The Pearl of the Soul of the World

Page 2

"Suit yourself," she snapped. "I do not know who this child is or why she wears the Witch's pin. But I do know that it marks her as no friend to our great enemy, and by the Ancientlady Ravenna, I mean to get it out."
2
Underpaths
Fish, delicious fish, each as big as her finger: grilled in oil with succulent white flesh and bones as soft as sprouting shoots. The pale girl licked her lips and searched the dish for more. She had been without the duaroughs how long now—a week of hours? A daymonth? Here below-ground, without the light of Solstar and the infinitesimal turning of the stars, she had no sense of the passage of time.
Her companions spent hours tramping the endless corridors, laying camp only at long intervals. The pearl's faint glow passed unnoticed in the darting glare of the fingerlamps the duaroughs carried. Brandl's gaze was always on her; he looked away. Maruha was the kind one, giving her food and drink, even combing out her matted hair, careful now to leave the silver pin alone. The pale girl shivered at the thought of the pin. It never ceased to pain her, but she found that as long as she did not try to remember or speak, the ache was bearable.
She and the duaroughs passed no more open water on their treks, though they crossed many more streambeds—all dry. The underpaths were desiccated, their moisture long vanished. Yet, Maruha always knew where to find water at need. From time to time, with one well-placed blow of her pick, she could release from the passage wall a thin spout. Then the girl drank greedily until Collum shouldered her aside so that he might fill their waterskins. After, Maruha stopped the flow with a peg and marked the wall with a complicated scratch. They moved on.
Whenever they came to a fork, the duaroughs paused and consulted a square of parchment: ancient, brown, and cracking along the folds. The girl saw lines crisscrossing the surface, some of them leading to a great starburst in the center. None of it meant a thing to her. She could not read.
Now and again, they came upon Ancient machinery, and each time, the duaroughs halted to examine it. Long untended, crusted with green and blood-colored flakes, most of it hardly functioned, only the faintest hum coming from its clockwork depths. Some of it did not function at all. Maruha shook her head once sadly when Collum rushed to press his ear to a device.
"We could save it," he said softly. "It wouldn't take long. Only half a hundred hours—we could save it! It hasn't been tended in years upon years."
Maruha again shook her head, more firmly now. "We're just a survey expedition. Mark it on the map, and others will come to tend it in our stead."
"If it lasts so long," Brandl murmured.
Collum rose, scowling furiously, and stalked away.
"Perish the Witch," the pale girl heard him mutter. From beneath tangled brows, he glared at her.
"Perish the Witch and all her works!"
More often than not, the paths they took were narrow and precipitous. Maruha usually went first, her fingerlamp bobbing. Brandl followed, shepherding the girl, with Collum bringing up the rear. They had taken one such way not many hours past: bits of the ceiling littered the steep grade, which seemed not to have been traveled in an age.
"Fine path this is," snorted the bearded duarough, losing his balance and sending a shower of scree down upon the others. "If such were all they had in Ancient days, it's a wonder any of them survived to reach the City." The last word was mumbled, his voice taking on a superstitious edge.
"I've told you, this isn't the main path," Maruha snapped, her fingerlamp waving wildly as she scrabbled to keep her own footing. "It's back alleys and service corridors we're taking. The pilgrims'
roads were sealed long since. You know that."
"When Ravenna first withdrew from the world?" Brandl ventured.
No one answered him. Gingerly, he guided the pale girl over the rough, slippery stones. She never lost her footing, moved with an unerring sureness, listening without attention to what the others were saying. The pain of the pin lessened when she did not concentrate.
"Do you think we could ever go there?" the young duarough tried again. "To the City? Just to see it.
We're so close."
"No!" Maruha threw back over one shoulder. The path was too precarious to let her turn safely to glower at him. "It's sealed. No one's been to the City of Crystalglass in time out of mind."
A little silence. The pin stirred. Deliberately unfocusing her thoughts, the girl watched the play of lamplight on the walls for a few moments until the twinging ceased. Behind her, Collum slipped again and cursed.
"Oh, stop complaining," Maruha panted. "Taking these routes, we're less likely to meet weaselhounds, or others of the Witch's brood."
Beside the pale girl, Brandl shuddered, but no one said anything more.
They had laid camp not long after, and the duaroughs now sat at their ease. The girl licked her fingers again. There were no more fish. Her eyelids slid sleepily halfway down. Surrounded by companions, she felt safe from the Shadow's pursuit. No memories had troubled her during their last march. The pin hardly hurt at all now. She sighed lazily, scarcely heeding what the other three were saying.
"Well, tell me the use of keeping her," Collum was muttering, combing his fingers through his coarse grey beard. "Our people have no craft for the removing of such a pin. We are skilled in the maintenance of Ancient devices, not in instruments of witchery."
Beside him, Maruha sighed. "If only my brother were here! He would know what to do. Sorcery was always his study, never machines."
"Your brother vanished into the upperlands handfuls upon hundreds of years ago," the other answered. "Fine help he is to us now."
Their talk subsided. The duaroughs had been gaming earlier with counters of stone upon a painted board. Now, their diversion done, the board lay to one side. The girl played with one of the small round stones. Like a bead it was. If only she had a bore, she could make a hole in it and put it on a string. The quiet rumble of the duaroughs' talk was comforting to her, even as she refused to follow what they said.
"Perhaps we should take her back to the upperlanders," Brandl suggested. "They have sorcerers. Let them heal her."
"Aye, that's exactly what the Witch would want us to do," grunted Collum, "show ourselves aboveground—" His voice grew vehement. "So that she can steal us away as she has done all our fellows…!"
"Peace, Collum," the duarough woman said. "We have all lost kith to the Witch. But we must not dwell on it—we must go on running the machinery of the world as best we can until the Ancient Ravenna returns to us. It is all we can do."
The upperlander tossed the beadlike stone in a circle before her, passing it from hand to hand. Other stones from the gameboard joined it, seemingly of themselves. Someone had taught her to toss stones so once, to pass the time—a blue-skinned girl in Bern? Memory teased, then darted away. Quickly, the pale girl willed her mind to emptiness. She tossed the stones without thinking.
His back to her, Collum murmured bitterly, "If the Ancientlady were ever to return to us, she would have done so by now. We are lost, and the world is lost."
"Courage, fool," exclaimed Maruha.
"The Ravenna is dead," the old man said.
With a look of alarm, Brandl whispered, "She can't be. If she is dead, then nothing matters…!" before Maruha shushed him.
"Give in to despair, and you give in to the Witch," she said to Collum.
Absently, the girl made a figure eight of the stone beads in the air before her and gazed beyond them into the fire, a warm dance of flame shooting upward from a metal vessel unlike any lamp she recognized.
Folding his arms and turning away from Maruha, Collum caught sight of her.
"Now what's she doing?" he cried.
"It's more of that tossing—what do you call it?—juggling," Brandl said. "She always does that."
Stringing beadstones through empty space, she felt the heat of the fire traveling over her skin. She had felt such heat once before—though far hotter—from a far greater and stranger Flame, which had lit the pearl and had taken her shadow away. Uneasily, she banished the thought.
"Make her stop." The bearded duarough shifted nervously. "It's witchery."
"It isn't," Maruha said. "Leave her alone."
Abruptly, the girl let the beads fall in a heap beside the board. Even that mindless activity sparked memories which the pin forbade. Pain bit at her skull. Wincing, she shut her eyes and waited for it to subside. She was so weary of the ache. If only she might sit here forever, warm and well fed, thinking of nothing—fearing, dreaming, anticipating nothing. Silence.
"Time I was off." Maruha stirred. She caught up the two waterskins that were empty and started away, calling over one shoulder, "Keep watch— and look after the girl."
Collum grunted. The pale girl basked in the warmth of the flame. The sound of Maruha's steps vanished down the corridor. Presently, the girl opened her eyes again. Collum had put up the beads and board and pulled the faded square of parchment from his pocket. Brandl opened his pack and drew out a tiny, slender harp made of silver wood with golden wires. The girl had never seen it before. He began tinkering with the tuning pegs and polishing it carefully with a fawnskin cloth.
"Best not let Maruha see you at that foolishness," Collum murmured. Brandl hunched protectively over the little instrument. At last he tucked the cloth away.
"Collum," he said.
The other made a wordless sound. The young duarough seemed to take it for encouragement.
"Tell me what you've heard," he said, with a glance surfaceward. "From up there. About the war."
Rattling his parchment, Collum turned away. "I wouldn't know anything of the sort."
Brandl bent closer. "You do! You're always listening. And I know you talk to the others, the ones who go surfaceward. You needn't fear to tell me. Maruha will never know."