Legend of the Jumi Part III, Chapter 1
The White Pearl
By The Mana Priestess
White, pearly flakes of snow covered the earth,
lightly dusted the path leading into the town that lay in the valley near
the sea-cliffs. Most of the doors inside the town were shut tight against
the frozen winter night; it was almost ten o’clock, and all the shops
were closed. The small, dimly-lighted inn at the edge of the town was about
to be shut for the night as well, and the innkeeper was performing the last
organizational duties around the wooden counter, when a knock sounded on
the door of the inn.
He opened it slightly, just a crack, for the hour
was very late. A young man was standing on the steps, holding a woman in
his arms. He was extremely pale, his eyes dark, and his color was cast into
a sickly hue in the yellow, melancholy glow of the lamp fixed above the door;
he was also shaking in the chill, for his long-sleeved shirt was light rather
than warm.
"Please—" his voice was hoarse and fatigued,
his accents strained— "I need a place to stay."
The innkeeper opened the door wide and peered at
the woman. She was wrapped in a green cloak and lay in the young man’s
arms perfectly still and white. Her skin had an aspect of an unnatural pallor,
her eyes were closed, and her long hair streamed over the young man's arm,
nearly reaching the floor. An ugly slash across her neck, dark with dried
blood, seemed to partially explain her condition.
"What happened?" he asked.
"We were— attacked by bandits." The vague,
guilty flushed that stained the young man's cheeks at this lie was luckily
masked by the dim atmosphere. "She is my traveling companion. I have been
carrying her in my arms for several hours now. I have some money,
innkeeper…"
The innkeeper raised his hand to halt the young
man’s warily-uttered request. "Please come in,” he told him, opening
the door wide. The young man entered into the warm room, and almost immediately
collapsed into a nearby chair, his legs seeming to refuse to hold him any
longer. He maintained a tight grip on the woman, however. The innkeeper eyed
him curiously, but made no comment. “We have one free room," he told
the young man, "but only one bed."
"I'll sleep on the floor. She needs immediate care."
To the young man's relief, the innkeeper made
no further inquiries, and only said, "I'll provide an extra blanket. Follow
me."
Elazul ascended the short, rackety wooden steps
the inn to the second floor of the inn and entered the tiny room indicated
by the innkeeper. A small white bed and a chair, both seeming to shine with
a comforting, homelike glow, provided a welcomed sight to his exhausted body
and worn spirit. He carefully deposited Black Pearl onto the white sheets
and then, relieved of the burden, he seated himself into the chair, passing
his hand over his eyes. For a moment he seemed to struggle to collect himself
again, but then he turned to the innkeeper, who had followed him into the
room.
"I'll need some hot water and clean bandages to
care for her wounds," he said. "Is there anyone in the house at present—
a maid— who could tend to cleaning her?"
"The two maids are gone for the day, but we have
a girl who sometimes helps me clean the inn at after hours," answered the
innkeeper. He stepped out of the room for a moment and Elazul could hear
his voice raised in a shout: "Rachel! Come here for a second!" Entering the
room again he said, "She's a good, responsible girl, and she might be of
use to you."
A few moments later a quiet-looking girl of about
thirteen appeared at the door. She had a pale, oval little face and dark,
melancholy eyes; shortish dark hair framed her white countenance in feathery
strands that reached no longer than her jaw. She paused at the threshold,
her eyes taking in the sight of Elazul and the woman lying on the bed, but
she displayed neither surprise nor dismay, and her gaze went to the innkeeper
in passive expectancy for further orders.
"Rachel, this man will need a bowl of hot water
and some soap, as well as bandages. The woman is injured and needs to be
washed. Will you be able to do it?"
The girl nodded a silent assent, and Elazul intervened.
"I'll need some water and soap myself. Please bring another bowl of water,
and two towels." He rummaged in his bag and withdrew some silver pieces,
which he placed in the innkeeper's palm. "This is the deposit for three nights.
Also, I just thought of something; she has no replacement clothes.
Do you think you can find a clean nightgown for her?"
The innkeeper turned to the girl again. "Rachel,
run down to your mamma and ask her if she can sell us some clothes from the
shop. Get us two nightgowns and some undergarments." Rachel said nothing,
but nodded again, then turned and left as soon as he ceased speaking. Elazul,
his face suffused with a faint tinge of embarrassment, said, "Thank you for
your help."
"No need to thank me," answered the man. "If you
need anything, just tell me." His eyes ran speculatively over Black Pearl,
but he made no remark, and left.
Elazul let out a sigh. His gaze went to Black Pearl,
who was lying on the white bed, the cast of her countenance nearly as pale
as the sheets. He felt the strain of fatigue overtaking his whole body and
wondered how long he could stand the wait; an urgent need to lie down somewhere
and rest rose in him. The aftermath of Black Pearl’s attack had passed,
but a slow, laborious march of almost two hours in the freezing winds with
the woman’s body in his arms has sometimes exhausted him nearly to the
point of fainting.
A few minutes later Rachel entered with the bandages,
as well as with a wooden bowl of water, a towel and a soap; and she perceived
the young knight leaning forward, one arm against his knee, the palm of his
hand supporting his forehead, his eyes gazing down with a blank, abstracted
expression. He was roused at the noise of her entry and straightened, turning
his face towards her; but he said nothing. Their eyes met, and a moment later
she deposited the items she had brought on the small table at the side of
the bed without comment, then turned and vanished again.
Elazul, fighting against his fatigue, was roused
to action again. He took the clean, cream-colored towel and dipped its edge
in the warm, scented water. He gently passed the wet cloth over Black Pearl's
face, clearing away the dust and the sweat. He proceeded with a careful cleaning
to the various cuts and bruises on her face and shoulders and arms, paying
careful attention to the lengthy wound across the lower side of her neck;
then he withdrew the bottle of purifying distillment from his bag. He doused
the wound with some of the liquid, and then, as he was unrolling the bandages,
a thought suddenly occurred to him— the danger of discovery of Black
Pearl’s core.
With deft fingers he unlaced the shirt at Black
Pearl's neck, and the incriminating sight of her core met his eyes; but it
gave Elazul a momentary and unexpected pause. The dark jewel was shining
faintly, but it had an odd aspect; instead of the impenetrable black Elazul
was used to seeing, there was a faint glimmer shining within it, as if a
small, pale star had formed in the center of the core.
Elazul had no time to deliberate over this strange
phenomenon for he thought he heard a noise from downstairs. He quickly passed
the wet towel over Black Pearl's neck and shoulders, cleaning them, and then
he unrolled the bandages and wrapped them around the upper part of her chest
until they concealed her core completely. He then bound it securely and waited
for Rachel to enter. She came in two minutes later, carrying the second bowl
of water which contained a sliver of green soap floating within, and a large
towel. "For you," she said with a soft voice. She turned and left, but came
back a moment later, carrying some packages, which she placed the side of
the bed; Elazul could recognize the pale lacing of a nightgown.
“I’ll need to bandage her stomach wound
again,” he told Rachel. “The previous bandage had become soaked.
Do you grow sick at the sight of blood?”
Rachel gave her head an adamant shake. Elazul, taking
it for a consent, begun to issue instructions which Rachel followed with
careful precision. They unwrapped the cloak from around Black Pearl’s
body, and Elazul pulled the corners of her shirt up. He untied the expertly-bound
bandages, that were now drenched with a slowly spreading red stain. The deep,
gashing wound met his eyes, still oozing a small amount of blood; apparently
it had re-opened— doubtlessly, Elazul reflected without remorse, due
to his own action. He cleaned the blood with water, then doused the wound
with the purifying tonic; finally, with Rachel’s aid, he wrapped the
clean bandages around it.
His mission done, he withdrew a clean shirt from
his traveling bag and took the bowl of water and the towel. He rose to his
feet and turned. “Please clean her and replace her clothes,” he
told Rachel over his shoulder. “Be very careful not to move her too
much.”
He then went to the corner of the room, where a
curtain closed off a small area designed for dressing. He entered and shut
the curtain. Placing the bowl on the floor, he seated himself in front of
it with his legs crossed; then he leant forwards and dipped his hands in
the water, splashing a quantity of it on his face, and then over his head
and neck. This action refreshed him somehow, and he proceeded to clean himself.
When Elazul finished washing he said, slightly raising
his voice: "May I come out?" A quiet voice answered him, "Yes," and he put
on his clean shirt, automatically buttoning it to the neck in a habitual
gesture of precaution. He drew the curtains aside and came towards the bed,
his travel-stained shirt bundled in his hand.
He found Rachel sitting by the bed by Black Pearl.
Black Pearl's blood-stained clothes had been replaced by one of the nightgowns
Rachel had brought from the shop. Rachel was sitting at the head of the bed;
the bowl of water was placed on the table, which Rachel had moved close to
the bed. Rachel had gathered Black Pearl's long tresses and placed it into
the water bowl, in which they now floated like golden seaweed; she was applying
a fragrant liquid, pale peach in color, that generated a soapy foam which
she proceeded to disperse across the long threads of hair, cleaning them
carefully and thoroughly.
Elazul came to sit on the side of the bed and watched
Rachel's work without interrupting her; she did not look towards him, but
suddenly she said, with a wistful voice: "Her hair is so beautiful. I wish
mine was this pretty. I brought new water to clean it especially," she added.
Elazul smiled at this unexpectedly artless remark;
it was like a little girl that had found some wonderful new doll. Rachel
finished to clean Black Pearl's hair and doused it with water, then dried
it with the towel. She then stood up and begun to gather the items she had
brought in, but Elazul rose to his feet and approached her.
"Thank you," he said. “You provided me with
an invaluable help.”
Her dark eyes looked at him for a moment without
a change of expression; she made no reply, but after gathering everything
she pointed at the bed with her finger.
"Your blanket," she said.
Elazul noticed a second blanket draped across the
edge of the bed, and he suddenly laughed, the first spontaneous sound he
made for a long while. The laughter seemed to disperse the lingering shades,
and lightened his spirits a little. "Yes. Thank you for remembering."
A faint smile flitted across the young girl's pale
face, but she said nothing and left the room, closing the door behind her
quietly.
Elazul seated himself in the small, uncomfortable
chair again. He draped the blanket across his shoulder and watched Black
Pearl. There seemed to be no perceptible change in her; her eyes were still
closed, her face still white.
He wondered to himself whether she was in some sort
of a shock which added to her condition, and recollected the vision of the
blinding flash that the sword has emitted. Then he recalled how Alex vanished
over the edge of the cliff, blood oozing down her body, and he turned his
eyes away from Black Pearl, passing his hand over them. They burned and ached,
chafing against their inability to shed tears. Elazul stood up and removed
the chair to the corner of the room. He wrapped himself well in the blanket
and lay on the wooden floor besides the bed, closing his eyes.
He opened them again to gentle sunlight. Slowly
he rose to a sitting position, passing his hand over his face to remove the
trappings of sleep from his eyes. A stirring at his side, on the bed, caught
his attention, and he turned his face quickly towards it.
Lady Black Pearl was sitting on the bed and looking
at him. Elazul, who had meant to rise to his feet, suddenly became perfectly
still and stared at her with stunned silence.
She was sitting in a pool of the cool morning sunlight
that diffused through the window; and it took Elazul a moment or two to fully
grasp the strange alteration that had overcome her. Black Pearl's hair, whose
color had previously been a rich dark gold threaded with flaxen threads,
had altered to a uniformly pale, light gold, the long silken waves framing
her face and body in a glowing halo. The large eyes were no longer black;
their color had turned into a deep, clear turquoise. It was a subtle change,
but it seemed to alter her aspect thoroughly; instead of shining darkly she
glowed with a bright light, pale and pure in the white gown of satin and
lace.
It took yet another moment for Elazul to understand
this impression, perceive that the change was not only physical. Black Pearl's
countenance was not frozen into its usual calm expression, but was, instead,
relaxed and somewhat wary; her eyes didn't seem opaque and penetrating, but
looked at him with a strangely undetermined expression, seeming to receive
his gaze instead of repelling it.
After another moment Elazul collected himself with
an effort and flushed faintly at a realization that he had been staring at
her. He hurriedly rose to his feet, attempting to act as casual as possible.
"How are you feeling, Lady?" he asked, keeping his tone neutral; his expression,
however, was obdurate, the lines of his face harsh.
She opened her mouth but for a moment no sound came;
then she answered, "I don’t know.”
Elazul seated himself on the side of the bed, looking
down at the white sheets to try and avoid staring at her strangely transformed
appearance. Many conflicting feelings crowded in his mind as it coursed over
the turbulent and precarious career of their acquaintance, but his instinctive
reaction had always been to protect a woman in a susceptible situation, and
he was unsure what to do or say. He decided to leave the conversation to
her, for he had never known Black Pearl to lack for words. He found himself
struggling between his deep anger and his present indecision, and wondered
whether she was doing the same; and upon that thought he suddenly realized
that she had said nothing. The prolonged silence grated his nerves, and he
looked upwards again.
To his slight chagrin he found that she was still
looking at him with the same uncertain expression in her eyes. A thought
entered his mind that she still hasn't recovered completely; and this recalled
her wound to her memory. “You shouldn’t be sitting up,” he
said grimly. ”It could hurt your wounds.”
"My wounds?” she echoed, her voice very
low.
"Yes." Elazul did not pay attention to her words,
but looked at her with a frown in his eyes, reflecting that she was certainly
sitting with a poise that indicated comfort rather than pain. He could discern
the faint cantor of the bandages through the white gown, and they did not
seem to be stained with blood. A good sign for her; he wondered whether the
wounds were not as grave as it seemed before.
She now spoke again. “There was a pain in my
stomach and chest, around here—“ she placed her fingers lightly
on the bandages— “but I put my hand onto them and the pain
disappeared.”
Elazul eyed her somewhat doubtfully, perplexed at
her strange way of speaking, and a puzzled expression entered his eyes.
“The pain vanished?”
“Yes.” She lowered her eyes before his
intent gaze, seeming disconcerted for a moment. His astonishment deepened
at this uncharacteristic reaction on her part. Something was certainly wrong
with her; it was not only the physical transformation that alerted him to
it. "Lady," he said, "what do you recall?"
After a lengthy pause she looked down before his
direct, searching gaze, her fingers smoothing her nightgown with a strangely
restless gesture. "I— don't know," she said, and her melodious voice,
that has always been clear and precise, was low and soft in its tones. "I
can't recall anything, just..." he brows came together in a momentary effort,
and her fingers halted their nervous activity; "a white light.” Her
eyes returned to Elazul, wary, but also filled with some other emotion.
“Did you… did you rescue me?”
Elazul had been too confounded by this strangely-uttered
speech from Black Pearl to respond for a moment. He then realized, with a
sudden flash of understanding, that this was no longer Black Pearl as she
once had been; he had guessed that she might have lost her memory, but this
was no mere memory loss. It was a complete and utter transformation. Perhaps,
he thought with a strange verve, some hidden aspect to Pearl had surfaced
and displaced her previous persona— which might mean that what I once
felt, that something that I sensed glowing from within her core had been
there— I was right!
He still couldn’t understand what she meant
by the pain in her wound vanishing when she placed her hand to it. Somewhat
more gently, he said, “Can you please describe to me how you made the
pain in your stomach vanish?”
She averted her face again, her color heightened,
and stammered, “I— I don’t know. My hand glowed white and
the pain vanished."
Elazul recalled Black Pearl’s treatment of
him, her hand surrounded by a dark glow, draining his core, her own black
core glowing as it weakened him and drained his energy; and what she now
said about her hand being surrounded by white light, the pain disappearing;
and he thought of her strange transformation, dark beauty to light; and then
Elazul was up on his feet, kneeling on the bed, leaning towards her, his
hands grasping at her nightgown. Her eyes widened and she shrank away; all
at once he realized how his action might be interpreted by her and he paused,
his face flooding with red; but his mind was racing with anticipation for
the confirmation of his suspicion, and he said, quietly, "Don't worry! I
won't harm you, I, I just need to replace those bandages." He straightened,
falling back a little. "If you wish it, you can undo them yourself."
She looked down at her nightgown, her fingers passing
over the bandages about her chest. "These? I should take them off?"
Elazul nodded. "Please do, quickly. I— I shall
turn my back, if you so wish." He turned around and sat on the edge of the
bed, his back to her. "Now, please unbind the bandages. Quickly!"
"'I— I will," was her hesitant answer. Elazul
thought, she is definitely changed; Black Pearl never obeyed anyone's command;
and he waited impatiently. Finally, she said "I have done it," and then she
uttered a short exclamation of surprise. "Oh! What's this?"
He turned around. The first thing he could see her
eyes looking into his with consternation, and heard her voice saying, "I—
why do I have this— what am I?"
The next thing Elazul saw was Black Pearl's exposed
core, and he stared at it, torn between amazement and the realization that
his theory, so vaguely founded, had been right beyond his wildest dreams.
Black Pearl's core had become completely white.