Chapter 6. The Jewel of Luitha

She drowsed, caressing memories of her carefree youth within the safety of Nolani’s peaceful walls.  Old Master Tasos smiled down upon her from a stepping stool while reaching for one of the hundreds of tomes that had once filled the great library.  His pale robes were awash with dappled color as low autumn sunlight poured through the high stained glass windows.  Before the Searing had turned her homeland into smoldering ruin, before the Cataclysm had drowned Orr, Nolani had been her paradise and home.

Uriel remembered her delight at being chosen to represent the Academy of Magic on a diplomatic mission to Orr.  Tasos had called her his favorite student even though at times he was strict and impatient with her.  She loved the old man and served him still.  In her pack lay a message pouch bearing the seal of Nolani.  His final wish was that she deliver the missive to a mysterious Canthan guild on his behalf.  He was dying, broken-hearted and wracked with illness as the dust of the Searing settled.  All that he had worked for was now ashes.

Her long ago tragedy in Orr returned to her as a nightmare.

Uriel awakened from the dream as she often did, bathed in cold sweat with her heart hammering in fear.  She gazed quickly around the tiny common room of the Fallen Tower to reassure herself she was not lying in the filth of that dreadful prison in the now sunken country of Orr.  Her hand strayed to the sapphire still wrapped around her neck.  In the dark hours before dawn the cramped room resounded with the soft noises and hisses of twelve sleeping travelers.  Pendaran had rolled over to face her and was sprawled against her side, his arm warm against her belly and his temple pressed against her shoulder.

“He is a frightful creature,” said Luitha, “Is he the one you have chosen for me?”

Luitha was only faintly visible at the periphery of vision, a slender woman in regal dress.  What little of her projected onto his plane was forlorn and pale as moon light.  Her face was lined with grief and Uriel’s nights were often punctuated by the ghost’s soft weeping.  Uriel sat up, extricating herself from the man’s almost possessive grasp.  He moaned softly in his sleep but did not awaken.  His face was peaceful, almost childlike as he lay with his cheek upon his hands.

“I believe he will serve your purposes more fully than I,” Uriel replied gently.  Neither of them spoke aloud.  For as long as Uriel had worn the sapphire at her throat she had heard Luitha’s voice, and Luitha had made it clear she was aware of Uriel’s every thought.  It had not taken long for Uriel to establish that she alone could see the ghostly figure.

She fingered the heavy sapphire, absently counting the myriad facets that graced its pendant form.  How appropriate that it was the shape of a great tear, for soon after wearing it she had learned that it was Luitha’s trapped spirit that powered its hideous enchantment. 

As grating as Luitha’s constant grief and despair were, it was as nothing compared to the jewel’s curse of brutal honesty.  Lemony had not exaggerated when she warned about the challenge of never being allowed to lie.  Not only could Uriel not utter a single falsehood, she could not dodge questions or creatively evade.  If she hedged in the least or tried to conceal her true feelings to any degree, her words became harsh and oft times foul.  More than any other aspect of the jewel, this had proved most devastating to Morisedd.

She had always been gentle in her speech toward him.  Long before the Searing had made such tragedies common, Morisedd had lost his natural parents and had been given into the care of his uncle Sywno’s guild.  His wounded sweetness was part of what had drawn her to him.  He had put her in mind of a young stag, graceful and masculine but ready to bolt back into his beloved wilderness at the first sign of danger. With kind words and admiration, he had unfolded to her like a glorious flower. 

Then the jewel had taken away her kindness and replaced it with harshness and cruelty.  Until she had learned not to resist, she had hammered away at Morisedd’s gentle psyche, cursing him with every question until eventually he stopped talking and the wounded look in his eyes pierced her heart with grief and remorse.  Vowing always to stay with her, he had forsaken his home in Regent Valley and condemned himself to a wanderer’s path as she searched for an escape from the curse.

Almost every night, Uriel and Luitha had conspired over the breaking of the curse.  Until the Searing, Uriel, by dint of her master’s position, had free access to Nolani’s immense library and devoted all of her available time to researching curses and their destruction.  Because the curse had been forged by mortals, it was inherently flawed.  For human magic to endure over the centuries, it had to have its own undoing built into its bindings, like a perfectly drawn knot.  And the key, Uriel decided, lay in the final incantation, the words Luitha had uttered as her life-force had been spent to power the curse:

“Of selfish love am I a token,
Lightly made and yet unbroken.
Who takes me will never part,
until there is a change of heart.
A transformation so complete,
What is bitter becomes sweet.”

The two of them had pondered the counter to the spell over the course of the last five years.  Until she had ended up in the treasury of the Orrian temple, Luitha had been borne by dozens of people and every one of them had gone with her to the grave.  Poor sad ghost, Uriel thought, imagining the centuries of sadness that had been hers to endure.

Luitha shimmered faintly as she gazed down at Uriel, her ageless face weary.

“I promised I would free you, Luitha,” Uriel soothed, “For while I do not love this curse, I have come to love you and I will do what I must to set you free.”

“I know, Uriel,” Luitha sighed softly.

The next bearer would have to be an unwitting thief and scoundrel because she needed to ensure that possession of the sapphire went willingly into his hands.  He would have to take it and do so with little encouragement, for the conditions of the curse ensured that she could not tell anyone the stone’s true nature.

And when it came to transformations, she felt strongly that Pendaran Caradec would provide ample raw material.