The Pearl Diver

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “Let’s go,” one of them spoke to the other, though his voice expressed his greater desire to flee from the mysterious voice than to seek anyone who might need assistance.

  As soon as their backs were turned and they began to rapidly walk away, Silas sprinted up the first flight of stairs, climbing them two or three risers at a time to the first landing, where he rounded the U-turn and moved beyond the sight of the ground floor corridors. He slowed his pace and climbed up to the corridor intersection on the second floor, where he paused.

  “Mata,” he called with his Speaker voice, seeking to alert the girl overhead. “Mata, this is Silas, your friend, using the Wind Words to speak to you,” he reported in a low voice. “I’m in the prison tower, coming up to set you free. Mata, this is Silas, get ready; I’ll call you again when I’m closer, and ask you to thump on your door so I know where you are.”

  Mene had told him of a hidden shaft and a ladder in a closet, but the stairway was unmanned and open; he saw no reason to stop to search for the covert way.

  He started up the next set of stairs, and hoped that Mata had heard him. The stairwell below him was silent, which satisfied him – he wanted to neither see nor hear anyone else other than Mata. And as the thought entered his mind, he heard another crash of thunder outside the prison walls, a boom that sounded much closer than the previous thunder he’d heard.

  It was a reminder he needed to hurry; he wanted to be through the sewer pipe before rainwater started to wash in and fill the narrow underground passage. Silas took the next flight of steps two at a time, and then climbed up to the fourth floor of the tower at a sprint as well. He paused to take a breath, then heard repeated rolls of thunder, and the muffled sound of rain starting to fall against the thick stone walls of the prison tower.

  “Great,” he snorted in disgust, then climbed the next set of steps, a narrower flight that ended at a small landing where only a single wooden door interrupted the walls at the top of the tower.

  Mere had specifically told him that Mata was on the next-to-the-top floor; he had gone too far.

  He needed to immediately return a floor lower, to the narrow circular hallway that would let him set Mata free. But the door before him was…tempting. It provoked an urge to inspect. He had no reason to do anything there, but the space beyond the door seemed to be inviting him in, although he had a fleeting image of a spider inviting a fly into its web as he studied the door.

  The handle on the door rattled, then Silas found his own hand grasping it to silence the noise.

  His other hand shot down to his knife before he even knew he was opening the door in front of him. He pushed it open wide. A part of his brain shouted at the idiocy of doing so, while the other part of him mechanically allowed it to happen.

  The room interior felt evil. A force attempted to lure him into the room, to step over the threshold, but Silas found that his knife suddenly drove itself into the wall outside the door, and held his fingers glued to the hilt so that he could not step forward.

  The room smelled of a cloying incense, and a reddish light glowed from no apparent source. Silas placed his free hand atop the hand on the knife but couldn’t pull the knife from the wall or his left hand from the knife.

  A deep chuckle came from somewhere inside the room, and a word formed inside his mind. L’Anvien.

  The word had no meaning.

  Another peal of thunder rattled the top of the tower, and Silas saw the flash of lightning show through a window in the terrifying room. The brilliant light showed the silhouette of an impossibly large, dark red skull in the dark room, a sight that sparked such fear in Silas that he broke free from the spell cast over him, and he stepped back away from the door.

  His knife suddenly flew out of the seam where it had been planted in the stone wall, allowing Silas to turn and flee back down the steps. He reached the landing for the floor below and stopped, then knelt down and tried to bring his fear back under control. He knew he had to hurry to set Mata free, but the experience he had felt just above had been an overwhelming one, an exposure to a power that felt as great as the gods who had touched him, except this experience had been infused with evil.

  “Mata,” he called his friend’s name as he remained crouched. “Mata, if you hear me, pound on your door.”

  He rose from his crouch and listened, but heard no sound in response to his request.

  “Mata? Mata?” he repeated, as he walked a few steps around the small tower hall to the first door, and pressed his ear against it. There was no sound inside. He lifted his knife to the crack between the door and its frame, taking for granted that the wonderful weapon would pick the lock for him.

  He gave a fleeting smile of satisfaction when he heard the metallic click of the door’s latch slipping open, and he pressed it inward.

  Mata was not inside. A badly bloated body, a prisoner who had died, lay contorted on the floor, while the room reeked with a sickly-sweet odor that made Silas heave as though he might retch. He pulled the door quickly shut, then stepped back, while he breathed deeply and tried to collect himself.

  He edged a trio of steps along the hall to the door to the next small cell, and again opened the door, this time without bothering to call out.

  He found another dead body, this one slumped just inside the door, as if the prisoner had died hoping to escape right up until his last breath. The body was not as distended, bloated, and decayed as the first body had been.

  “Mata!” Silas cried, fearful of what he was going to find at the next prison cell door.

  He stepped over, and found Mata in the third cell, lying motionless on the bare wooden cot that was pressed against the wall.

  “Mata!” he called tearfully as he stepped into the cell and knelt beside her. In the darkness of the cell, his sharpened vision could see few details about her, but her face appeared puffy, and he thought he saw mottled bruises on her arms.

  “Mata!” he massaged her cheeks in an attempt to rouse her. She moaned slightly, but didn’t open her eyes.

  “Mine,” a soft voice slithered through the air, causing Silas to jump in surprise.

  He swiveled around with his knife held before him defensively, ready to strike, but there was nothing behind him, nothing tangible.

  “We’re getting out of here,” he muttered as he slipped the knife into its sheaf, then lifted Mata’s body. He grunted as he slipped her over his shoulder, then raised himself upright, and pulled his knife back out instinctively.

  He grunted again as he took the first step, but maneuvered his way out into the hall, and back to the staircase. The upward flight of stairs now glowed faintly with red light coming from the demonic room above, which further motivated Silas to hurry down the steps away from the prison cell and the horrors above.

  Mata moaned once as he carried her on his shoulder, his arm curved up and over her waist to hold her in place. Her skin was against his bare back and chest, and she was next to his face, wearing only the swim suit she wore when she dove, the clothes she must have been arrested in. She smelled faintly like the prison itself, a result of having been held captive for so many days.

  As Silas began to descend the final flight of stairs, he slowed and listened, waiting to discover whether any guards had returned to patrol the corridor. A frightening, unearthly keening noise came abruptly from above, and a bright red flash of light seemed to momentarily show itself in all places at once.

  Silas leapt down the last few steps of the stairs, and lumbered as quickly as he could along the high-ceilinged hallway. The sounds of the rain were much more audible, worrying him so much that the concerns about the water in the sewer equaled his fear of the evil power in the tower.

  When he opened the door to the courtyard he encountered the full fury of the rainstorm outside. Despite his incredible vision in the darkness, the thick fall of water from the sky inhibited his ability to see more than a few feet. No one else was going to see him going down into the drain, he told himself with grim s
atisfaction. Then he burst out the door and into the rain.

  He heard Mata grunt as the cool rain showered upon her body, and then she gave a cry, one that was filled with terror.

  “Let me die! Where are you taking me!” she moaned.

  “Mata, it’s me, Silas,” he told her, just as he reached the drain. He skidded to a stop on the paving stones, and squatted down, then carefully sat her down on the wet pavement.

  Her eyes fluttered, then opened, unfocused.

  “Mata, we’re escaping from the prison. I’m going down into this sewer hole, and then I want you to come down, okay?” he asked intently.

  She looked at him vacantly, not absorbing his words.

  “Mata,” he changed his plan, “you go down into the hole and I’ll follow. Here you go,” he swung her legs over the edge, then placed his hands beneath her arms as he gently pressed her forward and let gravity take her downward. She slipped effortlessly, no resistance or strength in her body as she dangled down until Silas released his hold on her arms. He quickly lowered himself in beside her.

  He reached up and began to pull the grate back over the full width of the manhole, while he felt water rushing around his ankles. The sewer was filling rapidly, making him wonder if he should look for some alternate way to escape from the prison.

  An angry keening sound, an unearthly wail roared through the prison courtyard, as lightning flashed, then thunder rumbled, and another flash of red light illuminated the building.

  There was no going back above ground, Silas decided.

  “Mata, Mata,” she was slumped in a sitting position with her back against the wall.

  “Mata, we’re going to escape through this pipe. You’ve got to come with me, right behind me,” he told her. The water was flowing into the manhole from above, while a steady stream of water was already in the pipe, flowing quickly from the direction of the uphill city, the direction they wanted to go.

  She showed no more coherence than before. Mata wouldn’t be able to consciously follow him through the pipe, not until she roused from her somnolent state. But he had no time to lose; Silas need to do something.

  He removed his belt, and looped one end around Mata’s hands, then secured the other end to his foot. It was a desperate strategy, but he could think of nothing else. He would be like a horse, pulling a boat along a canal, he thought to himself, the analogy being the first thing to seem even slightly humorous in the past several hours. He stretched Mata out so that she was face up, and then took a breath and began to crawl into the pipe, beginning the final, meaningful stage of the dramatic escape from the prison of Koch.

  He labored for what seemed like hours as he slowly inched his way back up the slope of the pipe, against gravity and against the flow of the water that poured down the dark opening. The water level slowly rose, from covering his wrists to rising up along his forearms, to reaching his elbows. He kept his head up, despite his weariness from trying to move against the powerful force of the flowing water. Yet he knew that the water made it easier to pull Mata as she floated, instead of dragging on the sewer bottom.

  When morning began to break, Silas saw the first evidence of its gray light filtering into the sewer at a distance not too far from his position at the time, and when he reached the bright spot, he found it was the manhole that he had opened at the beginning of his journey.

  “Thank you lord Krusima, and my lady Shaish,” he thanked the deities of the underground and water jointly.

  Mata was still unconscious, floating along behind him. He removed the belt from around his foot, then sat her up once more.

  “Mata,” he gently rubbed her cheeks and poked her shoulders, “Mata, can you wake up?” he asked, without receiving a response.

  He needed to get her back to the warehouse, back to where he could lay her down on the bed, and let her rest properly. With a grimace, he reattached the belt to his foot, then climbed up and awkwardly pulled on the belt to raise her hands to where he could lift her out of the manhole. That done, he shoved the manhole cover back into place, leaving no evidence of the entry into the sewer

  The shirt he had left behind remained in the alley where his adventure had begun, and he put the soaking wet shirt on Mata to partially cover some of her state of undress, then he lifted her over his shoulder once more, and started to carry her through the nearly-empty city streets on his way back to his room.

  He had completely the most obviously dangerous part of his quest.

  Chapter 8

  Silas walked rapidly through the streets of the city, using the advantage of gravity that was granted him for having started his pipe-crawling adventure near the top of the ridgeline’s elevation.

  A few people witnessed him, and a few of those few even commented on the sight of a half-dressed boy carrying a half-dressed, unconscious girl through the streets, but Silas ignored the comments and continued on.

  “Your catch looks better than ours,” a fishmonger near the market said when Silas approached the harbor front. “Want to trade?” he asked with a coarse laugh.

  Silas passed him by without speaking, then hurried into the blue lobbied warehouse, and set Mata down. He felt exhausted, tired beyond his capacity to function properly. And he still had flights of stairs left to climb with his unconscious friend.

  He crouched once again, despite the protests from his knees and back, to look at Mata closely. Streamers of daylight were penetrating the lobby, allowing him to examine her more closely, and he didn’t like what he saw. Her face was ashen, her eyes remained closed once again, and on her body there were numerous bruises and signs of abuse.

  Silas took a deep breath, then lifted her over his shoulder again, and left the lobby as he trudged up the first set of stairs that led into the storage area of the building. After that, he had an unending climb, one that seemed to last forever, as he continually placed one foot above the other, step by step, pausing at every landing and opportunity, until he finally reached the final landing, and threw his heavy weight against the door to gain access to the hallway to his room.

  When he finally entered the room he immediately laid Mata on top of the bed, then removed the wet shirt that was wrapped around her torso.

  He stared at her, and felt a welling of pain and sympathy. He wanted to see her eyes open, and her face break into a smile, with a healthy color to her complexion. He needed a healer.

  And, he realized, he knew one! He could use his mirror to reach out to Dianu, to ask her for advice and help. Silas grabbed his pack and sat down on the edge of the bed while he opened the flap and pulled the mirror piece out of the pack.

  The first thing he saw in the mirror was a gauzy dimness, one without defining colors and objects. It was a mirror with a cover spread upon it – but whether it was Dianu’s, or Ivaric’s, or even the princess’s, he couldn’t be sure. He slipped the mirror back into the pack and pulled it out again, to discover that he could see the empty warehouse of Ivaric. It was both a relief and an annoyance. He knew that the mirror that was covered was one of the mirrors he needed to be able to communicate through.

  “Why do they have to distrust me now?” he muttered to himself, as he slipped the mirror back into the pack, then pulled it out for a third time.

  He was looking at the dressing room in the palace of Amenozume, it appeared. He felt certain, though he could see very little of the actually room. A note was stuck to the palace mirror, blocking the vast majority of the view his mirror provided, and the note held three boldly scrawled words: Where Are You??

  Silas smiled. Jade was worried about her sister, as she should be.

  He pulled his own pad out of his pack, then quickly wrote: She is safe!

  He took the mirror and propped it up on the table, with the note placed directly in front of it, leaning against his pack. Whenever she came to look in the mirror, she would see the message, and know.

  He was tired, so tired. But he needed to take care of Mata, and then take care of himself. He needed fresh w
ater, water that he could use to drink, and to clean both of them. Which meant that he would have to take his pitcher down the stairs to the pump on the ground floor.

  Silas realized how foul his clothes felt, covered in sweat and grime and the moisture of the sewer pipe he had inhabited for hours. He stripped his clothes off, then hung them next to the window, where they could drip dry and be exposed to the fresh air. He went to get his other set of clothes, the clean ones he kept in the drawers of his room, then started to carry them back towards the bed. As he did, he glanced over at the table, and saw that the mirror no longer displayed Jade’s note. Instead, he saw the faces of three women, very close to the mirror, observing the goings on in his room.

  He immediately held his clothes up in front of his hips.

  “Jade!” he bellowed in embarrassment. He recognized the girl, first and foremost. And he recognized a second face – the Princess Lumene herself was looking in the mirror, her face just over Jade’s shoulder, while a third young woman was crouched over the Princess’s shoulder.

  He sat on the floor, out of view of the mirror, and pulled his pants on, then stood up once more and approached the mirror.

  Jade and the princess were talking excitedly to one another.

  “She heard you!” Jade excitedly scribbled on the note pad, “but Gwen didn’t.” The third girl in the mirror was watching the other two speak.

  “And she was watching me walk around naked!” Silas spoke furiously. Mene had made such a point of making innocent and inadvertent views seem despicable, yet here was the princess of the land, caught in the very act.

  Both the women reacted with raised eyebrows as his words reached them. Silas saw their lips moving, then Jade wrote a note.

  “We’re sorry; it was an accident.

  “How is Mata? Where is she?” the note asked.

  Silas picked up the mirror and carried it over to the bed, then held it to the sleeping girl’s face, and panned it down as he spoke.

  “I got her out of the prison last night. We just got back here this morning, a few minutes ago. I can’t wake her up, but I have her here safely now. I’m going to use the mirror to try to reach my friend the healer,” he narrated, then turned the mirror back to his own face.