by A Van Wyck
“Now pay attention,” Cyrus commanded, falling into his habitual brusqueness, “the balancing of power here has to be precise. An overflow could burn out any one of us and kill the boy. Understood?”
They nodded, wearing identically somber expressions.
“Good. Just do as I’ve told you and we should be alright. Let’s begin.”
Cyrus knelt beside the bed and intoned a brief prayer. Justin and the others spoke the words along with him, mentally reaching out to one another.
“Unity through faith,” they chorused.
Then Cyrus took out his healing crystal, holding it up in both hands, using only thumbs and index fingers, leaving the rest of his fingers splayed outwards in the symbol of the rising sun. Justin and his students drew the sign of the circle over their hearts.
He’d drilled them well on what to expect, so when the crystal started to glow softly, he felt the energy of his two students wash up against his awareness. His own role would be that of conduit, assessing and supplying the needs of the ritual as Cyrus performed it. Normally working in concert like this would require timing and co-ordination established through spell hymns but with three empaths they simply responded to each other’s needs.
Pooling his own power with theirs, he directed a steady trickle of energy towards the kneeling Cyrus.
The ritual began.
The gem’s glow brightened. Cyrus lowered his head in concentration. Justin increased the trickle to a flow. The old healer’s lip twitched and he responded by increasing the steady flow to a stream.
He hadn’t expected the power demand to rise so quickly.
The jewel was growing in illumination. Cyrus’s lips moved as he launched into the intricate accompaniment he’d written for the ritual. Few but the most difficult and complex of spells required that the frequency of the focusing crystal be adjusted by vocal vibration. He worried quite suddenly that he might truly have asked his friend to do the impossible. He banished the doubt from his mind before it could poison their shared connection and increased the stream of power instead, making it a river.
Cyrus’s reedy voice rose and fell with the song of the crystal, which was becoming hard to look at. But he would not risk closing his eyes. Any movement now could interrupt his concentration. Any stray thought could shatter their delicate web of power and send massive energies splintering in all directions.
The building power vibrated in the air around them as it saturated the space, manifesting as a persistent ringing in the ears.
Cyrus sang out loud, the oldest of the Temple dialects warring with the steadily increasing pitch of the roiling energy.
The bright violet light had white-shifted, becoming so intense it obscured the features of the room. From somewhere in the brilliant blindness, Cyrus’s voice rang out in strong, pure tones.
He began feeling the strain of Cyrus’s ever increasing power demand. Lisbet was already tapped out and Nicol was swaying on his feet. He buckled down, scraping the bottom of the barrel of his own reserves. He only knew his eyes were open because the backs of his eyelids were not normally dazzling white. Apart from the painful brilliance, he could see nothing.
The old priest was struggling, the words snatched from him by the oppressive breath of power funneling around the room. It snatched up scattered bits of paper. He could hear them churning all around him, caught in the grip of the miniature hurricane.
The healer’s sonorous invocation climbed toward a crescendo. Somewhere in the white, Cyrus touched the crystal to the boy.
A surge of unbound power blasted through the room, lifting him off his feet as shards of light pierced his mind…
…and then he was picking himself up off the floor. Coughing, ears ringing, he stumbled upright, finding he’d been thrown clear to the wall. Dazed, he looked around.
Nicol was in the process of extricating himself from the remnants of the lone bookcase. Lisbet sat, artfully arranged against the door, legs flung out before her and eyes wide. Her blonde hair stuck up in all directions, charged by the residue of the released energy. Both of them seemed hale enough.
Trying to remember how to use his legs, he stumbled over to the bed, fearing the worst. Cyrus still knelt at the bedside, torso sprawled limply across the boy.
He put two fingers beneath the elderly healer’s jaw, feeling for a pulse.
“I’m not dead yet,” Cyrus coughed irritably, knocking his hand away.
Justin sighed in relief, helping his friend sit up.
“You alright?” he asked. “How do you feel?”
“Like I passed through the bunghole of the Dark Places. How do you think?”
“Did it work?”
“How should I know? Here, help me up.”
He levered Cyrus to his feet.
The old priest gave the blasted room a cursory glance. Nicol was just now kneeling beside the stunned Lisbet.
On the bed, the boy’s chest rose and fell, the healing crystal lay centered above his breastbone. Cyrus bent painfully to retrieve it and it came away with a dry crackling, exposing the white, marred flesh of a fresh burn scar.
“A small price,” Cyrus observed.
“But were we successful?”
The old healer cocked his head, considering.
“I believe so.”
Justin let the relief wash through him.
“Now,” Cyrus ordered brusquely, “you get those two sorted out and I’ll see about a poultice for that burn.”
“Yes, father,” Justin acquiesced, feeling immensely respectful. He stepped carefully over what had once been Vallioni’s Treatise on Rural Agriculture and went to help Nicol and Lisbet. Nicol had some bookcase shaped bruises on his back but was otherwise hale. Lisbet was very pale and would only speak in monosyllables. If she had any new bruises, she was keeping them to herself.
They found the kettle in the far corner. It had a sizable new dent but was still serviceable. He insisted they both have some honeyed tea, for the shock, before they departed with his blessing and sincerest thanks.
Closing the door behind them, he staggered, exhausted, back to where Cyrus had annexed his desk.
The old priest was leaning back in the chair, his arms hanging limply at his sides. He opened one poached eye at Justin’s approach.
“Got anything stronger than tea?”
“Holy hymns, yes,” he agreed fervently.
He staggered over to the wall cabinet and came back with a sloshing bottle and two glasses and poured them both a stiff measure of the malt whiskey. Cyrus accepted his with a grateful sigh, tossing it down in one gulp. The old healer coughed miserably but shoved the glass at him for more.
“So,” Cyrus began, sitting back with his refilled glass, “what happens now?”
“Now?” He asked, surprised. “Now we wait and see what tomorrow brings.”
“I assume you’re going to vouch for his entry into the Temple personally. How will you explain his presence?”
“I have some family down south who hardly know I exist,” he mused. “I’ll say he’s my distant cousin or something. It shouldn’t be too hard.”
“I don’t know,” Cyrus drawled uncertainly, glancing at the boy. “I think we scoured him pretty good. I’d be surprised if he remembers how to hold a spoon when he wakes up.”
“I’ll deal with that when we come to it.”
Cyrus smiled thinly.
“Have you thought of a name yet?”
He hadn’t. But one popped into his head as soon as he did.
“Maharkoo,” he said.
Cyrus cocked his head to one side.
“Foundling,” the healer translated. “Or rebirth, depending on context.” The old priest nodded. “Trite. But accurate enough, I suppose. I hadn’t realized you had such a flair for the poetic.”
“Oh, shut up,” Justin muttered, refilling both their glasses.
CHAPTER 2 – MAHARKOO
“Marco!”
The boy skidded to a stop, raising a storm of p
ebbles that showered the robes of the priest blocking his path.
“Father?” the boy asked politely, breathing heavily.
“You–” the priest was interrupted as a second storm of pebbles rounded the corner in the form of three more boys. Marco was picked clean off his feet in their headlong rush and the four of them bowled the priest over. From within the confused tangle of limbs, there was the sound of a slap. A youthful voice, panting hard, piped up. “You’re it!”
“No fair!”
“What,” the manhandled priest demanded in calm tones, overriding the boys’ voices, “is going on?”
“Thanks, father,” one of the boys, unidentifiable in the tangle, gushed gratefully.
“Yeah,” another one chimed in, sounding a bit squashed, “we’d never have caught him otherwise – he can run all day, he can!”
The boys were all on their feet in an instant, pulling the priest upright after them. Four pairs of hands helpfully dusted off his robes.
“What the–” the priest objected. “Get over there!”
The four boys in their novice robes obediently lined up in front of him. Blows and elbows were quietly and inconspicuously exchanged as they awaited sentencing. He fixed them with a steely eye.
“You like running, do you?” he began when he was sure he had their attention. “Perhaps I should arrange for the four of you to take all the errand duty this week?”
“Aaaww,” they chorused in unison.
“Tut, tut!” the priest forestalled their objections. “Shush!”
“Now then,” he said into the obedient silence, clasping his hands behind his back. He leaned forward, forcing them to lean back. “I believe the three of you have somewhere else you need to be?” he offered with the air of one handing out candy. The three boys so addressed exchanged suspicious glances, more distrustful of leniency than they had been of punishment.
“Go on,” he prompted, “off you go.”
With a last, apologetic glance at their lone remaining compatriot, the three sprinted off in different directions. Hopefully, though unlikely, on their way to complete whichever tasks they’d been neglecting.
“As for you,” the priest turned to Marco, “I believe Keeper Justin has been expecting you for the better part of a bell?”
Marco’s eyes went wide.
“So if I were you–” the priest continued but stopped when he saw he was now alone. Bemused, he turned to regard the sprinting boy’s fast retreating back, reflecting that he did, indeed, run very well.
Marco, his twelve-year old legs moving as fast as he could make them, sped down the garden shortcut. He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten about his appointment with Keeper Justin! He’d skipped classes before, of course. To go swimming, catch frogs, climb the ancient trees in the Temple orchard or just to play, like today. But he’d never missed one of the keeper’s classes. Ever.
As far as he was concerned, Keeper Justin was the Temple and everything that came out of his mouth was scripture. Disappointing him would be… blasphemy.
He stepped on a low marble bench and vaulted over the man sized hedge. The acolyte on the other side was as surprised to see him as he was to be seen. Luckily, he missed landing on the older boy. But the unfortunate wheelbarrow’s front wheel came off as Marco landed on the dirt load, pushing off into his sprint again. The surprised acolyte’s shouted imprecations, unfit for one sworn to the Temple, followed him as he raced away toward the main building.
He sometimes wondered what he’d done that had endeared him to the keeper. Sure, they were related, however distantly, but that didn’t count for much here in the Temple. Rikkel, who until a few moments ago had been playing tag with him, had two uncles and a grandmother right here at Temple and he barely ever saw them. Whatever he’d done to make Keeper Justin take an interest in him, he was just quietly grateful for it.
Inside the west residential wing now, he cut by the upper library, starting to breathe heavily now that worry had been added to normal physical exertion.
He deftly sidestepped a priestess who was unsurely traversing the corridor, blinded by the towering stack of books in her arms. He heard her startled gasp as he flashed by and screwed his eyes tight shut as the sound of heavy volumes cascading to the floor sounded, already far behind him.
He made it to the broad stairs and started up, taking them two and three at a time. Rounding the fourth landing, he saw three acolytes, sweating as they attempted to cajole an immense wooden wardrobe up the stairs, blocking the way from banister to wall. A little priest flapped continuously at them, frantically yammering instructions and cautions as they moved his furniture.
Marco leaped onto the wide stone handrail, arms flung wide, and rocketed past them. At his sudden appearance the acolytes ducked their heads and tightened their grips, their eyes screwed tight shut like men waiting for the sky to land on their heads. The little priest, deciding his heirloom was in danger, valiantly flung himself at the wobbling wardrobe. He bounced off the hard wood with an ‘oof!’ and sat down heavily on the stairs.
Marco sped on to the next landing, wondering what his lesson with Keeper Justin would be like.
For years, he and his peers had received instruction in meditation techniques and mental discipline. Those skills were useful when you had to sit through bells of prayer or when you really needed to be quiet for hide and seek. But, personally, he’d always found those lessons to be the very height of tedium. Now, after years and years of training, his level of initiation had reached the point where he would learn the next step.
Streaming. Gathering, harnessing, channeling... the priests called it by many names but everyone knew what it really was: magic.
Sometimes it felt like that was all he’d been preparing for his entire life. It was a badly kept secret that Keeper Justin was really good at it. And if there was one thing Marco desperately wanted, he wanted to be good at the same things as the keeper.
Apparently one’s first brush with magic could be quite dangerous, though. You heard stories – terrible, nightmare stories – of students messing around with magic on their own. So the first attempt was always carefully supervised. That’s why the past week had crawled by at such a snail’s pace. Normal classes were suspended while everyone in his year underwent their first, private lesson. Keeper Justin would have been conducting introductory classes all day. And he was already late by a bell. He tried to increase his pace.
The smooth stone floor flew beneath his feet as he rounded the corner to Keeper Justin’s apartments, skidding to a stop before the door with one hand raised and ready to knock.
The portal swung open before he’d even begun his downswing, Keeper Justin demonstrating again his uncanny knack for knowing exactly when he was near.
“Ah,” said the familiar voice. “Finally made it, I see.”
He nodded, far too short of breath to try and form a reply. Hunched over, he gripped his knees, panting for breath.
“Should we, perhaps, rather sign you up for extra astrology and numbers? Maybe then you’ll be able to tell time.”
He shook his head, smiling.
“You’re sure?”
He nodded emphatically, still out of breath.
“Well, I suppose you’d better come in then.”
The priest stood to one side to let him pass.
“Tea?”
Grateful for the day’s heat giving him an excuse to decline the rancid tea the keeper favored, he shook his head again.
“Tardy or not, your timing isn’t bad. I’ve had my final lesson for the day, so we don’t have to rush.”
Keeper Justin led him over to a colorful rug, littered with scattered cushions.
“Sit,” the keeper invited.
“Thank you,” he wheezed, regaining some facility with speech as well as manners. He sank gratefully down onto a cushion.
Justin sat across from him, easily folding onto the other cushion.
“So. How are the studies going?” Justin enquired, leani
ng over to the side to pour a cup of tea.
“Fine,” he started guiltily, aware that he should have done much better. There were always just so many more interesting things to do than study.
“Really? I seem to recall father Chesspi telling me your numbers could use a lot of work…?”
He ducked his head. Numbers were definitely not his strong suite.
“They’re confusing,” he defended.
“That they most certainly are. And which classes do you enjoy?”
“Classical Studies isn’t bad and I like Calligraphy. It’s nice and quiet and you get lots of time to just think.”
“Oh? And what do you think about?”
“I don’t know. Everything?”
Justin laughed.
“Good,” the keeper approved. “Priests should think about everything all the time.”
The keeper seemed to consider.
“Mother Vornso tells me you’ve a very neat hand.”
He blinked. He hadn’t thought Mother Vornso was capable of saying anything nice to him. Never mind about him. Calligraphy was fun despite her. Not because of her.
Unsure what to say, he nodded.
“You see, Marco,” Keeper Justin continued, “streaming is a bit like numbers. Some people find it difficult. Others find it impossible.”
Marco swallowed loudly. Did that mean that he wouldn’t be able to do it?
“But then, it could also be like calligraphy. It might just come to you naturally, without any real conscious effort.”
That sounded better. He nodded enthusiastically.
“Now, myself, I can barely write legibly. And you should see Sitter Cyrus’s handwriting. Even I can’t make out a word. And just between you and me,” the keeper whispered, leaning closer, “sometimes Sitter Cyrus can’t either.”
He managed to cover his mouth before a second guffaw of laughter could escape. But Justin sat back, smiling along, so he guessed he wasn’t in trouble for laughing at a senior Assembly priest.
“Do you think less of me because I struggle with penmanship?” the keeper continued.
Shocked at the suggestion that he might harbor a single bad thought about the keeper, he shook his head, eyes wide.
