"King Harrol expected, I am sure, that what I found here would confirm his suspicions. He believes that to defeat the beasts, the power of the beasts' sender must be broken," said Mikhail. "It makes Margolan's troubles Dhasson's business, until the mage Arontala is destroyed."
"Good luck," Vahanian muttered darkly.
"Now can we get the stories?" Berry interrupted. They chuckled as they rose from the table. As they were about to leave, a cool breeze blew past them and the crockery rose, piece by piece, suspended in midair.
"Kessen," Royster sighed. "It bothers him to no end if I don't tidy the table the minute I'm through." He planted his hands on his hips. "Leave the dishes!" he shouted at the empty room. "Fifty years, you've done the dishes. The grandson of Bava K'aa comes for training, and all you can think of are dishes!" With a gesture of dismissal, he turned and motioned the others to follow. Behind them, the dishes crashed to the floor.
"He always had a bad temper," Royster muttered without a backward glance at the pile of broken crockery.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
When they arose the next morning, a brown-robed visitor awaited them. A spare-framed, tall woman with close-cropped white hair and piercing blue eyes stood in the main hallway. She took a few steps to stand in front of Tris, and looked at him as if she were taking his measure and weighing his soul.
"You are Martris Drayke?"
"I am."
"What do you seek here, son of Bricen?"
Tris held her gaze unwaveringly. "To understand my power and control it. I have to find a way to defeat Arontala and unseat Jared."
The sister looked at him appraisingly. "Very well. Our time is short, and the quest is great. At the coming of the Hawthorn Moon, Arontala will attempt strong magic—blood magic—to free the soul of the Obsidian King. If he succeeds, we will see conflict and darkness greater than in the time of the Great War."
"Can't the Sisterhood stop him?" Tris asked. "I mean, you are experienced mages—"
"Only a Summoner can stop him." She met Tris's eyes. "And you are the only Summoner in the Winter Kingdoms." She paused.
"Teach me," Tris said levelly. "We came here to find out how to overturn the darkness, in Margolan, Isencroft and Dhasson."
"It is the same darkness, and the same quest," she said. "Your paths are woven together by the hand of the Lady. I have come to be the first of your teachers. I am Sister Taru."
Tris began his lessons with Sister Taru and Maire right after breakfast. As Vahanian headed for the salle, and Carina, Kiara and Carroway— with Berry at his heels—paired up with keepers and headed into the depths of the Library, Taru guided Tris to a sparsely furnished study. Maire lit a fire and set a pot of tea to boil. Finally, Taru motioned Tris to sit. She and Maire sat down to face him.
"So you are the grandson of Bava K'aa," Taru said. "My Sisters believe you are her mage heir. What say you?"
Tris met her gaze. "I have always been able to speak to spirits, call them, see them—even when others couldn't. Not just on Haunts. I remember some lessons with grandmother, when I was young. Simple pathworkings, warding spells, household magic. But since the murders," he said, and his voice caught. "Since the murders," he repeated, willing his voice to hold, "I feel power I've never felt before—in me and around me. Sometimes, like with the slavers, it flows through me, past what I can control." Taru and Maire listened as Tris recounted the story of their journey, the ghosts he had encountered and those he freed, and finally, the spirits of the Ruune Vidaya.
When he ended his tale, Taru and Maire exchanged glances. "In the years since Bava K'aa died," Taru began quietly, "mages have been sent to the Ruune Vidaya to quiet the spirits. None succeeded and none returned. Yet you have lived to tell the tale, you, barely twenty summers old, a fledgling mage, and you have bent the forests' spirits to your cause, bargained for the safety of your friends, and then given them their rest!"
Tris flushed and looked down. "I know it sounds hard to believe."
"Except that we have confirmed it," Taru said evenly. "The Ruune Vidaya is no longer haunted. I believe that any mage of power could feel the wrenching of the currents that night. I felt it myself, although I did not know the cause. Wild magic, barely still within the Light," she said, fixing Tris with her stare.
"I felt pretty awful for quite a while," Tris admitted sheepishly. "If you could, please, teach me how to stop passing out every time I do a large working. I can't fight Arontala if I keep doing that."
A faint smile came to Taru's lips. "Trained mages have died amidst that kind of storm," she said. "Yet you did not."
"Help me," Tris said. "I'm acting on instinct, and it isn't enough. If Carina and Alyzza hadn't shown me how to shield back at the caravan, I'd be mad from the spirits by now. That night, in the forest, the shields almost didn't hold. I thought—" he started, and then stopped, afraid to put into words something he only felt. "I thought," he started again, "that I might lose my soul there. It felt as if... I was being pulled to pieces—by the power, and the spirits."
Taru was watching him closely. "Your instincts are correct," she said. "You were closer to death—and your soul's destruction—than you may realize. An untrained mage could not have managed what you did. That is not instinct," she said, leaning forward, "and that is not talent. That must be training, deep training, that someone wanted you to forget."
"Look at me, Tris," Maire said, and Tris shifted in his chair. From the folds of her cloak, Maire withdrew a crystal carving of the Lady with her quatrain icons. "I want you to focus on this," Maire said, her voice soothing. "We're going to do a pathworking, and I'm going to take you deep into your memories. It will be as real to you as when it occurred. The way may not be easy."
"I'm ready," Tris said.
Taru set a warding around them. Then, within the warded circle, she set another warding, this one separating Tris from herself and Maire. "I cannot gauge your reaction or your control," the Sister said. "This is for your protection as well as our own."
"I understand."
Maire set the focus icon on the table in front of him. "When do you remember first working with your grandmother?"
Tris thought for a moment. "Grandmother always let me follow along with her. She taught me to call handfire the same summer I started my schooling. I was five or six," he recalled. "I don't think I helped with her pathworkings until I was eight or nine."
Taru nodded. "That is the age when a child with promise would begin serious lessons. Take him back to his tenth year," she instructed Maire. "And let's see what he knew."
Maire met his eyes. "Focus on the icon, Tris," she said, "and listen to my voice. Fix the icon in your mind. Memorize it. Make your picture detailed, as if you have it in your hands. Weigh it. Feel its texture, how cool it is to the touch, how smooth. See how it shines. Smell the incense that clings to it. Taste the incense in your mouth. Once it is real, hold that image. Hold it. Now, make it disappear. Hold the emptiness. Hear nothing but my voice. Hold the empty space. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply. Again. You are present in that empty space. You are ten summers old, with your grandmother in her study. What do you see?"
Tris opened his eyes, and looked around him at Bava K'aa's rooms in Shekerishet. The familiar smell of her candles mingled with the scent of wood smoke and incense. Summer sun streamed through the mullioned windows, casting a parquet of shadows on the floor. On the table lay the instruments of a pathworking—a bit of parchment, her athame, a candle, some herbs. Near him, his grandmother bustled about, moving between the table and the fire, where a small pot simmered on the hearth. He could feel the energy of her warding, creating a sense of safety around the perimeter of the braided rug she used as her workspace. Tris heard himself describe these things aloud, as if in a dream, separate enough from himself that he did not wonder at it.