The Adventures of Benjamin Skyhammer (26 page)

About halfway through the day Mute asked him, "How magic work?"

Skyhammer halted. The boy stopped a few steps later and turned back to him, a surprised look on his face.

Mute wouldn't know that Skyhammer had no magic powers, he realized, starting to walk again. If he'd been born and raised in HriHriKari, outside the human Royal Circle, then he would never have seen a human performing magic nor tried it himself. And if he had spent most of his life with Spark, a non-magic human, there would be no reason to discuss magic. He wondered what happened to Mute's parents. How did he end up working with Spark? Skyhammer felt a kinship with the boy; they both had never experienced magic powers. As soon as they reached the Royal Circle however, that would change. Or perhaps not. If he'd never done magic in his life, why would he start? He didn't have a slate so he couldn't perform spells anyway. Hence his question.

"Most humans are born with magic powers," he began. Should he tell the boy about Spark and himself? "As soon as a child's parents believe he or she is mature enough to perform spells, they take their child to a slatist."

Mute's face was rapt.

"The slatist takes some blood from the child and mixes it with glass, creating a slate. Do you know what a slate looks like?"

The boy shook his head.

"It's a rectangle of glass about the size of your palm. Has streaks of blood in it, so it's called blood-glass. You draw a picture with your finger of the change you want to make with your spell, then you blow across the picture-"

Waving his writing board, Mute interrupted. "How you draw on glass?"

"As I understand it, the front of the slate isn't hard glass. When you press down, the blood gathers where your finger touched and outlines the picture."

"Where your slate?"

An initial flutter of anger, then fear. He couldn't risk losing Mute's support. He had no idea how to get out of here. What would the boy do when he learned Skyhammer had no magic powers? He took a deep, controlled inhale. Mute was not like those people raised inside the Royal Circle. And he had lived with Spark.

"I don't have magic powers. Neither did Spark," he hastened to add.

Mute gazed at him, then wrote, "She see our Retrographs. Had magic power."

"That was different. Did she use a slate to see the Retrographs?" Now Skyhammer was curious. He hadn't realized that Mute knew about Spark's power.

"No slate. Black box. Small."

They had stopped walking. Skyhammer watched Mute write.

"She touch box. Retrograph open. Not picture Retrograph. Names came first. See Retrographs of any name."

"Did she know you were watching too?"

Mute made a gurgling sound in the back of his throat, a look of pride on his face. A laugh, Skyhammer realized.

"Not know at first. Hidden. She see my Retrographs. Then know."

Skyhammer chuckled.

"See slate in Retrographs only. Spark not talk about magic."

"She was a little bitter," Skyhammer murmured.

"Blow on picture. Make magic?"

He made a concerted effort to remember exactly how Higgins had explained it to him. "When you draw the picture you also hold it in your mind. The change you want your spell to make, I mean. When you blow on the picture, it activates the spell and if your will is strong enough, magic will make the change you imagined."

"Another person not want change?"

"If their mind and magic is stronger than yours then the spell fails."

"Stronger? Who?"

"Different people have different strengths of magic. Sorcerers are the strongest, below them are Wizards, then Mages, who are people like the King's Guard. Most people are Enchanter level but below them are Conjurers with very little magic power. They tend to live outside the Royal Circle. If you have no magic power you are, well, nothing."

"You no magic."

Skyhammer nodded.

"Why?"

He couldn't speak, yet there were so many things he wanted to say. Too much. He settled for a shrug, not opening his mouth lest something come out that a young boy should not hear.

"Why Spark do magic outside Royal Circle?"

This was a smart kid. "I don't know. It's the first time it's happened. You know about Relics right?"

Nodding, Mute scribbled, "Moksha coming back. Need to protect Relics."

A small groan escaped Skyhammer. The kid had been indoctrinated by the Aridizans before he'd met Spark. Or had she come to believe that as well? Perhaps she had learned something about the Moksha during her time in HriHriKari. The Moksha had made and used the Relics, then disappeared off the planet. The kid would learn soon enough that other people thought differently about the Relics' purpose on Pingala.

"Well, the Relics have to be found by someone. The Retrographs are a Relic that humans can use. If Spark was using part of the Retrograph Vault, then she may not have been doing magic, she may have been utilizing a Relic. They can work anywhere on Pingala." He waited for more questions but Mute seemed to have had his fill of new information.

Many hours later, the light began to dim. The end was nowhere in sight. Skyhammer wanted to keep walking through the night but the boy was tired and so was he, to be honest. They couldn't afford to lose any time though. The ceremony started in a couple of days. He had to be there in time to stop it.

"Mute, hold my hand while it's dark," he ordered. "If I ask you a question, squeeze my hand once for yes, twice for no and three times for I don't know. Do you understand?"

Mute caught his hand. One squeeze.

"Great." Skyhammer weaved across the path while it was still light. When he left the path, the ground felt different, more springy. If it got very dark, he'd have to use that as his way to find the path. He was sure it wouldn't get that dark though. The moon would be full in a couple days, at the time of the ceremony in fact, so as it waxed it was quite large and bright. If sunlight could get through whatever material it was that made up the boulders above them, then moonlight most likely could as well.

The ceiling got light again as the moon rose. It was enough to see the path by at least. The moonlight turned the flowers to silver stars dotting a grey plain.

Mute's pace slackened and Skyhammer had to slow so as to not drag him along.

"Would you like me to carry you?" The boy was only about eight years old, Skyhammer guessed. And he was thin. He could carry Mute on his back for a few hours; give the boy a chance to sleep.

Two squeezes.

Oh well. Skyhammer picked the pace up until they were almost back at their daytime rhythm. The sea of flowers seemed never-ending.

Just when he thought he'd fall asleep on his feet, the air around them began to lighten. The sun was returning. Skyhammer breathed a sigh of relief. They must be nearing the end. They had walked for a whole day. In front of them, an hour or so walk away, was another wall, identical to the granite one they had come through.

"Thank the gods," Skyhammer muttered under his breath. "Come on Mute, we're almost there. They've got food and water in Quasianti." He had a thought. "You've been there before right?"

Two squeezes.

"Really? Well, we'll stop by the market since we have to get a carpet and a pilot for it - Moksha's balls." He remembered. The Royal Circle would be gone so magic wouldn't work in Four Hills. The King would have moved to the Kingmaker Tower and the Royal Circle did not reach Four Hills from there. "Double Moksha-balls!"

Mute let go of his hand.

"What?" Skyhammer looked down at him.

"Light now," he scribbled, then scampered ahead of Skyhammer.

Skyhammer grinned. The kid's eyes were lit up with the excitement of a new adventure in Quasianti. He frowned. They'd have to ride horses to the edge of the Circle.

Another sheer granite wall loomed up in front of them. About twenty feet before the wall, the path stopped. Mute was already running his hands over the wall, searching for a door like the dragon temple one. Skyhammer joined him in the search but after thirty minutes, they had found nothing.

"Stop, stop," Skyhammer called. "Let's sit down, take a break and think about this." He started feeling a little panicky. What if the door wasn't here? There was no time to return to HriHriKari and make their way back through Rainbowcloud and the Deadlands.

Mute shook his head and continued running his hands up and down the wall.

Skyhammer backed up until he could see a large part of the wall with Mute at the center. No, not quite the center. Skyhammer squinted. He could see lines running in a pattern on the wall. He walked a few steps closer. The lines arced from the ground on the left to the ground on the right, increasing in size as they moved up the wall. Mute stood to the right of where the centre would be if there was a spiral. Yes, Skyhammer thought, hope growing within him. A spiral graced the wall and the center . . . there.

He ran forward. The center was at about the level of his shoulder. He patted the wall where he thought the spiral's middle should be. A large rectangle glowed green at his touch.

Mute clapped, the sound raucous in the quiet space.

However, the bottom of the door started at Skyhammer's shoulder height. They would have to jump or lever themselves up somehow.

The ceiling above contained the only boulders. Skyhammer scrutinized the wall, hands on his hips. He should go first anyway, to make sure there was nothing dangerous on the other side. After gripping onto the bottom edge of the doorway with both fingers, he hoisted himself up. He pushed his head and body through the green doorway. The sludge-like substance surrounded him again.

He landed in a semi-dark room, panting. Only the silence of an empty room reached his ears. Safe enough for the moment. After turning around, he dropped to his knees and crawled through the door until he felt the edge of the wall. Then he stuck his head out and looked down. Mute was standing just below him, looking up with such a sad and lonely expression that Skyhammer laughed out loud.

"I wouldn't leave you, kid!" he shouted. "Come on, give me your hands." He pulled Mute up and through the doorway.

Chapter 26

Countdown to ceremony: 2 days

Skyhammer and Mute kept still and quiet on the floor for a couple of minutes, listening. Silence and a faint light came through the open doorway opposite the green door. Skyhammer experienced a sudden fear that this was not in Four Hills. Mute had only said that the path led to Quasianti. They could be anywhere in the country. Time to find out; he stood up and offered his hand to Mute.

"Let's get out of here and see where we are." He hauled open the door and marched out. An empty hallway stretched in front of him, brick walls bare, the opposite end cloaked in darkness. Two doors, one on either side of the hall. He walked to the door on the left. Mute scuttled along behind him.

Skyhammer pushed at the half-open door and peered inside. A window barely lit the room, rain trickling down the glass pane. Bed, chair, desk, everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. No one had been here for a very long time.

Where in Quasianti could this building be? Why had the green door led here? There wasn't a single sign of human habitation. He began to feel anxious but quashed it before Mute could see. "Come on!"

Not bothering with the other door, Skyhammer strode down the hallway. His hand went to his sword hilt. Behind him, Mute's breathing grew audible. As Skyhammer's eyes adjusted to the dark, he thought he could make out the faint outline of a door in the wall ahead.

"Almost there," he murmured over his shoulder. Withdrawing his sword, he advanced, alert.

Thunk. The tip of his sword jammed into wood. It must be the door. Yanking out the sword, he returned it to its scabbard and ran his fingers across the door where a knob would normally be. Nothing. Mute's breath came faster; the boy was scared. Skyhammer tried the left edge of the door. A round handle jutted out. He tugged it, eager to escape the dark and eerie hallway. The door didn't move. He twisted the knob to the right and pulled. The door burst open. Rain and fresh air hit Skyhammer's face. Even the low, dark clouds couldn't dampen his happiness at being outside again. Mute stuck a hand outside and breathed deeply. They both looked around.

Bare muddy ground surrounded the building, as did a high wall. Skyhammer did a quick circuit around the building. Brick walled them into the yard.

"We'll have to climb it," he told a shivering Mute when he returned. The boy had probably never seen this much rain in his life, if he'd lived in the desert since he was born. Rain on his face felt good but Skyhammer was anxious. They had wasted time finding their way out of the building. It had only taken them a day to walk through but what if it took another two days to walk or ride to the Kingmaker Tower?

The wall rose a foot higher than Skyhammer. He and Mute carried a desk out from a room inside and placed it next to the wall. Mute wrapped his arms around his skinny body. Skyhammer stood on the desk and peered over. The rain was falling harder now but he could see some sort of garden and the back of a house.

"Come on," he said to Mute. "I'll boost you over first." He lifted the boy up until Mute could pull himself to the top of the wall. Then Mute scrambled over and dropped to the ground. Once he was over, Skyhammer hoisted himself up, scraping his belly in the process. He let himself drop to the ground on the other side. If the Byndari came after them by the same route, they would have a hard time getting over that wall without killing themselves. Mute and Skyhammer sidled around the side of the still house.

Skyhammer judged it to be about mid-morning as they stepped into the street in front of the house. He glanced up and down the street, which sloped down to his right and up to his left. Only a few houses were visible; cloud obscured the rest. Were they high up in a mountain somewhere?

"Let's walk up and see who we can find."

Mute nodded. A young girl emerged from the gray cloud to their right, face shining out from under her umbrella. Skyhammer and Mute ran right up to her.