Mistress of the pearl, p.1
Mistress of the Pearl, page 1
part #3 of Pearl Saga Series
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
PROLOGUE
Book One: CROOKED SPRING GATE
1 - Mirror
2 - A Host of Questions
3 - The Black Finger
4 - Return to Axis Tyr
5 - Down in the Farm
6 - Scent of Bitterroot
7 - Heroes and Villains
8 - Rain
9 - Three Little Admirals
10 - Hagoshrin
Krystren’s Journey
Book Two: GATE OF BLINDED PATH
11 - Einon
12 - The Forest Primeval
13 - The Garden of Law and Chaos
14 - Deceptions
15 - Along Came a Gul
16 - Unforgiven
17 - Word to the Wise
18 - Twilight
19 - Maggot in the Works
20 - The Truth About Lovers
Krystren’s Journey
Book Three: GATE OF DROWNED POINT
21 - The Mysterious Vine
22 - Kiss
23 - The Harder They Fall
24 - The Black Guard
25 - Skreeling
26 - Old Friends
27 - Pnin’s End
28 - Necromancy
29 - The Shallow Grave
30 - Emergence of Things Past
31 - Pools
32 - Crown of Creation
33 - Island of the Damned
34 - The Difference Between Death and Life
35 - The Ninth Banestone
36 - Resurrection
Also by Eric Van Lustbader
Copyright
In loving memory of my father,
Melvin Harry Lustbader
1912–2002
PROLOGUE
“So the black Chimaera says to the mermaiden, ‘You have displeased me, and for this I will carve your heart out and feed it to you.’ And the mermaiden says, ‘I would not mind so much, but I am a vegetarian.’”
The small off-duty complement of Sarakkon laughed at the first mate’s joke, and why not? The Oomaloo was nearing the end of its long journey north from the bustling port of Celiocco on the southern continent. The air belowdecks was turgid and sweet with laaga smoke. But they sprang to as they heard the lookout’s long-awaited call of “Land-all!” and thundered up the companionway. Halfway there, however, their high spirits evaporated, as the ship abruptly heeled over. Thrown against the polished wooden bulkhead, they shook their heads as the ship righted itself. But now they could feel the thrumming of the heavy seas, and they heard the storm call even as they rushed on deck.
The captain stood amidships, his eyes tearing in the high wind. Like all Sarakkon, he was tall and slender, his skin, sun-washed, wind-scoured, the color of ripe pomegranates. One eye squinty from a fishhook through it in intemperate youth. He had a full beard, sign of his rank, and through its thick curling black hair were threaded carved blue-jade spheres, silver cubes, tiny conical striped shells. He wore a lightweight kilted skirt and the kaldea—a wide belt of cured sea grape that circled his waist and hung down in front in a complex series of knots, identifying his status as well as his lineage. The moment his crew appeared, he gestured them to their stations. Moments before, the wind moaning its intentions in his ear bones, he had signaled the lookout down from his nest. One glance to the northeast had confirmed what he knew: within minutes the storm would overtake them. Already they were being buffeted by fistfuls of sleet. Sensing the storm’s powerful heart, he was reminded anew of how arrogant and small they all were.
Like virtually all Sarakkonian ships that made this long journey, the Oomaloo was a marvelously sleek three-masted merchanter, but loaded down as it was with valuable cargo, the ship was less maneuverable and thus more vulnerable to inclement weather. On top of that, the sleet, catching rigging and brass fittings, looked to bring down the sails. Although the captain was both clever and experienced, he was under an inordinate amount of pressure because of the nature of one piece of cargo. It was not something he had wished to transport, but he had been given no choice by the Orieniad, the Sarakkon ruling council.
The Oomaloo, borne by the last great storm of winter, heeled over, and the high slate seas overran its scuppers, flooding the deck. The next wave, more towering than the last, took three of the crew, his lookout among them, as it crashed obliquely across the deck. The howling wind drowned out their screams as they tumbled across the canted deck, carried overboard into the wild and punishing sea.
The second mate, a parsimonious devil, and therefore in charge of the larder, made an unwise lunge for them. The captain grabbed him from behind, kept him close to, thus ensuring that he would not lose a fourth member of his crew to the cruel Sea of Blood. Then he freed him aft to tie down rigging the gale had ripped loose.
Tearing his mind away from the tragedy, the captain yelled to the navigator to turn west. He and his first mate scrambled across a deck shin deep in sluicing water, the whorled tattoos that covered their shaved heads and bodies seeming to come alive with the actions of their muscles.
As he seized the mizzenmast, the other asked him what he meant to do.
“You will help us put the ship under full sail,” the captain replied over the roar of the storm.
“Full sail?” The first mate, a knot of muscle, a face all gnawed bone, was aghast. “That will capsize us for certain.” He turned his eyes fearfully to the mainsails already straining their sleet-grizzled grommets to the limit. “We should be furling all sail.”
“We will founder and be taken under.”
“Then we should be making all haste for Axis Tyr.”
“We are now heading west, the same direction as the storm.”
“But that is away from Axis Tyr. The port is our only—”
The captain was already unwinding the rigging from the brass stays. “We are going to use our sails to race ahead of it.”
Still the first mate balked. “That is certain suicide,” he shouted, wiping spume off his sharply triangular goatee.
The captain grabbed his first mate by the wet flaps of his tooled sharkskin vest, slammed his back against the mast. “Listen to us. Our only chance is to round the Cape of Broken Meridian, where the Sea of Blood meets the Illuminated Sea. There the ship will be protected. The ship will be safe!”
“Safe?” The mate shot him a horrified look. “No Sarakkon ship has sailed this part of the Illuminated Sea, and you know why. The legends—”
A wall of water smashed into the Oomaloo, and the ship dipped dangerously to port, taking on more water. The captain, seeing his navigator wrestling the recalcitrant tiller, bellowed at the second mate. With that worthy’s help, the navigator put his shoulder into it and slowly, with a painful creaking, the ship turned her high, carved prow more quickly to the west.
“We have no time for superstition,” the captain said to his first mate. His thick beard was rimed with salt water and spittle. The silver runes woven into it glistened in the dim light. “We have our lives to think of.”
“Not our lives,” the first mate shouted back. “The life of our passenger. It is evil luck to sail with a female on board.”
“More superstition.” The captain struck his first mate a massive blow to the side of his head. “You have not shipped with us before. Aboard the Oomaloo our word is law.” A dirk with a wrapped shagreen handle bloomed in his fist. “Now unfurl all sail and make it quick!” The dirk’s point grazed the side of the mate’s neck. “Else we swear by Yahé’s sweet lips we will slit your throat.”
The first mate leapt to, but not without a look dark with ferment. He and the captain worked smoothly and efficiently, their muscles bulging, their booted feet planted wide on the pitching deck. Methodically, doggedly in the raging face of the storm, they repeated the same procedure with the sails on each of the Oomaloo’s masts. And as the ship came to full sail, it leapt forward as if propelled by the engine of a V’ornn hoverpod. Its hull fairly lifted from the boiling sea as it skimmed along on the leading gusts of the gale.
Waves had ceased to overrun the deck, and to starboard could be seen the rocky tip of the thick finger of land known as the Cape of Broken Meridian, beyond which lay the uncharted waters of the Illuminated Sea. The captain noted the fear in his first mate’s eyes, but behind the Oomaloo was a growing wall of water, black and ugly and lethal. No matter what—if the legends were true or no—there was no turning back. A sure death rode their stern and would doubtless overtake them should their speed falter.
He strode aft, climbing the short, slippery companionway to where the navigator held the juddering tiller steady.
“When we come abeam of the cape make ready to turn her hard to starboard,” he growled. “We want to get land between us and the storm as quickly as possible.”
The navigator nodded. He had shipped with the captain since their youth. His teeth we
The area of ocean off the tip of the Cape of Broken Meridian was known as the Cauldron because it was aboil even in the calmest of weather. Its extreme turbulence could be seen, and ofttimes felt, by Sarakkon crews as they headed to and from the port of Axis Tyr. These deep and dangerous crosscurrents at the confluence of the two seas were fearful enough even without the alarming Sarakkonian legends attached to the Illuminated Sea.
The captain squeezed the navigator’s shoulder. No need to voice his trepidation. The gale was hurling them directly into the heart of the maelstrom. Grey spume flew over the high prow, which was carved into a Protector—a composite image unique to each Sarakkonian ship. The Oomaloo’s was of the lithe body of Yahé crowned with the noble head of the paiha. In this way, the very bones of the ship were infused with the goddess’s wisdom and the mythic bird of prey’s great healing powers. As the Oomaloo began to pitch and roll in the fierce crosscurrents the captain knew that they would need all of their Protector’s powers if they were to survive.
The ship dipped precipitously as they came abeam of the cape’s tip. He could see the frothy spume geysering high into the turbid sky as the sea beat itself against the jagged black rocks. He saw the navigator pushing the tiller, trying to take them hard to starboard. Since the winds were still too high and unpredictable to risk sending a lookout up the mizzenmast, he dispatched the first mate to the prow to keep a sharp eye out for any sign of rock outcroppings or reefs.
A great shuddering began to work its way through the Oomaloo as the ship entered the perilous crosscurrents. The captain got his first look at the Illuminated Sea, and it was not reassuring. Despite its name, the water was dark as night, the same color as the rocks that jutted from the tip of the Cape of Broken Meridian. Even the most expert eye would have difficulty differentiating the two.
The speed of the ship, which had been their savior against the storm, now worked against them in these uncharted waters. The captain called for all sails to be reefed, and his crew sprang to. He was battening down the canvas when the first mate rushed up to him. His face was pale and pinched and his eyes rolled in his head.
“We gave you an order,” the captain growled, now sorely vexed. “Why have you abandoned your post?”
“We have—” The first mate swallowed hard. “We have seen it, Captain.”
“Seen what?” The captain had his hands full, prepared to order the navigator to alter course. “A reef?”
The mate shook his spume-wet head. “Not a reef. We—”
“Well, out with it then!” The navigator was winning the war with the crosscurrents. The ship was slowly but surely turned to starboard, putting the finger of the cape between it and the storm. “What did you see?”
“A Chimaera.” The first mate was shaking. “A black Chimaera.”
“First, we are in uncharted waters. We are relying on your eyes to keep us from breaking apart. The daemons out of your imagination—”
“But we did see it, Captain. By Yahé’s full lips, we swear it. We saw a black Chimaera. The legends are true!”
At that moment, they were all pitched violently forward as, with a great grinding scream, the Oomaloo’s forward momentum came to an abrupt halt.
“Reef hoy!”
The navigator’s cry was nearly drowned out by the grinding and rending of lacquered timbers. The captain, picking himself up off the deck, saw a crack like a finger of doom zigzagging up the side of the Protector, and he knew all was lost. They were impaled upon the thrice-damned obsidian reef. He knew his duty, the one he had been made to swear before he had set sail. Immediately, he made for the aft companionway, leaving the first mate’s screams behind him.
Down the wet companionway he slid. The lower deck was already awash with seawater, with more imminent. There were multiple rents in the forward hull, as if the sea were eating the Oomaloo alive, and the crosscurrents ground the ship against the jagged reef, as if to leave only wormy powder behind.
He reached his cabin, tore open the door. Krystren was standing as if anticipating his appearance. Sea-green eyes, a face of extremes, like iron and velvet. She was wrapped in her wine-dark sea greatcoat. Her hair, dark and glossy as sea wrack, was wound in a thick braid, like a coil of stout rope that wouldn’t fray in the worst of winter weather.
Without a word, the captain grabbed her hand and hurried toward the aft companionway. Already the seawater was up to their shins. The ship gave a great lurch, tossing them to their knees. Up ahead, torrents began to pour through the widening rent. They regained their feet and ran.
Krystren was silent. What was there to say? She had seen he was a good captain, not that it made any difference; the sea would have the last word today. Up the companionway they clattered, while boiling seawater flooded belowdecks. As the captain appeared on deck, Krystren in his lee, the first mate fixed them with a murderous eye.
“We knew it!” the first mate crowed, advancing on them. “The accursed female!” He had drawn his dirk, an oddly small weapon, whose short, diamond-shaped blade seemed most unsuitable for hand-to-hand combat. “It is because of her that this voyage was doomed from the start!”
“See to your position!” the captain cried, interposing himself between Krystren and the first mate. “That is an order!”
The first mate laughed a cruel laugh. “Your ship is dying, captain. Your command is mercifully at an end. We have gathered what is left of the crew to our side.”
“Impossible.” The captain automatically looked to the helm. “You could not—” But the position was vacant, and now he saw the body of the navigator, facedown on the deck. Around him, blood mingled with seawater and the remnants of sleet.
The first mate grinned as the captain’s gaze swung back to him. “Those who disagreed have gone to kiss Yahé’s sweet lips.” He waggled the point of his dirk. “We give the orders now. The small boats are in the water, but neither you nor she will board them. The sea gods have spoken. They have produced the black Chimaera. They demand her as sacrifice.”
“Your fear has made you mad,” the captain said. “We will see you hanged for this.”
The Oomaloo gave another sickening groan, and the deck canted over as it began to list. The first mate waggled his filthy fingers. “No more talk, Captain. Hand her over, or you will feel our blade between your ribs.”
“You know we cannot,” the captain said, drawing his own dirk. “You know we will not.”
With an almost casual gesture, the first mate flicked his wrist. The captain’s eyes opened wide as the weapon pierced him to its hilt. Expertly cast, the narrow blade passed between his first and second ribs, puncturing his heart.
“You—” the captain said, blood already bubbling on his lips. “We should have guessed.” Then he pitched onto the deck, his corpse sliding to the rail that was by then just above the waterline.
Already, the first mate had another dirk in his fist, the mate to the one that had killed the captain.
“Sintire,” Krystren said.
The first mate spat. “You must be very valuable indeed. We will receive a fortune when we see to it that you never set foot on the northern continent.”
“Who is paying you?” Krystren asked.
The first mate laughed. “Even if we knew, do you think we would tell you? We serve the Oath.”
“How well we know,” she said as she threw the small dirk she had been holding beneath her greatcoat.
The first mate’s weapon struck the deck as his hands clutched at his throat. Desperately, he clawed at the sea-cor hilt. He staggered back, falling to his knees as he drew out the narrow, diamond-shaped blade. He knelt, staring at it as his ragged breath sawed in and out of the wound.
“We serve it, as well.”
“You are Onnda, bitch. You serve the Oath in perversity.”
Krystren took her weapon from his nerveless fingers, kicked him over onto his back. He tried to speak, but blood bubbled out of his throat. She picked up his weapon, then knelt beside him.
