The Storm Weaver & the Sand (Books of the Change)

by Sean Williams

  Her concentration shattered the moment Atilde’s words sank in. “You know what tash is?” she asked, startled.

  “Of course.” The warden’s translucent lips formed a faint smile as the illusion wavered and vanished. “I am expert in all aspects of the Change.”

  The thin hands released her. Shilly fell back onto her stool as though the muscles in her good leg had turned to water.

  “Skender next.” Atilde brushed past Sal to approach the boy on the far stool. Skender looked nervously up at the Master Warden as she loomed over him. Atilde took two steps backward and drew another design in the air.

  “Explain,” she said, indicating the intricate pattern of interlocking curves, each one a pronounced U. “Tell me what this does.”

  A look of dismay passed across Skender’s face. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never seen it before.”

  “I suspected as much. It’s a Sky Warden visualisation, and you have been trained the Interior way. But the principles behind this are not dissimilar to some your father teaches. You should be able to work it out.” Atilde gestured at the pattern again. It began to pulsate gently in and out, as though breathing.

  Skender’s dismay only deepened. Shilly wished she could send the answer to him through the Change. The pattern influenced air movement in enclosed spaces, such as houses; it created breezes. Without the Change, though, she was mute; they might as well have been separated by walls a mile thick.

  Skender shook his head. “I don’t know,” he repeated. “It makes water less salty?”

  Atilde smiled thinly and gave him the correct answer. “Now,” she said, grasping Skender’s hands as she had Shilly’s, “make it work for me.”

  The boy concentrated, drawing on the warden’s talent rather than his own, and managed to make a fitful breeze dance through the room. The wide brim of Atilde’s hat fluttered in front of her face.

  “Thank you, Skender. Lastly, show me something precious from home. Demonstrate the third path of mastery.”

  Skender’s brow furrowed. For a moment nothing happened, then far above them a shape moved across the shadowed ceiling. Shilly looked up into the face of one of the guardians protecting the Way between the Keep and Ulum—an enormous stone statue six metres high. Its face scowled down at her, then lifted up out of sight, and disappeared.

  “Big is not necessarily better, young Van Haasteren,” Master Warden Atilde scolded.

  “I wasn’t trying to show off,” he said, at least half-seriously, Shilly thought. “I didn’t know that you could create illusions of man’kin, and I wanted to give it a go. That’s all.”

  “Why wouldn’t you be able to?”

  “Because—well, you can’t create illusions of people because they have minds. Man’kin have minds, and I assumed—”

  “All living things have minds,” Atilde informed him, “but not all minds are the same. Animals have minds that exist entirely in the present, with little or no thought of tomorrow or yesterday. Humans travel from past to future in dynamic tension between both extremes; it is this motion that makes them difficult to recreate. Man’kin, on the other hand, see all things at once, hence their ability to foretell or reveal things that are not known to us.” Her face darkened. “There are other minds that see in yet different ways, and you may learn about them during your studies here—but that is a topic for another day. Suffice it to say that you should have guessed the illusion would work because Shilly showed us yadeh-tash. That charm and the man’kin are fundamentally the same, although they share no common origin.”

  Satisfied that Skender had taken her point, Master Warden Atilde moved to her right to confront Sal.

  “Last but not least,” she said to him, “it is your turn. Give me your left hand.”

  Warily Sal obeyed, and with two swift movements she undid the charm around his wrist that he, Skender and Shilly had tried, many times, to remove on the way from Ulum. A seemingly simple band of plaited leather, it dug tight if Sal strayed too far from his grandmother without her permission. It also had an inhibitory effect on his use of the Change, although his talent was so great that nothing could contain it completely.

  Atilde drew another charm in the air, a series of dots and lines with no apparent order.

  “Tell me what this would do.”

  Sal shook his head.

  “You don’t know or you won’t tell me?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Does that mean I fail the examination?”

  Atilde’s eyes narrowed. “This charm turns dust into fog. Show me how it works.”

  “I can’t. I’m on the wrong side of the Divide.”

  “You are a wild talent. That doesn’t stop you.”

  “I thought the idea was to control wild talents, not encourage them.”

  “The idea is to learn, boy, and you won’t learn unless you do as I say.” Atilde’s glassy stare locked with Sal’s for a long, strained moment.

  Then he looked away. He stared hard at the pattern, and Shilly felt the Change flex through him, even from across the room. Instantly, every mote of dust in the room turned to a tiny drop of water. A thin mist hung in the air, glittering in the silver light, and moisture coated every surface.

  “Very good,” Atilde started to say.

  But Sal wasn’t done. The Change flexed again, and a sudden gale whipped through the room, sending the mist into a furious whirlwind. A third time the Change responded to Sal’s command, and every droplet of water suspended in the air turned to ice.

  As the room filled with swirling snow, blinding her, Shilly felt a hand on her arm dragging her toward the door.

  “Stop!” Atilde’s shout coincided with strong hands reaching out of the snowstorm and holding Shilly still. She felt Sal struggling beside her before his hand fell away. There was a sound like glass breaking in the distance, and suddenly the air was full of dust again.

  Some went up her nose. She sneezed instantly.

  “I see we’re going to have to keep our wits about us,” Atilde said, striding calmly across the room to where Sal was held by two attendants. The hood of one of them had fallen back, revealing a silver-haired, dark-skinned man with a severe expression. He held Sal tight as Atilde reattached the bracelet to Sal’s wrist, then he let go and replaced his hood.

  “No further testing is required,” Warden Atilde said to all of them. “I judge you worthy of the Novitiate. Classes commence in two hours. You will be present, or your stay here will become decidedly less comfortable.”

  “I don’t care about comfort—” Sal began.

  “You should care.” The warden’s icy eyes flashed at him. “I’m the only thing standing between you and the Syndic. The Alcaide has seen to that. The fact that one of you is the son of an important Stone Mage grants you unique status, irrespective of what certain other parties want. This arrangement might not be permanent, but it could be, and it would be wise not to sink your ships before you’ve sailed them. If you want my advice, it would be to behave.”

  Sal swallowed his protest with a visible effort. Atilde was right: it wouldn’t pay to cause too much trouble too quickly. Shilly wanted to ask why the Alcaide had sent them to the Novitiate—to help them or to hinder them—but there were too many things battling for her attention at once. She could only ask one thing at a time. And she had a role to play.

  “You mean you’re going to let us study here?” she asked.

  “Temporarily—at least until your situation is resolved. I know there are some ambiguities, but that’s not my concern. My job is to ensure that you perform while you are in my care.” She briefly but pointedly fixed Sal with a stare.

  “You will stand out,” she said, turning to pace, her gloved hands clasped lightly behind her back. “As I said, the term started weeks ago. People will wonder why you are special, to be allowed in so late. I will not tell them; that bat
tle is for you to fight. My only advice to you is this: don’t turn your back on what you have been given. Each of you is strong, in your own way, and you should take the chance to learn how to use those strengths. To do otherwise would dishonour what you have—and some gifts can be taken away.”

  She nodded to herself, as though confirming that she hadn’t forgotten anything.

  “That’s all. Take them to see their new home.”

  The attendants lining the wall closed in. Shilly didn’t resist as she, Sal and Skender were guided out of the room, leaving the unearthly, pale woman alone with the settling dust.

  Chapter 2. In the Wilderness of Glass

  “I don’t like the sound of this,” whispered Shilly as they were led away from their first meeting with Master Warden Atilde.

  “Why not?” responded Skender, playing his part for the benefit of the attendants. “You wanted to be taught here. Your temperament matches the Strand. You’re back where you belong.”

  “I don’t belong here,” she whispered, and Sal privately agreed. When he pictured Shilly, she was always as he had first met her: wild-haired and mysterious in the village of Fundelry, answerable only to Lodo. The Keep hadn’t suited her, and he doubted any Sky Warden school would either.

  During their trip from Ulum, she had cut her hair short, hacking at her curly locks with a knife until all that was left was a wavy mane rising from her scalp. From certain angles and in certain lights she looked more than a little crazy. He suspected that this had been her intention. The way she swung her crutch displayed a firm defiance, as though daring anyone to comment on her weakness.

  “They’re trying to trap us,” she went on. “If we do as they say, we’ll be caught up in the system. Once they can claim they’re teaching us, it’ll be that much harder to make them let go. And they’ll claim credit for anything we do.”

  “I think we should do as they say,” Sal said. “It’s not as if we have any other options.”

  “Sense at last,” said one of the attendants accompanying them.

  “For now,” Sal added, unsure which one had spoken, but scowling at the nearest anyway.

  They came to a T-junction adorned with bright blue banners that had seen better days. The material was fraying around the edges, and the dye had faded unevenly, making the colour blotchy.

  “Remember this intersection,” said another of the attendants, a woman, this time. “To your left are the rooms you slept in last night. You’ll keep those until your circumstances change. To the right are the common areas. Meals are served at regular times every day.”

  Skender’s stomach gurgled on cue. “We’re going there now?”

  “Yes. When you’ve eaten this morning, you will be shown to your various classes and introduced to your teachers. After lunch, you will be collected and taken elsewhere.”

  “Where?” asked Shilly. “Collected by who?”

  The attendant didn’t answer, indicating instead that they should take the right-hand passage. Temporarily resigned to his fate, Sal did as he was told. His token attempt to escape had demonstrated the futility of trying while the wardens were watching him. He vowed to try again later, under more favourable conditions. That he would try again he was in no doubt. He wasn’t going to stay captive in the hands of the people who had killed his mother and father any longer than he had to.

  The right-hand corridor was much shorter and culminated in a hall that reminded Sal of the underground chambers of Ulum, large enough to hold several hundred people and filled with low tables and benches. The air was full of clanking cutlery, the warmth of so many bodies all in one space, and the smell of food. A throng of teenagers dressed in various shades of grey—students, he assumed—swarmed around the benches, all clamouring to be heard over the racket. A long line of them led to a hole in the wall, through which breakfast was being served.

  Towers of dirty dishes loomed on the far side of the room. The procedure was obvious, but Sal stood frozen for a long moment, overwhelmed by the scene. It couldn’t have been more different from the Keep, where barely two dozen students ate every morning in a small dining room overlooking the mountains; there they cooked for each other, and served themselves. Here the people were piled in like cattle, with cooks producing the vast quantities required and cleaners hovering in the wings to mop up the mess.

  “What are you waiting for?” asked Skender, nudging him forward.

  “Nothing,” he said, although his appetite had suddenly deserted him. Among all the students, some of them looking up curiously at the new arrivals, he had seen one face he recognised. The pale features, white hair, and pinkish eyes stood out among all the dark complexions, as did the baleful glare.

  It was Kemp. The bully from Fundelry had seen him and Shilly, and he obviously hadn’t forgotten them. Kemp locked stares with Sal for a long moment, then coolly looked away. Sal didn’t even attempt to convince himself that that was the end of it.

  The food was lukewarm but good. Skender asked for and received generous servings of eggs, toast and baked beans and, once they had found a space in one of the less crowded corners of the hall, dedicated himself to eating the lot. Belilanca Brokate’s caravan cook, Molash, had done his best to provide variety on the long journey south, but there was only so much you could do with bush vegetables and preserved meat. It was good to dive into something fresh in an environment that was completely and utterly new.

  Only gradually did he become aware that he was the only one appreciating the sensory feast to its fullest.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked Shilly, who was listlessly stirring her eggs around her plate.

  “Aren’t you nervous?” she asked.

  “About what?”

  “Everything.”

  “Kemp is here,” said Sal. He had only taken a couple of pieces of toast, and they were now cold.

  “Oh, great,” Shilly breathed. “That’s all we need.”

  “You guys think too much.” Skender scooped a spoonful of beans into his mouth.

  “It’s a survival trait,” she said.

  “No’ if ’oo ftarve ’oo deff.”

  “I’m not likely to starve, the way you’re flinging food around.” Shilly wiped the front of her dress in disgust.

  “Sorry,” Skender said, although he suspected that the food he had unintentionally spat on her might have made her dress slightly cleaner than before. None of them was in a terribly hygienic state. No one had shown them where to bathe properly or wash their clothes.

  “What do you think we should do?” asked Sal, his voice barely audible over the ruckus surrounding them.

  “The same as we agreed on the way here,” said Skender. “Troublemaker, tourist, try-hard.”

  “But we weren’t expecting to be stuck in a school. We don’t know where we are in the city, or where Lo—” She cut herself off with a nervous glance over her shoulder. “Where anything else is.”

  “That doesn’t change a thing,” Skender responded. “I’m still just a hanger-on, getting in the way. I haven’t done anything wrong, except stow away on the caravan. It’s you two they want and who they’ll be watching closely, because they know you don’t want to be here. While you’re drawing all the attention, I’ll slip away and try to find what you need. They’ll be glad not to have me under their feet all the time. That’s the way it works at home.”

  He hoed back into his eggs, satisfied that his assessment of the situation was accurate.

  “They’re only delaying the inevitable,” Sal said, poking his soggy toast and pushing the plate aside. “The Syndic is toying with us, dragging it out to see if we’ll snap.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Shilly. “Remember what Atilde said? She’s put herself between us and the Syndic—or the Alcaide has put her there. One of the two. That means the Syndic isn’t getting everything her way.”

  “You believe Atil
de when she says that? She could be part of the Syndic’s plot.”

  “I think you’re being paranoid, Sal.”

  “I think we have to be. Why would the Alcaide help us?” Sal looked up as someone approached their table from behind Skender and Shilly. His expression was guarded, but unexpectedly cleared.

  Skender turned in surprise to see a boy his own age with startlingly pronounced features. Protruding ears, nose and eyes lent the boy more than a passing resemblance to a bilby; his nature was almost as timid.

  “Tom!” Sal exclaimed, a tangle of emotions in his voice: surprise, relief and sadness among them. “You’re here, too.”

  “I said you’d come to the Haunted City.” The boy’s voice was softly pitched. “I dreamt it.”

  “So you did,” said Shilly, twisting in her seat. “Got any other dreams to report? Anything concrete this time?”

  Tom looked down at his feet. “I’m not going home,” he said. “Not now Tait is here.”

  Skender had to strain to hear the boy’s words. On the surface, they didn’t make much sense. Tait, Behenna’s former assistant, was Tom’s older brother, whom Tom had idolised through his childhood, especially since Tait had been Selected for training as a Sky Warden. During the search for Sal in Fundelry, however, Tait had betrayed Tom’s confidence in order to betray Sal and Shilly, thereby increasing his standing in the eyes of his superiors. There was more to the story, Skender knew, but that was the gist of what Sal and Shilly had told him. The last time Sal and Shilly had seen Tom, he had sworn never to speak to his brother again.

  “Does that mean you’ve forgiven him?” Shilly asked.

  Tom shook his head, still looking at his toes. Before he could say anything, if he’d intended to, the tolling of a deep bell rolled through the hall. The tables instantly erupted in a rush of people pushing back plates and reaching for bags. The volume level rose twofold as farewells were exchanged, jokes finished and parting shots fired. Breakfast was over. Time for lessons.