The Skycaller replied, “I should think so. People should not live as snails. It’s not natural, dragging their houses around with them. However, little brother, I cannot deny that I will enjoy the company, for as long as it should last. Do you need assistance in settling your house?”
Bayan replied in the affirmative, and the sturdy Skycaller lent his not-insignificant Earth casting, smoothing a conical resting place into the topmost blade of the mountain. Though the singing choir remained below, their songwork lifted the Temple straight into the gap the Skycaller had created. Bayan guided it with gusts of wind, and the Skycaller molded the runrock to clasp and support the Temple. The perfectly round bowl of the Temple bulged out past the slender silhouette of the mountain on its other two sides, looking like nothing so much as a pale chalice in a pair of sunburnt hands.
Exhausted, Bayan wanted to crash to the ground next to the Skycaller and sleep for three years, but he arced down on his disc instead and landed before Liselot. “It’s done. It’s safe now. Portal up, and see who has survived. I will ask the Skycaller whom I should contact about caring for your singers. They must be traumatized.”
Liselot’s jaw was tense again. Her dark eyes locked onto his for a long moment. A gentle brush of Lifeseeker told him she was fairly bursting with nearly every emotion in existence. If she wore a necklace like his, it would be nearly afire. But all she said was “Thank you.” She turned to her choir, and one of them sang a portal with his crystals. Everyone rushed through into the Temple, including Sabella, who gave him a glance indicating she would look after the singers. Liselot went last, pausing only to give Bayan another nod of gratitude.
Bayan rose to the Skycaller’s narrow plateau. The man stood in the whipping wind, clearly expecting his arrival. As Bayan let his disc go, he stumbled out of sheer exhaustion and would have fallen had the Skycaller not caught his arm.
“You could use a nap, little brother. Maybe you should not say yes to every boon someone begs of you, eh? Can I offer you something to eat?”
Bayan studied the Temple’s new home from his vantage point. The mountain range sliced straight away from him, and the Temple’s pale sides peeked around it like a full moon hiding behind a tree trunk. He turned to the Skycaller. “Food sounds good.”
He followed the Skycaller into the man’s small, sturdy hut, the stones of which had grown straight from the ground. Its construction reminded Bayan of the table and chair within the Academy cold houses. The man set about heating tea and slicing some meat and bread. Bayan grew a second chair—with a nice thick cushion—and sat at the man’s miniscule table with him, eating like he’d been starved for the past month. At that moment, nothing was more glorious in the entire world than the physical existence of the food on his plate. It nourished far more than his stomach. As soon as he finished, there would be questions, answers, riddles and puzzles, and challenges, arguments, and as always, battle. That big picture is standing right behind me. I can feel it. But for just this one moment, it is enough to share a meal with a countryman.
The Potioneers Savant
Odjin sat beside the chanter on the rough bench in the healing room and rested his hand on the empire’s newest potioneer, touching her shoulder since she didn’t have any hands left for him to hold. She lay on her cot and stared at the ceiling, her lips forming a tight frown of denial, but unshed tears pooled in the corners of her eyes. “It’s not the end,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be, if you don’t want it to.”
The girl—Nigha, that was her name—glanced in his direction before snapping her gaze back to the pale stone ceiling over her recovery cot. “Don’t make me smack you with one of my stumps,” she said without heat. “I have two to choose from. Of course it’s the end, you dimwit. I’m not even sure how I’m supposed to stir a beaker when I don’t have any fingers to hold the spoon.”
Odjin let Nigha’s bitterness wash over him. He’d heard similar despondency a dozen times in the last year, and it always threatened to trigger his own memories of that endlessly dark, abject despair, but he never let it. Not anymore. His free hand touched the squared-off beads of his necklace. Not anymore.
He waved the chanter away. The brown-tabarded, middle-aged man merely nodded silently and took his leave, closing the thick, wooden door behind him.
Odjin continued, lowering his voice. “The artisans, they make some very fine hook prosthetics nowadays. Better than some of my fellow potioneers wear, even. But that’s not what I’m talking about. You were part of a Wind hex in the fifth wave of overflow students, weren’t you? Joined campus just under a year ago.”
A faint clenching of her jaw muscle was her only answer.
“You don’t know Sivutma very well, then.”
Her nostrils flared. “I wasn’t good enough to train on her level.”
Odjin leaned closer, nearly hovering over her, invading her vision so that she had to look at him. “Would you like to be?” His hand traced a small Flame pattern in the air, and a tiny cluster of pale orange flames coalesced around it.
Nigha’s eyes went completely round at the sight of Odjin’s impossible magic. Sometimes, injured students stammered or swore in stunned surprise, but Nigha was so taken aback, she couldn’t even form a single word. Odjin smiled at her. He pressed his finger to her lips, then leaned even closer and whispered near her ear. “Now tell me again how done you are with duelism. Because it’s not done with you.”
Nigha blinked hard, and her tears finally ran, crossing her temples and pooling in her ears. She tipped her head at the irritating wetness, and Odjin wicked the moisture away for her. “What do I do? How can I become like you?”
“It will take time. Lots of time, lots of reading, lots of practice. The training, it won’t be easy, and you can’t let anyone see. Not yet. No one is ready for this, not even those of us who have relearned our magic. Certainly not an empire, which sees us as street urchins and beggars. This secret, we have to keep it entirely to ourselves. Far more than our lives depend on it. Are you with me?”
“Oh, yes,” she breathed. Her voice was like a prayer to the sints. “Yes, anything. Everything.”
In soft murmurs that didn’t carry any further down the recovery ward of the Chantery, Odjin began outlining the process of her transition from duelist to potioneer to Potioneer Savant. The implantation of the steel, the importance of looking as abjectly depressed as possible, and then biding her time by learning the potion recipes, until enough time had passed, and Odjin could send one of his members to contact her.
“You’ll have to go without your magic until then, and I’m not going to explain how you’re going to get it back until it’s time. The first few injured students, I told them absolutely everything, and they nearly got themselves killed. So I’m only telling you enough to keep you safe. But once you get your magic back, the real work begins. You’ll have training schedules with the mentor that I’ll pick for you, depending on what city you are assigned to.”
Her eyes were uncomprehending. “Mentors, training schedules? How many Potioneer Savants are there?”
Odjin smiled. “The Potioneers Savant, we’re embedded in most of the major provincial capitals and large trade cities by now. Unfortunately, there are a lot of potioneers who are simply too bitter or angry or broken to relearn their magic, so we have to rely on potioneers who have recently been injured, just in the last few years. They still miss it. They still want it. Like you. I have a small amount of influence with the office that selects your new home location. Do you have a preference as to what province or town you’d like to be stationed in?”
“My mother lives in Braache. But… maybe… Is it acceptable for a potioneer to have a family? I’ve never seen them interact with anyone but clients before.”
Odjin gave her arm a reassuring squeeze. “I’ll see what I can do. There’s no reason you shouldn’t be near your family if that’s what you want. Having someone nearby, it will be a very good thing. Certain parts of your magic training, they will be
very strenuous.”
Nigha shifted her shoulders and looked Odjin more directly in the face. “I’m so grateful that you offered to help me. Am I supposed to be part of some kind of secret group? Are we rebelling against the duelists? Or the emperor? Don’t misunderstand. Whatever you ask me to do, I’ll do it. I just don’t want to make a mistake. Do the savants have a long-term goal?”
If only. “Right now, all I want you to worry about is healing and doing what they tell you. Fit in, go along, and wait for me to send a mentor to you. He or she will be another potioneer and will be wearing a necklace like this.” He tapped his beads. “Welcome to your new future, Potioneer Savant Nigha. Courtesy of Bayan Lualhati.”
Nigha twitched in surprise. “The exile? What does he have to do—”
A high voice interrupted. “Odjin, something’s happening. We need you.” The eunuch Kipri strode through the Chantery ward, wearing a sleek purple wig laced with swags of black beads. Any eunuch sporting a wig in the empire anymore was either employed by the Minister of Information or sympathetic to his causes. Even some noblewomen—those favoring the Hexmates—had begun disdaining their traditional shell headdresses for bright wigs. Odjin wouldn’t be caught dead in such a thing. He’d much rather magic himself a new leg than new hair.
He looked back to Nigha and gave her upper arm a final squeeze of reassurance. “I promise I’ll explain everything later. Trust me. Now get some rest.” He stood, and leaning on a bamboo cane, he limped in Kipri’s direction until they met in the middle of the ward. “What’s happened?”
Kipri’s high voice lowered to a bare whisper. “Someone has attacked the Temple of Ten Thousand Harmonies. A large force of strange casters. The First Singer herself came to inform Langlaren in case the emperor needs him as Warmaster.”
Odjin’s jaw went slack, and his lungs burned with shock. “Warmaster? We’re at war? With whom?”
“I wasn’t in the meeting. I don’t know, but I’m guessing that, since the First Singer brought someone from the Corona with her, and she’s waiting outside the Chantery right now, they’re some kind of Corona casters.”
“A Corona girl was here? Was she part of the attack?”
Kipri led the way out of the Chantery. Odjin spotted Sivutma’s taut sapling form on the porch and realized that an unofficial meeting was about to happen.
As Odjin and Kipri stepped through the wide Chantery doors onto the broad stone porch that fronted a wide swath of grass, Odjin got his first look at the young woman from the empire to the east. She was beautiful, young, strong, everything a young duelist could hope for in order to find good placement in a duel den. No one wanted to be a beautiful potioneer. “What’s she doing here?”
Kipri gave him a smug smile. “You’re not going to believe this, but Bayan sent her.”
Odjin stopped, and his bamboo cane stuttered against the stone. “You’re right. I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true, Odjin.” Doc Theo turned to him. “Bayan was at the attack on the Temple of Ten Thousand Harmonies. Sabella here says that a lot of singers actually died, smothered to death by some kind of enormous air-stealing spell, but Bayan—I cain’t even believe this my ownself—he moved the Temple. Moved it away from the spell, and saved the rest of the singers.”
A dark stone on Odjin’s necklace throbbed hard, once: his jealousy stone. “All by himself? Where did he put it?”
Sabella spoke for the first time, and Odjin found her accent delectable. “Balanganam. He moved the Temple through a portal, and it’s safe now. Well, as safe as the singers are, I suppose.”
Odjin shook his head in amazement and confusion, then addressed Diantha and Doc. “But why the singers? They don’t fight. They prevent storms and help the crops grow. Why would anyone want to attack the Temple, instead of oh, say, here?”
Doc’s gray brows drew together. “My first guess is that they thought that’s where the chanters were gathered. They wanted to take out our ability to heal. It’s been a long time since I was in a war, Odjin, but my instincts are tellin’ me this ain’t the end. This is just the beginning.”
Sabella’s wide eyes settled on the grizzled chanter. “The beginning of what, though? Even Bayan didn’t know.”
Sints, those green eyes, they’re enchanting. I’ve never seen the like. Odjin caught himself staring and shook off the thought. The last time I fell head over heels for a girl, my emotions got the better of me, I got in an illegal duel, lost my leg, and got potioneered. That path, I’ll give it a wide berth this time.
Odjin addressed the group at large. “What is Langlaren doing now? Are we mobilizing?” He looked at Sivutma. “Are the hexes going into battle?”
Sabella answered instead. “The singer who brought me here is still speaking to the Headmaster. I asked her to leave me here on Bayan’s behalf, to see what I could learn for him. The singer said she would send another shortly to take me back to the Temple.” She looked around the group. “Will you really go to war against the cetechupes? Bayan has never fought them, and he lived with us for almost two years. Yl Senyecho keeps them very much in reserve. Their magic seems very different from yours.”
Odjin leaned forward a step. “You’re from the Corona. What can you tell us about your casters?”
Sabella shook her head, and her dark blond hair shivered in distress. “I’ve barely seen them myself. My magic is considered a mutation. I dance my magic. Like your Dancing Duelist? Bayan said she was important once. But cetechupil, it is very different. It has very specific rules, and I know none of them. Even about how the magic works, I do not know more than the rumors.”
“Rumors are a good start when we don’t have anything at all to go on,” Diantha said.
Sabella held her hands up before her as if supporting a small object. “I know they use flasks. They contain some kind of liquid, which they spit. Its ingredients make the spell occur, and the spells they can cast are usually very large. They are elemental, like my dancing and your duelism. But the effects that they make are much different than the effects I can do. They have more power somehow. Bayan could not defeat their air-stealing spell, and that is why he had to rip the Temple from the mountains and move it away.”
A worm of cold fear spiraled in Odjin’s belly. “You’re saying that we need to learn an entirely new way to battle? How much time do we—”
A portal winked in, and a breathless Tala appeared to Odjin’s left, against a backdrop of smoky chaos. The brass rods that supported her singing crystals shivered in her trembling hands. “Father, I need a battle chanter. The Kheerzaal is under attack!”
Without a word, Doc Theo sprang through the portal, which snapped shut with sudden, silent finality. Sivutma’s dark eyes cut to Odjin’s in the stunned silence. “No time at all, it seems,” she said. “I’ll be readying the savant hexes if she needs them.”
Trapped a dozen leagues from the nearest Potioneer Savant, Odjin felt the icy worm in his belly twist painfully. They weren’t ready. He wasn’t ready.
Think Darker
Kiwani ran the sharp edge of her fingernail across her forearm again, then watched the blood that oozed from the wound. If my parents had never lied about my blood status, I wouldn’t have been punished by being sent here as Head Duelist. Does that make my new Waarden blood further punishment or reprieve? Is finding that imprisoned presence a blessing or curse?
The heavy, humid air made the distant canyon maze ripple like a mirage. A portal sprang into existence behind her and to the left, and frantic sounds of elemental battle collided with her ears—splintering wood, trembling earth, roaring fires, and voices shouting in pain and anger. Instinctively, she jumped off the arena rim and caught herself on her wind disc, then turned and rose back up, ready to fling Flame and Shock.
Through the portal, Tala huddled against the side of a building, protected somewhat by a slender topiary from the chaos behind her. Her hands shook so hard around her brass rods that Kiwani was surprised the black crystals didn’t tumble
to the ground and snap the portal shut. Heart thumping, Kiwani glanced to the right side of the portal at the sliver of the battle that she could see and recognized the broad courtyard and its particular hue of brick.
The Kheerzaal. Again.
Her eyes snapped back to Tala’s, and she leapt through the portal. Her wind disc faded, and she landed on the ground before the singer. She pressed against the wall right beside Tala, who touched her crystals, shutting off the portal. “Tell me what’s happening.” Her voice was a whispered demand.
Tala turned to look through the shrubbery, then summed up the events that led to the initial attack. “The Corona casters followed us through Eward’s escape hole—I don’t think any of them were ever negotiators—and now he and the imperial duelists are trying their best to kill them, but it seems more of a race across the rooftops right now. I have fetched Tarin and Taban to help him, and now you, but I think someone’s Wind blast caught me in the head. I’m a little woozy.”
Kiwani eased Tala into a sitting position against the wall, then studied the battle. Eward had hexed out all of his avatars at once and was doing a slow but passable job of fending off four Corona casters. Tarin and Taban circled the skies, trying to pick off the casters who had taken to the roofs to attack Eward. Kiwani caught a glimpse of her former personal chanter, Azhni, dashing to Imee’s aid beneath the damaged eaves of a building. For all Azhni’s faults, fear was never one of them.
It hasn’t been one of mine for a long time, either. Only one strategy will give us a chance at winning this fight. Sints help me.
Prodigal Steelwielder (Seals of the Duelists Book 3) Page 15