by Tia Reed
“Pick up the sword,” Levi said.
Vinsant placed his hand on the hilt knowing the instant he was up it would be out of his hand. Humiliation was not what he had envisaged when he dreamed of training with the mahktashaan. He wondered if the repeated battering was meant to teach him a lesson. Meant to make him discover a way to beat his opponent, perhaps. He let go the sword and visualised Levi’s, made the magical gesture and prepared to find the Majoria’s sword in his hand.
He found himself lying face down on the pebbles instead.
“Your presumption will be the end of you. Now get up, and pick up the sword.”
One wary eye on Levi, Vinsant did as he asked. When, instead of disarming him yet again, Levi showed him the manoeuvre, a clever trick that was nonetheless difficult to master on an empty stomach, he sighed in relief. The hour Levi forced him to spend perfecting the technique was the longest in his life. When Levi pronounced it was enough, Vinsant could not help another sigh. Bone weary, he sank to the ground.
“Bring the sword,” was all Levi said as he started up the narrow track to the small village of Winpril. His feet dragging, his wrist smarting and his stomach in knots, Vinsant had no choice but to follow.
“You may request a loaf and some fowl for your master,” Levi said, indicating a house.
Vinsant’s knock was answered by a middle-aged man. “My master, Majoria Levi, requests a meal,” he said, hastily naming the requested foodstuffs. This was bound to be another of Levi’s embarrassing lessons. The man looked over him to the silent but imposing mahktashaan Majoria.
“Wait here,” he said, closing the door. A few minutes later, he returned with rice and grilled eggplant.
They ate in the boat. In silence. The crude meal did wonders to restore Vinsant’s humour. He stretched. “Where are we going to sleep?” he asked Levi. Daesoa had risen one day past full.
In answer, the Majoria levitated himself onto a bed of air.
“How did you do that?” Vinsant asked.
His only reply was a soft snore. He tried to repeat the Majoria’s gesture, forcing himself to find that inner rapt attention that allowed him to spark the quartz and perform magic. No surprise it didn’t work. He tried again. And again. Was levitos the word the Majoria had used? And there he was in a flash of crimson, off the ground, his legs and arms dangling, his body swinging backwards and forwards. He pitched himself back and found himself upside down. In any other circumstances, this could be a lot of fun. After a day’s travel and a near drowning, all he wanted was to get to sleep. He reached for the bench in the boat. His fingers did not even brush the gunwale. So, pulling himself down was not going to work. He rocked back and forth until he managed to spin himself upright. Only he ended up turning a somersault, and now his legs were drooping, as though he were suspended through the middle. However tired he might be, there was no chance he would drop off in this position.
“Majoria,” he said, cringing.
The snores stopped instantly. The Majoria waved a hand his way, and he fell into the boat. Curling up, Vinsant contented himself with the hard deck.
Chapter Thirty-five
Sian woke screaming. Pain seared along her arm. Her entire body throbbed with it. Around her, a hundred senseless shouts broke the night, shattering her fragile dream. Grandmam dragged her from the fire. Erok threw water on her arm. Screaming, she lashed out through the blinding white light of pain and struggled up. Her arm brushed against a leg. The touch was torture. She keeled over and vomited, again and again. They brought a pail of water and made her dunk her arm. It soothed enough for her blurred vision to settle. She looked in the pail. Saw a red and black mess. Pink fingers at the end. Hers. Her arm. She screamed again. Retched.
They carried her to Ishoa. Screaming. Laid her on the pallet at the back of the cave. Screaming. The soothsayer’s painted face loomed above Sian’s. Flashes of light seared her eyes, paining her as badly as the fire which had ravaged her arm. She tried to move. They held her down. Ishoa forced bitter liquid between her lips. Porrin. She gulped. She screamed. She trashed. The soothsayer hummed, danced, and twirled. It was wild energy. It was raw emotion. It grappled with her soul, tugged her from her body. It released her from the pain. She floated above it. Sian was down there, her useless left arm propped off the ground, her drugged eyes wide, her breathing slow. The pain cut through the bliss, but it was tolerable because she was above it all.
“The vision,” the soothsayer commanded, standing tall, a hand on her feathered staff. The pods at its head were floating as though lifted by a gust.
“The sad boy comes,” Sian heard herself say from high above.
The words brought it back: the encompassing oblivion as she succumbed to her affliction; the twisted visions that had plagued her since she first dreamed by the pool. They slashed through the blackness as the pain subsided beneath porrin’s bliss. The same child. The sad child. He was coming to her.
* * *
Levi had Vinsant up and practicing swordplay on the pebble beach at first light. It was all right for the Majoria – he had slept on a cushion of air – but Vinsant’s pampered young body was unaccustomed to feeling so stiff. Unfortunately, he had a feeling Levi would keep him at training until he demonstrated a measure of skill in reposting. That alone drove him to summon enough energy to counter almost every attack. The remainder left him with much the same bruising Mariano did when his brother condescended to practice with him.
“You would do better if you concentrated with the same energy you use for magic,” Levi said, sheathing his sword.
“All honour to you, Majoria,” Vinsant said, stamping his right foot as Branak had taught him to do. He hoped it sounded sincere. Quite apart from the fact that a rattle of pebbles lacked the respectful authority of ringing stomp, it was taking a phenomenal effort not to curse the man in his thoughts. Only the sneaking suspicion Levi would somehow know it and make him atone by skipping breakfast kept him from imagining he was squishing a puffer with Levi’s face beneath his foot. As it was, the image of Levi as a puffer nearly made him choke with laughter.
Breakfast, it so happened, came with a mahktashaan who led two black horses to the end of the grassy path. The man bowed and, after a glance at Vinsant and a quick word with Levi, retreated, unable to resist one more look at the blue-robed oddity of an apprentice. Vinsant maintained a dignified pose until he was sure the mahktashaan had done with looking over his shoulder. Then he pounced on the salty loaf and smoked ham.
“All praise to Mahktos for his bounty,” Levi said with the air of the truly devout.
Feeling a smidgeon of guilt, Vinsant echoed him between a swallow and a bite. The phrase had to have been as much a reprimand as a prayer, and Levi would no doubt expect him to exercise more decorum at future meals. Well, if the man didn’t near starve him, he might remember his manners!
They were on the horses before the sun had risen over the mountains, following the rapid Crystalite River toward the distant snow-capped Crystalite Range. Levi engaged in instruction the entire day, citing Mahktashaan lore with an uncanny knack for detail. Vinsant took it all in with relish. This was what becoming a mahktashaan was all about. In the open air, in the lush riverside country, life could not be better. That was until Levi began a quiz, making him recite verse after intricate verse until he was word perfect. Vinsant shook his head. His tutors had never demanded this much.
They dismounted in the evening outside a small farming community, in the flowery meadow beside the dirt road. Vinsant could only groan when Levi pulled out his sword. He groaned again when his perfect demonstration of yesterday’s disarming move made Levi drive him harder in the execution of a new thrusting manoeuvre designed to penetrate beneath the defences of a heavier opponent. Mastering it would have been easier if he didn’t have to wade through knee high grass to engage his opponent.
“You may request a meal,” Levi said when the first star emerged, looking toward a farmer who was ambling home with a sack hoisted o
ver one shoulder. When the sullen peasant saw their interest, he halted in his tracks.
Vinsant sauntered over with little enthusiasm for what might be in the sack. “The Majoria requests a donation for our dinner.”
“Tell your master food is scarce with the little rain we’ve had. I’ve a family to feed and none to spare for the Shah’s men.” The farmer spoke over his head, refusing to take his eyes off the Majoria.
“You have a duty to your Shah,” Vinsant said, unsure how to handle overt refusal. Until he had joined the mahktashaan, obsequious pandering had been the norm for a prince of Terlaan.
“Men around here earn their keep, boy,” the farmer said. He trudged away.
Vinsant slunk back to Levi.
“Summon his sack,” the Majoria instructed.
Vinsant blinked. He had permission to use magic. Real magic for a real purpose. He frowned. “What about the man’s family?” Starving toddlers would prey on his conscience for an eight-day.
Levi released a nasal breath and curled his fingers. Vinsant had no desire to test his patience further. He poured his concentration into his quartz, and summoned the lumpy sack into his hand. Too bad it wasn’t small enough to hide behind his back. The farmer turned and spat at him. At him, holding the bag, not Levi. He lowered his head until the man moved on. Hunger warred with shame for about three breaths. Hunger won out. His hand dove into the sack. The apples inside were disappointing. Small and bruised, they would hardly take the edge off his appetite before threatening a bellyache. Levi allowed them two each before tying the sack closed. Vinsant stared, ready to revolt if Levi insisted the snack comprised dinner. His rumbling stomach had to be good indication an apple was not enough sustenance for a hardworking, fast-growing boy.
“Summon your practice sword,” Levi directed, refusing to acknowledge his challenge.
Quartz aglow, Vinsant brought the sword into his hand, wondering what form his mutiny could take so that he did not end up face down eating mud with Daesoa, two days on the wane, illuminating his humiliation. Before he could form any sort of plan, Levi dispelled the sword. Between summoning this grey stone, that brown stone, and then the black stone Levi placed behind his back, he didn’t have a thought to spare.
“Again,” Levi said, surprise laced with displeasure in his voice. He showed Vinsant two unremarkable stones before ordering Vinsant to turn his back and summon the smooth black stone he placed between them. The rock that appeared in Vinsant’s hand was moss covered.
“Uh, that wasn’t it, was it?” Vinsant asked.
“Conjuring an unfamiliar, unseen object is not beginner magic,” Levi replied, his voice thoughtful. He walked around Vinsant, looking him up and down.
Vinsant smiled. Not that Levi would know it beneath the blue hood he was bound to wear. “Why did the farmer think us so awful?” he asked. An apprentice had to take the opportunity to ask a question while his master appeared pleased with his progress.
“You may not speak until spoken to, Apprentice. You will remember you swore to obey without question,” Levi reminded.
“All honour to you, Majoria,” Vinsant said without enthusiasm. The respect the Majoria was so fond of seemed to flow in one direction.
“You have one more magical act to perform tonight.”
That act came at the end of a moonlit hike down a track through the stubble of a dry field to a drystone cabin. By the end of it, Dindarin, a waxing sliver, had shown his face. Vinsant thought he might fall asleep on his feet.
“Knock. Note the room and what meal the farmer eats, and return,” Levi instructed.
“Yes, Majoria.”
Four pink-faced children sat spoons in hand around a rustic timber table from which the mouth-watering aroma of chickpea stew arose. It was all Vinsant had time to note before the farmer slammed the door in his face. Vinsant did not blame him one bit. With a shrug, he returned to Levi.
“Now summon the farmer’s meal,” his honoured master said, as he broke from the daze of the thoughtlink.
Vinsant squirmed.
“You will do it, Apprentice,” Levi said when his hands remained empty.
Vinsant sighed. He imagined the room, said the magic word, and waved his hand. Crimson light flashed out of his crystal, and an empty bowl clattered to the ground at his feet.
Levi mumbled and two bowls of stew topped with flat bread appeared. “We will eat here,” he said, summoning a fringed carpet patterned with the Tree of the Vae. He played the revered master, sitting right in the middle.
Vinsant kicked sticks and stones off a dirt patch, and sat with his back to the cabin. He did not want to think about the figure looking out of the window. There was no chance he faded into the night with Daesoa shining overhead. He shovelled a spoonful of the spicy stew into his mouth. The portion he could swallow past the lump in his throat was hearty, but the wails from the house made him drop his spoon. Kordahla’s voice rang in his ear, admonishing him for allowing multitudes to starve while he made a glutton of himself. Levi had to be heartless, because he took Vinsant’s bowl and ate the remaining portion. When he had scraped the bowl clean, he passed it back to Vinsant.
“Sumbek.” In a burst of blackness, six succulent kebabs presented themselves to Levi’s hand. They looked like one of the palace delicacies. Vinsant’s mouth watered. He reached for the juicy meat.
“You will take these to the farmer and offer thanks,” Levi said.
Vinsant waited until he was out of earshot before he grumbled. He wondered if he might nibble on the outermost morsels without discovery. Somehow, he didn’t think so.
The farmer grabbed the sack of apples and the kebabs from his hand, and slammed the door in his face. It was hardly less than Vinsant expected, but at least he got to lick the fatty juices from his hand.
“Summoning an item you cannot see is challenging,” Levi said when he had returned and unrolled a sleeping mat the Majoria had summoned. “When a mahktashaan has to rely on memory it takes immense skill and depends on the object lying where the mahktashaan believes it to be.” He proceeded with a lecture that Vinsant had to admit answered all the questions he had been bottling.
* * *
Alerted by an advance rider, the aged Satrap of Zulmei, clad in formal silks and coat despite the late hour, clambered to the gurgling, bear-based fountain in his colonnaded entrance courtyard. He waved his attentive footman away, determined to greet his royal guest in person. When the doddering old man lost himself for the third time during his welcome speech, Matisse stopped listening. The silent but suggestive exchange he struck up with pale-haired Rochelle, who waited a demure five steps behind her father in Daesoa’s near-full light, was far more engrossing.
“Where are your sons?” Matisse asked when the formalities were done. He slowed his pace to match bent Satrap Elan’s. The old man’s joints creaked as they climbed the marble steps to the waterfront mansion.
Elan scratched the thin white hair on his head as they passed through the glazed-tile pistaq, thinking about the question. “Eh, Denkan is in Point Rai, wants to set up a merchant business, you know, and Rubrin is sailing for the Eastern Kingdoms. Always been one for adventure, that one,” Elan cackled.
“How long has he been away?”
“Rubrin?” This time the satrap had to stop. “Let me see, must be a few months.”
“Two years, father,” Rochelle said, with a telling, close-lipped smile for Matisse.
“That long? No girl, surely not.”
“Tell Denkan to present himself at the palace on his return from Point Rai,” Matisse said. “Better yet, send a rider for him.”
“Yes, yes,” Elan said as though it were of no import. He looked about the mosaic walls and lapis honeycombed vault of the iwan. “Ah now, where were we to? Ah yes, your chambers.”
“Allow me, father,” Rochelle said, with a teasing look Matisse’s way.
“No, no.” Elan waved her away. He resumed his shuffle to the interior. “His Highness might have matte
rs of the province to discuss.”
“They can wait,” Matisse said. His confidence in Satrap Elan’s faculties was waning by the minute. The ride through the town had revealed the once celebrated city was falling into ruin. Collapsed street roofs, chipped mosaics, and scratched calligraphy marred the beauty of its elegant streets. If that wasn’t concerning enough, figures engaged in furtive exchanges had disappeared down holes in backless corners as his party’s horses clopped past. Bodies slumped in doorways and doors slammed shut as soon as frantic runners, glancing over their shoulder, squeezed through. Raj would have required little effort to start a lucrative business. Right under the withering Satrap’s nose. It was past time Denkan assumed responsibility for the running of Zulmei, in practice if not in name.
“We bid you good night, Rochelle,” Elan said, at the top of a tiled landing. The cracked stucco-work across the arched windows patterned Daesoa’s light across the floor.
“Sweet dreams, my Lord. Goodnight, Father,” she replied, her lingering gaze travelling down Matisse’s body.
Matisse smirked. Two nights camped by the road had left him with a desire for more than a bed and a bath. Elan, his back already turned, was waddling in the opposite direction. The room he assigned Matisse was right at the end of the left wing. The old man was perhaps not quite the fool he appeared.
A hot meal and a wash later, Matisse wandered down the passage. This most ancient of Myklaan’s palaces was becoming as rundown as the town. The plaster scrollwork on the walls was crumbling, and ingrained dirt had dulled the colours of the floor tiles. He nodded to Elan’s white-haired footman, a demure lady-in-waiting, a bubbly maid. The heir to the throne had the benefit of outranking every member of the household. No one dared to question his errand. Until he bumped into Satrap Elan. The satrap stood at a window, contemplating the myrtle bushes lining the canal in one of the inner courtyards.
“Eh, everything is to your satisfaction, I presume,” the satrap said, attempting to turn him around.