The Spirit Gate

THE SPIRIT GATE

Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

www.bookviewcafe.com

Book View Café Edition
December 16, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61138-448-2
Copyright © 2014 Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

To Kristine Avery Bohnhoff, whose presence was
felt most strongly during the writing of this book, and who has been my Reality
Check since before she was born.

To Cynthia McQuillin, sister of my soul; to Ray
Bradbury, who instilled in me the love of words; and to Jim Baen, for taking a
chance on me way back when. God bless you in your new lives. Send me more
stories!

The women of Dalibor did their laundry at the river the
way their mothers had done it, and their grandmothers, and their
great-grandmothers. Heads uncovered, hair a myriad earthy shades gleaming in
dappled sunlight, they chattered and passed about bits of soap root, and paused
now and again to push soaked sleeves further up their golden arms. Sometimes
the conversation might turn to the way the women of faraway cities laundered
their clothes in special buildings with hot running water and soap root that
came powdered and perfumed in fancily wrapped packets, but the women of Dalibor
were creatures of tradition, and they had the river Pavla Yeva at their
doorsteps.

Kassia Telek did her laundry at the river, too. A little
apart from the other women, her head covered by a scarf the color of green
grass, she listened to the music of their banter and the rhythmic slap of wet
cloth against rock. She didn’t
attempt to join in; the women of Dalibor were creatures of tradition.

Sometimes when the older women had gone, the young ones
would include her in their group and lend her soap root, or ask to borrow hers,
but today the other women finished up all together and went their way. Only
Panya Ogedei turned to wave at her.

When they had gone, Kassia pulled her scarf from her head.
Hair the color of moonlight on cloud tumbled from beneath it. When she finished
her washing she would bind the hair up again before making her way back through
the village to her sister’s
house. It was not law that made her cover her hair, nor tradition, nor even
conscious shame or fear. It was simply that the pale stuff reminded some of a
past of which they were both ashamed and resentful. It reminded all that she
was
shai
.

Washing done at last, she climbed the stone ramp to the
river road, pulling her laden handcart to the cobbled riverside plaza that
housed the drying lines. The air quivered with tentative warmth, the frail
Polian spring struggling in the grasp of a winter that seemed reluctant to
pass. In the full light of the Sun, tiny blades of grass and fragile blossoms
dared to push out of the blanket of sodden pine needles; in the shadows of
rocks and fallen trees, snow still clung, stark white against the charred
remains of what had been thick forest. Kassia was too young to remember the
Fire, but she remembered the fear.

Her steps were slow on the cobbled path, keeping rhythm with
the sound of a woodcutter’s
axe somewhere in the arboreal graveyard. It was a sharp, lonely sound that
reminded her, unaccountably, of death. She focused on the song of water over
rock as she hung her things to dry; her sister’s aprons, her brother-in-law’s shirts and leggings, her little son’s patchwork jacket.
She hugged that to her breast for a moment before fishing pins from her apron
pocket and hanging it with the rest of the wash. At six, Beyla was growing so
fast, he probably wouldn’t
get another autumn’s
wear out of the little coat. She ought to pass it to Asenka for her youngest,
but the thought saddened her. Some of those patches had been sewn in place by
her mother. It was all she had of Jasia Telek but for a little book of
meditations, a locket, her tilted eyes, honey-gold skin and snowy hair, and the
rare talents that went with them.

Task complete, Kassia set her basket with the others at the
border of the drying flat and glanced back to make sure her bright red ribbon
marked the end of her line. The rainbow of cloth floated in the weak morning
breeze, the Sun breathing palely on it from above, tentative heat rising to it
from the stones beneath the lines.

Kites. They look like a fleet of kites
.

That thought caused Kassia to glance up across the village
to the southeast, where Lorant sat high on its wooded hill—virtually the only
place around Dalibor where adult trees still stood in any abundance. There was
a small fleet of kites over Lorant today; a large white one announced the
up-coming holy day in celebration of the New Year; a handful of smaller,
varicolored ones sent messages to folk in neighboring villages; the one of
royal red told the first
yam
or way-station on the road to Tabor to expect
an envoy to the court of King Zelimir to be traveling that way within the week.
Travel to and from Dalibor was regular now that the capital was no longer in
the hands of the tyrant Tamalids, and the yam—until recently a neglected ruin—was now a fully
equipped station with fresh horses, hot food and cold water for those carrying
the proper credentials and communication to and from the king.

Below the royal messages, a small school of bobbing kites
announced to the village of Dalibor and its environs that a graduation was
near; four Initiates would become Apprentices, two Apprentices would become
Aspirants, and of the current group of Aspirants to the holy station of Mateu,
one would be accepted as Mateu, and four ordained as priests.

A bright blue bird-shaped kite with a golden tail caught
Kassia’s eye. The
Mateu were accepting new applicants for initiation. Someday, perhaps Beyla
would go to Lorant. Kassia could already sense the gift of Itugen within him
and marveled at that, wondering what kind of Mateu he would make who could draw
upon all elements equally. It was rare enough for a woman to be graced with
Itugen’s touch—the ability to see the
unseen, draw upon the forces of earth and fire—for a male, it was practically unheard of. The
Mateu wielded the power of Mat, held the heavenly forces in their hands. Kassia
saw in Beyla a Balance. Perhaps one day Beyla could help redeem the lot of the
shai.

Hauling her little handcart behind, Kassia headed homeward
along the path. Half-charred blackberry vines tumbled down to meet her, tiny
blossoms struggling to open on the straggling new growth. Fifty yards along,
the path met the road from Ohdan, a rutted swathe of sandy mud and gravel that
followed the river course east to west. Turning south at the edge of the
village, she stepped onto the main road that wound among the thatched cottages
of Dalibor—the
road that led to Tabor. Here the muddy track gave way grudgingly to
river-polished rock.

Kassia raised her eyes to the smoke-blurred horizon. Where
she walked, the cottages were little better than hovels—one room, two, no more than four at best—where her eyes walked,
great houses grew from the new prosperity that had begun to spread welcome
tendrils into Polia with the overthrow of the House of Arik Tamal, twelve years
before, by the Zelimirids. The owners of those new houses were largely
immigrants from the capital at Tabor, sent by the royal court to cement its
relations with the Sacred Circle of Lorant. Their roads were not mud, but
hand-cut stone and fired brick.

Change had come to old Dalibor, as well, if slowly. The
mud-packed stones beneath her feet said as much; two years ago she would have
been up to her ankles in muck, trekking her little cart up this street. The
white-washed faces of village shops smiled from beneath their moppish thatches.
And even here, thatch slowly gave way to glazed tile. The baker’s shop had little
gables of it; they looked odd poking out of the thatch, like red eyebrows on
someone with wheaten hair. The angle of them, combined with the dark wooden
beams surrounding the door gave the shop a look of perpetual surprise. As if it
had just seen itself in a mirror, Kassia thought, and laughed.

“A
most becoming sound, Mistress Telek!” The baker—one
of the few people in Dalibor Kassia was tempted to think of as a friend—was on her porch
dusting off the rough trestle table she had set up for guests who wished to sit
and enjoy her wares. “Has
my little shop done something to amuse you?”

Blushing only a little, Kassia stopped and shaded her eyes
from the Sun that had begun to peek above the bakery’s ridge pole. “Well, Mistress Devora, it’s only that your little shop is making faces at me.”

The older woman, puzzled, came down off her porch and into
the street, peering back at the building. The laughter that escaped her was as
full and rich as the little cream cakes she made for worship day. And because
Kassia had made her laugh, she gave her a loaf of braided bread for the noonday
meal and a cookie for Beyla.

Cookie in one oversized apron pocket, bread nestled in the
crook of her arm where she could inhale its warm fragrance, Kassia went along
to her sister’s
house, home these last three years. The house was one of the larger ones in the
old town, four rooms in all. It had belonged to the Kovar family for
generations and had grown and changed shape with the passage of time. The
smallest room, which she and Beyla shared, had made up the entire original
cottage. It was round and had a floor of rush-covered stone. She’d woven mats for their
sleeping pallets and braided a little carpet for the floor where Beyla dressed
each morning. It wasn’t
a very good job of braiding, but it covered the floor.

The newest part of the house was square and squat, but Asenka
was very proud of it. Her husband and his brothers had built it by hand,
carving the neat blocks out of native granite; the rock looked as if it had
been salted and peppered with jet and glass. It might have looked fine in a
setting that did not include hard-packed mud and withered trees. Kassia glanced
wryly at the scruffy little patch by the front door where, every year, she and
Asenka and the children tried to coax flowers to grow. Maybe this year . . .

Blaz, Kassia’s
brother-in-law, spoke often about putting one of those fashionable tile roofs
on the house and of sending to Tabor for silk carpets to replace the rushes,
skins and hand-braided rugs that covered the floors now. He was careful to let
Kassia know those things would be long in coming with two extra mouths to feed.

Kassia paused before the low stone wall that framed the
Kovar house, wondering if Blaz had left for the forge. She’d tried to love her
sister’s husband
once, tried to include him in the gratitude she felt for Asenka’s generosity, but she
found it impossible when he so often reminded her that because of her and
Beyla, his three boys must share one room and his young daughter sleep with her
parents. Because of her and Beyla, there were no silk carpets on the floors and
no red tiles on the roof. In his heart of hearts, she suspected, he also blamed
her for the blasted trees and the sickly soil and the incessant rain.

Swallowing her bitter thoughts, she opened the little
wrought iron gate Blaz had fixed in his stone wall and went into the yard,
leaving her handcart outside. She’d
taken no more than two steps up the beaten path when a snow-capped whirlwind of
giggles swept her up in a boy-sized hug.

“I
smelled the bread, mama! Can I have some?” Her son’s golden face was
turned up to her in eager expectation, his tilted brown eyes grinning from
beneath a thatch of white, sun-dappled silk.

His mother laughed and dredged her pocket for the cookie. “The bread’s for dinner, Beyla,
but Mistress Devora gave me a cookie for you.” She held it out. “You’re like a little mouse—always looking for a
sweet crumb.”

It took no more than a second for the ‘sweet crumb’ to come to his expectant hands. It was a large cookie, moist with
molasses, fragrant with spices. He sniffed at it blissfully. “I’m going to share it
with Lenci,” he said, and turned his eyes behind him. “Is that all right, mama? May Lenci have a bit of my
cookie?”