Authors: Vera Nazarian
Be yourself. . . .
Ranhé could not help but be charmed by the confidence the Phoenix exuded.
“
By the way,” said Carliserall, “I work with
violet
and
blue
.”
“
I also create
blue
,” said another man in a strong calm voice, and Ranhé saw the priest who had performed the marriage Ceremony, Preinad Olvan: a man with ascetic eyes.
And then Marihke introduced two of the Khirmoel, who also worked with
green
, which coincided with their Family’s
color
. One, a young woman of a somewhat sad countenance, well dressed and with coiled braids of hair, was introduced as Erin. Next to her stood her uncle, a man of impressive height and bearing, holding a carved walking stick, and moving with a pronounced limp. He was Baelinte Khirmoel, and Ranhé recalled his taunting silly comments during the Wedding of Beis and Daqua. So this was the mad poet, and she remembered now that she had heard of him, for he was known in the City as a wickedly eloquent master of words. Though, there had been nothing eloquent about his outburst at the Wedding, rather a childish desire to incite hostility. It was a wonder that he was now in the same room with Tegra Daqua. Ranhé noticed that neither of the two acknowledged the other’s presence.
“
Join us, my dear,” Baelinte said to Ranhé and smiled, and it was like the sun suddenly entering the chamber, filling it with summer. “Come, and we will see what we can make of you. It depends of course on what you can make of us.” And he gave her a conspirational wink.
Finally, a petite, pretty young woman approached, with a shy smile. There was something remotely familiar about her, and then Ranhé realized what it was—a resemblance to Elasand. For this one was a cousin, Cyanolis Vaeste.
“
Cyanolis has a talent for most
colors
, as do the Vaeste,” said Marihke. “She can create all but
red
and
yellow
. I myself work with
red
. I am Marihke Sar, by the way,” he added, smiling wryly, “known outside this Guild as a Bilhaar murderer. Oh, and finally, this man, like yourself, can create
yellow
. He also does
orange
and
red
.”
Ranhé turned and saw a tall familiar gawky man whom she recognized immediately from the White Roads Inn. “You!” she said, unable to hold back a grin.
“
Good to see you again, Ranhéas Ylir!” replied Nilmet Vallen, known as the Philosopher. He approached, and took her hand in a warm greeting.
“
Acquaintances?” inquired Marihke, raising his brows. “Well met indeed, then.”
And then, Marihke raised his hand up for attention. “Masters!” he said. “We have before us another untrained talent. She has proved that she is capable of calling forth
yellow
. We must see what else, if anything, she might be able to do. And then, we must make her ready to use her talent as one of the Guild.”
And then they all formed a circle around her, while smiling Nilmet stepped forward, and again taking Ranhé’s hand, looked into her eyes.
“
Now then,” he said, “First, you must remember and think of nothing but
yellow
light. . . .”
A
n hour later, Ranhé was capable of forming a bright sphere of
yellow
radiance, easily, and on cue. She was able to make the sphere float in the air before her, to move where she willed it to go, to shrink and to expand in diameter. She was able to take an empty glass orb, and
put
the light within it, make it reside within the boundaries of thin glass—a mere guideline, not a physical necessity, she realized now.
It was not too difficult to do, this gathering of light. All she had to do was remember one image, like a focal anchor within her mind. And she thought, each time, lightly, of the
topaz
field beneath a radiant
golden
sky.
Soon, Nilmet stepped away from her, satisfied, while the rest of the Masters had been looking on. “Now,” said Nilmet, “we would test you further, Ranhé. You learned control of this so quickly that I wonder if there’s an even greater ability within you—that of a Master. All of us here are Masters because of the intensity of our talent, or because of our ability to work with more than one
color
.”
“
I doubt I can do any more,” she began, while her thoughts uncontrollably wandered, and a dull ache tightened behind her eyes, to remind her who she was now, and that nothing had changed.
“
You can try,” said Marihke. All of a sudden, there was a sphere of
red
floating in the air before her, at eye level. He nodded to it, then said, “Look and remember. Now, try to re-create it.”
Ranhé blinked, and the light was gone from the room, which was again bathed in monochrome twilight. She tried to remember the image, but all that came to her was the
Red
River of the
Red
Quarter, the street of pure
crimson
light populated with the City’s nightlife.
A single orb stood out in her mind, across the street from the Rose Teahouse, glowing with joy before the steep colonnade of steps of the House of
Erotene
. That House—it had seemed a Temple when she had ascended it once, where she had first seen the god with the sun-hair.
Self-hatred surged within her, and then an anger that she thought of him, even for an instant.
The anger burst through her, ran in a passion of feeling through her extremities, and with it, a fireball ignited, three feet in diameter, of a brilliant scalding
scarlet
.
The Masters had to take a step back. Marihke quickly stretched his hand out, and the fireball came to him, and then, still moving, began to shrink within the recesses of his palm.
It hissed, and not a spark remained.
“
Very impressive,” said Marihke. “I suspected you were Master level.” He turned then to the group. “Anyone else?”
Tegra stepped forward, nodding to Ranhé, and raised her two palms together before her, in a gesture similar to that of gathering a scoop of water.
Within Tegra’s palms suddenly came an
orange
glow. And then, pure light seemed to flow, like true water, through her fingers, down her arms and elbows, and sprinkled in droplets upon the matte floor of the chamber, pooling into a puddle of glorious
persimmon
brilliance at her feet. Still holding her hands out, Tegra said, “Light does not have to be spherical. Behold! You can form it into any shape you like.” Her smile was feather-light, reserved, and then the light was gone from the room.
Ranhé’s brows rose. She pulled her wandering thoughts back from the distant plane of alienation, and forced herself to think of the brightness. Truly, it still stood within her eyelids, an afterimage, and she recalled vaguely, in another life, the warmth of a roadside inn, as she put her hands forward.
The glow began in her palm. Its heat was overwhelming, it tickled her fingers, and soon, if she didn’t let go, it would scald her, and so she must throw it forth, away from her—
And so she tossed the contents of her palms. And suddenly, like a fountainhead, it burst forth, a shower of tiny droplets of
orange
, microscopic fireworks, rising high overhead, and sprinkling all throughout the room in a cascade of light.
Their voices arose then, for the fireworks burned above their heads, and the sight made many draw in their breath.
“
Now, try this!” said a loud expressive baritone, as Baelinte Khirmoel moved in from the circle, simultaneously throwing a narrow contesting glance at Tegra Daqua.
He closed his eyes, and did not lift a finger, but suddenly, the cascading shower of
orange
sparks began to change in midair, flowing into another hue, that of brilliant
green
. What he did was change the very
color
of the already existing light.
Ranhé took up his challenge wordlessly. She concentrated, her memory of
orange
still overpowering, and
forced
the particles of
green
light to fluctuate back to
orange
, just as they still floated down softly, before they even touched the ground.
“
Very good,” said Tegra to Ranhé, meanwhile giving Baelinte a narrow look of her own, like a satiated cat.
And then Ranhé, filled with the vibrant energy still within her—together with that distant ache—felt something strange happening. It seemed, for the span of seconds, that the heat level of her entire body was rising, was stifling her. She stood, suddenly gasping for breath, at a loss of what to do, how to relieve this tingling fiery pressure inside, a gathering of explosive forces.
Noticing her difficulty, Marihke again stepped forth, frowning with concern, and said gently, “Ranhé? Can you hear me? Is there a great buildup within you now that you cannot seem to alleviate? If so, then listen quickly: you must force the energy outside of you immediately, force the flow out somehow. Do it quickly, for it is dangerous to you, do it any way you can! Release the energy via light! Now!”
And Ranhé obeyed him, simultaneously feeling herself burn, go up in flames, at the same time seeing on the periphery of her vision Lord Vaeste come inside the room. He entered and stopped, and was looking at her. And then, like a flood, she released the great volcanic eruption of gathered energy outside herself.
She stood, a human torch of light, framed by an aura of rapidly mutating
colors
—all six of them, pulsing through the whole range of the forgotten spectrum.
“
A
re you sure there is no Vaeste blood within you somewhere?” said Elasand, walking toward her through the Circle, just as the last of her fury of flames had been extinguished. His gaze was incredulous, and he looked at her with an intense searching clarity. His face was serious, drawn somewhat, but he appeared better rested today.
“
Not a drop, my lord.” She smiled somewhat shyly, feeling completely drained. “I come of common stock, quite unlike you.”
“
Then it is truly incredible,” he continued. “Does Elasirr know yet what you can do with light?”
“
I think not—yet.”
At that point, a young guildsman, Ukrt, came into the chamber, and heads turned to look at the strange expression of his face. “Master Marihke!” he spoke in a stumbling manner. “And the rest of you! Pardon me, but you must go look outside.”
“
What is it?” responded Marihke.
But Ukrt’s eyes were terrified. “Look outside, Masters!” he was saying. “Come now, quickly, look outside at the sky!”
“
Indeed!” said Elasand, coming out of his distracted state. “This is the reason I’ve come here in the first place. There is something unusual happening outside! Come, all of you!”
He began walking to the door. Ranhé threw one look back at Marihke, then followed, while the others did also.
They came out of the spiral chamber into a passageway with soft matte walls, typical of most inner decor of the Guild. The corridor led to an outside entrance within the grounds of the Inner City.
Elasand opened the door, and stepped outside.
He stepped into
twilight
.
The same predawn faint glimmer on the horizon. The buildings were steeped in evening shadows, and the sky—an ashen obscure void.
There was no cloud mass obscuring the sun. No unusual mist. But the air itself was thick somehow, thick with gathered dusk.
“
What time is it?” someone asked.
“
An hour before noon,” replied Elasand softly, staring up into the strange terrifying sky.
“
Where is the sun?” someone else exclaimed. “I cannot see the sun! Why, it still looks like dawn, like it did when I left my bed this morning.”
Ranhé turned her face up, as a cool wind gathered, and then she spied it, the sickly disk near zenith. “There . . .” she whispered. “There is your sun! It is strangely obscured, dull.”
“
It is the Enemy’s work.”
The voice came from behind, and she turned slowly, seeing
him
.
Elasirr stood behind them all, having appeared once again with utmost silence. His face was impassive, and he barely acknowledged her with a narrow glance of empty eyes. Turning to Elasand, he said, “The attack has begun. It has been spoken everywhere, all across the City, and those who work for me have verified it. Feale has promised to eliminate the Regents and all other prisoners, before the day is over, unless I, the Guildmaster, come to him. Only, as you can see, the day
is
over before it even started.”
“
Which means,” finished Elasand, “that we have no time at all to act.”
“
Wrong.” Elasirr looked at the people watching him with great concern, at the sky that was like a soup bowl of darkness, at the sun disk that resembled now, more than anything, an extinguished phantom orb of glass.
“
We must get to work now,” he said. “This is but the first strike. At last, the war is come upon us.”
And they stood, silent, hearing him speak thus, in a City that was now truly Twilight.
I
n the hollow spiral chamber of light, they stood, the Nine Masters of the Guild, forming a clean circle along the circular perimeter. In the middle stood the Guildmaster, the Lord Vaeste, and the woman mercenary who was now one of them.