The Worlds of the Sheaf

Essca - Part 9

     Thomas paused, his brow furrowed in concentration. "I've been trying to think who Essca reminds me of. Her appearance, her mannerisms. The way she nibbled at her lip when trying to think, and it's just come to me. Connie Laz. The girl we rescued in the Southern Continent. She could have been her twin sister! The resemblance was quite remarkable."

     "It's just your memory playing tricks on you," said Lirenna. "There's a superficial resemblance, maybe, and so the picture your memory conjures up is influenced by your more recent memory of a woman you actually met."

     "Maybe," conceded Thomas, but the frown remained, as if he couldn't quite believe it. "There's something else, though. After a time of distrust from the other Gem Lords, she eventually came to be fully accepted as one of them, even taking the name of a gemstone like the others, and because it had been Tak who'd rescued her, because it was Tak she loved more than any of the others, she chose the name of a blue gemstone, as a gesture of her support and loyalty to him in particular. Lapis Lazuli." He looked at his wife, who just stared back, not getting it. "Lapis Lazuli!" he pressed. "Lazuli! Laz! As in Connie Laz! You see?"

     "A coincidence," said Lirenna firmly. "Or do you think it was Essca herself, somehow still alive after three thousand years?"

     Thomas turned away from her smiling face, stood and crossed the room. Then he turned back to her. "These memories of mine. I've told you I think I might be Tak's reincarnation..."

     "Even though every cleric and priest we've talked to says it never happens? That once a soul goes to judgement it never comes back."

     "Maybe they don't know everything. And if I am Tak's reincarnation, maybe Connie Laz was Essca's reincarnation. Maybe she had all Essca's memories just as I'm getting all of Tak's. Now that I think of it, she looked at me very strangely all through the voyage home, as if she knew something. Some wonderful secret. One of the men joked to me at one point that she had a crush on me. What if she did have all Essca's memories? What if she'd eventually come to believe that she was Essca, and came to love Tak just as the original Essca did?"

     Then he frowned, though. "But why would she have associated me with Tak? I bear some physical resemblance, at least in size and build, but apart from that we don't look much alike. Could she somehow have just known I was Tak's reincarnation? Could she have sensed it somehow? And there's something else I've just thought of. Once Essca had given them the idea of copying the Gem Lords, of naming themselves after gems, some of the other apprentices did the same thing. One of Lord Emerald's students called herself Jade, for instance, and some years after King Lamont's death Barl took on a couple of promising lads who went on to become almost as powerful as any of the Gem Lords themselves. They called themselves Jasper and Garnet and they were inseparable." He leaned forward, staring at his wife meaningfully. "Those two fellows we met in the Ruby Keep were called Jasper and Garnet. They even looked like them!"

     "I doubt there's anything sinister about that," said Lirenna with a smile. "If they were living in a castle built by the Gem Lords. They might have come across references to them. Notes, records, that sort of thing. They might have found it amusing to adopt their names for themselves."

     "But they said they couldn't read," said Thomas, looking unhappy. He shook his head, dismissing the problem. "You're right, though. There's probably some kind of simple explanation. Hell, there's probably thousands of explanations. Why am I getting myself so worked up about it? I mean, it's not as if they were the original Jasper and Garnet, still alive after three thousand years! That really would be something to get worked up about!" He laughed nervously, earning him a worried frown from his concerned wife.