by David Hair
Alaron surveyed the training yard, as lines of young Zain novices kindled blue mage-fire in their hands. ‘Hold it! Don’t lose it!’ he encouraged, Master Puravai translating his words.
He walked down the rows, trying to impart what he knew. ‘Nurture that spark, feed it – and if you lose it, try again!’ He passed Yash, who was struggling to contain the conflagration in his hands. ‘Not too much! Control!’
Corinea was helping him, speaking in terse Keshi and Lakh. He could only hope she was reinforcing his words, not contradicting them. Ramita was in the other courtyard, helping the last novices to Ascend to catch up with the rest.
Thirty new magi: they’d lost four. One more to panic and heart failure, and the last one . . . he’d come round all right, but when he’d tried to draw on the gnosis, his aura had been all wrong . . . the Souldrinker curse. He’d been overcome by what he described as a ghastly hunger that felt like claws ripping out his insides. It had only subsided when Corinea bound him with a Chain-rune. But he’d been the only one.
Corinea appeared to be glad of the anomaly, as if the information they might glean from that case was of more interest than the young man’s life. He was now in solitary confinement, but when Alaron confronted her about it, she just looked at him blankly and said, ‘He’s a monk: they enjoy being alone.’
Not slapping her had been hard that day.
From now on, the focus was on training the new Ascendants, and in the evenings, scrying for Malevorn, Huriya and Nasatya. He didn’t know how long it might take to find them – indeed, with the monastery surrounded by the Lokistan Mountains they might not even manage. He figured they would have no choice but to leave in the end, and take their search into the warzone – but before that, these peaceable young men, reared to be monks, had to learn to defend themselves from other magi.
Which brought him back to this moment. He raised a hand: ‘Now, kinesis!’ The novices slammed their fists towards a target before them, a clay disc on a string. Some of the discs were swatted into motion, most weren’t.
‘Again!’
Teaching the gnosis wasn’t a new thing for him: he and Ramon had secretly taught Cym in Norostein, and he’d instructed the lamiae on their journey across Yuros, pursuing the Scytale. This was only a little different. He and Puravai agreed that learning needed to be engaging, and certainly in his Arcanum days the fun lessons had also been the most productive. So he tried to turn the lessons into games: using kinesis to juggle small objects, or throwing snow at each other – trying to protect oneself from snowballs needed shielding, which required kinetic-gnosis and aura-awareness. He made a game of firing mage-bolts at targets, and challenged them to use wards to lock doors, then have their fellows try to unlock them. ‘Practise all the time, in every available moment,’ he told them repeatedly.
‘Except during prayer,’ Puravai would add, making them all laugh. Puravai had told him he was a natural teacher, which the best praise he’d ever had.
But time was marching on. Dasra, a year old, was walking now, a tiny, upright and infinitely curious child. A girl from the nearest village had been hired to be his nanny while Ramita was busy: Juppi had no toes, the legacy of frostbite as a child, but she was gentle, and fascinated by the monastery, a legendary place in her mind. Most importantly, Ramita trusted her.
Alaron also did a lot of one-on-one work, trying to overcome specific problems – like Yash who, predictably enough, had developed Fire-gnosis first; he’d been a menace until he’d learned to control it – the courtyards and walkways were liberally adorned with charred streaks. Kedak had started inadvertently taking to the air. Gateem had been deliberately cutting himself to practise healing and almost bled to death one night. Aprek was developing an alarming affinity in Spiritualism and couldn’t keep inside his own skin, slipping out while his body fainted, at table or in mid-stride.
And then there was Felakan.
‘Excuse me, Master Al’Rhon,’ Felakan said one evening, surprising Alaron in the corridor leading back to his and Ramita’s rooms. Alaron turned in surprise. Felakan wasn’t a novice but a full monk, clad in saffron. He’d seldom deigned to speak with Alaron, apart from when he’d shared his details for Alaron’s research. He turned down the ambrosia because he’s too close to perfection, or some such rubbish, Alaron recalled as they faced each other.
The young monk had a troubled look on his face and Alaron sighed, expecting another string of complaints . . . Some of the older monks had been protesting that Puravai had deliberately invited sin into the monastery, and from time to time Alaron had been stopped and berated by the old men; he might not understand the words but he certainly got the gist of their feelings. He really wasn’t in the mood for that tonight.
‘I’m not your Master, Felakan’ he said shortly. ‘What is it?’
Felakan collapsed to his knees, dropping his face to the floor so fast Alaron was afraid he’d slam it into the stone. ‘Master, I was prideful! I was wrong! I thought I had attained Holy Serenity – the precursor to moksha! I thought myself Chosen! How wrong I was!’
‘You should be talking to Master Puravai, not me,’ Alaron said awkwardly. ‘Please, get up—’
‘I’m too ashamed – he was right about me. I see it now. I’m not worthy.’ Felakan’s voice became plaintive. ‘Master Al’Rhon, I want what you offered – please!’
You want what the Ascendant acolytes now have. You’ve been watching them and envy is burning you up.
‘I will ask Master Puravai to see you.’ He doubted that the Master would agree. Felakan had been so arrogant, and this new desire smacked of self-regard and jealousy. But maybe I’m reading him wrong; after all, I don’t know the man. ‘I’ll talk to Master Puravai for you,’ he said, more kindly this time.
The next day, Puravai asked Corinea to prepare another potion. The day after that, Felakan died while screaming in his trance-dream about a spider creeping up on them all. The incident left Alaron with a nasty sense of self-doubt. I was certain he would fail, but I passed the decision to Puravai. I should have spoken up. Perhaps he was being unfair on himself, but Felakan haunted his dreams for nights afterward.
*
Alyssa Dulayne’s skin quivered as the wind-dhou swept through the glittering white mountain peaks, piercing the wispy clouds. Falling sun and rising moon combined to light the twilight eerily. Febreux was always a windy month, and traversing these maze-like mountains had been an exercise in navigation she wasn’t keen to repeat. Time and again they found themselves lost, and the shepherds captured to guide them became panicky and disoriented when taken into the air. What should have been a week’s journey had taken almost a month, and she was fretting now. Would Ramita Ankesharan and Alaron Mercer have moved on? Did they even still have the Scytale? Rashid’s army was taking dreadful casualties as he assailed Kaltus Korion’s crusaders near Halli’kut. He urgently needed the artefact.
Then at last she saw what she sought: straight lines and architectural curves amidst the jagged rock formations, and the dim gleam of night-lights. This is it: Mandira Khojana.
She glanced at Megradh, who was grinning savagely at the prospect of the bloodletting to come. The Hadishah captain still worried her. He was nothing but a lecherous brute, having bullied the girl Tegeda into submitting to him, and was now demanding access to Cymbellea di Regia as well. Alyssa had denied him that, of course; Cymbellea’s bloodline was far too important to be wasted on the likes of him. Right now the Rimoni girl was tied up and stowed in the hold to keep her from trying to jump overboard again. Since they’d executed the Dokken, Cymbellea had completely collapsed, both physically and spiritually. It didn’t look like she’d be joining Alyssa’s coterie willingly. That was both a shame and a vexation.
But perhaps she’ll be useful in extracting the Scytale from this Alaron Mercer, if I need some leverage . . .
She engaged her Inner Eye and one wing of the monastery came alive to her gnostic sight, revealing a faint mesh of wards, invisible to normal
sight. Wards could be concealed from mage-sight, but it took extra effort and energy: whoever had set these clearly thought that unnecessary, here in the wilds where no magi came. But you’re wrong, Ramita. I’m here . . . and you’ve got no one but a clutch of pitiful Zains to defend you.
Caution would advocate waiting until the middle of the night, but the winds were rising and looking at the heavy clouds, more snowfall was threatening.
To Hel with caution!
‘Find a place to land out of their sight,’ she told Megradh. ‘We’ll go in on foot.’
*
Ramita tucked Dasra into bed and kissed his forehead while extricating her hair from his fingers. Her eyes beamed with love for the little boy. She couldn’t really see anything of Antonin Meiros in him, except perhaps for the grey eyes, and maybe the shape of the skull. It was her own face she saw for the most part, in his composed, serious expressions – but when he smiled, he was her generous, gentle brother Jai.
‘I adore you, my little man,’ she whispered, ‘I love you so much . . . and your brother Nas too. And one day we will find him, I promise . . .’
Suddenly shaking, she kissed her son again, and reluctantly left the room. She locked and warded the door behind her, because Alaron insisted she should, even here, so far away from the rest of the world. It’s a good habit, he kept telling her, and of course he was right; she knew that . . .
Alaron was with the novices, playing another game to help make using the gnosis second nature. It involved lots of shouting and laughter, and the ancient monastery’s thick stone walls reverberated to the sound. She wondered what the older monks were thinking. Are they irritated, or envious?
She was passing Corinea’s chambers when she saw her door was open and on a whim, she knocked, then entered. The room was almost empty, unlike her own, which had accumulated all manner of clutter. ‘Shaitan’s Whore’ was sitting on a stool and combing her long silver hair while staring into a mirror that didn’t reflect her but instead showed a moonlit desert. She was scrying.
The old jadugara had linked minds with Alaron and Ramita a few weeks ago in an attempt to boost her scrying range, but Ramita had found it too frightening to continue. The mental linkage had brought back too many unpleasant memories of Alyssa Dulayne, Justina Meiros’ so-called best friend; in her first few months in Hebusalim, Alyssa had taught Ramita the Rondian tongue, mind-to-mind – but the Ordo Costruo traitor had also used that link to steal her most secret thoughts. Opening up to Corinea after that had been hard, even though she now knew how to protect her mind.
‘Where is that?’ Ramita asked, setting her discomfort aside and peering at the desert scene in the mirror.
‘I’m riding the mind of a vulture and projecting what it sees into the mirror,’ Corinea explained. ‘What you are looking at is part of the Sithardha Desert, southwest of Ullakesh – right now. I’m trying to use your memories of Huriya Makani to find her.’ She conjured an image of Huriya in the mirror, plucked from memories of Ramita’s last sight of her, beneath the dome of the Mughal’s Palace in Teshwallabad. Then she brought another image to the mirror: the Inquisitor Malevorn Andevarion.
Corinea exhaled a little. ‘He’s handsome, yes?’
‘I don’t find killers good-looking. Have you found them?’
‘I’ve found traces: places where they’ve been. I’ve been working outwards from where you last saw them, in Teshwallabad. They went north, that much is clear, but the trail is cold and they’re shielding. But I’ll find them, you’ll see.’
‘Is there any sign of my son?’
Corinea shook her head. ‘Nothing.’
‘Do you have any children?’ Ramita asked boldly.
Corinea considered, then said, ‘He’s probably dead.’
‘He?’
‘We called him Hiram. He went East more than a hundred years ago, chasing a legend. I expect he’s dead now, like his father.’ She changed the subject firmly and asked, with a little leer, ‘How’s married life?’
Ramita let the matter of Hiram go. ‘It’s very good.’
‘It is, for a time – I’ve had eight husbands, and many lovers besides, and I left them all behind. Romance is all very well, but it grows stale.’
‘Al’Rhon has stood by me through many dangers,’ Ramita replied confidently. ‘Our love is for ever.’
‘The number of times I’ve thought the same . . .’ Corinea sighed melodramatically. ‘No love is for ever, girl. Time has taught me that, at least. It’s not all kisses and bed-play, you know.’
‘I know this.’ I, who was married to Antonin Meiros and made to watch him die. I, whose lover killed him. ‘I have experienced much. I know what to expect. And I have a father and a mother who are my models in this: they’ve shown me that love and marriage aren’t all joy. There are seasons of sadness and suffering, there are trials, there are temptations. Sometimes marriage is a duty and a burden; this is known. But they also showed me, every day, that making the sacrifices that love requires is always worthwhile.’
‘Well, aren’t you just a perfect little Lakh wife?’ Corinea remarked sarcastically. ‘Have you ever had a thought of your own? Or do you just spout the words your parents and gurus put in your mouth?’
I don’t need her jealous bitterness. ‘Goodnight, Lillea. Sleep well.’
She turned and started to walk away, but not before she’d seen Corinea’s face drop, her misery clear for once. Her voice sounded morose and sour. ‘I did believe in love,’ she called after Ramita, ‘but my lover – the man I loved more than life – tried to murder me. Every love ends like that.’
Ramita pulled the door shut behind her, because she didn’t need to hear such things. I will not let her failures curdle my joy . . .
She walked down the corridor to the room she and Alaron now shared wondering briefly if they would ever find her lost son, then turning to the more practical question of when Alaron’s game would be finished below . . . She was well inside the room before she realised that she wasn’t alone.
Beside the window was a tall figure in a dark bekira-shroud, and two figures were standing guard, knives in either hand and masks over their faces. Their stance and attire recalled that night in Hebusalim, two years ago and more, when her new life had been torn apart. By Hadishah . . .
The tall woman in the bekira pulled down her hood, and a voice she’d hoped never to hear again floated across the room. ‘Hello, Ramita. How lovely to see you again.’
21
Blood on the Snow
Theurgy: Mysticism
I commend to you the subtlest of Studies, the art of the Mystic. With it you can obtain the deepest communion of minds and thus share knowledge, thought and even gnostic strength. But beware: what is shared can also be taken. How well do you know the person to whom you’ve entrusted the keys to your mind?
ORDO COSTRUO COLLEGIATE, PONTUS
Mandira Khojana, Lokistan, on the continent of Antiopia
Moharram (Janune) 930
19th month of the Moontide
Alaron, standing at the edge of the mêlée of young novices, shared a boyish grin with Puravai: the game of ‘Hoop’ had come to Lokistan, direct from the streets of Norostein.
The courtyard where Alaron had convened his latest teaching game had a high wooden roof to keep out rain and snow. There were seats around all four sides, sheltered by the wooden walkways above that were currently off limits now that ice made them too treacherous. Normally the courtyard was a quiet place, used for exercise or meditation, but not this evening.
Alaron was pleased at how well the novices had picked up the game – in fact some, like Yash, were already becoming passionate about it. In Yuros non-magi played Hoop in the streets using any part of their body except their arms to move the ball, no hands, but at the Arcanum the students had adapted it for their own needs. There weren’t many rules in either version. Two hoops were hung at either end of the courtyard, out of reach above their heads, and each team of five had to guard ‘
their’ hoop and score through the opponent’s one. Non-magi mostly kicked the leather ball, but the magi had added rules for shielding and kinesis. Both variants were a contest of agility and teamwork; for the magi it was also about the gnosis.
Alaron had enough novices for exactly six teams, and they had been playing a round robin to find a champion team. It was hilarious entertainment, but the novices were also becoming increasingly keen on winning.
‘Good,’ Alaron remarked quietly to Puravai. ‘They need a little competitive spirit.’ Then he turned back to the game. ‘Come on!’ he shouted at Aprek, ‘you’re two to one down – get working!’
Aprek waggled his head and pulled a determined face, but then Yash robbed him of the ball, stealing control while bumping Aprek aside. The air sparked as their shields collided, but Aprek went down passively. Some of them still just don’t get it, Alaron thought. Then Sindar slammed into Yash hard and they both fell over, and came up with balled fists.
‘Hey!’ Yash shouted. ‘You played me, not the ball – you cheat!’
‘I didn’t!’ Sindar – usually a mild young man – protested.
‘Calm yourself, Yash!’ Aprek called from the ground. ‘You’re the cheat!’
‘Yeah?’ Yash strode towards Aprek, bent down and grabbed at his collar, and suddenly they were in the early motions of unarmed combat.
‘Oi!’ Alaron leaped from his seat and ran into the middle, where Yash and Aprek both turned to him and began making their cases at the tops of their voices.
He almost missed it, but in the growing silence that fell as everyone strained to hear what was going on, there was a faint crackling sound all the way around the courtyard. Looking up, he frowned. On the wooden walkway, the ice had broken from the shutters, as if they’d all moved at once . . .
*
Sal’Ahm on High. I place my life in your hands. Megradh only ever prayed on the verge of battle, and the rote words spilled automatically through his mind, though he had no intention of relinquishing his life into anyone’s hands tonight. He glanced sideways as his men worked their way through the dimly lit stone-walled corridors.