The Spirit Gate (47 page)

She swept all that aside and gazed up at him, her eyes not
quite focusing on his face. “Maybe
we could go back in time and change what’s happened in Tabor. Keep the Bishop from coming to
Polia at all.”

Zakarij was shaking his head. “Marija used the spell more than once, Kassia. She
discovered . . . Here, you read it. Tell me what you think it
means.”

Kassia took the torn pages he proffered to her and scanned
the first one. She glanced up at him, heart skipping a beat. “These are from Marija’s journal. Where did
you find them?”

“In
the Bible. Tucked into the spine. Read it, Kassia.”

She complied.

I have come to the conclusion that I can do nothing about the
Tamalids. Even retracing and revising my actions that horrendous week I
experimented so unwittingly and so arrogantly with the Twilight spells seems to
have no effect. They are still here and the yoke of their oppression grows with
each passing day. Even the earth beneath our feet suffers their tyranny,
growing sere and lifeless. The rains have not come this year, the river is
merely a stream, in the lowlands, farmers weep over crops that will not grow
and soil that blows away at the slightest breath.

I feel old. My powers seem somehow dimmer than they were last
year. Perhaps I have used something up in my twilight toying that can no longer
be replaced. It is as if Itugen has withdrawn Her blessing from me. From all of
us. Even so, I can still work with Twilight things. It oppresses me.

Kassia glanced up at Zakarij. “You think because Marija’s workings with time had no effect, ours must fail?”

“Read
further.”

She glanced impatiently at the door to her quarters then did
as he asked. The next several entries seemed to be about Milada’s growth and progress.
Always, there was the barest breath of sorrow in Marija’s tone—sorrow
that her daughter would not follow her in the shai arts. Then came an entry
written in the angular script of someone extremely agitated.

I tried again today to undo my stupidity. And yes, again I
return to find that the banner of Kesar Tamal still flies over the court in
Tabor. Nothing is changed, I thought. Until I arrived home again and went to
find my old Master. His rooms were empty, dust-covered and smelled of disuse.
When I asked an Initiate what had become of Master Boleslas, he thought I was
testing him and recited for me the most sorrowful of tales. Master Boleslas, he
told me, died in the first Tamalid assault on this valley. Died because he was
in the cesia when the godless savages came upon him rapt in prayer. “He was buried there,” he went on, as if reciting a lesson, “and the cesia left just as the Tamalid soldiers had
left it, broken and scarred by fire.”

I went there, barely able to believe it was true. But there were
the scars and, there the ruined altar, and there the grave of my dear Master.

Indeed, I have changed the course of time. But not at all as I
expected.

This was followed by a peculiar observation:
There
are worlds behind the glass that should not meet. Whoso opens the Gate between
them, opens it at great peril.

Kassia felt Zakarij’s
eyes on her face. “I
wonder why she could never change what she meant to change?”

“Perhaps
because she had nothing to do with Tamal overrunning the provinces. Perhaps it
never was her fault; she merely
assumed
it was because it
seemed to follow her experimenting with the spell so closely.”

Kassia nodded. “She
couldn’t change
the real causes of the Tamalid conquest. Greed, power lust, a thirst for blood.
She would have had to go back in time to the moment of Tamal’s birth, or his
conception, and interfered with one of those events. Even then, there would be
no guarantee that someone of his tribe or race would not pursue the same bloody
path.” She glanced up at Zakarij only to come up against his old opacity. “That still doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try—that Master Lukasha
shouldn’t try—”

“What
would he change, Kassia? Where would he go to undo what’s happening in Tabor? More to the point, who is
Lukasha—who are
we
—to decide that
anything needs to be changed? Perhaps this is the course events are supposed to
take.”

She had never thought that. Not once. Not for so much as a
second. She shook her head, not so much in denial as in bemusement. Zakarij
took up the lost pages, turned to one near the bottom of the tattered pile. He
read:

I am a fool. A meddlesome, arrogant fool. And what is the
harvest of my arrogance? I remember a Master Boleslas that no one else here
ever knew. I have consigned God knows how many people to extinction. I have
suffered my daughter to be the first of my family to be born without the shai
gifts and I have driven her from my house.

Badi Isfahani is a good man. I knew it the first time I met him
in the market square. And yet, because he calls himself a Muslim, follower of a
prophet I have never known, I deemed him an unacceptable mate for my daughter.
Her father, may Mat watch over his soul, would not have been so prejudiced—but I resisted the
love that grew between Badi and Milada. I tried to singe it, to wound it, to
drive it away. Instead, I drove away my only child.

Stupid woman. If I had left well-enough alone, they would still
be here, for though his customs were different than ours, Badi Isfahani knew
the value of the bond between a mother and a daughter. He was willing to accept
our tradition, to live in the village of his wife’s family, to take no other wives.
I
was the one who could not accept.
I
must argue that God was
both male and female when he maintained God was neither.
I
must press him to drink wine, to eat foods that were forbidden to him. I, who
tried so to make my daughter see her beloved as inflexible and dogmatic, only
proved myself to be so. I am the cause of my daughter’s disaffection.

What is the depth of my stupidity? That even as I write this, I
am thinking I can go back to those days and put things right. I can love my
bond son-to-be and withdraw my own prejudice from between us. Yet, well I know
that the books I have sealed and the tablets I have hidden should stay forever
sealed, forever hidden.

You, reading this, will wonder why I have not made certain of
their destruction. I can only give the reason that, long ago, Pater Honorius
gave when he buried his secrets. Through the will of God these things came into
being. I have meddled enough in things that are above and beyond me. I have
unloosed enough destruction. Let someone else take the responsibility for the
destruction of these things.

If history is kind, no one will remember Marija of Ohdan. But because
of me, history will long remember Arik Tamal, Emperor.

“Arik,” Kassia murmured. “That’s the first time she’s gotten Tamal’s name right.”

Zakarij did not take his eyes from her face. “She never got it
wrong.”

“But
here, she called him ‘Kesar’.” She indicated the earlier pages, which she still held.

“Yes.
That was the name of the man who set out to conquer these territories.”

Kassia shook her head. “Arik. Tamal the First was
Arik
Tamal.”

“‘Because
of me,’” Zakarij quoted softly, “‘history
will long remember Arik Tamal, Emperor’.” When Kassia still looked
perplexed, he said, “Do
you recall what you said about returning to the moment of Tamal’s birth?”

Kassia was certain every bit of blood had drained from her
face. “She killed
Kesar Tamal?”

“She
killed the man she knew as the conqueror of Polia. And as you said, there was
no guarantee that some other member of his race or tribe wouldn’t rise up to take his
place.”

“So
it was inevitable.”

Zakarij gave a smile that was anything but mirthful. “It was more than that.
What do you know of Tamalid history?”

“I
know what everyone knows. Arik Tamal and a horde of barbarian soldiers
descended upon Polia and the darughas like locusts upon wheat. They killed,
they enslaved, they conquered.”

Zakarij sat on the edge of the table and leaned toward her. “Let me tell you the
legend as I heard it from Shagtai when I was a boy: The family of the Lord
Tamal were in their spring home when a White Mother came among them.”

Kassia could not taker her eyes from his. “No.”

“The
White Mother prophesied great things for the unborn child of the lord’s favorite wife. They
invited the woman into their compound. In the night, a monstrous whirlwind
arose and devoured everything and everyone within the compound walls. The fire
it brought glowed so brightly, it could be seen from miles away, and no one
close by dared look upon it. There were no remains of either man or beast, only
scorched, sodden earth and shattered buildings. The Lord Tamal was gone, and
his Lady and unborn child with him. And so, every man, woman and child under
their protection. The only survivor of the clan was—”

“Arik
Tamal,” Kassia murmured. “How
was he saved?”

“He
was sickly. Because of that, he was not in the compound, but instead at the
home of the village healer. He was two years old. But when he was old enough to
understand, he learned it was a White Mother who caused the destruction of his
family. He hated the shai, he hated the Mateu, he hated the village shaman who
failed to foresee the calamity. According to Marija’s journal, Kesar Tamal was an unsavory man who
lacked the sternness to control his own generals. He had no great hatred for
either shai or Mateu and merely indulged his shamans’ gluttony for borrowed magic.
We know what Arik Tamal was—a
monster who persecuted us wherever he found us. Who took great personal
pleasure in stealing away our lives and loved ones.”

“You’re saying he was
Marija’s gift to
us.”

“
She
’
s
saying it, Kassia. That, and that the gift of the Spirit Gate is
destruction.”

She really looked at him now. Really saw him. “We have to warn Master
Lukasha.”

oOo

”He
has asked not to be disturbed.” Damek formed a small but impenetrable barrier between Kassia and
Zakarij, and the stairway that led up to Master Lukasha’s studio.

“He
sent me to Tabor on an errand of some importance,” Kassia told him. “He won’t mind being disturbed
for my report.” She took a step toward the stair. Damek moved to block her again.

“This
is serious, Damek,” Kassia told him. “We
must speak to Master Lukasha immediately. If you don’t let us in, we’ll only resort to magic.” She raised a hand as if to
begin her spell.

In the second that Damek hesitated, Lukasha’s voice came to them
from the top of the stair. “Send
them up Damek.”

An expression of extreme displeasure flickered across Damek’s face, but he stepped
aside anyway, muttering beneath his breath, “I was only doing what I was asked.”

Kassia slipped past him and all but vaulted up the curving
stair, Zakarij close on her heels. Lukasha was waiting for them, standing
placidly among the artifacts of his calling, sunlit motes swirling chaotically
about him.

“You’ll have to forgive
Damek. He is a good assistant, but as you know, he is occasionally overzealous
in following the letter of my orders. How are things in Tabor, Kiska? Were you
able to see Mishka?” Lukasha asked, then glanced at Kassia’s face. “You
are bursting with something, Kiska. What is it?”

“It’s about the Twilight
spell, Master,” Kassia told him. “You
mustn’t use it.”

He frowned. “Why
must I not?”

“The
spell allows its possessor to travel through time,” said Zakarij. “Marija found the key.
She used the spell several times, against her better judgment, and owned the
time portal it created. The Spirit Gate, she called it.”

Lukasha’s
face seemed to radiate light. “Travel
through time? How did Marija use it?”

Zakarij and Kassia glanced at each other, then Kassia said, “She tried to change
the past. She
did
change the past. Her husband died at the hands
of Tamalid soldiers. Using the Spirit Gate she went back in time and changed
the events leading to his death. She brought him back, Master. Back from death.
By creating a past in which he didn’t
die.”

Lukasha marveled. “Yet
you tell me I mustn’t
use this wonderful spell?”

“There
were horrible consequences,” Zakarij said. “Marija
didn’t understand
all the forces at play. She didn’t
understand that the events she sought to change were interconnected with other
events she hadn’t
meant to touch. She changed more than she bargained for. During one of her
excursions, she made a past in which her Master, Boleslas, was killed instead
of her husband. And during another . . .” He licked dry lips and went
on. “During another,
she used the Gate to create a vortex that devoured an entire Mongol clan. Her
spell killed hundreds of people.”

He frowned. “Why
would she do that?”

“She
was trying to destroy an unborn child named Kesar Tamal. A child she knew would
one day conquer Polia and hold its people in slavery. She destroyed his entire
family, but for one member, Arik Tamal.”

That Lukasha understood was clearly written in his eyes. “Then the old legend . . .”

“Is
no legend at all,” Kassia finished. “It
was Marija of Ohdan, trying to undo something she felt responsible for. Marija
thought the Tamalids came because of her early, ignorant experiments with the
Twilight names. She was wrong—that
much is clear. But in her misguided shame, she felt she had committed a wrong
only she could rectify.”

“Instead,” Zakarij added, “her
every attempt to change the past only warped the present and future more. It
warped her, as well, until she was driven to murder an entire clan.”

Lukasha was silent for a long time, his eyes on the journal
in Kassia’s
hands, his face impassive. She watched for any sign of emotion in his face.
Well she knew the hopes he had invested in the Squared spell and its Twilight
catalysts. Well she understood that she and Zakarij were snatching from him
what he may have taken as the only salvation for Michal Zelimir and a kingdom
that seemed to be threatened on every side. She saw none of that in his face.