“Choose, Paula,” the old woman said.
The little red bird flew from my shoulder to the heap, alighting with precision on an item tucked behind a grand silver jug. A hint of bright color told me what it was even as I reached across to retrieve it. Tati’s embroidery was finished now. The crumpled rag unfolded, its creases disappearing before my eyes, and there were five girls dancing proudly across the linen hand in hand, their faces wreathed in smiles. Tati, Jena, Iulia, Paula, Stela. We were all there, together, strong and alive.
Irene sucked in her breath. It seemed an odd choice, I suppose, with such riches on offer.
“It is yours,” said the crone, and a rare smile curved her withered lips. “And I will give you another. As you are a scholar of some note, I am certain you would appreciate an additional riddle.”
I refrained from telling her that right now I was incapable of dealing with a riddle for three-year-olds, let alone anything more taxing.
“It is not to solve now,” the old woman said, apparently reading my mind. “Take it away with you, consider its meaning, find the solution in good time. But don’t wait too long. It goes thus:
There was a silence. Nobody offered me a solution, and nothing immediately suggested itself to me. But then, she had told me to take time. “Thank you,” I said with mixed feelings. The trouble with being a scholar is that once someone sets you a puzzle, your mind starts working away at it even if you are too tired to get anywhere.
“You, young man”—the crone motioned to Stoyan—“choose next. Three rewards you have earned, one for the courage that saw you take an arrow for a man who was not yet your friend; one for the steadfastness that held Paula safe and strong as she endured her trials; and one for the openness of your mind to this world beyond the human, a world in which trust and cooperation take many forms. Make your choice: One item from the pile is yours.”
He was far quicker than I. “If you permit,” he said to the old woman, and reached out to take a diadem of gold. It was an opulent piece, thickly crusted with precious stones: an adornment fit for the Sultan himself. I was surprised by his choice and a little disappointed. After all this, after what we had been through together, my friend would measure his reward in riches? A moment later, I realized an item like this would allow him to stop earning his keep as a guard and get on with the search for Taidjut.
“I understand your choice, Stoyan,” the old woman told him. “This is the first of your rewards and the only one fully in my power to give you. Although you have earned all three, the long-sought second and the deeply desired third do not depend on the decisions of the Other Kingdom but on those of your own kind. You are a good man. I hope both will come in time.”
I met Stoyan’s eye as he slipped the priceless ornament into his sash, then looked away, full of shame that I had doubted his motives even for a moment. And what had the crone meant about an arrow? He’d said his wound was only a scratch.
The crone did not ask Stoyan what he had learned but turned her attention to our companion. “Duarte da Costa Aguiar,” she said. “You have come farthest of all to make your choice. Step forward now and do so, bold adventurer.” Her tone was warm.
Duarte stood there a long time with the cloth-wrapped artifact in his hands. He was scanning the hoard, searching for something, not necessarily the most valuable item, or the most unusual, or the rarest. It became clear to me that he was looking for one particular object amidst a hundred, a thousand individual treasures. We stood waiting, and Duarte walked around the pile of precious things, hunting high and low. Irene tapped her foot. Beside her, Murat waited quietly.
I think both Stoyan and I realized at the same time what it was Duarte was looking for, and we joined him in the hunt. It wasn’t easy. Gold and silver dazzled the eyes; parchment and vellum, unrolled and tumbling down, screened what lay behind. Vessels spilled forth small rivers of rubies and amethysts. Necklaces, bracelets, and decorated swords vied for attention. But then, perhaps we were meant to find it.
“Duarte,” I said, suddenly still. “There.” I pointed to a low corner where something protruded slightly from beneath an ornate sword hilt.
Duarte smiled. He knelt and the crone moved closer. I held my breath. He cleared away the sword and a bronze platter the size of a small table, and there it was, a modest piece of broken pottery, like the lower half of a bulbous gourd in shape, its upper edge snapped off cleanly. Amongst the thousand rare and expensive items in the hoard, this was a thing of unpretentious clay fashioned with modest craft, unadorned save for a scrawl of cryptic writing curling across it.
Duarte placed the small bundle he was carrying beside the broken fragment. He untied the cloth and drew out Cybele’s Gift. In the cavern, there was utter silence. On my shoulders, the three attendant creatures had become preternaturally still.
“I have come not to take, but to give,” the pirate said, glancing up at the old woman. He lifted Cybele’s Gift in hands that were remarkably steady and placed the top part of the little statue on the base.
Something changed. I could not say what it was, for there was no sound, no dazzling light, no sudden cold or warmth. Nobody spoke a word. But I sensed a profound difference in the cavern, as if a drought had broken or a pestilence had been cured. Before our eyes, the two parts of Cybele knitted together, joining up as smoothly as if the artifact had never been broken.
