The Spirit Lens

by Carol Berg

  Two hours after leaving the donkeys, a clump of coarse hair, snagged on a clump of thistle, hinted we’d found the way. A few more precarious steps, and we climbed onto a well-beaten path that hairpinned up the rubble slope, invisible to all but those who stood upon it. Surely, this was the route to Eltevire. Power . . . magic . . . I could see no other reason to settle in such desolation.

  I waved my hand at Ilario and he pulled a small, elegantly engraved spyglass from his belt pouch. As it had all day, the little glass—a “gift from a lady”—revealed no telltale puff of dust or movement behind us.

  An hour later, we thought we’d gone wrong again. No sign of goat, house, or ruin was to be found in the forest of sandstone rock spires atop the ridge. The path ended abruptly at two massive boulder stacks standing outlined against the indigo sky like one of Ixtador’s Gates. Between them naught was visible but a lip of downsloping ground and the expansive sky. But our next step forward stole our breath.

  Beyond the pillars and a few crumbling downward steps, the land took a precipitous plunge into a chasm so deep, its bottom was already lost in night. Only a narrow span of rock, perhaps one and one-half metres wide and fifty long, bridged the chasm. At its far end lay a sun-drenched plateau of crumbled stone and scrubby grass.

  “Saints Awaiting!” Ilario’s outburst was no less explosive for its being whispered.

  I peered eagerly into the glare. The plateau’s elevation was enough lower than our own that we could pinpoint the features listed in the Survey. Eight stone houses, built in the same beehive style as Sante Marko’s shrine, clustered about a stone ring that must mark the dry well. A splotch of richer green near the center of the plateau evidenced the watering pond. Ilario’s little spyglass revealed the ruined temple and watchtower as little more than a square of broken steps and fractured paving, almost lost in the golden haze.

  The eighteen-year-old Survey had listed a population of seven-and-thirty people and one hundred eleven goats. We saw no sign of either. Save for its dramatic setting, nothing appeared at all extraordinary about the place.

  Fighting off disappointment, I tried to be sensible. If this village was Eltevire, and Eltevire was the heart of our mystery—the place where everything began—we needed to be wary before blundering in.

  Ilario grumbled when I insisted we sit for a quarter of an hour before proceeding. “Are you so tired, Portier?” he said, damping his voice when I scowled at him. “Honestly, you must get out more. And if you wish to see yonder ruin any closer, we’d best go now. The Souleater himself could not persuade me to cross that ridiculous sliver of rock in the dark.”

  Indeed, though deep gold light yet mantled Eltevire, our position already lay in shadow. But I wouldn’t budge. “We need to listen,” I whispered. “Our own footsteps and hard breathing mask sounds. If someone’s following, I want to hear it.”

  Afternoon waned quietly. Dry gusts ruffled our hair and clothing. A scuttling vole rattled pebbles beyond the gate, rousing a cloud of swallows from the cliffs below us. No sounds of life emanated from the village across the bridge or behind us. I desperately wished Dante at my side.

  Soon, I could put it off no longer. Dante might never come. “Have you your crocodile charm, lord chevalier?”

  Ilario near dropped his rucksack into the chasm. “You don’t think . . .”

  I summoned patience. “No, lord. No crocodiles here. But we may need a light later on.”

  Reluctantly, he pulled the charm from his jerkin. “The key to the light spell is crassica.”

  A most unlikely grin forced itself through the foreboding that had weighed on me all day. Ilario’s spellkey meant large teeth. “It is good you are here, Chevalier,” I said. “Tuck yourself behind one of these rocks where you can still watch. Stay hidden until I signal.”

  “I ought to go with you,” he said, face screwed into a grimace and hand tapping his sword hilt. “You’ve no weapons. But I immensely dislike bridges; we should wait for the mage.”

  “From the look of the place, I doubt I’ll need defending. But we don’t know for sure. If you see the least hint of something awry, get away. Don’t stop. Don’t speak to anyone. Don’t let anyone delay you. If you can’t find Dante, go straight to the king.” After a moment’s hesitation, I passed him my journal. “Give him this. The cipher is not magic.”

  Ilario glanced at the worn little book and back at me, swallowed hard, then tucked it inside his shirt. “You’ll have a care, Portier, yes?”

  “Absolutely.” More excited than fearful, I hopped and skidded down the unstable gravel and dirt steps. As I stepped onto the stone span, a humming cloud of gnats and sand fleas descended on me. Brushing at my skin, I took a second step. . . .

  The world reeled. The chasm yawned. The cliff walls writhed, expanded, contracted, braiding the sunlight and shadow. My skin flushed hot, then cold, then hot again, and my belly heaved. Enchantments!

  I dropped into a crouch, planting elbows on my knees and spinning head on my fists before I could topple into the chasm. In the moment I closed my eyes, the sensations vanished.

  A visual ward, then—simple and indeed deadly, considering the narrow span of the bridge.

  “Great Heaven, Portier, are you well?”

  I winced as my name bounced repeatedly between the cliffs and Eltevire’s plateau. Why did he have to shout?

  Raising my hand to reassure him, I opened my eyes and fixed them on the mottled stone surface of the bridge. Cautiously, I stood. The world and my stomach remained calm. I took one step forward. The world sloshed only slightly, like the liquid in a carefully moved cup. I took another step.

  Much as I hated to waste progress already made, I reversed course. Ilario’s shout had likely alerted any lurkers. Nonetheless, my tongue refused to call out from such a distance.

  “The bridge is warded, lord,” I said when I stepped back onto the land. “When I signal you to come over, keep your eyes fixed on the span itself. Look neither right nor left nor up nor down, and pay no mind to anything beyond it. If you feel dizzy or your skin begins to itch, do as I did: Get low and close your eyes. Let the sensations ease; then try again. Do you understand?”

  Ilario edged backward. “Perhaps you’ll not need me. I’m no use around enchantments. I’ve no idea why the mage wanted me to come. He’d as soon push me over this edge.”

  “He’d never do that, lord. You are just very different from anyone he’s known. He does not trust easily.” Though truthfully, Dante’s insistence on Ilario’s company on this venture mystified me, as well. “When I’m sure all is clear, I’ll call out or shine the light from your charm.”

  Blood thumping, I turned back to the bridge. No ordinary ruin would be so viciously warded. I crossed the rock span without further difficulty and strolled down the path into Eltevire and late-afternoon sunlight. The gusty breeze shifted dust about my boots, whipping it into small whirlwinds.

  Two of the stone houses in the circle had collapsed. Tattered scraps of leather flapped in several doorways. The rest gaped open or were blocked with rubble, tangled peashrub, or gangly stems of asphodel, thick with white flowers. A peek inside evidenced soot, dust, and a few oddments: shards of pottery; a great deal of goat hair; three broken bone needles; a splintered piece of wood with closely spaced holes, which might have been a piece of a loom.

  Bones lay in heaps, inside and outside—the fine bones of chukars and other fowl, of voles, rock pigs, and other scuttering creatures, the larger bones of goats and foxes. A stained stone tub, numerous worn-out tools, and bone pegs bore witness to a village tannery. Had not the Survey contradicted me, I’d have said no one had inhabited Eltevire for centuries, and no magic ever had been worked here. Why had Michel risked Ophelie’s life to learn its name?

  Crossing the field toward the temple ruin, I strained for some hint of magic. The rocks and grass and blowing dust almost glittered in the ocher light, as if ground glass infused the air. The breeze smelled of dry grass touched with pungent herbs I
could neither locate nor identify. But I sensed no spellwork. None.

  The temple ruin, situated at the far end of the plateau, revealed no more than the village itself. Sun and scouring wind had faded the temple floor mosaics, obliterating any meaningful design or inscription. What few dressed stones had not been carted off to build the beehive houses displayed no carving or painted surface, nothing to link the place to the story of Goram and Vichkar or to the Veil, to conspiracy or torment or to magic itself, come to that.

  I squatted in the center of the temple floor. Broken bits of once-colored tile, sand, pebbles, and grit sifted through my fingers, scattering on the paving whence I’d gathered them. I was flummoxed.

  Spluttering in frustration, I strode down the temple steps and across the rock-strewn field of tufted hare’s tail and gray-green stipweed to the pond. The sun, bloated and wavering in the dust haze, settled toward the jagged horizon.

  The watering pond was no gritty mudhole like the shrine spring. The clear, bottomless pool lay in a snail-like shell of rock, a catch basin gouged from a knob of the plateau bedrock by centuries of wind and rain. Examination revealed naught unusual.

  Swearing, I threw in the temple debris yet clenched in my fist. The obstinate bits and pieces floated atop the dark water, circling slowly, as if a giant’s spoon stirred the pool.

  One side of the hollowed basin formed an overhang. Trampling the green onion grass that grew on the bank, I circled the pond and climbed atop the protruding rock, sighting back toward the bridge. Ilario might as well come and see the nothing we’d traveled so far to find.

  A haze drifted across the plateau like mist or smoke in a direction wholly opposite the direction of the wind. I squinted, but Ilario had hid himself well. Still stupidly reluctant to yell, I spoke the key to trigger his charm. “Crassica.”

  Light flamed from my hand like a blue sunrise.

  Sainted ancestors! I released my grip on the shells, and the light vanished. But it took moments for my vision to clear, and longer yet for the spell’s residue to settle over my spirit like silken sheets. I’d felt no such vigorous energy when Ilario triggered the charm in the crypt.

  Without waiting for Ilario’s response, I trotted back to the temple ruin. If the nature of Eltevire—its confluence of divine elements or inherited holiness—could so enhance worked spells, what might it do for spellmaking? Selfish. Foolish. My sudden hunger had naught to do with assassination plots or cruel hauntings, but solely with magic. My magic. Please, gods . . .

  Dropping to my knees on the faded mosaic, I laid out my compass and whispered the key to a spell I had created when I first bought the little instrument. Locuti. Locate.

  The bulging sun touched the horizon. My eyes near stretched from their sockets as I tried to detect the wisp of white smoke that should indicate the compass’s location—and my spell’s successful execution. But all I sensed was a shiver that passed through me to settle on the paving like spilled wine ready to stick to my shoes—the residue of failure.

  Perhaps a weak spell bound so long ago would never work, even in a place of magical potency. But something new . . .

  Manic, I stripped leaves from a stalk of asphodel that poked through the broken paving and laid them beside my compass. I added my handkerchief, and a pebble fetched from the crumbled temple steps, encircling my chosen particles with a thread ripped from my snagged hose. The brass of the compass supplied the elements of base metal and spark. The pebble brought the steadiness of its composite elements—base metal and wood. The leaves added the element of water into the balance, needed for transparency and sinuous movement. The kerchief supplied wood and air, essential for combustion. My mind raced, estimating, adding, and subtracting. Perhaps a smaller stone, lest the working grow too large.

  I near cackled at the ridiculous image of uncontrollable fire coming from any work of mine.

  The particles appeared correct, their arrangement as prescribed. My will stood ready. Yet instinct would not allow me to begin. I recalculated. Without tinder or kindling, the spell would require a great deal of spark. Brass did not provide enough. I needed silver.

  I ripped open my belt purse, cursing as I sorted only twelve silver kentae. But Gruchin’s silver double strike was larger and heavier, bearing my royal cousin’s raised likeness on both faces. I extracted the coin from my boot and laid it atop the stack inside the loop of string. Another quick calculation. Ten thousand times had I worked this spell, always failing, and ten thousand times had I imagined it, always succeeding. Trained instinct called the balance perfect. Ready.

  Mustering every scrap of will inside me, every remnant of longing, belief, and desire, I called on the magic of my blood and spoke the proper words to complete the formula for fire, the most fundamental of spells.

  Faint as a snake’s heartbeat in winter, cold as a dead man’s nose, a rill of power threaded my veins. Gold sparks burst from the center of the looped thread like grains of sunlight scattered in the encroaching dark, promising warmth and safety. My heart swelled to bursting . . .

  . . . and shriveled again, as one-by-one the sparks winked out, my veins warmed, and the heartbeat of my magic stilled. As ever.

  The sky dulled to ocher, streaked with purple. The land lay silent and empty.

  I could not swear. Could not weep. Could not allow myself to feel this yet again.

  And so I did as I had always done. Forced my lungs to pump. Forced myself to move. I folded the handkerchief and tucked it away with my compass. I brushed the leaves, the stone, and the thread aside, lest someone notice their particular arrangement. Certainly the balance of elements had been inexpert. Rushed. So many untried particles. Just because Adept Fedrigo’s crocodile charm had worked so explosively, it didn’t follow that this place would enhance new spellwork. Excuses. Explanations. Anything but admitting the unshakable truth.

  “Aaaagh!” Irrational, uncontrollable, a lifetime’s disappointment exploded from my every pore. I snatched up the piled silver and flung the coins across the temple floor. The kentae scattered, bouncing and rolling. The double strike coin flew farther, spinning in the air, catching the last stray beam of the vanishing sun. Then, like a hummingbird feeding, the coin paused in its flight and hung suspended in the air . . .

  And hung.

  Moments passed. I blinked. Squinted. Surely this was some trick of evening light. Tired limbs propelled me to my feet. The breeze of dying day wafted over the plateau. Mesmerized, I moved to stand beneath the coin, scarce an arm’s reach above my head. It remained stalwart in its defiance of de Vouger’s acclaimed treatise, Principles of Falling Objects. It gleamed as if it were the first star awaiting a blackening sky.

  I plucked it from its hovering, and it sat heavy in my hand; ice cold, not warm as it should have been from its recent housing in my boot. Dante had declared the thing magically inert, and even yet, I detected not the slightest trace of enchantment about it. I launched it again. It bounced across the paving as any coin would do.

  Accuracy. Precision. Repeatability. Without them, you’ve naught but accidents and happenstance. Dante’s teaching echoed as if he stood at my shoulder. I threw the coin again.

  It hung in the air, spinning slowly like a gear wheel in a mill. I reined in soul, body, and mind, not daring to feel, not daring to admit, even by wondering, that an object could so violate the simplest, clearest laws of nature without aid of enchantment.

  Again, I threw the coin, Gruchin’s luck charm, the sole object found in the assassin’s pocket. And again . . . Never did it behave the same way twice running.

  I tucked the double strike into my boot, gathered the scattered kentae, and repeated the tests. The silver coins behaved properly. I tried copper kivrae, a gold kesole, the crocodile charm, a button, a buckle cut from my boot. No oddity. What was different about the two-faced coin?

  I snatched up a shard of mosaic half the size of my palm and tossed it across the temple floor. It rolled lazily, end over end, drifted to the floor, bounced higher
than my head in an entirely unlikely direction, and landed back at my feet. A pebble flew ten centimetres, then plummeted to the ground as if it had slammed into a wall, though I used the same motion, the same strength for its launch. A handful of dirt tossed into the air drifted slowly onto my shirt, as if the grains were dandelion cotton. Merciful angels, this was madness.

  Recalling the debris I’d thrown into the pond, I gathered a handful of variously sized stones and ran across the field, trying to outrace the settling dark. I threw one of my coppers into the water. It sank as I would expect. Another, and it did the same. Then I tossed the stones into the pond. Some sank. Some floated. I knelt on the bank, the scent of onion grass sitting like thickened paste on my tongue, and retrieved three of the floating stones as they circled past. They weighed solidly, one near the size of an egg. I tossed them in again. One sank. One bounced off the surface of the water and onto the shore beside me. The egg-shaped one settled to the surface as gracefully as a black swan.

  Footsteps crunched on the weedy field behind me. “Lord chevalier, hurry! Come look at this!” I called over my shoulder. “By the Creator, you’ll never believe it!”

  But this time, I fell. A bludgeon slammed into my back, just between the shoulder blades. My face met the ground with all expected force.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  31 QAT 30 DAYS UNTIL THE ANNIVERSARY

  “Now who exactly might you be?” said the owner of the boot grinding my nose and cheek into the crushed onion grass and the rocky soil beneath. “And where bides your pretty, sneaking lord who carries such a fine sword?”

  “Ow! Stop!” I said, though the words came out somewhat garbled. “I’m Damiano de Sacre Vaerre. Pilgrim. Ho—pthew—holy place.” I spat out the words along with dirt and grit, and grabbed on to the ankle attached to the offending boot, determined to remove it from my cheek-bone. And perhaps break it.

  Pain exploded in my side. Yet another boot. My breath seized, and my arms flopped to the ground, limp as a dead bird’s wings.