by Tia Reed
“There is no part-time apprenticeship, not if you truly hope to master the crystals.”
Vinsant hummed again. No doubt Father had agreed to this. Levi might have taken the liberty, but Arun would not. Time for the next question.
His mentor stopped anything coming out of his mouth with a pointed look at the fallen candles.
“The ser–” Vinsant started to say.
Arun’s expression grew sterner. Vinsant retrieved the candles, and jammed them into the holder. No one would be any the wiser about his candle-fighting skill if they lit the first. Too bad the second was broken through the middle. Since Arun had continued on, he left the top half flopping over the middle of the wick, and jogged on.
They stopped in front of a large tapestry depicting Shah Guntek making obeisance before a statue of Mahktos. It was supposed to hide the worn stone staircase to the mahktashaan lair. In truth, the lowliest scullion gossiped about the worst kept secret in the palace. Not that it mattered. Nobody except an initiated mahktashaan knew how to release the beeswaxed mahogany panel behind it. Vae’oeldin knew Vinsant had tried.
“Tell me how to access the stairs,” he said, knowing he was pushing his luck.
“When the time is right,” Arun said, a hand over the crystal at his chest. It pulsed once, a faint cerulean light seeping through the cracks between his fingers. The panel clicked open.
“You have to have magic, right?”
Arun did not answer, which Vinsant took to be an affirmative. He sucked on his cheek as they spiralled into a gloom penetrated only by the glow from Arun’s crystal. Now the damp, dark stone shielded them from prying ears, the Minoria was about to regret his call for questions.
“Was it Levi’s suggestion for Father to announce Lord Ahkdul’s marriage proposal in front of Ambassador deq Ikher?” He would have asked Mariano but his brother was sounding condescending of late.
“You will hereupon need to address your master by his title, Vinsant. I do not know what conversation passed between the Majoria and the Shah, but your father is capable of reaching his own decisions.”
“But Father…” Vinsant said, trailing off. Their feet tapped toward a faint light, and he detected traces of rosemary in the cool air. They had to be nearing the lair.
“Can you think of no reason for him to do so?”
Vinsant scratched his nose. “That’s not fair. You are answering a question with a question and I asked first.”
“You had better get used to it. The mahktashaan initiate only those who prove themselves worthy.”
“You’re supposed to be an instructor.”
“A good teacher challenges his student to find answers for himself.”
“It’s not as though I haven’t thought about it.” He considered a few moments longer. “To embarrass Kordahla then, as part of her punishment.”
“He was giving her a way out, Vinsant. When deq Ikher reports the conversation to Ahkdul and Lord Hudassan, they will have no recourse to offence if negotiations fall apart. Politics is a dangerous game. It would not do for Verdaan to believe Terlaan thinks itself so high above its neighbour it would refuse to marry a daughter to the heir.”
Thoughtful, Vinsant chewed his cheek. “But that was before Levi discovered the meaning of the grappers.”
“Indeed it was.”
The dryness of the answer left Vinsant wondering. It seemed the only way out for Kordahla was to do as the djinn suggested. Unless – and now his thoughts seemed to fly of their own accord – a more suitable suitor could be found. Someone kind. Someone who would not mind having him around. Someone who would not prefer to have him around while he neglected Kordahla. Someone like–
“How long have you liked Kordahla?” he asked, swelling in the chest because the tiny pause was telling.
Arun turned his head a fraction. “About as long as I have liked you, Vinsant, which, since you are no doubt going to ask, was the first time we met.”
“You can’t blame my sister for acting the way she did with the porrin. She’s usually quite responsible.” He winced because he sounded obvious even to his immature ears.
Their boots scuffed onto cold stone. “I think your other questions will have to wait,” Arun said.
Vinsant bent around him. Through an archway, the white glow of crystals threw the hexagonal antechamber into shadow. Djinn, did he want to explore! Too bad the next room was their destination. Inside, eight mahktashaan, robed, hooded and gloved in black, stood around a central stone altar lined with clear crystals and strewn with fragrant rosemary and thyme. Others waited around the periphery, each with a crystal which threw a unique colour into the room. He eyed a spot right in the middle of the action, but Arun tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to three boys dressed in white cotton churidar and kurta.
“What have I missed?” he asked, falling in beside them.
“Nothing,” the tallest of the three hissed. “They’ve been waiting for the Minoria.”
The opportunity for introductions was curtailed by a mahktashaan who held a finger to his lips before reaching for a crystal in a sconce. “Allumin”, he said, and the crystal sparked to life. It was one awesome trick that looked easy enough. Vinsant jumped for the next crystal.
“Allumin,” he said, brushing it with his fingers. How was he to know the word would echo around the chamber? He felt the hot, coloured eyes of every mahktashaan turn upon him and wondered how he could disown the incoherent gurgle coming from his throat. He tried to meld with the wall but risked a desperate glance up at the sconce. It dashed his hopes. Their stares most definitely did not signal the performance of an amazing feat.
“Are you djinn-touched?” the tall lad snarled when the mahktashaan had struck the crystal and moved on. “Shut up and keep still before you get us thrown out.”
A commoner could not use such a tone with a prince and hope to remain unpunished. About to enlighten the vagrant as to whom he addressed, Vinsant caught the Majoria in his blacker than night cloak glowering at him, and clamped his jaw firmly shut. The rules had obviously changed in more ways than Arun had intimated. Lucky for him, the mahktashaan were keen to start the ceremony. He had a feeling Levi would be a hard master, even with an intelligent, talented and dashing prince. Problem was, he didn’t understand a word of the rite. Ten minutes later, he was squirming. When Arun had said the Majoria was going to examine his fish, he had envisaged bolts of lightning flying, and the grapper coming to life to speak in Laanan. So far, the mahktashaan were merely forming ranks, chanting incomprehensible magic words, and stomping with military precision. There had to be something nearby worth investigating to relieve the tedium. He sidled to the next archway and looked in. The room was also hexagonal in shape, empty and boring. When he crept back, several of the soldier magicians were forming two rows in front of the boys. At an abrupt word from Levi, the entire contingent slapped hands upon their crystals, dimming the light in the room. The two closest mahktashaan stepped forward, took the plump boy’s arms and escorted him down the row to the Majoria, where he knelt just like a prisoner about to face the block. Vinsant wriggled his way into a better position to see. It was nothing special. Levi held his crystal to the trembling boy’s forehead, it glowed that peculiar black, and then the elated apprentice was instructed to move aside.
“Go for it,” he said as the shortest boy trotted down the line. “Or not,” he muttered as he was ignored. Then he suffered a pang of guilt. Levi’s crystal failed to light. As if that wasn’t humiliation enough, the mahktashaan stomped and turned their backs. Shorty swallowed and kept his head down as his guards led him out of the room in the direction of the stairs.
Beside him, Vinsant heard the last boy, the tall one who had spoken to him, take a deep breath. The ranks stomped and turned back, and the boy processed down the line in the firm grasp of his escort. As he knelt before Levi, Vinsant found himself crossing his fingers, and rocking onto his toes. The crystal barely sparked, but it seemed to be enough. The two boys were fo
rmally welcomed and urged to offer their thanks to Mahktos. A mahktashaan with a green crystal led them to the door beyond the altar. The tall one had the gall to smirk over his shoulder. Vinsant had a mind to strut right past him and demand obeisance. But this was not his father’s throne room, and he was aware he had already been indulged. Young as he was, he had honour. Father had seen to that. Quite apart from the lack of respect he would suffer from the other apprentices, he could not bear to think that one day Mariano would be accepting advice from an ill-equipped Majoria who had attained his position through political manoeuvring, and not because he had progressed through the ranks.
“Wait,” he said, loud enough for all to hear as his own escort had him bustling after the apprentices. “I need to be tested.”
All movement stopped. His escorts stepped away from him and looked to the Majoria for direction. Arun rescued them from embarrassment by guiding Vinsant into the hastily reforming rows.
“Vinsant, you have sealed your fate,” Arun whispered. “Should you fail this, we cannot train you.”
“And you could without this initiation?”
“Matters are complicated,” Arun said, which was no answer at all.
Vinsant pushed his chin up, and kept what he hoped was eye contact with the Majoria all the way down the row. It was hard to tell with that hood drawn low. What he wanted to do was rib the guards with their burning grip. When they pushed him to his knees, he stared into Levi’s hood, silently begging Vae’oeldin for the privilege to train as a mahktashaan.
The crystal, when it touched his forehead, was cool. He strained his eyes upward hoping to detect a glimmer of light. Felt his stomach drop when he realised the only illumination came from the periphery of the room. In the instant he sagged in defeat, the crystals on the altar sparked, and a blinding light burst from the Majoria’s crystal. It seared the skin on his forehead, and a force unlike anything he had ever felt pummelled into him, sending him flying down the row of mahktashaan onto his back. Winded and shocked, he lay where he was, watching the shadows retreat across the ceiling as all the coloured crystals flared to life.
“Can you rise?” Arun’s voice was urgent. He helped Vinsant into a sitting position.
“Do I get to train?” Vinsant asked, holding his throbbing head and wondering if the blow was a very public rejection.
Laying a hand on his head, Arun murmured a few words. Surprised to find his headache gone, Vinsant looked around. The mahktashaan stood rigid in their ranks.
“You most assuredly may train,” Arun said, helping him to his knees to accept Levi’s formal welcome. “Now come. I promised your sister I would take personal responsibility for you, and after that little display none will dare challenge your special tutelage.”
Djinn, did he have questions. Too bad now didn’t seem to be the time. He joined the other apprentices in the next room, and grinned when he realised their stares had turned from resentment to envy. Pretending to smugness, he looked straight ahead. And gawped. At the far wall, a huge crystal statue of Mahktos stretched from floor to ceiling, a core of gold visible inside. The three of them fell into a kowtow.
“Rise, lads, but keep your heads bowed before Mahktos,” a mahktashaan with an amber crystal cautioned. He bowed before the image of the god, then beckoned the plump boy over and positioned him between the sitting god’s mighty knees. “I, Branak, mahktashaan servant of Mahktos and Terlaan, beseech you, divine Mahktos, to bestow a quartz upon Gram deq Larren, Spark of the Crystal.”
At Gram’s name, chimes pealed through the chamber and the crystal god glowed, bathing Gram in its light. One of the god’s nails flew off his pointed finger. Gram caught it with a joyous yelp. Given the force with which the stone flew, he must have been expecting it. Vinsant paid greater attention as Branak threaded a leather thong through a hole in the white quartz and strung it around his charge’s neck.
“Naikil deq Versek, Spark of the Crystal,” Branak said.
Proud shoulders back, the tall boy moved into position. The statue chimed again. Light flowed from the statue before a piece of quartz sprung off the god’s nail to land neatly in Naikil’s hand. Vinsant edged toward the statue. The finger was perfect all the way to the tip of the nail, no sign it had just lost two pieces of stone.
“Prince Vinsant deq Wilshem, Spark of the Crystal,” Branak announced when the quartz was around Naikil’s neck, drawing a gasp from Gram and a sharp movement from Naikil.
Vinsant stood in place. Beads of sweat formed on his brow as the light baked him, isolating him, cocooning him so that the chimes sounded like they were ringing beneath water. He watched the nail, waiting to catch the gift, struggling to breathe the humid, herb-scented light. Expanding his chest required so much effort that he collapsed to his knees. An eternity later, he keeled over, sure he was about to suffocate. He reached for the nail. The god’s finger stabbed through his chest, into his heart bringing such excruciating pain that he wished he were dead. Maybe he was, or else how could he see the god with his eyelids squeezed tight. He begged Mahktos, Vae’oeldin, any god whose name he could remember for the pain to stop. His mind tripped back to all the minor hurts he had suffered as a child, to Kordahla kissing them better. Where was she? Where was she when he most needed her? A flicker of conscience reminded him that it was she who needed him. He grabbed at the raking finger and pushed back. Mahktos seemed not to expect that, hesitated in his torture. Vinsant cried out and struck at the God with a sword that miraculously appeared in his hand. Crystal shattered all around him, raining down from the idol, leaving only a core of gold.
He lay sweat-soaked and trembling, exhausted and gasping for air. “Wh-,” Vinsant said, barely able to keep his eyes open. “Whe-ere’s mm-yy quartz?” His fingers scratched around the floor but there was nothing there. As Arun lifted him into his arms like a baby, he reached down to keep searching.
“I can walk,” he murmured, unwilling to bear the indignity of being carried like a swooning girl. Unfortunately, he passed out.
When Vinsant woke, he was lying in a rough bed in a hexagonal room dimly lit by a solitary crystal in a bracket above his head. A few black robes hung on a row of hooks on the adjoining wall. Six more beds lined the wall opposite, while tables and shelves with pots of salve in perfect, obscene order abutted the remaining three. An unfamiliar mahktashaan with a mint green crystal was sitting beside him, soft words on his lips, and a lean face shadowed under his hood. He broke off as soon as he saw Vinsant blinking awake.
“Can you stand?” he asked.
Vinsant meant to explain his muscles had turned to jelly but his voice only managed a croak. His hand travelled to his chest. There was no crystal hanging upon it. Groaning, he rolled so he could hang his head over the edge of the bed and be sick. Fortunately, someone had placed a bucket by the bed.
“You will follow me,” the mahktashaan spat, striding out of the only door. Vinsant stared after him for several heartbeats before forcing himself to sit up, grip the edge of the bed and push himself onto shaky legs. He tottered from room to hexagonal room after his brisk guide, their passage confused by the varying numbers of doors each possessed. How anyone could wind his way through the maze, Vinsant could not fathom. Even the floor stones were hexagonal, which messed with his orientation big time. When he halted to catch his breath yet again, he notched it up as one more puzzle to crack. Not now, though. The impatient mahktashaan had returned to the far doorway where, arms folded, he waited until Vinsant forced himself to stumble on.
What little strength he possessed deserted him when they emerged into the temple through a side door. Mahktos towered above them, crystal shell intact and crimson eyes boring into Vinsant. An involuntary sound escaped him, strangled and weak. He leaned against the archway, rooted to the spot, because no way could he survive another magical battering. Shattered did not even begin to describe how he felt.
“Vinsant?” The Minoria placed a hand on his head, flattening errant spikes of his hair. Delicious warmth spre
ad into his blood, easing the nauseating trembles. Too bad the hostility oozing from the dozens of mahktashaan filing into the room dulled whatever calming magic Arun had used. Vinsant pressed against the stone. Its cold support beat exposing his back.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
The Minoria shook his head. “Do not speak unless Levi or I address you. You are in a precarious position, my prince.”
His title was not what he had wanted to hear. The precise, echoing stomps of the troop, either. Approaching through the opposite arch, the Majoria’s steps marked the rhythm. Glad to turn from the image of Mahktos, Vinsant peered under Levi’s hood. Nothing but the line of his thin lips was visible and, judging by their press, Kordahla just might have been right about the man’s evil intent. Too bad that there wasn’t a graceful way to avoid Arun’s guiding hand. Standing in the middle of the room, in front of the stomping troops, before the chanting Majoria made him feel the size of the flea the indigo djinn had named him.
“What vision did Mahktos grant you?” the Majoria asked after an unintelligible incantation.
Vinsant swallowed. “I don’t remember.” He was not about to tell a room full of mahktashaan he had attacked their god with a sword, even if it had been all in his mind.
The Majoria slapped a hand on his forehead, tilting his head back. A surge of pain blasted through his brain as his vision of the god resurfaced. An instant later, hand and pain were gone. Panting, Vinsant staggered back, clutched the archway and tried to remain standing.
“Mahktos has rejected him,” Levi said flatly.
“Our laws are clear,” the mahktashaan who had guided him here intoned. “He must be put to the sword.”
“He must be put to the sword,” the group chanted in perfect unison.
Vinsant’s eyes went wide. “Arun?”