The Spirit Gate (26 page)

“God
be with you, my son, and welcome to His House.”

The words, delivered in slightly accented Polian, nearly
catapulted Kassia out of her skin. She spun, upsetting several of the candles.
One toppled; she scrambled to catch it, only just grasping it as she faced the
speaker. Dressed in vestments much like a Mateu’s ceremonial robes, the young man gaped at her, his
face expressing every bit as much surprise as Kassia knew hers must.

“You’re . . .” The man’s
voice failed. He made an up and down gesture, his eyes surveying Kassia’s clothing. A frown
creased his brow. “I
thought you were a boy. Daughter, why are you wearing man’s clothes?” His expression changed again, cricket-quick. Suspicion. “Are you fleeing
someone?”

Amused at being called ‘daughter’ by someone so near her own age, Kassia smiled. “No, brother. I was merely curious about your cesia.
Was I wrong to enter?”

The young man approached her warily, eyes still worrying
her, up and down, back and forth. “No.
No, you weren’t
wrong. This is a house of God. All are welcome here.” He took the votive candle
from her hands and set it back on the altar with its fellows. “But this is not a
cesia. It is a church.”

“It’s very beautiful.” Kassia glanced around, uneasy beneath his intent gaze. She noticed the
transept that dissected the long central hall. “It’s
shaped like a cross, isn’t
it?”

“Yes.
A symbol of the sacrifice and triumph of our Lord.”

“It’s very like a cesia.”

The frown was back. “How
so?”

“The
altar, the candles. The serenity and quiet. A cesia has this same hush, as if
God were listening to every word and thought.”

The young man favored her with a genuine smile. “Here God really
does
listen.”

Ignoring that, Kassia stepped away from the altar. “My father worked in
stained glass. He would have loved to see these.” She nodded toward the most
beautiful of the windows. “Especially
the Wedding and the Festival of Names. He did the same scenes for a window in
the college at Lorant.”

“The
wedding? What are you talking about?”

She pointed to the window. “The Wedding of Mat and Itugen.”

The young man’s
face lost all expression. “Those
windows depict the creation of Adam and Eve, their naming of the animals and
their eating of the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I’m sure the artist didn’t know of any Mat or
Itugen.”

Fascinated, Kassia said, “By your accent, I take you to be a Frank. Perhaps
you are unfamiliar with—”

“I
am familiar enough with it. I am Polian, after all. My father’s province was
Silesia. But I was raised in the faith of my Frankish mother. I thank God for
that, daily.”

“Then
you know that Mat and Itugen are the Father and Mother of creation—the parents of all
mankind. Isn’t
that the place Adam and Eve hold in your faith?”

“
God
is the Father of creation. It has no mother. Though I would agree with you that
Adam and Eve are the parents of mankind.”

Kassia found the idea of a creation with a father but no
mother a peculiar one, but declined to say so. “We too have a tradition about the naming of
creation. We celebrate it a month after the Wedding Festival in Maius. Do you
celebrate the Naming too?”

“No,
we do not. There is little about Adam and Eve to celebrate, daughter, for it
was through them that man fell into sin. We celebrate the Anointed of God.” He nodded toward the altar with its great stained glass. “Do you know of Him?”

“I’ve read of His life . . .
and death. Man is slow to learn and hard of heart. He often fails to recognize
treasure when he finds it.”

“You
know of Him, yet you do not believe? Yet you follow pagan ways?”

Kassia had no answer to that. She had never thought of her
ways as being pagan. They were Polian ways, the ways of Teschen, of Dalibor,
the ways of her family since time immemorial. She stifled a quick spark of
anger. “I believe
He was sent by God to His people. His words are words of beauty and truth.”

“But
you do not believe on Him!”

“Believe
on Him? I don’t
understand.”

“You
are unwilling to forsake all other gods—your
Mat and Itugen.”

Kassia was beginning to empathize with Joti Subutai, but she
quelled her frustration and looked into the young man’s face, reading his earnestness. “I have my faith,” she said simply.

“You
will find it false. Let me tell you—”

Kassia raised her hand. “Please, sir. I must attend my Master. I’ve already been too
long away. His consultation with the king may be over by now.” She moved toward the aisle.

The young man leapt after her. “Wait! Who are you? What is your name”

She turned back to him. “I am Kassia. Kassia Telek. From Dalibor, in Teschen
province.” Uneasy under his intense regard, she fixed him with what she hoped was
an equally disconcerting gaze. “And
who are you? Are you a monk?”

He blinked. “I’m Pater Julian. I’m a priest.”

“I’m an Apprentice Mateu.
I’m here with
Master Lukasha.”

It was as if someone had turned out a light behind the
priest’s eyes.
They were dark; they became suddenly darker. He made the crossing gesture with
one hand—the same
gesture Kassia had seen Bishop Benedict make, though it possessed a certain
defensiveness in Pater Julian’s
hands.

“I
have heard of him.” His eyes swept her again. “So,
you are a sorceress then.”

She air left her lungs in a rush; he might as well have
struck her. “I am
an Apprentice Mateu. I perform magic through the Gift of Itugen.” She tried to read him, but found him as enigmatic as Zakarij. No, more
so, for where Zakarij was opaque, this man was . . . shielded,
bristling. But behind the bristles . . .

His lips twitched into a smile. “Daughter, you may concoct potions and tell tales of
misfortune, but I don’t
believe you can perform miracles or magics. That kind of power can’t be dealt by the hand
of a mere woman.”

Something slipped through the wall of his defense—a roiled, conflicted
desire to see her perform some magical tidbit. Kassia let a demon of perversity
and pride escape her control. She returned the priest’s smile.

“You
are a man of strong opinions, Pater Julian. It would be useless to argue with
you, so I’ll go.
But before I do, I’d
like to make an offering at your altar.”

Before he could either protest or agree, Kassia had called
fire to her fingertips. She held up her hand in the mottled light of the
sanctuary, calling tiny droplets of flame out of the air to pool in the cup of
her palm. Before the fixed gaze of Pater Julian, she carried the resulting
blossom of fire to the altar where she set it amid the safely contained
votives. She would set it, she decided, to burn for about twenty minutes or so.
That ought to give Pater Julian a healthy respect for the Gifts of Itugen.

“Kassia!”

Zakarij! Kassia tried not to leap out of her skin and turned
to face the doors of the church, taking this opportunity to make her exit. “Good day, Pater
Julian,” she called, hurrying down the aisle. The priest, still mesmerized by the
naked flame atop his altar, crossed himself several times in succession.

Zakarij was peering past her as she reached him. “Kassia, what did you
do?”

“I
merely left a gift. I wanted to show my ‘pagan’ good will.”

“A
gift of fire.” He was trying to look very stern, but his mouth was threatening to
twitch upward at the corners and it ruined the effect.

“I
didn’t have
anything else to give.”

“What
provoked you to do something like that? You know how wary these folk of our
ways.”

Kassia grimaced. “Wary?
He called me a sorceress.”

“Ah.
And I suppose you’ve
now proved to him that you aren’t?”

It always came to Kassia as a surprise how much Zakarij’s censure wounded. He
had a superlative talent for making her feel childish. She ducked her head and
let herself out through the vestibule, pride stung because she knew that she
had
been childish. She should not have paraded her magic before the priest. If he
had thought her a sorceress before, he almost certainly would think her a
demon, now.

Zakarij caught up with her as she hurried back toward the
palace. “I’ll wager Pater Julian
is this moment praying feverishly for your demon light to be removed from his
sanctuary and wondering why his God allowed you to set it before Him in the
first place.” He paused. “How
long did you will it to burn?”

Kassia shrugged. “About
twenty minutes.”

Zakarij chuckled. “I
wish we could stay to watch, but Master Lukasha wants to see you right away. We’ve been asked to dine
with the king this evening. I believe he wants to discuss protocol with us.”

Kassia slowed her pace. “Dine with the king? Us? You and me?”

“I
think you’ll find
King Zelimir is a nice enough fellow. Or so he seems to me. He’s not above himself by
any means. Of course, you knew that; you met him this morning.”

She glanced at him sharply, wondering if he knew of her
early morning encounter with “Mishka.” But his face revealed nothing and he did not seem particularly guarded
at the moment, so she assumed he must be speaking of their conference before
the council convened.

“Yes.
He does seem . . . approachable. I just never contemplated that
I might someday dine with the king.” She changed the subject. “Do
you know Pater Julian?”

Now Zakarij was definitely guarded. “We’ve
met.”

“You
don’t like him.”

“Let’s just say that there
are not many points of theology on which we agree.”

“You
mean there are not many points upon which
he
agrees with
you
.
I was being as agreeable as I could just now. Pater Julian was having none of
it.”

Zakarij glanced sideways at her, wry humor in his eyes. “You thought the
creation window was a depiction of the Wedding of Mat and Itugen, didn’t you?” Seeing the look on Kassia’s
face, he chuckled. “I
made the same mistake my first visit here. The glaziers were just installing
it, then. They thought my observations were quite appropriate and tried to draw
the good Pater into a discussion on the amazing similarities between our
creation stories. He was not amused.”

“I
see. I don’t
suppose you left him a gift of fire, though, did you?”

“Ah,
no. I wasn’t
nearly so . . .”

“Childish?”

He looked directly at her. “Daring.”

She shook her head. “Come,
Zakarij, you thought what I did was childish. I agree. It did no good
whatsoever to provoke Pater Julian.”

“I
said daring, and daring I meant. Of course, it may have also been childish, but
who am I to judge another’s
immaturity? Perhaps it was merely a playful gesture.”

Kassia laughed, feeling somewhat better, but knowing that
whatever words Pater Julian might use to characterize their encounter, “playful” would not be among them.

oOo

Pater Julian Miezcko stood frozen at the mouth of the
apse, his eyes unable to escape the pull of the demon flame left there by the
shai. It was only when he realized the flame was not dying that he moved—stumbling back into
the apse and coming to his knees before the altar, the little blossom of fire
right before his eyes. How in the name of all that was holy had this happened?
How had God allowed it to happen? He glanced up into the face of the Messiah on
His throne. It inspired him to fevered prayer.

“
Dieu
Pere
,” he began, but when he completed the prayer, the fire still burned amid
the candles of the pathetically few faithful in this pagan outpost. He gritted
his teeth and recited a verse of scripture . . . in Church
Frankish. The candle still burned. Dear God! How did it have the power to
resist the purity of this place? He made the sign of the cross. The flame paid
him no heed. He performed the sign again. There was no effect. What then?

Holy water! Surely that would put out the demon fire. He
leapt to his feet and scrambled to the font to wrest the ewer of blessed water
from its niche. Shaking, he dumped the contents of the ewer over the wicked
flame. It extinguished a handful of candles around his target, but Kassia’s spirit fire
remained. He tried the sacramental wine next, with no result.

He was at the end of his wits by now. What else was there to
try? Desperate, he pulled out his prayer beads, intending to utter every
invocation he knew. Before his disbelieving eyes, the flame guttered and died.

He looked at the beads, then dared to move closer to the
place where the evil little flame had been. It had left a smudge of soot on the
white stone of the altar, but that was the only sign of its passing. He rose,
still quaking, but no longer with dread and fear. He kissed the triumphant
rosary and returned it to his pocket. Then he hurried to find his bishop.

They dined with the king in the smallest of the salons—Kassia, Zakarij, the
Masters Lukasha and Antal, Chancellor Bogorja and his wife, Daria, several
darughachi and some ladies of the court who spoke in softly accented tones and
smelled of flowers and incense. Kassia had, at her Master’s suggestion, eschewed
her Apprentice’s
garb for a gown of deep azure which had been waiting for her when she and
Zakarij returned from the church. She had been reluctant to accept the gift at
first, but Lukasha’s
solid logic that her school clothes were not appropriate for a royal banquet—even a relatively
small one—won her
over.

Likewise, Zakarij left off the wearing of his Aspirant’s tunic and leggings
for a more formal skirted coat of palest blue, to the shoulder of which he
fastened his Aspirant’s
badge. When Kassia complimented him on his appearance, he returned the
compliment, telling her solemnly how exotic she seemed—like a legend come to life. His approval
notwithstanding, Kassia was over-awed by the other guests, particularly the
women, who seemed to move in a radiance born of the knowledge that they were
extraordinarily beautiful and exotic. Only one or two of them were native
daughters. One had skin the color of turkaffee and hair that curled like lamb’s wool. Another had
hair that shone like spun gold beneath the lamps and candles of the banquet
hall, and eyes of clear, sky blue. A third had skin that made Kassia feel dusky
in comparison, while her hair was a deep, ruddy flame.