Moontide 02 - The Scarlet Tides

by David Hair

  ‘Similar?’

  ‘Monarchies, religions, male dominance … we’re not so different really.’

  Ramita opened her mouth to reply and shut it again. Guru Dev had always said that if you knew little about something you should use your ears, not your tongue.

  Justina thoughtfully traced the line of the Bridge on the map, her eyes distant. ‘Father thought that when men spread across the land they changed to suit their terrain and climate, but many other things are inherent, part of humankind’s nature. He said that when the two continents were divided, Yuros and Antiopian culture diverged, but only gradually. When we Ordo Costruo first flew to Antiopia 200 years ago, we found Dhassa and Kesh were ruled by priests of Ahm. Our coming triggered a massive change in society. From the arrival of the first windships to the building of the Bridge, we Ordo Costruo changed Dhassa and Kesh utterly.’

  Her voice held a note of pride Ramita had not heard before. Ah, so this is something you care about. ‘What happened?’ she asked, genuinely interested.

  ‘Because we had the gnosis and superior learning, and because we had no gods and dealt in rationality and reason, we undermined the powers of the Godspeakers. We built buildings and roads and aqueducts that no non-magi could have managed. We changed the landscape. Those traders and landowners who dealt with us became hugely rich and influential, and they seized secular power from the Godspeakers, who were left with just religious power. This change had already happened in Yuros centuries before, under the Rimoni Emperors, and just like then, it triggered unrest and open bloodshed. My father was horrified, but unrepentant – the Godspeakers had ruled like tyrants, and it was our coming that broke them. The Sultans of Dhassa and Kesh owe their rule to my father and his followers.’

  This was history Ramita had never heard and it made her feel queasy, to hear something so alien. ‘Did your people ever come to Lakh?’ she asked timorously.

  ‘A few,’ she admitted, ‘but after the violent upheavals in Kesh, Father forbade us from going south, not just to live but even to openly use the gnosis. He wanted to let other societies evolve at their own pace. He wanted us to be a distant example, not a present threat.’ She tapped the map thoughtfully. ‘Though in reality, we did meddle. My older brother spent time in Khotri. And Father took me to Teshwallabad in secret, once.’ She screwed up her nose. ‘Smelly place.’

  Ramita barely managed to suppress her smile. ‘You’d have hated Baranasi.’

  *

  But such conversations were rare; for the most part Justina remained aloof. Ramita was never precisely bored, but she ached with loneliness as the days passed by, dreamlike. She’d never been alone before, or not been surrounded by a continual babble of speech. Here there was no conversation, no other faces; instead, she spoke to her babies, the little beings growing inside her. They wouldn’t burst into the world for months, but she wanted them to always feel loved.

  Sometimes she spoke with her husband’s memory, telling him what she thought of something she’d read, or complaining of Justina’s inattention. She told him she missed him, which she did. He’d been kind and patient with her; though he’d purchased her with money – a lot of money – he’d treated her with dignity and respect. She wished he was here now, to see the way her stomach was swelling with his children.

  She didn’t use her gnosis, though she wanted to; instead, she waited for Justina to run out of opium and come back to herself, and teach her, as she had promised. But as days turned to weeks, her daughter-in-law remained locked in her opium dreams.

  Eventually, Ramita lost all patience. She kicked open the door to Justina’s room and tipped a bucket of cold water over her head. ‘Enough!’ she cried.

  ‘What—!’

  The jadugara was lying half-clad across her low bed, a hookah on the floor beside her, the air hazy and thick with smoke. Ramita waved it away, nauseated. ‘Get up, you useless cow!’ She looked around at the packages of dun-coloured powder spread haphazardly across the floor, then bent and gathered them up. Justina was still staring blankly as she tipped them onto the fire. ‘You’re pathetic,’ she told the drooling woman. ‘What would your father say?’

  Justina blinked and stared stupidly as her opium went up the chimney.

  Ramita stormed out, slammed the door and fled to her room. How am I to do anything? I’m stuck in the middle of the ocean with no place to go to, twins in my belly and a useless addict as my only companion.

  She burst into tears.

  *

  Three days later Justina tottered up the stairs to the lounge and collapsed onto a sofa.

  For those three days she had oscillated between screaming fits, weeping storms and snoring like a pig.

  Ramita didn’t turn her face towards her.

  ‘You missed some,’ Justina whispered. ‘I threw it down the privy.’ She groaned. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve always been weak.’ She seemed to expect sympathy for this.

  Ramita pointedly studied her book. She’d been reading a passage about a barbaric place in Yuros: The forests of Schlessen are primarily pines, firs, and other evergreens. Some stands are hundreds of feet tall, and the sunlight cannot penetrate all the way to the forest floor. There are legends of tree-spirits that guard the deep woods. Schlessen tribesmen still make sacrifices to placate them before every hunt. She could not imagine such a place. She’d never seen more than six trees in one place in her life.

  ‘You don’t know what that stuff is like,’ Justina whined. ‘It makes everything so beautiful and warm; every sense you have is filled with goodness – you feel so complete. It’s better than sex, because you don’t have to deal with another person. It’s better than drink and food, better than dreaming. It’s a perfect place, and you can go whenever you wish—’

  Chief among these Schlessen tree-gods is Minaus, a bull-headed man who is their war-god. At the winter and summer equinox the tribes burn effigies to ask his blessing on the coming season. Sollan drui give blood and semen to the roots, to feed them. They maintain that the trees are sentient, and in touch with each other. They say that the great forests are one organism, and that one day they will once again cover the lands, destroying the transient labours of man.

  Ramita sipped her tea. She looked up at the skylight and guessed it was about midmorning.

  ‘People hurt you. The opium never does.’ Justina burst into a coughing fit that made her shake like an old woman.

  ‘It is more than hurting you,’ Ramita pointed out calmly. ‘It is killing you.’

  A long pause. ‘I know.’ The admission was whispered, barely audible.

  In Southern Schlessen the chief woodland spirit is an antlered bear named Ursus, who eats children. Stillborn babies are sacrificed to him, buried beneath the roots of sacred trees to placate him. Sometimes even living children are given, if there is great need of his blessing.

  It is this sort of ignorance that we of the Ordo Costruo must fight.

  She turned to face Justina, staring at her as if she were the elder. ‘You must teach me the gnosis.’

  Justina bowed her head.

  *

  ‘What is this for?’

  They sat cross-legged, facing each other, which reminded Ramita uncomfortably of her time with Alyssa Dulayne at Casa Meiros, being taught the Rondian language directly, mind-to-mind. But much to her relief, Justina made no effort to link minds. She’d arranged four saucers in front of Ramita: one contained water, another dirt, the third a lit candle and in the fourth was an oil that she’d also set alight, though it did not flame but gave off a heavy, slow-moving smoke.

  Justina passed her hands over the saucers. ‘These represent the prime elements. Each mage has an affinity to one of these more than the others. It’s not something you choose: it is in you, part of who you are. Some have two affinities, and very occasionally there are those with none – that’s all right; it’s just a way to reach for the gnosis and understand it.’

  Ramita contemplated them. ‘What do I do?’

 
‘Touch them. Play with them. Study them. Engage your gnosis and see which one feels most comfortable. Don’t think about it too much, just follow your instincts.’

  ‘And what is that?’ She pointed to the wooden board in front of Justina, which had strange little symbols etched onto it. A pile of red glass stones was heaped alongside.

  ‘I will be using this to get an understanding of where your strengths lie.’

  Ramita pulled a face. She didn’t like the sound of this. ‘Where do I start?’

  ‘Why not start with the earth? Take a pinch of it, poke it around. Rub some into your palm. Sniff it. Put a pinch on your tongue. Most of all, try to touch it with your gnosis.’

  Ramita wrinkled her nose. Taste it? Ugh! She reached out reluctantly and did as she was bid. The soil was from one of the potted plants positioned under the skylights by dripping taps; she’d been tending them as part of her routine. Now she let her mind drift to her mother Tanuva’s rooftop herb garden. She had always loved working there with her mother, tending the herbs, learning their mysteries. They were happy memories.

  ‘Now engage the gnosis,’ Justina ordered, ‘while still thinking about the soil.’

  It came easily as she thought about her mother and the way she sang as she worked. There was a seed in the soil, she realised. Perhaps Justina had put it there deliberately. She felt a tingling in her fingertips and opened her eyes to see a greenish glow coming from beneath her skin and bleeding into the seed. Suddenly it sprouted, a single tiny unfurling stalk that reached out blindly, but Ramita took fright and it withered, to her disappointment.

  Justina pursed her lips then picked up eight stones and placed them in a line down one side of the wooden board.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ramita said sorrowfully, ‘I killed it.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. Try the water.’

  She wasn’t sure how long it all took, but the shifting shafts of light moved across the room while her mind filled with sensations both familiar and strange. Water could be moved around by gnosis alone; she even made some more drip from her fingers, though afterwards she felt parched and sickly.

  The flame at the end of the candle was another matter. As a child she had been fascinated by fire, and she’d often angered her parents by letting their precious candles burn down just so she could watch the flame. She was able to move the flame to her fingertips, which thrilled her, but it made her nervous too. She never forgot that fire was dangerous, but trying to tame it made the time fly by.

  ‘And the air?’ Justina asked. Her voice sounded a bit strained, Ramita thought, but she became engrossed in her final task.

  The smoke from the oil was the hardest: it was intangible, insubstantial, and she could see no way to impose any pattern. When she sighed and opened her eyes, Justina was sitting studying the stones she’d piled onto the wooden board. ‘Well?’ she asked, suddenly tired. She reached out and scooped up her cup of green tea, a little surprised to find it had gone stone-cold. She looked around and realised the skylights were greying as night fell.

  Sweet Parvasi, where did the day go?

  Justina’s mouth twitched. ‘So, Ramita, tell me a few things.’ She then proceeded to bombard her with the strangest and hardest questions Ramita had ever had to answer. None of them appeared to have a right answer, and none of them related to magic: what did she dream about? (Baranasi, even when people from Hebusalim were in the dream.) What colours did she prefer? (Natural hues, with a splash of brightness.) What was more important, a deed or an intention? (A deed, of course!) There were many others, often variations on a theme, and some embarassingly personal. All the while Justina shifted the red glass stones around, adding some here, removing them from there.

  Finally she stopped as if she too had just discovered how tired she was.

  ‘So, Ramita Ankesharan,’ she started, ‘this is not definitive, but by my reckoning, your prime affinities are Earth- and Hermetic-gnosis.’ She sounded engaged, more than Ramita had ever heard her – almost likeable, or maybe, more that for the first time Ramita could begin to see why someone might like her, if they were so inclined and hadn’t already been thoroughly alienated …

  Ramita blinked. ‘I thought the Fire—?’

  Justina shook her head. ‘That’s your secondary elemental affinity. You did well with it, but you were wary. Your weakness is Air. I’m not surprised, you were scared shitless during our flight here.’

  ‘Oh.’ Ramita reappraised herself. ‘What is “Hermetic”?’

  ‘It is a physical branch of the gnosis, concerned with the make-up of the world – plants, animals, the human form. I imagine you are a very tactile person, someone who likes working with your hands, and with animals. You’re not terribly imaginative,’ she added, a little disdainfully. ‘You only believe in what is proven. You have no interest in concepts or philosophy.’

  ‘Why should I? It’s just a load of dung spouted by underemployed priests.’

  Justina smiled wryly. ‘My point exactly.’ She tapped the board. ‘This will guide us. Most magi have years of training, so you’ve a lot to make up, and who knows how little time in which to do it. We may have only a few days to teach you how to defend yourself.’

  It was a frightening thought. Ramita leaned forward. ‘What do these stones show?’

  Justina quickly ran her fingers over the board. ‘Down this side are arrayed the elemental symbols: this one here represents Fire. This is Water, these Earth and Air. Now, down this side are the symbols for Hermetic, Thaumaturgy, Sorcery and Theurgy. See where the stones are piled highest? Those are your strengths. Where there are no stones at all, you are weak.’

  Ramita looked at the stones, read the words in each square. There were sixteen of them. ‘Sylvanic? Animagery?’

  Justina nodded. ‘You are strongest as a plant and nature mage: what you did with that seed was impressive, especially for a first attempt. Wood and plant material are everywhere, and they are highly versatile. And as I said before: you’ll learn how to make animals do whatever you want. You’ll even be able to take their shape.’

  Ramita swallowed. Me? Take animal shape? Impossible! The mere idea belonged in fables, not reality. But then: Why not? She found herself smiling. ‘What else?’

  ‘Fire and Earth obviously, especially Earth. You’ll be able to shape stone like it was clay, once I’ve shown you how. I’ve seen strong Earth-magi walk through walls – and punch like the kick of a mule.’

  Ramita felt giddy at all these possibilities. ‘What am I weak at?’ she asked, to sober herself up.

  Justina pointed at the empty squares. ‘See? Nothing in Clairvoyance or Divination – in fact, there’s little in the Sorcery Studies at all. They’ll be a closed book to you – although Necromancy is linked to Earth-gnosis so you might be able to conjure a dead man’s spirit.’

  Ramita screwed up her nose.

  ‘And see here,’ Justina went on, ‘Theurgy – mind-work – will also elude you. You’ll have a profound weakness to Illusion – that means you’ll basically believe whatever illusion is conjured is real, unless you’re especially vigilant. And you’ll not be able to leave your body.’

  ‘Ugh. Why would I want to?’

  ‘Exactly: your mind rebels at the thought. The gnosis is an extension of who we are. Think about it: none of this is a surprise to you, is it? You’re a self-aware young woman, well-grounded in your reality. The mage you will be is an extension of who you are.’ Justina’s voice had none of her usual sarcasm, just honest assessment.

  ‘What about you?’

  Justina grunted diffidently. ‘Me? I am an Air-mage with a little Sorcery. You and I are very different, girl – in fact, we’re almost diametrically opposite.’

  That’s no surprise. ‘What happens next?’

  Justina yawned. ‘Next? I teach you the basics: how to use the raw gnosis.’ She yawned again. ‘Starting tomorrow. I’m hungry.’ She looked at Ramita meaningfully.

  ‘Perhaps it is your turn to cook,’ Rami
ta grumped. ‘I’m the one who has been working, not you.’

  ‘Girl, you don’t want my cooking.’

  ‘You do nothing here. I cook, I clean, I wash, I dust. You sleep and drink.’

  Her mouth twitched in amused bitterness. ‘It’s good that we stick to what we’re best at.’

  Ramita stood up so that she could have the rare opportunity to look down on this stuck-up jadugara, who might not be without hope, based on this today’s glimpses of a nicer self, but was still an irritating and pricklish cow. ‘Perhaps I will now look after only myself.’

  Justina’s eyes took on a dangerous light. ‘We are not equals, girl.’

  Ramita sniffed. ‘No. Apparently we are “diametrically opposed”. You can still do your own cooking.’

  *

  The pack gathered in the old palace throne room for a cooked dinner Huriya was made to prepare. Many of Zaqri’s pack still walked naked. Huriya could see the animal inside still reigned over some of them, who tore at the meat with claws and teeth, then mated in the corners. All exuded that primaeval hunger she was beginning to see as the defining mark of a Souldrinker. The constant need to replenish consumed gnosis was beginning to change her too. It frightened Kazim, but I’m not afraid …

  The older ones had more control of their desires however; after eating they gathered about Sabele. There were four such seniors, Zaqri and another male named Perno, and their women, dark-skinned sisters from Lokistan called Ghila and Hessaz. They had a fierce, primal vitality. All wore loose kirtas and nothing else. The two women were jackal-lean and smelled strongly of musk and heat. Neither spoke Rondian, so the conversation switched to Keshi.

  ‘Join us,’ Sabele told Huriya when she’d served the others. The Lokistani sisters grudgingly made a place for her, possessively stroking their mates’ arms. Their eyes were still amber and black, the eyes of beasts. She glared back defiantly and pushed out her chest, far more bountiful than the skinny bosoms of either beastwoman.