NaNoWriMo 2005: 25513 Words

Now Pearl, too, sat at the table with the adults-- Talwyr, Corbin, and Niama. Nieve had been placed in a nearby cradle, and Niama had placed before Pearl toasted bread with butter and fruits-- the most phenomenal breakfast the girl had ever seen. As she ate, they talked.

The first thing that Talwyr asked was that Pearl repeat the whole story of how she had found the dragon in the forest; she didn't like to talk about it, it was like living the whole thing again. Talwyr, Corbin, and Niama seemed to understand this, and they didn't push her, only gave her gentle words of encouragement. When she was finished, they were silent for a while. They were talking to each other, though, Pearl knew-- exchanging those adult looks that meant they knew something she didn't know and thought she wouldn't understand. This was happening a lot around her lately, and it was starting to get on her nerves.

After a moment of deep thought, it was Talwyr who spoke. "The first thing you must understand, Pearl," he said, "is that what you saw was not a dragon."

"It wasn't?" Relief washed over Pearl so strongly that it nearly overpowered her confusion completely. Now she felt much better about what she'd done to rescue the boy. She hadn't seen a dead dragon, she hadn't looked into its dead glass eye, she hadn't smashed that eye and reached inside, and that made everything, in some fundamental way, perfectly all right. "What was it?"

"It was not any living thing. Most of the celestial objects-- that is, things flying through the sky-- that people of the Kingdom take to be sky dragons are not. Sometimes they are merely shooting stars, but other times... Other times they are what you saw. What you saw was called a starship."

Pearl had never heard of such a thing. She looked at Corbin and Niama to see if they appeared as surprised as she felt, but they did not. They only exchanged an anxious look.

Talwyr continued, "Now, a starship is an aptly named creation. It is a ship--"

"Like a boat?" Pearl interrupted. "I've seen boats on the river by the Temple."

"Yes, a ship as in a very large boat. Only the starship does not sail the waters but, in fact, the stars. The sky, I mean."

"Oh." Pearl thought about this. It seemed logical enough. "Is it magic?"

"Of a sort, though not the kind I specialize in," the wizard answered. "But they enable the person traveling within them to go vast distances very quickly."

Now Corbin began to speak. "These starships-- not many people know about them. They usually appear around the borders, and for the past centuries knights have guarded against them more often than any real dragons. The borders used to protect us from them, but now more and more get through. I've never seen a dragon, myself, but I've seen a ship or two. Never one that had crashed, which is what this one did. The point is, some of these ships are dangerous. Some of them carry dangerous sorts of people."

There was something about this that seemed to Pearl not quite right. "I thought the Gods lived beyond the borders."

"They do," Corbin was quick to reply, but added, more darkly, "and so do demons."
"Corbin!" For the first time, Niama spoke.

The knight looked down. "I didn't mean that. You know I didn't. It's just what my father used to say." He addressed Pearl again. "My family has been guarding this part of the border for ages. I met Niama here..."

The woman put her hand in her husband's and said, in her soft yet powerful voice, "The Gods do live beyond the borders, Pearl, in a way. I believe that. But there are other things beyond the borders, too. Another place."

"The borders were put up long ago to keep the more unpleasant of these things out," Talwr said. "But now, for one reason or another, the borders are failing."

Pearl listened to all they said, and she tried to understand. But she found that she could not. She felt that she was not getting the whole story, that huge parts of this tale were being left out. "I don't understand, Lord," she admitted.

The wizard sighed. "I know. Now is not the time for everything to be explained to you. You know that in the Temple the priests and priestesses must be initiated into the Mysteries before they are granted full knowledge of the sacred ceremonies and practices? Well, what we are telling you about is a Mystery of a sort, and you are only now being introduced to it. One day soon you will be initiated, and then, perhaps, you will understand. But today is not that day. You are not yet ready to know. The knowledge would have come to you one day, one way or another. I must admit I was not expecting it to be thrust upon you this way, so soon. But you witnessed that crash, and you deserved to have that, at least, explained."

"Is this," Pearl ventured, amazed at her own boldness, "part of the magic that you and Lady Celwyn said you would teach me?"

"Yes. A great part of it, in fact."

"I will be a priestess, then?" A few days ago the thought had been a preposterous dream, but today, her birthday, standing in the beautiful house of a border knight and speaking to the Kingdom's greatest wizard, nothing was beyond belief. Today, anything was possible-- even a Pearl in the shining white of the Wise Ones, with long hair and shoes and clean skin.

Talwyr nodded a little. "You may be. Your fate has yet to be determined, young one-- at this point, it is entirely up to you."

There was one other thing about what was being said that was bothering her-- what was it? She thought through the past minutes in her head. "You don't think that the boy I found is dangerous, do you?"

"No," Corbin assured her. "He is only a child."

"What will happen to him?"

"We will take him with us," Talwyr proclaimed.

"With us where?"

"To the Palace."

***
Everything happened very quickly after that. Talwyr had very few belongings, but Corbin and Niama had already packed two trunks-- "mostly things for the baby," the wizard explained. Somehow there had materialized for Pearl not only the nightgown she'd woken up in, but a saffron dress-- plain, but to Pearl's eyes the most gorgeous gown she'd ever beheld. "It is, after all, your birthday," Talwyr said. This made it even better than before; she'd never had a real birthday present. Sometimes at the Temple, Celwyn had kept her up with her for the day, looking at books and listening to stories. This, she acknowledged, was even more exciting than those stories had been. She was going on a real trip with people of real nobility, to the Palace, of all places.

Niama and Corbin, as a knight and his lady, were well enough off to have two separate horse litters. While Talwyr rode his dapple grey and Corbin his roan, Pearl and the boy, still unconscious, were to be carried in these. Pearl looked longingly up at the horses.

"I would prefer to ride, too," Niama said, standing by her side. "But someone must tend to the baby and to the little boy. I will be in the other litter."
"You can come visit with me sometimes, if you'd like," Pearl told her, and she smiled.

And sometimes on the journey, when they stopped, Niama would switch over to Pearl's litter and speak with her for a while. She brought the baby Nieve, and when Pearl saw her face she was instantly enamored of the little one.

"She's so beautiful!"

Pearl had never been this close to a baby before, she would admit, but she was sure that Nieve must be quite simply the prettiest baby in all the world. Eight months old, according to Niama, she looked exactly like her mother except that her wide eyes, which put Pearl immediately in mind of a small kitten, were as brilliantly blue as Corbin's.

When Nieve and Niama were not with her, though, Pearl found that the journey grew quickly boring. Mile after mile, hour after hour, all they passed were endless forests of trees, looking exactly the same. They left Corbin's manner near the borders in the late afternoon, and for a while the monotony was relieved by a beautiful sunset and the gathering dusk.

In the gathering dark, lulled by the steady tramp of the horses' hooves, Pearl found herself nodding off. Pulling shut the curtains of the litter, she gave herself over to sleep.

***
Belan and Herel arrived back at the Temple in the night, a fact which greatly relieved them both. This late, Lord Maddeg would be asleep and therefore unavailable to question them, or even witness their entrance. If they were lucky, Herel thought, they could both easily slip back into their daily duties without anything being made of their absence at all.

No sooner were their horses stabled, however, than a message came to them via a sleepy young novice maiden from the Lady Celwyn. They were to attend her upon the instant. Herel groaned. It wasn't enough, apparently, that he was sore from the saddle and weary from a long journey and fed up with Belan's constant company. All he'd wanted was to fall into his bed and sleep straight through the morning services, and probably the afternoon services, too. But the orders of the high priestess could not be refused.

Belan, he noticed with irritation, was practically leaping up the steps to the Lady's tower.

"What was she doing up at this hour, anyway, that she saw us coming back?" he grumbled.

Belan smiled. "Probably waiting for us to come back, my friend. In fact, who knows how long she's been watching us. She is the Lady, you know."

This was something Herel hadn't considered, and now that he was considering it, he didn't like it. The thought of Lady Celwyn using her second sight to spy on him was not what he considered an appropriate use of a Gods-given gift. Especially, he thought guiltily, because what with all of the perfectly reasonable objections he'd raised throughout the journey, he probably hadn't come off very well. Not next to Belan's frankly unnecessary amount of enthusiasm, anyway.

Together the two priests entered the chamber and bowed to the Lady. Celwyn raised her hands in blessing, then promptly dropped all ceremony and asked, "Is she safe?"

"She is," Belan confirmed. "We left her and Lord Talwyr at the manor house of a knight of the border named Sir Corbin." Celwyn sighed with relief. Belan hesitated, nervous, but this certainly wasn't something Herel was willing to tell the high priestess for him. "There was an incident with a dragon."

Celwyn raised an eyebrow. "A dragon?"

"A sky dragon," Belan clarified. "It fell from the sky near her. She wasn't hurt severely. It was..."

Across the room, a door creaked open. Timidly, as though she would bolt at the slightest sound, Fianna stepped through. Her bright red hair still hung loose, partially hiding her face.

"Lady Celwyn," she whispered. "I have seen something."

Celwyn seemed not to know quite what to do. She glanced from the girl in the doorway to the two young men and back again. Finally, she excused herself to the priests and spoke to Fianna. "What have you seen, my dear?"

"The boy I spoke of..." she did not lift her gaze from the floor, determined to ignore the presence of anyone here but herself and Celwyn. "The boy is here. The boy who rides the dragon."

"The dragon?" Celwyn repeated, and now she sounded intrigued at an idea that had not occurred to her before.

Fianna fixed her bright green eyes suddenly on Belan and Herel. "They know," she said.

Celwyn turned back to the two bewildered priests.

"It fell from the sky," Belan started babbling. "It fell in fire. There was a boy... He hadn't awoken, but he was alive when we left..."

"Rides the dragon?" Herel interjected in disbelief. He was ignored.

"But how did you know?" Belan asked Fianna, who looked down at the floor again.

"Fianna has been gifted by the Gods," Celwyn replied shortly. It was really all the explanation needed-- everyone in the Temple knew about this woman whose name, now that Celwyn had mentioned it, they both recognized was indeed Fianna. They had never seen her only because they were not yet advanced enough to participate in the rituals of her Speakings. "Tell me about this boy. Where is he now?"

"At the knight's house, with the girl," Herel said. "He just looked like a normal boy. Not the sort you'd expect to be riding dragons," he added vaguely.

"It is him," Fianna said, still in that soft voice, unaccustomed to much speech. "He has come, and the girl has found him." She closed her eyes tightly. "More dragons will come now."

"More dragons?" Herel repeated faintly.

Fianna gazed up at him again. "Do not worry," she told him. "They have found each other, and the two will protect us."

Herel snorted. "Those two children, you mean? Not likely."

Belan's eyes had not left Fianna's face since she'd come into the room; he nodded raptly. "If you have seen it, my lady, I have no doubt it shall be so."

He was transfixed, Herel noted with an audible groan. That's all we need, he thought. Then, Since when have I been thinking of us as "we?"

For the first time, Fianna actually made eye contact with Belan. Then she turned to Lady Celwyn. "Where is Lord Maddeg, Lady?"

"He has gone to the Palace, for the funeral of Queen Lilien. You need not fear him, nor hide yourself at the moment, Belan."

Belan nodded again, not taking his eyes off of Fianna.

"Be careful, both of you. You have much still to do," Fianna said, then turned and went back into her adjacent room, closing the door behind her.

Belan sighed, coming back from wherever his mind had flown at the sight of Fianna. Celwyn noticed, and did not look pleased. She sharply dismissed them both.

Be careful, she'd said, Herel reflected as they made their way back through the Temple corridors. She didn't need to warn him. What really bothered him were the words, You still have much to do.

Well, Herel had never done very much in his life so far, and didn't intend to start now. Belan, on the other hand-- Herel cast the softly smiling priest a sidelong glance-- Belan was another matter altogether. The best thing would be to distance himself now, before things got any worse.

***
For the second morning in a row, Pearl knew the bewildered feeling of waking up in a room she had never seen before. This room was not the warm, friendly wood of the room in Corbin's manor. These walls were of stone, and for a horrible fraction of a second she thought that she was back again in her room in the Temple. But then she felt the unfamiliar softness of the bed beneath her, and she was again wearing the clean white nightgown. Aside from the stone, in fact, this room was nothing like the Temple. The room was spacious, larger even than the one she'd slept in the night before; the walls were hung with tapestries and woven rugs covered the floor. Pearl walked timidly across the space to the window and discovered that she was very high up-- almost like Celwyn's chamber in the Temple tower. And unlike yesterday, there was no familiar voice to be heard through the walls-- no voices at all could penetrate the heavy stone.

The door creaked open under her hand and she peered down a dim hall that seemed to go on forever. As far as she could see, the place was completely empty.

"Lord Talwyr?" she called in a voice that sounded incredibly small in the vast, lofty emptiness. "Lady Niama? Sir Corbin?" Her voice only became progressively tinier. "Anybody?"

She stepped onto the cold flagstones of the hall, looking this way and that. There were many doors on either side, each tightly shut, or open to reveal nothing but empty blackness. But there was one, open just a little bit, only a little way down the hall. Pearl stood outside it for a moment, debating whether or not to risk opening it. Finally, she peered inside.

Standing there, staring with his back to her into a full-length mirror, was Lord Maddeg.

Pearl gasped, but the high priest was so intent on his own reflection that he did not notice her. She immediately turned and ran, as fast as she could, until she reached the very end of the hallway. The corridor there veered to the right and left, and she could hear voices approaching. In desperation, Pearl yanked open the nearest door and bolted inside, pulling the door shut tightly behind her.
She stood for a moment in the doorframe catching her breath. Then a barely audible sound within the room made her turn. Pearl stared, wide-eyed at the boy she had rescued in the forest.

He sat upright in a bed like the one Pearl had woken up in, his arm in a sling, and as wide-eyed as she was herself. His eyes, now that she saw them open for the first time, were quite remarkable. She had expected them to be brown as her own, but they were a clouded grey color. Pearl didn't know how long they stood there staring at each other.

Finally, she said, "It's you! You're awake!"

"Hi," the boy said. "You look familiar. Do I know you?"

"Oh! Yes, I'm the one who... I found you, in the forest. You were trapped in the dragon--"

"Dragon?" he asked, puzzled.

"I mean..." she struggled to remember the word. "starship."

"Oh, yeah." The boy have a half-smile. "I guess I kinda crashed, huh?"

Pearl nodded. "Are you feeling better?" she asked.

"Yeah. Hey, thanks for pulling me out. That nice lady told me about you."
Something about the way the boy talked was slightly odd. Pearl thought. "Niama?" she asked.

He nodded. "That's her," and smiled. "I'm Bhodi. Bhodi Ajinna."

So he was of a higher status than she was, one of the named ones, Pearl thought. He held out the hand that was not in the sling. She shouldn't be so forward, probably, with one of the named ones, but he seemed so friendly, and maybe saving somebody's life gave you certain rights. Pearl smiled back, crossed the room, and shook the hand he'd offered like she had seen men do sometimes.

"I'm Pearl."

"Do you have a last name?" Bhodi asked.

"No?" Pearl replied, and he laughed. Pearl wondered if Bhodi came from someplace where everyone talked the way he did, but then she remembered Corbin and Niama telling her about the things living beyond the borders. Bhodi didn't seem dangerous-- in fact, he seemed nice. Pearl thought that she already liked him.

"Where do you come from?" she inquired, trying to sound casual.

"Oh, here and there," he said, and got up to cross to the window and look down. He stood there for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was quite different-- no longer flippant but quiet, and serious. "So... I guess I'm dead?"

"No!" Pearl exclaimed. "Of course not!" She went to stand beside him. "Why would you think that?"

"It's so beautiful here, and the way people dress and talk... I don't know, it's like a fairy tale. I've never seen anyplace like this before, not even on Dybera. And that was a really bad crash. I guess I shouldn't ever have tried to fly by myself, but..." he trailed off.

He seemed so distant, all of a sudden, that Pearl didn't know quite what to say. "You're not dead," she told him, feeling stupid. "You're in the Palace. In the Kingdom," she added.

"Which kingdom?"

What did he mean? "The Kingdom," she repeated.

Bhodi shook his head, but he was smiling again. "How old are you, Pearl?"

"I'm eight. My birthday was yesterday," she offered shyly.

"I'm eight, too. Happy birthday."

Bhodi grinned. Pearl smiled back. It seemed like maybe she had just made her very first friend.

***
It was the day following Queen Lilien's funeral. Talwyr and his party had arrived at the Palace soon after the burial and were immediately ushered in by the guards at the gate. Maddeg, Talwyr knew, would also be there, and he could only hope that they might avoid any entanglements with the high priest. What with crashing starships, children who already knew more than they should, and prophecies coming to pass, he had little time for the petty but destructive jealousy of the great Lord Maddeg. He had to meet with King Perrian. For all the good that might do him.

Perrian had been a good and just king for many years, ruling the Kingdom well. But seven years ago he had been wounded, his legs crippled, and the effects of the ensuing infection had left his mind wandering on his best days. He had been carried on a litter to attend his beloved wife's funeral; that much dignity he had been allowed. But for seven long years Lilien had ruled for him, and now she was dead and he dying. Try as he might, Perrian could not rule again. The Queen left the Kingdom with no monarch now capable of rule, save Emryn, the prince.

Prince Emryn was now sixteen years old. Talwyr hadn't seen the boy since he was eight, the last time he'd come this close to inheriting the throne. Then he had been an active child, more fond of horsemanship and play than his lessons, and he'd looked up at Talwyr with an awed sort of fear. He had been an ordinary child. To lead the Kingdom through the times that were coming, it would need an extraordinary man. Talwyr could only hope that Emryn had grown into such a man, or else... well, the wizard would somehow have to force him into an extraordinary manhood. With all of the powers at his command, he was not quite sure how he would go about doing this.
King Perrian lay in a dark, candlelit room, staring at the ceiling. He turned his head when the wizard entered, but he could not raise it. There was recognition in his eyes, however, and Talwyr took this as a positive sign. He pulled a stool up beside the bed and sat, looking kindly down at old King Perrian-- an old man, Talwyr thought, though he was some thirty years younger than the wizard himself.

"Your Highness." He bowed his head.

"No, Lord Talwyr," Perrian said weakly. "No such ceremony, my friend." The king's face was worn and drawn, and the look in his eyes was heartbreakingly sad. "My Queen is dead. Lilien is dead."

"I know, my King, and I am sorry."

There was a long silence.

"I shall die soon, now," the King said at last. "Without her I cannot live."

Talwyr shook his head. "Do not say so, lord King. There is your Kingdom, still, and your son."

"My son is a stranger to me. My Kingdom, as well. I have not seen my Kingdom in seven years, Talwyr. And in that time I have scarcely seen my son."

"He needs you to teach him how to rule."

"I have forgotten how to rule." Perrian turned away. "Leave me alone. I want to die."
"They will kill Prince Emryn if you do." Talwyr's voice was no longer gentle.
Perrian did not move, but his voice drifted faintly back over his shoulder. "But he's only a boy!"

"Which will make it all the easier."

"But he's my son!" The wizard said nothing. "Very well. What use am I to him, if I live?"

"Certainly more use than if you die. Hard times are coming, Perrian. It is as I foresaw."

"The borders are failing?" Perrian turned back, frowning. "You must teach Emryn. I can't. You must not let them kill him. You must show him what to do. And I'll do my part and not die of despair."

Talwyr smiled a little at the show of humor. "I shall do as you command me, my King."

Perrian's eyes lost focus, grew distant. "Will they really want to kill him? He's only a baby. He cries around strangers, you know, and that would wake us up." He was gone again, his mind wandering a world of his own, one in which he was still young and strong and a great King. He gazed up at Talwyr. "Where is Lilien?" he asked.

"Very nearby," the wizard answered. "I will tell her that you wish to see her."

"Yes, yes, I wish to see her at once," Perrian muttered, and mumbled himself into silence.

***
"I've been living on ships for as long as I can remember," Bhodi said, picking at the quilt of the bed where he sat with Pearl. "Mostly big ones-- liners and freighters, you know. Just me and my mom and dad. They were both pilots and they used to fly on real crews. But then their jobs got cut, and I was just a baby, and they had to support me somehow, so they started stowing away, getting jobs where they could, and conning and smuggling on the side." Pearl had asked him how he came to be all by himself when she found him, and she was now trying her best to understand his answer. "I went with them, because they had nowhere else to take me. I helped them out a lot-- I had a knack for it. One of Dad's friends, Bruce was his name, called me Little Pirate. It was pretty rough, but it was a really fun way to grow up, I think. Way better than school. I mean, Mom taught me to read and do math and everything. I'm not stupid. Anyway, one day at some spaceport... I don't know how it happened... I lost them. I just looked around, and they weren't there anymore. And I waited and waited... but they never came. I didn't know what to do. I was just six, a little kid. So after a day or two sleeping on a bench, I decided I'd go and look for them. I stowed away on some ship, and the crew sort of adopted me. I mean, they didn't kick me off. Every place we stopped I looked for them. Then I got on another ship, and another one, and... well, I've been pretty much on my own since then. I don't know where my dad was from, but I remembered Mom was Dyberan, so I came here to see."

"What's Dyberan?" Pearl couldn't stop herself from asking; it was the second time she'd heard him mention something like this.

"You are. Here is. This is Dybera."

"No, it's not. I've never even heard of it. This is the Palace, this is the Kingdom."

"What Kingdom?" Bhodi asked for the second time.

"The Kingdom!" Pearl exclaimed.

Bhodi looked askance at her. "Are you simple or something?"

"No!" Pearl spit out with sudden anger. "I'm not the one who crashed whatever it was in the middle of the borderland forest!"

At first she thought Bhodi was going to hate her for that, but after a second he gave a sort of half-smile. "Fair enough, I guess. It was really stupid. I thought I'd try to take off in a ship for myself, now that I'm eight, and I'm a pretty good flyer... but, I guess, not as good as I thought I was."

Pearl was silent for a moment. There was a lot of this story that didn't make sense to her, a few words she didn't know, but she did know what it was like to be a little child on her own.

"My mother is dead," she said. "I don't know who my father was."

"What did you do, after she died?"

"I went to the Temple."

"Did you like it there?"

Pearl looked down, staring hard at the patterns on the quilt. "No," she said, her voice coming out in a whisper. Bhodi didn't say anything; it seemed like he understood. "Lord Maddeg, the high priests is here. I'm scared he'd going to take me back there," she confessed.

Bhodi took her hand. "He won't. You can just come away with me. I'll take you everywhere."

"You will?" She looked up.

"Sure."

Just then the door opened and Niama came in.

"Pearl! There you are! We were so worried about you!" Her face lit up the minute she saw Pearl sitting on the edge of Bhodi's bed.

Bhodi's face, Pearl noted with a strange stirring of jealousy, lit up the minute Niama came into the room. She knew this was silly, though, so she pushed it aside.

"We've just been talking," she said.

Niama shooed her off the bed. "You'd better get back to your own room and get dressed now. You'll make our young friend tired." She smiled down at Bhodi, who blushed.

"Yes, ma'am," Pearl said, and made for the door. "Lord Maddeg is here," she added, hesitating at the door.

"He's with the King right now. You needn't worry." Niama met her eyes frankly. "We're not letting him anywhere near you."

Pearl felt reassured at this, and overjoyed when she heard Bhodi call out after her, "Come back later, Pearl!"

Even with Lord Maddeg in the building, she skipped back down the hallway to her room, humming a song that she made up as she went.
***


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