She thanked him and turned to go.
“Let me know how you do,” he said to her back.
She glanced over her shoulder, mouth open in reply, but he had already gone back to his kites. They danced to the movement of his fingers upon the strings, this one rising, that one dipping earthward. It would be pleasant to linger, to watch him handle them, but Kassia turned away from the pleasant and toward the unknown.
Within Lorant it was as he had said; she entered a broad, high-ceilinged hall with a gallery overlooking it on three sides. Light fell from clerestory windows above the door through which she entered, cutting great, bright slices out of the tarry shadows in the hall. The long beams of radiance seemed so solid Kassia imagined for a moment she might reach out and feel the texture of sunlight.
She heard voices to her right, and glanced that way. A group of Initiates clustered around an open doorway. The banner hanging there indicated it was a library or archive. Not wanting to draw their attention, she turned her face away and saw a second doorway to her left bearing the banner of the Headmaster. Stepping toward it, she fell into a pool of sunlight so intense, it blinded her.
Caught in the brilliant flood, she hesitated, floundering in light and silence. The Initiates’ regard was smothering; it made her break out in a sudden sweat. It was as if Mat held her under a lamp that they might study her, perhaps judge her worthiness to be here. The flesh of her back crept. Then someone in the watching group coughed and Kassia bolted to the Headmaster’s parlor.
The door was slightly ajar and she rapped at it quickly, lightly. The sound echoed in the great empty hall like the report of the tiny, paper-wrapped firecrackers Ursel Trava had purchased all the way from the Shin Empire for last year’s Summer Solstice festival. A voice acknowledged her with merciful swiftness and she stepped into the parlor, half-closing the door behind her.
The room was not what she expected. Somehow she had thought the Headmaster’s parlor would be austere. This room was luxurious, comfortable. Far more comfortable, Kassia decided, than the angular little man who sat to her right behind an imposing, carved writing table with his rod-straight back to a wall full of books and scrolls. Her eyes rising to the buttery parchment and glowing leather bindings (she had never seen leather in some of those colors), she forgot the little man until he opened his mouth and expelled a voice like a rusty pump lever.
“What do you want here, young woman?”
She brought her eyes back to his narrow face and swept the rapt curiosity from her own. “I . . . I’ve come about initiation, sir. Are you the Headmaster?”
“Do I look like the Headmaster?” he asked in return, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “Do you see a Mateu’s vestments on me?”
“No, sir. I do not.”
“Then I am not the Headmaster, who must, necessarily, be Mateu.”
And bitter, you are, about that, prickly one, Kassia thought, and barely resisted the urge to scratch her nose. “I’d like to see the Headmaster, then, if I may.”
“I am Damek. You will see me. You’ve come about initiation, you said.” He paused to pick up a quill and open a large, leather-bound volume that sat to one side on the table. “Very well. What is the boy’s name?”
“There is no boy. There is me. My name is Kassia Telek and I wish to enroll as an Initiate. I wish to become a Mateu.”
The not-Headmaster sat up even straighter (if that were possible) and closed the book with a thud. “There has not been a female Mateu here since the death of Marija of Ohdan.”
“Yes. So I’ve heard.” Kassia frowned at the closed book, willing him to open it again. To write her name in it. “I think it surely must be time for another, Master Damek.”
His entire face squinted. “It is just Damek. I am Master of nothing. You call only the Mateu ‘Master’, silly girl. You want to be an Initiate and you don’t even know that?”
“How can I know what I haven’t been taught?” Kassia protested. “I have the shai gifts. I believe I could use them best if I learned the things Lorant can teach.”
Damek’s eyes, black and shiny as obsidian pebbles, darted to her hair and then away as if its brightness hurt them. “Yes, I can see that you’re shai. As to your gifts, I’m sure we’ve no use for them here, such as they are. I’ve heard of you—peddling your petty magic in the marketplace. I doubt you’ve a legitimate bit of divination or enchantment to your name. The power leaked out of your kind long ago. Why don’t you go back to your elixirs and false fortunes and leave the work of Mat and Itugen to those endowed with spiritual gifts?”
Stung by the sheer acid in the man, Kassia very nearly did turn and storm away. Her face burned with embarrassment, her fists clenched in anger, her heart swelled with the desire to redeem herself. Before she could bolt, her mind seized on the idea that this might be a test of some sort. She had heard of them from young men who had applied for initiation. The two priests-to-be who sought their fortunes from her had spoken of how they’d been tried as applicants at Lorant.
Unwilling to fail, Kassia bridled her ire. “The power is returning to the land, sir. As it does, it returns to the shai. I will not leave until I have had a chance to prove myself. I wish to meet the Headmaster.”
Damek rose. He was not any more imposing on his feet than he was sitting down, which helped Kassia face him across the dark, fine-grained table. “You are both arrogant and misguided. Take yourself and your worthless earth magic away from Lorant, and do not come back.”
Kassia pointed behind her at the window through which sunlight entered the room, and through which she knew Damek could see the courtyard with its many kite strings. “The blue and gold kite still flies, sir. You seek Initiates; I seek to enroll. I haven’t yet heard a reason why I should not.”
“Neither have I.”
The voice came from behind and to her left and Kassia all but leapt to the table top in surprise. Instead she turned, wondering how she could not have heard or sensed the new presence. She saw, in the doorway of what must be an inner office, a tall man of regal bearing wearing the white vestments of the Mateu. His long, dark, silver-laced hair was bound and braided with gold, but it was his face that captured Kassia’s gaze. Fine-planed and strong-featured, it suggested that the wisdom of ages lay behind its clear, brown eyes.
Kassia burned with new embarrassment. She knew this formidable face; it belonged to the Mateu who had often studied her as she hawked divination in the Dalibor market, and who had appeared in last night’s dream.
Damek folded his arms across his narrow chest and lifted his chin, no doubt certain of her expulsion. “This,” he said, “is Master Lukasha. He is a Mateu, in case you couldn’t tell. He is also Headmaster of this college. Excuse me, if you will, Master. This woman has come to see you, and I have duties to perform elsewhere.”
He bowed respectfully to the Headmaster and made a careful exit, avoiding both Kassia and his Master.
Lukasha followed the other man’s progress with a raised eyebrow, then turned back to regard Kassia with inscrutable gaze. “You have raised Damek’s hackles, Kassia Telek.”
“I know. I’m sorry. (But not very sorry.) I have difficulty with acquiescence. I came to apply for initiation.”
Lukasha was nodding. “So I heard.”
Torn between excusing herself and pleading her case, Kassia opened her mouth to do one of those things when she realized that Master Lukasha had called her by name. Something prompted her to look up into his eyes. She saw no censure there and it confused her. Again, she opened her mouth to speak.
The Mateu smiled. “Of course, I know your name, child. I know more than that about you. I know you lost three members of your family three years past. I saw you here among the refugees from the flood. I know your mother was Jasia Antavas and your great-grandmother was Joasia Dar. I know how they suffered under the Tamalids. We all suffered, but I think the shai were wounded most deeply. When the Tamalids ravaged the land, they ravaged the body of Itugen. Her weakened spirit c
ould not lend magic to her daughters any more than a candle battered by wind and rain can give light. The shai didn’t deserve the blame for that, and I’m sorry they received it. But I am pleased you have finally come to Lorant.”
“You aren’t angry?”
“Should I be angry?”
Kassia lifted her chin. “I was selling Itugen’s gifts. I thought I might make enough money to support my son and myself. It was mercenary. Maybe it was wrong, but—”
“It was a waste,” Lukasha said gently. “A waste of your ability.”
Suspended between heaven and earth; she feared what would happen when he let her drop. “But you . . . I could tell you wanted to speak to me about it—to chastise me. You almost did, that one day.”
“Yes, I almost spoke to you, but not to chastise. I wanted to ask you to come to Lorant. I could feel the power in you, Kassia Telek. You should be here, learning the Mateu’s art, disciplining and nurturing your gifts, giving all devotion to Itugen . . . and, coincidentally, making enough of a stipend to support your son and yourself.”
He was laughing at her a little—silently, gently, as a father might laugh at a favorite daughter. She warmed all the way to the soul. She hadn’t known that warmth for so very long.
Still smiling, Lukasha circled the writing table, took up Damek’s abandoned pen, and opened the great, leather book. He turned past the page labeled Applicants, the page that Damek would have inscribed. On another page, he wrote, Kassia Telek of Dalibor, shai, accepted as Initiate this third day of Aprilis in the year Zelimir 2-4. Then, setting aside the pen, he said, “Now, Kassia, we will not begin the new school year until after the Commencement ceremonies. Will you be ready to begin your schooling here next Matek?”
She nodded slowly, stunned by how swiftly the tide of her life had changed.
“Your son is, how old now, five, six?”
“Six.”
“Your days here will be long and sometimes very hard. Would you like to have him with you, so you may see him when you’ve the chance?”
“Yes, sir. Yes, Master, of course.”
Lukasha’s smile deepened, his face creasing pleasantly. “Then bring him. I’m sure our kite master will be able to entertain him . . . or put him to work.”
“Thank you, Master Lukasha,” Kassia murmured, feeling almost giddy. “I’ll be back on Matek for my lessons.”
“We begin at dawn with devotions,” Lukasha told her.
She nodded. “Dawn then. Again, sir, thank you.” She bowed her head respectfully, then turned to go. In the doorway, she turned back. “Tell me, Master Lukasha, what Damek did—the way he tried to discourage me—”
Master Lukasha uttered a bark of laughter. “Discourage you? He tried to terrify you. It didn’t work, I’m pleased to say. You’ll need that courage for the work at Lorant.”
“Was that a test? A test of my will?”
“A test?” Lukasha shook his head. “No, no test; that was just Damek.”
Kassia covered her dismay with a smile and returned through the hall of shadow and glory to the simple sunlight of the courtyard. The kite master was nowhere in sight, so she couldn’t tell him how she’d fared. As she turned to go home, she realized that in her bewildered state she had completely forgotten to ask how much of a stipend an Initiate received. Irritated by her own lack of presence, she returned to her sister’s house.
oOo
Lukasha found his scribe in the second floor offices of his Mateu lord, working off some of his irritation among the collections of scrolls, books and tablets that charted Master Lukasha’s journeys in the arcane world. The library—a deeply quiet chamber below the private studio where the Mateu pursued his art—was peaceful and far removed from contact with the outside world. A world that contained pestiferous Initiates and other irritants. The library held only books—rare books, ancient books, many of which only Master Lukasha knew existed.
Damek was alone in the room, hunched over some mouldering tablet in a throng of sunlit dust motes. The Mateu watched him for a moment from the shadowed doorway, affection warring with mild exasperation. At last he stepped into the light and spoke.
“You are a rude man, Damek Tabori. You might have scared that young woman right off our mountain.”
Damek twitched and glanced up, disturbing his dust motes. Like frightened but stubborn gnats, they flitted away from him to settle elsewhere. “Would that have been such a loss?”
“You know it—why do you ask?”
“She’s shai,” Damek said doggedly; they had had this discussion before.
“If she weren’t, she’d be destined for nothing greater than the priesthood, and I wouldn’t have brought her here.”
Damek dislodged the motes yet again. “Brought her? Why?” He twisted in his chair to face the Mateu, his thin hair floating in a light-filled corona about his head. “Master, why will you not explain this to me? Why must it be such a mystery—your interest in this woman?”
Lukasha chuckled. “Poor faithful Damek. I have been mysterious of late, haven’t I? I hadn’t meant to be. The truth is, the mystery was born of uncertainty. I wasn’t sure this young woman, this Kassia Telek, had the necessary gift. I wasn’t sure that Itugen once more smiled on her daughters.”
“Why does that matter?”
Lukasha moved to sit in a skillfully padded and draped chair across from the table where Damek worked. “Polia has not been a good or safe place these last decades. Least of all have they been good or safe for the shai. When Arik Tamal crushed the life out of this land, he virtually destroyed the source the shai drew upon for their powers. You know what they became.”
Damek nodded, lip curling. “Little better than whores . . . selling potions and amulets and petty charms any Initiate could have constructed.” He leaned forward in his chair. “Just as she was doing, Master. She’s no better—”
“Ah, but she is. There is depth to her power, Damek. I feel it. Yes, she peddles her potions and divinations, but her charms are hardly petty. There is power there, that is a surprise even to her. The channel between Itugen and Her daughters is clearing. The shai are recovering, even as this ravaged land is recovering . . . dear God, at long last.” His eyes, which had gone, unfocused, to some point over Damek’s head, snapped to sudden clarity. “Now, let me explain to you why this is important to me—to us.”
He rose and moved to the window. Half-closed eyes on the kites above the rooftops, he formulated his words carefully, measuring how much to reveal. “You are not a man of magic, Damek. That is nothing to feel badly about; you have your own abilities and talents, but it means you are unaware of what has happened in the realm of secrets during the Tamalid reign. Before Polia was part of any empire, there was a completeness to the magic bestowed by Mat and Itugen—a wholeness. When the Tamalids ruled, that wholeness was shattered.”
“Yet the Mateu continued,” Damek argued. “Only the shai were cut off; surely that was a defect on their part.”
Lukasha shook his head. “No defect. Think Damek! You have pored over these books for years—has none of what you read touched you? The Tamalids scourged the earth, and it was the Mother of the Earth whose power was withdrawn, cut off. If they had somehow found the ability to pollute the skies, Mat’s grace would have ceased. As it was . . .” He turned back to face the other man. “As it was, the Mateu suffered as well. Though the rain continued to fall and the Sun to shine and the breezes to breathe on the land, those things were out of balance. The rains washed away the newly planted seeds and took the soil with it; the Sun scorched the earth; the winds destroyed rather than refreshing. Worst of all, perhaps, any part of what we did that depended upon the powers of Itugen was gradually lost. Any wisdom that was solely or most specifically the province of the shai was, likewise, lost. The Mateu have served the people of Polia from a half-full vessel for close to a century. Now, do you wonder at my eagerness to bring Kassia Telek to Lorant? Through her, and others like her, the magic of the Mateu may once again be
whole.”
Damek’s face was gray. “I’m sorry, Master. I didn’t realize how it was. Had I known, I would have welcomed the young woman with open arms.”
Lukasha chuckled at the image that evoked. “Forgive me, Damek, but I have trouble imagining that. Yet, you might not have chewed on her so lustily, and you might have called me the moment she set foot in my parlor.”
Damek accepted the mild censure with only slight irritation. “I was only—”
“Protecting me from intrusion. Tell me, Damek, how much of what you’ve read in these musty old books have you understood?”
Damek frowned, puzzled by the sudden change of subject. “Barely half of it. The equations seem . . . well, they seem to be full of gibberish.”
“Barely half of it. Well, even I can comprehend no more than two thirds of what I read there. Those equations are full of Itugen, Damek. Only someone with Her gift can begin to decipher them.”
Damek nodded, his mouth a tight line. “Kassia Telek.”
“Yes.”
“But she’s unschooled—completely uninitiated. You don’t even know if she can read.”
“She can read, that much I know. She has taught reading to the village children and to her own child. Yes, she will soon be both initiated and schooled . . . by me personally. In fact, I hope to make her my Apprentice before the year is out.”
“You gamble much on this girl, Master.”
Lukasha turned his face to the window again, hiding it from his aide. “Yes, Damek. I gamble much.
Chapter Four — Initiate
“You’re what?”
Blaz Kovar had been unable to conceal his disbelief when Kassia announced the new course her life was taking. He’d followed that incredulous question with a crack of laughter. Even after she’d recounted the entire day in detail, even as Asenka held trembling hands to her red cheeks and the children’s eyes grew as round as copper rezes, he disbelieved. His amusement turned to annoyance in the face of her stubborn assertions of truthfulness, and finally to anger.
The Spirit Gate Page 5