The Spirit Gate

by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

  The nights brought their own disquiet. Kassia’s dreams were dark, murky pools of viscous motion full of threat and fear. Beyla, too, was affected, and woke as many as three times in a single night, shrieking with terror. On their third sleepless night, Kassia went in to her son’s room to find him staring at the ceiling as if he expected it to open up and swallow him whole.

  Quaking and crying, he grasped her arms in a vise-like grip. “Mama! Make him stop! Please make him stop!”

  “Beyla, this is only a bad dream. Just hold me and it will pass.”

  He shook his head. “Make him stop, Mama!”

  “Who, Beyla? Make who stop?”

  “Master Lukasha. Please, Mama. He’s trying to open the gate.”

  The words struck a chill to her very soul. He couldn’t mean— “What gate, Beyla?”

  He shook her arm and looked up into her face with an intensity of expression no child his age should possess. “The gate has to stay shut, Mama. Master Shagtai said so. It can’t be opened or things will get all mixed up and twisted.”

  “Beyla, I don’t think Master Lukasha would open the gate. He knows how dangerous it is.” She said the words more to soothe herself than to soothe her son.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, but there was doubt in his eyes.

  She took a deep breath. “I’ll go talk to Master Lukasha in the morning. I’ll ask him if he’s working with the spell—”

  “Now, Mama. Please go now.”

  “He’ll be asleep.”

  “He’s not asleep. He’s working magic. That’s what woke me up.”

  She nodded. “Yes. All right. I’ll go now. You try to go back to sleep.”

  She left a spirit flame burning in his room and went to draw on a light wrap. She had intended to walk down to her Master’s studio, but something made her decide on a less obvious approach. She went to her own locus and sent herself silently to a place in his aerie that was always in shadow—a deep niche between two apothecary shelves near the head of the staircase.

  Beyla had been right, of course. She had only wanted to doubt him because her heart loathed to accept what he had revealed as the source of their mutual nightmares. Master Lukasha worked in the glow of spirit lamps, his eyes bright, his face intent on the objects that littered his work table. Next to him stood Damek, looking no where near as eager as his Master, but faithfully clutching the glass bowl in which the hapless wood-creep resided. His eyes were on the iron ball in Lukasha’s hands.

  “Shall I . . . shall I dispose of the snake?”

  “Keep it. We may need to create a new spell ball if this one fails and I doubt you would find any pleasure in crawling about the forest in search of another snake.”

  He capped the ball as he spoke, fixing the metal stopper into place with a spell. Damek, face pale, went to return the snake’s bowl to a shelf along the western wall while his master stepped back from his work to wipe his hands on a bit of cloth. The way clear, Kassia could see that there were now four spell balls assembled on the table—iron, glass laced with silver, copper, and the glass ball colored vivid blue by cobalt.—the one that contained Shurik’s earring.

  “Done?” asked Damek all but licking his lips. “Now what?” This, when Lukasha nodded.

  “Now, I rest. I must be at my best when I try this spell. There is much power here. I must be ready to harness it. In the morning, I will try to open the Spirit Gate.”

  Damek glanced at him sharply. “Try? Is there any chance you will fail?”

  “The key to handling a Squared spell, old friend, is balance. Balance between the Itugenic forces and the Matic; between the earthly and celestial; between fire and water. That is an easy balance for one like Kassia to master. She was born with the forces of the Earth aligned within her soul, and with a door inside her that opened onto the Sky. For her, the balance was natural; she had only to learn the words, the equations—the balance received them. For me, it’s different. I have no natural balance. Geomancy has been a closed door to me—to all Mateu—since Arik Tamal led his troops across our northeastern borders. Even before then it was . . . more difficult to handle. The forces of Itugen are at once wild and civilizing. An anomaly, is it not?”

  He chuckled at the look of puzzlement on Damek’s face. “The answer to your question Damek is ‘yes’. There is every chance I will fail. Let me share something with you. Something I doubt anyone else even suspects. I can barely perform the Traveling spell that Kassia uses with such ease. When I can, I have her perform the spell with me, speaking the incantations in cadence. Only that assures my success. Not only is the spell difficult, but performing it . . . disorients my soul to such an extent that I often cannot bring myself to use it.”

  Damek nodded. “The night Kassia and Zakarij found the Bible. You bade me watch them because you were afraid to make the journey.”

  “Not afraid,” said Lukasha sharply. “No, not afraid. You see, the things that exist in that nether zone between here and there . . . they are strangely seductive. I am not sure man was ever meant to see them.”

  From her hiding place, Kassia could see Damek’s throat work spasmodically as he tried to take in what his Master had told him. He gulped several times in quick succession, then spoke, his voice tottering unsteadily. “Will you require Kassia’s help with this Spirit Gate?”

  “I doubt she’d give it willingly. She is much afraid of this spell.”

  “And yet, if to have success . . .”

  “Yes, to have success . . . Tomorrow I will attempt the spell on my own. If I cannot harness it, I may have no choice but to task Kassia with it. Even then, I can’t guarantee that it will work. According to what we have pieced together, the Spirit Gate has ever had but one master. I have no idea how it will react to having two.”

  “How far into your confidence will you take the woman?” Damek asked. “Will you reveal what you intend to do with this spell once you have control of it?”

  Master Lukasha turned his face into the light of his spirit lamp and gave Damek a smile that twisted Kassia’s heart in her chest.

  “That would be foolish, wouldn’t it? Am I a fool, Damek?”

  “No, Master, you are not.”

  Both men left the studio shortly after that, while Kassia hunkered in the dark between the shelves, eyes squeezed shut, arms drawn around her knees, fists clenched, terrified that she would sob and give herself away. In the silence that followed their departure; in the absence and emptiness that pressed in on her, Kassia managed to uncoil rock hard muscles and climb to her feet. In darkness lit only by moonlight falling through the skylights overhead, she moved to the work table where she stood gripping the edges of the worn surface and praying for clarity and calm. Her heart ached from the heavy blow it had taken, in her head an empty void had sprung into being.

  After some moments of trembling stillness, she conjured a tiny spirit flame and gazed down upon her Master’s handiwork. The spell balls glittered in the light of flame and moon and Kassia did not need Beyla to tell her that the magic they contained was bitter and chill. For a moment she thought she would gather them up and destroy them. Or she would take Beyla and leave Dalibor, leaving her Master to founder in the Twilight spell.

  That was foolish, for it would do nothing to change situation that faced Polia, and Lukasha could track her down anywhere if he chose.

  I’m no fool, either, she told herself, and felt a spark of determination kindle within her. There had to be something more constructive she could do, but she needed help to discover what it was. She thought of Shagtai and knew, without doubt, that her best chance of help lay in that quarter. After returning to check on Beyla, she went to the kite master’s cottage, determined to wake him if she must.

  He was not asleep, he was at prayer before his shrine, and Kassia had the impression he had expected her. She knew without doubt he had been awakened by the same foreboding that had frightened Beyla and brought nightmares to her own sleep.

  He beckoned to her as she ente
red his parlor, and she moved to stand beside him at the shrine. “Master Lukasha plans to open the Spirit Gate,” she said baldly, watching the smoke of Shagtai’s incense wend its way heavenward.

  “Yes.”

  “I must do something.”

  “Yes, you must.”

  She turned her head to look at his craggy profile. “What, Shagtai? What shall I do? I thought if I destroyed the spell balls—”

  “He would only recreate them.”

  She took a deep breath. “He thinks he will need me to help with the spell. If I fled—”

  “He would find you. He is a man driven by his past. He will not rest until he feels the future is assured.”

  “Driven by his past? What do you mean?”

  “Tamal was a monster. Your Master has told you how the stones of Lorant were bathed in the blood of his victims. That monster devoured my wife and child and other innocents merely to prove to the Mateu that he was their master as he was Polia’s master.”

  She shivered, recalling the stories she had heard from Lukasha and others.

  “That,” said Shagtai, “is your Master’s past. That drives him. Twilight has put a power within his reach—”

  “That can alter the past,” Kassia finished. “I must stop him from using the spell, Shagtai. If he uses the spell, there’s no way to tell what will happen.”

  “He will not let himself be stopped.”

  “Then I must destroy all trace of the spell.”

  “It is too late for that. You must help him, as he desires.”

  She stared at the side of his face. “What do you mean, it’s too late?”

  He turned, finally, and met her eyes. “The magic of the Spirit Gate is known. When it was not known, when there were pieces of it hidden, then there was a chance of going back. There is no going back now. Now, you must go forward. Now, the Gate must be opened. The one who opens it will be its master. So, it must be mastered by one who can control it without abuse. You are the one who must, in the end, possess the Spirit Gate, Kassia Telek. You are the one who must open it.”

  “I?”

  “You made it known.”

  “So it’s my destiny to—to—”

  “To be its Mistress. I pray you will be a wiser Mistress than Marija of Ohdan.”

  A wave of vertigo brought Kassia to her knees. “I’ve been no wiser so far. Like Marija, I let my curiosity rule me. I dug and dug at this mystery until I unearthed it. Now I wish I could put it back in its grave.”

  “It was perhaps not meant to remain in its grave. Have you not felt led to do what you have done?”

  “Led or driven, as Master Lukasha is driven. That doesn’t make what I’ve done right.”

  “Perhaps, perhaps not. But what you do from here on, must be right. And it must be the will of God.”

  She shook her head. “It’s too much. I can’t—”

  “Who else will do it? Beyla? Zakarij?”

  “You?”

  His gaze on her was fierce. “I did not unearth this mystery. I did not wake the past. I did not make this thing my destiny.”

  He hunkered down beside her and brought his face very near hers. She could smell wood smoke on him and incense.

  “You must own the Gate, Kassia. You are the only one who knows its real danger.”

  “That’s not true. You comprehend it, Zakarij comprehends it—”

  “I am too old. Zakarij is not shai. The only other is Beyla and he is too young and not yet fully trained. Only the shai can control this power. It was never meant for others.”

  She looked at him then—really looked at him—and realized something that had never occurred to her before: Shagtai’s hair was not white because of his age.

  “How much of this did you know? Did you know all along of the Spirit Gate?”

  “Only of its existence. Its invocation was hidden from me just as it was hidden from you. This I do know: A shai must possess the knowledge of the Gate. But, as you have seen, even the shai can abuse it. It was meant to be handed down—a secret knowledge given by mother to daughter.” He canted his head, and added. “Or son. But with the coming of Batu Khan, the chain was broken. Marija might have healed it, but she was, perhaps, not wise enough. Her daughter was not shai. There was no one to accept the burden of the Gate.”

  “So now, I must accept it.”

  “Is that a question, or an admission?”

  She tried to smile. “Both.” She got to her feet. “Master Lukasha plans to try the spell tomorrow morning.”

  “He will fail because he expects to fail. Then he will demand that you help him. You must do this.”

  “If I help him, we will both pronounce the equation. What will that do to the Gate? Will it suffer itself to have two masters?”

  Shagtai tilted his head to one side. “These things are unanswerable, Kassia. No one has ever done what you are about to do. I believe your being shai will give you an advantage. Perhaps that will be enough. Perhaps not.”

  oOo

  Morning brought with it no feeling of refreshment. Kassia woke as the first rose of sunrise flushed the eastern hills. Beyla woke with her, and neither of them was surprised when Shagtai appeared at their door.

  “I will watch the boy,” he said, and Kassia sent a prayer of thanks to Mat and Itugen for such a friend.

  She sought Zakarij next, hastening to his rooms only to find him gone. His bed had been slept in, but hastily left, and she fretted over what that could mean. It was while she was worrying over Zakarij that she sensed something stirring above and knew that her Master had entered his studio. She hadn’t much time. Glancing around she caught sight of a mirror on one wall. Coupled with a Window spell, it allowed her to peer in where she dared not go in daylight.

  The smaller mirror in Lukasha’s studio was on a stand. Canted at an angle, it gave Kassia a peculiarly tilted vantage point, as if the room were off kilter. She ignored the initial disorientation that caused and concentrated on giving the skewed image sound.

  “Why are you even attempting this, if you’re so certain to fail?” whined Damek. Carrying a basket containing his Master’s set of spell balls, he filled the mirror in Zakarij’s room.

  Lukasha was out of sight, but Kassia could see his shadow where it lay across his assistant’s shoulder. “There is always a chance I might succeed. More to the point, I want to commit this equation to memory, learn its every nuance. I must neither stammer nor halt when I perform this spell in power.”

  They set up the spell balls then, and Lukasha stood in the center of the mandorla that now marked the locus of his dais. He began the incantations then, beginning with invocations that Kassia had never heard before, invocations that did not call on Mat or Itugen, but only on the four spirits of the Twilight spell—Abyss, Shaitan, Harmattan and Maelstrom. The words sent a chill through her, though her Master was only practicing now, murmuring the words without placing the necessary will behind them. But he was finding his cadence, and Kassia, well-used to the way Lukasha composed and recited his equations, found it with him.

  This was critical, she knew, for in all spells the pronouncement of the final catalyst was what set the spell in motion, what drove it from the state of resting, nanat, to ananat, motion. It was the combined force of all invocations and catalysts that gave it power; it was the will of the sorcerer that gave it direction. At the uttering of the final catalyst, at the mention of the name of the Fish, the spell would be set in motion by the one who uttered that word of power first. Kassia knew that the stewardship of the Spirit Gate hung on that name, Maelstrom.

  Several times Master Lukasha intoned the words, each time saying them more smoothly and with more confidence, and Kassia began to fear he might be able to carry the spell off without her. She could feel the coiled power in him, and it made her quake. At last the Mateu roused himself from the meditative state into which he’d entered, and moved to take the spell balls from the silent Damek. One after another, he set them at the four points of the compa
ss. He had Damek light incense. He returned to his locus.

  Kassia held her breath as he spoke the opening invocations: “Isak Abyss, Well of eternity . . . Isak Shaitan, Hunter of souls . . . Isak Harmattan, Scourging Fire . . . Isak Maelstrom, Devourer of spirit.”

  He moved smoothly to the rest of the equation, laying out the elements in their balance, always speaking the name of the water spirit last. He mouthed the final set of catalysts, repeating the Twilight names, but this time his voice commanded rather than beseeched them.

  In Zakarij’s room, Kassia could feel the will Lukasha put behind the spell, and it was almost enough. The air around Lukasha’s dais seemed to vibrate; the image in Zakarij’s mirror blurred and wavered. There was a sound like the howling of the wind and a slow whorl of mist rose from the dais to embrace the trembling Mateu. Sound and movement grew and for a moment, it seemed that a great vortex had opened above his head. He raised his eyes to the growing maw, his hands up as if they might defend him, his mouth open in awe or terror.

  Damek’s screams joined the roaring of the whirlwind. Kassia covered her ears against them and prayed this moment would soon be over. Her prayer was answered swiftly. With a sound like a peal of thunder, the vortex convulsed and collapsed, leaving Master Lukasha on his knees in the center of his dais, his hands covering his face.

  Kassia was stunned. Should she go to him? Perhaps he was now ready to give up this insanity. Damek, now tugging at his Master’s sleeve, was gibbering for him to do so.

  “Master, please, leave this off! Stop now, while we still have life! Dear God and Goddess, leave off!”

  Any hope Kassia had of Damek’s plea being heeded vanished when Lukasha uncovered his face and raised his eyes to his assistant’s pale face. He was transformed, lit from within by an indescribably fierce light.

  “Bring Kassia to me,” he said.

  “What will you do?”

  “Bring her. I must work quickly. The Frankish sabbath is almost upon us. I must make sure of this thing.”

  “Did . . . did it open? Was that what I saw? Oh, Master, it was horrible!”