There. Not far away, and rather sharply downward, bright, human light burned, seemingly healthy. Resisting the urge to bolt over in that direction, Bayan did a quick search of the nearby area, but found no other candidates. He turned to Kiwani and jerked his head toward the distant light. “This way.”
Bayan saw no sign of Calder on the way to the spot where the other life-light burned. To his surprise, the path in that direction kept climbing, though the living being he’d sensed was distinctly below them.
Kiwani pointed to a narrow chasm ahead.
“Bhattara,” Bayan breathed. Calder didn’t kill Treinfhir. He just abandoned him to die. Is it a relief that my friend didn’t commit murder, or is he just cruel?
Kiwani stepped to the crevice’s edge and called Treinfhir’s name. Her voice echoed within the chasm, deepening and distorting.
The response that rose from the black depths wasn’t human. Bayan shot a worried glance at Kiwani and pulled her back from the edge. Thousands of birdcalls swarmed upward, intensifying as they rose.
The echoing, squawking cacophony burst past the lip of the shaft. Bayan and Kiwani tumbled to the ground, covering their heads, as a massive cloud of blackness shot into the sky, shrieking and swirling overhead.
Bayan rolled to his back and gazed uncomprehendingly upward. His mind frantically scrabbled for an anima spell to defend himself and Kiwani, but what he saw in the sky above him left him trapped between terror and sheer awe.
Treinfhir floated amidst thousands of large black birds. His neck and arms were extended like a diver falling backward into the sea, yet he remained airborne. Bayan looked at Kiwani, whose mouth moved frantically with words ripped away by swirling wind, lost among the avian calls.
A single bird dived from the cloud and swooped over Bayan’s head. It dragged a playful claw through his hair. “Kah!”
Bayan shot a startled look after the bird, then pinned his gaze on the living mass of birds again. Bhattara save us! Treinfhir isn’t controlling a murder of crows. He’s controlling hexbirds!
The anima caster slowly descended to the ground. He slipped from the lower edge of the swarming creatures and stood facing Bayan and Kiwani, arms at his sides, a look of rapture on his face.
The birds jinked as one, drawing Bayan’s eye once more. For a heartbeat, he thought he saw a human face in the sky, formed of the birds’ bodies. Then it was gone, and the birds dispersed, flying with raucous, jubilant cries in all directions.
Bayan jumped to his feet, putting himself between Treinfhir and Kiwani in case the anima caster attacked.
Treinfhir’s beatific expression remained unchanged.
“Was it Calder?” Bayan asked. “I’m sorry. He’s been misled by an enemy. The same one I believe took you from the Kheerzaal.”
“I know it. A clever enemy, indeed, to divide you, make you battle each other. I canna blame the lad. He’s still young.”
“We’ve learned who he is, and we’re going after him. But you should stay safe, in hiding. If anyone sees you, they’ll attack you, no matter which side they’re on.”
Treinfhir merely gazed after his departed saviors. “Did you know, Bayan? About your birds?”
Bayan dipped his head in respect. “You’re very powerful.”
Treinfhir’s peaceful expression warmed with amusement. “Nae, you misunderstand, lad. I wasna controlling the birds. They were controlling me.”
Calder Loses Focus
With Treinfhir safely in hiding, Bayan asked Kiwani to bring their hexmates to the place where the entire series of events had begun: former headmaster Langlaren’s meditation garden. Calder and Tarin might not heed his simple request to meet, and he didn’t have time for lengthy explanations. He paced back and forth among the low evergreen shrubs, hoping Kiwani could convince all of the others to come.
A small rumbling drew his attention. The road parted and burped forth all five of his hexmates. He breathed a sigh of relief. Kiwani let her Earth avatar fade and joined Bayan, with Eward close behind. Calder remained in the road, arms crossed, glowering. Tarin stood beside him with a look of regret on her face, and Taban stood apart from both groups, seemingly waiting to make up his mind about who was crazier.
“Treinfhir’s not dead, Calder,” Bayan said. “For your sake, I’m glad you don’t make a very good henchman.”
Heads turned toward the fair-haired Dunfarroghan in surprise.
“That’s right.” Bayan felt the weight of regret settle on him—not his own, but regret for Calder. “Calder listened to the wrong man and tried to kill an innocent victim on his behalf.”
Calder’s jaw jutted forward. “You have absolutely no proof that Treinfhir is anything other than a lying murderer.”
“Maybe not. But I do have proof that witten Oost is not what he says he is. And if he’s lying about that—to us, to the duelist community, and to the emperor himself—then what else is he lying about?”
“What? You’re mad!”
Taban stepped closer. “What’s this proof, then?”
“An ancient book.” He turned to Kiwani. “I finally found it. The one Sint Koos showed us. It’s been in the library at the Temple of Ten Thousand Harmonies for centuries, and someone has warded it and laid a trap for anyone who went looking for it. To reach it, Tala and I needed to use a combination of song magic and elemental magic. That was our way in, and that was witten Oost’s, too. He’s been there to read the book and learn its secrets, and he got one of the Singers to help him.”
“What’s in the book?” Eward asked.
Bayan put his hands on the sides of his head. “So much. So much of everything. It explains things I never knew to ask, and it changes everything.”
“Spit it out, then,” Calder demanded.
Bayan met his eyes. “Let’s start with the fact that it was the duelists who invented steel. And they’ve never stopped using it.”
Cries of bafflement and outrage echoed off the cliff face behind him. He held up his hands for quiet. His hexmates’ shock mirrored his own, but he couldn’t get sidetracked into arguments. “It’s true. Steel balls are embedded in every training house and building on this campus. They’re left exposed to the air—one of the three elements that can’t insulate us from steel—in order to suppress our magic. That’s why the newniks train in those rooms all day, every day. That’s why it’s so safe for them to do so. Our beloved newnik manacles, the ones we all wore for half a year before we were allowed to even touch our magic? Embedded with steel. It prevents accidents.”
“That… doesn’t sound completely horrible,” Kiwani ventured.
Bayan’s lips twisted. “The actions, or the lies to conceal them? Oh, there’s plenty more. Steel was created to counter the effects of focused anima magic, which was the Tuathi response to the Waarden focused elemental magic. Steel won us that war. We tricked them into limiting their magic, then attacked them with steel blades, like common warriors.”
“There’s none of that in the history books,” Eward protested.
Bayan shook his head. “Of course not. Steel is the secret sedative for wild magic. They can’t admit they’re using a substance with such a dangerous effect on duelists.”
“So if steel was made to counter this… focused magic… then why do we still use it?” Tarin asked.
“Focused magic is more than twice as powerful,” Bayan said. “All the ancient duelists did was hide the steel in the walls and let a new generation of duelists learn the focusing moves during training.”
“What are these focusing moves that make steel so dangerous to us?” Taban asked.
Bayan braced for more angry objections. “The Invocations.”
“What? Nae, that canna be!” Tarin blurted. “Those keep us safe from wild magic!”
“You’re going to need to explain that one,” Eward said.
Bayan complied. “The Invocations keep us safe while we’re still learning to control our magic, yes. But we can do magic without them just fine, as long as
we unfocus it after we’ve learned to control it.” He pointed to Kiwani. “She saw me blow apart a cold house from the inside with unfocused magic.”
Eward’s stare was keen. “You’re saying that cold houses are embedded with steel, then?”
“Exactly. You and I have both spent time in them. Remember how they make us perform the Elemental Invocation right before we step inside? And speaking of things embedded with steel: potioneers.”
He turned to Kiwani. “Odjin was right. They did put something inside his skin. Remember when I got that sword through my leg at the Kheerzaal, and you warned me not to do any magic? I couldn’t have if I’d tried. Odjin and all the other potioneers are ‘stripped’ of their magic by having a bit of steel slipped inside their skin. I’ll bet my eyeteeth they’re made to do the Elemental Invocation to focus their magic before the steel’s slipped in.”
“You’re saying that if we take the steel out of Odjin, he’ll be able to perform magic again?” Kiwani asked.
“Except as how he’s missing a leg,” Calder said.
“Not even that should stop him,” Bayan said. “Before the First Tuathi War, there were several rival magic schools. Each one had a different method of performing the six sacred motions. There was one that only used arms, one that used feet to draw shapes in the dirt, even one that taught a stylized form of dance. Their rivalries were so serious that the Waarden couldn’t coordinate massive attacks during the war. The Warmasters were losing to the Tuathi, and badly, so along with creating steel and developing the invocations—and leaking the concept to the Tuathi—they also outlawed all but one training style: the full-body style. The one we all learned. A single training style let everyone coordinate on the field of battle and form more full hexmagic hexes. But because they chose the style that required all four limbs, it also meant that injured duelists were unable to cast their magic anymore.”
“Someone wasn’t thinking ahead,” Kiwani said.
“Actually, they were, but not the way you’d think. You see, that’s where potioneers came from. Academy leaders gave the injured duelists a bit of implanted steel so they wouldn’t accidentally harm anyone, and then set them to making potions… to be taken by the duelists still on the front lines.”
Calder threw his hands in the air. “What? Now I know you’re mad. Duelists don’t dose!”
“No, would you just listen? I have so much in my head right now. Just listen to all of it, and it’ll make sense. Emotion, not the void, is the key to duelism. It always has been. But when the duelists covered up their creation and usage of steel, the true purpose of potioneers was lost as well. Duelists routinely became Savants back then, if you can believe it. There was no meditation class. They embraced their rage, their love, their jealousy. It drove their magic. They used the method Sint Koos showed me, the one you all used, to force their Savantism. In battle, they dosed themselves to increase their bonded emotional state. Can you even imagine the power they must have wielded?”
Everyone was quiet for a moment.
“Must have been quite a war after that discovery, aye?” Calder conceded.
“As the wars dragged on, Savantism became taboo—probably due to natural Savants like me exploding on campus. Once the students began training to shut out their emotions so they didn’t explode, potioneers became anathema too, and the link between them and their fellow duelists was broken.
“We abandoned our wounded hexmates when they needed us most,” Bayan continued. “And we took away all the other training styles so they had no other way of performing their magic. We took away who they were, and we walked away. I… I can’t accept that.” A lump formed in Bayan’s throat. He couldn’t conceive of the centuries of inner pain and loneliness that potioneers had been forced to endure by the loss of one little secret.
“Odjin… ” Kiwani breathed. “He was right about there being a conspiracy. I need to write to him as soon as possible. He needs to know all of this!”
“Aye, well, that’s tragic, it really is,” Calder said. “But you still haven’t told me anything about Master witten Oost being a liar.”
“Right.” Bayan blew out a breath. “That has to do with steel again. You remember when we all watched his Master Duelist exam last year? How he created six elemental objects out of thin air at the same time, without gestures? I think he faked the whole thing. All of it. He’s no more a Master Duelist than I am.”
“Bayan! What proof do you have of that?” Tarin asked. “We all saw what he did!”
“We all saw what he wanted us to see. The book I read was clear on the effects of steel on focused magic: steel can prevent it from forming in the first place, and it can disrupt magic that is already in existence. That includes avatars, as we all know from the Kheerzaal battle.” He eyed Calder, whose first iteration of Firedust had been destroyed by steel wielded by Aklaa assassins.
“The only way steel can destroy existing magic,” Bayan continued, “is by being directly exposed to it. If steel is enclosed in one of the three heavy elements—wood, water, or stone—its effects are muted. During the latter years of First Tuathi War, elemental duelists used to carry muted steel with them onto the battlefield, for the express purpose of shattering their avatars. They already knew what we discovered by accident last year: the ability to create a new, customized avatar in battle can be very useful. So they carried steel balls around with them… enclosed in nutshells.”
“Nutshells?” Taban frowned as if trying to recall something.
“They’d crack them open and throw the steel balls at their own avatars. I think witten Oost did the same thing during his Master test. Remember? Langlaren asked him to show all six of his avatars, then he had to manifest something made from each element, all at the same time. The avatar check beforehand was to make sure he didn’t just manifest all six of his avatars and pass them off as hexmagic creations, but that’s exactly what he did.”
“Wait, let me get this right.” Kiwani held up her hands. “You’re saying he’s still just a Hexmagic Duelist. That he used steel to fool the audience into thinking he passed his Master Duelist test.”
Bayan nodded.
“But… but he didn’t use any of the six sacred motions to summon them,” Calder argued. “I remember. He just walked back and forth around the arena.”
“Oh, sints,” Kiwani blurted. “Drawing in the sand with his feet. You said that was one of the other styles of spell casting.”
Bayan nodded. “We’ve all seen him perform magic in rooms that I know are studded with steel. All he was doing was performing unfocused magic using one of the lost styles. And when we were all dragged into the Hall of Seals for practicing Savantism, witten Oost disrupted my Wind spell without casting any spells of his own. When the instructors took me away, I stepped on a piece of nutshell.”
Calder lowered his chin and fixed Bayan with a sharp eye. “Aye, but what of his spells on Instructor Aalthoven? He made him see things none of the audience could see. Canna do that with avatars.”
Eward twitched his shoulders as if uncomfortable. “I have to agree with that point, Bayan.”
“I’ve thought about that,” Bayan said. “Remember how we found scratches inside Bituin’s pitchers? I think witten Oost was taking samples of raw seerwine sap. Because it—”
“It makes you hallucinate if you drink it raw, aye. I remember.” Calder’s lips formed a troubled frown.
“Master witten Oost has a bowl of nuts in his office,” Tarin murmured. Looking at Calder, she said, “You picked one up when we took Kiwani to see him the day we rescued her.”
Calder sneered. “Load of bollocks! This is madness. I canna believe you’re taking things this far, Bayan. The only thing around here with nuts,” he pointed to Bayan, “is Kiwani.”
“I’m not crazy,” Bayan insisted. “There’s a simple way to prove me right or wrong. Go and crack open the nuts in his office. If there’s steel inside, you’ll know he’s not a Master Duelist.”
“It willna
prove anything at all.” Calder’s voice was cold.
“It will, and you know it. He’s up to something, and he’s using his falsely earned status as a Master Duelist—and Headmaster too—to get it. What does he want with all that power? Don’t you want to know?”
“I do know,” Calder insisted. “He’s making a better empire for everyone.”
“He’s not making a better empire for some of us,” Bayan said. “He locked me away. He attacked Cormaac and Taban—”
“He’d never!”
“—to try and flush Treinfhir out! Don’t you see, he took Treinfhir from the Kheerzaal. When we rescued Treinfhir, witten Oost couldn’t be seen searching for him, because that would draw attention. He needed to create a false anima attack to get everyone else to seek out the so-called attacker for him. To get anyone who might be protecting him to turn him in. To get you to kill him, eventually.”
Calder’s mouth opened and closed. “Lies,” he finally whispered. “He’d never do that to me. He… I trust him.”
Bayan shuffled back a step and looked down. “I’m sorry. I truly am. Go and prove me wrong if you can, Calder. I’m not saying this to hurt you. Like you were for me, I’m only trying to protect you.”
“You’re making me do all the work. Why?”
Bayan pointed to the hidden maze where Kiwani and Treinfhir had been held prisoner. “Because I’m going in there. If I can find proof inside the labyrinth that witten Oost is responsible for taking Kiwani and Treinfhir, I can show it to the whole Academy. And maybe I can finally find out what he’s really been after all this time.”
Kiwani stepped closer. “I’ll come with you.”
“Me, too,” Eward said.
The three of them looked at the others.
Calder crossed his arms. “I’m not doing any spying for you.”
Traitor Savant (Second Seal of the Duelists) Page 26