Lynn Abbey - Thieves' World - Turning Points

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.