The Pearl Diver Read online

  He needed to immediately return a floor lower, to the narrow circular hallway that would let him set Mata free. But the door before him was…tempting. It provoked an urge to inspect. He had no reason to do anything there, but the space beyond the door seemed to be inviting him in, although he had a fleeting image of a spider inviting a fly into its web as he studied the door.

  The handle on the door rattled, then Silas found his own hand grasping it to silence the noise.

  His other hand shot down to his knife before he even knew he was opening the door in front of him. He pushed it open wide. A part of his brain shouted at the idiocy of doing so, while the other part of him mechanically allowed it to happen.

  The room interior felt evil. A force attempted to lure him into the room, to step over the threshold, but Silas found that his knife suddenly drove itself into the wall outside the door, and held his fingers glued to the hilt so that he could not step forward.

  The room smelled of a cloying incense, and a reddish light glowed from no apparent source. Silas placed his free hand atop the hand on the knife but couldn’t pull the knife from the wall or his left hand from the knife.

  A deep chuckle came from somewhere inside the room, and a word formed inside his mind. L’Anvien.

  The word had no meaning.

  Another peal of thunder rattled the top of the tower, and Silas saw the flash of lightning show through a window in the terrifying room. The brilliant light showed the silhouette of an impossibly large, dark red skull in the dark room, a sight that sparked such fear in Silas that he broke free from the spell cast over him, and he stepped back away from the door.

  Fantasy Series by Jeffrey Quyle

  The Wind Word Series

  The Mirror After the Cavern

  The Pearl Diver

  Memory Stones Series

  Journey Through the River Cities

  The Deadly Magician

  Unpredictable Fortunes

  Tangled Engagements

  The Inner Seas Kingdoms Series

  1. The Healing Spring

  2. The Yellow Palace

  3. Road of Shadows

  4. A Foreign Heart

  5. Journey to Uniontown

  6. The Guided Journey

  7. An Unexpected Deity

  8. A Marriage of Friends

  The Ingenairii Series

  Visions of Power

  2. At the Seat of Power

  3. The Loss of Power

  4. The Lifesaving Power

  5. Against the Empire

  6. Preserving the Ingenairii

  7. Rescuing the Captive

  8. Ajacii and Demons

  9. The Caravan Road

  10. The Journey Home

  11. The Cloud of Darkness

  12. The Past Revisited

  Alchemy’s Apprentice Series

  The Gorgon’s Blood Solution

  The Echidna’s Scale

  Scarlet from Gold

  The Southern Trail

  The Southern Continent Series

  The Elemental Jewels

  Perilous Travels

  The Greater Challenge

  Out of the Wilderness

  For more information, visit the Ingenairii Series on Facebook, www.facebook.com/ingenairiiseries

  The Pearl Diver

  The Wind Word Series

  Book 2

  Jeffrey Quyle

  Index

  Chapter 1 Page 1

  Chapter 2 Page 24

  Chapter 3 Page 30

  Chapter 4 Page 43

  Chapter 5 Page 45

  Chapter 6 Page 51

  Chapter 7 Page 71

  Chapter 8 Page 74

  Chapter 9 Page 89

  Chapter 10 Page 93

  Chapter 11 Page 102

  Chapter 12 Page 109

  Chapter 13 Page 135

  Chapter 14 Page 140

  Chapter 15 Page 144

  Chapter 16 Page 154

  Chapter 17 Page 166

  Chapter 18 Page 172

  Chapter 19 Page 177

  Chapter 20 Page 182

  Chapter 21 Page 194

  Chapter 22 Page 197

  Chapter 23 Page 202

  Chapter 24 Page 213

  Chapter 25 Page 218

  List of Characters

  Village - Brigamme

  Silas, hero boy

  Tagg, male friend

  Forna, girl cousin, good tracker

  Tella, Silas’s father

  Rheme, Silas’s mother

  Wind (Word) Speaker Guide HQ - Heathrin

  Botton, mean teacher

  Brean, Jimes, friends

  Cinda, administrator

  Sloeleen, Lenee, girl student

  Caravan

  Prima, leader

  Hooves, animal handler

  Ruten, guard

  Moochie, smuggler

  Flames, cook

  Minneota, Prima’s paramour

  Sareen, girl in the caravan

  Ivaric

  Derith, dictator (Father of the Land)

  Jarvis, prince

  Mohr, steward of the palace

  Amenozume island

  Queen Gracious

  Princess Lumene

  Gwen, bodyguard

  Jade, a maid-in-waiting, serving Lumene

  Mata, Jade’s sister, a pearl diver

  Jimes, Wind Word speaker for the palace

  Barnesnob, trader republic

  Vertuco, speaker for the palace

  Grecco, speaker for the healer academy

  Charms, speaker for the criminal gangs

  Stout & Dianu, head of healer academy & young wife

  Faralag, Camouflaged Kingdom of the South

  Kajam, head of Movers Guild

  Riesta, powerful Mover

  Cover, Mover instructor

  Adams, Trader in Faralag

  Melan, injured construction worker

  Farah, Counselor

  Tiller, Melan’s husband

  Preeanne, Queen of the Land

  Kingdom (east of the mountains near Brigamme) – Shouldteen

  Dictatorship (west side of mountains near Brigamme) – Ivaric

  Matriarchy w/ pearl divers on island – Amenozume

  Trader Republic – Barnesnob

  Allegedly anarchic kingdom – Faralag

  Council of Nobles – Avaleen

  Isle of Sprites, surrounded by clouds

  Kai, goddess of the air (married to)Growelf– god of fire

  Shaish, Goddess of water (married to)Krusima, god of earth

  L’Anvien, demi-god of the interior of Rolemica

  Kere, Elven goddess of fate

  Prologue

  Silas is born in the mountain village of Brigamme, where everyone who is born and exposed to the natural elements of the environment experiences a profound change at puberty – they gain the ability to track and hunt down any living person on earth. They are renowned as a special breed.

  All except Silas, who proves not to have the talent. His parents send him to an academy of the elite professional Speakers. The Speakers have the power of the Wind Words, communications that can travel hundreds of miles to convey the important information that rulers, traders, and others are willing to pay to transmit.

  But Silas runs afoul of an ill-tempered teacher at the Speakers Academy in Heathrin and is exiled. Silas is denied once again his opportunity to acquire a special talent that will set him apart.

  He begins to wander the continent, and experiences adventures that change him, giving him abilities beyond ordinary people. He makes new friends on the island nation of Amenozume, and later learns one of them is in trouble. Silas vows to go back to the island to help his pearl-diving friend, Mata, escape from prison. And
so his adventure continues.

  Chapter 1

  Silas was running through a forest, his hand desperately clinging to Jade’s, as the two of them ran along a swampy trail with a third person, while the sounds of dogs baying after their scent trailed not far behind. He was damp with sweat but determined to maintain their pace as they prayed that they would escape from the pack of hounds and handlers behind them.

  “Thank the gods they don’t have a Brigamme Tracker,” Silas spoke over his shoulder to his two companions as they strode along their path. He was looking for the right spot – a stream and then a vine or tree limb – that his group could use to evade the sniffing prowess of the dogs behind them. All the ground around them was swampy, and he was sure they would come upon a suitable stream bed at any moment.

  The thought no more than formed in his consciousness than he abruptly halted on the banks of a small, stagnant river, whose dark waters looked intimidating. Silas skidded on the slick, muddy surface of the trail as he reached the bank of the river, stopping just short of entering the unsavory water. He paused and looked up, seeking a way that his group could use to rise from the ground and cease to leave a trail for the dogs that were following them.

  To his left he saw a tree with roots that were halfway exposed by the river’s flow; the tree’s trunk leaned at an oblique angle that would let he and his companions climb it easily, and then with luck they would be able to find a path among the tree branches to cross the river and meander away from the trackers behind them.

  “Here, we can climb this,” he released Jade’s hand to point across his body at the leaning tree, then he pushed aside the fronds of a large shrub and led the way over to the tree trunk. He looked back and saw Jade wiping her brow with one hand, while pressing back the shrub’s slender branches with her other hand, a look of determination on her face. And behind her was the shadowy figure of their companion.

  Silas leaped up onto the tree trunk, using his hand and his feet to advance, while his eyes looked for the next opportunity they would advance to. He found his target – a tree branch that came across the river from a trunk rooted on the far side of the stream.

  There was an intermediate step in the process though. They would have to clamber across a short span of vine, a vine that didn’t look sturdy enough to carry more than one of them at a time. It would slow them down, but it was necessary.

  “Jade, come here,” Silas stood on the tree trunk at the point where the vine was within reach. “I want you to grab this vine, then cross over to that branch. When you get to the branch, walk across it to the other side of the river, then climb down and start running down the path away from the river.

  “Be careful. I’ll stay over here and lay down a false trail to lead them away,” he promised.

  “Be careful Silas,” Jade said earnestly. She pursed her lips for a moment, then suddenly exhaled, and pressed her lips against his. “I want to see you again soon,” she told the breathless boy, grinning as she spoke, then she reached up to the vine, and confidentially swung outward.

  “Okay, get ready, you’re next,” Silas turned to instruct the third party. It was Mata, he realized. He had known it all along, it seemed. “Just follow your sister across the vine and over the tree branch to the other side. I’ll join you later after I send the hounds off on a false trail.” He was little concerned by the hounds, after having been raised among the trackers of Brigamme.

  “Are there oysters in the river?” Mata asked him.

  He looked at her, confused by the question.

  “I may have to dive after the oysters down there, to see if there are any pearls,” she explained.

  “Look down there,” Mata pointed at the surface of the river, and Silas looked down. Suddenly rising to the surface of the water were dozens, then hundreds, of oysters, rapidly opening and shutting as they seemed to strangely float on the surface of the river. Many had flashes of white pearls inside.

  “I’ll go get them now,” Mata suddenly dove off the tree trunk and towards the river.

  And then Silas woke up.

  He was sleeping in a hayloft over the stable of an inn in a small city in eastern Barnesnob. He’d traveled for three days on his way towards Amenozume, and he had further to go. The hayloft was uncomfortable, with only itchy straw to sleep on, but he refused to pay for a bed.

  The strange dream wasn’t a result of sleeping in the hayloft, he tried to tell himself. It was just the result of his imagination that was trying to come to terms with the thought that he was on his way to Amenozume so that he could help Mata escape from prison.

  Before he had left Prina’s caravan, Silas had never known how much it cost to sleep in an inn – in a real bed in an inn – and he was outraged at the prices the innkeepers asked him to pay for a bed. He had decided he would save the money and sleep in the haylofts. Or in the countryside, under the stars, as he had the night before. He’d slept in his wagon – or underneath the wagon on many occasions – throughout his time with the caravan.

  But, he acknowledged as he ruefully rubbed the back of his head, a bed would be comfortable. He’d at least have a bunk when he left Barnesnob on the ferry that he was going to ride to Amenozume. Perhaps he’d even be able to sleep in a bed for a night or two in Barnesnob, if he had to wait for the ferry, and if his acquaintances there made such a generous offer. At least, he amended his thought as he began to climb down the ladder from the hayloft, at least he’d sleep in a bed provided by Grecco or Vertuco. He wasn’t sure what his answer would be if Charms offered a bed, sight unseen. He wasn’t completely sure he knew what Charms did, but he had an idea it wouldn’t be pleasant to learn.

  The sun was above the horizon already, and so Silas started jogging west, away from the sunrise. He had a bit more of a journey, and he was anxious to make it to Barnesnob as quickly as possible, to complete the first phase of his journey to help Mata the pearl diver, his friend on the island of Amenozume, and the sister to his friend Jade, a lady-in-waiting in the royal party on the island.

  Mata was in prison, falsely accused of trying to steal some of the pearls that she dove for every day as a way to earn money. The pearls that she and dozens of other divers recovered from the waters of Amenozume harbor were the source of incredible wealth for the island nation, but the pearl divers who spent endless hours in the water received only a tiny fraction of the amount that the pearls were worth.

  The Pearl Traders Guild bartered to sell the pearls for vast profits, profits that they shared in part with the royal family of the island. But the Guild wanted to have more control over the pearl trade and had begun to seek the importation of guards from the hostile nation of Ivaric to patrol the harbor and protect the interests of the Guild members, although the Queen and Princess of Amenozume were not disposed to allow foreign mercenaries to establish such a beachhead in their nation.

  So Mata was held on false charges as the Traders tried to demonstrate that more security was needed,to justify the Ivaric guards they wanted.

  Mata was innocent, Silas believed. Her sister Jade had told him so, and he believed not just Jade, but he believed in Mata as well. Though the message of Mata’s false incarceration had been delivered to Silas through the extraordinary means of a magical mirror, he believed it was true.

  Which reminded him that he would have to try to use the mirror again soon to check with Jade on Mata’s status. He would glance into the mirror that evening, and hope to catch Jade in front of her own – really the princess’s! – mirror, so that they could exchange notes.

  He trudged on through the countryside, slowing his pace when he was tired and accelerating when he could, determined to travel to the Barnesnob port as quickly as possible. Midway through the afternoon though, he ran into a wall of rain, and had to blindly struggle forward into the lashing waves of downpour.

  An hour into that experience he decided that a dry bed inside an inn might be worth the price.

  Minutes later, he entered a small village, one that
was too small to have an inn, but a smoky tavern was present, and Silas gladly stepped in, a dripping wet visitor among several dry inhabitants of the village, who examined him minutely as he entered the dimly-lit interior.

  “Look at how wet he is! I’ve seen drowned dogs that didn’t drip that much,” he heard a voice murmur as he sidled towards an empty table.

  “He’s wet, but that’s nothing. It’s raining outside. Look at those eyes though! He didn’t get those from being in the rain too long,” another voice behind him said.

  Silas unconsciously hunched his shoulders and drew into himself as he reached the small table by the wall and sat down. The fire was on the far side of the dining space, so he received little warmth from the smoldering wet logs that gave off some heat and more smoke, but he was out of the rain, and that felt good. He hoped he could slowly eat a warm meal and linger in the tavern until the rain had passed, then move on to the west and try to get closer to his destination before sunset.

  His knife vibrated on his hip.

  Silas instinctively started to move his hand towards the haft of the knife. The knife was alive, in a sense. It could detect danger, and signal to Silas. For that matter it could fight a threat, by directly manipulating Silas – as it had done many times when the knife had taken control of his hand to guide his actions; or it could even seem to work independently from him, taking action completely on its own.