The Spirit Gate

by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

  “How will you do that, mama?” Beyla asked later as they wound their way down from the cesia. “How will you give Mat and Itugen your future?”

  “I don’t know yet, Beyla. But perhaps if I listen very hard, they will tell me.”

  oOo

  Kassia tried to listen all that night as she lay in her bed. She prayed to dream of what her next move should be, but she didn’t remember her dreams—if indeed she’d had any to remember—and the morning’s light brought a gloom that was alien to Kassia. Perhaps her gesture at the cesia had been foolish or even arrogant. Perhaps the God and Goddess were disappointed in her.

  The feeling returned from time to time as she plied her trade in the marketplace that week. She was able to banish it only when new customers flocked to her cart to hear her shallow predictions (she never looked very deeply into their life-stream) and cross her palm with silver, stone or copper. The elegantly dressed men wearing the oblong paiza of the royal court were the most generous customers. One or two of them were repeat customers from the previous week and she was obliged to sort among their future possibilities for something new to tell them. They, in turn, regaled her with stories of life at court and travel by closed carriage or howdah. She envied them—not their wealth or their rich clothing (although that did have its appeal)—but their autonomy. In the service of the king, they worried not after their rent, they came and went as they pleased, and they didn’t have to look after someone else’s laundry or marketing. Asenka’s household chores took Kassia away from the marketplace more than she would have liked, and it was to that she attributed the slow growth of her savings.

  Still, at week’s end, she was feeling much better about her lot. This was not so bad, she told herself, this selling of glimpses forward. The God and Goddess seemed to be in favor of her chosen path; they sent her customers to divine for, and the silently watchful Mateu had never said anything to her, though he’d had many opportunities. So it was with a modicum of smugness that she took the twenty rega she finally collected to Ursel Trava’s booth.

  “Mister Trava,” she said, “I have come to rent a cottage from you.”

  He eyed her from beneath thick brows and scratched at his beard. “Have you, now. And what have you brought me for rent, Mistress Telek?”

  She thrust out her hands. “Twenty rega, as you require.”

  He nodded, eying the money. “Yes, I’ve seen you out plying your shai trade. But I no longer require twenty rega for my cottages. I now require . . .” He tilted his shaggy head sideways. “ . . .forty.”

  Kassia felt hot and cold in waves. “Forty! But that’s twice as much! It will take me twice as long to earn it.”

  Trava shrugged broad, slightly stooped shoulders. “That’s as it may be, Mistress. But my price is forty.” He turned away then, to see to a customer who would no doubt find that the price of the scythe he wanted had suddenly tripled, and Kassia, twenty rega still clutched in her hands, returned to her cart.

  “What’s wrong, mama?” Beyla asked her. “You’re all emptied out.”

  She set a hand to his hair, feeling nothing but the pale silk beneath the tips of her fingers. Emptied out, indeed. “Mister Trava has raised the rent for his cottages. I must make more money.”

  Beyla frowned. “I’m sorry, mama. I wish I could help. Maybe you should go to Lorant.”

  She glanced at him sharply. “What makes you say that?”

  “Mistress Devora says that’s where you belong if you’d only look to it. I think I’d like living at Lorant, wouldn’t you?”

  Kassia laughed. Mistress Devora, indeed. Not above using her child to make a point with her. “I’m not sure anyone lives at Lorant but the Mateu and some of the priests, Beyla. There’d certainly be nothing there for the likes of us.”

  “Then what will we do? We can’t live with aunt Aska any more. Uncle Blaz doesn’t like us.”

  She put her arm around him. “We’ll think of something.”

  “Can’t we ask Itugen and Mat what we should do? You told me grandmother used to say that a question put to Itugen was a question answered.”

  She opened her mouth to say she had asked Itugen, but she realized as her mind framed the words that her questions had been shallow things. She did not meditate on them at all, which was rather like asking your neighbor how she did this fine morning, then turning away before you heard her answer.

  “I will ask Itugen,” she promised him. “The next chance I get, I’ll go up to the cesia and reflect on what we must do.”

  Yet somehow the next week went by without her finding that chance. There was too much to do to help Asenka with her household, and more money to be earned—money the marketplace refused to yield. For instead of growing, as she had confidently expected, Kassia’s business dwindled. Dalibor, it seemed, was not large enough to support a full time augur.

  She decided she must go up-town to seek out more moneyed clients who didn’t frequent the lower village. She left Beyla at home, though he complained mightily at being denied a close look at houses not built by the hands of those who dwelt in them. Alone, she sat at New Dalibor’s large public fountain in the heart of its flagged central square, and waited with her little cart while people passed by and either ignored her or glanced at her with curiosity or disdain. Houses and shops of stone, brick and wood towered on every side—two and one half stories, some of them—making her feel overwhelmed and small. She fought the feeling down and drew herself up regally. She was her mother’s daughter. She was White-haired Kassia, shai.

  One passer-by touched the brim of his hat and called her “little queen,” but no one approached to see what it was she sold. After awhile she began to call out, “Fortunes read! See your future, mistress/sir?” That got one or two to stop by, and their presence at her cart drew a few more, but when they had gone, she once again received only rude stares. She began singing after that, first merely setting her hawking to melody, then reeling off little folk tunes. That brought her some small change, mostly copper rezes brought by small, shy children whose parents remained aloof at the fringes of the fountain square.

  It occurred to her, at last, that being shai, she had certain magics at her disposal. She might try a spell song, she thought, to draw customers to her. The thought made her feel wretched at first, but as the day wore on and hunger gnawed and her little pile of coins grew hardly at all, she buried her scruples and sang a fishing spell her mother hat taught her, changing the incantation slightly in the hope that it would draw people.

  It seemed not to work at first, but then she noticed a knot of young women watching her from across the way. Several had children at their sides or in their arms. She singled one out—a pale girl with red hair and a bundled infant—and smiled at her, breaking her song only long enough to call, “Good-day, mistress. Wouldn’t you like to know your baby’s fortune?”

  The woman glanced nervously at her companions, but took a tentative step nearer. Kassia murmured another line of the fishing spell, then reached an exploring finger of sense toward the child.

  “Maybe he’ll be a priest or a minister of the royal court.” She shifted her attention to the woman, licking at her thoughts. Pregnant women and new mothers were easier to read than most people; she’d known that since she was a little girl. Itugen’s force was strong in them. “Or a musician. Perhaps he will be a famous musician.”

  With a final glance at her friends, the woman came to her, arms protectively sheltering her baby. “How much, White Mother? How much for a reading?”

  “One alka if you have so much.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Less, mistress. Whatever you can afford to pay. I have a child too, and he must be fed.” She felt guilty the moment the words were out of her mouth. It was the truth, but it was also a brazen bid for sympathy.

  “I have an alka,” the woman said and, shifting her tiny bundle to one side, she fished a coin from the pocket of her fine woolen skirt. She held it out to Kassia who took it and stoo
d, putting it in her own pocket.

  “May I see the child?” she asked.

  The woman nodded, a smile beginning at the corners of her mouth. She was proud of her little boy. He was the image of her husband. He was her greatest joy. Kassia smiled in return, folding back the soft blue blanket that covered the baby’s face to peer in at him. He slept, tiny and perfect in his warm cocoon, his fingers curled beneath his chin, lower lip twitching in a milky dream.

  “His name is Yarodan,” the mother murmured, and Kassia could feel the love radiating from her soul.

  “He’s beautiful,” she said and gazed at the infant, touching him gently with her senses . . . and feeling nothing. She nearly sighed aloud with frustration. What if she couldn’t read the child—what then? Did she make something up? Concentrating as hard as she could, she reached her hand in to touch the baby’s soft cheek.

  The cold that grabbed at her heart ripped her breath away. She choked on a gasp of horror and pulled her hand back, trembling, trying desperately to school her face to a calm she didn’t feel. But before she could break the touch, her heart had twisted in her breast and her face had given her away.

  “What is it?” The woman stared at her, smile slipping away. “What do you see?”

  Kassia wrenched her gaze from the baby’s face, but found she could not meet his mother’s eyes. Nor could her mouth form words. What could she say—that she saw nothing, that her precious child had no future?

  The woman grasped her arm, shook her. “Tell me, White Mother! Tell me what you see?”

  “He . . . he’ll . . .” Kassia shook her head. “Mistress, I can’t—”

  “You beast!” the woman cried, eyes prying at her face. She pulled the baby close to her bosom, waking it. “You’re going to tell me what—that my little Yarodan will sicken and die? Why? So you can sell me one of your useless elixirs? Is that your game, shai witch?”

  “No, mistress, please. Let me touch him again, let me see what I may see. Perhaps there is a way—”

  “Oh, why not one of these?” The woman jerked her head toward the cartful of little bottles and satchels. “Surely you’ve something there you can sell me to cure my baby’s ills?”

  “No, mistress. I’ve no potion for him. He has no ills. What will happen will happen suddenly.”

  The woman’s face twisted and terror, stark and consuming, glittered in her pale eyes. “Witch! Liar! You want to sell me a potion, that’s all. Well, fine! I’ll buy a potion.” Her hand fumbled toward her pocket again. The baby bleated and began to cry. His mother pulled money from her pocket and threw it upon the ground. She was sobbing now. “Tell me which potion, White Mother! What may I give my son?”

  “Give him love,” Kassia said, trembling. “Give him care.” Her hand lifted again toward the child, but his mother drew him back, stepping away, unable to believe that Kassia did not mean to trick her into buying some poultice or elixir.

  God, please! Kassia prayed. Itugen mine, please! Let me touch him. Let me see—

  What she saw, as the woman pressed the child to her breast and turned to leave was the startled look on the tiny face that peeked, for only a moment from the folds of the blue blanket. Flame. A wall of flame. “Fire!” Kassia cried after the retreating form. “Mistress, please! Beware the flame!”

  She had no way to know if her warning was heard; the woman reached her circle of friends and was at once enveloped in them and trundled away.

  Fire, Kassia thought. Beware, the flame.

  She was exhausted, suddenly, and her heart lay in her chest like something dead and cold. She wanted Beyla, wanted to feel the silk of his hair beneath her cheek, wanted to hear the sound of his breath and the rhythm of his heart. She took her cart and went home, knowing New Dalibor had rejected her and her presumptions of augury. She held Beyla in her arms until he could no longer be still, and that night she talked to Itugen.

  Chapter Three — Lorant

  Kassia woke to the creep of watery morning light through her tiny window and opened her eyes to find that she half lay against the wall in the corner of the room, her legs beneath the blanket that swaddled her, her hands limp in her lap, but still cradling her mother’s locket. The little oil lamp she had lit for her meditations had burned completely down. She thanked the Goddess it hadn’t set fire to the rush-strewn floor.

  The thought brought a swift stab of guilt and the unwelcome memory of the red-haired woman and her baby. Kassia rubbed her breast-bone as if she might massage away the sudden twist of pain.

  “Please, Itugen,” she murmured, “Please make her be careful of fire.” At least more careful than I am.

  She glanced over at the pallet where Beyla lay, silver sun-dapples dancing and shimmering on his hair, thanking God and Goddess that he was healthy . . . and that his mother had not burned down her sister’s house.

  She stretched stiffened muscles and tried to remember her evening’s meditations. She had pleaded with Itugen and Mat for guidance, prayed for it with every fiber of her being. Their answer . . .

  She glanced down at the locket in her hands, frowning. Their answer had come in dreams. She closed her eyes and strove to remember. The marketplace. The disappointment. The Mateu. The Mateu had been in her dream and he had spoken to her. She had stood in the marketplace on the sun-baked cobbles. Through the crowd she had seen the Mateu coming toward her. As he neared all buyers and sellers and lookers faded to nothingness, leaving Kassia alone in the plaza with the sorcerer-priest.

  He met her face to face. His lips moved. His hands gestured. She willed herself to hear him, to understand, but his words tangled themselves in the air. She expected censure, ridicule. She didn’t want to hear that.

  Then marketplace was peopled again and the air was filled with the babble of their voices. The Mateu took her shoulders and turned her to where her own cart sat. She saw herself seated there, reading the fortune of one of the young priests-to-be. The Mateu murmured something in her ear, but above the rumble of the market, it could not be heard. He shook her then, and turned her face to his and spoke again. Now, finally, she heard him.

  “What is the end of this?” he asked her. “What results are gotten here? Whose good is served?” He shook her again. “Look around you, Kassia Telek.”

  She did look around her and she saw that her divination had no effect. She told partial truths calculated to put money in her hands. These things did not change lives. She had changed only one life today; there, as if to accuse her, was the red-haired mother with her tiny bundle, watching her across the market square.

  Kassia opened her eyes, swallowing against the lump in her throat. Because of her, a heart that had known joy and contentment would now know constant fear. But, she argued with herself, that fear might increase the mother’s vigilance—the child might be saved because of her. But she couldn’t be certain. She had spoken from raw intuition, not from knowledge, and that was both dangerous and foolish.

  Kassia pulled herself to her feet, wrapped her blanket about her shoulders, and moved stiffly to the window. Though the morning was chill, she pulled open the lattice and gazed up over the tops of houses to the Holy Hill, where Lorant’s kites bobbed high in the smoke-laden breeze. She searched for a little blue bird-shaped kite with a golden tail, and found it. It had been a long time since a shai had served at Lorant, longer since one had schooled there. The art of the Mateu had long been without its shai complement. Perhaps it was time for the two streams of magic to recombine.

  Kassia grimaced at such a self-congratulatory thought, but deep inside she could not deny she felt confidence in her own ability. She had the raw talent to have a real effect in the world around her, she needed only discipline—discipline Lorant offered. Eyes on the proud walls, gold where the rising Sun blessed them, she squared her shoulders. Today she would go to Lorant and apply for initiation. Today she would change her own life.

  oOo

  She wore her best dress. An orderly riot of bold colors on a field of midnight blu
e, it had faded only slightly in the years since her wedding to Shurik Cheslaf. The pattern was traditional; the four points of the compass rendered as a brightly hued cross in the four elemental colors—green, blue, red and yellow. This was set in the midst of a double circle—the inner circle green for Itugen, the outer circle golden for the Sun in Mat’s sky. She did not cover her hair, but marched up the long, tree-lined road to the college bare-headed, entering beneath its grand arches into the main courtyard.

  Apprentices, Initiates and lay students went here and there about their business; she saw no priests, Aspirants or Mateu. Since everyone else was in motion, Kassia targeted the shaggy, white-haired old man who was tending the school of kites.

  “Excuse me,” she said to his back as he reeled in a message to the royal yam, “but do you know where I must go to apply for initiation?”

  “Just a moment, boy. Just a moment. I’ve a kite to bring down, here, and another to send up. I suppose you can wait a moment, eh?” He turned then, and got an eyeful of the “boy” behind him. His good eye—the one not hidden by a patch—widened to a stupefied circle of charcoal gray, and his yellowed teeth tightened on the deer horn pipe he clamped between them.

  Uncomfortable beneath his disconcerting gaze, Kassia stifled anger and schooled her face to a neutral expression. “I suppose I can, though it would only take you a moment to help me, I’m sure.”

  The man loosened his grip on the pipe stem and blinked at her. “Initiate, heh?” The gray eye looked her up and down. “You’re not the usual type.”

  “Meaning, I’m not male?”

  “Meaning, you are shai. There have not been shai at Lorant since the death of Marija of Ohdan. Many years now.”

  “Well,” Kassia said, with more confidence than she felt, “soon there will be shai here again.”

  The kite master raised his brows, the left one peeking above the edge of his eye patch. He pointed over her shoulder at the main facade of the huge stone building that dominated the courtyard. “In through the center door there. Turn to the left. You’ll want the Headmaster’s parlor. You’ll see the banner by the door.”