The Spirit Gate

by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

  “I can keep doing it as long as Master Lukasha asks me to. Of course, I’d like to share some of my . . . discoveries with Arax-itu. But it’s clear that I can’t. So I won’t.”

  “Oh, but surely if you revealed only a little—perhaps mentioned the purpose of the Squared spell you performed, or told her with what you and Zakarij have vested rings and mirrors and such, or why Master Lukasha is taking you, of all people, to Tabor.”

  “I would mention none of those things, nor have I. As you point out, they are my Master’s secrets.”

  Damek’s mouth pulled into a grim line. “Why do I not believe that? Come, girl, admit it. You’ve already told her these things, haven’t you? Don’t lie to me—what secrets have you shared with her?”

  She was at the point of protesting her innocence further when she poked through the veil of her own outrage and read the intent behind Damek’s attack. She fixed him with a cool, quelling gaze. “You are a poor inquisitor, Damek. If Lukasha hasn’t told you what research I’m doing, if he hasn’t shared his plans for our trip to Tabor, you’ll not hear of either from me.”

  His wizened mouth nearly sucked itself into a vortex of white wrinkles. “You impudent witch! How dare you accuse me of such subterfuge and clumsiness! I have always been and will always be completely in the Master’s confidence. There is nothing he does not discuss with me. You take vested objects to Zelimir. I know that. He discussed it with me at length. I know also that he hopes to find Zelimir a consort who will be able to protect him, body and soul, from the machinations of his ministers. Perhaps that is why you are going. Have you thought of that? Perhaps the Master means for you to become King Zelimir’s concubine.”

  The flesh on Kassia’s face felt as if it would melt from the sudden heat of embarrassment and anger. “That,” she said, as coolly as she could manage, “is the most ridiculous and insulting suggestion I’ve ever heard. I should go this moment and tell Master what you said to me.”

  Damek’s face paled momentarily, but in a second he had recovered himself. “Do that,” he said, sweetly acid, “and he will know you’ve been discussing his most private plans with others. What will he think of you then, I wonder?”

  He did not wait for an answer to that rhetorical question, but slipped back into the garden, leaving Kassia to stew over his words.

  oOo

  Kassia did not speak to Lukasha of her confrontation with Damek. During the week they spent in final preparation for their journey to Tabor, they talked only of spells and wards and the vesting of talismans. Kassia’s excitement and dread increased apace. Excitement, because she was going to wonderful Tabor, to the court of the king, dread because she must part from Beyla.

  For his part, Beyla had only one or two moments of anxiety over their impending separation. His over-riding reaction to it was wistful envy, and he asked—no less than a hundred times, Kassia thought—if he could please come along. But Shagtai had offered to teach him the art of building and flying balloon kites and, by the time she mounted her horse for the trek to the first yam, he had decided that compensation was quite sufficient.

  Kassia had read about the first quarter of Marija’s journal in fits and starts. It maintained its personal tone, sporadically chronicling the other woman’s advances in the magics, but offering no earth-shaking insights. As Kassia had thought, some of the latter passages of the book were written in Latin, a language she could not read. The other script, she still did not recognize, but when she ran her finger across the lines of letters, they . . . tickled. That was the only way she could describe it. She thought they might be bespelled in some way.

  She knew Zakarij could read Latin, but enlisting his aid would mean having to take him into her confidence. She had told no one but Ari of the journal and knew her secrecy was silly, girlish. Still, it was pleasant to have secrets, even unimportant ones. During the trip to Tabor, her reading came to a complete halt; the book stayed in her saddle bags where neither Zakarij nor her Master could see it.

  The journey took five days, most of which they traveled at a relaxed trot, stopping each night to camp in the sheltered and guarded confines of a royal way station. Kassia found sleep with difficulty. The land was different—low and rolling, covered with grass and occasionally farms with varied crops. During the day, it lulled; at night, its alien sounds—its whispers and bird calls—inspired curiosity and unease.

  The third day of the journey, they began following the course of a broad, slow-moving river. Lukasha told her it was the Yeva, to which their own Pavla Yeva was a tributary, but it did not sing and chuckle like the Pavla Yeva. It murmured so softly in the darkness so that she must strain her ears to hear it. She was thoroughly exhausted when, late on the fifth day, as the sun settled below the horizon, they topped a long, low rise between a majestic double row of century oaks and saw the city of Tabor laid out below like a red and gold tapestry between two shining ribbons of deep blue-green.

  Kassia was awe struck. She had read of Tabor, had tried to imagine it, but ultimately, her fantasies had not even approached the reality. Its sheer size, the number of homes and shops and streets, was astonishing; the wall that encircled it must be miles and miles in length; and just now it was beginning to sparkle like a jewel as points of firelight flared to life in its dusky recesses.

  Even from here, Kassia could see it was divided into distinct quarters. In the midst of each one, a curving dome of earth and grass rose from among the clutter of buildings, each with a single, massive tree dominating its crowning cesia. The stones atop the verdant hillocks were most likely white, but just now, at the hour of sunset, they blazed red-gold with light borrowed from the Sun. At the center of the orderly chaos was a walled complex of large buildings—a city within a city—and at its heart was the largest hill of all, wearing a tiara of sun-washed gold and copper.

  “The royal Palace,” Zakarij offered, as if he had read her thoughts. “It has the largest cesia in the ten provinces. The pillars are carved with the likenesses of Mat and Itugen in thirty-six of their elemental forms.”

  By the time they rode through Tabor’s massive gates, the Sun had all but disappeared. Only the tops of the tallest buildings burned with its waning fire, while mortal flames flared in the shadows of dusk. The city overwhelmed. Every street and alley was lined with buildings so tall Kassia was forced to tilt her head back to see their eaves. Until riding this street, Lorant’s college was the tallest building she had ever seen. These stood shoulder to shoulder, forming an almost unbroken wall from one dissecting street to another.

  But as impressive as Tabor’s sights, were its sounds and smells. Both were sharp, pungent—the smells of cooking, of animals, of people, of the nearby river; the hard clack of their horses’ hooves on the cobbled street, the rattle of wagons, the babble of what seemed a myriad voices. Kassia observed everything with voracious curiosity, her head swiveling from side to side. Passers-by returned her inquisitive stare in kind, surprised to see a woman in Apprentice’s garb.

  She had thought Lorant grand, and this city beyond her imagination, but neither prepared her for her first sight of the royal Palace. Riding beneath the tiled and gilded arch in the inner walls, she cast her gaze straight ahead, and so got the full effect of broad steps that ran up to immense front doors and a wide expanse of pale gray stone that soared up and up. She let her eyes glide up to the dizzying height of the tallest tower, to the distant sweep of its blue and gold onion-shaped dome.

  “Is that real gold?” she whispered, half to herself.

  “And lapis,” said Master Lukasha. “The Tamalids had a sense of beauty, if nothing else.”

  As the Emperor’s guards watched benignly, they were greeted in the broad plaza before the palace by the Mateu, Master Antal, and Joti Subutai, an Apprentice of perhaps twenty whose blue black hair and pronounced almond-shaped eyes spoke of the same Mongol heritage that marked Kassia and Beyla’s features. They were pleasant and polite, but beneath their cordial greeting was some nervousness.
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  They said nothing as they set royal servants to caring for their guests’ horses and porting their meager baggage. They spoke only of weather and the upcoming Solstice as they conducted Kassia and her companions to their quarters within the Palace. It was just as well; Kassia was certain she’d have lost all track of any real conversation in the brilliance and splendor of Zelimir’s habitation.

  Installed at last in her own room—a room that made even Marija of Ohdan’s large chambers seem poor—she stared from her window over the high walls to the twilight city and tried to sort out in her head the whirl of pale stone and rich cloth, of soaring arches and mysterious corridors that had flowed about her as she followed their hosts through the palace.

  She was just thinking of tearing her eyes away from the starlit, lamplit night and unpacking her leather valise when Zakarij tapped on her half-open door and bid her come with him to Lukasha’s room. Once there, she was once more in the company of Master Antal and his Apprentice, who proceeded to report on the most important of the recent occurrences at court.

  Chief among them were matters involving two of Polia’s nearest neighbors. The Gherai Horde had lain for so long beyond Polia’s southeastern frontier that it had almost ceased to be noticed, yet suddenly two outlying principalities were pleading for admittance to Zelimir’s realm as a means of protecting their borders from incursions by Tartar forces that Polian intelligence indicated had not so much as twitched in uncounted years. In reaction, the darughachi of the tiny southeastern province of Khitan had begun to agitate for Zelimir to raise an army against the freshly perceived Tartar threat. Indeed, even the governor of Tabor’s darugha of Sandomierz was seized with a fresh wariness of the Mongols. Meanwhile, Odra, the small darugha just west of Teschen, was seeking annexation by the Frankish Empire, also pleading protection against aggression as the reason.

  “None of it makes sense to me,” sighed Master Antal. “And I will be one of those King Zelimir calls upon shortly for wisdom in these matters. At the moment, I have none to give.”

  Master Lukasha, who had been listening attentively, asked, “And how is Zelimir?”

  Master Antal wagged his head. “Stubborn. I have spoken to him countless times about the need for him to review his bridal candidates before they die of old age. He has agreed that the eligible women should be gathered in Tabor at the Solstice Festival for his review. That, naturally, has caused even more disgruntlement in some quarters than his original refusal to review them at all.”

  “Solstice? That soon?”

  Antal produced something between a smile and a grimace. “He has indicated that those candidates who cannot appear by that day may find themselves . . . passed over by the royal eye.”

  “That’s less than two weeks away, how does expect the foreign candidates—” The look in Master Antal’s eye halted him. “You imply that our dear king attempts to . . . limit the field in his own fashion?”

  Antal waggled his head. “I didn’t ask. The king has spoken.”

  Lukasha shook his head. “He is a mule, but when the mule decides to move, it defies all conceptions of speed. I suspect the candidates are myriad even without the foreign ones.”

  “I believe each darugha has produced at least one. So, I might add, has our bishop. Of course, his candidate would have to have left her home weeks ago to make the journey in time for Solstice. Therefore, I suppose we may rule her out. I have had it confirmed from the fourth stage yam from Ratibor that an envoy travels from Constantinople with an imam and several mullahs—I had never thought to have an imam in Tabor. And, unless our intelligence is badly mistaken, a bride candidate travels with them. It is said a young woman makes the journey with the envoy, under close guard.”

  “You know nothing about her?”

  “Only that she is Turkish. Ah! But we do know that the bishop’s offering is a young woman of Lombard origins—a duchess who will, according to Bishop Benedict, give Polia an amicable connection to the Frankish Empire.”

  “Ah,” was all Lukasha said. “I thought we were ruling her out.”

  Antal dropped a troubled gaze to his hands. “The Bishop Benedict seems to have a great deal of influence with Zelimir. Certainly more than the last man to hold his office. I’m afraid he might convince the king to await the Frank’s arrival.”

  “Afraid?” repeated Kassia.

  Antal glanced at her. “Marriage to her would forge an overt alliance with the Frankish Church. I am . . . uneasy about what that might mean. The Church has not looked kindly upon other faiths. There has been some proselytization, a few conversions, some . . . sectarian friction.”

  Lukasha nodded, his expression troubled. “Have you asked these converts why they should wish to abandon their ancestral beliefs?”

  Joti Subutai opened his mouth to answer, anger flushing his cheeks, but Antal held up a restraining hand. “We have. The Sajo magnate is among the converts. He claims political expediency. What he means, of course, is that if the Frankish Empire should lean heavily on little Polia, and he were a man of her Church, he might not be crushed. Ultimately, our king may decide the issue by marriage.”

  Joti Subutai drew his lips back in what was nearly a snarl. “He would never marry a Frank. We are pagan to them—evil, and in the eyes of their Church, irredeemably lost. Our faith means nothing to them. We will all go to some-some everlasting fiery—”

  “Joti!” said Antal sharply and his Apprentice subsided.

  Joti lowered his head and murmured, “I am sorry, Master. It is only that I fail to see such a vast difference in our beliefs. They believe the God speaks; we believe It speaks. We give adoration to Mat and Itugen; they love their God, and His consort, Mariam. I don’t see why such divergence can’t be . . . tolerated, accepted.”

  “You,” Lukasha said reaching over to pat the Apprentice’s knee, “are not able to look at this through the bishop’s eyes. Perhaps you might engage him in conversation about these divergences, as you call them.”

  “What good would that serve?”

  “It is always wise to understand the motivations of one’s adversary.”

  oOo

  Kassia had barely a clear thought after the meeting with Master Antal and Joti. She sensed in Lukasha a dark watchfulness, in Zakarij, a vague apprehension. She added both to her own anxiety. The palace at night was as silent as the surrounding countryside was alive with sound, and Kassia feared sleep would be just as reluctant to visit her here. Seeking solace, she murmured her prayers, then pulled out Marija’s journal and surrounded herself with a soft glow of light by which to read.

  She had now reached Marija’s account of her move to Apprenticeship, which had come within two years of her arrival at Lorant. As Marija had hoped, it was Master Boleslas who requested her as an Apprentice. Ecstatic, she dove into her new role with all the eagerness of youth, recording each of a growing list of achievements in her fat little book. Kassia read of spells she performed—not mere Duets, but Triads, Quartets, Battles and even Squares—of academic badges she earned, of studies she enjoyed. Initially, these things piqued Kassia’s interest—Marija’s spells were what she wanted to hear about—but what she often got was a discourse on history, a study Marija seemed to enjoy above all others. Her passionate scribbles contained no end of references to books and tablets she had unearthed (sometimes quite literally) in the college library and cesia.

  In the middle of her fourth year at the college she wrote:

  It seems Lorant was once a monastery peopled by foreign monks. What must the villagers of Dalibor have thought of that! According to the writings of a monk named Honorius, the ‘natives’ left them quite alone, which was obviously a relief to the monks. They also delved into the arcane, referring to it as ‘theurgy’. To distinguish it, again according to the good Honorius, from the work of the local witches and shamans.

  Honorius hid his epistles beneath a stone bench in what is now the cesia. I might not have found them was I not so scrupulous in my devotion to order, for
it was in replacing a misfiled booklet in the library that the good Pater’s crude map fell into my hands.

  I shouldn’t cast aspersions on his artistry; the poor man was obviously distraught—hand quaking terribly. And no wonder. According to the date on the map, Dalibor—or whatever it was called then—must have been all but in the hands of the Mongol, Batu. I recall reading one of our own histories of that time. ‘Batu kissed Dalibor,’ it said. Ah, there is a wealth of painful irony in that gentle metaphor—a look into the faces of the villagers today is proof that Batu and his men did far more than kiss. I cannot help but wonder after Honorius and his colleagues. Did they escape or did they become martyrs to their faith? I suppose I shall never know.

  oOo

  Kassia awoke from dreams of Marija and hooded monks and faceless men on fleet horses, to find the journal still in her hands and sunlight creeping in at the window. She pulled herself awake, washed, dressed and braided up her hair before performing her morning devotions. With that done, she stood at the window for a time, looking out on the waking city. The buildings seemed to stretch on forever, their rooftops like waves of tile upon a sea of stone. The smoke of cook fires hung in a pungent fog overall, and even from this height and distance, she could hear the muffled sounds of the street.

  Impatient with waiting for a summons, she finally slipped out of her room into the corridor. Sunlight poured through the windows at its northern end while at the other it disappeared into darkness. She headed for the sunlight, wondering what view might present itself from this side of the palace. She was not disappointed, for the windows proved to be atrium doors that opened onto a balcony of pale stone. She pushed through them to find herself suspended above a garden of such beauty and art that she gasped aloud. Below was a verdant carpet of grass offset with arrangements of rock and shrub and vivid flower. The land sloped upward and the shrubs gave way to pyramidal trees that marched upward in a double row, forming a path which Kassia’s eyes followed. They were led through a grove of conifers to the top of the great mound where a crown of white stone rested.