The Spirit Gate (20 page)

She turned to Master Lukasha, to thank him and found herself
struck speechless by the expression of intense scrutiny on his face. He said
nothing, but smiled at her fleetingly, turned, and left her to her unpacking.

oOo

She worked in Marija’s studio now. That was the way she thought of it,
for it felt of Marija, though she hadn’t
been there for nearly a century. A team of young Initiates had wiped away all
the dust, but it was Kassia who polished the overlapping metal rings in the
rosewood dais until they shone. She still must do her indexing and annotating
in Lukasha’s
library and continue her chores about his studio, but when those were done, she
took the texts she was studying and carried them to Marija’s room to pore over
them.

Lukasha had charged her with looking for spells that might
help him protect the king. It concerned him that the distance between himself
and Michal Zelimir was so great. If there were a spell that could somehow
bridge the gap, allow him to tell what was happening at court through the
intervening miles without having to traverse them, he would have it. In Kassia’s mind, that evoked
images of corridors or doorways. She set about her task, but quickly found that
most spells dealing with doorways were charms intended to close them. Still, at
the end of a week of research, she had found several simple incantations
intended to let the wielder see through walls or closed doors. But those were
not what Lukasha was hoping for.

“Unfortunately,
these don’t allow
the user to see across any distance,” he told her. “What
we need, Kassia, is a spell that will behave as a window between Dalibor and
Tabor. A window we can see through without traveling the distance.”

“You
worry a great deal about the king, Master,” she observed. “Do you believe his
life is in danger?”

“I
don’t know. But I
think perhaps his soul is in danger. He is surrounded by a mob of new advisers,
each of whom wishes to pull him in their particular direction. The darughachi
of Khitan believes in his heart of hearts that the concerns of his tiny
province should weigh as heavily with Zelimir as those of Sandomierz or
Teschen. It is not just the king I fear for, but Polia itself. We have only
just escaped from hell. The thought of returning there is unbearable.”

“But
you’ve often
commented on what a good man Zelimir is.”

“He’s a very good man. And
he’s a spiritual
man, in his own way. But in striving to be a good leader, he often listens to
advice other men would simply ignore. He attempts, I think, to please too many
people at once which, in the end, may result in him pleasing no one. He writes
me that he has at last conceded he must take a wife, and is literally besieged
with people offering candidates. He will come under much pressure to choose,
and I fear the choices may not be good ones.” Lukasha smiled. “I find myself thinking
I must find some new ward to set on Zelimir. Then I recall how I dissuaded you
from wasting your time with such ephemeral magic. I’m an old fool, I know. Any ward I gave to Zelimir
would have to be . . . tattooed on his body.”

He caught the crooked grin Kassia directed at him and said, “Ah, well, yes.
Actually, I did consider it. But Zelimir is not the same breed as Tamal. He is
not interested in decorating himself with painful pictures.”

Kassia laughed. “It’s too bad a ward can’t have a mind of its
own.”

Lukasha glanced at her sharply. “What an extraordinary idea. I shall have to give
that some thought.” He rose from the table they shared and patted her shoulder, then left
her to her work.

Kassia laughed at herself. A ward with a mind of its own—extraordinary idea
indeed.

oOo

A living ward, thought Lukasha—the only kind that could work in the case of Michal
Zelimir. Perhaps if the king were more the pragmatist and less the idealist, if
he were more the politician and less the reformer, a normal amulet would
suffice, if for no other reason than that, understanding his need for it, he
would wear it. But Michal, Zelimir II, was by nature neither pragmatic nor
political. He was much like his father, though he had not yet had to display
the military mind that had won his father the throne. In fact, he’d known his own father
less as the scourge of the Tamalids than as the steady, conscientious king of a
new Polia. The latter years of Kyril Zelimir’s reign, like the regime of his son, had been
relatively peaceful.

Michal Zelimir had come of age and learned to govern in a
time of tentative bloom. He was, like his father, a man of deep feeling, but he
had not his sire’s
contemplative nature, a nature which his younger brother, now in the
priesthood, had inherited in full. Since mounting the throne, Michal Zelimir
had overseen sweeping rebirth and rebuilding in and around his capital. His
people had, after long spiritual siege, known freedom once again, and for that,
they loved him. He returned that love in kind. He was, indeed, a good man, and
a good king. But he was a king that had yet to face very many difficult
decisions.

Once, if anyone had told Lukasha that idealism could be as
much a danger to the welfare of Polia as despotism, he would have laughed. Now
he’d take the
suggestion seriously. The news he’d
gotten that morning from Tabor demanded it.

The messenger had arrived the night before from the yam at
the foot of the hills east of Dalibor and, exhausted from travel, had kept his
messages till morning. Lukasha was angered by that laxity; the young priest
should have realized the importance of currying messages between his Mateu
masters.

Lukasha was still pondering the letter from Zelimir’s Mateu adviser,
Master Antal, when Damek entered the office. Seeing his Master’s knit brow, he paused
before the reading table to inquire what was wrong. Lukasha answered without
looking up. “It
seems the Bishop of Tabor is now a member of the King’s Council. He has offered our king a Frankish
bride.”

“We
share the King’s
ear with many whose beliefs and customs differ from our own. Has not the
Godhead constructed many paths to Its Door?”

“This,
I believe. But the Bishop of Tabor does not, and therein lies the problem. I
doubt it will be enough for him to be one among a group of advisers, for he
will have to live with the knowledge that his king listens to the advice of
other spiritual leaders.”

“You
have often spoken of Zelimir’s
stubbornness.”

“You
miss my point. Any group of men who hope to advise a ruler must be able to
achieve consensus. Otherwise, their deliberations degenerate into political
infighting and they become useless to their government . . . and
to their country.”

Damek shrugged. “Then
would not Zelimir replace them?”

“With
what, Damek? Michal Zelimir is a man who dislikes conflict intensely. If he
perceives that his spiritual advisers are divided along lines of dogma, what
better way to avoid discord than to simply exclude leaders of religion from his
council? The ramifications of that are many. Should Zelimir appear to be deaf
to certain groups, I wonder how much longer Polia’s hard-won tranquility will last.”

Damek nodded his understanding. “You fear the sort of weakness that made us so
feeble against the Tamalids.”

Lukasha smiled. “Kassia
had an interesting idea.”

“Did
she, indeed?”

“Hide
your fangs, Damek. You’ve
seen what she is—what
she can do. Now listen: What if we were able to give Zelimir a living ward?
Someone who could be with him constantly. Perhaps someone he would
want
to be with him constantly.”

Damek frowned, considering the idea. “A companion? Like a dog, you mean, or a bird?”

“A
pet? Well, yes, I suppose that might be a possibility. A dog would certainly
remain close to him most times—but
in the throne room? I thought, perhaps, a person.”

“You
could set a ward on one of the Mateu,” suggested Damek, warming to the idea. “Or on Chancellor Bogorja.”

“I
think that may very well be our solution during official functions. In fact, I
think Master Antal himself might be vested as a ward, or that young priest—what’s his name?—ah, Bohumat. He’s a favorite of
Zelimir. But would Zelimir desire to have a Mateu with him in his private
chambers? I think not. Now, a woman who could gain near access to young Michal . . .”

Damek’s
eyes lit. “One of
his concubines? I see! Master, that’s
brilliant!”

“Ah,
but there is a problem with my brilliant plan—how do we get his concubines to be vested? If they
decline to undergo the ritual, it would be unwise to force them. And how do we
vest them without him finding out about it?”

“I
see another problem,” said Damek. “Rumor
has it that Zelimir is not . . . well, very constant where women
are concerned. His concubines are said to change with the moon. If you could
vest a concubine, you’d
almost certainly have to lay an Attractant on her so he wouldn’t cast her aside. And
Attractants are . . . highly discouraged.”

Lukasha smiled at his companion’s diplomacy. “They are forbidden.” He rolled the idea about in
his mind for a moment more and was on the point of dismissing it when he had a
startling thought. “The
ideal would be to place near him a woman who could be both adviser and lover. A
woman with beauty and intelligence and perhaps something more. That, in itself,
might be a natural attractant.”

Damek’s
thin lips stretched into a smile. “She
would have to be an extraordinary woman indeed, Master, to entice the stubborn
Zelimir.”

“Yes,” Lukasha agreed, “she
would—an extraordinary
woman indeed.”

oOo

A mandorla, that was what the figure of entwined circles
worked into the top of Marija’s
dais was called. Kassia found the reference to it in a small booklet that had
all but disappeared behind larger volumes in Master Lukasha’s library. The little
book was written in a hand that Kassia had come to know intimately, and it
dealt with the symbols of her craft. She thought it must date from the other
woman’s
Apprenticeship, since it seemed to have been compiled as an exercise in memorization.
As a discussion of symbology it was quite helpful, but by far the most
interesting thing about it was its reference to Marija of Ohdan’s personal journal.
Since Marija had compiled a significant number of the old texts, Kassia thought
her personal journal couldn’t
fail to prove enlightening. She was quickly developing a great affinity for
Lorant’s last
shai Mistress.

As Lukasha’s
private library included an archive of the journals of past Mateu, Kassia
searched it thoroughly, seeking Marija’s
diary. It was not there. Zakarij had gone into town, so she didn’t have him to ask, and
Lukasha was giving a lecture on meditation to the second year Initiates.
Kassia, determined to find the journal, went up to her Master’s studio and subjected
the shelves there to a thorough search. She had paused before the locked
cabinet, considering the likelihood of the diary being there, when she sensed
someone behind and below her. She turned just as Damek reached the top of the
stairs.

“What
are you doing?” he asked, as if she had been caught in theft.

She muzzled her annoyance and answered mildly. “I was looking for a
book. I thought it might be up here.”

“Oh?
And what book might that be?”

“A
Mateu journal.”

“The
journals are in the library downstairs. You know that. Why should you think you
would find one up here?”

“I
thought perhaps Master Lukasha was studying it.”

“Really.
And which Mateu’s
diary is of such interest to you that you’d ransack your Master’s studio for it?”

Kassia’s
temper escaped her careful control. “First
of all, I am not ransacking my Master’s
studio. I’m doing
some research—which
Master Lukasha has commissioned me to do. I was hoping to find Marija of Ohdan’s journal.”

“What
sort of research?”

She almost told him. Almost. But she caught herself in time,
remembering that Master Lukasha hadn’t
given her permission to discuss her research with anyone. “He’s not given me leave
to speak of it.”

“Oh,
how very convenient for you. Research you can’t speak of in a book that doesn’t exist. What will you
say if I threaten to tell Master Lukasha of this incident?”

“I’ll say nothing, except
that you may do whatever you please.” She slipped past him to the stairs, pausing at the top to glance back at
him. “Do you
always enter your Master’s
studio without asking permission?”

“Never,
when he’s here.
But I knew he was not. You forget, I know the Master’s schedule better than anyone.”

Kassia slipped down the curving stairs, lips set in a
determined line. Damek might know his Master’s schedule, but he didn’t know his library, according to Marija’s booklet on symbols,
she had kept a journal, and Kassia was now committed to finding it.

After another day of search, during which she pressed even
Zakarij into service, Kassia asked Lukasha about the journal. To her surprise,
he too, denied its existence. Bemused, she gave up her search of the private
library and switched to the student library across the main hall from Lukasha’s offices. Perhaps the
journal was unknown, she reasoned, because it had become lost among the stacks
of material there. But she was wrong—though
it took another three free evenings of search to discover that.

Near midnight of the third night of her quest, she gave up
on the student library and dragged herself into her rooms—into Marija’s rooms—knowing that if the
journal still existed there was only one place where it could be found; here,
where Marija had lived and worked. She would start her renewed search in the
morning before breakfast.

Kassia slept until Beyla woke her, declaring she would miss
breakfast in the college commons if she did not hurry to rise. There was no
time for a search, and there would not be at least until mid-day. Lukasha kept
her morning busy with research and practice, coaching her intensely in the
theory behind the sensing of another’s
thoughts. She knew warding inside out now and, with Zakarij as tutor, had moved
on to so-called web spells which, when vested in a special amulet made of
crystal or glass could catch the thoughts of others and tell the bearer if
those thoughts were benign or malign. She must become proficient at spells like
these, he told her, as they would be of great use to Zelimir when he sat in
council or held audience.