“Of course you will, Zak,” Lukasha told him, then turned to Kassia. “You, Kassia, will help me present these new spells of diplomacy to King Zelimir.”
She was nearly undone at that. Going to Tabor when she’d never set foot out of this narrow valley, never traveled any further afield than Ohdan, was exciting enough. Being asked to participate in a presentation to the king was beyond even her most spectacular fantasies.
“I, Master? I will help you?”
“Yes, you. Who better?”
Kassia glanced at Zakarij, tried to read the emotion behind the opaque eyes. There was nothing. He had set up his guard again.
“Why, Zakarij, surely,” she said, “or . . . or Damek.”
“Damek has about as much magic in him as a tree stump—no, less—for a tree stump yet has roots to Itugen. Besides, Damek’s duties here will keep him from accompanying me this time. And as to Zakarij—his work is determined by his knowledge of our institutions. He will know what questions to ask Master Antal and Brother Bohumat, and he will understand the answers. You are doing well in your study and use of magic, Kassia, but you do not yet understand all of what it is to be Mateu. It is not magic, alone, any more than motherhood is merely the bearing of the child. Once you have brought him forth, you must raise him.”
That reminded Kassia forcefully that she had a child of her own who was not a metaphor. “What of Beyla?” she asked. “Must I leave him?”
Lukasha put a gentle hand to the side of her face. “I’m afraid you must, Kiska. But he shall have Shagtai to look out after him if you will, though you have other friends you might trust more.”
Kassia, trying not to show how affected she was by the thought of separating from Beyla, shook her head. “There is no one I trust more than Shagtai.”
“Then I shall speak to him about it immediately.”
“When shall we go?” Kassia asked. “How long shall we be away?” She felt Zakarij’s eyes on her and wriggled in discomfort. She knew she sounded desperate.
“When we have completed our work with the web spells to my satisfaction, we will prepare to go. I will have Shagtai send news of our arrival before us so the king may prepare for us at Court. We will not stay in Tabor much above a week, I promise you.”
Not much above a week. Kassia’s heart felt as if it were made of iron. She had never been separated from Beyla for more than a few hours at a time. But she knew her quaking was not for her son; it was for herself. He would miss her, certainly, but he would be fabulously happy with Shagtai and his fleet of kites.
“Don’t be so tragic, Kassia. It won’t be so long.”
She looked up to find Zakarij watching her. “Over two weeks with travel time,” she corrected. “I’ve never spent an entire day away from my little boy.”
“He loves Shagtai. He’ll miss you, but he’ll be safe and happy in our kite master’s workshop. You know that.”
She nodded, wondering how he knew so much about Beyla’s relationship with Shagtai.
“Tabor will take your breath away and steal your senses. She’s a beautiful city, Kassia. A real city. Seventy-five thousand people, I’m told. She sits at the confluence of the Yeva and the Wista, where the river channels are wide and deep as they sweep about her. There are boats and barges, even pleasure craft. And there’s a cesia that takes up the entire crown of a hill, and another adjoining the King’s palace that’s fully the size of Lorant entire. You shouldn’t miss an opportunity like this, Kassia—to go before King Zelimir, himself. Lukasha has chosen you for great things. Don’t take that lightly.”
“I would never take it lightly. It’s just that . . . things are happening so fast.”
“For all of us. In eight years I have learned a lot of flash and a little substance. In one day, you taught me to handle fire.” He looked at her in that maddening way that made her feel as if she had neglected to dress or put on skin, and appeared about to say more. But something caused his mouth to close and his eyes to withdraw. “We should get something to eat. The Master will want us to put in a full afternoon on these web spells.”
She nodded and went to find Beyla, to tell him her news, leaving Zakarij to find his way to the commons alone.
oOo
Lukasha looked over the list he had compiled of items that could be effectively vested with the web spells and was highly pleased. Not only were the spells apparently working flawlessly, but Zelimir would be certain to find the play of colors in otherwise mundane objects extremely entertaining. He would likely not take it nearly as seriously as his Mateu adviser would. For the king, a new toy; for Lukasha, a new way of protecting him from the insincere, unscrupulous and possibly dangerous people who surrounded him.
The list contained household items such as candlesticks and mirrors and silver bowls and baskets of ornamental glass fruit. It included personal effects such as hairbrushes and ceremonial daggers and even a pen made of glass in which the user could see the ink in its clever reservoir. It included jewelry. But there was one thing it did not contain, for Lukasha was not certain how the item could be either had or vested. He had never tried the spell he was now contemplating. He thought perhaps no Mateu ever had. Whether he was able to even attempt it might not be his decision, but Kassia’s. It seemed he must ever be resigned to rest his hopes for Polia upon others.
oOo
Weary. She was truly weary. Kassia pulled a light shawl around her shoulders and settled in before her warm hearth with a cup of hot tea. The vesting of web spells was coming quite well. Any and all of the objects they used held the spell and, if their experiments were any proof, they would require minimal maintenance by the Mateu at Court.
Her personal research had not gone quite so smoothly; she had found several more spells relating to doorways, corridors, conduits and the like, and she had shown them to Lukasha, but he did not seem terribly impressed. There was something missing, he said. These were barely a cut above the mundane—an incantation to pierce fog, another to allow the user to talk through a solid wall—nothing that would allow someone to see from Dalibor to Tabor through a veil of miles.
She was disappointed, of course. Even more disappointed that her search of Marija’s rooms had failed to turn up the missing journal. She and Beyla had entered into the hunt with vigor and anticipation, only to give up with only half the search complete. Beyla was now sound asleep in his cozy room, and Kassia was so tired she could barely move.
She savored the fragrance of the tea and the moist heat of its steam in her face. Her gaze wandered about the room, her mind lazily cataloguing places she had not yet searched. In here there was only the bedstead and the area around the fireplace. Her eyes roamed back to that feature. It was a beautiful piece of work—simple in design, but elegant. The fire board was of a dark, gleaming wood, while the mantelpiece beneath it was inlaid with a wonderfully worked carving of pale, polished stone. She followed the ornate patterns through the steam rising out of her cup. Firelight gilded them from below and made the symbols seem to dance.
They were elemental symbols, she realized. The four primaries were worked in at the heart of the carving, their secondaries and tertiaries arrayed around them. At the very center of it all were the joined circles—the mandorla—that appeared on every Mateu’s shoulder, and which Marija had chosen to be inlaid into the floorboards of her studio dais. The carving blurred before Kassia’s eyes and she felt her hands, still braced around the cup, dip toward her lap.
Enough of this, she thought. This tea can’t possibly revive me. I’m going to bed.
Yawning, she pulled herself to her feet and shuffled to the bed. She stripped down to her under-linens and tumbled into the welcome mattress, remembering only at the last minute to reach out a thought to douse the spirit-lit candles in the room. She was asleep almost before her head touched the mattress and relived her search of the rooms in dreams, driven by the fear that she might have missed something. She spent dream time in the studio, too—their studio, hers and Marija’s—stan
ding on the dais in the center of the golden western circle she used as her locus. She thought of it as the shai locus and the silver as the Mateu. Always, she stood in the heart of the golden ring, facing its opposite. It had become a sort of semi-superstitious protocol to her; not being Mateu (yet), she felt she hadn’t the right to enter that domain.
Her dreams ended where her evening had, before the hearth, staring at the dance of symbols captured in the mantelpiece. The mandorla’s twin, joined circles seemed to gleam in the wash of firelight.
That image stayed with her to waking and beyond, for the next morning as she pulled herself upright and, stretching, reached for her robe, she saw the mandorla upon the velvet coverlet that lay across her legs. She put out a hand, but found the image to be insubstantial. Glancing aside at the window, she realized it was a shadow cast by a pattern in the iron work that held the panes in place. The faint light of dawn had thrown it across her lap, where it snuggled like a sleeping cat.
She remembered dreaming of the mandorla, then. She pondered it as she rose, dropped her feet to the silk carpet by her bed and realized that she was standing upon yet another mandorla worked into the rug. She lit the fire and several lamps simultaneously, not even bothering to think before flinging the spell from her fingertips. Firebirds soared and lit and Kassia, gazing around the shadowed room, felt as if she was seeing it clearly for the very first time.
The image was everywhere, repeated over and over in weave and carving and metal work. Without stopping to put stockings upon her feet, she hurried into the studio, knowing without doubt that the pattern was neither random nor merely decorative. Marija had chosen this symbol for a reason, this confluence of earth and sky. Had she chosen it because she, herself, was a confluence of earth and sky?
Lukasha’s dais, with its embedded circles, was typical of a Mateu spelling stage. Only Marija of Ohdan had used the mandorla. Kassia stared at the conjoined rings until her eyes blurred. She always stood in the confines of the golden circle, but she was suddenly certain Marija had not done so. She would have used the very center of the dais—the place where the two rings merged.
Cautiously, Kassia stepped up onto the dais and moved from the golden ring across the silver boundary so that she stood in the heart of the mystical figure. Almost at once, she felt it—a trill of warm, clear energy, a singing pulse of something magnificent that ran from earth to sky and back again. In the same blink of time, she also knew that the dais held other secrets as well; the journal she sought, her inner eye told her, was beneath her feet.
She knelt upon the dais in the growing light of morning, running trembling hands over the fine, dark wood between the metal bands. After a moment of search, she found a small aberration in the pattern of the floorboards—a round peg head of a lighter wood, little bigger than the tip of her middle finger, set flush with the floor where the corners of four pieces of parquetry met. She brushed over it with her finger tips, then, sensing no arcane locks, pressed it lightly. With a tiny snick of sound, it depressed, then popped upward. Gripping it carefully, she slid it from its place. The four polished squares rose slightly and, inserting her finger into the empty peg hole, she pulled gently upward. One square rose like the lid of a box, revealing a dark space beneath. Kassia called up a spirit flame and, cradling it in her hand, she peered into the recess.
The shape within was box-like and covered in burgundy silk. It was certainly the right size and shape to be a book. Barely breathing, she lifted it from its hiding place, extinguished her flame and carried it to the northern facing windows. Weak sunlight aided her sight as she unwrapped the package. It was indeed a book—small, but thick, with fine, soft pages. The fat spine was leather, the rest carved and polished wood, and inlaid into the slightly warped front cover was the name Marija Boh-itu Ohdani.
Chapter Nine — Tabor
Maritius 22: Today was my first full day as an Initiate. I had planned to write such wonderful things about Lorant and the Mateu and my classmates, but I am too tired to lift this little reed. Ah, well, Little Book, until tomorrow . . .
Maritius 30: Well, it’s not tomorrow, Little Book. You can see what day it is. Every night I mean to write of wonderful things, and every night I am too tired to lift my pen. Until tonight. Well, I am still very tired, but tonight I have got to write about Master Boleslas.
Master Boleslas is a prodigious man. He is tall, like the century oak in the cesia at Ohdan. And he is wide, like the standing stone behind the altar there. And he is wise, like the Lord Mat, Himself. He is like my father, and because of that, I think I will love him very much. I hope, already, that someday I may be his Apprentice, though I’ve heard it put to him that I’ve started my journey too late to ever be any more than a priestess. Can seventeen really be so old?
Maius 1: Master Boleslas—The Wise, I call him—is a marvel. He gives lessons as one would tell stories and, in that way, he is more like my father than I first imagined. I asked him why he teaches in this way and he told me—I barely believe it—that his father was a village Storyteller before he married and came to Dalibor. Wonders! My own father is Storyteller of Ohdan and, were I not shai I most certainly would have followed him in that. I believe I have found the perfect teacher. Dear, wise man—he will make learning what I must learn here a joy.
Junius 24: Can you believe it’s been over a month since I last wrote, Little Book? I am still in a constant state of weariness from all the things Master Boleslas and my other instructors are trying to cram into my head. But I am learning. Here is my secret delight—My Wise Master has spoken to me, just this day, of working on a special spell outside of class. A Duet, he called it, which, of course, is a spell making use of two complementary elements. Well, Little Book, I am on my way. I pray every night to both Itugen and Mat that I am someday privileged to become the Wise Boleslas’ very own Apprentice.
oOo
Kassia paused and glanced up into Arax-itu’s beaming face. The other girl laughed and said, “She sounds like you, doesn’t she? Barely an Initiate and already anticipating Apprenticeship.”
Kassia blushed, her face hot despite the dappling of shade from the trees that overgrew the eastern wall of the college courtyard. “I wasn’t anticipating Apprenticeship when I came here, Ari. In fact, I had no real reason to believe I’d be accepted. Marija was said to be too old at seventeen, and here I am, nearly twenty-five and a mother. But I had to try, or my magic would have withered within me. I’d still be sitting in the market square trying to peddle potions and fortunes to people who didn’t trust me.”
“So, you succeeded beyond your expectations. It sounds like Marija did too.” Ari shook her head. “It’s absolutely amazing to hear Marija of Ohdan’s own words and thoughts. She’s a legend, almost a goddess, you’d think, to hear Master Yesugai speak of her. Yet, she writes . . . thinks . . . as any girl would. Except,” she amended, laughing, “that she can actually wield magic. I’m a fifth year Initiate and I can barely perform a Duet.”
“Not true,” Kassia objected. “You did one yesterday that made even Gavmat’s eyes pop.”
Ari smiled. “That was good, wasn’t it? I’ve you to thank for it. Master Radman says I’m getting a feel for the arcane. I hope he’s right. I think I might actually make it past Solstice. I have to perform a Triad for my Commencement requirement. I was hoping you’d be able to help me with it . . .”
Kassia glanced across the courtyard, through Shagtai’s kite-string forest, to the college. “I can’t, Ari. I’d like to, but Zakarij and I are working on some special spells for Master. And when we’re done, we’re going to Tabor.”
Ari’s momentary disappointment was washed away on a flood of astonishment. “Tabor? You’re going to Tabor? With Master Lukasha?”
“And Zakarij.” She shook her head, still incredulous. “The Master wants me to aid him in presenting some new spells to the king.”
Ari leaned closer, eyes gleaming. “What sort of spells? Are they part of what you’ve been working on late int
o the night in your studio?”
“Yes and no. And I really can’t talk about them. I’m sorry.”
Ari straightened and shrugged. “That’s all right. Though I really would like to know; I won’t bother to pretend I’m not curious . . . I’ve yet to see the inside of your studio.” She was toying with the curly end of a lock of hair, studying it most intently.
Kassia chuckled. “Yes, I can show you my studio. If you’d like to see it.”
Ari was on her feet in a second. “I thought you’d never ask! Can we go now? I’ll have to go back to class soon and—” Before she could finish the sentence, the chime sounded to call the students back to their studies. Her face fell.
Kassia came to her feet. “Tonight? After supper?”
A quick, eager smile, and Ari was gone, hurrying across the courtyard as fast as her feet would carry her. Kassia watched for a moment, then tucked Marija’s little diary into the pocket of her tunic. Ari might find the journal exciting, but she was vaguely disappointed in it. She’d had time to read only a page or so of the cramped script before breakfast, and so far it seemed to be no more than a girl’s private diary—and not a very constant one at that. Marija sometimes went months without a single entry, or passed entire seasons off in a single sentence. In flipping through the pages, Kassia had also noticed some later notations in what she took to be Latin, and others were in a script she didn’t know. There were also a number of blank pages at the end of the diary. Alone, now, and curious, she started to withdraw the book from her pocket, thinking she might take but a moment to have a closer look at it.
“Difficult, was it, little mother?”
Startled, she turned to see Damek peering at her from beneath the arbor that separated the main courtyard from the meditation garden that lay between the college and the cesia. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“It must be very trying for you to know your Master’s secrets without being able to bare them to your young friend. How much longer can you keep doing that, I wonder?”
The Spirit Gate Page 16