The Spirit Gate

by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

  “Horrible?” Lukasha chuckled. “No, Damek, not horrible. Magnificent and terrible.”

  “What did you see?”

  “I saw events, Damek. Events which, if reached and altered, might change the very world we live in. Have you ever wondered what Polia might have been like if Zelimir the First hadn’t died quite so young? Or if Michal’s brother, and not he, had inherited the throne?”

  “The king? You would replace the king? I thought we worked to save him.”

  Lukasha gave the other man a terrible look. “He is beyond salvation. He is a weak and political man, easily swayed by his sensual appetites. To eliminate Benedict is to merely make room for yet another manipulator—a Khan, a Sultan, a would-be Queen, a council of advisers hardly worthy of the name. It is ludicrous that the fate of a people must rest in the hands of one weak man. Polia deserves a stronger king. A man more like his father. A man who would be guided by the Sacred Circle.”

  “Do you seriously think his brother, Tadeusz, would make a more suitable ruler? Tadeusz hasn’t left Radom since he entered the priesthood.”

  “If Michal had failed to survive to adulthood, Tadeusz would never have been allowed to enter the priesthood. He was ever a contemplative and strong-willed man. One who listened to the Sacred Circle when it spoke to him. It is the Circle that should guide Polia, not some amorphous council whose every member is bent on protecting its dogmatic differences. Now, bring Kassia to me. Tell her I wish to speak to her on a matter of utmost urgency.”

  Kassia allowed the Window spell to dissolve and left Zakarij’s rooms to stroll with falsely lazy steps toward the offices of her Master. Her heart was a Battle of fire and ice. Would the rage melt the sorrow, or would the sorrow consume the rage? Her Master, whom she had loved as she might have loved her own father, had become a stranger before her watching eyes. She wished she had never seen what she had seen. She wished she had never come to Lorant. She wished she dared use the Spirit Gate to go back in time and put right all the things that had gone wrong—the flood, the fires, the deaths of those she loved. If that could be done, she might still be living in that little cottage across the river with Shurik at her side. Tabor and its glories would be just a daydream.

  And Zakarij would be unknown.

  The thought wounded her so, that it brought her up short in the middle of a main corridor, a sob caught in her throat. Shurik, forgive me, she thought, and forced herself to move forward again. No, she had learned the lesson that Marija had not. Kassia Telek would not toy with time, no matter what the consequences.

  Damek accosted her just as she emerged into the great entrance hall, informing her with surly haste that her master had need of her. She asked after Zakarij then, not much hoping that he’d tell her anything, and was surprised when Damek said, “Lukasha has sent him to Ratibor to receive news of the Turkish occupation of Zemic and Kaminiec.”

  She did not ask why her Master should have done such a thing. Zakarij could surely have gotten reports without making a physical appearance in Ratibor; it was obviously his physical absence here that was wanted. She followed Damek to her master’s studio where she listened silently to his veiled demand that she aid him in opening the Spirit Gate.

  “I understand, very well, the danger in what I propose to do,” he told her mildly, his eyes betraying the gentleness of the words. “But I must do something. Benedict is smug in his certainty that I won’t do what must be done. I will do what I must. I’ll soon hold the power of time in my hands. If I will, I can use it to make certain Benedict never becomes Bishop of Tabor.”

  The look in his eyes made her skin creep and Kassia feared he might have sensed her depth of her outrage. Though her soul cried out in protest, she didn’t argue with him, but only lowered her gaze and said, “Neither of us has ever known such power.”

  “Which is why I propose that we summon the Gate now, that we learn its ways before we must use it. You do see that this is the only way we might win?”

  She nodded, looking at her clasped hands. “Yes, Master. I do see. There is no other way.”

  He decided they should use Kassia’s studio for the spell. Its history and its distance from the core of the college made it ideal. Kassia was relieved to find that Shagtai had taken Beyla to his cottage; she tried concentrate on the task at hand. She was surprised she could be so calm on the threshold of such a deed. Yet, she was aware of her aloneness, cut off as she was from Zakarij, alienated from the man she had regarded as mentor, friend, even parent. She looked into his face now and wondered if she should have realized the paths his mind had been taking—the lengths he was willing to go to in his mission to wrest control of Polia from the Bishop. He would have sold her into concubinage, and she had no doubt now that it was Lukasha who had manipulated both Zelimir and herself in such a humiliating manner. Even her rage at that betrayal could not quite overtake her sense of guilt.

  She shook herself. She was not to blame for Lukasha’s twisted intentions, but that he now had the means to act on his intentions—for that, she was to blame. She had ignored all warnings to bring the mystery to light. She had, as Shagtai said, made it known. What happened now was on her shoulders.

  She laid out the spell balls herself, lit spirit flames and incense. Then, standing face to face with Master Lukasha, she cleared her mind of everything, preparing to begin the equation. They spoke the words in unison—their intonation in perfect harmony. They gave the invocations, the incantations, the catalysts—but when the time came to speak the name of the Fish, Kassia broke cadence and spoke the name an instant before her Master mouthed it, putting behind it the full force of her will.

  This time there was no building roar, no distant clap of thunder. This time, the storm exploded from the heart of the mandorla in full force—a screaming, elemental vortex—at its core, a corridor of chaos. To look upon the scenes that lined the walls of the corridor was to risk becoming lost in them, for unlike the viscous, glassy walls created by the lesser traveling spell, these were of such transparency, it seemed the scenes that flickered across them were within physical reach.

  In that swirling flood of light and color, Kassia saw things that were beyond her comprehension, beyond even her imagination. Close at hand she saw armies of men—or at least she supposed they were men—dressed in armor such as she had never seen, carrying what she knew must be weapons, yet which looked like no weapons she knew. The scene seemed to float before them, above and around them, then it was gone, followed by a string of images so incomprehensible, Kassia could not hope to interpret them.

  She glanced at her master, who seemed frozen by the sight of the maelstrom they had summoned. “What now?” she asked, her voice barely audible above the roar of the spirit storm.

  After a long moment, Master Lukasha responded. He closed his eyes, shook his head as if to clear it, and mouthed words Kassia could not hear. The storm fell silent, though its light and movement remained as fierce as before. He looked at her then, his eyes reflecting the glory within the Gate. They were alight with something else that Kassia couldn’t read—exhilaration, triumph. She’d hoped for fear, but her hopes seemed to be in vain. Worse, Lukasha’s silencing of the storm within the Gate fed her own fear that, despite her attempt at complete mastery, he retained some measure of control.

  “I would see where this present trouble began,” he said and disappeared into the vortex. The maw of the Gate closed after him.

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

  Chapter Twenty-One — The Spirit Gate

  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.