Pearl of Fire

by Deborah J. Ross

  The Eaglehurst charged at me, shouting their battle-cries. Their helmets gave them the aspect of raptors, not human men. They came at me in twos and threes, trying to slash through my guard. I had no need of defense. My body reeled under the force of their blows, but I felt nothing. Wherever I struck, they fell.

  The clang of steel against steel, or perhaps against bronze, filled my head. The Pearl roused at the sound of their death screams, the blood, the terror. I felt its exultation shivering through me, consuming me.

  I swung my sword again. Again. Again. Sliced air, leather, flesh, all the same. The rushing water ran red around my horse’s legs.

  At last, a horn sounded from the Eaglehurst side. Fall back. Retreat. Save yourselves while you can.

  They scrambled back across the muddied banks. Their captain shouted something about not leaving any of their fellows behind. Bare-headed, he plunged into the river, on foot now, struggling to reach one who had fallen to my sword. I caught a glimpse of a gray beard, white-rimmed eyes, and then I was moving again, screaming curses, sword high. They turned and fled.

  I pulled my mare to a halt. She fought me, half crazed with fight and rushing water and the dragon-stench rising from my skin. I could not let her win or she would never carry me again, and few horses could tolerate the Pearl. She dipped her head in surrender and picked her way through foam and rock.

  The rider, whose body they had tried to retrieve, lay pinned by the water against the rocks. As I rode by, the current tumbled him over, so that he shifted on to his back. His helmet came free.

  Russet hair, tangled like rust-stained riverweed. Eyes gray as a storm, staring and empty. One hand, palm up as if grasping the water that slipped through those strong, graceful fingers.

  I should have known. I should have known.

  And if I had, would I have chosen differently? Would I have denied us those brief hours for the pain of what came afterward?

  The mare heaved herself up the slope, happy to be out of the surging water. I hunched over, trying to breathe. My lungs had turned to bronze.

  “My lady?” someone said. “Are you well?”

  “Of course, she is well.” My brother’s voice. “She can’t be hurt, can she?”

  No, not hurt. Not ever.

  “Take up their fallen,” someone said with my voice, harsh as a bell and distant. “Do not leave them for the river, or to be eaten by scavengers. Send a messenger under truce to Eaglehurst. Offer to return them, so that they may bury their own.”

  “In exchange for what?” one of the men asked.

  I touched the mare with my heels and she moved off. Blood still gleamed on my sword. When I arrived home, I cleaned it, as always. I rubbed down my own horse, as always. A servant took away my muddy, blood-stained clothing. As always.

  I lay in my bed, eyes staring and empty.

  In exchange for what?

  I moved through the days, eating and dressing and talking, each in its proper time. I beat back the Eaglehurst time and again, across the river and further each time, until I stood in the smoking ruins of their great manor house. Their scattered remnants harried us like rats. They learned to fear the red-bronze fire of my sword.

  Then my father died.

  o0o

  He had diminished, not just from the seizure of his heart, but in some essential part, as if his very soul had shriveled. Had he wasted away in useless hope, waiting for his grandfather to fail and pass the Pearl on to him, only to see the treasure go to his own daughter? Or was this simply how all men looked when the vital spark had fled? I had seen carnage, most of it at my own hands, and yet I had never peered into the faces of the dead as I did my father’s. For the first time, I was not afraid to see death. I saw it as a release, as a benediction.

  My own life stretched before me, seasons of killing and more killing, and soul-devouring loneliness. There would never be another lover for me. I would not dare.

  “The Pearl of Fire passes only from the hands of one who has surrendered any hope of living,” my mother had said.

  The Pearl had taught me patience, so I waited. I waited to see my father buried. I waited until my mother had set aside the black veil of mourning. I waited until my brother had taken up rulership of Sharaya, now Greater Sharaya. I waited until we were alone, not in the great hall adorned with plunder from Eaglehurst and other conquests, but a moment of quiet in the stables, after riding the borders as his bodyguard.

  “I will leave you now,” I said.

  It took him a moment to realize I meant more than returning to the manor house. “I don’t understand. You can’t leave. The Pearl cannot leave Sharaya.”

  Cannot? I looked at him slantwise, raising one eyebrow. The Pearl had also taught me silence. Then I shrugged. I had never found any difficulty in crossing the borders. He spoke from his own fears. He could lose half of what I had brought to him, and still have more than any one man needed.

  I resolved, as well, that no more men would bleed away their lives for greed. Not my brother’s, not mine. Not the Pearl’s.

  I turned and walked away, out of the stables redolent with sweet hay and the warmth of horses, into the pooling dusk.

  “Where will you go? What will you do?” he shouted after me. Without us, he meant. Without family or home or name?

  o0o

  I traveled by river barge as far as I could, as the forested hills I had known all my life fell away, and at last, I reached Ixtalpi, refuge of desperate souls....

  Once I had left the mountains, I attracted considerably less notice. Here, in the wide lands of the world, a woman with a sword, even one traveling alone, was not so unusual. Several times, fellow travelers approached me with offers of employment or simple companionship. I turned them all away.

  I took a room at an insignificant inn and went walking. Beyond the city walls, the slopes of the volcanic peaks rose gently at first, then stark and steep and black. Red light flickered near the blunted peaks. Several times, the ground rumbled and shook, a vast and rancorous underground beast. Ash blackened the sky and turned the sunset a lurid crimson.

  In a strange, fey mood, I took my supper in the common room of the inn. The air was close and smoky. Greasy soot coated the rough wooden walls. I found a place at the end of the long trestle table. A scrawny lad brought me a bowl of some kind of stew and a mug of ale. The ale was warm but surprisingly good, and the stew too spicy for my taste, most likely to encourage customers to order more ale and to disguise the odd flavors of the meat. I ate the stew, called for more ale, and sipped it slowly. The blend of astringent and mellow flavors slid down my throat like a memory of summer.

  The ale softened my mood enough so that when my neighbors at the table struck up a conversation, I did not turn away. Across from me sat a grizzled, balding drover. The man and woman on either side of the table wore leather vests, faded and rubbed shiny along the seams, decorated with strings of shell, horn-bead and bone. They looked young and hungry, with hawk-keen eyes and skins tinged with copper. Neither bore any visible weapon, not like the knife prominently strapped to the drover’s thigh, but I had no doubt they were armed. Mercenaries, perhaps. I did not recognize their accents, but the drover made a joke about their being from Raë on the Western Sea, and not to be trusted.

  Soon a game of dice and castles was proposed and accepted. Having no better way to pass the evening, I ordered more ale and joined in.

  Six of us made up the opening game, with the addition of two locals. The locals dropped out after the first hour and left the inn, supporting one another in their vacillating homeward path. The game went on, the stakes gradually rising. Winnings passed back and forth across the table. Ale flowed. A sense of well-being settled over me. I derived as much enjoyment from losing as from winning.

  After losing three rounds in a row, the drover pushed himself away from the table. That left the two Raë and myself. The woman, Juthe, pulled out and stood, looking over her man’s shoulder, one hand resting there with deceptive ease. I sa
w the edge of desperation, ale-tempered, in their eyes, the quick glances, the readiness to raise the stakes once again. They were gambling with assets they could not afford to lose. I thought to let them win, but the cards would not oblige me.

  The man, Culliy, and I faced each other over the table. The pile of bets went back and forth, growing larger in leaps, never settling long with either of us. Having already lost my sword, I added a small knife from my boot, on to the pile.

  The cards went against me. I grinned as he raked in the pile and started to leave.

  “Wait,” Juthe said, quick as a serpent. “Stay.”

  “I have nothing more to wager,” I pointed out.

  She jerked her chin toward my chest. The bones dangling from her vest clinked softly. “That?”

  In the heat of the close dark room and the excitement of the game, I had loosened the ties of my shirt. The chain that carried the Pearl gleamed dully, crossing my sweat-bright skin and disappearing over my heart. I sat back, drew out the Pearl. It glowed like banked embers.

  Culliy let out a long whistle. Juthe licked her lips.

  The ale spoke to me, Why not?

  Something stirred behind my mind, restive. If I would never use it again, why not let it pass to those who might derive some advantage from it?

  Why not let the Pearl itself decide?

  I slipped the chain over my head, and, to my astonishment, it came away easily. I dropped it in the center of the table, half-expecting the wood to burst into flames. It landed with a thump and a clatter of metallic links. The skin over my breastbone, where the Pearl had lain so many years, felt tender, new. My ribs ached. I drew a breath, deeper and freer than I could remember.

  Culliy pushed forward the entire pile of winnings. We drew cards, one and then another, building our hands. I did not look at mine, for what did it matter? The ale and the wild mood owned me. Culliy glanced down at his cards. I saw the little signs, the tightening at the corners of his eyes, the faint pressure of Juthe’s hand on his shoulder, the slightly slower movement as he sat back, his movements too controlled for true ease.

  There was nothing more to bet. One hand would take all.

  Culliy’s face stayed stony as he laid out his cards. A good hand, but not unbeatable. I let my gaze rest on the painted designs. Then, without looking at my own cards, I slapped them down on the pile of discards.

  With a shrug and a grin, I pushed myself to my feet. “That’s a night, then. Good fortune to you both.”

  I did not look back until I had reached the far end of the common room, the narrow stairs leading to the sleeping chambers. Culliy had lifted the chain, about to drop it around Juthe’s neck. The Pearl flashed iridescent, reflected in her eyes. Until that moment, I had not been certain that it would let me go.

  I slept that night like one dead. If I dreamed, I had no memory when I woke. The room had only a straw pallet on a wooden frame and a table with pitcher and bowl for washing, pegs on the wall for cloak, a single rickety chair. Nothing like a mirror. If I looked in one by moonlight, what would I see? If I shattered the mirror and drew one of the pieces of glass across my skin, would I bleed? I could not remember the color of my own blood, or the taste of my tears.

  o0o

  I left Ixtalpi the next morning. The innkeeper, having watched last night’s game from the bar, gave me a free bowl of gruel for breakfast. It was last night’s stew, watered down and simmered into mush, but it filled my belly. I had no idea where I would go or how I would earn my bread. I could not go home, that much was sure. I had some skill with a sword, but only for attack, not defense. In all likelihood, I would not survive the first skirmish. I found, to my surprise, that I disliked the notion.

  Heading downslope, out of the shadowed Viridian Mountains, I paused at a crossroads. East or west? I had never traveled in either direction. It came to me that for the first time in my life, I had no ties to any land or lord, nothing to keep me from going wherever my two strong legs took me. I took the less traveled road, and then, whenever it branched, the way that seemed wilder.

  The road narrowed to a trail wide enough for a single line of baggage animals. Here and there, a pile of droppings, still moist underneath, gave evidence of recent travelers. I was no tracker, but I thought there might be three or four small horses, one of them unshod, as many more men on foot, and a narrow-wheeled cart. In my mind, I spun out a story about the party, who they were, where they were going, and the songs they would sing to one another around the evening’s fire.

  The trail wound upward through scrub forest, skirted running streams, and dipped into sunlit glades. A pleasant passage, I thought as I stretched out under a tree in one of these meadows for a midday nap. As I allowed myself to be lulled by the hum of insects, I thought of my gray-eyed lover, remembering now not the anguish of loss but the golden afternoons we had spent together, the joy and comfort we had of each other. In my dreams, I wandered through the great house of Sharaya, but the halls and corridors lay dark and empty. The windows were open and dead leaves skirled across the floor in the chill breeze.

  I jerked awake, sweating, to glimpse the last crescent of brilliance as the sun sank below the western hills. Shadows had already begun their slow reach, dimming the meadow. The open space no longer felt safe. I found the trail and hurried along it.

  The trail climbed higher, and the feeling of unease lessened. I began to look for a place to spend the night, some sturdy branch, overhang, or shallow cave. The moon rose, full and bright enough to cast shadows. I went on with the vague thought that my fellow travelers must surely have made camp by now, and might allow me to join them.

  Even as I was trying to convince myself of the folly of continuing on, the risk of a fall, broken bones or worse, I heard voices ahead. I could not see any lights at first, for the trail followed the twisting contour of the hillside. The voices sounded distant, oddly distorted, and they did not seem friendly. I hurried as fast as I dared, stumbling here and there over unexpected stones.

  The raised voices escalated into screaming, fell away into a moment of silence, and then wild, anguished keening.

  I rounded the bend and saw the campsite, limned in orange firelight. The cart stood in a little flat place just off the trail, cradled between two arms of rock. For an instant, the place looked deserted. Nothing moved. Then my fighter’s vision picked out the pattern of fallen bodies from the scattered rubble. I had seen enough dead men to know them now.

  The sobbing came from the far side of the camp, beside the picket line. The ponies shifted, white-eyed at the reek of blood. A woman knelt there, cradling a man’s body. Rocking, weeping. Juthe, it had to be her, even with her voice distorted, stretched to the breaking point around her horror and pain.

  Fools, to take on so many. Unless...unless the Pearl itself had urged her to it.

  Unless the Pearl wanted fresh blood. I had thought to pass on a gift. Instead, I had burdened them with a curse.

  Soft as shadow, I moved through the camp. I need not have taken any pains to be cautious, for she had no awareness of me, or of anything but the body in her arms. I knelt an arm’s-length away, empty of words.

  Her shirt was torn, ripped by a dozen blades in a dozen killing strokes. Through the rent fabric her skin shone, untouched. The Pearl rested between her breasts, glowering, sated.

  She turned to me, her eyes all tears. Had I wept like that? I supposed I had. Tears had not brought my lover back, either. The thought came to me that she might do herself harm, that she had neither kin nor oath to bind her to life. I reached out my hands. She let me take him and lay him out.

  I folded Culliy’s hands across his chest and smoothed his eyes closed. His body was still warm, his muscles pliable. He would stiffen in an attitude of grace.

  As for Juthe, she would have nothing of comfort. Her grief burrowed inward like a canker worm. In time, she would grow numb, inured, even as I had. In time. But not yet.

  She stumbled through a chant in a language I could not under
stand, Raëth most likely. At first, I thought it was a prayer for the dead, a requiem. But there was no sorrow in it, only a wild, consuming rage.

  Her eyes changed as she reached for a knife fallen on the ground. She lifted it, pressed the flat to her forehead, then to her lips. Smoothly, she placed the point over her belly, both hands holding the hilt. She thrust again and again, grunting with the effort. The tip would not pierce her skin. Her knuckles turned white. Sweat slicked her skin.

  Juthe tossed away the knife and glared at me. “Can kill —cannot die.” She clawed at the Pearl where it hung between her breasts. “Curse, is this thing! You...you knew?”

  I looked away.

  Then she was on me, her hands on my shoulders, shaking me. Her shirt was slick with the blood of the men she’d slaughtered; the smell sickened me.

  “Must die!” she shrieked. “Die in honor! Tell me how!”

  A light burned in her eyes, fire and blood and madness, reflections of the inferno within the Pearl.

  “Give it back to me,” I said.

  She whipped the chain over her neck and shoved it at me. The Pearl swung back and forth. “Take! Evil bargain!”

  My fingers closed around the Pearl, stilling its motion, imprisoning it. The bronze-red globe flared, implacable. I shivered at the prospect of what I must do, to endure. It would never tire, the dragon within me, never cease to thirst. I could never use it, that much was certain. It would taint every purpose.

  I could not use it...but I could keep it from using anyone else.

  Juthe reeled away from me. I thought she fled into the night, for I heard no sound from her as I went about the camp, straightening the fallen bodies, seeing to the weapons and the animals. I ate the burned food, banked the fire, and wrapped myself in a borrowed blanket.

  The next morning, I found a spade in the cart. A little ways from the camp, I found a grassy slope, not too steep, and dug a shallow pit. I would rather have made separate graves, but I had not the strength. As it was, by the time I had dragged the first two to their resting place, I was sweating hard.