He looked at her. “That’s tzaden. It doesn’t grow this high. And it can’t be flowering if it’s already borne fruit.”
“But it has, in the two days since you’ve been here. It only grew this high on this side of the tower. It bore fruit. It’s good for restoring health and building stamina.” She shook her head. “It is as if the plant itself wants to get to you.”
“But you are a bhotridina. You understand plants. You must have helped.”
“No, Keles. In fact, I cut some of it back.” She tugged to close the window. “I cannot explain this. Nor can I explain how you made the trees grow, or rebuilt the fortress or changed the people.”
Keles leaned against the wall and clutched the sheet around himself. “But there have to be stories of jaecaibhot who have made plants grow faster.”
“There are, but not at the rate you have.” She caressed his cheek. “And think what you are saying: that you have become a Mystic with plants, a Mystic at building, a Mystic at, what, healing? No one has ever mastered so many things.”
“No one outside the vanyesh.” He’d said it aloud. He’d admitted to himself what the Helosundians had feared. He’d become one of the monsters capable of destroying the world. The realization surprised him, but his reaction to it surprised him more.
Half of him expected a wave of evil to wash over him, as if acknowledgment of his power would instantly corrupt him. The other part of him wanted to protest his innocence, so his mother could look at him without suspicion or fear. For eons the vanyesh had been defined as evil incarnate; and his mother-like every other right-thinking person-was afraid of their return.
He levered himself off the wall and stood as straight as he could. “Mother, I am not vanyesh. I do touch magic; there is no denying that. But I begin to understand what I am doing. When you use your knowledge of plants to prepare a tincture or elixir, your goal is to help someone by restoring them to a normal state, yes?”
She nodded. “It takes many years to achieve mastery.”
“But when you started, how did you know what your talent would be?”
Siatsi frowned. “My mother was skilled with plants. I used to help her.”
“But didn’t you always tell us that there was a day when you were making a sleeping draft and added something extra because it felt right?”
“Keles, I may have said…”
“No, listen, aren’t there times when you look at a formula and add something more or take something away?”
“Depending upon the season when a herb is harvested, or how long it has been since it was harvested, its strength varies.”
“Yes, and your sense of things tells you what is correct.”
His mother nodded. “I will grant that.”
“What if I tell you that, when you do that, you are touching magic, setting your formulation to what it is meant to be? What’s right for it.”
She shook her head. “I don’t…”
Keles licked his lips. “The people were not turned into the warriors I needed. They became the warriors they would have been, or had been, or would become. The magic simply let them reach their proper potential. And, I think, because an attack was coming, it became easier to fit them into that role because that role was right for that place and time.”
Her eyes tightened. “Go on.”
“Out in the tea market, you can buy dozens of varieties, different preparations. They will always taste the same, but sometimes they taste better. On a cold, cold day, a smoky black tea will warm your bones. On a hot, muggy day, jasmine tea will refresh. When your stomach is upset, pu-ehr is perfect. They become right because of time, place, and circumstance.”
“But, Keles, who decides what the circumstance is? A dark alley might terrify someone approaching it, but a thief who knows he is the only threat therein will not feel fear. Who is right? Whose perception takes precedence?”
Keles scratched his head. “I don’t know. I guess it would be whoever has the strongest conception of what is real. I mean, the strong-willed often impose their will on those who are weaker. Grandfather was a prime…”
Oh, by the gods…
He slumped back against the wall for a moment, then grabbed his mother’s shoulders. “You have to take me to Grandfather’s workshop.”
She took his elbows in her hands and guided him back toward bed. “You need to relax. You need more sleep.”
“No, now. I have to go now.”
She looked at him, then nodded. “Sit. I will get you a robe and some slippers.”
He started to protest, then looked down at the sheet tangled around his legs. “Very well.”
Siatsi returned quickly, and Tyressa with her. The look of concern on the Keru’s face brought a lump to Keles’ throat. She’d clearly not slept much, and was knotting her robe’s sash as she entered.
Keles smiled. “It’s good to see you, Tyressa.”
“And you, Master Anturasi.”
Siatsi shot her a glance. “You are not fooling me, Tyressa.”
The Keru looked surprised. “Mistress…”
“Be quiet. Lift him up and help him on with this robe.”
Keles smiled. “Someone who gives orders better than you or your niece.”
“She is Mistress of the tower.”
Keles shot his arms through the robe’s sleeves. “Where is Jasai?”
Siatsi looped the sash around his waist and knotted it. “She is sleeping. The journey was hard on her and the baby. She had benefited from tzaden — flower tea, as shall you. In fact, let me go make you some…”
“No, Mother, I must go to the workshop.”
Tyressa steadied him as he slid his feet into slippers. “Why the urgency, Keles?”
“I’ll tell you as we go.” He staggered toward the door. “Mother, perhaps you can bring that tea to the workshop?”
“I’ll get him there, Mistress.”
“And I will meet you quickly.”
“Well, at the rate I’m moving…” Keles laughed and shuffled through the doorway. His mother slid past, hurrying off to her own workshop. Tyressa fell into step with him, moving at his pace, ready to catch him.
The stiffness eased with each step, but he’d grossly overestimated his condition. He kept one hand on the wall and slowed as he came to the first short set of steps.
“The rift in Helosunde wasn’t natural. I felt it.”
“You mumbled about that in your sleep.”
“My mother just asked whose perception would take precedence in a conflict. See, if you take two Mystic swordsmen, and they fight, they get the measure of each other. They learn who is better and who is worse.”
“You don’t have to be a Mystic to learn that.”
“No. It’s true in almost everything, but here’s what’s important. When two opponents agree that one is better and the other is worse, who will win?”
Tyressa reached the bottom of the stairs first and eased him down the last few steps. “Presumably the better swordsman.”
“Exactly. And he’s better because both of them agree on the circumstance-or the reality-that says he’s better.” Keles looked at her. “But skill is only one dimension. What if the lesser swordsman is luckier? And what if the better swordsman has seen omens that make him think it is not a good day for him? Could their shared perception of luck and omens change the circumstance and make the lesser swordsman the victor?”
“But reality isn’t subjective, Keles.”
“Isn’t it?” He paused for a moment and caught his breath. “When I was young, I worked for my grandfather and drew maps. Thousands of them. Sometimes I wanted to do other things, or I was having a bad day. I would draw a map and I would think it was horrible. I hated it. I was certain my grandfather would reject it and beat me. And then he’d take that map and praise it. He would use it as an example for all my cousins to show them what they should be able to do. And I would look at that map and it wouldn’t be as bad as I thought. In fact, it would be pretty good.”