Idol of Glass (12 page)

Pike dusted himself off and spat on the floor near Cree's feet, though Cree made no attempt to step back and give him the satisfaction of being moved by him in any capacity. “I'll find a land conveyance to take me the rest of the way, Captain. I have no wish to make your other passengers uncomfortable. It so happens my business takes me west, and I won't be returning on the
Dream
. But I must say, the
Pearl
has been quite enlightening.”

Paravar looked uncomfortable as Pike ambled away. “I hope this hasn't marred the trip for you. If there's anything else I can do—”

“As a matter fact,” said Ume, stepping forward, “we were just coming to see you. Do you have a moment to speak in private?”

The captain flamed to his ears. Ume might think Cree's presence would make him more comfortable, but for once, she was wrong.

“You don't need me to hang about while you chat.” Cree put on a polite smile. “I'll just head back to the stateroom and pick up where I left off in my book.” She turned about before Ume could object, and slipped away. Of course, it hadn't only been her discomfort with Paravar that had prompted the sudden change of plan. Before Pike slunk off the
Deltan Dream
, Cree was going to have one last go at him.

She waited at the end of the stateroom passage until he emerged, and her presence brought him up short.

“I thought you'd had enough of me.” Pike walked resolutely ahead to pass her.

Cree grabbed his arm and swung him around. “I want that journal.”

Pike eyed her hand on his arm. “I'm sure you do. It's quite fascinating. But it happens to be in my possession, and thus my property. If you want to involve the good captain again, I'm sure he'll have something to say about even one of his pet passengers robbing another passenger on board his ship.”

“What do you want for it?”

Pike laughed. “You couldn't afford it,
Master
Silva. Not only is it a recipe book for Nesre's relics, it contains the known methods for subduing a Meer—everything Nesre attempted that succeeded.”

Cree's fingers uncurled from his arm. “Subduing…”

Pike's smirk was absent for once. “Methods he used on the boy to ensure his compliance. You may think my calling is a despicable one, but I remind you that I never harmed the child. Even inhuman and dangerous, he is a child, and I'm not in the business of torturing children. I relinquished him to your charming Ume with a warning for her to be careful, but I relinquished him nonetheless. But while I don't approve of what Nesre did—to you or the boy—I will not part for any price with the knowledge he gained in the process.”

Cree crossed her arms, rubbing them against a sudden chill. “Then let me see it, just the parts that are relevant.”

“There are no parts that are relevant to you that wouldn't be needlessly unpleasant.”

“Now you're concerned with what I find unpleasant?”

“I was baiting you. Just something to pass the time. But trust me when I say you don't want to read it, and it will have no benefit to you in dealing with the boy. And let me just give you one last piece of advice. I know you feel you have ties to the child—ties that I now understand far more clearly—but you don't understand what he is. With a written word, in a fit of temper, he could split you open and eviscerate you. Or if he manages to speak after all, he could utter a curse that would rot the insides of every man, woman and child in range—and who knows what his range is. Whatever you choose to believe, know this: he will not always be a child. And when he comes of age, I
will
hunt him. It's nothing personal. I may well be saving your life.”

Cree didn't attempt to stop him again as he departed. Her heart had a caul of cold enveloping it. The Hidden Folk had tried to convince her Pearl was a monster, but they'd been mistaken about the extent to which his visions had affected him. She didn't believe, in her heart, that Pearl could be what they claimed. But Pike's words had enough truth to them that she couldn't dismiss them entirely. Pearl wouldn't always be a child. And with the things Nesre had done to him in his formative years—and what the Hidden Folk might be doing to him even now—there was every chance he would grow up to be the most dangerous man who had ever lived. Cree might one day be the mother of a monster.

It was all the more reason she and Ume had to find him and get him back. They were his only chance.

Ume's visit to the captain's quarters took longer than Cree found comfortable. Sitting cross-legged in the center of their little bed, Cree was pretending to read when Ume returned.

Ume frowned at her from the door. “You disappeared on me.”

“It was already awkward.” Cree closed the book and glanced up as Ume shut the door and leaned back against it. “He didn't need me there to make it more awkward. So how did he take it?” She couldn't resist adding, “Your talk took quite a while.”

Ume rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “My jealous husband.”

“I'm not jealous.”

“I told him about my vocation, my history in
Soth
In'La, and why I felt the need to travel under my old identity for safety. He was very understanding.”

Of course he was.
Cree didn't want to think about just how understanding he might have been.

“He was somewhat understandably disappointed to realize his adventure had taken place with a woman—or rather, that he isn't likely to encounter Cillian Rede again. He'd grown quite attached to him, it seems.”

“Ume—”

“I told him in no uncertain terms that Cillian would
not
be reprising his role.” Ume came toward the bed. “I also told him about you, how you prefer to allow others to make assumptions about your sex for similar reasons of safety and livelihood.” Ume climbed onto Cree's lap, facing her. “He was quite intrigued.”

“Was he, now?” Cree slipped her arms around Ume's waist.

“He confessed to finding Cillian a bit too pretty for his tastes, despite how much the exchange had meant to him. But he admitted to finding
you
incredibly attractive.” Ume nibbled at Cree's ear in the way only she could that instantly reduced Cree to putty in her hands. “He sighed and said, ‘If only I could meet someone with your Cree's presentation and mannerisms and Cillian's skills and attributes.'” Ume's teeth sank into the lobe just the right amount to make Cree moan. “To which I replied that they were, of course,
my
skills and attributes, and pointed out that someone with your mannerisms was right here. And together we're rather a perfect package.”

With effort, Cree ducked her head to the side, and out of the immediate range of Ume's mouth. “Ume! Why would you say something like that?”

“Well, because it's true, darling.” Ume's wicked smile crinkled the corners of her eyes. She was enjoying this way too much.

“And now he's under the impression that he can get two for one! I'm not in your profession. Don't try to pimp me.”

Ume drew back, the amber darkening in her eyes, and let her arms fall away from Cree's shoulders. “That was uncalled for. I had no idea you thought yourself so far above me.”

“Ume—” Cree had to topple them both onto their sides to keep her from scrambling away. “That's not what I meant. I didn't think about how that would sound. I'm sorry. Don't bristle.” Cree pinned her wrists lightly, and Ume looked away from her but at least didn't try to escape her touch. Cree had really stepped in it this time. “Sweetheart, I'm sorry. You know my history, that I worked the streets sometimes when I was young only because I had no other way to survive, and not because I wanted to. I have a very different frame of reference for the experience. But I didn't mean to dump that onto yours.”

Ume shrugged, a slight concession, though she still looked away. “I suppose I was out of line, making a suggestion like that without thinking about how you might feel about it, even in jest.”

“Was it in jest?”

Ume looked up at her, the deep honey cheeks pink. “No. But I didn't promise him anything. I just got a little carried away thinking about the possibilities.”

“Are you thinking about them right now?” Cree gave her a sly smile as she flicked her gaze toward Ume's lap. “I bet you are.” The silky garment rose slightly at the scrutiny.

“You're a tease, Cree Silva. Unhand me.” Ume made no move to enforce the demand.

Instead of unhanding her, Cree drew her touch softly up Ume's left arm and over to her chest to pinch her nipple through the silk above the high-waisted Deltan sash. Ume squirmed delightfully, her erection becoming more visible beneath the skirt.

“You wanton thing.” Cree clucked her tongue. “I suppose you want me to mount you, here and now.”

“Oh, goodness.” Ume let out a soft giggle as Cree continued to torment her. “
Mount
. Such a utilitarian word. Yes, please. Please mount me.” Despite the banality of the term, she managed to make the entire exchange unbelievably sensual, and Cree wasted no time in wriggling out of her pants and divesting Ume of her layers of somewhat baffling underthings.

Ume shivered and moaned as Cree lowered herself onto her pennant cock.

“What was it you wanted to do to that poor Captain Paravar?” Cree kept her voice slow and deep, echoing her motions in Ume's lap.

“I was rather hoping,” Ume gasped, clutching the bedclothes, “that you'd give him—a bit of much needed discipline.” Her grinding hips kept tempo with Cree's.

Cree began to move faster, bracing her palms against the bed and pumping herself against Ume. “Oh? And how would I do that?”

“Tell him how very naughty he's been and”—Ume bit her lip, trying to hold back—“and order him to service me on his knees, of course.”

Cree leaned over her, their stomachs slick with sweat and slipping against each other. “And I suppose he'd be a good little sailor and gobble your spunk right down.”

That did it. Ume arched into Cree and let out a muffled howl as she emptied into her.

Cree sat back and rode her roughly, stroking her own clit as Ume moaned out the last of it before Cree let go herself a few moments after, shuddering with a rippling wave of pleasure.

“So,” Ume sighed as Cree snuggled against her, both of them happily damp. “Was that a practice run?” She squealed as Cree pinched her nipple once more, this time not the least bit erotically.

“Gods, you're incorrigible.” Cree planted a firm kiss on her lips. “I am not fulfilling poor Captain Paravar's fantasy for him. He should count himself fortunate that he received the honor of the services of the most prestigious—and skillful—temple courtesan in the Delta at all.”

“Darling,” said Ume. “That just goes without saying.”

Paravar bid them farewell with obvious regret when the ship arrived at Rhyman the following morning. Ume regretted it a bit herself. She would have loved to see Cree dominating a man—and she wouldn't have minded bending the captain over his desk once more either.

But they were one step closer to finding a way under the hill without the usual invitation. If there was anyone who could get them through the veil it was another Meer. And Ume happened to know that their old friend Ahr, who currently resided in the former temple of Ra as Lord Minister Merit's Second, was acquainted with one more. Even if Ahr still couldn't remember Pearl because of the enchantment of forgetting, he remembered the Meer who'd granted his
vetma
to be changed into a man. She lived in hiding in one of the
soths
, and Ume intended to petition her.

At the temple, Ume and Cree were granted immediate entrance. The servants remembered Ume from her visit the previous summer, and treated her almost like royalty. Merit had apparently kept the temple staffed with those who still remained loyal Meerists, and a courtesan of Ume's stature was almost as revered by them as one of the Meer themselves.

But when Ume asked to see Ahr Naiahn, the faces of the loyal servants were downcast. Ume and Cree were shown instead to Ahr's urn.

Their oldest friend was gone. And Merit had fallen into an inexplicable torpor. And they were no closer to finding Pearl than if they'd stayed in their rented room in Gundoumu Arazi.

Seventeen: Awakening

The Heart of Winter had come, and Jak was well enough to enjoy it. Once again, Mound RemPeta was chosen for the honor, one of the few mounds fully recovered from the gales of autumn. The symbolic observance reminded Jak painfully of the last Heart of Winter. So much seemed the same. Geffn's aging parents, Rem and Peta, ruled the roost, as spry as ever. And Mell and Keiren, members of the moundhold now for more than five seasons, alternated between doting upon and teasing each other as if they were still newly handfasted. But the players had slightly changed; there was Geffn's Sevine this time instead of Ra.

Sevine was leery of Jak, and perversely, Jak did nothing to ease her fears. During the ritual of bread making, a tradition reserved for women, Sevine hovered about Peta, anxious to please her future mother-in-law. Jak's tradition was baiting both the men drinking and debating in the gathering room and the women cloistered in the kitchen, as a protest against the stilted adherence to gender roles by moving freely between both spaces. It clearly agitated Sevine as Jak came and went through the women-only space at every excuse.

On one of Jak's excursions to the kitchen, looking up as though only just noticing the repeated intrusion, Sevine frowned and nodded toward Peta. “Should Jak be here? Doesn't he—I mean, she—I mean—” Sevine managed a pretty blush and convincing dismay. “Oh…I forgot.”

Jak scowled at her, spoiling for a fight. “You didn't forget. You've been watching me all evening.” Coming closer to the group gathered around the table, Jak stepped into Sevine's personal space. “You deliberately insulted me.”

Sevine looked to Peta and Mell with an anxious silent appeal. She'd obviously expected to get away with the slight and knock Jak down a peg or two. She hadn't expected a confrontation. Jak didn't move, and no one moved to help Sevine.

Her pink cheeks turned red with defiance. “You're the one who's been deliberately rude to
me
. So intimate with Geffn, so coy, trying to embarrass me in front of the entire mound.”

Jak's anger was ameliorated by an urge to laugh. “
Coy?
I don't believe I've ever been coy in my entire life.”

Though her blush deepened, Sevine stood her ground, and Jak was grudgingly impressed.

“Perhaps it was an honest mistake. So let me just explain things to you in simple terms, in case no one has. It's the confines of the concept of gender I take exception to, the idea that one's parts somehow dictate who they are, separating people into limiting categories and roles based on their sex. Rejecting that doesn't mean I wish to be labeled male, any more than I wish to be labeled female. But regardless of pronouns, by the silly little rules of society, I
am
allowed in this kitchen. And just so you don't make the same mistake again, here's something to make sure you don't forget.”

Jak grabbed Sevine's hands and pressed them to the hitherto undefined chest with a vengeance, squeezing Sevine's fingers around the unmistakable breasts beneath the loose work shirt, and eliciting a startled squeal. “There you are. That ought to give you something tactile to remember.”

Jak walked away, feeling smug at the peals of laughter from Mell and Peta. Something caught Jak's eye on rejoining the gathering, drawing Jak's gaze downward to where Sevine's hands had been. Two white, flour-dusted handprints marked the shirt.

The ceremony of lights followed shortly afterward, the lamps extinguished and the mound in darkness until the first candle fluttered into life. It was the perennial story of renaissance. Life had gone under, but indomitably returned, springing forth out of the elemental void from uncertainty and shadow into radiant abundance.

Sevine giggled in the darkness while they awaited the first candle. It could only be Geffn toying with her as he used to do with Jak. After indulging in a moment of self-pity, Jak gave it up with a sigh. There was nothing wrong with Sevine, and Jak had relinquished Geffn long ago.

The first light spilled into the absence, turning blankness to a feathery shadow world in which faces wavered, partially in view at the flash of the candle's brilliance then occluded by a wavering flicker. The next candle appeared, lit by the first as it crossed the room, and the scene became duskily romantic, barely seen. This candle and its bearer rose and crossed once more in the path of the star, each flame to its opposite point. It was Jak's turn then, and Jak stood as the flame hissed into being. The room was dancing with a soft, delightful illumination, and Jak saw who sat at the opposite point.

Sevine glanced about in dismay to see if someone else was nearer to Jak's trajectory, but there was no evading it. Jak would pass the kiss of light to her. Jak came forward, feeling crude and unrefined before the graceful Sevine. Sevine held up her candle, her face young and petrified before her more seasoned rival. Poor Sevine. It wasn't her fault Jak was miserable.

Jak looked up from the candle under mischievous lashes. Standing an inch from Sevine's outstretched hand, Jak plucked at the collar of the work shirt Sevine had so recently imprinted, darting a glance down into the shirt and back at Sevine with a meaningful lift of an eyebrow.

Sevine's cheeks reddened even in the dim light, and then a small sound sputtered through her tight lips despite her desperate attempt to retain her composure. Geffn looked at her curiously, having missed the gesture, and Sevine was finished. She broke up loudly into nervous laughter and covered her mouth, and Jak ducked down and let their wicks come together. “I was just making sure,” Jak whispered with a grin. “They might have gotten away.” Sevine succumbed to a spasm of laughter, and Jak walked away as though unconnected to the source.

There was a truce between them after that, and Jak relinquished Geffn's attention to her. Watching them, however, was still a needle prodding Jak's sore spot. At the last Heart of Winter, Jak had been celibate by choice, self-contained and content. Jak had needed no one, and desired no one.
Naiahn aovet
,
aovet naiahn
. In Deltan, the phrase was painfully ironic.

Then Ra had come out of the white and shattered every construct Jak had embraced, leaving Jak full of holes. Even Jak's friendship with Ahr had been altered, both of them exposed to feeling where there'd been none before—or none that needed expressing in the platonic compromise they'd struck. Ra had cut Jak open so that elements flowed both out and in, and then had taken from Jak what she'd incited Jak to need.

The celebration was energetic, and Jak was seated once more on the steps, an outsider this time by fate instead of choice. Jak's moundmates had won the eternal debate after all: one had no true choice, and exercising the illusion of it led to folly. Jak stood and took a wrap from the peg, ascending to the clarifying cold above. It was where Jak always went to mull over problems of philosophy—though Jak hadn't expected abstract philosophy to become life.

There was only starlight on the blue-shadowed snow. The Heart of Winter fell on the last new moon before the solstice so the darkness would be absolute. Jak knew the Haethfalt terrain even in the dark, even through concealing snow, feet charting automatically toward the north, tracing the path to the small outer mound as though they didn't know Ahr was dead. There was no cloud cover tonight to repeat the storm from which there'd been no turning back. Perhaps Jak would go down to Mound Ahr and light a candle to soften Ahr's darkness.

A sound of respiration stopped Jak on the path. There had been wolves close to the settlements this winter since the storms had altered their hunting grounds and left them hungry. Jak turned toward the sound, nape prickling. Perhaps it was only imagination or a trick of the night. In a depression of snow, Jak saw it, hunkered down. It
was
a wolf, or—

Jak's breath jarred painfully in the healing lungs. The dark shape was becoming defined. A woman's shape—an unclothed woman with inhuman lengths of dark hair.

Ra had returned. She appeared here somehow in the same manner as before, as though she were the symbolic vegetative deity herself, gone under with the turn of the year, and once again come forth.

Jak shouted at the apparition. “Go away. I don't want you.”

The naked woman lifted her head, still crouched and holding on to herself in a feral stance. It
was
Ra. Her lips moved, blue and soundless, only the rapid breath escaping. Jak realized she was quickly becoming hypothermic.

“Damn you. I don't believe this.” Reluctantly, Jak went to her and put the warm wrap over her shaking shoulders, and she took it wordlessly. “Why don't you just conjure something?” Jak demanded. “You obviously have the ability to end up here. Or did Shiva send you?” That was the more likely—Shiva and her mysterious orchestrations.

Jak looked down at Ra's frozen feet. She couldn't stay out here. Jak took her by the shoulders. “Dammit, come on then, Ra.”

The shivering face looked up at Jak and there was something peculiar about it. The eyes— “Ra?” she gasped, grabbing at Jak. “Ra?” The eyes were indigo.

Jak swept her to her feet and looked into the blue-black depths. Unexpectedly, she was no taller than Jak. Her limbs, even through the woolen wrap, were like ice. Jak whirled her about and began to run with her back toward Mound RemPeta, but her frozen feet stumbled, already unable to carry her. Jak lifted her and plowed with effort toward the mound, stumbling once on an embankment and gathering the wet bundle once more from the snow.

The door flew open under Jak's boot, and the party came to an astonished halt. “I need help.”

Geffn bounded the stairs instinctively, taking the limp, unconscious body from Jak's arms.

“Blessed sooth.” Rem came forward, face flushed with drink and the warmth of the fire. “You've brought her again.”

“No,” said Jak as they hurried with her down the steps. “It isn't Ra. It's Ahr.”

The golden lights had returned. Pearl watched them drift and float, winking in and out above his bed like fireflies in a summer meadow at dusk. Beside him, someone stirred, the Caretaker attending him while he slept. She rose and stood over him, a crystal bowl filled with pale, milky gold liquid held in her hands.

“Drink,” she instructed, holding it out to him.

Pearl took it from her and did as he was told without question. It tasted like honey and wildfires.

“Drink it all.”

He intended to. When he handed the empty bowl back to her, he saw Mnemosyne standing behind her in the haze of firefly lights.

The statuesque woman let one of the gold tufts alight on her palm and blew on it, snuffing it out. “Do you know, Pearl, that you fill the halls beneath the hill with these lights when you're on the mend?”

“I do?”

“You do. Our realm responds to you, shaping to your whims.”

“You've been quite ill,” the Caretaker added. “The activity of the Meer in the other realm seems to upset you. You mustn't allow yourself to become entangled in the emotional intensity of what you paint and draw. As I told you before, you must learn to shut out what doesn't concern you. Focus on what you wish to see and let the rest flow past you.”

“What the Caretaker means,” said Mnemosyne, with, it seemed to Pearl, a touch of annoyance at the Caretaker's remonstrative tone, “is only that you need to be a little more careful. We don't want to see you come to harm. But we would never wish to hamper your creativity. Your vision is what's important.”

The Caretaker bowed stiffly, as though Mnemosyne had given her a silent directive. “We'll let you rest. But try not to let what you see affect you so deeply. The affairs of other Meer no longer concern you.”

Pearl nodded. But what he saw did concern him. The very nature of the Meeric flow said they were connected. Ra's madness, a continent away, had nearly destroyed him. Shiva's darkness had actually maddened and destroyed MeerHraethe. All Pearl had ever seen in his visions—except when he'd meditated with purpose on the
vetmas
of the people of
Soth
Szofl while he sat on its throne—were the lives of other Meer. And now those lives were undergoing rapid, tumultuous change, affecting those he cared about.

The Caretaker and Mnemosyne left him to his thoughts, and he had plenty. He hadn't realized his moods had an effect on the reality under the hill. If he was merely a glass reflecting the light and shadow of the outside world, why did the things he looked for appear when he needed them? He'd thought it was the Permanence providing these things to accommodate him, but now he wasn't so sure. And why would his thoughts and even his health affect the atmosphere around him?

Since he hadn't done it consciously, he wondered if he could. Pearl lay back on his pillow and watched the twinkling golden lights. Could he make them pink like the ones that floated throughout his usual quarters? He concentrated on a single light and willed it to change color. It seemed for a moment the light was fluxing, dimming and glowing bright again, wavering from a pale gold to a slightly warmer hue. But that was all. He couldn't be sure it had been his influence that affected it.

He tried to say it aloud:
Pink
. But though it was a single syllable, the combination of sounds at the end of this word proved too painful for him to execute.

The table beside his bed held a box of paper and a tray of colored pencils. Pearl sat up and pulled them onto his lap, and began drawing the room and the lights floating through it. He used the warm gold and sunny yellow tones to depict the lights, and then he took the pinks and roses and colored over the gold. As he drew, the light in the room around him turned paler and softer, with a decidedly rosy glow. Even the warm, firewood scent became a sweet bouquet. Pearl set down the pencils and looked around him with satisfaction. He'd redrawn reality.