September 24, 2025 • 34 mins
In Jewels of Aptor, Samuel R. Delanys debut novel from 1962, we are transported to a world centuries after a devastating nuclear holocaust known as the Great Fire. Here, a young woman embarks on a quest for her destiny, aided by a mysterious four-armed youth. This captivating tale serves as a prologue to Delanys subsequent work, Captives of the Flame. (Summary by BellonaTimes)
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Chapter three of the Jewels of the Aptor by Samuel R. Delany.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain reading by Mapperrard.
Chapter three, Geo walked down into the forecastle, still deserted
except for Urson and Snake. Well, asked Urson, sitting up on.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
The edge of his berth. What did she tell you?
Why aren't you asleep? Geo said heavily. He touched Snake
on the shoulder. She wants to see you now. Snake
stood up, started for the door, but then turned round.
What is it, Geo asked. Snake dug into his cloud
(00:46):
again and pulled out the thong with the jewel. He
walked over to Geo, hesitated, and then placed the thong
around the older boy's neck. You want me to keep
it for you, Geo asked, But Snake turned around and
was gone. I wonder what they do, said Urson, or
(01:07):
did you find it out? Come on, TiO, give up
what she told you? Did Snake say anything to you
while I was gone? Not a peep? Answered Urson. I
came no nearer sleep than I came to the moon. Now,
come on, what's this about? Geo told him. When he
finished Urson said, you're crazy, both you and her. I
(01:33):
don't think so, Geo said. He concluded his story by
recounting Argo's demonstration of the jewel's power. Erson fingered the
stone on Jio's chest, all that in this little thing.
Tell me? Do you think you can figure out how
it works? I don't know if I want to? Geo said,
(01:56):
it doesn't sound right. You're damned straight, it doesn't sound right.
Erson reiterated, what's the point of sending us in there
with no protection to do something that would be crazy?
With a whole army what she got against us? I
don't think she has anything against us, Geo said, Ursa,
(02:18):
what stories do you know about? After she said you
might be able to tell me something? I know that
no one trades with it, everyone curses by it, and
the rest is a lot of rubbish. Not worth saying.
What rubbish? Believe me, it's just belge Water insisted Ursuline.
(02:39):
Do you think you could figure out that little stone
there if you had long enough? I mean she said
that the priests five hundred years ago could, and she
seems to think you're as smart as some of them.
I wouldn't doubt if you could work it. You tell
me some stories, first, said jem. Oh, they talk about cannibals,
(03:01):
women who drink blood, things neither man nor animal, and
cities inhabited only by death. Sailors avoid it, say to
curse by, do you know anything more than that? There's
nothing more to know, shrugged person. She said the stories
you'd tell would not be one tenth of the truth.
(03:24):
She must have meant that there wasn't even a tenth
part of the truth in them. And I'm sure she's right.
You just misunderstood. No, I heard her correctly, Geo assured him.
Then I just don't believe it. There are half a
dozen things that don't match up in all this. First,
(03:46):
how that little forearmed fellow happened to be at the
pier after two months, just when she was coming in,
and to have the jewel still not have traded it
or sold it already? Maybe, suggested Geo, he read her
mind too when he first stole it, the same way
he read ours. And if he did, maybe he knows
(04:10):
how to work the things. I say, let's find out
when he comes back. And I wonder who cut his
tongue out, strange one or not? That makes me sick,
said the big man. About that, Geo started, don't you remember?
He said, you knew the man it was? I know
(04:32):
many men, said Urson. But which one of the many
I know?
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Is it?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
You really don't know, Geo asked quietly, you say that
in a strange way. Urson said, frowning, I'll say the
same thing, he said, went on, Jeo, what man did
you kill? Erson looked at his hands for a moment,
stretched the fingers, turned them over in his lap like
(05:02):
meat he was examining. Then, without looking up, he said,
it was a long time ago, friend, But the closeness
of its shivers in my eyes. I should have told
you yes, But it comes to me sometimes, not like
a memory, but something I can feel as hard as metal,
(05:22):
taste as sharp as salt, and the wind brings back
my voice his words so clearly that I shape like
a mirror where the figure on the inside pounds his
fists on the fists of the man outside, each one
trying to break free. We were reefing sails in a
flesh blistering rain. When it began. His name was Cat.
(05:45):
The two of us were the two biggest men aboard,
and that we had been put on the reefing team
together meant that this was an important job, and one
to be done well and right. Water washed our eyes, eyes,
our hands, slept on wet ropes. It was no wonder
my cloth suddenly flung away from me in a gust,
(06:08):
bellowing down in the rain, flapping against half a dozen
ropes and breaking two small stays. You clumsy thing, balled
the mate from the deck. What sort of fish fingered
sailor are you? And through the rain I heard cat
laugh from his own spar That's the way luck goes,
he cried, catching at his own cloth that threatened to
(06:31):
pull loose. I pulled my neck and bound her tight.
The competition that goes rightly between two fine sailors drove
a seed of fury into my flesh that should have
bloomed as a curse or a returned jibe. But the
rain rained too hard and the wind was too strong,
so I bound my sail was silence. I was last down,
(06:55):
of course, and with only a few lads below on deck,
when I saw why my sail had come loose. A
worn mast ring had broken, caused a main rope to
fly and my canvas to come tumbling. But the ring
also had held the nearly broken aft mast together, and
(07:15):
in the wind, a split twice the length of my
arm pulled open and snapped too, again and again, like
a child's noise clapper. There was a rope near an
inch thick line coiled on a spike. Holding myself to
a rat line by not much more than my toes,
I secured the rope and bound the base of the
(07:36):
broken pole. Each time it snapped too, I looped it
once around and pulled the wet line tight. They called
this whipping a mast, and I whipped it till the
collar of rope was three feet long to the top
of the cleft, and she couldn't snap any more. Then
I hung the broken ring on a peg near by,
(07:57):
so I could point it out to the ship smith
and get him to replace the rope with a metal band.
That evening, at mess, with the day's incidents out of
my mind and hot soup in my mouth, I was
laughing over some sailor's tail, about another sailor and another
sailor's woman. When the mate strode into the hall. Hey
(08:19):
you see scoundrels, he bellowed. There was silence. Which of
you bound up that broken mast? Aft. I was about
to call out I it was me when another man
beat me by bawling it was the big sailor, Sir.
That was a name both Cat and I were often
hailed by O. Well, snarled the mate. The captain says
(08:44):
that such good thinking in time so hard as these,
should be rewarded. He's seen the job and approved. He
took a gold coin from his pocket and tossed it
on the table in front of Cat. There you go,
big sailor. But I think it's as much much as
any man should do. And then he turned and clumped
from the mess hall. A cheer went up for Cat
(09:06):
as he pocketed the coin. I couldn't see his face.
The anger and me started now, But without direction? Should
it go to the sailor who'd called out the name
of the hero Nah, For he had been down on
deck and through rain and darkness. Probably he could not
have told me from my rival anyway at that distance
(09:29):
at Cat. But he was already getting up to leave
the table. And the first mate, the same first mate
of the ship here friend, that whereon now? He was
out stopping somewhere on deck. Perhaps it was this that
caused my anger to break out. The next morning, when
we were in calmer weather, a careless salt jarred me
(09:52):
in a passage way, and suddenly I was all fists
and fire. We scuffled, we banged, we cursed, we rolled.
In fact, we rolled right under the feet of the
mate who was coming down the steps at the time.
He sent a boot into us and eight different curses,
and when he recognized me, he sneered, oh, the clumsy one. Now,
(10:15):
I'd had a fiery record before. Fights on ship are
a breach few captains will allow. This was my third
and one too many, And the mate, prompted by his
own opinion of me, got the captain to order me flogged.
So like a carcass to be sliced and bit on,
I was let out before the assembled sailors at the
(10:38):
next sunrise and bound to the mainmast. I thought my
wrath went all toward the first mate now, but black
turned white in my head into something that I could
bite into. When he flung the whip to cat and cried, here,
big sailor, you've done your ship one good turn. Now ropes,
(10:59):
leap off your face and do it another. I want
ten stripes on that one's back. Deep enough to count
easily with a finger dipped in salt. They fell, and
I didn't breathe the whole time. Ten lashes is a
whipping a man can recover from in a week. Must
go down to their knees with the first one if
(11:19):
their rope is slack enough. I didn't fall until they
finally cut the ropes from my wrists, Nor was it
till I heard a second gold coin rattled on the
deck from the first mate's hand, and the words to
the crew, see how a good sailor gets rich. That
I made a sound, and it was lost in the
(11:40):
cheer which sprung from the other man. Cat and one
other lugged me to the brig. As I fell forward,
hands scudding into straw, I heard Cat's voice, come, well, brother,
that's the way the luck goes. Then the pain made
me faint. A day later, when I could pull myself
(12:02):
up to the window and look out on the back
of the ship, we caught the worst storm I'd ever seen,
and the slices in my back made it no easier
on me. Pegs threatened to pull from their holes boards
to part themselves. One wave washed four men overboard, and
while others ran to save them. Another came and swept
(12:24):
off six more. It had come so suddenly that not
a sail had been raised, and now the remaining men
were swarming to the ratlines. From my place at the
brig's window, I saw it start to go, and I
howled like an animal, tried to pull the boars away,
but legs passed by my window, running, and none stopped.
(12:45):
I screamed at them, and I screamed again. The shipsmith
had not yet gotten to fix my makeshift to repair
on the aftmast with another metal band, nor with my anger.
Had I yet even pointed it out to him as
I had intended. It didn't hold a quarter of an hour.
(13:07):
When it gave, there was a snap like thunder. Under
the tugging of half furled sails. Ropes popped like threads.
Men were whipped off like drops of water shaken from
a wet hand. The mast raked across the sky above
me like a claw, and then fell against the high mizzen,
(13:28):
snapping more ropes and scraping men from their perches as
you'd scrape ants from a tree. The crew's number was halved,
and when somehow we crawled from under the sheets of rain,
one mast fallen and one more ruined. The broken bodies
with still some life numbered eleven. A ship's infirmary holds ten,
(13:50):
and the overflow goes to the brig The choice of
who became my mate was between the man most likely
to live, figuring that he could take the harder situation
more easily than the others, and the man most likely
to die, figuring that it would probably make no difference
to some one that far gone. The choice was made
(14:12):
the latter choice, and the next morning they carried cat
in and laid him beside me on the straw while
I slept. His spine had been crushed at the pelvis,
and a spar had pierced his side with a hole
big enough to put her hand into. When he came
to all he did was cry, not with the agonized
(14:34):
howls I had given the day before when I watched
the mast topple, but with a little sound that escaped
from clinched teeth, like a child who doesn't want to
show the pain. It didn't stop for hours, and such
a soft sound. It burned into my gut and my
tongue deeper than any animal wailing wood. The next dawn,
(14:57):
stretched copper foil across the window, and reddish light fell
on the straw, the board floor, and the filthy, crumpled
blanket they had laid him in. The crying had stopped,
and was replaced now by a gasped breath, sharp every
few seconds, irregular loud. I thought he must be unconscious.
(15:19):
But when I kneeled to look, his eyes were opened,
and he stared straight into my face. You, he said
to me, with a next gasp, It hurts you. Be still,
I said, here, be still. The next word I thought
I heard was water, but there wasn't any in the cell.
(15:41):
I should have realized that the ship's supplies had probably gone,
for the most part overboard, But by now, hungry and
thirsty myself, I could see it as nothing less than
a stupendous joke. When one slice of bread and a
single tin cup of water were finally brought and embarrassedly
and silently handed in to us about sudden that morning, Nevertheless,
(16:05):
I opened his mouth and tried to pour some of
it down his throat. They say a man's mouth and
tongue turned black from fever and thirst after a while,
it's not true. The color is the deep purple of rotten,
shriveled meat, and every taste bud on the dead flesh
was tipped with that white stuff that gets in your
(16:27):
mouth when your bowels are upset. He couldn't swallow the water.
It just dribbled over the side of his mouth that
was scabbed with purple crust. He blinked his eyes and
once more got out you you please, and then he
began to cry again. What is it? I asked. Suddenly
(16:49):
he began to struggle and got his hand into the
breast of his torn tunic and pulled out a fist.
He held it out toward me and said, please, please.
The fingers opened, and I saw three gold coins, two
of whose histories suddenly leapt into my mind, like stories
of living men. I moved back, as if burned. Then
(17:13):
I leaned forward again. What do you want, I asked, Please,
he said, moving his hand toward me. Kill. Kill, And
then he was crying once more. It hurts so bad.
I got up. I walked across to the other side
(17:33):
of the cell. I came back. Then I broke his
neck with my knee and my two hands. I took
my pay up. Later, I ate the bread and drank
the breast of the water. Then I went to sleep.
They took him away without question, and two days later,
when the next food came, I realized, sort of absently,
(17:56):
that without all of that first bread and water, I
would have starved to death. They finally let me out
because they needed the muscle what was left of it.
And the only thing I sometimes think about, the only
thing I let myself think about, is whether or not
I earn my pay. I guess two of them were
(18:18):
mine anyway, but sometimes I take them out and look
at them and wonder where he got the third one from.
Erson put his hand in his tunic and brought out
three gold coins. Never been able to spend them, though,
he said. He tossed the little pile into the air
and then whipped them back into his fist again and laughed.
(18:43):
Never was able to spend them on anything. I'm sorry,
Geo said. After a moment, Erson looked up. Why I
guess these are my jewels? Uh? Maybe everyone has theirs.
You think it was a old cat, maybe sometimes when
(19:05):
I was in the brig, perhaps earning that third coin,
slicing out that little forearmed monster's tongue. Somehow I doubt it.
Look I said, I was sorry, Urson. I know. Urson said,
I know. I guess I've met a hell full of
people in my short, wet life, and it could be
(19:26):
any one of them. He sighed, though I wish I
knew which, but I don't think that's the answer. He
lifted his hand to his mouth now and gnawded his
thumb nail. I oh, that kid doesn't get as nervous
as I do, he laughed. He'll have such a hell
of a lot of nails to bite. Then their skulls
(19:52):
nearly split apart, Hey said Geo, that's Snake, and he's
in trouble too, said Urson. He leaped on to the
floor and started up the passageway. Geo came after him.
Let me go first, Geo said, I know where he is.
(20:12):
They reached the deck, raced along the side of the
cabins until they reached the door. Move, ordered Urson. Then
he rammed against the door and it flew open inside
Behind her desk, Argo whirled her hand on her jewel.
What is then, But the moment her concentration turned, Snake,
(20:33):
who had been immobile against the opposite wall, suddenly vaulted
across the table toward Geo. Geo grabbed the boy to
steady him, and immediately one of Snake's hands was at
Geo's chest, where the jewel hung. You fools, hissed Argo.
Don't you understand he's a spy for Aptor. There was
(20:55):
a sudden silence, then Argo said close the door. Person
closed it. Snake still held Jio and the jewel. Well,
she said, it is too late now. What do you mean,
asked Jio that had you not come blundering in, one
more of Abdoor's spies would have yielded up his secrets
(21:19):
and then been reduced to ashes. She breathed deeply. But
he has his jewel now and I have mine. Well,
little thief, there's a stalemate. The forces are balanced now.
She looked at Chio. How do you think he came
so easily by the jewel? How do you think he
(21:40):
knew when I would be at the shore. Oh, he's
a clever one, with all the intelligence of Apdor working
behind him. He probably even had you planted without your
knowing it to interrupt us at just that time. No,
he began Urson, we were walking by your door, Geo interrupted,
(22:03):
when we heard a noise and thought there might be trouble.
Your concern may have cost us all our lives. If
he's a spy, I gather that men's he knows how
this thing works, said Geo. Let Urson and I take him,
Take him anywhere you wish, hissed Argo. Get out. Just
(22:27):
then the door opened. I heard a sound, priestess Argo,
and I thought you might be in danger. It was
the first mate, the goddess incarnate breathed deeply. I am
in no danger, she said evenly. Will you please leave
me alone?
Speaker 1 (22:45):
All of you?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
What's the snake doing here? Georgie suddenly asked, Seeing Geo
still holding the boy, I said leave me. Geo turned
away from and stepped past him on to the deck,
and Urson followed him ten steps farther on. He glanced back, and,
seeing that Geordie had emerged from the cabin and was
(23:10):
walking in the other direction, he set snake down on
his feet. All right, little one march In the passage
to the forecastle, Erson asked, hey, what's going on? Well,
for one thing, our little friend here is no spy,
said Geo. How do you know, asked Erson? Because she
(23:35):
doesn't know he can read minds. How do you mean? Erson? Asked.
First of all, I was beginning to think something was
wrong when I came back from talking to the priestess.
You were too, and it lay in the same vein
you were talking about. Why would our past be completely
useless unless we accomplished all parts of her mission? Wouldn't
(23:58):
there be some value in jo returning her sister, the
rightful head of Leptar, to her former position. And I'm
sure her sister may well have collected some useful information
that could be used against Aptor, so that would be
some value even if we didn't find the jewel. It
(24:19):
doesn't sound too sisterly a thing to me to forsake
the young priestess if there is no jewel in it.
For her and her tone, the way she refers to
the jewel as hers. There's an old saying from before
the Great Fire. Even power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,
(24:40):
And I think she has not a little of the
ungoddesslike desire for power first, peace afterwards. But that doesn't
mean this one isn't an outdoor spy, said person. Wait
a minute, I'm getting there. At first I thought he
was too. The idea occurred to me first when I
(25:02):
was talking to the priestess, and she first mentioned that
there were spies from Abdor, the coincidence of his appearance,
that he had even managed to steal the jewel in
the first place, that he would present it to her
the way he did. All this hinted something so strange
that spy was the first thing I thought of, and
(25:23):
I'm sure it was the first thing she thought as well.
And she especially would think this if she did not
know that Snake could read minds and broadcast mentally, because
ignorance of his telepathy removes the one other possible explanation
of the coincidences. But Erson, why did he leave the
(25:45):
jewel with us before he went to see her, because
he thought she was going to try and take it
away from him, exactly when she told me to send
him up to her. I was fairly sure that was
the main reason she wanted him. But if he was
a spy and knew how to work the jewel, then
(26:06):
why not take it with him, present himself to argo
with the jewel, showing himself as an equal force, and
then come calmly back, leaving her in silence and us
still on his side, Especially since he would be revealing
to her, something of which she was nine tenths aware
(26:26):
of already, and would watch him no more carefully than
she would were it not confirmed, all right, said Urson.
Why not because he was not a spy and didn't
know how to work the jewel. Yes, he had felt
its power once. Perhaps he was going to pretend he
(26:46):
had it hidden on his person, But he did not
want her to get her hands on it, for reasons
that were strong but not selfish. Here Snake said, you
know how to work the jewel, now, don't you. But
you'd learn from Argo just now. The boy nodded, Here, then,
(27:09):
why don't you take it? Jeu lifted the jewel from
his neck and held it out to him. Snake drew
back and shook his head violently. Person looked puzzled. Snake
has seen into human minds Erson. He's seen things directly
which the rest of us only learn from a sort
(27:30):
of second hand observation. He knows that the power of
this little bead is more dangerous to the mind of
the person who wields it than it is to the
cities it may destroy. Well, said Urson, as long as
she thinks he's a spy, at least we'll have one
of them little beads and some one who knows how
(27:50):
to use it. I mean, if we have to. I
don't think she thinks he's a spy any more, Urson, U.
I give her credit for being able to reason, at
least as well as I can. Once she found out
he had no jewel on him, she knew that he
(28:11):
was as innocent as you and I are, but her
only thought was to get it in any way she could.
When we came in, just when she was going to
put Snake under the jewel's control, guilt made her leap
backwards to her first and seemingly logical accusation for our benefit.
(28:33):
Evil likes to cloak itself as good. He stepped down
into the forecastle. By now a handful of sailors had
come into the room, mostly drunk and snoring on berths
around the walls. One had wrapped himself completely up in
a blanket in the middle berth of the tier that
Urson had chosen for the three. Well, said Urson to Snake,
(28:58):
it looks like you'll have to move. Snake scrambled to
the top bunk. Now, look that one was mine. Snake
motioned him up huh two of us, and one of
those demanded Urson. Look, if you want someone to keep
warm against, go down and sleep with Geo.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
There.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
It's more room and you won't get squashed against the wall.
I'm a thrusher when I sleep. Snake didn't move. Maybe
you'd better do what he says. Geo said, I have
an idea that you've got another idea, now, asked Urson.
(29:41):
Oh damn, I'm too tired to argue. He vaulted up
to the top bunk. Now move over and be very small.
He stretched out, and Snake's slight body was completely hidden. Hey,
get your elbows out of there, Geo heard Urson mutter.
Before the there was only a gentle thundering of his snore.
(30:04):
Silver mist suffused the deck of the ship, and wet
lines glowed a phosphorescent silver. The sky was pale as ice.
Pricks of stars dotted over the whole bowl. The sea,
once green, seemed bleached to blowing clouds of white powder.
The door of a cabin opened and white veils flung
(30:26):
forward from the form of Argo, who emerged like silver
from the bone colored door. The whole movement of the
scene made it look like a picture imagination fastens in
the slow ripplings of gauze. Under breeze, one dark spot
was at her throat, pulsing darkly like a heart, like
(30:48):
a black flame. She walked to the railing, peered over
in the white washing. A skeletal hand appeared. It raised
on a beckoning arm, then fell forward in the water.
Another arm raised, now a few feet away, beckoning, gesturing,
then three at once, then two more. A voice as
(31:12):
pale as the vision spoke, I am coming. We sail
in an hour. The mate has been ordered to put
the ship out before dawn. You must tell me now,
creatures of the water, two glowing arms raised up, and
then an almost featureless face, chest high in the water.
(31:35):
It listed backwards and sank again. Are you of Aptwar
or Leptar? Spoke the apparitional figure of Argo again, in
the thin voice. Are your allegiances to Argo or Hama?
I have followed thus far. You must tell me. Before
(31:56):
I thought farther, there was a whirling of sound, which
seemed to be the wind, attempting to say the sea,
the sea, the sea. But Argo did not hear, for
she turned away and walked from the rail back to
her cabin. Now the scene moved, turned toward the door
(32:18):
of the forecastle. It opened, moved through the hall, the
walls more like polished steel than weathered wood, and went on.
In the forecastle, the yellow oil lamp seemed a white
flaring of magnesium. The movement stopped in front of a
tier of three berths. On the bottom one lay a
(32:39):
young man with a starved, pallid face. His mop of
hair was bleached white. On his chest was a pulsing darkness,
a black flame, a dark heart shimmering with the indistinctness
of absolute shadow. On the top bunk, a great form
like a bloated corpse. Lay One huge arm hung over
(33:02):
the bunk, flabbed, puffy, without muscle. In the center berth
was an anonymous bundle of blankets, completely covering the figure inside.
On this the scene fixed, drew closer, and the paleness
suddenly faded before darkness into shadow, into nothing. Geo sat
(33:23):
up and knuckled his eyes. The dark forecastle was relieved
by the yellow glow of the lamp. The gaunt mate
stood across the room. Hey you, he was saying to
a man in one of the bunks. Up and out,
we're sailing. The figure roused itself from the tangle of bedding.
The mate moved to another. Up you dog face, Up,
(33:46):
you fish fodder. We're sailing. Turning around, he saw Geo
watching him, And what's wrong with you? We're sailing, didn't
you hear? Nah, you go back to sleep. Your turn
will come, but we need experience ones now. He grinned briefly,
and then went on to one more. Hey, you stink
(34:08):
like an old wine cask. Raise yourself out of your fumes.
We're sailing. End of chapter three
Chapter three of the Jewels of the Aptor by Samuel R. Delany.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain reading by Mapperrard.
Chapter three, Geo walked down into the forecastle, still deserted
except for Urson and Snake. Well, asked Urson, sitting up on.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
The edge of his berth. What did she tell you?
Why aren't you asleep? Geo said heavily. He touched Snake
on the shoulder. She wants to see you now. Snake
stood up, started for the door, but then turned round.
What is it, Geo asked. Snake dug into his cloud
(00:46):
again and pulled out the thong with the jewel. He
walked over to Geo, hesitated, and then placed the thong
around the older boy's neck. You want me to keep
it for you, Geo asked, But Snake turned around and
was gone. I wonder what they do, said Urson, or
(01:07):
did you find it out? Come on, TiO, give up
what she told you? Did Snake say anything to you
while I was gone? Not a peep? Answered Urson. I
came no nearer sleep than I came to the moon. Now,
come on, what's this about? Geo told him. When he
finished Urson said, you're crazy, both you and her. I
(01:33):
don't think so, Geo said. He concluded his story by
recounting Argo's demonstration of the jewel's power. Erson fingered the
stone on Jio's chest, all that in this little thing.
Tell me? Do you think you can figure out how
it works? I don't know if I want to? Geo said,
(01:56):
it doesn't sound right. You're damned straight, it doesn't sound right.
Erson reiterated, what's the point of sending us in there
with no protection to do something that would be crazy?
With a whole army what she got against us? I
don't think she has anything against us, Geo said, Ursa,
(02:18):
what stories do you know about? After she said you
might be able to tell me something? I know that
no one trades with it, everyone curses by it, and
the rest is a lot of rubbish. Not worth saying.
What rubbish? Believe me, it's just belge Water insisted Ursuline.
(02:39):
Do you think you could figure out that little stone
there if you had long enough? I mean she said
that the priests five hundred years ago could, and she
seems to think you're as smart as some of them.
I wouldn't doubt if you could work it. You tell
me some stories, first, said jem. Oh, they talk about cannibals,
(03:01):
women who drink blood, things neither man nor animal, and
cities inhabited only by death. Sailors avoid it, say to
curse by, do you know anything more than that? There's
nothing more to know, shrugged person. She said the stories
you'd tell would not be one tenth of the truth.
(03:24):
She must have meant that there wasn't even a tenth
part of the truth in them. And I'm sure she's right.
You just misunderstood. No, I heard her correctly, Geo assured him.
Then I just don't believe it. There are half a
dozen things that don't match up in all this. First,
(03:46):
how that little forearmed fellow happened to be at the
pier after two months, just when she was coming in,
and to have the jewel still not have traded it
or sold it already? Maybe, suggested Geo, he read her
mind too when he first stole it, the same way
he read ours. And if he did, maybe he knows
(04:10):
how to work the things. I say, let's find out
when he comes back. And I wonder who cut his
tongue out, strange one or not? That makes me sick,
said the big man. About that, Geo started, don't you remember?
He said, you knew the man it was? I know
(04:32):
many men, said Urson. But which one of the many
I know?
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Is it?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
You really don't know, Geo asked quietly, you say that
in a strange way. Urson said, frowning, I'll say the
same thing, he said, went on, Jeo, what man did
you kill? Erson looked at his hands for a moment,
stretched the fingers, turned them over in his lap like
(05:02):
meat he was examining. Then, without looking up, he said,
it was a long time ago, friend, But the closeness
of its shivers in my eyes. I should have told
you yes, But it comes to me sometimes, not like
a memory, but something I can feel as hard as metal,
(05:22):
taste as sharp as salt, and the wind brings back
my voice his words so clearly that I shape like
a mirror where the figure on the inside pounds his
fists on the fists of the man outside, each one
trying to break free. We were reefing sails in a
flesh blistering rain. When it began. His name was Cat.
(05:45):
The two of us were the two biggest men aboard,
and that we had been put on the reefing team
together meant that this was an important job, and one
to be done well and right. Water washed our eyes, eyes,
our hands, slept on wet ropes. It was no wonder
my cloth suddenly flung away from me in a gust,
(06:08):
bellowing down in the rain, flapping against half a dozen
ropes and breaking two small stays. You clumsy thing, balled
the mate from the deck. What sort of fish fingered
sailor are you? And through the rain I heard cat
laugh from his own spar That's the way luck goes,
he cried, catching at his own cloth that threatened to
(06:31):
pull loose. I pulled my neck and bound her tight.
The competition that goes rightly between two fine sailors drove
a seed of fury into my flesh that should have
bloomed as a curse or a returned jibe. But the
rain rained too hard and the wind was too strong,
so I bound my sail was silence. I was last down,
(06:55):
of course, and with only a few lads below on deck,
when I saw why my sail had come loose. A
worn mast ring had broken, caused a main rope to
fly and my canvas to come tumbling. But the ring
also had held the nearly broken aft mast together, and
(07:15):
in the wind, a split twice the length of my
arm pulled open and snapped too, again and again, like
a child's noise clapper. There was a rope near an
inch thick line coiled on a spike. Holding myself to
a rat line by not much more than my toes,
I secured the rope and bound the base of the
(07:36):
broken pole. Each time it snapped too, I looped it
once around and pulled the wet line tight. They called
this whipping a mast, and I whipped it till the
collar of rope was three feet long to the top
of the cleft, and she couldn't snap any more. Then
I hung the broken ring on a peg near by,
(07:57):
so I could point it out to the ship smith
and get him to replace the rope with a metal band.
That evening, at mess, with the day's incidents out of
my mind and hot soup in my mouth, I was
laughing over some sailor's tail, about another sailor and another
sailor's woman. When the mate strode into the hall. Hey
(08:19):
you see scoundrels, he bellowed. There was silence. Which of
you bound up that broken mast? Aft. I was about
to call out I it was me when another man
beat me by bawling it was the big sailor, Sir.
That was a name both Cat and I were often
hailed by O. Well, snarled the mate. The captain says
(08:44):
that such good thinking in time so hard as these,
should be rewarded. He's seen the job and approved. He
took a gold coin from his pocket and tossed it
on the table in front of Cat. There you go,
big sailor. But I think it's as much much as
any man should do. And then he turned and clumped
from the mess hall. A cheer went up for Cat
(09:06):
as he pocketed the coin. I couldn't see his face.
The anger and me started now, But without direction? Should
it go to the sailor who'd called out the name
of the hero Nah, For he had been down on
deck and through rain and darkness. Probably he could not
have told me from my rival anyway at that distance
(09:29):
at Cat. But he was already getting up to leave
the table. And the first mate, the same first mate
of the ship here friend, that whereon now? He was
out stopping somewhere on deck. Perhaps it was this that
caused my anger to break out. The next morning, when
we were in calmer weather, a careless salt jarred me
(09:52):
in a passage way, and suddenly I was all fists
and fire. We scuffled, we banged, we cursed, we rolled.
In fact, we rolled right under the feet of the
mate who was coming down the steps at the time.
He sent a boot into us and eight different curses,
and when he recognized me, he sneered, oh, the clumsy one. Now,
(10:15):
I'd had a fiery record before. Fights on ship are
a breach few captains will allow. This was my third
and one too many, And the mate, prompted by his
own opinion of me, got the captain to order me flogged.
So like a carcass to be sliced and bit on,
I was let out before the assembled sailors at the
(10:38):
next sunrise and bound to the mainmast. I thought my
wrath went all toward the first mate now, but black
turned white in my head into something that I could
bite into. When he flung the whip to cat and cried, here,
big sailor, you've done your ship one good turn. Now ropes,
(10:59):
leap off your face and do it another. I want
ten stripes on that one's back. Deep enough to count
easily with a finger dipped in salt. They fell, and
I didn't breathe the whole time. Ten lashes is a
whipping a man can recover from in a week. Must
go down to their knees with the first one if
(11:19):
their rope is slack enough. I didn't fall until they
finally cut the ropes from my wrists, Nor was it
till I heard a second gold coin rattled on the
deck from the first mate's hand, and the words to
the crew, see how a good sailor gets rich. That
I made a sound, and it was lost in the
(11:40):
cheer which sprung from the other man. Cat and one
other lugged me to the brig. As I fell forward,
hands scudding into straw, I heard Cat's voice, come, well, brother,
that's the way the luck goes. Then the pain made
me faint. A day later, when I could pull myself
(12:02):
up to the window and look out on the back
of the ship, we caught the worst storm I'd ever seen,
and the slices in my back made it no easier
on me. Pegs threatened to pull from their holes boards
to part themselves. One wave washed four men overboard, and
while others ran to save them. Another came and swept
(12:24):
off six more. It had come so suddenly that not
a sail had been raised, and now the remaining men
were swarming to the ratlines. From my place at the
brig's window, I saw it start to go, and I
howled like an animal, tried to pull the boars away,
but legs passed by my window, running, and none stopped.
(12:45):
I screamed at them, and I screamed again. The shipsmith
had not yet gotten to fix my makeshift to repair
on the aftmast with another metal band, nor with my anger.
Had I yet even pointed it out to him as
I had intended. It didn't hold a quarter of an hour.
(13:07):
When it gave, there was a snap like thunder. Under
the tugging of half furled sails. Ropes popped like threads.
Men were whipped off like drops of water shaken from
a wet hand. The mast raked across the sky above
me like a claw, and then fell against the high mizzen,
(13:28):
snapping more ropes and scraping men from their perches as
you'd scrape ants from a tree. The crew's number was halved,
and when somehow we crawled from under the sheets of rain,
one mast fallen and one more ruined. The broken bodies
with still some life numbered eleven. A ship's infirmary holds ten,
(13:50):
and the overflow goes to the brig The choice of
who became my mate was between the man most likely
to live, figuring that he could take the harder situation
more easily than the others, and the man most likely
to die, figuring that it would probably make no difference
to some one that far gone. The choice was made
(14:12):
the latter choice, and the next morning they carried cat
in and laid him beside me on the straw while
I slept. His spine had been crushed at the pelvis,
and a spar had pierced his side with a hole
big enough to put her hand into. When he came
to all he did was cry, not with the agonized
(14:34):
howls I had given the day before when I watched
the mast topple, but with a little sound that escaped
from clinched teeth, like a child who doesn't want to
show the pain. It didn't stop for hours, and such
a soft sound. It burned into my gut and my
tongue deeper than any animal wailing wood. The next dawn,
(14:57):
stretched copper foil across the window, and reddish light fell
on the straw, the board floor, and the filthy, crumpled
blanket they had laid him in. The crying had stopped,
and was replaced now by a gasped breath, sharp every
few seconds, irregular loud. I thought he must be unconscious.
(15:19):
But when I kneeled to look, his eyes were opened,
and he stared straight into my face. You, he said
to me, with a next gasp, It hurts you. Be still,
I said, here, be still. The next word I thought
I heard was water, but there wasn't any in the cell.
(15:41):
I should have realized that the ship's supplies had probably gone,
for the most part overboard, But by now, hungry and
thirsty myself, I could see it as nothing less than
a stupendous joke. When one slice of bread and a
single tin cup of water were finally brought and embarrassedly
and silently handed in to us about sudden that morning, Nevertheless,
(16:05):
I opened his mouth and tried to pour some of
it down his throat. They say a man's mouth and
tongue turned black from fever and thirst after a while,
it's not true. The color is the deep purple of rotten,
shriveled meat, and every taste bud on the dead flesh
was tipped with that white stuff that gets in your
(16:27):
mouth when your bowels are upset. He couldn't swallow the water.
It just dribbled over the side of his mouth that
was scabbed with purple crust. He blinked his eyes and
once more got out you you please, and then he
began to cry again. What is it? I asked. Suddenly
(16:49):
he began to struggle and got his hand into the
breast of his torn tunic and pulled out a fist.
He held it out toward me and said, please, please.
The fingers opened, and I saw three gold coins, two
of whose histories suddenly leapt into my mind, like stories
of living men. I moved back, as if burned. Then
(17:13):
I leaned forward again. What do you want, I asked, Please,
he said, moving his hand toward me. Kill. Kill, And
then he was crying once more. It hurts so bad.
I got up. I walked across to the other side
(17:33):
of the cell. I came back. Then I broke his
neck with my knee and my two hands. I took
my pay up. Later, I ate the bread and drank
the breast of the water. Then I went to sleep.
They took him away without question, and two days later,
when the next food came, I realized, sort of absently,
(17:56):
that without all of that first bread and water, I
would have starved to death. They finally let me out
because they needed the muscle what was left of it.
And the only thing I sometimes think about, the only
thing I let myself think about, is whether or not
I earn my pay. I guess two of them were
(18:18):
mine anyway, but sometimes I take them out and look
at them and wonder where he got the third one from.
Erson put his hand in his tunic and brought out
three gold coins. Never been able to spend them, though,
he said. He tossed the little pile into the air
and then whipped them back into his fist again and laughed.
(18:43):
Never was able to spend them on anything. I'm sorry,
Geo said. After a moment, Erson looked up. Why I
guess these are my jewels? Uh? Maybe everyone has theirs.
You think it was a old cat, maybe sometimes when
(19:05):
I was in the brig, perhaps earning that third coin,
slicing out that little forearmed monster's tongue. Somehow I doubt it.
Look I said, I was sorry, Urson. I know. Urson said,
I know. I guess I've met a hell full of
people in my short, wet life, and it could be
(19:26):
any one of them. He sighed, though I wish I
knew which, but I don't think that's the answer. He
lifted his hand to his mouth now and gnawded his
thumb nail. I oh, that kid doesn't get as nervous
as I do, he laughed. He'll have such a hell
of a lot of nails to bite. Then their skulls
(19:52):
nearly split apart, Hey said Geo, that's Snake, and he's
in trouble too, said Urson. He leaped on to the
floor and started up the passageway. Geo came after him.
Let me go first, Geo said, I know where he is.
(20:12):
They reached the deck, raced along the side of the
cabins until they reached the door. Move, ordered Urson. Then
he rammed against the door and it flew open inside
Behind her desk, Argo whirled her hand on her jewel.
What is then, But the moment her concentration turned, Snake,
(20:33):
who had been immobile against the opposite wall, suddenly vaulted
across the table toward Geo. Geo grabbed the boy to
steady him, and immediately one of Snake's hands was at
Geo's chest, where the jewel hung. You fools, hissed Argo.
Don't you understand he's a spy for Aptor. There was
(20:55):
a sudden silence, then Argo said close the door. Person
closed it. Snake still held Jio and the jewel. Well,
she said, it is too late now. What do you mean,
asked Jio that had you not come blundering in, one
more of Abdoor's spies would have yielded up his secrets
(21:19):
and then been reduced to ashes. She breathed deeply. But
he has his jewel now and I have mine. Well,
little thief, there's a stalemate. The forces are balanced now.
She looked at Chio. How do you think he came
so easily by the jewel? How do you think he
(21:40):
knew when I would be at the shore. Oh, he's
a clever one, with all the intelligence of Apdor working
behind him. He probably even had you planted without your
knowing it to interrupt us at just that time. No,
he began Urson, we were walking by your door, Geo interrupted,
(22:03):
when we heard a noise and thought there might be trouble.
Your concern may have cost us all our lives. If
he's a spy, I gather that men's he knows how
this thing works, said Geo. Let Urson and I take him,
Take him anywhere you wish, hissed Argo. Get out. Just
(22:27):
then the door opened. I heard a sound, priestess Argo,
and I thought you might be in danger. It was
the first mate, the goddess incarnate breathed deeply. I am
in no danger, she said evenly. Will you please leave
me alone?
Speaker 1 (22:45):
All of you?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
What's the snake doing here? Georgie suddenly asked, Seeing Geo
still holding the boy, I said leave me. Geo turned
away from and stepped past him on to the deck,
and Urson followed him ten steps farther on. He glanced back, and,
seeing that Geordie had emerged from the cabin and was
(23:10):
walking in the other direction, he set snake down on
his feet. All right, little one march In the passage
to the forecastle, Erson asked, hey, what's going on? Well,
for one thing, our little friend here is no spy,
said Geo. How do you know, asked Erson? Because she
(23:35):
doesn't know he can read minds. How do you mean? Erson? Asked.
First of all, I was beginning to think something was
wrong when I came back from talking to the priestess.
You were too, and it lay in the same vein
you were talking about. Why would our past be completely
useless unless we accomplished all parts of her mission? Wouldn't
(23:58):
there be some value in jo returning her sister, the
rightful head of Leptar, to her former position. And I'm
sure her sister may well have collected some useful information
that could be used against Aptor, so that would be
some value even if we didn't find the jewel. It
(24:19):
doesn't sound too sisterly a thing to me to forsake
the young priestess if there is no jewel in it.
For her and her tone, the way she refers to
the jewel as hers. There's an old saying from before
the Great Fire. Even power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,
(24:40):
And I think she has not a little of the
ungoddesslike desire for power first, peace afterwards. But that doesn't
mean this one isn't an outdoor spy, said person. Wait
a minute, I'm getting there. At first I thought he
was too. The idea occurred to me first when I
(25:02):
was talking to the priestess, and she first mentioned that
there were spies from Abdor, the coincidence of his appearance,
that he had even managed to steal the jewel in
the first place, that he would present it to her
the way he did. All this hinted something so strange
that spy was the first thing I thought of, and
(25:23):
I'm sure it was the first thing she thought as well.
And she especially would think this if she did not
know that Snake could read minds and broadcast mentally, because
ignorance of his telepathy removes the one other possible explanation
of the coincidences. But Erson, why did he leave the
(25:45):
jewel with us before he went to see her, because
he thought she was going to try and take it
away from him, exactly when she told me to send
him up to her. I was fairly sure that was
the main reason she wanted him. But if he was
a spy and knew how to work the jewel, then
(26:06):
why not take it with him, present himself to argo
with the jewel, showing himself as an equal force, and
then come calmly back, leaving her in silence and us
still on his side, Especially since he would be revealing
to her, something of which she was nine tenths aware
(26:26):
of already, and would watch him no more carefully than
she would were it not confirmed, all right, said Urson.
Why not because he was not a spy and didn't
know how to work the jewel. Yes, he had felt
its power once. Perhaps he was going to pretend he
(26:46):
had it hidden on his person, But he did not
want her to get her hands on it, for reasons
that were strong but not selfish. Here Snake said, you
know how to work the jewel, now, don't you. But
you'd learn from Argo just now. The boy nodded, Here, then,
(27:09):
why don't you take it? Jeu lifted the jewel from
his neck and held it out to him. Snake drew
back and shook his head violently. Person looked puzzled. Snake
has seen into human minds Erson. He's seen things directly
which the rest of us only learn from a sort
(27:30):
of second hand observation. He knows that the power of
this little bead is more dangerous to the mind of
the person who wields it than it is to the
cities it may destroy. Well, said Urson, as long as
she thinks he's a spy, at least we'll have one
of them little beads and some one who knows how
(27:50):
to use it. I mean, if we have to. I
don't think she thinks he's a spy any more, Urson, U.
I give her credit for being able to reason, at
least as well as I can. Once she found out
he had no jewel on him, she knew that he
(28:11):
was as innocent as you and I are, but her
only thought was to get it in any way she could.
When we came in, just when she was going to
put Snake under the jewel's control, guilt made her leap
backwards to her first and seemingly logical accusation for our benefit.
(28:33):
Evil likes to cloak itself as good. He stepped down
into the forecastle. By now a handful of sailors had
come into the room, mostly drunk and snoring on berths
around the walls. One had wrapped himself completely up in
a blanket in the middle berth of the tier that
Urson had chosen for the three. Well, said Urson to Snake,
(28:58):
it looks like you'll have to move. Snake scrambled to
the top bunk. Now, look that one was mine. Snake
motioned him up huh two of us, and one of
those demanded Urson. Look, if you want someone to keep
warm against, go down and sleep with Geo.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
There.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
It's more room and you won't get squashed against the wall.
I'm a thrusher when I sleep. Snake didn't move. Maybe
you'd better do what he says. Geo said, I have
an idea that you've got another idea, now, asked Urson.
(29:41):
Oh damn, I'm too tired to argue. He vaulted up
to the top bunk. Now move over and be very small.
He stretched out, and Snake's slight body was completely hidden. Hey,
get your elbows out of there, Geo heard Urson mutter.
Before the there was only a gentle thundering of his snore.
(30:04):
Silver mist suffused the deck of the ship, and wet
lines glowed a phosphorescent silver. The sky was pale as ice.
Pricks of stars dotted over the whole bowl. The sea,
once green, seemed bleached to blowing clouds of white powder.
The door of a cabin opened and white veils flung
(30:26):
forward from the form of Argo, who emerged like silver
from the bone colored door. The whole movement of the
scene made it look like a picture imagination fastens in
the slow ripplings of gauze. Under breeze, one dark spot
was at her throat, pulsing darkly like a heart, like
(30:48):
a black flame. She walked to the railing, peered over
in the white washing. A skeletal hand appeared. It raised
on a beckoning arm, then fell forward in the water.
Another arm raised, now a few feet away, beckoning, gesturing,
then three at once, then two more. A voice as
(31:12):
pale as the vision spoke, I am coming. We sail
in an hour. The mate has been ordered to put
the ship out before dawn. You must tell me now,
creatures of the water, two glowing arms raised up, and
then an almost featureless face, chest high in the water.
(31:35):
It listed backwards and sank again. Are you of Aptwar
or Leptar? Spoke the apparitional figure of Argo again, in
the thin voice. Are your allegiances to Argo or Hama?
I have followed thus far. You must tell me. Before
(31:56):
I thought farther, there was a whirling of sound, which
seemed to be the wind, attempting to say the sea,
the sea, the sea. But Argo did not hear, for
she turned away and walked from the rail back to
her cabin. Now the scene moved, turned toward the door
(32:18):
of the forecastle. It opened, moved through the hall, the
walls more like polished steel than weathered wood, and went on.
In the forecastle, the yellow oil lamp seemed a white
flaring of magnesium. The movement stopped in front of a
tier of three berths. On the bottom one lay a
(32:39):
young man with a starved, pallid face. His mop of
hair was bleached white. On his chest was a pulsing darkness,
a black flame, a dark heart shimmering with the indistinctness
of absolute shadow. On the top bunk, a great form
like a bloated corpse. Lay One huge arm hung over
(33:02):
the bunk, flabbed, puffy, without muscle. In the center berth
was an anonymous bundle of blankets, completely covering the figure inside.
On this the scene fixed, drew closer, and the paleness
suddenly faded before darkness into shadow, into nothing. Geo sat
(33:23):
up and knuckled his eyes. The dark forecastle was relieved
by the yellow glow of the lamp. The gaunt mate
stood across the room. Hey you, he was saying to
a man in one of the bunks. Up and out,
we're sailing. The figure roused itself from the tangle of bedding.
The mate moved to another. Up you dog face, Up,
(33:46):
you fish fodder. We're sailing. Turning around, he saw Geo
watching him, And what's wrong with you? We're sailing, didn't
you hear? Nah, you go back to sleep. Your turn
will come, but we need experience ones now. He grinned briefly,
and then went on to one more. Hey, you stink
(34:08):
like an old wine cask. Raise yourself out of your fumes.
We're sailing. End of chapter three
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.