It was then that Benedict, clutching the golden cross that hung from a jeweled chain about his neck, lay a shimmering sheet of protection over the royal party. He placed himself outside the Shield, hovering at its rim, watching Mateu and Aspirant with bright eyes.
Lukasha’s gaze was on Kassia. “You would betray me, Kiska?”
“You betrayed me, Master. You betrayed Zakarij. You would betray our king.”
“What is any one life compared to the lives of an entire people? Would you see this nation trampled under foot? Would you see its shrines desecrated and its religion reviled? Would you raise your son in a place where he is considered a witch or a demon?”
Hot tears slipped down Kassia’s cheeks, fracturing the brightness of the Spirit Gate into a haze of glory. “What you’re doing won’t stop that. It will only make matters worse. The Empire will over-run us.”
“The Empire cannot respond to what it doesn’t know and can’t understand. The news it hears of this will be what I choose to tell.”
“You, Master? I thought the fate of a nation was too great a thing to rest in the hands of one man.”
“The Sacred Circle will rule this land. With this power we shall hold off all would-be conquerors. We will defend Polia.”
“As you defend her now?” asked Zakarij. “By murder?”
“Not murder!” cried Lukasha. “Banishment. I do what must be done! I hadn’t the courage before—I was weak and unwilling. I am neither of those things now. The line of Zelimir ends here. My only sorrow is that your life must end with it, Kiska. You too can open the Spirit Gate. I cannot suffer you to live.”
He leapt back into the Gate’s maw; it received him with a churning hiss of color and light. He raised both hands and Kassia could feel the hot core of power building up within him, drawing the substance of the Gate to his command. She raised her own hands as if to counter-attack, but there was no weapon she possessed that could assail him.
Now, Bishop Benedict chose sides and leapt into the fray, attacking Lukasha with fire. The streamers of garish lightning, so impressive to behold, ricocheted benignly off the taut surface of Lukasha’s Shield.
Kassia felt as if a bolt of that lightning had struck her soul. She dropped her own Shield and reached out to Lukasha, but she did not attack. Instead, she compounded the ward that fed his Shield, adding to it a Duet of earth and fire, sealing that with a fiber of Squared Twilight. Her Master’s Shield was stronger now than before; nothing could penetrate it . . . nor, Kassia hoped, could anything escape it.
While Benedict continued to assault the impervious barrier, a blossom of power opened in Lukasha’s hands, exploding outward in a flaming torrent. In a heartbeat it reached the inner wall of the amplified Shield and turned back on itself—on him. The space the Mateu occupied became a globe of blinding fire, and for a moment, a tiny Sun existed in the great hall of Zelimir’s palace. When the moment passed, the Sun was snuffed out, collapsing on its lone occupant with silent finality.
Kassia let the spell decay. With no one to fight its closing, the great, golden Portal began to constrict. With a shriek of pure agony, Damek emerged from his hiding place and threw himself toward the collapsing maw. Before he could be stopped, before Kassia could gather her thoughts to reenergize the spell, Damek had flung himself into the vortex. An instant later it collapsed completely, wiping Damek from sight.
In the profound silence that followed—a silence that seemed to be more than the mere absence of sound—Kassia began to quiver. In a moment, she was shaking so hard she could no longer stand. She slipped to the floor, oblivious to anything around her, insensate and paralyzed until she felt Beyla in her arms. She embraced him, tightly, murmuring his name over and over, her voice seeming to come to her from a great distance.
Gradually, movement returned to the hall. Fiorella began to cry, quietly at first, then sobbing as if she had endured the tortures of hell. Other voices, hushed, tentative, trickled into the quiet, filling it, until a myriad voices rose, asking questions only Kassia could answer. She wanted only to stay as she was, her arms around her son, Zakarij’s arms around them both; she wanted only to flee to Lorant. Swamped in the babble of sound, she felt Zakarij stiffen and jerk upright, sensed a flurry of movement from the dais. She raised her eyes to the source of the uproar and saw through the shimmer of Zakarij’s hastily raised Shield, that the Bishop of Tabor was poised to strike at her.
The attack never came. Benedict’s volley was stopped, not by arcane means, but by a sword in the hand of the king.
“Flinch, Bishop,” said Zelimir, resting the point of the blade against the cleric’s neck, “and no amount of magic will save you. You have done enough harm here.”
oOo
”How did you know to come to me? I was trying very hard not to call out to you.” Kassia looked out at the green of the palace cesia from where she sat upon the balustrade of the balcony just outside the north-facing atrium.
Beside her, Zakarij stirred with a rustle of Mateu-white silk. “Shagtai. When Lukasha took Beyla, he summoned me in Ratibor. You should have called out to me, Kassia. The moment you realized what Lukasha meant to do, you should have summoned me.”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t risk you, Zakarij. I brought all this about with my meddling and perverse curiosity. It was my battle. I was the Keeper of the Gate. I am still the Keeper of the Gate.”
“You might have been killed—”
“Then Beyla would have been motherless and he would have needed you more than ever. I couldn’t risk you.”
He turned her to face him and pulled her down from the low marble wall into his arms. “You’re a flawed woman, Kassia. You’re too stubborn, too reckless and too dear to me to be allowed either of those tragic imperfections.”
She smiled wanly. “Don’t expect me to change.”
“I’ll compromise. You can be one of those things, but not both. Which will it be—stubborn or reckless? Choose.”
“Oh, stubborn, by all means. I am quite willing to give up being reckless.”
He kissed her gently, as if to seal the whimsical bargain, letting his lips linger on hers. The ache in her heart subsided a little.
When he raised his head a moment later, he said, “Don’t lay the blame for this thing entirely upon yourself. I was just as headstrong as you were when it came to pursuing Marija’s secrets, and just as eager as you were to put them in Master Lukasha’s hands. We must now decide what to do with the fruits of our cowardice. Perhaps we should do what our predecessors could not. Perhaps we should destroy all record of the spell.”
Kassia laid her forehead against his shoulder, wishing, with all her heart that they might do just that. “Shagtai says we must not, and I believe he’s right. It is too great a magic for any of us to claim the authority to order it destroyed.”
“So, then we hide it, as those before us have hidden it? Will it once again lie buried until some curious soul rediscovers it and in ignorance, makes the same mistake Marija made—the same mistake we made?”
“No. This thing must be remembered, Zakarij, and its danger must be well-understood. Hiding it is not the answer. Knowing it is the answer. Comprehending it is the answer. I will comprehend it and I will teach Beyla to comprehend it. Shagtai says this is a thing to be passed down from one shai Gate Keeper to the next and that I am now . . . responsible for it.”
“That’s unfair!” Zakarij objected. “You weren’t responsible for Lukasha’s guilt, or his madness. Nor were you completely responsible for the unearthing of this magic.”
“Still, I feel he is right.”
“Kassia . . .”
She looked up into his face. “I feel he is right, Zakarij. And I don’t speak of some mild intuition. Please, we agreed I might be stubborn.”
He was about to say more, but the sound of someone clearing their throat several paces away parted them. The king stood in the doorway to the atrium, looking as if he had aged a decade in the past hours.
�
��I would speak to you, Aspirant Kassia, if you would grant me leave.”
Such conciliatory tones from her sovereign were pleasing to Kassia’s ears, though she was not certain she should trust them. She bowed and said, “As you wish, Majesty.”
Zakarij merely inclined his head and said, “I’ll go check on Beyla,” then journeyed out into the gardens.
The king gazed at Kassia long enough to make her uncomfortable before he spoke again. “I have been a fool. This is not unknown to you.”
She tilted her head this way and that, saying only, “What brings you to this conclusion, Majesty?”
“Having a clear head and heart for the first time in many weeks. Bishop Benedict has been recalled to Avignon, or so he says. I suspect he means only to regroup. He is taking Fiorella and his handful of priests with him.”
She glanced at him sharply. “I’m sorry, Sire.”
“Feel sorry only for Fiorella. She came close to wedding a man who would have grown to despise her, and she had the most terrifying experience of her young life. She no longer desires to marry a Polian king, a thing she has made clear to her Bishop in no uncertain terms. So, he is taking her back to Lombardy. At least, that is her intention. I’m unconvinced he will not use his powers of persuasion upon her again. Still, I think he may have also had the most terrifying experience of his life at your hands. I know I did.”
Kassia groaned. “Please, my lord, don’t credit me with too much.”
“Call me ‘Mishka’. It would do much to retrieve my sense of self and honor.”
She inclined her head. “And what has this terrifying experience taught you, Mishka?”
“That I am fonder of you than I knew.” He raised his hand to silence her protest. “But not as Master Lukasha would have had it. Such fondness, I think, I must give to the woman I would make my Queen—if she hasn’t fled all the way back to Bytomierz. Ah, even if she’s done that. You know, Master Lukasha was not entirely wrong in his assessment of me. I have not worn my father’s crown well. I will not say I am the spineless weakling your master painted me, but I have heeded too many advisers and attempted to serve too many interests. I must get my house in order, Kassia, and I shall. I will make peace with the Turks on other grounds than marriage.” His eyes searched her face. “What will you do?”
“I shall go home and marry. I shall strive to become the best Mateu I can become. I shall try not to be so reckless, or so I’ve promised Zakarij. Every morning I will pray that I never be tempted to open the Gate again.”
“Never? Is there no way to use it to good purpose?”
Kassia turned her eyes outward to the cesia on its perfect hill. “Perhaps not for one who is both reckless and stubborn.” She took a deep breath, hoping it would cleanse the pall of sadness from her soul. “I am the steward of this magic, and after me, Beyla will be its steward. I’ll have much to do toward educating both of us to guard it well.”
They parted then, Zelimir to send one envoy to the province of Bytomierz and another to the Turks in Zemic, Kassia to meet with the grieving Mateu and brethren of Tabor. She strove to make them understand all that had happened, strove to help them deal with the loss of Master Lukasha. Not all of them trusted her, she knew, nor believed her blameless in their brother’s destruction. There was little she could do to allay that distrust, so she left them to return to Dalibor.
She, Zakarij and Beyla chose the cesia as their point of leave-taking, and it was as they approached its tree-flanked aisle that Tabor’s departing Bishop intercepted them.
“Do not believe you have won,” he told them. “I will not lose these souls to you and your black arts.”
“You, Bishop?” asked Kassia. “I thought it was your Lord who would possess these souls.”
“You twist my words, She-Devil.”
“Your words come out of your mouth twisted, Your Grace.”
He ignored the barb. “I will return in the spring. When I return, I will bring new priests with me, courageous men who will not be affrighted by your deviltry. Men with whom I will have shared some of my special knowledge. I mean to establish a permanent bishopric in Tabor and a parish in Dalibor. You and I will meet again, sorceress. Do not doubt it.” He turned in a swish of splendid robes and returned to the palace.
“I don’t,” murmured Kassia to his spear-straight back.
oOo
There was further grieving in Dalibor, and Kassia insisted a paiza be placed in the Mateu crypt for Master Lukasha, to honor the man he had once been. The Sacred Circle chose Master Radman to replace Lukasha as Headmaster of Lorant and Neutral during their deliberations. Master Tamukin was elected to complete the sacred number. The first action of the new Circle was to vote Kassia to the station of Mateu. The Investiture was held at Reaping just before a second ceremony that joined Kassia and Zakarij in marriage. Both her sisters attended, with both their husbands and all her nieces and nephews. Even Janka and Blaz congratulated her with smiles, though she had no illusions the smiles indicated anything more than pleasure at having a relative in a position of such prestige and power.
Shagtai made her a special kite for the occasion—a kite that gleamed in the darkening sky, surrounded by a flurry of tiny spirit lights. Arax-itu also provided magic for the celebration. She read and performed a work that was at once poem and spell, and which wrote her delight at Kassia’s Investiture and wedding against a backdrop of night and stars.
Even in the midst of her joy, Kassia felt the loss of her master. He was one more ghost among the several that haunted her—her mother and father, Shurik, Damek, the babe from New Dalibor.
On the eve of her Investiture, dressed in the silken white ceremonial robes of a Mateu, she walked alone through the town where she had lived her entire life. People, seeing her, now waved or called ‘hello’ or inclined their heads to her. Months ago she would have savored that victory, now she shielded her wounds and nodded in return.
She wandered far—all the way up to the stone fountain in New Dalibor’s vast cobbled square. She sat at the edge of the bowl, listening to the hiss of water as it cascaded from the central font. There was a full moon tonight and she tilted her head back and allowed herself to become lost in its glow. She vaguely heard voices about her as folk strolled about the square, enjoying some of the last balmy nights they would know.
A hand tugged at her sleeve. “Mistress?
She gathered her thoughts and turned.
“Oh, it is you!”
Every drop of blood drained from Kassia’s suddenly chill face. A red-haired young woman stood before her. A woman she still saw, all too frequently, in her dreams. She was speechless.
“I beheld your wedding tonight, and your Investiture. I wanted to speak to you then but . . . well, I only wanted to thank you.”
“Thank me?”
“Yes.” The woman grasped her hand. “For the warning about fire. Our house did burn, Mistress. But because of you, my child was safe.”
Kassia reeled with wonder and relief. “How?”
“Simply that I refused to leave candles in his room at night. My maidservant and my husband were both angry about that, as you can imagine, for it meant they must carry lamps with them whenever they went to check on the child in the night. But I would allow no candles—I’m that stubborn. So, when the fire came, it started in the maid’s room, of all places. She’d left her candle to burn and fell asleep.”
“She wasn’t—?”
“No one was harmed, Mistress. Though we lost a fair portion of the house. We’re with my husband’s parents now, till we rebuild, and I can tell you there’s no night-time candles left to burn there either, and every grate damped down tight as can be. Thank you again, Mistress.” She smiled, tentatively and turned to go.
Kassia, amazed, let out a chuff of breath.
“Oh and Mistress . . .” The woman had turned back to her. “I’m carrying again and . . . if I’ve a girl, would it honor you if I gave her your name?”
Kassia nodded. �
��It would indeed.”
“Thank you, Mistress . . . Kassia.” She smiled, curtseyed and all but ran across the square.
Kassia sat a moment longer by the fountain, gazing up at the moon. She thought of her ghosts, and their presence brought to her mind Shagtai’s little shrine.
My ancestors, he’d said, and my loved ones who wait for me.
She would have such a shrine, she decided. She would speak to Shagtai about it, and he would help her construct one. She would keep her ghosts there. Ghosts and ancestors and loved ones who waited for her beyond the Spirit Gate.
Polian glossary
alka: a medium sized silver coin worth 1/2 rega
Celek: day of worship
cesia: a holy place, always atop a hill. Lorant is built around a cesia.
darugha: a Polian province
darughachi: provincial governor
Mateu: sorcerer-priest/priestesses of Polian religion, the Mateu are men and women who have shown magical abilities and who have studied to turn those abilities to the use of their people.
Matyash: weekly worship service held in the cesia
onghot: (Mongol) icons representing ones ancestors
paiza: a tablet of authority made of stone, wood or metal and inscribed with the bearer's credentials
pitar: a tiny coin of semi-precious stone roughly equivalent to a quarter
shai: fey folk who serve as seers, healers and augurs. Shai are rare — male shai even rarer.
rega: a rectangular silver coin roughly the equivalent of a dollar
rez: a copper coin, roughly equivalent to a penny
five rega: a larger version of the rega with a pressed layer of gold
Days of the Week
Roman (Julian) Polian
The Spirit Gate Page 42