
Pike studied him intently. “Nesre claimed you couldn’t, but I thought it best not to take chances. But I’m well aware you can’t lie to me, spoken or not.” He nodded, satisfied, and took the knife away and sheathed it.
Before Pearl could have the precious water he needed, he collapsed onto the ground, his head full of nothing but gray.
Seven: Acquiescence
The waves on the lake looked like white whales breaching as the crests broke offshore. Ume turned away from the window, shuddering at the idea of Cree out there somewhere being buffeted by the waves and the wind. The last job Cree had taken was on a long-haul fishing crew. On such trips, the boat sailed far out on the lake’s open water in pursuit of a prime catch, and the expedition took as long as it took to find it. There was no predicting when the boat would return, and Cree had been gone nearly a month, while spring rains had been falling steadily on the choppy surface of the lake for the past week. The idea that Cree would prefer to endure such hardship rather than spend time with Ume was almost as upsetting as the uncertainty and worry.
She knew she had to let Cree work this out for herself, but understanding it with her head and her heart were two entirely separate thin
gs. Ume tried to keep her fears at bay by keeping busy with her sewing as Cree had suggested, taking more orders than she would have under ordinary circumstances. But work couldn’t keep her mind from the spiral of gloom that engulfed her when she went to bed without Cree beside her for the first time since they’d left the Delta more than a decade ago. At least Pearl was safe with Azhra. On that much, Ume’s mind could be at ease. Though she couldn’t help wondering how Azhra—or Ahr, Cree had said he called himself these days—was faring with him.
Nesre had told Ume the boy couldn’t speak, that he’d trained him from birth not to, never allowing anyone to speak in front of him. What was Pearl’s life like now that he was free and with someone who cared for him? It ate at her that she and Cree couldn’t be the ones to do it. She’d amassed an embarrassing amount of little outfits for him, as if building her layette for a half-grown child. She’d had to hide them from Cree, but Cree wasn’t here now, so too bad for her; Ume would do as she pleased. She could sew all night when the swirling thoughts wouldn’t give her any peace.
The rain let up at last in the early afternoon, and Ume put aside her sewing to get some fresh air. Being cooped up inside had magnified her anxiety a hundredfold, and she was beginning to go stir crazy. She took the hooded damask cloak she’d just finished in a lovely misty green silk and set out along the wooded path that followed the shoreline of the lake. It was as close as she could get to Cree.
In place of the rain, a fog had risen, shrouding the trees and obscuring the lake itself. As Ume walked, it was as if she’d stepped into another world. Only the softly clanging bell of a buoy in the distance seemed to pierce the unearthly quiet, a wistful but comforting sound.
Ume paused as she realized she’d stopped hearing it. What did that mean? Was the lake calm? Or had she turned inland without noticing it? She couldn’t see far enough to tell or to make out any landmarks. The idea that she might be lost gripped her, but that was foolish. She was on the path. Or was she?
“Greetings, Ume Sky.”
The voice nearly made Ume jump out of her skin, whirling to find an indistinct figure standing in the mist. The thick air in front of the figure cleared as the bank of fog drifted past them, and with relief, she recognized the pale, almost colorless appearance of the Caretaker.
“It was not my intent to startle you.” The Caretaker spoke in the same formal, toneless way all the Hidden Folk seemed to. “My apologies, Ume Sky.”
Ume acknowledged the apology with a nodding half bow, courtesan etiquette kicking in. “What brings you to Stórströnd Township, Madame Caretaker?”
The Caretaker’s signature patronizing smile briefly animated the blank face. “The more accurate question would be to ask us what brings you under the hill.”
“Under the hill?” Ume glanced about at the same woods she’d been in a moment ago.
“Your expectations of our realm are limited by your understanding of your own. You thought to see a gilded hall?” As the Caretaker spoke, the fog shifted and seemed to form around them the very hall she spoke of, faintly glowing with a tinge of gold like a dandelion held beneath one’s chin on a summer’s day, the woods still visible through it as though the golden hall weren’t quite tangible.
Ume drew her cloak about her like a courtesan’s gown, the soft drape of the hood standing in for the veil, irritated that the Caretaker managed to disarm her every time they met. She wasn’t used to losing her poise. It reminded her a bit of her first meetings with Alya, and the association made her touchy.
“So why is it you’ve brought me under the hill, then?” Her heart lurched as the words left her lips, remembering it was Cree’s death that had brought them under the first time. “Has something happened to Cree?”
“Cree Silva is not important right now.”
“Not important?” Ume bristled, fear pushed aside by anger. “To you, perhaps, but she is very important to me.”
“Not important to the purpose for which you’ve been brought under the hill,” the Caretaker explained patiently. “We wish to speak to you, and you alone.”
Ume was baffled. “Why? Why on earth would you want to speak to me without Cree here?”
The Caretaker spread her hands as if the reason were obvious. “We have seen that you have an affinity for the child.”
“And you think Cree doesn’t?” It stung all the more because Ume herself had thought along similar lines. “You know nothing about Cree,” she insisted. “Or me, for that matter. She’d make a wonderful mother if only she would let herself.”
The Caretaker gave her the slightest of shrugs. “That is irrelevant. It is Pearl with whom we are concerned, and circumstances have arisen which require your assistance.”
“My assistance?” Ume’s eyes narrowed. “What do you want me to do now?”
“Something prevents us from hearing Pearl within the flow,” said the Caretaker. “It is as if he has consciously closed himself off from his visions. But that which does come to us from his subconscious unsettles us.”
Ume didn’t dare speculate about what might unsettle the Hidden Folk. “I thought you said he was happy and safe with Azhra—the mother of MeerRaNa.”
“That is what we wish to discern. Pearl’s gift seems to be manifesting in ways that do not come from within. We fear it has been stolen.”
“Stolen?” Ume gaped at the Caretaker. “By whom? Azhra would never hurt him. I don’t believe it.”
“As I said, we are unable to hear his blood clearly, but we know that that mother of MeerRaNa is in Rhyman.”
It was beginning to come clear at last. “And you want me to go to Rhyman. To check up on him for you.” Were it not for the hopeful prospect of seeing Pearl, Ume might have been more offended at the audacity.
The Caretaker gave Ume her own version of the condescending half bow. “Just as you say.”
The damp chill seemed to seep through to Ume’s bones as she pondered the idea. She rubbed her arms beneath the cloak. “As soon as Cree returns—”
“There is no time to delay,” the Caretaker interrupted sharply, the only hint of emotion—other than mild irritation and condescension—that Ume had ever received from one of the Hidden folk. “You must go immediately to ascertain what trouble has befallen him, and we will be in contact to advise you on how to proceed once you have.”
“Why do you care so much, anyway?”
“You do not trust our motives, Ume Sky. We understand this. The ways of the Hidden Folk are not the ways of the Ephemera.”
“I’m sorry,” Ume interrupted tersely. “The who?”
“That is what we call the short-lived.” The Caretaker actually managed to look a bit embarrassed at the apparent slip. “Pearl is the result of our failure to heed the trouble our gift had wrought beyond the hill as time slipped away from us. It is our duty now to ensure that his ability is not used to create more ill.”
Ume doubted this was all there was to their “concern”, but Pearl mattered a great deal to her. She wasn’t about to argue with the Hidden Folk over his need to be protected. But the idea of leaving without telling Cree didn’t sit well with her. They ought to be going together. Pearl was Cree’s child. Something told her, however, that if Cree were here to consult, she would find a way to dissuade Ume from going. Pearl was with Azhra. It was almost a meditative refrain with Cree. She would convince herself that nothing bad could befall him in Azhra’s care, and they would fight—something they had rarely done since emigrating from the Delta, but which had become increasingly less rare in recent weeks.
“Cree Silva is not yet ready to see what you see, and the time it would take you to convince her is time Pearl cannot afford.” The Caretaker seemed to have read her mind. “We feel it is in the best interests of Pearl for you to go alone, and at once. Will you accept this undertaking? Will you go to Rhyman?”
It didn’t seem to Ume that she had any
choice. Pearl needed her. She’d go.
Making arrangements with her clients to finish up what she could in the next few days, and referring those whose deadlines she would miss to a competent seamstress, was difficult enough. Leaving the note for Cree to find in an empty room when she returned from her trip felt like cruelty.
Ume tried to make sure she worded the note so Cree wouldn’t think she’d gone off on her own to spite her for leaving Ume alone. But no matter how carefully she worded it, or how lovingly she tried to express her conviction that she must go, she knew it would be a stinging blow. The last thing Cree would have wanted Ume to do right now was to go chasing after Pearl on the whim of the Hidden Folk. Which was precisely why the Hidden Folk had chosen now, while Cree was away, to approach her. The Caretaker was no fool. And neither was Ume. She wasn’t about to tell Cree that the Hidden Folk were the reason she was going. Instead, she told her she hadn’t been able to get Pearl off her mind, having disturbing dreams of someone trying to harm him that she could no longer ignore, and she’d gone to Rhyman in search of Azhra.
She took one last visit to the lakeshore before heading out on her journey, willing Cree to be safe, and silently sending her love across the mist-shrouded waves. The lake was more accurately an inland sea, deep and vast, and Cree might be anywhere in it.
There were no longer any gods to pray to, so she prayed to the elements from which all divinity came, kneeling down as though she knelt before MeerAlya. With cupped hands, she scooped water from the lake and drank. The water that surrounded Cree, that sprayed up over the prow of the fishing boat from the waves to baptize her as she worked, was now part of Ume. She sprinkled the last of it over her head, thanked the elements of which they were both part, and rose. It was time to seek Cree’s child.