Grave Ghost

by Tia Reed

  “For legend, Lady Jordayne.”

  Her heart grasped the idea first; it was thumping against her ribs before her mind had latched onto his meaning. Myklaan boasted but one legend concerning a butterfly, a tale some believed was a work of fancy. “How did you come by this?”

  “No consequence.”

  “Indeed it is.”

  “Pass down through my house for generations.”

  A Myklaani artefact in an Eastern house of antiquarians. Why did that not surprise her? The history was patchy. The butterfly’s movements could be tracked through occasional appearances in paintings or journals at the homes of wealthy satraps. About a century ago, it had disappeared without trace. Until now.

  “Dealing on the black market, Weng Wu?

  “Myklaan plunder first.”

  That she could well believe. As far as she knew no reference to the origin of the butterfly existed. She blinked. “Did I not see a painting of this masterpiece in the shop?” She cast a probing look at every corner. The picture she had glanced at when first she came to the emporium deserved a second look.

  “To your left, lady,” Ming said. The lad was looking a touch confused. A pity he was not so well informed as his great-grandfather. It would have been easy to convince him to divulge what he knew.

  The painting was stacked against the back wall. Jordayne turned it over. Even with her limited training she could tell it dated to well before the last few centuries. And what she had interpreted as an artisan presenting his work – a plain crimson butterfly – could well have been a master commissioning the first of many embellishments.

  “An Eastern treasure?” she asked, returning to the butterfly.

  “No, lady.”

  “I see.” Plundered after all. And its origin still a mystery. She lifted the relic with reverence, examining every last detail. If this was the work Weng Wu boasted, her dear Uncle would never be plagued by djinn again.

  “There are flaws,” she announced.

  “No flaw. This work of many craftsmen over many year. You see new style on old.”

  “I have only your word on it.”

  “You have proof in painting.”

  The rascal was more familiar with this object than he was letting on.

  “Perhaps it is the secret of its power,” Ming said, squinting at the imperfect junction of one diamond with the crimson stone of the left wing.

  “What proof have you that this is the genuine artefact?”

  Weng Wu held up a finger. His long nail made an impressive point. “Djinn never bother my house.”

  Chapter 23

  TIMAK SLIPPED INTO the press of the crowd. It swept him out of the triangle with its bordering monasteries into the vast domed Temple of the Vae, out of sight of a splendour so golden it hurt his eyes. Inside the entrance he stood, unsure which direction to turn as the crowd spilled all around. Out of habit, he went left. He forgot himself as he gazed at the fresco of feathered Vae’oeldin flying over his domain. His heart beat faster and he slowed. The spicy incense which smoked the air turned him dizzy. He hurried on before the god swooped down on him.

  At the end of the wall, the most beautiful image of the goddess he had ever seen brought him to his knees. He kowtowed, rested on his heels and gazed at her, exquisite in her gown of petals and leaves. In time, he remembered to pray. He wasn’t sure she would remember one little boy who wanted to return to his parents.

  His guard, Dario, cleared his throat. “Lady Jordayne said two hours. Are you inclined to visit the gods?”

  Timak sat a little longer, because it felt right to be here, safe like it felt at the Mage Guild.

  “The master magus suggested you visit Vae’oeldin,” Dario prompted.

  Timak walked along the wall painted with Vae’omar’s image to Vae’oeldin’s corner, where wind whistled through the slit windows in the minaret. Master Magus Drucilamere had said the plumed warrior, God of Sky, protector of soldiers, was the also patron of mages. He needed to pray here too, so that the mages would not grow tired of him. So they would keep him here, away from Ahkdul. Vae’oeldin and Vae’oenka might argue about it, if they even heard: train him here or return him home.

  In front of scaled Vae’omar, prayers fled him. But his father was stationed in the third watchtower, which hovered over the canyon through which Djinn’s Rage stormed. His papa had always insisted the God of Water deserved respect. He dipped a hand in the pool and listened to water drip from the ferns clinging to the tower walls. Make the ghosts go away, was all he could think to pray. And keep the soldiers at the Third Watchtower from your depths.

  One visit remained. He padded to the centre of the temple, weaving his way through monks and worshipers. A sunbeam dropped through the hole in the ceiling, marking the spot where the central column with its watching eyes should have rested. Timak studied the empty space in the strange temple. He couldn’t say proper prayers without the column.

  A monk in a Vae’oenka’s brown stopped his procession. “Are you unsure whose altar to visit?” he asked. His sleeveless, wraparound robe was unable to hide his bulk.

  Timak shook his head.

  “The lad doesn’t speak,” Dario said.

  “Silence can oft lead us to wisdom.”

  A gong sounded.

  “The afternoon chants are about to begin. Perhaps you would like to participate? You might find solace in the Words of the Vae,” the monk said.

  Timak nodded. The monk continued towards Vae’oenka, a brass offering bowl full of petals clasped tight in his hand. The gong clanged again. Timak sank onto the floor, cross-legged. A third time the gong tolled. Monks streamed into the temple, some gathering at the centre, others fanning to the corners. The blue, green or brown of the knee-length wraparound robes declared to which of the Vae they had dedicated their service. The congregation knelt inside the triangles they formed. As one, monks and people hummed. The chant reverberated through the temple. Through him. Timak closed his eyes and let time stand still.

  “Which one will you target?” a lazy voice enquired.

  “Does it matter? Every one of them has a plea,” another voice laughed.

  Timak opened his eyes. No one was talking.

  “Oh it matters all right. The more desperate they are, the more willing to deal.” The voice became calculating. “The more you can exact.”

  Timak looked up. There were no bright bobs of djinn and genie light, but the sun warmed his face. All around, murmuring voices collided beneath the chant of the monks. Sometimes, a single voice detached from the rest.

  My son needs work, Vae’oeldin.

  We’ve had no rain in Rai province for near on a year, Vae’omar.

  My sister needs a boy, Vae’oenka.

  My soldier husband is at the border, Vae’oeldin, and I’ve heard rumour of war.

  Cure my wife, Vae’oenka. She’s all I’ve got and the cursed palace guards took the porrin.

  Too many monks sat between Timak and that last, clear voice. All through the chants, it kept repeating the plea. By the time the monks sang the final note, Timak knew. He walked to the statue of Vae’oenka and waited for the man to kowtow in front of her pit a final time. When the devout man rose, he looked right at Timak, like the goddess had wanted Timak to be visible. Timak squirmed. The man was missing part of his middle finger.

  “The mages have lots of porrin,” Timak said. “Maybe they can heal your wife.” Like the mahktashaan had healed him.

  There was the span of a breath. A petal drifted down between them.

  “What do you know of it, boy? What do you know of anything? It’s the mages who claimed her ease.”

  A tinkle announced the Lady Jordayne’s arrival. “Have you paid enough homage for today, Timak?”

  “You. What right have you blurting my business to a brat?” the man growled.

  The Lady started, her eyes growing wide. Water dripped into Vae’omar’s pool. “Rondel deq Oakson. Your wife is well, I trust?”

  “My wife
is ill. I would know how it is your page carries this knowledge. Do you confide every snippet of gossip to the rats beneath your feet? If I meet my death, will I learn it was your tongue that betrayed me?”

  Timak fidgeted. A breeze whistled through Vae’oeldin’s walls.

  “I have kept my word,” Lady Jordayne said. She cupped Timak’s chin to make sure he met her eyes. “How is it you know of this man’s wife?” she asked. “Is there a guard who spun you a tale?”

  “I’ve not said a dozen words to the boy,” Dario said. “And most like he’d not hear any I did.”

  A monk in a rust robe approached, brows knitted. “Those troubled of soul should seek intercession from the Vae.”

  “Why else would we be here?” Lady Jordayne said, releasing him.

  Shaking his head, deq Oakson turned.

  “Have you taken your wife to Physic deq Lamont?” Lady Jordayne asked.

  Deq Oakson’s growl was unintelligible.

  “This boy is not a page but apprentice to the mages.”

  Deq Oakson halted. He lifted his head, though he refused to turn. A single drip preceded his answer. “Then his offer of porrin is good?”

  “I regret that it is not. But I am interested in whether his information came from the heavens or earth. Aren’t you?”

  The monk drew closer. His face stretched and wrinkled in turn as though he fought a revelation.

  “That one. I choose that one.” The disembodied words rippled on laughter.

  “He belongs to me.”

  A smile broke on Timak’s face. He would recognise Yazmine’s bright voice anywhere. His gaze searched every nook of the temple but her bobbing light was missing, perhaps swallowed in the shaft of sunlight.

  “What marvel is this?” the monk asked. “Does he hear the Vae?”

  Timak caught himself tilting his ear, straightened his head and lost his smile.

  “To you, little rose?” The tinkling voice clucked.

  Lady Jordayne folded her arms and looked down with the arch of an eyebrow that demanded an answer. She didn’t even mind a petal brushed her nose before drifting into Vae’oenka’s pit.

  Timak focused on her. The others unsettled him to silence. “I heard the people pray,” he said.

  “Without words?” The monk pressed forefingers and thumbs together to make the triangle of the Vae.

  Timak remained silent.

  “What’s wrong with your arm, child?” the tinkling voice asked.

  Timak looked at his arm.

  “He hears something now,” the guard said.

  “Nothing.” Yazmine sounded alarmed.

  “Over the chants?” the monk asked.

  Timak stared at Lady Jordayne’s belly button.

  “This child has the blessing of the Vae,” the monk said.

  “Let me see,” the tinkling genie said.

  “Kaidon.” The gasp echoed through the host of djinn. Timak jerked at the fear in their voices.

  Lifting his hands to the heavens, the monk drew in a deep breath. “He is chosen. He has accomplished what many of the Vae’s humble servants are unable to do even after years of training. This child must dedicate his life to the gods.”

  Another drip echoed around the dome.

  “You were in the Crystalite Caves,” a deep djinn voice said.

  “I saw the temple. Will you tell me the story of the Eye?” Yazmine asked.

  “The one our indigo brother smote from the statue?” a husky female replied.

  “He did that?”

  Other holy men were gathering, with offering bowls, and burning incense sticks, and water jugs. Their unsettled murmurs were disturbing in the quiet. Rondel deq Oakson was leaning forward. Timak swallowed. Everyone was looking at him. He stared at Lady Jordayne, willing her to bid him go from this place.

  “Mahktos was watching him with that Eye,” a deep male said.

  “I told you he’s evil. Why won’t you believe me?”

  “Hush now. It’s aeons past.”

  Lady Jordayne smiled the close-lipped smile she reserved for when she found something amusing that others might not. He had seen her use it often with Kordahla. “Well, Timak, you are in demand. It seems you have a decision to make. Will you bond to the temple or return to the mages?”

  “Tell me more,” Yazmine said.

  “Later. Now you must go to Mahktos.”

  “He must speak to the High One,” a monk with greying hair, clad in green, proclaimed in a tone that brooked no argument.

  “I can’t go,” Yazmine protested.

  “You must,” the voices insisted.

  They fell quiet.

  Timak’s throat constricted. When grown-ups said speak, they meant he must answer a barrage of questions. Timak stared at Lady Jordayne’s nose. The blood draining from his face left him cold. After five heartbeats, he found the strength to talk above the whispering wind.

  “Is it true what you said?” he asked. Her look was enquiring. He bit his dry lip. The thought was both too evil to hold in this place, and just. “If I become a mage, will I have enough power to kill Lord Ahkdul?”

  Vae’omar’s pool bubbled. A monk clad in brown snapped his head towards the Lady. “Would you corrupt an innocent?”

  Lady Jordayne ignored the comment. “You will have magic. More of it than Master Magus Drucilamere if you can find the key to that quartz. As to the extent of your reach, you must speak to the mages. The last apprentice succeeded in killing a man with very little talent or training.”

  The honest answer decided him. For the first time in a very long while, Timak looked an adult in the eye without an inward or outward flinch. “I want to be a mage.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Gor swiped at the bundles of fragrant, wholesome herbs drying on ledges around the cave. Ishoa brought her staff down on the rock. The spirits banked behind her as the cave tremored, luminescent with their might. Gor growled like the animal he was, staggered right over the wavering fire, and snarled at their light.

  The tremors settled. Gor lashed out. Ishoa thrust her staff forward. His hand connected with the shaft. She willed herself to keep hold as it shook. As a pod dropped off. As splinters peeled off the knob, and Gor yowled with shock at the impact of her ancestors.

  “Give Gor gir-erl.” He lunged and knocked her to the ground.

  Ishoa lifted her staff. Lightning flashed inside the cave. The shadows of her totem rose high on the rough walls. The growling bears raked their paws over the beast, cowing him as they scratched through his hair and skin.

  “You will claim no woman of the Akerin, foul creature of the night.”

  The ogre fell to his knees. “Gor want gir-erl!” He pummeled a large hand into her.

  The wind howled as her body broke.

  The spirits lifted her through her pain. She clacked her staff down. Thunder banged. The crack in the shaft widened. Still the ogre punched. The spirits of the Akerin deadened her pain but they could not heal her hurts. For the Akerin and for Sian, Ishoa beseeched the bears to fight. They ripped at his flesh, but they could not undo the abominable change in his soul. Nor could they change immutable soothsayer lore.

  There is only ever one.

  The man-ogre pressed his hands around her neck, depriving her of breath, sending her dizzy soul spinning from her body until she was one with the spirits shining through the cave.

  One last time she brought her staff to earth. Thunder cracked through the length of the wood. It toppled Gor. The man-ogre lay whimpering by the fire. She called on the bears to tear him apart, could only weep when they loped from the cave into the shelter of the wind-whipped forest.

  Her staff lay split asunder. Her power was gone, but one last time the spirits granted her the sight, that she might look on Gor, bloodied and bruised, and know they had reason to let him live.

  Chapter 24

  VINSANT STUCK A smug smile on his face and made sure Tokver caught it as he sauntered down the crystal-lit passage to weapons training. A
qua Crystal had introduced him to stick fighting, and boy was he keen to hone his miserable skills. Except, Aqua Crystal was leaving the practice room as he arrived. The barrel the mahktashaan floated in front of himself was full of an assortment of weapons.

  “Mahktashaan Fenz requires my assistance,” Aqua Crystal said. “Mahktashaan Tokver has volunteered to drill you today.”

  Vinsant wiped the smile off his face. Tokver, who had followed, removed his hood. The dim torchlight couldn’t hide the fact the slime ball was grinning from ear to ear. Flicking his hood up, he pointed Vinsant into the training circle.

  “Summon my stick,” Tokver said.

  Easy enough since there was a whole group of them stacked in a barrel against one of the rough-hewn walls. Except Tokver forced Vinsant to place it in his hands, with his hood down, no less, like a common serving boy.

  The first whack to his ribs came before he had time to move into position.

  “A mahktashaan never lets his guard down.”

  Vinsant bit his tongue. Literally, because it was the only way to curb a stream of abuse that would earn him a rap on the knuckles. As it was Tokver delivered one of those anyway, right after Vinsant summoned himself a stick, just because his little finger wasn’t tucked in.

  That was the last straw. Releasing the stick into one hand, Vinsant let fly with a series of wild swings. The bastard deflected them before they were even a quarter of the way into their arc. Summoning his practice sword, he tried to use the element of surprise to jab Tokver while the mahktashaan was blocking his stick. Two blows and both stick and sword dropped out of his hand. A third blow across the ribs doubled him over. Tokver struck him across the ankles, and he fell. Vinsant groaned. His ribs were on fire. At least one had to be broken.

  “Get up.”

  Standing sent a searing pain through his chest but there was no way he was going to give Tokver the satisfaction. “Mahktos will make you pay for this,” Vinsant said, delivering the one threat that would bear weight.

  “For training a disrespectful apprentice? In techniques used for hundreds of years? I think not. Hold up your stick. Show me a basic hit.”