“Look,” he finally said. “I get that you want to learn, but I think your Master has a plan in mind for you.”
“He hasn’t told me anything.”
“Yea, mine didn’t either, the first few days. But once I got settled in, he started hitting me with all kinds of assignments, reading, watching the apprentices practice, that kind of thing.”
“Have you learned any magic yet?”
“Well… no.”
“Then I’ll read ahead and be even better prepared when he gets around to it,” Seri answered. “I’m settled in. I don’t need to wait.”
“Well… um, good luck, then. I have a couple more chores to do before I sleep.” Dravid made as if to move away.
“Goodnight,” Seri said without thinking. She pulled another book down. She had a feeling she would not be getting to sleep any time soon.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MARSHAL STIRRED. THAT seizure had been a bad one. He glanced around and sat up. Neither Victor nor Aelia were in sight. They hadn’t discovered him. Were they gathering firewood for a new night’s camp? Had he been asked to get some too? He couldn’t remember. He shivered, wishing the fire were already blazing.
A footstep crunched the snow nearby. Marshal looked up, expecting his mother. Instead, he saw an eidolon standing a few feet away, as if watching him.
He had no way of telling if this was the same creature that had watched the fight with the curse-stalker. Or had appeared to him several times before. It looked the same: just a shadowy man-shaped figure without discernible edges to its shape. This close, however, it looked more solid than he had noticed before.
Another footstep came from behind him. Marshal whirled in time to see Victor drop a pile of sticks and stare with open-mouthed wonder. He could see it too! Marshal wasn’t alone. The thought filled him with relief.
“I got a pull from the Bond,” Victor said, reaching for his flail. “But I never dreamed…”
Marshal got to his feet and pulled out Volraag’s dagger. They both faced the apparition.
The creature tilted its head, as if curious. Then, as Victor began to spin his flail, it took a step back. It seemed to bow to them, then stepped to the side and disappeared. It didn’t step behind a tree or anything else. It simply vanished.
Victor made a disgusted noise. “Saving you from that thing would have definitely broken this Bond!” he griped. He looked at Marshal. “Still, never thought I’d see an eidolon. Wait until I tell Careen about this! She’s always bragged that her uncle saw one from a distance once.”
Marshal rolled his eyes.
At that moment, Aelia approached from the direction of the road. She carried an armload of wood. “Oh, good, you’re both here already,” she said. “Did you both get enough?” She glanced at the small pile next to Victor’s feet and then at Marshal, who had nothing. She raised her eyebrows.
“We’re on it,” Victor promised. He and Marshal headed in opposite directions. Regardless of shadow creatures, they still had work to do.
•••••
Marshal woke sometime in the middle of the night. The fire had dwindled to embers, but warmth still radiated from it. Victor’s light snores could be heard from the other side. Aelia was nowhere to be seen. Tomorrow was a Rest Day, but she had insisted they would keep traveling, anyway. Why wasn’t she getting her rest now, then?
Curious, Marshal got to his feet and peered into the darkness around him. He saw no sign of movement or any other light aside from the myriad of stars he could glimpse through the tree cover. He closed his eyes and let his other senses work.
A soft sound came from off to the right, further away from the road. Marshal moved in that direction, as quietly as he could. As long as he didn’t start shaking again, he could generally move without being detected. Years of trying to avoid notice had encouraged him to develop that talent.
He opened his eyes. A voice? Someone was saying something.
Marshal stepped through the trees, avoiding fallen branches and undergrowth. The voice grew clearer. It had a rhythm to it, as if it were repeating the same thing over and over. As he drew closer, he realized he knew the voice.
He reached a treeline and looked out at an unexpected sight. Aelia sat out in the open, on the edge of an embankment that ran down to a small stream. She looked up toward the stars and chanted. Something glowed with a soft orange light in her lap.
Marshal knelt and listened. “…a curinir Eldanim. Curinir. Curinir…” It made no sense to him.
Aelia lifted her hands as if beseeching the stars themselves. She continued with her odd chant, then broke off. She lowered her hands to her lap. “For the hope is almost lost,” she whispered. The glow faded and disappeared.
Marshal took a step backward. As Aelia began to climb to her feet, he hastened away. He had no idea what that was all about. It added yet another layer to the mystery of his own mother, a mystery he hadn’t even known existed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SERI MIGHT HAVE overestimated how much she had “settled in.” After browsing in the library for some time, it took her a full hour to find her way out and back to her own room. After that frustration, she felt almost too tired to do any reading. She skimmed over a few pages from each of the five books she had borrowed. She got caught up in Sekou’s Vicissitudes for over an hour and ended up getting far less sleep than she anticipated. She missed breakfast the next morning and rushed to keep from being late to her copying work.
To her further chagrin, Master Hain appeared almost as soon as she began and literally asked her how she was “settling in.” Had Dravid tipped him off? Surely not.
“Fairly well, sir,” she answered. “I’m still struggling with understanding the layout of the citadels here.” She chuckled, trying to establish camaraderie over a shared experience.
Hain did not laugh or smile in return. “Well, keep at it,” he said. “When you can find your way from one end to the other without any wrong turns, let me know. I’ll have some more tasks for you, then.” He left the room, leaving her blinking in astonishment.
Wrong turns? How did he know? The logical part of her brain tried to tell her that everyone must experience this difficulty at first, but the rest rebelled. She abandoned her work and went in search of Dravid.
Her explorations took a good hour, and she never found Dravid. Instead, she found Jamana cleaning up the kitchen for the noon meal’s preparation. Seri stopped and bit her lip when she saw him.
Jamana gave her one of his enormous grins. “What is it, Seri?”
“I was going to complain about my work, but seeing you in here…”
Jamana laughed loud. “You think this might be a promotion from the copying?” He laughed again. His laugh seemed to come from deep inside him, almost like his entire body took part in the expression of humor.
“No, no, little Seri-Belit, that is not the case.” His voice, so pleasant and deep and slightly accented, kept her from being mad at him over the use of her full name.
“I am here because I angered Master Korda. I spilled ink onto a scroll over which he had labored for many an hour. He yelled for many minutes. Now I work in the kitchen for three days.”
“Oh.”
Jamana hung a large frying pan from a hook. “What is it your Master requires of you today?”
Seri felt abashed. She had not experienced Master Hain’s temper as of yet, if he had one, but Korda sounded much fiercer. “I’m sorry. It’s nothing. I’m sorry you’re having to work so hard.”
“This?” Jamana spread his arms encompassing the kitchen. “This is not hard work. Time-consuming? Yes. But not hard.” He pointed vaguely toward the northeast. “Someday, you will come to my city of Tenjkidi. There I will show you what is hard work.”
Seri fought a blush. “I… I really need to learn my way around,” she admitted. “When you are free, do you think you could help me?”
“I would be honored. Give me just a few more minutes here.”
Seri moved aside and waited for Jamana to finish his work. It occurred to her that she would have to return to her copy work sometime later and work extra hard to make up for lost time. Master Hain hadn’t given her a specific quota, necessarily, but she knew he must expect a certain amount of work accomplished each day.
The Conclave wasn’t technically a school, but it was the place to be if you wanted to learn to be a mage. It had a system of apprenticeship and development. Yet there seemed to be no organized method of shepherding this development, no set curriculum, no designated instructors, no schedule. It had to be the strangest way of getting an education of any kind that Seri had ever seen.
•••••
“The Citadel of Mages is like a hand with three fingers extended,” Jamana said, holding his up to illustrate. “It intersects with the Citadel of Kings in those three places. Sort of.” He laced the fingers of his other hand together with the first. “Except it’s really only the middle one that directly connects.” He tried overlapping his middle fingers. “And the other two only connect via bridges from one section to the other…” He looked up at Seri’s face and laughed, pulling his fingers apart.
“I will just show you. Come, we go to the outer walls.”
Jamana led the way out of the Citadel, across the outer courtyard that encircled both structures and up a set of stairs onto the outer walls. Seri felt somewhat self-conscious as they stepped up onto the empty stone wall that wrapped itself around most of the island. In the early days of Zes Sivas, this wall would have had numerous soldiers on patrol, keeping an eye out for possible invasion. In later years, the number of soldiers diminished to a ceremonial force in service to the Kings. But once the King disappeared, the perceived need (or desire) for a military presence all but vanished. Seri didn’t know if any soldiers still worked on the island.
A chill breeze swept down from the north shores of the lake. Seri wrapped her arms around herself while Jamana pointed at the structures.
“You see? The wall of the Citadel of Kings curves inward right there and appears to join with the Citadel of Mages. But it doesn’t.” He took a few steps toward the south. “From here, you can easily see that there is actually a gap between them there. But you cannot see it from other angles.”
Seri nodded. She could see that much, at least. The breeze struck her in the face and she blinked. Immediately, everything changed. Day turned to night. A vast panoply of immensely bright stars filled the sky and lit up the island around her. The citadels lay in ruins around her. A narrow column of smoke rose from within a heap of stones where the Citadel of Kings had stood.
Seri blinked again and the vision disappeared. She staggered, her head spinning. Jamana caught her by the arm.
“Seri, are you all right?”
She blinked a few more times. The vision did not return, and her head cleared. “Yes, sorry. I… don’t know what just happened.” A vision, clearly. But of what? The future?
Jamana released her arm and started back down the stairs. “Perhaps it’s too cold out here. Come. It’s a long walk, but it will help you understand.”
Together, they entered the gap between the two citadels. Jamana pointed up to where an enclosed bridge connected the two sections. She guessed it to be on the third floor. “This is the same on the opposite side of the island,” he explained. “But it’s the middle where it gets confusing.”
They followed the open ground as it curved around to their right. The wind didn’t blow here, and the height of the citadel walls meant almost no sunshine reached the ground. What little grass and scrub that still clung to life in this area climbed the walls, searching for the light.
As they rounded the extension of the mages’ citadel, Jamana gestured with charismatic exuberance. “Now this. This is impressive.” He frowned. “It is more than six. Dravid and I both were wrong.”
Seri followed the strange construction upward and agreed. The first “floor” extended from the Citadel of Mages. She suspected it contained the primary living quarters of the Masters. Above it, a set of massive pillars held up an extension from the Citadel of Kings. This extension consisted of two floors in height. “The throne room of the King is in there,” Jamana pointed out. Above that, a second set of strong pillars held up a top floor connected to both citadels and topped by a tarnished golden dome.
Jamana glanced up at the sun. “It is almost mid-day,” he noted. “We should return and eat. Then I think we both have work to do. I know I will have to clean up after the meal. Master Korda was very specific on that.”
Seri turned. “It’s a long way back,” she said.
“No, no. There is no need,” Jamana said. “There is a side door in which we can enter.” He led the way around the corner.
Jamana opened the door and allowed Seri to enter first. “Left or right?” she asked. The corridor looked exactly like all the other corridors that constantly frustrated her in the citadel.
“Left, I believe,” Jamana said. “We can cut past the Masters’ quarters. Not far from there to the kitchen.”
The hallway curved toward the right, following the outer wall, from what Seri remembered. They reached a four-way intersection with another hallway. “Yes, this is it,” Jamana said. “Left leads into the Masters’ quarters. Right leads back into the main parts of the Citadel of Mages.”
“What about straight ahead?”
“Up ahead is a set of stairs that lead down to the Inner Sanctum. I’d take you there, but I really need to get back.”
“Another time.” Seri started to follow Jamana to the right, but glanced back one more time.
Someone else had come into view down the hall. She frowned. He seemed to be having trouble walking.
“Jamana…”
The approaching figure wore purple robes. Not an acolyte or apprentice, then. One of the Masters? He stumbled toward them with halting steps.
“Master?” Jamana asked, taking a step forward.
The figure staggered and fell. Jamana raced to his side, followed by Seri. He took hold of the fallen Master and gently rolled him face up.
Seri gasped and stepped back. Jamana let go and lifted his hands, unsure what to do with them.
They stared at the unknown Master’s face, wrinkled beyond anything Seri had ever seen. His skeletal structure stood out in bold detail against skin that looked ready to crack and fall off at any moment. His eyes were open and staring, though clouded beyond the ability to see. As they watched, one final breath escaped from the fallen Master and the body collapsed completely.
“He’s dead.”
“I don’t know.” Jamana reached out and touched the Master’s face with a single finger. He yanked his hand back. “I think so.” He looked up at Seri. “I’m afraid, Seri. Do we try to carry him somewhere?”
“I… I don’t think we should move him.”
Jamana stood. “You’re probably right. I will stay here and you… No, that won’t work.” He looked at her face. “I am sorry, Seri-Belit, but I must ask you to stay with him. I will go find one of the other Masters.”
She nodded. It made the most sense. Jamana knew his way around. She didn’t. Still, the sight of him hurrying away made her chest tighten. A shiver ran down her body. She had never been this close to death before. Both her parents were alive and well, and her grandparents had died before she was old enough to understand.
This was insane. Master mages could die, of course, but what had happened to this one? She had stood before all six of the Masters only a few days ago and none of them looked remotely like this.
She swallowed and took another look at the emaciated face. The skin tone appeared somewhat dark, but she couldn’t tell for sure. Whatever had done this to him could have altered the skin tone, as well.
What could have done this? She knew so little about life here, about what the Masters even did with their time. Had he been practicing some powerful magic and lost control? Her vision on the wall came back to her. Were they connected?
&n
bsp; Seri took a few steps and peered down the hall in the direction from which the Master had come. Jamana had said this hall led down stairs to the Inner Sanctum. The Sanctum, the location where the annual Passing took place, was a mystery to her. Master Hain had talked about it a little bit in their discussion about the Heart of Fire. Did the Masters have to prepare the location? Many weeks remained until the Passing. What other reason could there be for going down there?
The sound of rapid footsteps made her turn back. Jamana returned, but two other Masters outpaced him. One was Master Hain. Seri thought the other one might be Master Tzoyet, from Ch’olan. Both uttered exclamations of shock as they drew near.
Master Hain knelt beside the fallen Master and placed a hand on his face. He held it there a moment and then released him. He sighed and sat back against the wall.
“Master Simmar,” he said. “Quite dead, I’m afraid.” Master Tzoyet muttered something too quiet to be heard.
Seri looked up at Jamana, who also had a pained look. Master Simmar came from Kuktarma. He was Dravid’s Master.
“Master, what could have done this?” Seri asked.
Master Hain glanced up with a twitch, as if he had just noticed his acolyte standing there. “I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that just yet, Seri,” he said.
Master Tzoyet folded his arms and closed his eyes. He seemed to have withdrawn from his surroundings.
Master Hain stood. “Well, we can’t leave him here like this. You two acolytes find a pair of apprentices to help us. I believe you both have duties of your own to get back to.”
Jamana nodded, flicked his eyes at Seri, and hurried down the hall. She hastened to catch up with him.
“What could have happened?” she wondered.
“If the Masters do not know, I cannot even guess,” Jamana said. “It is most troubling.”
Seri’s mind tumbled through various possibilities. The most frightening concept involved some kind of disease. If so, they might all be in danger. They might have contracted it already.
Until All Curses Are Lifted Page 8
