Rebel Elements (Seals of the Duelists) (26 page)

“You all right, Bayan?” Calder asked from his desk.

“I’ll live. My eyes are just tired.”

“Have you tutored with Taban recently?”

“A few days ago. Why?”

“Did he happen to mention the Marriage of Flame?”

“Is that the one where Aideen and Berilo got married after they graduated from the Academy, were highly successful as a dueling pair during the War of Steel, then died together in a fiery conflagration when one of them was dosed with a jealousy potion by a rival?”

“Aye, that’s the one!” Calder scribbled details.

“No, sorry. He didn’t mention it.”

Calder’s quill jabbed into Bayan’s ribs like a tiny spear.

“Hey. Quit making more work for the laundry crew.” Bayan felt around for the quill and tossed it blindly toward Calder’s general location. It clattered off Kah’s platform; the bird chastised him with a few snippy squawks.

“You’re not going to work on your own report?” Eward asked.

“I’ll get to it later,” Bayan replied. As soon as I can see well enough to read, that is.

~~~

“No, Lord Eshkin spent a year in Nunaa after the war, brokering negotiations. The Raqtaaq shouldn’t frighten him.” Philo leaned on the edge of his desk and faced his three cricket co-conspirators. “And he certainly wouldn’t fear our dear Kipri and his fluffy Raqtaaq tresses.”

Kipri shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“It does when you consider your dangerously untidy hair.” Cassander smoothed his pale blond braids.

“I can lend you a lovely dark wig, Kipri. Just say the word.” Philo grinned at the look of stifled discomfort that crossed Kipri’s face.

“No, thank you. I’ll keep the hair I have.”

“Alas. Well, the one thing we learned from this foray, my lads, is that there is indeed something Lord Eshkin fears. And surprisingly, it’s naught to do with coin forgery.”

Kipri shook his head again. “He has a steel ring, and he’s not worried about getting in trouble for it? What does that mean?”

“Do we truly know that Lord Eshkin is behind this?” Cassander asked. “He could be one of many, or be the unaware, legitimate front for a bad business arrangement.”

“We do need more answers,” Philo acknowledged. “The emperor requires irrefutable proof of wrongdoing, but we’ve nothing to implicate the minister except possession of the ring, which, alone, doesn’t prove anything other than petty theft. And we don’t know what truly worries him, unless it’s Kipri’s lamentable hairstyle. If I could only speak to him without him knowing me, I might be able to discern some more information.”

“You’ll need more than not being yourself, Philo,” Gael said. “If you want information from someone who’s keeping a secret, you need to be someone he trusts.”

Kipri looked Philo up and down. “How do you feel about… perfume?”

~~~

Early the next morning, while dawn was still an idea the eastern horizon was mulling over, Bayan made his way to the Chantery. The two-story building was made of massive stone blocks rising from the first floor to meld seamlessly with the rock face on the second level, which had large windows carved from living stone, and an outer surface that bore the semblance of dressed stonework. Bayan crossed the broad stone porch, inlaid with curlicue symbols he took to represent chanter magic, and entered the open door.

The room was large and ran to the far end of the building, deep within the rocky promontory that loomed over it. A few neat patient beds lined one wall, all empty. A desk and a few large cabinets and shelves marked the opposite wall. Bayan found Doc Theo in a small room off the main one. Doc Theo wore his traditional brown tabard and sat penning a letter at his desk.

“You’re up early, Bayan. Doing all right?”

“Something’s wrong with my eyes. They’re not focusing.”

Doc Theo frowned and stood up, reaching into one of the three narrow pouches in his bag. He pulled out a slender crystal and held it while he peered into Bayan’s eyes.

“Wayl, they look all right. Let’s see what the crystal finds.”

He held the crystal up before Bayan’s eyes and chanted at it. The resonance Bayan was used to feeling while being healed echoed through his bones again. Suddenly, the crystal shattered. Clear shards slivered away across the room, touching neither Bayan nor Doc Theo.

The chanter’s eyes widened indignantly. “Why didn’tcha tell me you’d been to a sint?” he demanded.

“I—I didn’t know…”

Doc Theo hissed through his teeth to calm himself. “It ain’t your fault, Bayan. My ’pologies. You couldn’ta known. Sint magic is stronger than either song or elemental, or even anima. Ain’t nothing we can do to alter it.”

Bayan closed his aching eyes. “Does this mean I’m stuck like this forever? I can’t train this way!”

“Tain’t a punishment, if that’s what you’re thinking. The sints don’t communicate directly with us mortals. They exist on some other plane of consciousness, where ideas mean different things than they do here. Whatever you asked of the sint, this was your answer. You may not understand what it means, but once you suss it out, it’ll all come clear. Literally and figuratively.”

Despite not receiving healing, Bayan felt better. The blurriness was a puzzle, not a penalty. “I should get to class, for all the good it’ll do me today. And I’m sorry about your crystal.”

“Don’t worry ’bout it, Bayan. I can chant another one. Just tell everyone with Southern Common blood in the morning arena classes I tend that they should avoid getting badly hurt.”

“Um. Right.” Bayan slipped out, feeling another burden climb onto his shoulders.

He was useless in classes all day, and had to abandon his tutoring session with Taban that evening. When he told Taban about his poor eyesight, the older student teased him about needing someone to write his homework for a change. When he left Taban’s room, he headed down to the barracks porch instead of going back to his room. He couldn’t do his homework anyway.

Soon, however, his roommates came down in search of him.

“Bayan, what happened?” Odjin crossed his arms and leaned against one of the posts holding up the porch roof.

“Can we help?” Eward asked.

“Did you do something stupid like crack your head?” Calder asked.

Bayan glared in Calder’s general direction. “No. But I have cracked my shins more times than I can count today, and I’ve slammed my shoulders into half a dozen doorways and corners, too. Sint Esme is trying to teach me something. I have no idea what it is, but it hurts like everything.”

Eward’s tone was incredulous. “You went to a sint?”

“Why didn’t you talk to us first?” Odjin said.

“Because it’s none of your business!” Bayan barked. Fuzzy little dark spots flared in his vision, dancing in a sphere around him.
Bhattara, even the blackness is fuzzy now.

“Did… anyone else see those?” Calder asked in a faint voice.

The other two murmured confirmation. Bayan’s stomach flipped.

“All right, Bayan, out with it,” Calder demanded. “We’re your hexmates. Let us help, or we’ll strand you on a cliff tonight. Maybe that one right over there.” He pointed.

Bayan bristled at the threat, and the fuzzy black blobs appeared again.

“Stop that.” Calder poked Bayan in the chest. “Talk or freeze. I mean it. We three can cart you anywhere we like.”

“Don’t you dare.” Bayan tried to warn them off. “You’re not helping.”

“Because you won’t let us! Are you so high and mighty, O Wise Balang, that you can lend aid to your hexmates, but you won’t deign to receive it in return?” Eward asked.

“No, no, that’s not it,” Bayan stuttered. Blurry blobs of darkness thickened the air around all of them, and Bayan felt a cold sliver of fear. Usually fear chased the darkness away, but not this time.

“You know you’re not supposed to be doing magic out of class,” came Calder’s voice, somewhere to Bayan’s right.

“I can’t help it. Just leave me alone, and they’ll go away too.”

Calder snorted. “Your magic is allergic to us?”

Bayan stood and strode away from the barracks into the low, frosty grass. Why wouldn’t they just shut up and leave him alone? Couldn’t they see they were making the situation worse? If they’d just give him five minutes to calm—

Bayan tripped on an unseen stone and tumbled messily into a forward roll, sprawling onto his back. His friends ran toward him, asking if he was hurt.

“Bhattara,” Bayan begged, staring upward. He couldn’t see a single star, his vision was so bad. Rage, frustration, impatience, all tore at his mind. His fingers dug into the icy dirt, clawing, crushing. “Bhattara! Will you all just
shut your tart holes and leave me alone!
”

The darkness rushed against his ears, but this time, it came from the outside. First, it surrounded him in a visible whirlwind, then launched toward his friends, still several strides away. In a single moment, they all vanished from his sight, swallowed by the rabid blackness.

All rage fled, and a pure white spike of panic cleaved his soul. His magic had just eaten his hexmates.

Bayan twisted onto his hands and knees and stared in disbelief at the black maelstrom swarming over Calder, Eward, and Odjin. “No! No, no, no, come back! Leave them alone!”

But the darkness only whirled tighter, amorphous, ravenous.

How can this be happening? It’s supposed to be a part of me!

“Please, stop!” He ran over to the darkness, thrusting his hands into it. “Get off, you’re killing them!” The blackness felt like empty air. But no matter how far into it he reached, he couldn’t find anyone inside. Where had they gone?

Forcing himself to feel anger again, he tried to drag the thing back into his own head. “Who are you to fly off without me? You’re my Void, and I’m telling you to get back here and let them go!”

Nothing changed, and a worm of fear crept back in amongst Bayan’s anger. Nothing was working.

Suddenly, the scent of honeysuckle surrounded him, sweet and rich.

Focus.

Tingles filled Bayan’s body. He finally understood what Sint Esme had been trying to teach him. He closed his eyes, concentrating on a single thought.

You are a part of me. That means I own you. Not the other way around. You are my rage, and you are my power. I need you, but you will do as I command. That is the way it must be, for everyone’s sake. So that is the way I will make it be.

He raised his arms, performing the Elemental Invocation. The darkness froze, trembling, waiting. With a swirl of his limbs, he performed the Windcast of Waterspout, and the very earth trembled from the roar of the twisting wind. The blackness flew up and away with the spell, revealing his hexmates crouched on the ground, panting for breath. For a moment, he thought he saw Kah silhouetted against the dark sky where his spell had flown.

Bayan performed the Revocation, firmly sealing his magic away. Beneath his tingling skin, he felt the darkness return. But this time, it was quiescent, attentive.

And it was his to control.

“Bayan, what in sints happened? Are you all right?” Calder stumbled to his feet.

Bayan looked at Calder to see if he’d been injured, and realized his eyes had regained their proper focus. He grinned and helped the others up. “I am now. I am now.”

“Well then, maybe you could tell us what’s going on, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” Odjin said.

I get to live
, Bayan thought.
I get to live!
Sheer joy, the thrill of accomplishment, even appreciation for the bright, crisp pinpricks of the stars overhead—it all whirled in his mind, filling him with a long-dormant ecstasy. Memories tumbled over themselves as they thrust into his recall: the hot rush of first laying eyes on Imee, the agony of finding his pet rabbit dead and hearing his father tell him to feed it to Gamay, the giddy joy of sneaking down to a favorite Mambajao swimming hole with his sisters when they were supposed to be painting a rice shed. This was what he’d been missing ever since he began to suppress his emotions back in Pangusay. He’d been missing himself.

Bayan sat down on the frost-lined grass and let his tears of relief flow.

Kiwani grimaced as she faced off against Bayan in the Water Arena. He’d rarely been any good at any of the elements, but she didn’t particularly want an erratic soaking due to his incompetence, not when last night’s thin snowfall had yet to melt from where it lay in the shadows of the campus buildings and shrubbery. She had to admit that he’d been successful in getting Calder to face his fear of fire, but he still couldn’t do anything about his own poor ability. She wished he’d just hurry up and wash out; a hex of five strong students was better than a hex of six with one always lagging behind.

She readied herself to block his Crystalgrip with Heavenstream’s blast of warm water. He began his spell, and the deep blue haze of magic built around him. Kiwani’s own blue magic swirled around her. As he released his spell’s power, she released hers, fully expecting to tear his magic to shreds.

Instead, she felt the frozen bite of thick icy manacles wrap around her forearms. Thick pillars of ice anchored her arms to the ground. The frozen manacles were so dense, she couldn’t see through them. Overcome with shock, she struggled futilely.