22
Where a pearl can be carved from a rock
“L et’s find that map, shall we? There’s an otherworldly chill here that makes my skin crawl,” said Efren behind us.
“You stay here. Donna and I will go get the map. Anything unusual that happens, you already know what to do,” announced the captain as he started walking to the temple.
When I began to follow him, I heard Ela yelling from behind, “You still owe me two bullets, Cap’n!”
My boots echoed against the gleaming marble floors as Calico and I entered the temple, our steps reverberating through the stillness of the ancient space. Sunlight flooded in from every angle, casting long beams of light that danced across the room, illuminating marble statues of the Gods in their frozen grandeur. The temple was open to the sky, much like the ruins of the old world, with towering columns framing the edges .
Paintings—some hanging precariously on the walls, most stacked haphazardly across the floor—were covered in white sheets, their once-sacred images hidden away, neglected by time.
“So, are you going to tell me what this place is?” I asked, my voice echoing through the art.
He laughed softly. “I thought you read books.”
“I do.”
“Well, everything the tomes say about this place is true.”
I stopped beside him, his eyes rigorously examining a painting on the wall. “An island you and your father secretly discovered to store all the stolen art? I don't believe it.”
He turned his head slightly and looked at me. “No? Are you calling your books liars?”
“I call them magnificent keepers of secrets and beautiful deceivers of truths that sometimes have to be protected from evil eyes.”
He smirked. “That is a very long name.”
“So, one day you magically arrived,” I said, trying to find some answers, “and the island was here waiting for you.”
“I was born here.”
“In this temple?”
He smiled. “In Pearlspire, love.”
My eyes widened. “You are from Pearlspire,” I muttered, more like an affirmation than a question.
He nodded.
“Makes sense.”
“Elaborate, if you please. ”
“Pearlspire is the land of artists. Where a pearl can be carved from a rock.”
He raised an eyebrow, and said, “Did you also read that in a book?"
“I get all my wisdom from books.”
He laughed. “And what about the books spun from the threads of make-believe.”
“Every truth I’ve ever found, I discovered between the lines of a story. No matter how boundless the imagination behind a tale is, there’s always a hidden truth waiting for you to claim as your own.”
We stood there in silence, his eyes trying to find the meaning of what I just said in mine.
He turned his gaze to the painting in front of us again. It was a turbulent sea full of dark colors, but in the middle of the storm, was a clearing of light that illuminated one of the men on deck.
“Do you like it?” he whispered.
“I do.”
“It’s sad. They are going to shipwreck.”
“An inevitable sad ending, yes. But at least one of them looked up, and the last thing they’ll see before they die won’t be darkness,” I said, pointing my finger at the cloud that was parting in the painting, “but light.”
He examined the painting again, running his eyes over every corner of the frame and canvas. And then, he spoke,
“When my mother died in childbirth, my father disappeared, so I was taken in by a priest who happened to teach at an art school. I was educated in the art world since I was a child. I was only happy when I painted and sculpted. I found my truths in the artistic canons of beauty, marble, and the theory of colors. I breathed and lived by and for art.”
His words came out of his mouth in a way that made it seem like the best story ever told. And today at this temple, with millions of relics as witness, I could say that, for me, it was.
“When I was ten, my father came back, or at least a man who claimed to be my father. He saw that I was some kind of artistic brainiac and took me with him with the promise of seeing the world. But as fate would have it, my heart chose to fall for the sea. He only wanted me for my knowledge in art, to scam great nobles and artists themselves, and that's how we started piracy, with a great loot that became the greatest treasure ever known in the Four Kingdoms of Marethys. Its own culture. Its art.”
As he continued speaking, his usual confidence seemed to waver, like the steady tide retreating for the first time. His eyes darkened, not with anger, but with a quiet storm, a depth I hadn’t fully seen before. His lips tightened slightly, as though each word weighed heavier than the last, yet he pushed them out with measured calm.
“And one day I saw my father overwhelmed by that greed. Almost dead from rum every night. I wanted to stop, I wanted to stop taking away the beauty of the land. I wanted for my father to be at peace. So I prayed, to every God, every day. Until he answered me. Until I received the only sign of affection I had in my entire life, a gust of wind. Ventus gave me this place in exchange for me to protect it with my life.”
A hint of something, perhaps regret, flickered in his gaze, although it vanished almost as quickly as it appeared, replaced by a familiar guardedness. It was as if every step back into his past cost him something. “He told me it was an ancient abandoned temple that dated back to the Romantic Order, one of the only things left standing that were authentic real fruits of our love for the Gods, before the Virelanthian religion destroyed everything. And so if this island fell, I would too. My heart will stop beating the moment a single brick of this temple begins to collapse.”
I froze in place. He made a deal with Ventus, his life was tied to him.
“So we filled this island with all the stolen art, and I convinced myself that no one was worthy of appreciating works born from passion, creations of heart and hand, fragments of the soul turned into form…No one was worthy. So I kept stealing, and stealing, from sovereigns and nobles, to churches and palaces, even when my father was no longer there. So I became captain.”
He kept staring at the painting in silence, and I waited. I waited for more words because I knew he wasn’t finished, I knew what he was about to say was something he hadn’t made peace with yet.
And then he spoke the words, and my heart nearly died.
“That ten-year-old boy had to make two decisions that would end the life, beauty, and truth he knew, forever. And he did. He supplicated and only two Gods heard, and now I am entangled in the webs of both. I am just their puppet. And all because that little boy was led by what he thought was love.”
I really wanted to hug him. I wanted so desperately to hug him and whisper in his ear that this was the most pure testament of love that I had ever seen. And how I wished I could accompany him in this journey forever, only if he let me.
A couple of minutes passed in silence and I was fighting with all I had not to shed a tear. And then he whispered, so softly and expectant, “So, do you like this painting?”
“I love it.” My voice was just a breath, because I knew what he was about to say next.
“I painted it.”
“I know.”
He looked at me then and smiled. “Ask me.”
“What?”
“I know you are dying to ask why are we here in the first place. For what I need this map.”
“Why are you looking for The Vile Phantom?” My heart was in my throat, my stomach ached with nerves that he would perhaps tell me something I didn’t want to hear or expect.
“Because there is one other person who knows where this island is. And I need to kill him before he kills me.”