The Pearl Diver

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “Sprites?” Silas asked dismissively.

  “The city has records that profess the sprites did arrive and obey,” Kajam insisted. “But unfortunately, in the hundred years since last this happened, our city has built the very great towers that you have seen, without considering that a platform must be raised to a location up at the towers’ elevation.

  “So now we are about to begin a race to raise as much material as possible to allow the platform to be built for the dance and the ceremony,” Kajam explained.

  Silas turned his head to look upwards in the direction of the towers, even though the roof of the armory blocked his view. The towers were incredibly tall, and the sprites were a myth. The story made no sense, the most incomprehensible part of his visit to Faralag yet.

  “How long will you need me?” he asked.

  “Less than a month?” one of the women behind Kajam ventured to guess.

  “I don’t really control my powers,” Silas decided to confess. The whole strange story was starting to sound reasonable; he understood that they were driven by a need – a ridiculous and false one, but one that they believed in. He felt a twinge of sympathy for their desperation, but then mentally backpedaled, and told himself he needed to stick to his decision to walk away from the platform construction. “I only bring the powers out when I’m very concerned or emotional about something; I wouldn’t be useful to you.”

  “Our training can help you overcome that,” Kajam said assuredly.

  “You can even bring your paramour into your rooms with you inside the Guild while you trade,” Kajam offered.

  “She’s not my,” Silas cut himself off. Adams had alluded to some advantages that he and Mata might have if they were formal couple. He could risk letting the assumptions about Mata and him linger unchallenged if it would help the pair stay together.

  “And you’ll let me go after this platform is complete?” he sought confirmation.

  “Yes, absolutely. The Guild pledges its honor on that,” Kajam sounded sincere.

  “Alright, for now,” Silas conceded and accepted the terms – terms that he had little choice but to accept. “Let me ask Mata’s opinion, to see if she agrees.”

  Kajam nodded, then motioned to the others, and an opening in the circle allowed Silas to walk over to see Mata.

  “We’d like to talk,” Silas told her guardians, who withdrew a few paces.

  “They say they need my powers for a little while – less than a month perhaps. If I stay and help them, they’ll help me learn to control my telekinesis better, and then they’ll let me go when this project is done. They say you can stay with me,” he told her.

  “I have to get home! I have to help Jade,” Mata insisted. “I can’t wait here for a month.”

  “If you wait for me, we can go together, and I can help you, and her, and the princess maybe even,” Silas offered. “And, I let them believe we’re married, so it will look strange if you leave,” he gulped as he added.

  “You called me your wife?” Mata yelped at him with widened eyes.

  “The Mover said paramour, but I think it means the same thing,” Silas tried to ease the controversial term.

  “I’d rather be your wife than your paramour,” Mata said indignantly, lowering her voice as she saw others turn to look at them.

  “Whatever you call it, will you please just wait?” Silas asked. “If we travel together, when this is over, we’ll do better. Better at traveling, better at helping our friends. Stay here and be my wife.”

  She gave him a steady stare, then unexpectedly blushed.

  “Alright,” she stuttered, “I’ll stay with you for two weeks, and we’ll see what happens.”

  “Let’s go tell Kajam that you’ll stay with me,” Silas gently clasped his hand around hers. “We have to look like mates,” he said with a grin.

  When they reached the group of Movers, Kajam looked at Silas expectantly.

  “Is she your wife or not?” an anonymous voice asked from the crowd.

  “Silas,” Mata spoke up. Silas looked at her, then felt his chin drop as Mata suddenly knelt before him and took one of his hands in hers. “Silas, will you finally put an end to this affair? Will you marry me and become my husband?”

  There were titters and gasps from the people around them at the unexpected proposal.

  “What are you doing?” Silas tried to bend down and hiss the words discreetly.

  “Get up,” he added.

  “We’ve shared a bed for months, and it’s time we did something more,” Mata raised the volume of her voice in response. “I know you love me as much as I love you,” she told him.

  “Can you imagine waking up and seeing those eyes first thing in the morning?” one woman’s voice asked in a loud whisper.

  “We will accept your offer of a residence with the Mover Guild,” Silas tried to act as though he could ignore the woman on her knees, as he desperately tried to make sense of the embarrassing, inexplicable scene.

  “I will work with you to build the platform,” he tried to discreetly lift Mata to her feet while he talked, an impossible task with a circle of observers all around. “And then Mata and I will leave you to go to Amenozume.”

  Kajam was grinning at the unpredictable scene.

  “For your honeymoon?” he asked.

  “Mata, please,” Silas pleaded.

  “Will you marry me?” she asked again, looking up at him.

  “I almost believe you really want to marry me. Now please stand up,” Silas answered, as there was a smattering of whoops and applause from the Movers who had come to the armory to be his captors and ended up witnessing his engagement.

  Mata stood up, then looped her arms around his neck and began to kiss him passionately.

  He found that he was responding to the kiss, eliciting louder whoops.

  Her kiss was clean and pure, and once again slightly salty, as though she was still a part of the sea that she had dived into so frequently when she had gathered pearls.

  “Come along and you can do all of that you want in your own room,” Kajam told the couple.

  Mata pulled her face from his with a wicked gleam in her eye, then turned, and led him by the hand out of the armory, in the midst of the group.

  Silas didn’t know where he was walking as the group began to navigate down a city street, other pedestrians moving aside to allow the Guild members to pass. When Silas came back to his senses he saw that they were stepping onto a broad boulevard, and that nearby, the boulevard came to an end at the gate to an imposing, tall-fenced piece of property that held a tall, soaring building, one that was several stories high, though not as tall as the buildings in the city’s central core.

  Silas turned his head the other way and saw that the boulevard ran a relatively short distance, before ending at another wall compound.

  “What’s that building?” he asked a Mover in the party.

  “That’s the queen’s palace,” the man replied. “When she’s in the city. She stays in the countryside a lot.”

  “And our home is here,” he waved a hand towards the airy building of towers that reached upward.

  The group entered the Guild’s enclave.

  “We can trust you to abide by your promise to remain with us?” Kajam asked.

  Silas nodded in agreement. “I’ll stay here until my work on the platform is done,” he acknowledged.

  Kajam waved most of the rest of the Movers away, allowing them to return to their other activities, while he began to lead Silas and Mata up a ramp, one that switched back and forth, then reached a tower and climbed up around the exterior for a circuit. A hall led them into the hollow interior of the tower, and Kajam led them upstairs to a balcony that looked down upon the tower’s interior.

  “This is your room,” he gestured to a door that was in the tower wall. “Enjoy your stay. We’ll have dinner served at your door at sunset, and tomorrow you’ll begin your training.

  “And if you need a priest to officiate
at a marriage ceremony, just let us know. We’ll make arrangements,” the man smiled, then left them in front of the door.

  Mata watched him go for a moment, then opened the door and stepped in with Silas behind her. They entered a room with a slightly curved outer wall, one that had windows with a view over the nearby neighborhoods of the city.

  Neither Mata nor Silas noticed the view at that moment though, as they turned and looked at one another, following the long silence of their walk from the armory.

  “What did you do down there?” Silas blurted out the words.

  “I made a practical gesture. It satisfied the Movers that we are a couple,” Mata answered calmly.

  “That’s all?” Silas asked.

  “What do you mean?” Mata answered the question with a question.

  “Do you,” Silas hesitated, “do you really want to marry me?” he asked.

  “It seems like an easy thing to ask,” Mata evaded a direct answer. “It solved a problem; now we’re together, and you can build this platform they want, then we can go to Amenozume.

  “Did you expect something more?” she answered with a question again.

  “That kiss,” Silas replied, weakly.

  “We both shared a kiss that the Movers believe was filled with passion,” Mata answered. “Didn’t we? The Movers were satisfied with what they saw.”

  Silas closed his eyes. Mata was suddenly mysterious, refusing to tell him a simple fact. He felt torn between emotions, and between emotions and logic.

  He turned away from her and looked out the window at the city outside, a landscape of rooftops visible, all the way to the looming great towers in the center of the city. For a moment he saw the moving platform that carried people, until it descended out of sight.

  He turned and looked at the doorway in the side wall, then went to investigate what was behind it. A bedroom, one with a large bed, was clean and empty of anything except the bed itself.

  “We can sleep in there,” he turned to Mata, and found that she was at the windows, staring outside, away from him.

  “Life isn’t easy, is it?” she asked softly, and turned to him, revealing moisture in her eyes. “It should be easy, but it’s not.”

  “No,” he agreed, coming over to stand next to her. “It’s not easy.” He tentatively put a comforting hand on her shoulder. He felt pleased – and confused – when she leaned her head down against his hand in an affectionate gesture.

  The two of them looked intently at one another, when there was a sudden, loud knock at the door.

  “Come in,” Silas spoke to the person on the other side of the door.

  Both he and Mata looked, as the door opened, and Riesta, the Mover he had battled in the restaurant, appeared. Her short blond hair helped to instantly identify her, and Silas felt a blush of embarrassment for his part in their tiff when he recognized her.

  “Your dinner food is almost ready,” she told them simply. “Would you like a bottle of wine with it?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Mata answered, at the same time that Silas said “no”.

  “Which will it be?” Riesta asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Yes,” Mata answered firmly.

  Riesta nodded, then closed the door.

  “She’s very pretty,” Silas observed casually.

  “She is; I wish I had hair like hers,” Mata agreed.

  They talked little after that, and talked little during dinner, while Mata poured their wine liberally to empty the bottle.

  And afterwards, when they went to bed, they talked little, but ended up making love.

  “I need this,” Mata gasped. “I know we care for each other, I don’t know if its love, but I need to have this.”

  “Mata, you mean more to me than anyone else in the world,” Silas told her between deep breaths of air.

  They fell asleep after their passion, then slept soundly, and awoke in a tangle of limbs when they heard a knock on the door the next morning.

  Silas awoke with an instant, full awareness of what they had done with the alcohol coursing through their brains. He opened his eyes and looked at Mata, who was staring back at him.

  He gave a tentative smile, to which she smiled broadly in return.

  “I’ll leave your breakfast tray out here for you,” a young voice called. “Your instructor will fetch you in an hour’s time, my lord.”

  “That was amazing,” he told her breathlessly.

  “I think we both enjoyed it,” she lazily agreed, as she combed her fingers through his shaggy hair, uncut since before they had started their mountain passage.

  Silas thought about the way Mata had been so intrigued by his colorful scars. During the night, she’d lightly kissed them in a line across his chest. The memory of those kisses aroused him, and he grinned at her once more.

  Their breakfast tray still sat untouched for quite some time, until a new voice called from the front room.

  “Your instructions are beginning in two minutes,” a man’s voice called.

  Silas leapt out of bed and started to pull his shirt on hurriedly, as Mata studied him through her half-lidded eyes.

  “You’ll come back soon, won’t you?” she asked.

  “As soon as they’ll let me,” Silas eagerly agreed as he dressed.

  He picked up his knife, kissed Mata tenderly, then was out the door to face his trainer.

  Chapter 16

  A small, wizened man who might have been a mythical dwarf stood in the public room of Silas’s temporary home in the Movers Guild. The man had tufts of hair above and behind his ears, and a pattern of spots and splotches across his bald pate.

  “We need to get going,” the man’s high-pitched voice explained. “And I’d take at least a bite of breakfast with me, if I were you,” he advised with a nod at the tray of fruits and breads. “You’re in for a long day.”

  Silas glanced at the man to try to judge his seriousness, then reached down to grab an apple and a loaf of bread.

  “We’ll start by testing your ability,” the old man said.

  “Are you the instructor?” Silas asked dubiously. “I thought Riesta was the instructor.”

  “I am Master Cover, the instructor of the Mover Guild,” the man agreed. “Riesta starts the training for the typical candidates, and I finish them. Except for you – I’m going to handle all your training.”

  “Where do we go for instruction?” Silas asked.

  “We’ll go to the window,” the man said, stumping over as Silas watched him, mystified by the comment. “Come along, come along,” Cover insisted.

  Silas walked over to the window, as Cover opened it.

  “Throw your bread out the window and make it float in front of us,” Cover instructed.

  “But it’s my breakfast,” Silas protested.

  “Then make it float,” Cover rebutted. “So that you can bring it back in and eat it.”

  “I don’t just control my ability that well yet,” Silas explained. “I’ve only ever done anything three or four times, when something stressful was happening, like an attack or an avalanche.”

  “Going hungry is stressful,” Cover pointed out. He unexpectedly grabbed the bread from Silas’s hand then threw it out the window.

  “Save it,” he instructed, as they watched the loaf fall away.

  Silas stared out the window and tried to imagine his ability springing to life.

  “Return!” he boomed the word out, then leaned out to hopefully see the bread stop falling, as it instead struck the ground below.

  “Well, that’s too bad,” Cover said mildly. “See if you can do better with the apple,” he glanced at the fruit Silas held.

  Silas took a deep breath, then tried to adjust his voice to be ready to project his telekinetic power towards the apple. He gently lobbed the apple through the window.

  “Float,” he called, feeling his chest and throat apply his Wind Word Speaker energy to the word.

  The apple plummeted downward, and fell into a smal
l green garden, startling a woman who was walking past.

  “That was interesting. You have Speaker abilities?” Cover asked. “Obviously you do; that word showed it. Well, that and the yellow breath you exhaled.”

  “I am a Speaker,” Silas agreed. “And I’m a hungry one. Excuse me while I eat some breakfast now.” He turned and walked back to the table where the tray of food sat.

  As he reached for a plum, the fruit suddenly scooted beyond his reach, making him leap back in surprise, as Cover giggled. Silas pursed his lips, and reached for a sweet roll, only to see it move beyond his reach as well.

  The teacher was playing games, trying to punish him, Silas realized. It wasn’t fair; Silas hadn’t claimed to have perfect control of his telekinesis. Being punished was not going to make it any easier for Silas to learn what he needed to learn in order to help build the platform – and that he really wanted to learn for his own sake, so that he could escape back out into the world with the new talent under control and available to be used as needed.

  Plus, he was hungry.

  Silas shifted his body slightly to obscure Cover’s view of his left hand. He stabbed his right hand out towards an apple, while also covertly shifting his left hand to pick up a breakfast roll. Both items moved out of reach and added insult to injury by moving past one another directly in front of him, making each hand miss both items as he flailed with uncoordinated failure.

  He was growing angry.

  There was the click of a latch being lifted, and both Cover and Silas turned their heads to see Mata open the bedroom door and emerge into the living room, wearing only a sheet wrapped around her torso.

  “Oh,” she blushed lightly, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were still here, and I came out to eat some breakfast.” She looked at Silas and grinned, “I didn’t have a chance to grab any food earlier.”

  He grinned back at her, a glint in his eye.

  Her own grin turned into a Cheshire cat grin. Cover looked from one to the other, a blank look on his face.

  Suddenly, Mata’s eyes widened. “Oh!” she squeaked, and then her sheet wrapping quivered, and tore itself from her grasp, removing itself from her body and flying back through the partially-open bedroom door.