In this room, insulated as it was from the outside, layered with permanent spells to prevent eavesdropping, there was no sound apart from the quiet breathing of the three women as they faced their dilemma. Mirei’s heart beat in her ears, marking off the moments as Satomi considered it.
Finally the Void Prime spoke.
“Very well.”
THE RITUAL REQUIRED five women to work, so they had to recruit help.
They did it privately, because no one wanted to admit to Starfall that they were taking such a risk. Which meant they could not use Star Hall; instead, they went outside. And besides, the original miracle of Misetsu’s power had come in the wilds of these mountains, atop a rocky crag where the woman had prayed all night long. It seemed fitting to return there.
Mirei studied the necessary spells ferociously, committing the syllables and pitches to memory. Satomi had granted her the right to stand for Air, even though Naji outranked her. It was the closest she was ever likely to get to the Ray she had once thought would become hers. With her were Churicho, the interim Fire Heart Key, and Paere, the Water Heart Key. No one trusted Kekkai to be a part of this, and Rana refused to participate.
Together they studied, and together they prayed. None of them wanted to make the slightest mistake that might endanger Urishin.
Any more than she’s endangering herself already.
But they couldn’t wait long, because Tajio had certainly told something of the plan to Kalistyi, and no one could be certain how much. If they were going to do anything, it would have to be soon.
IN A BACK CORNER of her mind, where she could pretend that she hadn’t been considering it, Satomi had thought through the question of testing Urishin.
The complexities of the ritual were not for decoration. They had been developed as a means of ensuring that the young women stood the highest possible chance of succeeding. In theory, one could simply remove the block that stood between them and power; there was no need for the rest of it. But if one instead worked them up to it gradually, then the shock was less, and the odds of success—of survival—were greater.
She would lessen the shock for Urishin as much as possible.
There was no testing by the Keys, no exhaustive questioning designed to make sure she had learned her lessons, for her education was incomplete. Leaving behind a careful facade of excuses for their absence, the witches took Urishin south of Starfall, up to a small, sheltered valley where they left her at sunset, tucking her under a blanket with a warming spell on it so that she would not grow cold in the mountain winds.
At midnight, they returned, and stood in the dead grass around the girl. The columns of Elemental light they ordinarily stood on were a part of Star Hall’s power. Nor would they have the Hall’s structure to assist them; each woman held a focus in her hands. What they did tonight was far too complex to manage without them.
Urishin shed the blanket and stood up, a slender figure in the darkness, and the witches began to sing.
“Who comes?”
“A sister,” Churicho sang. Her voice, at least, betrayed no hint of doubt.
“Who comes?”
“A student.” Mirei, confidence and faith written in every line of her body.
“Who comes?”
“A daughter.” Paere, singing for Water.
“Who comes?”
“A candidate.” Koika’s hands were tight, her jaw set.
“Who comes?”
Satomi’s turn, and her voice rang out clear and true on the weird intervals of her response. “One of ours, who is not one of us; one who would join us under the stars, who has not been tried.”
And then the testing began, though Urishin didn’t know it. Perversely, it began with Mirei, who had argued in favor of this entire attempt.
“Aken, I stand in protest.”
The young witch chanted the line in a monotone; the entire ritual, from start to finish, had to be conducted in song, even this false disruption. False, unless Urishin failed it. A part of Satomi hoped she would.
Failure now was safe.
“This student is not fit for testing,” Mirei chanted. “She must not be allowed to continue.”
Eyes wide with shock and fear, Urishin blurted, “But—Mirei—you told me yourself that I could.”
The girl, fortunately, maintained the careful monotone pitch; that much she had learned. Mirei gave her a cold look. “I have realized my error.”
“The ritual’s started, though,” Urishin sang-spoke. “And the ritual’s a spell. We’re supposed to finish spells that we start, never quit partway through.”
Good enough for the purpose; now it was Churicho’s turn. “Sister, she outranks you. Do you challenge her word?”
Urishin flinched. The look of betrayal on her face hurt, but Satomi steeled herself against it; if the girl couldn’t get through this, then they had to know. “I’m sorry, Churicho-nakana—but I don’t want to give up. I can do this. I know I can. I’ve already started.”
“What has been started can be ended.”
“But I don’t want it to be,” Urishin whispered. Her chant was hardly audible, but there was strength behind it nonetheless.
Koika took that as her cue. “Your desires do not dictate our actions, candidate. They are not the most important thing here.”
“I know that, Chashi,” Urishin said, looking offended that Koika should even suggest it. “That’s why I’m doing this. We have to help the others—Naspeth and the other three.” Her face fell. “The other two. I’m doing this for them.”
“Even if it’s against our will.”
Urishin managed a wavering smile. “I’m hoping you’ll change your minds.”
And now, from Paere, the final step, a question that never varied regardless of the debate that proceeded it.
“Why do you wish to continue?”
Turning to face the Water Key, Urishin swallowed nervously before responding. “Because I want to help.”
“You may die.”
Please, beloved Goddess, let her not die.
Urishin paled at the declaration, but her answer, though quiet, was calm, backed by a conviction that seemed far older than her years. “If I don’t do this, then maybe the others will kill me anyway. I’d rather try.”
And that was good enough.
“The Goddess smiles; the ritual continues. The sister, the student, the daughter, the candidate; she has been tried, and not found wanting.” Satomi sang the phrases, and tried not to be afraid.
The others sang their response in melodious concert once more. “Let the testing continue. Will you begin?”
Urishin’s eyes widened as she realized, just as countless young women had before her, that the objections were part of the test. She recovered from the shock admirably, and sang without error the response she had so recently memorized. “I stand ready for Earth. May the Goddess as Crone be at my side, and lend me determination.”
The spell they placed her under locked her body into a rigid statue, frozen in the center of the valley. Koika took the lead on this one, though they all participated. And, as Satomi had cautioned her, the Earth Prime built it up slowly, one careful degree at a time.
These Elemental tests were dangerous in their own right, because they were precursors to the full power that came at the end. They served the same purpose as the preceding debate, which students were not told about in advance; they tested the qualities of character needed to survive the onslaught of power. And they did so by feeding the student, in measured doses, strands of the energy she would soon be handling.
Some students died in these trials. It seemed unavoidable. But according to the chronicles, many fewer died this way, encountering each Element singly before channeling them all together, than if they took the power without preparation.
The Earth power Koika was feeding to Urishin grew, and grew, and grew—
And then the Prime ended the spell, and the girl staggered in the grass, gasping for air. Gasping, but alive
; she had passed the first test.
Four to go—and then power itself.
“I have mastered Earth,” Urishin sang. Her voice was steadier than Satomi would have expected, and it gave her hope. “Its strength is mine.”
“The Crone smiles,” Koika sang, and she very nearly smiled, too.
There could be no pausing. “Let the testing continue.”
Urishin set her feet, full of the determination of Earth, not realizing that it was not what she would need next. “I stand ready for Water. May the Goddess as Mother be at my side, and lend me flexibility.”
Again her body went rigid, this time with Paere leading the spell. As Satomi worked her own part, she wondered at the way they performed these tests. Building up the power until it reached a sufficient strength, or until the student died. Crushed by their failure to stand against Earth. Snapped by their failure to bend with Water. Maddened by their failure to stay calm in Air. Destroyed by their failure to burn with Fire.
Annihilated by the Void, because they were not whole enough in themselves.
Did it have to be that way?
It did for Urishin, tonight, because they had no other way.
Paere finished her spell. Urishin wavered on her feet, but had voice enough to sing. “I have mastered Water. Its flexibility is mine.”
“The Mother smiles,” Paere sang in response.
“Let the testing continue.”
“I stand ready for Air. May the Goddess as Bride be at my side, and lend me clarity.”
Mirei, the least experienced of their number, had to take this one. She took a deep breath and began.
What dictated that the ritual be this way? The tests served a purpose; could they serve it in a way that wouldn’t risk death for the student?
If they fed power in smaller amounts, yes. But smaller amounts wouldn’t be enough preparation. Done over time, though . . . a tiny amount of Earth one day, then more a few months later . . . the students could develop the necessary qualities gradually, like the soldier Cousins lifting progressively heavier weights to strengthen their muscles.
Then everyone would know how the testing worked, though.
Was that really the only argument against doing it that way? Secrecy?
“I have mastered Air. Its clarity is mine.”
Satomi was disciplined enough not to show her startlement at Urishin’s sudden voice. She should have noticed the spell ending. This distraction was not good.
But the girl was still alive.
Mirei didn’t bother to aspire to the impassive mask traditional for this ritual. She grinned at Urishin and sang, “The Bride smiles.”
“Let the testing continue.”
Urishin was sweating, even in the chill air, but she forged ahead, as she knew she must. “I stand ready for Fire. May the Goddess as Maiden be at my side, and lend me courage.”
As Churicho took up the test, Satomi realized that the test of Void worried her far less than it ever had before. They knew it from Mirei: witches whose doppelganger-halves were alive came through the test less traumatized than their sisters. It still wasn’t pleasant for them, but it wasn’t as bad. And Urishin was the first one who would go through it knowing her other half was alive.
But there was one more test after it, and that was the one she feared.
Perhaps the Goddess was with them, though—with Urishin. The test of Fire ended, and Urishin moved again. “I have mastered Fire,” the girl sang, her voice hoarse but still strong. “Its courage is mine.”
No one doubts your courage, child, to come this far of your own free will.
“The Maiden smiles,” Churicho sang.
“Let the testing continue.”
Satomi met the girl’s eyes in the starlit darkness. “No one stands ready for the Void. The test begins. May the Goddess as Warrior have mercy on your soul.”
Alone of the Elemental tests, this one was different. They could not feed witches Void power as they did the other types. Instead, they created an illusion, the closest they could come to approximating the nothingness of the Void.
Or they were supposed to.
Mirei’s voice laced into the chorus, not where she was supposed to be, and her hands gestured toward Urishin, describing graceful arcs in the air. Halfway into the spell, Satomi did not dare stop to ask her what in the Goddess’s many names she thought she was doing.
But the strangest part was that she could feel no power.
Of course I can’t. Which is how I know what she’s doing.
Urishin stood with her eyes closed, suspended unknowing while they built the illusion that, once formed, would last for only an instant. And whatever Mirei was doing, presumably, wove around her. Testing her, in the way that only Mirei could, with her connection to the Void.
Satomi just had to hope the girl would pass whatever test she was being given. If this change harms her, Mirei, you will live with the guilt of it forever.
The illusion was finished; they unleashed it. And Urishin jerked convulsively, and screamed.
She screamed. It meant she was still alive. Which meant there was only one more threat facing her.
“You have glimpsed the Void, for an instant only, and it has marked you,” Satomi sang. Along with whatever it was that Mirei just did. “The Warrior has tested you, and you have not been destroyed.”
“Let our newest fly on the wings of power.”
And together, praying silently that this would not be the end of her, the five women sang the phrases that removed the block placed just eleven short years before, opening Urishin to the Elemental powers of the world.
Chapter Twenty-Two
IN THAT MOMENT, Satomi knew exactly what to pray for.
Receiving power for the first time was a painful experience, akin to spending twenty-five years in darkness and then staring straight into the sun. It jarred every woman who went through it.
Women whose doppelgangers were still alive suffered more. The power, as it flowed into them, tried to rebound into the doppelganger; finding no home in the nonmagical half, it then snapped back into the witch. The impact usually rendered both her and her doppelganger unconscious for a time.
This was what Satomi hoped for.
There were two alternatives to that hope.
Some women, despite all the preparation of the Elemental tests, failed when the power came. They didn’t strike the right balance with it, and were annihilated by its force, screaming themselves to death in what seemed to be a doomed attempt to vent the energy.
This was what Satomi had remembered to dread.
What happened was the third possibility, which she, so afraid that Urishin would die before making it this far, had not even thought to fear.
Urishin gasped, face twisting in pain, and her head snapped back until she stared at the sky. Her entire thin frame shook like a leaf in the wind, and then, abruptly, it stilled.
And she began to speak.
“The answers,” she said in a whispering voice that hardly sounded like her own, “are coming. From the forgotten overlooked lost they come. The path will move slip-side not straight not through, but through, with help. Two sides, one seen, one not, but the answers coming will open the eyes, and it may be in time, while the other eyes are gone, seeing the truth that lies elsewhere. New hope will help; the loss of fear. No more will be lost. No more save that which is always at risk. No more, in time; you will remember.”
There were no words in Satomi’s mind as she listened to the stream of ravings whisper from Urishin’s mouth; no words that could begin to express the soul-sick horror she felt, seeing the girl standing there with her head thrown back and her mouth moving as if on its own, realizing what they had done.
They had made Urishin a Cousin.
Across the circle, she met Koika’s eyes, and saw the same dead shock she felt herself. Koika knew. The others, new to this ritual, did not.
They had destroyed her forever.
The words ghosted to a halt. Satomi cl
osed her eyes, too hurt to even weep, waiting for the sound of the small body hitting the grass, later to wake with her memory gone.
Instead, she heard a deep, shuddering gasp.
“Did it work?”
Satomi’s eyes flew open.
Urishin was looking around the circle at the five of them, dazed, unsteady on her feet, but speaking. “Did it work? Am I a witch now?” Her eyes alighted on Mirei, standing for Air in the west. “Mirei, did it work?”
Then she collapsed.
WHILE URISHIN SLEPT, the five who had initiated her convened once more.
“She’s a Cousin,” Koika said, voice unsteady. “That’s what happens to them. They receive power, they babble some words that would probably be important if we could figure out what in the Void they meant, and then they pass out.”
“But she remembered,” Mirei replied. There was no question of it in her mind. “She knew me, and she knew herself.”
Koika shook her head, not as if she was disagreeing, but as if she hardly dared agree. “Will she still remember when she wakes up?”
Paere, silent up until this point, spoke up quietly. “She can still work magic.” Heads swiveled to stare at her. “I checked,” she added, looking around at them all. “The channel is still there. In Cousins, it’s gone.”
“Then what in the Void was that?” Koika demanded.
“More proof,” Satomi murmured.
Now everyone was staring at the Void Prime. She had been sitting at the table with her hands sedately folded, hardly seeming to be present at all. Now she was alert, and there was a fragile joy in her expression, such that Mirei hardly dared breathe lest it shatter.
“Her mind survived an experience that has destroyed every other woman who’s gone through it,” Satomi said, her voice stronger now. “Because she is eleven? I doubt it. If there is an oddity here—something we’ve never seen happen before—then we must look to the characteristics that are peculiar to Urishin.”
It wasn’t hard to figure out. “Naspeth,” Mirei said.
“Naspeth,” Satomi repeated. “The other part of her self. If one half is killed, but the other survives, then the slain one recovers. As if the duality of their existence somehow protects that life, providing a refuge for it. The same must be true of the memories—the mind.”
Witch Page 31