by David Hair
But there was no question of moving on, not yet. Ramita was plainly exhausted. She moved like a walking corpse, never more than half awake as she stumbled from sleep to feeding and back in a cruel four-hour cycle. The midwife had gone, and though the monks cheerfully brought them food, they clearly expected him to care for Ramita alone. He assumed there was something in their vows that forbade much contact with women. Ramita seemed grateful for his company, even if he was constantly having to avert his eyes. He’d become somewhat inured to bare skin when around the lamiae, but Ramita’s breastfeeding was another matter entirely. Thankfully, the Lakh girl soon took pity on him and became more decorous.
As for the newborn children, they were content to sleep and suckle and foul their wraps over and again. Occasionally they vented their lungs, sending piercing shrieks echoing through the vast complex – an utterly alien sound in such a place – but most times they could be quietened easily enough by laying them as close together as if they still shared a womb.
Once the skiff was repaired, Alaron had plenty of time on his hands. He explored the monastery, which had been gradually built up over hundreds of years, like an enormous wasp nest, but he was becoming increasingly restless. He longed to move, though he knew they couldn’t, and that made him prickly and irritable.
At last he started practising his swordsmanship, going through the familiar forms over and over again. He thought perhaps he’d improved a bit since Turm Zauberin. There was something about having used the blade for real that made training more focused. It was the same with the gnosis, which he also practised when he knew he was entirely alone – just simple workings, more about releasing energy than anything else. He really missed having someone to talk to. Master Puravai told him there were female Zain cloisters in some of the larger Lakh cities, but the monks here were all male: even so, none of them came near him.
*
Alaron was working on his forms when Puravai came into the courtyard, followed by a shaven-headed young novice in a dark crimson robe. He was stocky but muscular, and carried a metal-heeled stave taller than himself.
‘Master Alaron, this is Novice Yash. Will you accept his companionship?’ the Zain master asked formally.
‘Why?’ Alaron looked worried; was this some kind of attempt to spy on him?
‘Because young men require company, and Yash has yet to settle into this secluded life.’ Puravai smiled wryly. ‘And neither have you.’
Yash ducked his head, and Alaron immediately recognised his unease – after all, he had grown up with parents who felt no compunction about discussing him around the dinner table as if he wasn’t there. It made him grin, remembering, and to his surprise the young novice reciprocated, his white teeth illuminating his dark face, and then it was impossible to say no.
Puravai bowed and left, and Alaron looked uncertainly at Yash. ‘Do you speak Rondian?’ he said, enunciating slowly and loudly.
‘Some. I am learn.’ He twirled his staff dextrously. ‘Ordo Costruo?’ he asked, with a touch of the reverence one heard in Yuros, rather than the antipathy Alaron expected.
Alaron shook his head. ‘I’m from Noros.’
Hostility bloomed behind the young man’s eyes. He spun his staff and slammed it down on the stone with a metallic crack. ‘Not Ordo Costruo. Crusader?’
‘No. I’m on my own.’
‘But you have Lakh wife?’
‘She’s not my wife. I’m protecting her.’ He realised suddenly that Puravai was right: he was lonely. Ramita was absorbed with the day-to-day trials of tending to the newborns and recovering her strength. Even this simple conversation was feeding something inside him that he hadn’t realised needed nourishment.
‘I hear her babies have white skin?’
‘So what if they have?’
Yash coloured and looked down. Then he brightened. ‘Many Ordo Costruo have mixed blood.’
‘Really? Good for them.’
‘I have heard they are all dead?’
The Ordo Costruo are dead … Alaron nibbled his lower lip. It made sense, if Meiros was dead that many others were too. It didn’t seem relevant to his situation, but it made him sad. ‘I don’t know about that.’ He looked at the novice’s staff. ‘Is that a walking stick?’
‘This is not stick. It is called “kon”. It is weapon.’
‘I thought you were all sworn to peace.’
‘Yes – but travelling monk must defend self.’ Yash shifted, a beautifully balanced shuffle-and-spin, and the staff whistled through the air. The shift from stillness to movement happened in an eye-blink, and so did the transition back to a standing pose. ‘Blades not allowed, but kon …’ He grinned. ‘Is just walking stick, yes?’
Alaron felt his eyebrows lift. ‘Kore’s Light! You’re good.’
Yash gave a shy smile. ‘The master is pleased with progress at defence. But not other things.’ He sighed regretfully. ‘I sometimes fight with other novice.’
Alaron could certainly relate to that. ‘What about?’
‘Most from wealthy families with too much sons. But I am poor orphan. The monastery in my village – it would not admit me.’
‘Then how did you come to be here?’
‘I leave village, find other monastery. Was turned away, find other. And other.’ He shrugged. ‘Almost I die. But Master Puravai find me, bring me here.’
‘Why did you want to join the Zains?’
‘To learn magic.’
Alaron snorted. ‘You have to be born with the gnosis.’
Yash scowled. ‘I know this, now. But then, not. We poor, we believe Zain know magic because of their wisdom. Now I know. But this is a good life,’ he added, a little too enthusiastically. ‘I will be wise monk and teach the poor.’
‘Good for you,’ Alaron said sincerely.
Yash looked at him, his face lit by a touch of mischief. ‘Anyway, kon is better than sword.’
‘The hell it is.’ Alaron lifted his blade. It wasn’t anything flash, but it was good Yuros steel. ‘I could cut your twig in half in one blow.’
‘Could you?’ Yash grinned, and then suddenly he was spinning forward, the metal heel of the staff a blur. Alaron blocked instinctively and found his blade knocked sideways and the other end of the staff jabbing him in the midriff. Yash’s face, inches from his own, was slightly smug. ‘Blow to kidney, severe pain. You fall. I finish.’
Right.
Alaron went into a fighting crouch. He didn’t feel threatened; Yash could have done exactly what he said and he knew it. This was just sparring – but he was conscious that he held an edged blade. He didn’t want to hurt the young man.
He never even came close. It was like being back in college and getting flattened by Malevorn – except that Yash didn’t use overpowering gnosis to tilt the odds utterly in his favour. He simply used the staff brilliantly, swirling it with dizzying speed. He could block and attack in so many ways that using a sword began to feel cumbersome. And the hardened wood could block even a full-blooded sword-blow and survive undamaged. After five minutes Alaron was dripping in sweat and his sword was sent spinning across the floor yet again.
He swallowed his pride and threw up a hand. ‘Enough! Enough!’
Yash stepped back, breathing heavily and beaming proudly. ‘You wish rest?’
Yeah, for about a week. Alaron bent over. ‘I’m … a little … out of practise,’ he panted.
Yash looked a little worried that he had overstepped. ‘You have many cares to distract you. I sorry.’
Alaron wiped the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. ‘Don’t be. One thing I learned at my college was how to get the snot kicked out of me.’
‘Snot?’
‘I mean that I used to lose at college too.’
‘Snot is losing?’
‘Ha! No, forget snot. I’m just not so good as you.’
‘Losing more instructive than winning, Master Puravai say.’
‘Then I’m sure your sparring partners must be well-e
ducated.’
Yash smiled radiantly. Then Alaron reached out and used telekinesis to pull the sword back to his hand. The novice’s jaw dropped. ‘You could beaten me at any time,’ he said accusingly.
‘And learned nothing.’ Alaron flicked a finger and sent a telekinetic punch into Yash’s chest. Somehow the novice turned what should have been a ignominious sprawl into a head-over-heels piece of athleticism and was on his feet again, but now he was wary.
Alaron sheathed his sword. ‘Peace.’
‘Peace?’ Yash cautiously lowered his staff and leant on it, trembling slightly. ‘That was gnosis? No wonder magi rule world.’
‘You’ve not seen anything,’ Alaron told him. He indicated the staff. ‘Could you teach me to fight like you do?’
Yash looked troubled. ‘I must ask Master Puravai. We do not teach uninitiated such things.’
‘I will ask him myself,’ Alaron said.
*
He did too, that night, and permission was graciously given. Puravai sent him a staff, and a crimson tunic too. Alaron felt ridiculous in it, until he joined the rest of the novices and forgot his strange apparel, so hard was he concentrating on not getting the snot pounded out of him again.
From then on he spent each morning with the novices, and the afternoons alone in the library, on his own knowledge quest while the novices were studying, learning languages and how to read and count. Evenings were for Ramita and the twins. His days were long and exhausting, but the routine gave his life a rhythm, and a calming peace. He lost track of time, barely conscious of the passing weeks as the moon was hidden behind the constant clouds. It reminded him of the months he’d spent alone at Anborn Manor, building the skiff – was that really only last year? But this was different: here he was learning new things, not just practising old skills. He had always known that he was no warrior; he’d never been blessed with the balance and grace of body that Yash had. But he wasn’t the worst, either, and that did surprise him: at Turm Zauberin he and Ramon had always been the lowest of the low.
Gradually the other novices lost their shyness and started enthusiastically practising their Rondian lessons on him, treating him as one of their own, though he was a foot taller than most. Each night he slept as if dead, too drained to dream.
‘So,’ Yash asked him one morning as they rested between bouts, ‘what you think of Zain fighting now? Is different to Rondian way?’
Alaron nodded emphatically. ‘Very different. At my Arcanum we learned the sword; it was less fluid, more static – you plant your feet here, keep your stance strong, and fight from the shoulders. But you Zains, you’re never still, always moving. And we were taught that the sword was the weapon, the blade and hilt: but for you, everything is a weapon: not just the staff, but head, hands, feet. It’s very different.’
‘Better, yes?’ Yash grinned.
‘I guess. Sure.’
Yash patted his forearm. ‘You are getting better, Brother Longlegs. Truly.’
Alaron hoped so. He knew he would never be able to match the best of the novices, let alone the full monks – if someone had told him they had the gnosis, he would have believed it. Even after training with them for days on end he couldn’t see how the feats they achieved were mortally possible without it. From slowly contorting into impossible positions, always with precise control, or spinning into the fastest, most impossible pirouettes and landing with their staves at the ready, or leaping gaps he’d have hesitated to attempt even with telekinesis or running up vertical walls, then cartwheeling back off them without looking – he was perpetually amazed.
And if that wasn’t enough to absorb Alaron, the library became his afternoon battleground. After spending the morning in joint-popping, muscle-straining exercise, he’d hobble to a chair and try to find clues to unravelling the Scytale.
The library deep in the foundations of the Zain monastery was cunningly vented to keep it dry and the air moving. Bent old men in grey – the oldest of the monks – shuffled about, shelving scrolls of papyrus and paper, and leather- and linen-bound tomes of all sizes.
‘What language are they?’ he asked Puravai on their first visit. He had asked permission to do some research, without actually telling the monk what he was looking for.
‘All tongues.’ The master pointed to the far aisle. ‘The Ordo Costruo gifted us many texts, including some in the Runic speech of the magi. Perhaps they might help your research?’
‘Perfect!’ Alaron exclaimed, and as soon as he was certain he was alone, out came the leather cylinder containing the Scytale and he set to work.
The Scytale was made of brass and ivory, but other than a little wearing at the edges, there was no sign of any deterioration from age or use. On the outside were carved symbols, and holes displaying more symbols, which changed if the brass caps at either end were twisted. Four leather straps at one end could be wrapped about it and pinned to the outside in dozens of different combinations. It was an encryption device, deceptively simple and dauntingly complex.
A couple of years ago he wouldn’t have known how to even begin deciphering the most prized and secret artefact of the empire. For a start, he would never have believed himself adequate to the task. But he’d been through a lot since then, so he didn’t bother wondering if he was good enough; he just got on with it. And his intial hunt for the Scytale had attuned his mind to puzzles as never before.
He started with the known: he recognised some of the exterior symbols: the four etched into the brass beside each of the four straps were the runes of Fire, Earth, Water and Air: the base elements. And in the ivory below the cap was a shape that might have been a phallus, opposite a delta: they represented male and female. On the same level were a sun and moon, which usually meant age and youth. On the cap at the bottom were four more runes, symbolising the four Studies: Sorcery (a star), Hermetic (three interlocked circles), Thaumaturgy (a diamond) and Theurgy (a triangle containing a circle). The rest of the runes weren’t familiar, but that was a beginning. He began to play, creating hypotheses as he went.
One evening, Ramita came looking for him. She was tired, but determined to be up and about. She traced the name of Rene Cardien on a tract he’d been reading. ‘I met him, at a banquet. He stared at my belly button,’ she added with a giggle.
‘Please don’t explain that,’ Alaron laughed. Eager to share what he’d learned, he went on, ‘I’ve been studying the Scytale. Look, if I move the top and the base, different symbols appear in the holes on the outside. And if I pin these three straps to the outside like this, following the trail of runes of the same type, they cover most of the symbols.’
Ramita squinted and frowned. ‘So?’
‘Well, I’ve gone through and made a note of every symbol it’s possible to make appear. There are eight at each level of holes, and eight levels – that’s sixty-four different symbols. None of them are simple runes – they’re all complicated, the sort that signify mixtures of different chemicals.’ At her look of astonishment he said, blushing slightly, ‘I’m only guessing this, because I recognise two from college. One is an anaesthetic.’
‘An anastas … ? What is that?’
‘It’s a potion that decreases pain. And the other is supposed to make the mind more receptive to dreams.’
She frowned. ‘So you know two of the sixty-four?’
‘Yes – but that’s not as bad as it sounds. I think I’ve worked out what the Scytale does. It’s a recipe codex. I think it was created by Baramitius to store the recipe for the ambrosia – that’s the drink that imparts the gnosis. The Scytale stores that recipe: but I think there are variations, depending upon the nature of the person it’s being brewed for. There are probably hundreds of different variations on the one base recipe.’
‘Baramitius?’ She pondered the strange name for a moment, then brightened. ‘My husband once told me that this Baramitius took a lot of notes about the people who followed Corineus.’
Alaron sighed. ‘I wish he was here now. He
’d understand this thing in minutes.’
‘I know,’ Ramita agreed sadly. ‘But you are clever too, Al’Rhon.’
He ducked his head. ‘I’ve heard that only a third of the people who took the original ambrosia gained the gnosis, and over half those who failed died. The rest became Dokken. I bet that original potion was very basic compared to this. I bet Baramitius worked on it for centuries afterwards to improve it.’
‘Can you work out what all the symbols mean?’
‘Maybe. Potions were never my strength. I wanted to be a battle-mage, not a healer.’
She looked disappointed, but gave him an encouraging smile and squeezed his hand. ‘The rest will come.’ She didn’t seem to realise that she hadn’t let his hand go, and he saw no reason to remind her.
‘I hope so.’ I found the Scytale, and guided the lamiae to their new home, and I managed to go into gnostic trance at the Isle of Glass. I’m sure I can puzzle this out!
‘If you can work this out, I can get you the ingredients,’ she said. ‘I know a place where you can buy anything: Aruna Nagar market, where I grew up.’ They smiled at each other, then looked down at their hands. The levity left her face. ‘It is time for me to feed the twins,’ she muttered and scurried away.
*
Alaron’s father was the hardest-working person he’d ever met. Vann was full of sayings like, Only hard work brings true satisfaction – usually while he was doing three things at once, as if it would make him three times happier. For the young Alaron, that had meant a regimen of pre-dawn tasks, and after he’d finished school, whatever was required in the stables, the work shop or just running errands, followed by evening study – and that was all before he turned twelve, gained the gnosis and went to the Arcanum. He’d always resented it – none of his friends had had to work that hard – but now that he had time on his hands, he noticed that he was doing the same thing: filling his days with never-ending tasks.
