The Spirit Gate (54 page)

Kassia was momentarily stunned. Had her attempt to possess
the Gate failed so utterly? Had she no control over it at all? She glanced
around to see what had become of Damek. He lay in an undignified heap beside
her work table. Satisfied that she needn’t worry about any interference from that quarter,
Kassia repeated the Twilight spell, her heart pounding with fear that she could
not invoke the Spirit Gate on her own. But when the final name was spoken, the
Gate opened before her as before. She willed it immediately to silence and
conjured a Locator spell, hoping it would work in time as it did in space. It
did.

With fear trembling in her heart, she leapt into the past.

Lukasha did not stay long in any of the times and places
he visited that day, but kept moving, leaping from one point to another, as if
compiling a library of critical junctures where an act on his part might
produce some effect in his here and now.

Kassia stayed a second behind him at every turn, terrified
that he might at last decide to do something to change the stream of the past,
wondering if she could do something immediately after the fact (or before it)
to counter those changes. She thought wryly of her pretensions to divination.
The power to change the very fabric of history made divination a purely
academic subject. Presumably, Marija of Ohdan had had the power of divination.
Either she had neglected to use it, or her poor stewardship of the Spirit Gate
had rendered it useless.

It came to Kassia, as she lit for a moment in a Tabor that
bore the marks of Tamalid rule, that her own ability to divine the future had
failed her because she hadn’t
used it. She hadn’t
wanted to use it, because she was afraid of what it might tell her. She
imagined that Marija, swamped by the fierce pull of her curiosity, desirous of
uncovering some great magic that would assure her a place in history (or at
least among the Mateu at Lorant) had felt the same. Although, she thought,
although, to divine one’s
future and to be able to change it . . .

She left that thought where it lay, and followed her Master
to yet another point in time. The scenes that flowed around her were wonderful,
terrifying things; she wanted to flee them; she wanted to linger, to study
them. Here, where carriages pulled by no horses ran on ribbons of gray stone,
roaring like the wind as they passed. There, where only a village of rude huts
graced the river banks where Tabor now stood. Here, where men fought with
weapons that spat fire. Here, where the mountain slopes around Dalibor were
lush and green. They visited the heart of a huge city, compared to which even
Tabor was a village. To each of these things she could afford only a glance as
she tumbled by. Lukasha paused once on a barren plain, wind-whipped and devoid
of life, and Kassia wondered why, of all the scenes that flashed before them,
he chose this one to mark.

The last leap they made was far afield of Polia. Here Master
Lukasha lingered. Kassia, coming to ground in the same point of time, drew a
look-away shield about her and tried to take in her surroundings. She had
thought the Frankish church in Tabor grand, but this place overwhelmed her with
its opulence. Gleaming white and gold, draped in the shades of royalty, it was
a celestial palace. She was standing on a gallery above the premier floor of a
hall so large, it seemed never to end. Every corner of it was full of light and
a rotunda like a crown of jewels rose over its heart. She searched for her
master and, sensing him, brought his form to sight.

He was standing at the gallery balustrade, looking down into
the hall below. His figure flickered like a candle flame, the balustrade now
visible through the folds of his robe, now obscured by it. She couldn’t read the expression
on his face, for it was turned away from her, but whatever was happening in the
hall below was clearly of great interest to him.

Kassia dared to move the several feet to the edge of the
gallery. Her shield was composed entirely of earth elements, lessening the
chance that Lukasha would sense her. Taking her eyes from her master, she
peered over into the hall. Below them were a gathering of men arrayed much like
the Bishop Benedict in vestments of white and red and gold. One man, seated on
a throne of red stone, wore royal purple as well, and along with that, a
jeweled crown of great glory. The crown embraced a headdress much like the
Bishop’s, but far
more grand. It took Kassia only a moment to realize that she looked upon the
Most High Bishop of Avignon. A second later, that revelation was superseded by
the realization that the man who stood before the High Bishop, receiving his
words, was none other than Bishop Benedict.

Their voices floated up to the gallery, amplified by the
stone of walls and floors. The words were Frankish and, at first, Kassia couldn’t understand a word of
what was being said. Then she heard the words ‘Polia’ and ‘Tabor’ uttered and then, from Bishop Benedict’s lips, came the name ‘Zelimir’.
Other words were spoken in the foreign tongue, some of which Kassia could guess
at. After his speech had been delivered, Benedict bowed, accepted some papers
from a richly robed man standing at the Holy Father’s right hand, and exited the hall. Kassia suspected
she had just witnessed his assignment as Bishop of Tabor and understood, at
once, why Lukasha had chosen this moment in time to visit. If Benedict had not
been assigned to Polia’s
capital, her future might look quite different. Unless, of course, all of these
men possessed the same powers that Benedict did.

Kassia reached a tendril of sense toward the men below her.
Among them were one or two individuals who had about them an aura of the
arcane, but nothing to compare with Benedict’s presence. She was about to probe further when she
realized that her master had gone. Cursing herself for being so inattentive,
Kassia leapt after him.

He had returned to Lorant, and Kassia, to keep him from
realizing she had followed him, opened the Gate into her studio the exact
moment she had left it. She was standing right where Master Lukasha had left
her when his form shivered into solidity a second later. When he turned to her,
the look in his eyes sent such a tremor of fear and anguish through her that
she nearly cried out. Madness blossomed there.

“I
have seen other worlds, Kassia,” he told her. “Such
worlds as you cannot possibly imagine.”

She forced a lie from her lips. “You left me behind. I couldn’t follow you.”

He raised a hand to her face while she trembled and tried
not to flinch away. “Tomorrow,
when king Zelimir gathers his courtiers and posts his bans, you
shall
follow me,
and
you shall witness a great work.”

“You
aren’t going to
change the past?”

“I
considered it, but it would be foolish. So much is interdependent. Who knows
what I might change unintentionally. No. The changes must be made in the here
and now to have an effect on our future. Haven’t we learned that lesson from Marija?”

Kassia nodded slowly, not certain whether to rejoice or
fear. “What will
you do, then?”

He smiled. “You’ll see. Tomorrow.”

“Master,
I . . . I can’t
help but think what we’re
doing is wrong. I don’t
want to hurt anyone. Least of all the king.”

Something hard crept into his gaze. “You fail to understand the stakes.”

“No.
No, I
do
understand them. I know they’re
too high.” She took a deep breath, steeled herself. He couldn’t do this without her.
“I won’t do this.”

“You
must. You will. You will help me open the Gate. What you do after that is of no
concern to me, unless you try to undermine me in some way.” His look was piercing. “You
wouldn’t do that,
would you?”

When she hesitated, a look of cold determination crossed
Lukasha’s face. “Kassia, you will not
only open the Gate for me, you will stay by my side once it is open. I had
hoped you would be there as an ally, but . . .”

She rebelled utterly. “I have sworn myself to protect king Zelimir with my
life. I will protect him, even against you.”

“Yes?
Then who will protect Zakarij? Even as we speak, he is in a most precarious
position very near the Turkish front lines, surrounded by danger. Moreover he
is in Ratibor. And there are enough dangers there on the best of days. Thieves,
murderers . . .”

Kassia reached a new threshold of disbelief; the floor
beneath her feet seemed to shrug. “You
wouldn’t harm
Zakarij.”

“I
will do whatever is necessary to protect this kingdom from internal weakness
and external force, be it physical or spiritual. If Zakarij must be sacrificed
to that greater good, so be it. Indeed, if my own life must be sacrificed to
that cause, I will be content, if only I have an effect. Understand me, Kassia.
I threw away a chance to act against the Tamalids. Like the rest of my
colleagues, I secluded myself behind these walls and waited for the end of the
regime. I watched people die because of my cowardice and the cowardice of my
kind. This time, I will not hide in my chambers or cower in the cesia while
lives are forfeited to the greed of others. I will not watch the wisdom and
power of the Sacred Circle be shrugged aside as if it were of no value. That is
where the government of Polia must reside—in the hands of the Circle.”

He meant it. There was no dissimulation in either his words
or his expression. Kassia felt an odd sympathy for him. She understood
impotency. She, who had once stood on the banks of a raging tide, powerless to
act as lives were swept away. She was experiencing some of those same feelings
now.

“I
understand,” she told him. “Truly,
I understand, but—”

Lukasha put a hand on her shoulder, squeezed it hard enough
to make her wince. “I
do this for you, Kassia. For Beyla. For your future. Do not desert me.”

She raised her eyes to his face, trying to read it. His
expression was not gentle, despite the fatherly words. And in his eyes
something of Twilight—something
cold. Kassia shivered, feeling within him a coiled power. This was not the time
to fight him. She wasn’t
sure enough of herself.

She acquiesced, lowering her eyes again. “Tomorrow, then.”

He smiled a horrible smile that Kassia couldn’t look upon. “Tomorrow. Antal says
the announcement will be made at sunset. We will go to Tabor then, and we will
show them a power that will shake the world.”

“Will
you destroy the Palace as Marija destroyed the Tamalid fortress?”

“I
will destroy nothing. Why must you see the Spirit Gate as merely a weapon of
destruction? Might it not also be a prison?”

The words chilled her. Her heart was like that plain she had
visited in their ramblings—cold,
lifeless, stark and sere. She went to the cesia to pray. A myriad emotions
assailed her during her meditation. Sorrow clawed at her heart, making her weak
and spiritless; rage prodded her to forestall Lukasha by any means possible.
She resisted the sorrow, tried to convince the rage that to act premeditatedly,
as Lukasha was preparing to act, would make her no better than him. If his
argument that Polia must be saved at any price was in error, the error was no
less if she made that argument her own.

Her anger would not be banished. Lukasha had betrayed her
and had threatened Zakarij. Had twice sent him into a place of danger so he
might have a device to use against her. He might have used Beyla, but Beyla was
shai, and because he was shai, he was sacred to the Mateu. As sacred to him as
was Shagtai, as was she. That did not mean that he would shrink from harming
any of them if pushed to it, and that thought alone was enough to put Kassia on
her guard. When she flew to Tabor on the morrow, she must prepared to react
swiftly to whatever Lukasha did.

oOo

”I
saw . . .” Damek lay staring at the ceiling of his parlor. These were the first
words he had spoken since his Master had brought him out of Kassia’s studio.

“What
did you see?” Lukasha asked.

Damek turned his head. The cords of muscle in his neck felt
as if they would snap. He squinted, trying to see his master in the
semi-darkness. The curtains were drawn and very little light entered from the
gray day outside. He could see the glint of that watery light on the Mateu’s eyes, make out his form,
but little else.

“I
saw . . . terrible things. What were they?”

“The
future. Or perhaps the past. Or perhaps the present somewhere else.”

“You . . .
crossed the threshold?” A stupid question, he knew what he had seen before he passed out—his master being
sucked up into the maw of that infernal Portal as if . . . as if
a monster had devoured him.

“I
did a great deal more than that, Damek, and I did it without Kassia. Once she
had opened the Gate for me, I no longer needed her.”

“What
was it like?”

The glitter of Lukasha’s eyes was masked momentarily. “It was . . .
terrifying, magnificent, awe inspiring. When I first stepped through the
Portal, I thought the walls would collapse and crush me. But they steadied, and
I was able to control whence I moved. I saw such things, Damek, as I cannot
even describe. I felt as if I flew.”

Damek sat up. “Master,
when you open the Gate again, might I go with you?”

He laughed. “You,
Damek? Step into the maelstrom? Why should you wish to do that, my
unimaginative friend?”

“Perhaps
because I am so unimaginative. I would like to fly, if only once in my life.”

Lukasha leaned close to him and laid a hand on his shoulder,
his eyes gleaming. “Then
tomorrow you shall fly. Today, I think we must both rest. My travels have
wearied me, and you have a knot on the side of your head.”

After he had gone, Damek lay back on his couch and shivered,
though it was far from cold. Tomorrow, he would fly.

oOo