The Spirit Gate

by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

  The thought was attractive. After all, both wards and locks were set to dissuade thieves, not curious Apprentices. She meant no harm to the pages; she merely wanted to study them. And, in the same way that Zakarij reasoned they might use their Master’s studio for their own practice, she made to herself the obvious argument that she was Master Lukasha’s Apprentice and surely complete access to whatever she needed to further her education came with that station.

  She put her hands against the cabinet doors, thumbs and index fingers forming a rough triangle about the lock, and felt of the mechanism within. Gold. The tumblers in the little lock were of gold—calculated to keep a keyless Mateu out, but hardly proof to the shai. Her mind touched the wards. Those were set to foil thieves who had no arcane skills or knowledge. She might be able to circumvent them if she tried. She was at the point of attempting that when a tickling sensation in the back of her mind alerted her to another feature of the wards—they would warn the one who set them if ever they were breached.

  A cold surge of adrenaline sent Kassia hastily away from the cabinet and back to the implements she was supposed to be preparing for a ritual blessing.

  The very next day, Master Lukasha removed her from her remaining classes, announcing that he and Zakarij could certainly tutor her in history, religion and geometry. It meant she saw the jealous Initiates very little, though she continued to make time for Ari’s lessons. Her life at Lorant now revolved around the offices and studio of her Master. She hardly minded, for even Beyla was welcome there when Damek wasn’t around. Lukasha’s seemed fond of the boy, and often took time to tell him stories or teach him amusing spells.

  One afternoon as the sun tipped over to the west, Lukasha took Kassia up to his studio, set wards upon the stair and installed her in the locus of his dais. There he asked her to create for him a very special spell.

  “Imagine,” he told her, “that you are at the center of a spell ball. The walls of this ball, however, are not glass. They are the four primary elements held in perfect balance—squared. This is what you will perform for me.”

  “The elements in perfect balance?” she asked. “A squared spell? Is it possible?”

  “You rebuked your accusers with a Battle that was, in reality, a Triad of elements. Can it be so difficult to add earth to the spell?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never tried. How could earth be blended with the other elements?”

  “It is written,” Lukasha told her, “in a very ancient tablet called simply ‘Of Doorways’.”

  “May I see the text?”

  Lukasha studied her for a moment, then went to that tantalizing cabinet. Kassia wondered, as he unlocked the doors, if he could feel her touch upon the wards. He said nothing, however, but only removed the folio and returned to her. He extracted one page and held it out. She took it gingerly, feeling a soft tingle penetrate her fingers, acutely aware of the texture of the woven paper.

  There were four spells on the fibrous sheet. Spells always appeared in groups of four to symbolize the four primary elements. In this case, the analogue was complete; the four spells were one, each created a sphere of a single element, while together, in the precise balance—or so the equation indicated—they might coexist, creating a void around the sorcerer that was equal parts Mat and Itugen. A perfect Square.

  “This isn’t in the old script,” she noted, belatedly recognizing the ease with which she’d deciphered it. “This is something more . . . modern. Less symbolic.”

  “Indeed. It was found among the papers of Marija of Ohdan. You understand how it works?”

  “In theory, but . . .” She glanced at him uncertainly. “Can anyone do this?”

  “Shall we find out?” Leaving the page in her hands, Lukasha stepped back and signaled her to begin.

  She pored over the series of incantations for several long moments. Fire, yes—that was the easiest, but according to the text it was “a warding shield.” That indicated it should form the outside layer. The spell she had cast before the Circle had place fire at the heart of the sphere in a bowl of air and water. That was obviously not the intent of this spell. She pondered the four separate equations. How did they weave together? Air supported fire, water supported air—where did earth fit in? Did the spell need a stone at its core? An earth element perhaps? Which one?

  She recalled the Triad. Flame within air, within water . . . within an orb of glass. Glass, whatever else it contained and whether colored with cobalt, copper, gold or silver, was yet composed of earth elements. Kassia’s breath stuck in her throat. She had already performed a squared spell without realizing she had done so.

  She let that knowledge sink in for a moment, savoring the deep thrill it gave. Had Lukasha known what she had just realized? She chided herself. Of course he did, he was a Mateu. She turned her attention back to the spell at hand. It struck her forcefully then that this spell was that one turned inside out.

  Without comment she left the dais and went to the cabinet in which her Master’s implements were kept. Removing a glass spell ball, she returned to the dais. She had all but forgotten Lukasha, was barely aware of his watchful presence as she held the piece of earth in her two hands and began to set her spell.

  It was harder than she expected; she found she must concentrate on every step, every element, lest she lose her sense of them as she slid them carefully into place. She had two false starts, once losing control of air and having water and fire meet in a hiss of steam. Again, fire escaped her and leapt from the surface of her elemental sphere to lick at the painted ceiling. She forced herself to think, after that, going back again to the Triad that was not. In that spell the glass ball was an enclosure, a shell. In this spell it was a core, a foundation—like the earth itself within its envelope of water and atmosphere. Her mind made a final leap and grasped the bridge between the two concepts. The spell ball was more than a container and again, more than a foundation. It was a fulcrum, a balance point, a portal.

  She began again, this time constructing the spell she had done before the Circle—fire within air, air within water, water within earth-glass. One hand supported the globe of elements, the other hovered above it, palm down. She tried to recall how the spell had read on the written page and failed. In the end, she discarded words, cast out symbols and felt instead for the balance among the elements within the glass globe. There! She grasped it and turned it inside out, pushing outward with her will. Earth supported water, water supported air, air fed fire.

  A shimmering envelope of liquid radiance billowed around her, floating away from its core like one of Shagtai’s fabulous balloon kites. Inside the balloon, she looked out at what seemed to be a bowl of molten fire. Outside, Lukasha looked in at the sun.

  Kassia held the spell for a full thirty seconds before letting it fold back in on itself. In that span of time she felt as if she stood at a confluence of earth and sky, in a gateway perhaps only a shai could open. When the bright envelope had dispersed, she stood with the empty glass orb in her hands, amazed. Lukasha rose from the place in which he sat and came to her, taking her hands in his own.

  “Well done, Apprentice,” he told her. “You have met and surpassed any expectations I had of you. I will not see you tomorrow, as it is Celek. When you come again Matek morn, there will be chambers set aside here for you and Beyla to live in, and a studio in which you will continue to learn your craft.”

  Kassia’s heart leapt. A place of her own at Lorant! A room, like this room, in which to do magic. “Thank you, Master!” she whispered.

  Lukasha shook his head. “Do not thank me, Kiska. Thank Itugen for bestowing Her gifts upon you and Mat for showing you the way here. Believe me, I am grateful for both. Besides,” he added, taking the spell ball from her numb fingers and returning it to its place, “I expect you to earn your place here.”

  “How, Master? How shall I earn it?”

  He smiled at her. “In service to your king. Now, go and make ready. When you return here, your rooms will be r
eady for you. And Kassia . . . tell no one of the spell you performed for me just now. Not Zakarij, not anyone. These things must remain between us.”

  She went away dazed, wondering how she might be of service to the king and how she could ever make ready for this new chapter in her life.

  It was with mixed joy and sadness that Kassia told Devora of her move to Lorant. The older woman celebrated her good fortune and refused to allow the prospect of an empty house dampen her delight. There was a special bread for supper that night, and a meat pie with fresh strawberries. Later, Kassia lay long abed without sleep. Over and over she recast the Squared spell, struggling to recapture the moment she stood in the confluence of the elements as in an open door. An open door, she wondered as sleep claimed her, to what?

  Chapter Eight — Of Doorways

  Kassia rose early Celek morn and dressed herself as quietly as she could in her Apprentice’s garb. Her care did little good; Beyla heard her stirring about and woke wanting to know where she was off to so early. Hearing that she planned to go early to the cesia at Lorant, he begged to come along and she, unable to resist the entreaty in the big, dark eyes, surrendered to them.

  “Why are we going to two Matyash?” he asked when he learned she planned to make her usual pilgrimage to the Little Holy Hill as well.

  “I want to take a special gift to the God and Goddess this morning,” she answered him. “A gift I can only get in the Lorant Wood.”

  “Oh, what is it, mama?” he asked, but she made him wait.

  She caught Lukasha before he left his chambers for the cesia and put her request to him. She had feared he would think it odd or even brazen, but he did not. He nodded approvingly and told her to ask Shagtai to help her with her task. She did that, Beyla chattering happily in her wake, “I knew, mama! I knew what you were going to do! Let me help, won’t you? I want it to be partly my gift, too.”

  In short order, she and Beyla and Shagtai stood beneath the cool canopy of tall cedars near the college cesia with two shovels and a box of damp earth. Within the hour they had collected over a dozen tiny trees which Shagtai carried up to the cesia. There, Kassia was one of the first worshipers to come forward and make obeisance to Mat and Itugen beneath the Great Tree.

  There were only a few others in the cesia at this hour—Apprentices and Aspirants mostly, who performed their devotions before the general citizenry arrived. She saw Zakarij sitting in meditation beside the eastern access. His contemplation was interrupted by the gentle stir Kassia caused when she appeared before the altar with her box full of seedlings and her soil-stained leggings.

  Before the altar, beneath the Great Tree, she hesitated, feeling a familiar chill; the Aspirant’s eyes were on her, curious. She shook the profound awareness of his regard and continued to make her nine genuflections toward altar and Tree. She then approached the altar, empty but for a few gifts of flowers and illuminated prayer scrolls, and held up her hands toward the branches of the Cedar. Her prayer was silent and private; none but the Recipients of the prayer would hear it. Her gift was a small, bright flame which she called to her cupped hands and left burning atop the polished slab when she took her trees and left through the northern access.

  Shagtai insisted on carrying the box of seedlings up the Little Holy Hill to the village cesia. When she clucked about his age, he said stiffly that he was not as old as he appeared to be, then fell silent. It was late enough, by the time they reached the place, that a good many villagers were there, including, Kassia noted wryly, both her sisters and their families. The priest had already performed devotions and retired, and the few citizens who were inclined to give offerings on a Celek that did not require it went forward to lay them upon the altar or at the base of the Tree. As was her habit, Kassia waited until everyone else had gone, though this time, some lingered as if to see what she would do with her box of trees.

  She took her turn at the altar with Shagtai and Beyla, dedicating the little cedars to the God and Goddess. That done, they rose and, with the shovels Beyla had brought along, began to dig in the ashy soil beyond the cesia’s tall stones. They had planted no more than a handful of trees when Asenka and her children appeared with two more shovels and fell to work along side them. They had planted about ten of the cedars when Devora arrived with a big basket of bread, cheese and water. When the planting was done, they stopped to eat. In an atmosphere of celebration, they finished their meal and travelled back through the forest.

  Kassia, looking about her as they descended the hill, saw that green was finally beginning to dominate what had been a landscape of stark gray, black and brown. It cheered her, but no more than when her nephews and little Lenci gave her big hugs and Asenka threw her arms around her and told her how proud she was to see her in Apprentice blue.

  “Blaz will not even speak of you,” she said. “And Janka, who was so certain you lied, nearly fainted the first time she saw you in Initiate’s dress. I think she nearly swooned again today.”

  It did Kassia’s heart good to hear of their discomfiture at her success. On some level she realized it was inappropriate to gloat so, but gloat she did, all the way back to the bakery.

  oOo

  Except for the two feather mattresses Devora insisted Kassia and Beyla take with them to Lorant, their belongings fit into a couple of old trunks. Shagtai came down from the Hill just after sunrise Matek morn with a cart and pony, and drove them up to the college as dawn peered at them from behind the eastern mounts. Devora, with a basket of fresh bread, insisted on coming along to help Kassia set up their rooms. Kassia felt unable to utter enough “thank you”s to repay the older woman’s generosity, but she said them anyway and punctuated them with fond embraces.

  Lukasha was waiting for them in the college courtyard when they arrived, and led the way through Lorant’s still halls to the place Kassia and Beyla would call their own. The rooms were in the eastern wing, which was older by far than its western twin. The halls were dark and narrow with vaulted ceilings rendered invisible by their own gloom. Oil lamps hung in niches along the ancient stone walls, decorating the stone above them with long, black smudges of greasy soot. Kassia made a mental note to see if she couldn’t use a fire spell to light the corridor instead of the mundane combination of oil and wick, and wondered how long one of those spells could maintain itself once the sorcerer who set it had stopped paying attention.

  She was beginning to find the sheer weight of the old building depressing when Lukasha stopped to open a set of thick, iron-bound doors on the left hand side of the hallway. Watery light poured across the open door sill to fall upon the worn stone floor of the corridor and collide with its opposite wall. Lukasha walked into the wash of light; Kassia, Beyla, Devora and Shagtai followed.

  The room faced north, looking out over the courtyard via a row of tall, mullioned windows. The set farthest to the east, Kassia realized, were actually doors and led onto a small, stone-walled patio which fed, by a short flight of steps, to the courtyard below. From both windows and patio, Shagtai’s fleet of flying marvels were clearly visible, and Kassia suspected that the bed, drawn close to the wall of glass, offered a striking view of the kites. The floors were of thick, worn hardwood and covered by carpets whose faded colors must have been spectacular when they were first woven. Upon the broad stone hearth were fleeces, and within the fireplace’s maw, flames danced, pulling the morning chill from the air. The chamber was large enough to give the area around the hearth the feel of a separate parlor; the boxed and canopied bed hardly intruded at all from its windowed corner.

  “These were the chambers of Marija of Ohdan,” Lukasha told her. “I thought you might like them since you will be the first to take up her place as the sole shai resident of Lorant. Here, Beyla,” he said to the boy, beckoning from a doorway next to the fireplace. “I think this must be your room.”

  The child was ecstatic. His mother hadn’t mentioned any such bounty, but there it was, small and cozy and with its own little box-bed and hearth and a
cabinet for his clothes, and a window of his very own in which to sit and daydream and watch kites.

  Kassia was as surprised as her son. “This is a child’s room. Have you done this, Master?”

  Lukasha smiled. “I would like to take credit for it, but I cannot. It was here already—outfitted for Marija’s daughter, Milada.”

  Kassia turned to look at him. “Marija had a daughter? What happened to her? Did she not wish to follow in her mother’s path?”

  “Alas, she could not. The Tamalid’s evil dealt Marija a heavy blow; Milada was not shai. Still, she stayed here with her mother until she was fourteen. Then she married a young man of Arabia, accepted his religion, and went with him to his home—a place many weeks’ journey beyond this little valley.” Catching Devora’s grunt of surprise, he nodded. “Yes, I am ever made aware, when I encounter folk of diverse tradition, just how different their customs may be. It is said that Marija’s heart was broken when her daughter departed from the old ways. She had hoped to see her family flourish here in Dalibor.”

  “What daughter’s mother would not?” asked Devora rhetorically.

  There was a bath chamber attached to the eastern side of the main chamber—a luxury Kassia had dimly expected might be afforded a mere Apprentice, but these were a Mateu’s rooms. The thought gave her a pronounced thrill of pleasure, causing her to nearly miss Lukasha’s explanation of how the water was brought from the ground to the polished stone basin, or how the garderobe was more advanced than anything even the King’s court had. There were advantages, he said, to living in a community of sorcerers.

  Yes, Kassia thought, her eyes on the curving wall of the northeast corner of the main chamber. One has one’s own studio.

  Lukasha had purposefully saved the circular chamber for the end of his tour, and now, when Kassia’s curiosity and anticipation had reached fever pitch, he smilingly escorted her to the strangely hinged door in the inward arcing eastern wall and opened it. “It is yours now, Kiska. Your place of study and meditation and achievement.”