The Spirit Gate

by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

  “I have. I will wed . . . (Kiska!) I will wed none other than . . . the Duchess Fiorella Orsini. (Dear Goddess! Kiska!)”

  A gasp went up around the throne room and those in attendance showed their contentment or their shock or their great dismay. Of all the reactions, Michal Zelimir noted only one. The lady Zofia Varyusha ran from the room, her elderly companion struggling valiantly to follow her. When he could no longer see her, his eyes swept the agitated assembly, looking for the woman upon whom he had laid his favor. She was not hard to find, for a small knot of people had gathered around the spot where she had swooned upon the gleaming floor.

  King Zelimir rose from his throne and, with Chancellor Bogorja at his side, removed himself to his private study where he seated himself at his writing table, put his hands over his face and wept.

  oOo

  At the moment of the king’s revelation, Kassia was with Devora in the back of her shop, laughing, holding up a length of the green fabric that would become her wedding gown. Michal Zelimir’s voice struck her ears as if he were in the room with her, his anguish and need pierced her heart as deftly as an arrow. Five times he called her name, then drowned her in a wordless rush of fear and sorrow.

  She could tell only vaguely what lay at the center of his anguish—it concerned Zofia; it concerned Fiorella and Amadiyeh; it concerned her. She waved aside Devora’s anxious questions and tried to strengthen the tenuous link. There was someone else involved in Mishka’s welter of pain, someone who was very likely the cause of it—Benedict.

  With the frenzy of one possessed, Kassia drew out a mandorla on the stone floor of Devora’s kitchen and sent herself the short distance up the mountain to Lorant.

  Chapter Twenty — The Name of the Fish

  Led by instinct, Kassia stepped out of the enchanted corridor, not in her own studio as she had expected, but in her Master’s. The place was empty. Frustrated, she was on the verge of conjuring up a Locator when her eye caught upon a group of three spell balls sitting on a shelf behind Master Lukasha’s work table. She couldn’t say what drew her to them—perhaps that one of them was obviously iron, a metal seldom used in the Mateu’s art—but as she neared the shelf, she realized that the one of colored glass contained the earring she had given her Master.

  Puzzling. Kassia picked up the glass ball and turned it over in her hand. Inside, the earring dangled from a short silver chain, tinkling musically against the glass. The second ball was copper. Shaking it produced a silken sound as if very fine dirt with some larger bits of sand were trapped within it. The iron ball was empty, the little metal cap that would safeguard its contents not yet in place.

  Kassia lit a spirit flame and held the orb containing Shurik’s earring up to it. Fine fibers of silver were woven into the milky blue glass. This was Water. And the copper globe was Fire. A Battle. A Twilight Battle. Her eyes strayed to the empty iron ball. And that would be Earth. Iron instead of gold. A chill raced up her spine. Lukasha had replaced a light element with a heavy one, which meant he intended to use magic that had not been performed in these halls since Marija of Ohdan had used it with such disastrous results. Yet, even Marija had used gold.

  Now, Kassia understood the request for the earring, and why her Master had been so pleased when he saw it was fashioned of silver. He hadn’t needed a relic from a male member of her family; he had needed a relic from a man dead by drowning. A victim of the Fish, Maelstrom.

  A soft sound below in her Master’s private library made her cringe and clutch the glass ball to her chest. She held her breath, poised on the edge of flight, but the sound wasn’t repeated. Heart hammering, she glanced about, trying to order her thoughts, trying to consider what to do.

  There was a large glass bowl of sorts on the shelf near the spell balls. In it was a snake. A wood-creep. Next to the tank was the burlap sack Lukasha had been carrying the day he told her she would be raised to Aspirant. The snake had no doubt been in that sack—the Earth catalyst whose venom was intended to reside . . .

  Her eyes fixed on the iron ball. That day had been weeks ago. Before she had warned him of the danger inherent in summoning the Spirit Gate. Yet these balls sat here only half-completed, the snake still curled in its cage.

  Slowly, she brought her racing heart and thoughts under control. He would not use the spell, surely he would not. He knew its danger. She was fretting needlessly. Master Lukasha didn’t need a shepherdess. It was their king who was in urgent need.

  She set down the spell balls and moved away from the shelf toward the studio’s locus. She must find her master and tell him what she’d sensed from the king. She drew the mandorla swiftly, threw out a Locator spell. On the edge of completing her incantations she had a thought for the spell balls. If she freed the snake, if she took the ball containing Shurik’s earring . . .

  Surely, her Master meant to return it to her anyway.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  Damn Damek! How could he sneak up on her like that? She glared at him over the glow of her mandorla. “I’ve no time—”

  “Sneaking about your Master’s studio while he’s in council—”

  “I must go to him.”

  “I wouldn’t interrupt. You have nothing so important—”

  “I would let the Circle decide.”

  “Decide what, child?”

  Lukasha had appeared behind Damek. Though his face showed obvious signs of strain, his voice was soft and measured. Around Kassia, the glow of the mandorla subsided.

  “Something’s happened to Mishka—” she began, but he cut her off with a gesture.

  “I know, Kiska. He has come to his decision. He has announced that he will marry Fiorella Orsini and accept the ‘protection’ of the Frankish Empire.”

  Kassia’s head spun. Yes, she had feared that, but hadn’t let her mind touch the thought, as if her avoidance might make it cease to be a possibility. “I must go to him,” she murmured. “I must discover what they’ve done to him.”

  “It would do no good. Master Antal says they have already set a date to post the bans—a week from now on the Lombard’s sabbath.”

  Kassia shook her head, her face feeling as if it had been blasted by a chill wind. “I’ll go to him. I’ll speak to him. I’ll fight Benedict.”

  “What good will that do, you stupid woman,” snapped Damek, “unless you’re prepared to give the king what he wants from you. Oh, but you’re too selfish for that, aren’t you? You have plans for yourself, don’t you? You’d be a Mateu, mistress of your own fate, while your country goes to ruin.”

  She blushed and was angry at herself for doing so. Certainly, wishing to be Zakarij’s wife instead of the King’s paramour held no shame. Yet, suddenly she felt both selfish and willful.

  “Damek! What’s done is done.” Lukasha’s voice was grim. “There’s nothing more she can accomplish in Tabor.”

  “Master, you don’t understand,” Kassia said. “He had begun to love Zofia. He still claimed to love me. Minutes ago, I felt such anguish from him. He cried out to me. It must have been the very moment he announced his betrothal to the Duchess. This isn’t Michal’s decision, it’s Benedict’s. The Bishop has done what he promised. He’s found another way of manipulating Zelimir.”

  A spark of light came into her Master’s eyes. “You’re certain of this?”

  “Yes! He’s being herded like an animal to a snare.”

  Lukasha considered that, his expression distant. “Perhaps it would not hurt to try just once more . . . but if you can do nothing, then we shall have to reconcile ourselves to the inevitable, and Polia will slide back into twilight. I pity you, Kassia, for you were just coming into your own.”

  “I don’t understand, Master. What do you mean?”

  “The Tamalids crushed the spirit of Polia. When they did, the harshest spiritual oppression fell upon the shai, though it affected us all eventually. Now, Bishop Benedict proposes to bring us to our knees again, though his methods and motives will be dif
ferent. This may affect the Mateu more than it does the shai, but it will affect us all in the end. Once again, will the balance of nature be upset. Once again, will disaster sweep through our lands.”

  “Must it really be so terrible? Arik Tamal had his own reasons for hating Polians—the shai most especially—but the Bishop of Avignon has no reason to hate us. Perhaps Bishop Benedict’s behavior has prejudiced us. Perhaps the Empire will treat us with tolerance.”

  “You have studied some of its history, Kiska. You’ve heard the cries of those in the western duchies who tried to withstand the changes the Frankish Empire wrought in their lives. Have you any reason to expect tolerance now?”

  She had not. Yet, she had to hope. She left her Master to his dark musings and went to tell Zakarij that she must return to Tabor once again. He resisted the idea forcefully; she argued him down. Then, she leapt through her glassy corridor to the welcoming palace cesia.

  The king, when she found him, was in his private parlor with Fiorella at his side and the Bishop Benedict reading to them from a tablet. She had been forced to leap into her magical doorway twice to get there; courtiers who before had welcomed her now barred her from their lord’s chambers. So, her entrance was sudden and unannounced. Fiorella let out a little cry, Michal leapt to his feet, the Bishop raised his hand as if to set a ward.

  Michal sat down again, slowly, and placed his hand over Fiorella’s. “Why are you here?” he asked, and his voice held none of the warmth it usually held when he spoke to her.

  “I would speak to you alone, Mishka.”

  “How dare you address your king so?” asked Fiorella, a spark coming into her dark eyes.

  “He is my king, but he is also my friend.” Kassia turned to that friend, but still saw no hint of warmth in his expression.

  “Your conception of friendship is a strange one, Aspirant,” he told her. “Friend does not usually conspire against friend, nor attempt to deceive.”

  Kassia shook her head. “I’ve deceived no one. I’ve never conspired against you and never would.”

  “No? You and your master have not plotted to keep the Bishop Benedict from advising me? You have not conspired to keep Fiorella from finding favor in my eyes?”

  “We sought that she should not find false favor. We sought that you be allowed to make your own decisions and not be manipulated into them by another.” She glanced pointedly at the Bishop.

  “Ah, by another, yes. But neither you nor your master balked at manipulating me yourselves.”

  This was maddening. “What are you saying? To what manipulation do you refer?”

  Zelimir rose. “I refer to the way you gamed with me—pulling me to you, then pushing me away. Seducing me, then telling me you loved another. I refer to the way your master impressed upon me such desire for you that I lost all self control, while you pretended it was some unknown person, and hinted it might be Bishop Benedict working upon me.”

  Kassia was stunned. The Bishop’s success seemed complete. To have the king believing such lies . . . “I never tried to seduce you, Majesty. Nor would Master Lukasha do what you claim. Has the Bishop told you this?”

  “The Bishop Benedict has proven to me that what you gave me as a ward was no ward at all, but a spell that intensified whatever Master Lukasha chose to assault me with. He showed me how faithless a friend you are. He showed me how you treated with the Khan. How Lukasha bespelled me.”

  “How? How could he show you this?”

  “He has a mirror of time. A mirror that can show what has happened in the past. He showed me your visit to the Gherai Khan. He showed me Lukasha working his will on me during your first visit here. While we tarried in that moonlit stable, he stood aside and cast a spell over me until I could no more resist you than a starving man could resist bread.”

  For the briefest moment, Kassia could see her Master, shadow-wrapt, spinning secret magic around the unsuspecting Zelimir. Secret magic she had assumed was from the Bishop, though that had made little sense. She shook herself. She couldn’t think that. It had to have been some plot by the Bishop. Perhaps he had acted on the king, knowing all along he would twist the blame to Lukasha. She had to believe that; the alternative was absurd.

  “Our visit to the Khan was to determine why he suddenly chose to attack our borders. A thing he did because he was being manipulated by the Bishop through Pater Julian. Didn’t I reveal that to you? It is this man who deceives you, Mishka. He has wanted to drive a wedge between us since the moment we met. He’s wanted to alienate you from Master Lukasha. Apparently, he has succeeded.”

  “Master Lukasha himself has caused this alienation, Aspirant. Now, I would ask you to leave.”

  Desperate to throw off the bonds with which Benedict held him, Kassia moved to kneel at Zelimir’s feet, taking his hands in her own. He trembled and Fiorella gasped, but he did not withdraw from her, and his gaze locked on her face as if his eyes were powerless to look elsewhere. Thanking God for that mercy, Kassia tried to force a Shield about them, but could not. The combined wills of Benedict and his protege were more than she could deflect without more knowledge of how they worked their magic.

  “Mishka, hear me. If you marry Fiorella, you must accept her faith.”

  “I already accept her faith.”

  “Yes, but she does not accept yours.”

  “That isn’t important. The preservation of Polia is important.”

  She tightened her grip on his hands. “Will it be preserved? Or will it slide back into the same kind of darkness the Tamalids brought—forced to exist beneath another power’s domination? Your father fought with every ounce of his being to free this land of Tamalid rule. Will you undo all he did during his lifetime? Would you see Polia cut off from the blessings of Mat and Itugen?”

  The Bishop, gimlet eyes on the king’s face, moved forward to break Kassia’s hold on Zelimir’s hands, and pull her forcibly away. He loomed over her as she huddled on the floor, his expression triumphant.

  “Polia no longer needs the blessings of its pagan gods, White Mother. With the marriage of these two, it will begin, at last, to receive the blessings of the one true God and of His Church. Your mission here is fruitless. Return to your master and tell him he has failed. God has won the soul of Michal Zelimir. You cannot have it.”

  Kassia shook off the Bishop’s unwelcome grasp and reached again for Zelimir’s hands. This time, he jerked away from her touch. Beneath the sleeve of his tunic, she could just see the silver of the webbed bracelet she had vested for him months before. She pointed at it.

  “If you wish to know who your true friends are, Mishka, you’ve only to look at that. What does it tell you about me? What does it tell you about this man?”

  Like one sleepwalking, Zelimir raised his arm and slid the sleeve back to gaze at the bracelet’s tell-tale gem as if he’d never seen it before. He glanced at Kassia; the jewel glowed a deep green. His eyes moved to Fiorella; the stone whirled with muddy reds and oranges. He turned to Benedict . . .

  “This is nonsense, my lord.” The Bishop made a delicate grasping gesture with one hand. “The bracelet was given to you by this woman. Naturally, it will tell you what she wants it to tell you.”

  Michal’s lips tightened and he winced as if in the grip of sudden pain. Wordlessly, he pulled the silver band from his wrist and dropped it to the floor. Then he rose and led his betrothed from the room, leaving Kassia kneeling on the floor.

  She got slowly to her feet, burningly aware of the eyes on her. Benedict leaned close to her ear.

  “You are a fool, shai. There is nothing destined for you this moment but humiliation and damnation. I will personally see to it that Lorant is returned to the Damascene Order and that you and your pagan arts are outlawed on Polian soil.” The Bishop leaned closer to Kassia and took her arm in a painful grip. “Women have been burned at the stake for less than you have done, White Mother. Be very careful, or Zelimir may begin to think that a sorceress such as yourself should not be suffered t
o live.”

  “You dare condemn me when you use the very same magic?”

  His eyes widened. “The power I wield is nothing like—”

  “Come, Bishop, let’s have some honesty between sorcerers. You direct the elements just as I do. You conjure spirits and call them ‘angels’ or ‘names of God’. Whatever you call them, they are the same spirits I invoke.”

  He let go of her arm. “Get out. Tell your master he has failed. Tell him I will come to Lorant soon and rebuild the monastery there. I shall burn your cesia to its roots and sow salt upon the raw earth. Then, I shall raise a great edifice to the Lord upon the spot.”

  She had no doubt he would do it. And she had no doubt he thought it his special task to accomplish. He was drunk with the power he had discovered, and Kassia prayed his inebriation would make him weak.

  oOo

  Kassia’s return to Dalibor was not a happy occasion. She dreaded having to lay her report before Lukasha, loathed the feeling of wretched impotence that gripped her as she watched her master withdraw into himself. He was silent for a long time, then sat at his work table, heavily, as if his legs would no longer hold him.

  “So, we have come to this. The proud kingdom that was purchased with the blood of thousands of Polian heroes will soon be no more than a ring on the finger of the Frankish High Bishop.”

  “Is there nothing we can do, Master?”

  He looked at her strangely, eyes piercing. In that moment, Kassia felt as if he read every page of her being. Then his eyes slid away from hers. He shook his head, his mouth twisted with bitterness.

  “Return to your studies, Kiska. The God only knows how long you will have with them.”

  Their interview ended there, and Kassia went away feeling drained and sorrowful. In the days following more worrisome news came out of Tabor. Sultan Mehmet, in outrage over the treatment of his kinswoman and stung by the Polian monarch’s alliance with Avignon, chased the Mongols out of Zemic only to claim it for Turkey. Then his forces took the Sandomierzan river port of Kaminiec and drove her Polian defenders back across the Teschen border.