The Spirit Gate (12 page)

“Oh,
no. We’re not. I . . .
I had rather a personal reason for wanting to invest one. Someone I wanted to
protect from fire.”

His eyes lifted to her hair again. “Fire,” he murmured. “Then
the Master is right . . . the veil has been lifted.”

“I
can control fire.” The words sounded defensive even to Kassia’s ears.

His mouth quirked wryly. “Well, then, you can’t need my help. I can’t control it.”

“But
you probably could invest an amulet, and I can’t do that. So, you see, I do need help. Maybe
yours?” She tried the smile again. It didn’t work.

“As
I said, I don’t
know where Master Lukasha is right now, and I certainly don’t think he’d be in favor of my
teaching an Initiate how to invest an amulet.”

“I’m not a regular
Initiate,” Kassia told him. “I’m shai. Investing
amulets is just the sort of thing I came here to learn.”

“That
may be, but I’d
say what you need to learn are discipline and order. Otherwise Lukasha wouldn’t have put you in
Master Radman’s
class.”

Kassia made an impatient gesture. “That’s
all for show, anyway, isn’t
it? This equation, that equation. It’s
all just forms. I have my own forms. My own . . . equations.
They work.”

“So
you think you’re
ready to put on an Apprentice’s
robe, is that it?”

“Master
Lukasha did speak to me about doing the work of an Apprentice.”

Zakarij nodded, eyes glinting like polished jet. “He spoke to me about
it too. You’re to
be my assistant, which means that in the work you do for me, you will adhere to
my forms.”

Kassia was speechless. Unwilling to say or do anything that
would further poison the Aspirant against her, she dipped her head in
acquiescence, hiding the mutiny in her eyes.

After a moment more of studying her, Zakarij stepped from
the staircase and moved to set the stack of books he held on the large reading
table. “Are you
finished with classes for the day?”

Kassia nodded, her eyes devouring the books.

“Are
you free to start your work now? The Master wants these books indexed by
content. Oh, but your son is here, isn’t
he?”

“Not
today. He’s
helping Mistress Devora in her bakery. But I do need to get to the marketplace
before sunset.”

“Sunset
is several hours away, yet. I think you can at least start your work. I assume
you can read.”

Kassia’s
eyes snapped to Zakarij’s
face. “Of course,
I can read!”

“Swiftly?”

“Swiftly.”

“Good.
You’ll need to.”

She spent almost two hours with the books while Zakarij
moved about the shelves or up and down the stairs. She kept hoping that Master
Lukasha would return from wherever he had gone so she could ask him about the
amulet. There was also in her head the perverse desire that this Aspirant see
the regard in which Lukasha held her—the
respect he had for her native abilities.

Master Lukasha did not come and, in the end, Kassia even
forgot to watch after his coming. The books had captured her. Their words, rich
with arcane meaning, had bespelled her. They were laced with shai magic. They
spoke of things her mother had told her, but that she never suspected might
have been recorded before the Sun went down upon the shai, before the veil
fell.

Kassia, captivated, dutifully recorded the contents of the
books on sheets of paper until Lukasha’s
Aspirant Apprentice told her she should go if she wanted to get to the
marketplace before sunset. But Kassia lingered of her own volition, and when
she left, she had to run.

Ursel Trava was just dropping the awning at the front of his
booth when Kassia reached him. The sight of her in her Initiate’s robe caused an
amazing race of expressions across his face. He buried them in his beard.

“When
first I heard you’d
become an Initiate, I didn’t
believe it. What can the state of our religion be if they let the likes of you
into the house of the Gods?”

“What
can the state of your mind be, Ursel Trava?” Kassia retorted. “You would have let the
likes of me into your house! Worse, you’d
have had me in your bed. “

Trava’s
lips wriggled beneath his beard. “I
suppose you now think you’re
above that offer.”

“As
I ever was.”

”So
why are you here?”

“I
still need a house. I have forty rega. Or has the price gone up again?”

Trava scratched at his cheek, then pushed a bit of beard
into the corner of his mouth. Chewing it ruminatively, he gazed across the
darkening market square, blinking a little against the smoke of evening fires.

“Sorry
Mistress, but I’ve
no cottage you could afford.”

“But
I’ve got—”

“Has
no one told you that it’s
unwise to insult the man you’ve
asked to put a roof over your head?”

“I’ve got forty rega!” she insisted, holding the money out to him on the flat of her palm.

The black eyes fixed on her face. “I’m
not interested in your money, Kassia Telek, as I’ve tried to make plain. You’ve heard my terms.”

“Your
terms?”

“The
terms by which I’d
have you under a roof of mine. But you think you’re too important to consider old Ursel, don’t you? All full of
that shai pride. Well, I’ll
be willing to wager that your time among the Mateu will knock the pride right
out of you, White Mother. Then maybe you’ll recall that I offered for you before you ever
wore this.” He grasped the paiza that dangled from its thong around her neck and
gave it a sharp tug, nearly pulling Kassia against him. “You think because this thing names your name and
calls you ‘Initiate’ it means something in the world. Well, you’re not Mateu yet, nor shall you ever be, I’m thinking.”

He flipped the paiza into the air. It fell with a thud
against Kassia’s
breast.

“I’ll tell you once more,
Kassia Telek—you
need a man and your boy, a father. It’s
his needs you should be seeing to, not foisting him off on the baker woman
while you play at being a mage.”

Tirade at an end, Ursel Trava turned his back on her and
trundled away into the smoke and shadow.

“Well,
that’s a long
face,” Devora said, when Kassia entered her kitchen some time later. “Supper’s ready, and Beyla fit
to burst. He finished his first kite this morning and brought it home for you
to see.”

Kassia sat heavily on one of Devora’s sturdy kitchen chairs. “I do neglect him, don’t I? I do foist him off on you while I . . .
while I waste my time and Master Lukasha’s.”

“May
Mat blink,” murmured Devora. “Whatever’s brought this on?”

“I
saw Ursel Trava this evening. I tried to rent a house from him, but he won’t let me one.” She grimaced and rubbed her arms, though the room was warm as fresh
bread. “Of
course, I did insult him.”

“What
has that to do with Beyla?”

“He
said Beyla needs a father, not a mother who’s playing at being Mateu. Maybe he’s right.”

“Oh,
and
he
’s the father Beyla
needs, I suppose? Aye. I know what Ursel Trava thinks about a good many things.
I don’t believe
for a moment that he’s
right about any of it. He’s
taken a fancy to you, is all—and
to the idea that you could serve him well. Oh, not just as a wife, mind you,
but as a teller of fortunes and a weaver of spells.”

Kassia sighed. “Well,
at any rate, it was stupid of me to anger him. Now, he won’t rent me a house.”

“And
what do you need with a house? You’ve
got a place to live.”

Kassia’s
startled glance met Devora’s
immovable one. “Devora,
I can’t continue
to—to live off
you—”

“You’re not living off me.
You do my shopping, you lend your boy to my bakery, you pay me a bit of rent.”

“A
pittance!” Kassia objected.

“Not
to me. Every bit helps. Besides, I was getting lonely here with my own young
ones grown and gone. Evenings can be empty without another soul to talk to or a
child to read to.” She gave a quick shake of her head and turned away to set a bowl on the
table. “So let’s hear no more talk of
moving out—at
least not until they offer you an Apprentice’s rooms up at Lorant.”

Kassia laughed. “An
Apprentice’s
rooms! Somehow, I don’t
think that will happen any time soon.”

“Mama!”

Kassia turned her head just as she was broad-sided by her
boy. He gave her a fierce hug then dropped back to grasp her hand.

“Come
see, mama! Come see the kite Shagtai helped me make! It’s a beautiful kite, mama, you’ll see!”

He dragged her, laughing, to their little parlor room where
she saw that it was, indeed, a beautiful kite. The body of the kite was green
with gold ribbons woven through it and it sported a green and gold tail made of
a fabric as gossamer as a butterfly’s
wing.

“It’s a dragon,” Beyla informed her. “Shagtai
says there are dragons in the east that fly over the land and protect it from
evil. They build castles for the dragons to live in there. I’d like to go there and
see them, wouldn’t
you?”

Kassia looked down at her son and felt a sudden wash of
sweet misery. She dropped to her knees beside him and took him by the
shoulders, turning him away from the kite so she could look directly into his
eyes.

“I
want what will make you happy, Beyla. I want what you want. If I ask you, will
you tell me what you want?”

“Besides
going to see the dragons?”

“Besides
that.”

“I
want you to be Mateu. And I want to be Mateu.” He chewed on the inside of
his lip a slight frown coming over his smooth brow. “Do Mateu get to build kites?”

“I
suppose if they want to. Are you sure that’s what you want? Are you sure you don’t want a father and a
house of our very own? Are you sure you wouldn’t want me to be home with you instead of up at
Lorant?”

The questions seemed to bemuse him. “Papa’s
gone, mama. He’s
in the arms of Itugen. Not even a shai or a Mateu can bring back somebody who’s gone to Itugen. And
I like staying here with Mistress Devora. She likes us too, she said so. I don’t want to be home all
day; I want to go to Lorant too, and make magic kites with Uncle Shagtai.” His eyes got very round, suddenly. “Oh, mama, are you lonely? Would you like it better
if I didn’t play
with Shagtai all the time? I could go into the college and wait for you when
you get out of class and come walk you home every night.”

Kassia was laughing, by now, at her so-serious child. “No, Beyla, no! I’m happy that you like
to be with Shagtai, and Devora, too, it’s
just that Mister Trava—”

His golden face went nearly as white as his hair. “Please don’t marry Mister Trava,
mama. He scares me for you.”

“Scares
you?”

Beyla’s
generous mouth had narrowed to a tight line. “He doesn’t
feel good. There’s
something mean in him.”

“Then,
you’re happy the
way things are?”

Beyla gave her such a look as to make her doubt that it was
a child standing before her. “I
wish papa hadn’t
died. Or grandpapa, or grandmama. I wish the magic would always be here and
that people couldn’t
make it go away. I’d
be happy if it was like that. But this is good, too.”

“Yes,
it is,” Kassia agreed and hugged her son to her breast. She could hear Devora
calling them and swept the little boy up into her arms. “Come, great maker of dragons. It’s time for our supper.”

oOo

The weeks of spring bled toward summer as Kassia studied
and worked and debated points of magic and religion with her fellow students.
Life took on a comfortable routine in which even Damek played a commodious
role. Everyone, Kassia supposed, needed at least one soul in their lives who
tested their patience beyond endurance.

The first time the Headmaster’s assistant had come across her studying the books
she was supposed to be indexing, he showered her with scorn.

“You’ve been assigned a
job, Initiate,” he told her waspishly. “I
suggest you do it. The Master’s
books will not get indexed until next year with you staring moon-eyed at them.”

“I
find the texts interesting,” Kassia retorted.

Damek snorted volubly. “I doubt you even understand half of what you read,
you obnoxious woman. Interesting, indeed!”

“I
understand a good deal more than half,” Kassia replied coolly. “I’ve known some of these
spells since I was a child. I’ve
just never seen them written out like this before.”

“Twaddle!
You’re just
pretending. Trying to impress Zakarij and make Lukasha believe you’re actually getting
some work done. I ought to tell him how you daydream over the pages—mooning over young
Zakarij, no doubt.”

Kassia flushed redder than the tail of Shagtai’s newest kite. “I’m doing no such thing.
Tell Master Lukasha whatever you like. If he questions me, he’ll only find out that
I do understand what I’m
‘mooning over’.”

Hearing the door to the outer office groan mildly on its
ancient hinges, Damek snorted a second time and departed, passing Zakarij in
the doorway. Kassia jerked her eyes back down to her work, her face hot with
frustration. The Aspirant stood in the doorway for a moment, watching her
through his bottomless eyes, his lips set in an expression that could have
passed for either a smile or a grimace of wry amusement.

“So,
do you?”

“Do
I what?” The words came out in a soft snarl.

“Understand
what it is you moon over?”

Heat flared again in her cheeks. So, he’d eavesdropped, had
he? Well, fine. Let him think she was a stupid pretender, if he wanted. “I think so.”

“And
were you?”

She looked up at him now, her eyes challenging. “Was I what?”

“Mooning,
of course.”

“I
was . . . reading. Am I forbidden to read these?” She gestured at the stack of scrolls she now worked at indexing.

“Not
at all.” He moved around the table to stand at her shoulder and look down at the
pages she’d
inscribed.