The Spirit Gate

by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

  The next entry was written by an obviously trembling hand. Though they were in his own tongue, the words made no sense to Zakarij.

  Zbaraz lives. The Tamalids are still in power, but Zbaraz lives. Only I seem to know anything of his death. To all others, it is as if he was never gone.

  Dear God, I can’t believe what I have done.

  Puzzled and frustrated, Zakarij ran a rough hand through his hair. What did it mean? That Marija of Ohdan had brought her husband back from the dead? She had spoken of stepping into another world; could that possibly mean she had crossed into the after-world through what she had called the Spirit Gate?

  He glanced at the Bible where it sat on the corner of Kassia’s work table, looking forlorn with one cracked wooden cover gutted, the other completely missing. Picking it up, he began to search for the Book of Proverbs. He found it, and he found more.

  oOo

  When Kassia arrived in the heart of her studio, Zakarij was still sitting at the work table, his head in his hands, the Bible and the journal opened before him. She barely greeted him, merely murmuring, “I’ve got to see Master Lukasha,” and heading for the door.

  Zakarij moved swiftly to intercept her. “I’ve got something I need to show you.”

  “Can it wait? I really need to report—”

  “It can’t wait.” He was dragging her to the work table.

  “Zakarij . . .”

  “It can’t wait! Here. Sit.” He pressed her onto the stool he had lately inhabited. “Now listen.” He paced away from her a step or two then back again, his hands making odd little calming gestures as if he strove to soothe himself. When he faced her again, he said, “About two months after Marija’s daughter, Milada, was born, Zbaraz died.”

  Kassia nodded numbly, feeling as stricken as she might if the news were new, moved more than she thought possible by the news of a death that occurred so long ago, that her own mother had not yet been born. She had to remind herself that both these people were dead now.

  “He was killed by the Tamalids while trying to use his magic against them. They broke into his studio and killed him. Evidently, another of the Mateu, afraid of what Zbaraz’s meddling might mean to Lorant, betrayed him.” He shook his head. “That’s irrelevant. Marija felt she possessed the ability to . . . to put things back the way they were. To bring her husband back to life. She thought the Squared spell—the Traveling spell—had that power.”

  Kassia’s eyes were as big as copper rezes. “The Twilight catalysts?”

  Zakarij nodded. “She did something, Kassia. She . . . went somewhere. To another world, she said. And when she came back, Zbaraz was alive and no one but Marija recalled that he had died. Not even Zbaraz himself.”

  Kassia felt as if her entire being was listening to Zakarij’z words. “But how?”

  “She said the key was in Honorius’ Bible.” He picked up that tattered volume and read from the page that lay open, translating from Latin into Polian. “To all things there is an appointed time, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die: a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted. A time to slay, and a time to heal: a time to break down, and a time to build. A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones: a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embracing. A time to seek, and a time to lose: a time to keep, and a time to cast away. A time to rend, and a time to sew: a time to keep silence, and a time to speak. A time to love, and a time to hate: a time of war, and a time of peace.” He held the book at an angle so she could see the page, and pointed to a Latin word. “Do you see how every occurrence of this word is underlined?”

  She nodded.

  “The word is tempus—time.”

  The realization hit Kassia like a thunderclap. “She traveled in time. She went back in time to prevent Zbaraz from dying.” A flood of thoughts assailed her. Her mother and father . . . Shurik. But no, there was Zakarij now, and . . .

  She swept all that aside and gazed up at him, her eyes not quite focusing on his face. “Maybe we could go back in time and change what’s happened in Tabor. Keep the Bishop from coming to Polia at all.”

  Zakarij was shaking his head. “Marija used the spell more than once, Kassia. She discovered . . . Here, you read it. Tell me what you think it means.”

  Kassia took the torn pages he proffered to her and scanned the first one. She glanced up at him, heart skipping a beat. “These are from Marija’s journal. Where did you find them?”

  “In the Bible. Tucked into the spine. Read it, Kassia.”

  She complied.

  I have come to the conclusion that I can do nothing about the Tamalids. Even retracing and revising my actions that horrendous week I experimented so unwittingly and so arrogantly with the Twilight spells seems to have no effect. They are still here and the yoke of their oppression grows with each passing day. Even the earth beneath our feet suffers their tyranny, growing sere and lifeless. The rains have not come this year, the river is merely a stream, in the lowlands, farmers weep over crops that will not grow and soil that blows away at the slightest breath.

  I feel old. My powers seem somehow dimmer than they were last year. Perhaps I have used something up in my twilight toying that can no longer be replaced. It is as if Itugen has withdrawn Her blessing from me. From all of us. Even so, I can still work with Twilight things. It oppresses me.

  Kassia glanced up at Zakarij. “You think because Marija’s workings with time had no effect, ours must fail?”

  “Read further.”

  She glanced impatiently at the door to her quarters then did as he asked. The next several entries seemed to be about Milada’s growth and progress. Always, there was the barest breath of sorrow in Marija’s tone—sorrow that her daughter would not follow her in the shai arts. Then came an entry written in the angular script of someone extremely agitated.

  I tried again today to undo my stupidity. And yes, again I return to find that the banner of Kesar Tamal still flies over the court in Tabor. Nothing is changed, I thought. Until I arrived home again and went to find my old Master. His rooms were empty, dust-covered and smelled of disuse. When I asked an Initiate what had become of Master Boleslas, he thought I was testing him and recited for me the most sorrowful of tales. Master Boleslas, he told me, died in the first Tamalid assault on this valley. Died because he was in the cesia when the godless savages came upon him rapt in prayer. “He was buried there,” he went on, as if reciting a lesson, “and the cesia left just as the Tamalid soldiers had left it, broken and scarred by fire.”

  I went there, barely able to believe it was true. But there were the scars and, there the ruined altar, and there the grave of my dear Master.

  Indeed, I have changed the course of time. But not at all as I expected.

  This was followed by a peculiar observation: There are worlds behind the glass that should not meet. Whoso opens the Gate between them, opens it at great peril.

  Kassia felt Zakarij’s eyes on her face. “I wonder why she could never change what she meant to change?”

  “Perhaps because she had nothing to do with Tamal overrunning the provinces. Perhaps it never was her fault; she merely assumed it was because it seemed to follow her experimenting with the spell so closely.”

  Kassia nodded. “She couldn’t change the real causes of the Tamalid conquest. Greed, power lust, a thirst for blood. She would have had to go back in time to the moment of Tamal’s birth, or his conception, and interfered with one of those events. Even then, there would be no guarantee that someone of his tribe or race would not pursue the same bloody path.” She glanced up at Zakarij only to come up against his old opacity. “That still doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try—that Master Lukasha shouldn’t try—”

  “What would he change, Kassia? Where would he go to undo what’s happening in Tabor? More to the point, who is Lukasha—who are we—to decide that anything needs to be
changed? Perhaps this is the course events are supposed to take.”

  She had never thought that. Not once. Not for so much as a second. She shook her head, not so much in denial as in bemusement. Zakarij took up the lost pages, turned to one near the bottom of the tattered pile. He read:

  I am a fool. A meddlesome, arrogant fool. And what is the harvest of my arrogance? I remember a Master Boleslas that no one else here ever knew. I have consigned God knows how many people to extinction. I have suffered my daughter to be the first of my family to be born without the shai gifts and I have driven her from my house.

  Badi Isfahani is a good man. I knew it the first time I met him in the market square. And yet, because he calls himself a Muslim, follower of a prophet I have never known, I deemed him an unacceptable mate for my daughter. Her father, may Mat watch over his soul, would not have been so prejudiced—but I resisted the love that grew between Badi and Milada. I tried to singe it, to wound it, to drive it away. Instead, I drove away my only child.

  Stupid woman. If I had left well-enough alone, they would still be here, for though his customs were different than ours, Badi Isfahani knew the value of the bond between a mother and a daughter. He was willing to accept our tradition, to live in the village of his wife’s family, to take no other wives. I was the one who could not accept. I must argue that God was both male and female when he maintained God was neither. I must press him to drink wine, to eat foods that were forbidden to him. I, who tried so to make my daughter see her beloved as inflexible and dogmatic, only proved myself to be so. I am the cause of my daughter’s disaffection.

  What is the depth of my stupidity? That even as I write this, I am thinking I can go back to those days and put things right. I can love my bond son-to-be and withdraw my own prejudice from between us. Yet, well I know that the books I have sealed and the tablets I have hidden should stay forever sealed, forever hidden.

  You, reading this, will wonder why I have not made certain of their destruction. I can only give the reason that, long ago, Pater Honorius gave when he buried his secrets. Through the will of God these things came into being. I have meddled enough in things that are above and beyond me. I have unloosed enough destruction. Let someone else take the responsibility for the destruction of these things.

  If history is kind, no one will remember Marija of Ohdan. But because of me, history will long remember Arik Tamal, Emperor.

  “Arik,” Kassia murmured. “That’s the first time she’s gotten Tamal’s name right.”

  Zakarij did not take his eyes from her face. “She never got it wrong.”

  “But here, she called him ‘Kesar’.” She indicated the earlier pages, which she still held.

  “Yes. That was the name of the man who set out to conquer these territories.”

  Kassia shook her head. “Arik. Tamal the First was Arik Tamal.”

  “‘Because of me,’” Zakarij quoted softly, “‘history will long remember Arik Tamal, Emperor’.” When Kassia still looked perplexed, he said, “Do you recall what you said about returning to the moment of Tamal’s birth?”

  Kassia was certain every bit of blood had drained from her face. “She killed Kesar Tamal?”

  “She killed the man she knew as the conqueror of Polia. And as you said, there was no guarantee that some other member of his race or tribe wouldn’t rise up to take his place.”

  “So it was inevitable.”

  Zakarij gave a smile that was anything but mirthful. “It was more than that. What do you know of Tamalid history?”

  “I know what everyone knows. Arik Tamal and a horde of barbarian soldiers descended upon Polia and the darughas like locusts upon wheat. They killed, they enslaved, they conquered.”

  Zakarij sat on the edge of the table and leaned toward her. “Let me tell you the legend as I heard it from Shagtai when I was a boy: The family of the Lord Tamal were in their spring home when a White Mother came among them.”

  Kassia could not taker her eyes from his. “No.”

  “The White Mother prophesied great things for the unborn child of the lord’s favorite wife. They invited the woman into their compound. In the night, a monstrous whirlwind arose and devoured everything and everyone within the compound walls. The fire it brought glowed so brightly, it could be seen from miles away, and no one close by dared look upon it. There were no remains of either man or beast, only scorched, sodden earth and shattered buildings. The Lord Tamal was gone, and his Lady and unborn child with him. And so, every man, woman and child under their protection. The only survivor of the clan was—”

  “Arik Tamal,” Kassia murmured. “How was he saved?”

  “He was sickly. Because of that, he was not in the compound, but instead at the home of the village healer. He was two years old. But when he was old enough to understand, he learned it was a White Mother who caused the destruction of his family. He hated the shai, he hated the Mateu, he hated the village shaman who failed to foresee the calamity. According to Marija’s journal, Kesar Tamal was an unsavory man who lacked the sternness to control his own generals. He had no great hatred for either shai or Mateu and merely indulged his shamans’ gluttony for borrowed magic. We know what Arik Tamal was—a monster who persecuted us wherever he found us. Who took great personal pleasure in stealing away our lives and loved ones.”

  “You’re saying he was Marija’s gift to us.”

  “She’s saying it, Kassia. That, and that the gift of the Spirit Gate is destruction.”

  She really looked at him now. Really saw him. “We have to warn Master Lukasha.”

  oOo

  ”He has asked not to be disturbed.” Damek formed a small but impenetrable barrier between Kassia and Zakarij, and the stairway that led up to Master Lukasha’s studio.

  “He sent me to Tabor on an errand of some importance,” Kassia told him. “He won’t mind being disturbed for my report.” She took a step toward the stair. Damek moved to block her again.

  “This is serious, Damek,” Kassia told him. “We must speak to Master Lukasha immediately. If you don’t let us in, we’ll only resort to magic.” She raised a hand as if to begin her spell.

  In the second that Damek hesitated, Lukasha’s voice came to them from the top of the stair. “Send them up Damek.”

  An expression of extreme displeasure flickered across Damek’s face, but he stepped aside anyway, muttering beneath his breath, “I was only doing what I was asked.”

  Kassia slipped past him and all but vaulted up the curving stair, Zakarij close on her heels. Lukasha was waiting for them, standing placidly among the artifacts of his calling, sunlit motes swirling chaotically about him.

  “You’ll have to forgive Damek. He is a good assistant, but as you know, he is occasionally overzealous in following the letter of my orders. How are things in Tabor, Kiska? Were you able to see Mishka?” Lukasha asked, then glanced at Kassia’s face. “You are bursting with something, Kiska. What is it?”

  “It’s about the Twilight spell, Master,” Kassia told him. “You mustn’t use it.”

  He frowned. “Why must I not?”

  “The spell allows its possessor to travel through time,” said Zakarij. “Marija found the key. She used the spell several times, against her better judgment, and owned the time portal it created. The Spirit Gate, she called it.”

  Lukasha’s face seemed to radiate light. “Travel through time? How did Marija use it?”

  Zakarij and Kassia glanced at each other, then Kassia said, “She tried to change the past. She did change the past. Her husband died at the hands of Tamalid soldiers. Using the Spirit Gate she went back in time and changed the events leading to his death. She brought him back, Master. Back from death. By creating a past in which he didn’t die.”

  Lukasha marveled. “Yet you tell me I mustn’t use this wonderful spell?”

  “There were horrible consequences,” Zakarij said. “Marija didn’t understand all the forces at play. She didn’t understand that the events she sought to
change were interconnected with other events she hadn’t meant to touch. She changed more than she bargained for. During one of her excursions, she made a past in which her Master, Boleslas, was killed instead of her husband. And during another . . .” He licked dry lips and went on. “During another, she used the Gate to create a vortex that devoured an entire Mongol clan. Her spell killed hundreds of people.”

  He frowned. “Why would she do that?”

  “She was trying to destroy an unborn child named Kesar Tamal. A child she knew would one day conquer Polia and hold its people in slavery. She destroyed his entire family, but for one member, Arik Tamal.”

  That Lukasha understood was clearly written in his eyes. “Then the old legend . . .”

  “Is no legend at all,” Kassia finished. “It was Marija of Ohdan, trying to undo something she felt responsible for. Marija thought the Tamalids came because of her early, ignorant experiments with the Twilight names. She was wrong—that much is clear. But in her misguided shame, she felt she had committed a wrong only she could rectify.”

  “Instead,” Zakarij added, “her every attempt to change the past only warped the present and future more. It warped her, as well, until she was driven to murder an entire clan.”

  Lukasha was silent for a long time, his eyes on the journal in Kassia’s hands, his face impassive. She watched for any sign of emotion in his face. Well she knew the hopes he had invested in the Squared spell and its Twilight catalysts. Well she understood that she and Zakarij were snatching from him what he may have taken as the only salvation for Michal Zelimir and a kingdom that seemed to be threatened on every side. She saw none of that in his face.

  “I’m sorry, Master,” she said.

  He made a dismissive gesture and turned away from them. “I understand now why Honorius and Marija both sought to hide the spell. My only question is why they did not completely destroy it and obliterate all mention of it.”

  “We wondered that as well,” Kassia admitted. “Marija only says that she felt she had already overstepped her bounds by presuming to use it, and felt she had no right to destroy what was, at its source, a spiritual creation of Mat and Itugen.”