Prodigal Steelwielder (Seals of the Duelists Book 3) (15 page)

The earth shook, and the Temple rose into the air. In the distance, Bayan saw
cetechupes
leaping for their lives to the black stone that had separated from the white marble rim. He coaxed the Temple forward, bracing his Earth magic with a slippery amalgamation of slime made of Wind, Earth, and Water.

Warm, humid air suddenly burst against Bayan’s back. He dared not turn around, but the smell of the breeze blowing through the singers’ enormous portal was blessedly familiar.
Home
.

The massive stone bowl approached Bayan, and he lifted it just high enough to glide above his head. It blotted out the sun and most of the sky, and mucky lubrication flowed around him and the singers, as deep as they were tall, but he only had eyes for the stone city he bore with his will. As he turned to follow the Temple’s progress, he caught his first glimpse of the choir’s enormous portal. Through the sliver of open air beneath the curve of the Temple’s bottom, he saw an entire mountain range of dark red runrock waiting on the far side.

Bayan glanced back to check on Sabella. She leapt and danced just outside the shadow of the Temple, and the sky blossomed with her distraction spells. A smile had just begun to ease the tension in Bayan’s jaw when Sabella twinned again. One of her figures sashayed to the right while the other pirouetted left, then they snapped together. Bayan flung a tendril of anima, quick as a whip, toward her, but had to break off the spell when the Temple seemed to double in weight. At a jog, Bayan chased the floating Temple through the portal and entered his homeland. The choir followed, and a faint cessation of sound hinted that they had let the portal snap shut behind them.

The long, broadleaf grass beneath Bayan’s sandals was still wet with morning dew. Copses of upland palms paraded down every bend in the land, every crevice and valley. And all lay in shadow beneath the hovering hull of the Temple of Ten Thousand Harmonies. A small herd of kalabao, muscular and brown with faint, lighter stripes, thundered away from the strange sight, bawling in surprise and fright.

Bayan fell to his knees, the edges of his focus shredding. The sheer weight of the Temple’s stone was too immense. He shouldn’t have been able to lift it in the first place. In fact, he still wasn’t sure how he was doing so.
I’m going to drop it. I’m going to drop it, it’s going to shatter, people will die. What do I do? Bhattara, if you ever loved me, give me strength.

Agony split the fibers of Bayan’s body into individual strands. The magic he needed was more than his body could bear. Moving the Temple was killing him.

Heavenly notes surrounded him, as if Bhattara were welcoming him into his sunny blue realm of eternity.
I failed, I’m dying.

The strain eased—the singers had joined in chorus to assist him. The Temple passed along a series of songwork-formed stone pillars that rose dozen by dozen to support its weight on its way the mountains.

Bayan gasped in relief and fell forward onto his hands in the muck. “Thank you, Bhattara.” Perhaps his god had been so quick to answer him because he had made his request on home soil. Gathering the shreds of his being, Bayan marshaled his will and looked for a safe place to rest the Temple. His gaze rose up and up some more to the sharp red ridges of runrock. The slopes were too sheer for greenery to take root along the crests of the mountains. In a way, the steep red mountains seemed a fitting cousin to the sharp red spires of the Spineforest.

A tiny, dark lump on the bridge of the mountain caught his attention, and with the flick of a thought, Bayan created a wind lens. What he saw brought both nostalgia and inspiration. Covered in mud, he got to his feet and ran toward the singers, who were walking in the shadow of their temple, escorting it on its supporting pillars as it moved up the hillside. “Up. We have to send it up.”

Liselot looked beyond the temple then nodded at Bayan and waved her arms in a complex series of commands. The singers altered their melodies, and the pillars multiplied in number and began to sprout large stone hands to speed the Temple’s rise. Bayan kept tight control of his Earth magic to maintain its shape and rose behind it on his wind disc, following as it climbed its way up ever-steeper slopes.

Soon, Bayan hovered over hundreds of strides of thin air, and the enormous stone hands lifted the Temple’s enormous bulk along the nearly vertical slope. A sudden voice reached his ear. “I’m sorry, little brother, but this mountain is already taken, and I have no need of a giant stone house.” Bayan looked over, surprised to see the Skycaller on the mountaintop hailing him through a tiny wind tunnel.

He felt a surge of affection for the Balanganese caster, who used his elementalism to protect his valley countrymen from wicked weather events on a regular basis. He borrowed the man’s wind tunnel and replied through it. “I beg your pardon, Skycaller. But this giant stone house is very heavy, and I will need to set it down soon. Hopefully, it will not be too inconvenient for you to have neighbors for a short while. May I task you with welcoming them to your mountaintop and making sure everyone inside is safe? They’ve had rather a shock.”

The Skycaller replied, “I should think so. People should not live as snails. It’s not natural, dragging their houses around with them. However, little brother, I cannot deny that I will enjoy the company, for as long as it should last. Do you need assistance in settling your house?”

Bayan replied in the affirmative, and the sturdy Skycaller lent his not-insignificant Earth casting, smoothing a conical resting place into the topmost blade of the mountain. Though the singing choir remained below, their songwork lifted the Temple straight into the gap the Skycaller had created. Bayan guided it with gusts of wind, and the Skycaller molded the runrock to clasp and support the Temple. The perfectly round bowl of the Temple bulged out past the slender silhouette of the mountain on its other two sides, looking like nothing so much as a pale chalice in a pair of sunburnt hands.

Exhausted, Bayan wanted to crash to the ground next to the Skycaller and sleep for three years, but he arced down on his disc instead and landed before Liselot. “It’s done. It’s safe now. Portal up, and see who has survived. I will ask the Skycaller whom I should contact about caring for your singers. They must be traumatized.”

Liselot’s jaw was tense again. Her dark eyes locked onto his for a long moment. A gentle brush of Lifeseeker told him she was fairly bursting with nearly every emotion in existence. If she wore a necklace like his, it would be nearly afire. But all she said was “Thank you.” She turned to her choir, and one of them sang a portal with his crystals. Everyone rushed through into the Temple, including Sabella, who gave him a glance indicating she would look after the singers. Liselot went last, pausing only to give Bayan another nod of gratitude.

Bayan rose to the Skycaller’s narrow plateau. The man stood in the whipping wind, clearly expecting his arrival. As Bayan let his disc go, he stumbled out of sheer exhaustion and would have fallen had the Skycaller not caught his arm.

“You could use a nap, little brother. Maybe you should not say yes to every boon someone begs of you, eh? Can I offer you something to eat?”

Bayan studied the Temple’s new home from his vantage point. The mountain range sliced straight away from him, and the Temple’s pale sides peeked around it like a full moon hiding behind a tree trunk. He turned to the Skycaller. “Food sounds good.”

He followed the Skycaller into the man’s small, sturdy hut, the stones of which had grown straight from the ground. Its construction reminded Bayan of the table and chair within the Academy cold houses. The man set about heating tea and slicing some meat and bread. Bayan grew a second chair—with a nice thick cushion—and sat at the man’s miniscule table with him, eating like he’d been starved for the past month. At that moment, nothing was more glorious in the entire world than the physical existence of the food on his plate. It nourished far more than his stomach. As soon as he finished, there would be questions, answers, riddles and puzzles, and challenges, arguments, and as always, battle.
That big picture is standing right behind me. I can feel it. But for just this one moment, it is enough to share a meal with a countryman.

Odjin sat beside the chanter on the rough bench in the healing room and rested his hand on the empire’s newest potioneer, touching her shoulder since she didn’t have any hands left for him to hold. She lay on her cot and stared at the ceiling, her lips forming a tight frown of denial, but unshed tears pooled in the corners of her eyes. “It’s not the end,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be, if you don’t want it to.”

The girl—Nigha, that was her name—glanced in his direction before snapping her gaze back to the pale stone ceiling over her recovery cot. “Don’t make me smack you with one of my stumps,” she said without heat. “I have two to choose from. Of course it’s the end, you dimwit. I’m not even sure how I’m supposed to stir a beaker when I don’t have any fingers to hold the spoon.”

Odjin let Nigha’s bitterness wash over him. He’d heard similar despondency a dozen times in the last year, and it always threatened to trigger his own memories of that endlessly dark, abject despair, but he never let it. Not anymore. His free hand touched the squared-off beads of his necklace.
Not anymore.

He waved the chanter away. The brown-tabarded, middle-aged man merely nodded silently and took his leave, closing the thick, wooden door behind him.

Odjin continued, lowering his voice. “The artisans, they make some very fine hook prosthetics nowadays. Better than some of my fellow potioneers wear, even. But that’s not what I’m talking about. You were part of a Wind hex in the fifth wave of overflow students, weren’t you? Joined campus just under a year ago.”

A faint clenching of her jaw muscle was her only answer.

“You don’t know Sivutma very well, then.”

Her nostrils flared. “I wasn’t good enough to train on her level.”

Odjin leaned closer, nearly hovering over her, invading her vision so that she had to look at him. “Would you like to be?” His hand traced a small Flame pattern in the air, and a tiny cluster of pale orange flames coalesced around it.

Nigha’s eyes went completely round at the sight of Odjin’s impossible magic. Sometimes, injured students stammered or swore in stunned surprise, but Nigha was so taken aback, she couldn’t even form a single word. Odjin smiled at her. He pressed his finger to her lips, then leaned even closer and whispered near her ear. “Now tell me again how done you are with duelism. Because it’s not done with you.”

Nigha blinked hard, and her tears finally ran, crossing her temples and pooling in her ears. She tipped her head at the irritating wetness, and Odjin wicked the moisture away for her. “What do I do? How can I become like you?”

“It will take time. Lots of time, lots of reading, lots of practice. The training, it won’t be easy, and you can’t let
anyone
see. Not yet. No one is ready for this, not even those of us who have relearned our magic. Certainly not an empire, which sees us as street urchins and beggars. This secret, we have to keep it entirely to ourselves. Far more than our lives depend on it. Are you with me?”

“Oh, yes,” she breathed. Her voice was like a prayer to the sints. “Yes, anything. Everything.”

In soft murmurs that didn’t carry any further down the recovery ward of the Chantery, Odjin began outlining the process of her transition from duelist to potioneer to Potioneer Savant. The implantation of the steel, the importance of looking as abjectly depressed as possible, and then biding her time by learning the potion recipes, until enough time had passed, and Odjin could send one of his members to contact her.

“You’ll have to go without your magic until then, and I’m not going to explain how you’re going to get it back until it’s time. The first few injured students, I told them absolutely everything, and they nearly got themselves killed. So I’m only telling you enough to keep you safe. But once you get your magic back, the real work begins. You’ll have training schedules with the mentor that I’ll pick for you, depending on what city you are assigned to.”

Her eyes were uncomprehending. “Mentors, training schedules? How many Potioneer Savants are there?”

Odjin smiled. “The Potioneers Savant, we’re embedded in most of the major provincial capitals and large trade cities by now. Unfortunately, there are a lot of potioneers who are simply too bitter or angry or broken to relearn their magic, so we have to rely on potioneers who have recently been injured, just in the last few years. They still miss it. They still want it. Like you. I have a small amount of influence with the office that selects your new home location. Do you have a preference as to what province or town you’d like to be stationed in?”

“My mother lives in Braache. But… maybe… Is it acceptable for a potioneer to have a family? I’ve never seen them interact with anyone but clients before.”

Odjin gave her arm a reassuring squeeze. “I’ll see what I can do. There’s no reason you shouldn’t be near your family if that’s what you want. Having someone nearby, it will be a very good thing. Certain parts of your magic training, they will be very strenuous.”

Nigha shifted her shoulders and looked Odjin more directly in the face. “I’m so grateful that you offered to help me. Am I supposed to be part of some kind of secret group? Are we rebelling against the duelists? Or the emperor? Don’t misunderstand. Whatever you ask me to do, I’ll do it. I just don’t want to make a mistake. Do the savants have a long-term goal?”

If only.
“Right now, all I want you to worry about is healing and doing what they tell you. Fit in, go along, and wait for me to send a mentor to you. He or she will be another potioneer and will be wearing a necklace like this.” He tapped his beads. “Welcome to your new future, Potioneer Savant Nigha. Courtesy of Bayan Lualhati.”

Nigha twitched in surprise. “The exile? What does he have to do—”

A high voice interrupted. “Odjin, something’s happening. We need you.” The eunuch Kipri strode through the Chantery ward, wearing a sleek purple wig laced with swags of black beads. Any eunuch sporting a wig in the empire anymore was either employed by the Minister of Information or sympathetic to his causes. Even some noblewomen—those favoring the Hexmates—had begun disdaining their traditional shell headdresses for bright wigs. Odjin wouldn’t be caught dead in such a thing. He’d much rather magic himself a new leg than new hair.

He looked back to Nigha and gave her upper arm a final squeeze of reassurance. “I promise I’ll explain everything later. Trust me. Now get some rest.” He stood, and leaning on a bamboo cane, he limped in Kipri’s direction until they met in the middle of the ward. “What’s happened?”

Kipri’s high voice lowered to a bare whisper. “Someone has attacked the Temple of Ten Thousand Harmonies. A large force of strange casters. The First Singer herself came to inform Langlaren in case the emperor needs him as Warmaster.”

Odjin’s jaw went slack, and his lungs burned with shock. “Warmaster? We’re at war? With whom?”

“I wasn’t in the meeting. I don’t know, but I’m guessing that, since the First Singer brought someone from the Corona with her, and she’s waiting outside the Chantery right now, they’re some kind of Corona casters.”

“A Corona girl was here? Was she part of the attack?”

Kipri led the way out of the Chantery. Odjin spotted Sivutma’s taut sapling form on the porch and realized that an unofficial meeting was about to happen.

As Odjin and Kipri stepped through the wide Chantery doors onto the broad stone porch that fronted a wide swath of grass, Odjin got his first look at the young woman from the empire to the east. She was beautiful, young, strong, everything a young duelist could hope for in order to find good placement in a duel den. No one wanted to be a beautiful potioneer. “What’s she doing here?”

Kipri gave him a smug smile. “You’re not going to believe this, but Bayan sent her.”

Odjin stopped, and his bamboo cane stuttered against the stone. “You’re right. I don’t believe you.”

“It’s true, Odjin.” Doc Theo turned to him. “Bayan was at the attack on the Temple of Ten Thousand Harmonies. Sabella here says that a lot of singers actually died, smothered to death by some kind of enormous air-stealing spell, but Bayan—I cain’t even believe this my ownself—he moved the Temple. Moved it away from the spell, and saved the rest of the singers.”

A dark stone on Odjin’s necklace throbbed hard, once: his jealousy stone. “All by himself? Where did he put it?”

Sabella spoke for the first time, and Odjin found her accent delectable. “Balanganam. He moved the Temple through a portal, and it’s safe now. Well, as safe as the singers are, I suppose.”

Odjin shook his head in amazement and confusion, then addressed Diantha and Doc. “But why the singers? They don’t fight. They prevent storms and help the crops grow. Why would anyone want to attack the Temple, instead of oh, say, here?”

Doc’s gray brows drew together. “My first guess is that they thought that’s where the chanters were gathered. They wanted to take out our ability to heal. It’s been a long time since I was in a war, Odjin, but my instincts are tellin’ me this ain’t the end. This is just the beginning.”

Sabella’s wide eyes settled on the grizzled chanter. “The beginning of what, though? Even Bayan didn’t know.”

Sints, those green eyes, they’re enchanting. I’ve never seen the like.
Odjin caught himself staring and shook off the thought.
The last time I fell head over heels for a girl, my emotions got the better of me, I got in an illegal duel, lost my leg, and got potioneered. That path, I’ll give it a wide berth this time.

Odjin addressed the group at large. “What is Langlaren doing now? Are we mobilizing?” He looked at Sivutma. “Are the hexes going into battle?”

Sabella answered instead. “The singer who brought me here is still speaking to the Headmaster. I asked her to leave me here on Bayan’s behalf, to see what I could learn for him. The singer said she would send another shortly to take me back to the Temple.” She looked around the group. “Will you really go to war against the
cetechupes
? Bayan has never fought them, and he lived with us for almost two years.
Yl Senyecho
keeps them very much in reserve. Their magic seems very different from yours.”

Odjin leaned forward a step. “You’re from the Corona. What can you tell us about your casters?”

Sabella shook her head, and her dark blond hair shivered in distress. “I’ve barely seen them myself. My magic is considered a mutation. I dance my magic. Like your Dancing Duelist? Bayan said she was important once. But
cetechupil
, it is very different. It has very specific rules, and I know none of them. Even about how the magic works, I do not know more than the rumors.”

“Rumors are a good start when we don’t have anything at all to go on,” Diantha said.

Sabella held her hands up before her as if supporting a small object. “I know they use flasks. They contain some kind of liquid, which they spit. Its ingredients make the spell occur, and the spells they can cast are usually very large. They are elemental, like my dancing and your duelism. But the effects that they make are much different than the effects I can do. They have more power somehow. Bayan could not defeat their air-stealing spell, and that is why he had to rip the Temple from the mountains and move it away.”

A worm of cold fear spiraled in Odjin’s belly. “You’re saying that we need to learn an entirely new way to battle? How much time do we—”

A portal winked in, and a breathless Tala appeared to Odjin’s left, against a backdrop of smoky chaos. The brass rods that supported her singing crystals shivered in her trembling hands. “Father, I need a battle chanter. The Kheerzaal is under attack!”

Without a word, Doc Theo sprang through the portal, which snapped shut with sudden, silent finality. Sivutma’s dark eyes cut to Odjin’s in the stunned silence. “No time at all, it seems,” she said. “I’ll be readying the savant hexes if she needs them.”

Trapped a dozen leagues from the nearest Potioneer Savant, Odjin felt the icy worm in his belly twist painfully. They weren’t ready. He wasn’t ready.