Thieves' World: Turning Points

Diana L. Paxson. The Prisoner in the Jewel

Here, there is no time.

She turns, meeting herself in a hundred refractions, always shifting, but never changing, for there is no time here. She turns and sees herself, always and only herself. It is this, she thinks, that will drive her mad. Perhaps it has done so already.

Light and Dark succeed one another, so she knows that in the world outside, night still follows day.

But here, there is no time.

The board above the door to the inn turned in the wind that blew in from the sea. As it swung back, it caught the thin sunlight, and the golden eye of the phoenix that gave the inn its name appeared to blink. Latilla paused for a moment, squinting, to see if it would happen again, then shook her head and sloshed the bucket of water across the worn stone steps. Her husband would have seen that momentary flicker as an omen. Her father could have made the bird come alive and fly away. But to Latilla it meant it was going to be another damp day in late winter. And every morning when she rolled out of the bed in which she slept (alone) she prayed that nothing would happen to change this from one more ordinary day.

When she was a little girl, magic had been a wonder. Later, it had become a horror. Both she and Sanctuary, she thought sourly, were far better off without magic, magi, or gods.

Phoenix Lane was waking around her. Far down the road she could see a horseman ambling slowly along. Water gurgled and added itself to the remains of Latilla's pail as the fuller down the road poured out the stinking contents of a bleaching vat. For a moment the acrid reek of aged urine filled the air. Long ago, when her father had built Phoenix House from stone left over from the new City wall, the street had been clean and inviting.

But concepts like safety and respectability seemed to be alien to her hometown. Wealth and corruption, yes—those might survive— but there was something in the air of Sanctuary that corroded peace as the stink of the fuller's vat was fouling the air. Her father was gone, and the pleasant home he had built now supported what remained of his family as an inn.

Still, whether the smell was dissipating or she was simply becoming used to it, with each moment Latilla's awareness of it grew less.

Sanctuary never really changes, she thought with a sigh, but even here, life goes on.

What ought to be going on, or at least getting up, was her brother Alfi, whose job it was to feed the animals stabled in the shed at the rear of the inn. She could hear the trader's donkey braying impa-tiently. The empty bucket banged against her calf as she strode around the building to see.

By the time she had gotten Alfi going, the rider she had seen earlier was coming up the lane, peering about him as if not quite sure of his road. He was either a very tall man, she thought, watching, or he was riding a small horse. It was early in the day for an incoming traveler to have reached Sanctuary. She wondered what he was looking for.

It was not only the beasts who protested when breakfast was not forthcoming, Latilla thought as she pushed open the door of the cook shed they had added onto the back when they turned the house into an inn. Her daughter Sula was bending over the hearth, stirring a pot. That was a relief—her twin brother Taran had never come in last night at all. Then she caught sight of the breakfast tray still waiting patiently, and emptily, on the table.

Boys, most likely, Latilla realized as Sula turned, coloring up to the roots of her fair hair. She was a good girl, or had been until adolescence had turned her brains to mush.

"The porridge is done, so get that bowl filled and upstairs! The other guests will be coming down to breakfast any moment now."

"Oh Mother, Gram always complains so! She'll ask me who I've been seeing, and come out with some dire warning because his grandfather, or his father, or his uncle, came to some ghastly end. Doesn't she know anything good about anyone?"

Latilla snorted. "In this town? Get up there, child—You won't sweeten her temper by starving it."

"I'm not your servant, or hers, either…" Sula muttered as she took the bowl from the tray and ladled a dollop of porridge into it.

"No—a servant would be grateful!" Latilla replied tartly. "Now go—disaster is only deepened by delay!"

"Oh mother, does everything you say have to have a proverb?" Sula complained, pouring tea into the cup.

Whatever Latilla was going to say was interrupted by a clangor at the front door. As Latilla started forward, Sula made her escape up the stairs, laden tray in hand.

The horseman stood on the step, still holding the rein of his mount. She looked up at him, in one swift glance noting the lines graven by patience and perhaps suppressed passion as well. His life had not been easy, but she thought he was younger than he at first appeared.

"They say you have rooms. Clean, and not too expensive."

His voice was very deep. A swiftly suppressed spurt of awareness identified it as the kind of voice she liked in a man. Her husband, Darios, had spoken thus, although the two men were unlike in all other ways. The stranger sounded as if he had come from Ranke, though the accent had been worn smooth by years of exile.

"And stabling for my horse."

"I've a room on the second floor," she said slowly, "though I don't know where I'll find a bed to fit you. The horse will be easier."

She let her awareness extend towards him in the way Darios had taught her. The ability to "read" her guests had proved useful before now. This time, however, her probe met a blank wall. No one expected a widow who kept an inn to know any magecraft. Latilla had worked hard to keep it that way—it was not worth jeopardizing that concealment by probing further.

"Give me a few padpols off the price and I'll sleep on a pallet on the floor…" he was saying, as if he had not noticed. Perhaps the shields were natural, then, and the man was no more than he seemed.

Questions might be unwise, but speculation was another matter. The stranger's clothing was worn, but he wore it with an elegance that suggested there might have been a time when he slept in a bed built to match his inches. She would have to decide on the basis of that air of faded nobility, and the pain she had seen in his eyes.

He looked a little taken aback, but he clasped her hand. She could feel the warmth within him, like a hidden fire. "You may call me Shamesh."

Well, that was one way to let her know it was not really his name. But that was no concern of hers, Latilla told herself firmly, so long as he paid his rent on time. Now if Taran would only get home, the whole family would be accounted for, and as safe as anyone could be, in these times.

Taran was, at that point, only a few backstreets away, reflecting on how much he hated mornings. He hated them even more when he saw them from the other side, with no sleep to soften the breaking day. A bleached, thinned quality always seemed to weaken the blue of the sky, as if some forgetful god had left a translucent veil to obscure the night. Taran tried not to dwell on such thoughts. They wakened childhood nightmares best left alone.

On this particular morning his apprehensions were particularly acute.

Mama's going to kill me if she finds out! he thought miserably,

Latilla disapproved of the company Taran chose to keep, a mixed gang of youths who haunted the marketplace led by Griff, a boy two years Taran's senior. Griff had grown up in the Maze, and had a scar for every lesson he'd learned there. But Griff had humor in him too, which gave him a certain charm that drew Taran and others to him. It was that charisma that inspired them to go looking for trouble. Where many in Sanctuary simply sought to survive, Griff and his boys wanted to thrive.

Damn you, Griff! thought Taran. What the hell were you thinking?

A sharp yelp stopped him. Up ahead, a half-dozen boys had tied a mongrel dog to a stake they'd hammered into the ground. They were throwing rocks at it, and from the look of it they'd been at it for awhile. The soft scent of blood mixed with the city smells of urine and dirt.

The dog was too tired even to defend itself, and staggered back and forth behind the inadequate cover of the stake. Occasionally a particularly sharp rock would gouge it and the dog would muster enough strength for another whimper. All this did was to make the ragged boys cheer whoever had made the shot and inspire the others to imitate him.

Taran's eyes blurred, and for a moment he saw Griff surrounded by men with clubs. Up and down the clubs went, blood splattering behind them.

Taran shuddered. He had not been able to help Griff. He could not help the dog now. He turned and dashed past the boys and their victim, trying to ignore the pity that welled within him. And the fear.

Once Shamesh had arranged his scant luggage in his chamber, and every morning thereafter, he would leave the Phoenix and head towards the residences of the Rankan exiles at Lands' End, or in the other direction, towards the town. Taran, who had shown an unusual willingness to stay home lately and thus had been pressed into service as a guide, reported that the man's purpose was not commerce, for he took no goods with him, nor was he carrying anything in the evening when he came back again. Whatever his business was, it was not proving successful. With each day, Latilla could sense his frustration mounting.

At the end of the week, when Shamesh came to her to pay his accounting, she could stand it no longer. "Will you be wanting the room for a week longer, or have you completed your business here?"

"I have not even begun!"

"Come—sit down. I have just made tea." Her smile invited confidence. When the house was new, her mother had hoped to hold feasts in the dining room. Large enough to hold all the guests for a communal meal, it was empty now. Morning sunlight filtered through the high windows and glowed on the frescoes, the only remnant of past splendor that had survived the hard times when anything that could bring in a few padpols had to be sold.

"Nothing in this town is where I was told to seek it—even the Vulgar Unicorn has moved!" Shamesh exclaimed.

"The past few years have been troubled," Latilla agreed. "Much has been destroyed, and many died." She waited a little, watching him. "Is it a person or a place that you are looking for?"

"A person…" he said at last. "A noblewoman of Ranke who came with the household of Prince Kadakithis when he was sent here as governor."

"The Prince left Sanctuary thirty years ago! The only Rankans remaining here are the old families—I suppose you have asked among them?"

"Exhaustively. A few of the older folk remember her, but they believe she went with the Prince to the Bey sin isles…"

Something about the way he said it alerted her. Clearly, Shamesh knew that Prince Kadakithis had returned to Ranke instead of sailing away with his Beysib queen. Was he dead, or was it he who had told this man about Sanctuary?

"My older sister was one of the Beysa's ladies," Latilla said instead. "So I can tell you that there were only a few women from Sanctuary on those ships, and none of them was Rankene." Watching, she saw the light fade from his eyes, and repressed the impulse to reach out and comfort him. "She never arrived in the capital?"

Shamesh shook his head. "Do you think I would have come all the way to this miserable hole if she had?"

For a moment Latilla bristled. Then she sighed. It was, after all, true. Even her own father had left in the end, and though he had promised to be back in a year's time, he had never returned. She took a calming breath.

"What was her name?"

"Elisandra. She was the older sister of the lady who is now Empress of Ranke. I have been sent to look for her."

Latilla sat back, understanding many things. Though Ranke no longer dared claim Sanctuary as a possession, rumor of events in the Empire still reached them. The throne had been seized by a northern general some years back, who appeared to be ruling well. To legitimize his reign he had married into a family which was, if not quite imperial, ancient enough to make him socially acceptable. Had Shamesh taken on this search for money, or was there some more pressing motive? She could not ask, but he had gained her sympathy.

The sudden light in his face made it for a moment beautiful. La-tilla's breath caught, and she was abruptly conscious of him as a physical being, and at the same time remembered how long it had been since she had felt that kind of awareness of a man.

He is at least a decade younger than I am, despite the silver threads in his hair, she told herself, and whatever beauty I might have had is long gone!

"That's true!" he exclaimed. "But I would not know how to begin asking. Mistress Latilla, will you help me?"

In the morning it had rained, and the streets were still muddy. Latilla held up the skirts of her second best robe and picked her way along Pyrtanis Street with care, very conscious of the tall man at her side, who was glancing from side to side, his expression an uneasy mix of disgust and caution.

"Who is this woman we're going to see?" Shamesh asked as they turned the corner to Camdelon Street. The buildings here were even shabbier, but the steps were swept and here and there a plant in a pot made a pathetic attempt at gentility. Like me—thought Latilla, remembering how Sula had stared at the unaccustomed finery. The girl is too filled with her own dreams to imagine that her mother might also cherish a few fantasies… She realized the subject of her current fantasy had spoken and forced a smile.

"Her name is Mistress Patrin. In the old days, she was chief housekeeper at the Palace, and the terror of the servants there. When I was a little girl she certainly terrified me. She will probably inform you that her father was a Rankene lord, and it would be best to pretend to believe her. My mother always doubted that story, but at least while they could still get out and about, the two of them stayed on visiting terms. So I know the old bat survived the Troubles, though whether she's alive now I couldn't say."

It had taken a week of patient inquiry to get this far. Most of the Palace servants she had thought of first were dead or disappeared, and even Taran's network of scruffy layabouts, motivated by the promise of Rankene coin, had run out of options by the time she remembered her mother's old friend.

"And you think this Patrin can help us?"

"Well, she knew everyone who was at court in those days—and all the gossip as well. She'll have known this Elisandra of yours."

And Elisandra, if we find her, will be at least ten years older than I, thought Latilla with a grim satisfaction. She would be no rival, even in fantasy.

A gaggle of yelling children shot out from an alley, gave Latilla and her companion a practiced once-over, and having decided they looked too alert to try a little purse snatching, pelted off down the road.

Latilla, who had been counting the houses down from the corner, paused, eyeing the dwelling before her dubiously. The potted plant on the step had clearly died some time ago.

Shamesh, less sensitive to nuances, took a step forward and banged on the door. They waited in the street for what seemed an endless moment, Latilla feeling more foolish as it extended. But Shamesh had only just lifted his hand to knock again when a crack widened at the edge of the door. Metal glinted—the chain was still on. Above it she glimpsed the glitter of an eye.

The chain glittered and swung as the door was pulled open.

"Who's this?" the old woman barked as she saw Shamesh. "Not your husband!" She looked him up and down in an appraisal which her age saved from being insulting.

"A… friend, who volunteered to escort me through the town—" answered Latilla as they had agreed.

"Please, good mistress, I am quite well behaved, I assure you!" said Shamesh, smiling.

"A Rankan lord, by your accent! Did you think I would not know? I wonder what such a one is doing here?" She sniffed, but she pulled the door the rest of the way open.

It was just as well they had brought their own food, thought Latilla, wrinkling her nose a little at the faint sour smell in the room. It was dusty, too. From the way Mistress Patrin moved, she guessed that the old woman's sight was failing. She must have recognized her by voice rather than vision.

"And how does your mother?"

"Her health is good," said Latilla, "but she cannot walk very well anymore."

"Too fat!" Mistress Patrin exclaimed triumphantly. "I told her that her joints would give out one day! I flatter myself that I have kept my own figure tolerably well!" She added, smoothing shawls draped over a frame like a rack of bones. Her wig, pinned in a style that had been fashionable a generation ago, bore a spider web between two stiff curls.

For a moment Shamesh caught Latilla's glance and she fought to keep her composure. Mistress Patrin's vague gaze slid towards the corner where she had told him to sit and she simpered.

"And you, my lord, are from the great city? How I should love to see it! My father, you know was an exile, but he often used to speak of its splendors."

Shamesh cleared his throat. "The recent wars have left their mark, but the new Emperor is rebuilding, and one day it will be more magnificent than before."

Latilla blinked as she heard the rougher accent he had used give way to a drawling intonation that reminded her of court speech long ago. For the first time, she believed absolutely that the story of his quest was true.

The old woman had recognized it too, and was reviving like a withered flower in the rain.

"And why have you come to Sanctuary?" Her voice fell to a conspiratorial whisper. Hope made the dim eyes gleam. "Are the Ran-kans returning? Will the Emperor send a Prince to govern us again?"

Shamesh flinched from her intensity, then rallied, eyes glinting with amusement. "My lady," he said softly, "I am on a quest."

Latilla stifled a smile. Mistress Patrin was leaning towards him, an unaccustomed excitement spotting her cheeks with color. Shamesh knew just how to appeal to the old woman's romantic yearnings.

Feeling her own cheeks hot, Latilla forced her attention back to the conversation.

"Her Serenity loved her sister," Shamesh was saying now, "and will grieve until she knows Elisandra's fate. And so I have come to Sanctuary to search for her."

"Elisandra…" Mistress Patrin echoed, her vague gaze growing even more abstracted. "She was a slender girl, with fair hair?"

"Her Serenity is a woman of queenly figure," Shamesh said carefully, "and her sister would no doubt by now be the same, but the family does tend towards fair hair."

"I remember her. Sweet-natured, she was, not like some of them, but rather flighty… always fancying herself in love with someone, and wept like a watering pot when they disappointed her." There was another silence, and then Mistress Patrin's face changed.

"What is it? What do you remember?" asked Shamesh, unable to bear the waiting.

"It was in the last days before the Beysib left… There was a mage called Keyral who was promising all sorts of things—wealth, love, the usual. Your husband, Darios, knew him—" Her rheumy gaze fixed Latilla suddenly. "He was in the Guild. Most people were too concerned to save their skins to pay attention, but there were some who found his schemes a distraction. That girl Elisandra was one of the ones he dazzled, and he encouraged her. She had no money, but she added class to his entourage."

"What happened to him?" Shamesh and Latilla spoke almost as one.

The old woman shrugged. "No one knows. He had invited everyone to what he called a Great Demonstration of Magic, something to do with the transmutation of jewels. But it went wrong somehow, and the house was destroyed—that was the same day the Beysa left, so no one paid too much attention."

"And Elisandra?"

"I can't recall seeing her after the Prince left Sanctuary. I always thought she went with him. But if she did not reach Ranke…"

Latilla sat back, trying to recapture her own memories of a time of more than ordinary confusion, even for Sanctuary. But since then so many more exotic traumas had shaken the city… It was Shamash who recalled her to the problem at hand.

"If you do not know where this Keyral went, can you at least tell us where he was last seen?"

Mistress Patrin's brows bent. "His place was on the corner of Fowlers Street and one of those lanes a block or two below the Governor's Walk down at the end, but only the gods know what remains of the place by now."

"It's not a part of town I know," said Latilla. It was not a district any respectable woman should have been acquainted with. "But my son may be able to find it."

Taran ran a hand through his dirty-reddish hair and cast an annoyed glance down first one and then the second of the streets that connected with the intersection in which they were standing. "Come now, boy," Shamesh growled, "which way?"

Thinking of Havish brought back memories of Griff and the beatings. Corvi, one of the lads in Griff's little circle of would-be toughs, had told Taran that Griff would heal—he might not get back the full use of his legs, or ever again be the mammoth figure who'd led them when they swaggered down the street from one tavern to the next—but he'd still be Griff. The question was, would he want to be?

Taran hated it. Hated being afraid of Havish, and the way he and his boys had beat on Griff like a hammer on a nail, hated how his "friends" had stood by and watched. And most of all, he hated himself, because he had been so afraid he'd just stayed and watched with them.

A muddled mind makes a muddled life, his mother would say if she were here, before giving him a friendly cuff to the head. Since that was all that seemed to be missing, Taran rapped himself twice on the back of his skull before pointing left.

"This way," he stated with a smile, hoping his voice showed more confidence than he was feeling.

In the old days, Keyral's house had stood three stories tall, with a garden in back where the wizard grew herbs and held parties now and again. Taran could almost see it. Almost.

Now the building's bones barely remained. Much of the stonework had been salvaged—by now the stones were likely part of the city walls or one of those houses Grabar and Cauvin had been building for merchants as trade revived. The city consumes itself to rebuild itself, Taran thought morosely. The rest of it lay in rubble on the ground.

Shamesh was staring at the ruins, looking as if he were sucking on one of those tart rock candies Taran got at holidays, except that he did seem to be enjoying the taste.

"What now?" Taran asked.

"I'm looking for an opening—a door to a cellar or basement…" Shamesh said at last. He picked his way through the rubble and began to heave rocks aside. Taran considered helping him, but the sun was warm and the rocks looked heavy. Aristocrats need their exercise, and young men need their rest, he told himself, stifling a yawn. It looked like a hopeless task anyway. In thirty years the rubble must surely have been picked clean. The overgrown remains of the garden looked far more inviting.

"I'm going to start looking over there—" Taran called as he made his way around the ruin, looking for a nice comfy spot where he would be well hidden from view. He brushed away a pile of dead leaves and lay down with a sigh.

There was a rock digging into his ribs. Swearing, he rolled over, pushing more debris away. But this spot wasn't comfortable either. He sat up and looked at the ground on which he'd been lying. He couldn't see anything pointy, and even sitting up he felt the irritation. It was in his head.

He ought to move, he thought then. But he was tired, and if he got up Shamesh would expect him to start working. Taran cursed again, then lay back and began to breathe slowly in and out, letting the annoyance flow out of him in the way his father had taught him when he was a child. Taran tried not to think about his father too often. Darios had been a wizard too, but it hadn't saved him when the Dyareela cult came to power.

His half-closed eyes focused on something in front of him—a point of light that glittered where he had pushed away the leaves. With dream-like deliberation, he reached out for it.

Darkness falls again, in her forgotten world, the only thing that changes in her endless days. She begins to count, as she often does, a personal measurement of time. It is the only kind she has, now.

A face appears behind her reflection—or has her reflection changed? But that's impossible. There are no changes here. She looks again, and realizes that the face is not, cannot be her own! She is looking at a boy, no, a young man, with a mop of ginger hair, while hers is fair. He looks confused

.

She laughs, then starts to weep, crying out to him, pleading, scratching at the barrier between them with desperate fingers.

The darkness gives way once more to light and the face is gone.

She pounds against the mirror, but only her own image remains to reflect her agony.

Taran sat up, heart pounding, as the vision faded. What in hell was that? His visions were usually nightmares—they'd never shown him a beautiful woman before. Had he been dreaming? The girl had looked like one of those Rankan princesses from a marketplace storyteller's tale.

He felt a sharp point dig into his palm and realized that he was still holding something—it was a jewel. Whatever he had seen, this was real enough, and it looked valuable—an egg-shaped, faceted, indigo stone that left purple light on the ground where the sunlight passed through.

"Taran!" Shamesh was shouting. With a start Taran realized he'd been calling for some time. "Drat you, where'd you get to, boy? There's nothing here, and it's getting late. Time we were on our way home!"

"I'm here, in the back. Just keep your britches on." Taran slipped the jewel into the leather pouch that hung around his neck, got to his feet and dusted himself off.

I had better luck than you did, he thought as he rejoined the older man. But he said nothing. There was no point in getting everyone all excited until he knew what it was he had found.

Dinner had been a silent meal. If the searchers had been successful, the whole house would have heard about it. But Latilla knew better than to question men who were tired and hungry. Taran went off to his room as soon as dinner was done. He had that preoccupied look that usually meant he was trying to keep a secret. Likely he meant to sneak out to join his friends, and didn't want her to know. She frowned at the thought, but let him leave unquestioned.

It was her lodger, pouring himself yet another cup from the flask of wine of Aurvesh he had brought back with him, who was her primary concern just now.

"The place is a ruin," Shamesh said disgustedly. "You warned me—" He turned to Latilla. "I used to think that Ranke was past its prime… compared to this ruin, the capital is blooming!"

Latilla realized that she was glaring and looked quickly away. Why it should gall her to hear someone else confirm her own opin-ion she did not know, especially when the flush on his cheeks showed he was finally being overcome by the wine.

He set down the mug with a thump that splashed blood spots of wine upon the cloth and rested his face in his hands. Latilla repressed an impulse to reach out and touch that bent head.

"You have done all that a man may," she said softly. "No one will blame you if you give up the search now. You don't have to go back—you could make a new life here…"

"Think it's blame I fear?" He surged to his feet, swaying, and she stood up quickly to keep him from falling. " 'S my family… We were great, once, you know? But m'grandfather, and father, they had a genius… for choosin' the losin' side!" He giggled a little at the rhyme. "All the money's gone, 'n most of the land. To Koron Eridakos, whose forefathers were kings!" He raised the wine cup, and with drunken deliberation, spilled the lees out onto the floor. "Last chance… last chance't' save m'name…"

"Let's get you up to bed," murmured Latilla, draping his arm across her shoulders. Her husband had been a temperate man, but she could remember how her mother had dealt with her father in the days when he still had a weakness for wine. Some men got ugly when in drink. Shamesh, like her father, tended towards the maudlin. But these were more than sentimental maundering. The wine had dissolved the man's impervious aristocratic calm, and her heart ached as she realized the depth of his pain.

His coordination was a little improved by the time they reached his room, but not his control. As Latilla eased him down to the bed his hand brushed her breast and remained there. "Stay…" he muttered. His eyes were closed. "I don't want… to be alone…"

He thinks I'm someone else, she thought, allowing her gaze to dwell on the finely cut features and mobile lips that had been haunting her dreams. His other hand closed on her shoulder. Even drunk, he was strong. Too strong to resist, she told herself as he pulled her down beside him, knowing even then it was a lie.

"Please… Can't you hear me? Someone, I know there's someone… I will go mad, surely… it has been so long. …" She turns, battering against the glimmer of light that refracts around her. Something has changed, she is sure of it, something has changed the alternation of light and shadow in which she has lived so long. Hope, that fragile spirit she thought dead a lifetime ago, is stirring, frantic to be free.

Blue… he is trapped in a maze of blue and purple light. Moaning, he struggles to get free. But wherever he turns his own reflection blocks the way, fair hair tossing, gray eyes wide with anguish. His senses reel, not least because in this nightmare he has somehow become a beautiful girl. He flails at the barriers that surround him, feeling the rasp of rough wool, and is confused anew, for all he can see is the polished prison of the Jewel. "Help me!" he cries. "Can't anyone hear?"

Someone is shaking him. He opens his eyes. Through shattering purple lenses he glimpses his mother's face and the familiar outlines of his room, and falls back with a moan of pain.

Taran shuddered, struggling to focus. His mother was bending over him, a lamp in her hand. Grasping for normal consciousness, he noted that she was still dressed, though she was disheveled as if she had slept in her clothes. "Hush—" she was murmuring, "you've had a nightmare. You're home in your own room. You're safe here."

"Purple…" he muttered. "It was purple, and I was a girl…"

"Ssh…" said Latilla. "It's over now."

Taran shook his head. "But I have to understand. I was a girl, and I was a prisoner in the jewel…"

His mother stopped patting his shoulder. "What jewel?" she asked.

"I found it in the weeds. I was going to tell you—" he added quickly, "but you were talking to him, and—"

"Do you still have it?" she interrupted him.

"Yes…" he muttered. He felt almost himself again, and was already regretting having given up his secret. The girl had been so lovely! He heaved himself up on one elbow, unhooked his neck pouch from the bedpost and tugged it open. Violet refractions skittered around the room as it fell into his hand.

"I found it and I thought it was pretty, that's all. I thought it might be valuable."

"You know that's not all…" Latilla frowned. "There's magic in it—if you haven't sensed that already you're not your father's son, or mine! And you found it in a sorcerer's den…"

Right, he thought, grimacing at his own stupidity. And I just lay down in the middle of it to have a snooze!

"Do you think this has something to do with that girl Shamesh is looking for?" he asked when her silence had gone on too long. He had agreed to help the Rankan. Did that mean he was honor bound to give up the jewel? "Are you going to tell him?"

After another long moment his mother sighed. "I don't know."

Will he remember? Latilla wondered as she ladled porridge into wooden bowls. The donkey-driver and the silk merchant who were her other guests this week were already sipping their tea. Shamesh had not yet appeared. She wondered if he would make it down to breakfast. She wondered if he would remember that he had not spent last night alone.

And if he does? If he looks at me, and remembering, smiles? If the quest that had brought Shamesh here failed, he would have no reason to go home. We could be happy together, she thought, if happiness based on a lie could endure…

But the jewel might have nothing to do with his search, and she would not have to lie. Even if he did not remember, what had happened once might happen again. Her imagination started on its round once more.

By the time her Rankan lodger finally made his appearance, Taran had finished the morning chores he usually weaseled out of and had wheedled a second bowl of porridge—proof of her distraction. His eyes shifted uneasily from his mother to Shamesh as the older man sat down, squinting at the light flooding in through the eastern window. Behind him the fresco of Shipri, Queen of the Harvest glowed, the colors almost as bright as they had been when Latilla was young. Her mother was supposed to have modeled for that image. She found it hard to believe.

Perhaps it was the hangover that made Shamesh so distant, she thought, but she did not think so. Keeping silent about Taran's discovery would be a fitting punishment for a man who could not even remember what she had given him.

As the tea hit his system Shamesh looked up, the fine eyes clearing. "That wine of yours was stronger than I expected. I'm afraid I talked a lot of nonsense last night—"

You talked about the things that matter to you… She thought, gazing back at him, and understood that though she had held his body in her arms, she would never touch his soul. She sighed.

"Taran has something to show you," she said aloud. Her son cast her a stricken look, his hand going instinctively to cover the leather bag. We are both giving up a dream… thought Latilla, but her own pain made her ruthless. "There was something left of Keyral's magic after all. Taran found a jewel."

For a moment Latilla wondered if her son was going to obey. She could see the struggle in his face, but after a few moments he opened the bag and very gently, set the jewel on the mat. Violet coruscations flickered across the walls as it caught the morning sun.

"When I hold it…" he muttered, "I see a girl… a beautiful girl with fair hair."

Shamesh sat back in his chair, the color draining from his face and then returning in a rush. "The transmutation of souls…" he whispered. "It must be… But is she in the jewel, or is it only a gateway?"

"To an alternate dimension?" asked Latilla. He looked at her in surprise. "My husband was a mage," she explained with a bitter smile.

"Exactly. Magecraft can create a container that is bigger on the inside than on the outside. If that's what we have here, then opening it will set Elisandra, if that's who it is, free."

"But if it's not, you'll kill her!" Taran cried.

"If the jewel holds no more than her soul," Latilla said gently, "then her body died thirty years ago. Would you keep her imprisoned here?"

Taran gaped back, gaze shifting between them. "Will you just… shatter it?"

"No! That would be destruction!" exclaimed Shamesh.

"You are a mage…" said Latilla, understanding what it was in him that had attracted her.

He shrugged. "I have learned a little about… jewels. It is heat, not force, that will relax the bonds that hold this spell together. A gentle heat that slowly grows, until the barriers dissolve and the prisoner is set free."

There are some sorceries that are best performed during the hours of darkness. But for this one, Shamesh deemed it best to make use of the radiant heat of noon. Within the circle he had drawn upon the ground in the garden, mirrors focused the pale spring sunshine around and beneath the jewel.

"Aren't there words you should say? Some kind of a spell?" asked Taran doubtfully. "I will… that what should be, shall be…" murmured Latilla. "That each soul be free to find its own truth… that by my acts I may aid the forces of order in the world…"

Latilla nodded. This man and Darios had both poured out their souls in her arms, but with her husband, she had poured out hers in turn.

"Look!" exclaimed Taran, pointing at the jewel. It glowed like a purple egg in the sunshine. But now the flicker of refracted light was disappearing in a violet radiance that gradually grew.

"Illin tan's'agarionte—" Shamesh intoned, fingers rigid and quivering, arms extended towards the Jewel. "Kariste! Kariste!"

Violet light flared suddenly, then paled—no, the white blur was something that was taking shape within it, writhing in the churning light, then collapsing in a swirl of draperies as the glow, and the jewel, disappeared.

There was a moment of shocked silence. Then the huddled figure moaned.

"She's alive!" whispered Taran.

He started to move, but Shamesh was before him, reaching the woman in one swift step and gathering her into his arms. They were strong arms, as Latilla had reason to know. She watched in silence as Shamesh lifted her, noting the smooth skin, the cornsilk hair. Thirty years had passed, but they had not touched her.

"Elisandra…" he said in a shaking voice. "Elisandra Donada-kos… You are free, Elisandra. Your sister is Empress now. I will take you back to her. Can you hear me, my lady? We're going home!" He gazed down at her, his face radiant with triumph, with ambition, with joy.

For a moment Taran watched them, jaw clenched. Then his thin frame seemed to sag. Head down, he turned and slowly walked away. Latilla opened her mouth to call him back, but let the words die unvoiced. Let him keep the illusion that he could run from his pain. She blinked back her own tears and folded her arms. Elisandra opened her eyes and smiled, a prisoner no more.