Part One: FLOATING
The storm was coming.
Far
away--across the sea and the sand, across the scrub along the coast and the
fields inland, across the Ruins and the settlements and the many places where
humanity had failed to retain their claim upon the earth--across the Divide,
with its dark watchers and restless shadows, along age-worn valleys and
flattened hills, out of the depths of the desert from where it was called, the
storm gathered speed and power and swept unchecked from the north. Like a living thing, a creature of untameable
will, it rolled on its thunderous belly across the land, scouring hills bare
with its furious wind, stabbing at anything daring to stand upright with
tongues of lightning, smothering all thoughts of resistance beneath the weight
of its shadow. In its wake it left a
trail of destruction.
And
it was coming. It couldn't be turned
back. Indefatigable, unstoppable,
relentless, its purpose was simple and its destination plain.
The storm was coming for its maker.
#
Sal jerked awake with a gasp. The storm--it was coming for him! He had woken it from its rest in the dry wastelands surrounding the Nine Stars. They had to get away before it reached the caravan!
He blinked.
A cursory glance at his surroundings revealed that he was no longer in the caravan at all. He was sleeping on a real bed, clutching thin sheets in his fists, and surrounded by stone walls. There was a single, wide air vent with a metal grill across it in the high ceiling, and the floors were made of polished wood. A mirror glowed on one wall as though reflecting starlight, buzzing faintly with the Change. Under that faint, silver glow, he had fallen asleep almost as soon as his head had hit the pillow.
It came back to him in a rush. He had arrived in the
There had been no grand reception on his arrival, no confrontations, but he had been imprisoned the moment the solid door to the room had shut behind him as surely as though he'd been thrown into a cell. Not that he had truly been free at any point during the long journey from Ulum. The band around his left wrist took care of that. The Syndic, his great-aunt, had him in her clutches now, whether she'd shown up at the dock or not. He might have felt relief at that had he not been so weak from seasickness. Her absence simply delayed the inevitable.
Sweat cooled on his skin, making him shiver. He forced his hands to loosen their grip on the sheets, still feeling the fury of the storm from his dream, the single-minded determination of it as it roared across the parched land. That made three times in the last week that he'd had the same nightmare. If it meant anything, he couldn't work it out. Why should he be afraid of something coming out of the Interior when what lay ahead of him was far worse? It was reality he should be worrying over in his sleep, not dreams.
He tried to go back to sleep, but even
though he was exhausted his thoughts wouldn't let him. It felt weird, after such a long journey, to
finally be at his destination. The last
stage had been a harrowing one, as the bone ship, Os, had ferried them and the caravan from the coast town of
His initial impressions of the city were,
therefore, far from positive. He'd
glimpsed it, woozily, on the horizon at sunset, silhouetted against an
orange-blue sky. Its towers shone
faintly green in the fading light, glinting like a giant crystal balanced on
the edge of the world. Its countless
towers sprouted from a lifeless, kidney shaped island that bulged upward at the
end pointing away from the rest of the
It was through one such cavern that Os passed. Within lay a magnificent dock, ready for the new arrivals. A small party of Sky Wardens waited patiently for them there. While the Wardens whisked him and his friends up a series of ramps and into the city, the caravan leader Belilanca Brokate remained behind to oversee the unloading of camels and wagons. She caught his eye as they ascended the first leg, and waved cheerfully. It didn't look like a farewell, but Sal knew it could well be. Once the Sky Wardens got their clutches on him, he might never escape. And there was little, at that moment, that he could do about it--except try in vain to sleep.
Sal lay back down in the dark, filled with dread. Staring into the void of the future was worse, in its way, than staring into the black emptiness of the sea. Who knew what would come out at him from the dark? He didn't know, but he was working on it, or at least trying to work it out what to do next.
Behind every powerful solution, the Mage Van Haasteren had said, there lies a powerful need.
His need had never been greater. If there was one thing he had learned--
"Sal?"
He stopped in mid-thought, certain that someone had whispered his name. It wasn't possible, though; the walls were too thick; the door had locked solidly behind him the moment it had closed; and there was no one in the room except him.
A
ghost? he thought, somewhat nervously. That couldn't be true either--but what else
did he expect in the
"Sal!" The whisper came again, unmistakeable, this time. Its source was above him. "Sal, it's me!"
"Skender?" Sal sat up, eyes bugging at the air vent. Two small fingers were wiggling at him through holes in the metal grill. "What--? How--?"
"Hang on." More fingers appeared and curled around the grill. There was a soft click. With a shower of dust, the grill lifted up and away. Skender's face appeared in its place, dirty but grinning from ear to ear.
"Surprise!"
"What are you doing up there?" Sal whispered.
"Exploring. What else would I be doing?"
"But--" The response You could get into trouble was obviously not going to make a difference. Skender's exploration of the ancient spaces of the Keep had taken place with a similar lack of concern for his father's rules. "Aren't you tired?"
"Exhausted, but there was no way I
could sleep. We're in the
"I am thinking about it."
"Too much, probably."
"I don't suppose you've found a way out yet, have you?"
"Not yet." Skender's eyes gleamed. "Want to help me try?"
Sal shook his head.
"Are you sure?"
He nodded, even though saying it betrayed every instinct in his body. Running from his problems had solved nothing in the past; it was time to confront them, and hopefully solve them once and for all. "Maybe another night. When we've settled in."
"Your loss. It's great up here, Sal. You can go anywhere! Who knows what I'll find?"
Sal smiled at the boy's smudged features. "A lot of dirt, by the look of it."
"Pfft." Skender waved in dismissal. "Okay, I can take a hint. I'll let you know if I find anything useful."
"What about Shilly? Have you found her yet?"
"She's a couple of corridors across, out like a light."
Sal had already known that she wasn't far away: the part of him that felt when she was near had been tingling deep in his chest ever since he'd been locked in. It was good, though, to hear that Shilly was safe and able to rest. "Has anyone come to see you, to welcome you?"
"Not a soul. Some reception, eh?"
"At least the Syndic's going to let us catch up on our sleep before she does whatever it is she intends to do with us."
"Sure. You'll probably get a last meal as well." Skender's grin was undentable. "Lighten up, Sal. And remember what we decided. They think they've worked us all out. If we give them what they expect to see, we'll have a better chance of surprising them later."
Sal nodded.
This was Shilly's idea, and he could see the sense in it. The wardens knew only so much about the three
of them: that Shilly had shown some interest in learning at the
A troublemaker, a tourist, and a try-hard. It wasn't much of an army to take on the might of the Sky Wardens, but it would have to do. If he was going to escape from the clutches of the Syndic and his real father, he had to take every advantage he could.
"Can I go now?" asked Skender.
"Sorry. Feel free," he replied. "Just remember to get some sleep. We'll need to be alert for tomorrow."
"Don't worry, Sal. I've got plenty of time. We've been here only an hour or so."
Sal groaned inside. That left the rest of the night ahead. Sleepless, probably.
"Thanks for dropping in," he said with a weary smile.
"My pleasure." Skender winked as the grill dropped back into place. "It was worth the effort just to see the look on your face."
#
Skender retreated from the vent and turned back the way he had come. The narrow gaps above the ceilings were cramped and warm, and smelt of the dust of ages. The close proximity of the rooms to each other made noise a constant concern. The crawlspaces wouldn't be a good place to hide for long if he was discovered.
Still, he decided, it was well worth the effort. After the long and uncomfortable journey south, he was in an entirely new place--one as far away from his home as he could imagine. Who knew what he would see during his nocturnal exploration?
Slowly and carefully, he peeked into three more rooms. They weren't lit, and he could hear no sound of breathing. That wasn't encouraging, but was fairly typical of what he had found thus far. Shilly and Sal's rooms were the only two inhabited quarters that he had come across. He didn't let that dampen his enthusiasm, though. Each room held a wealth of potential discoveries; if didn't look, he would never find.
This, he told himself, was the life.
He crawled at random from vent to vent, never once concerned that he would lose his way. It wouldn't be difficult at all to find his room again. He had memorised every centimetre of the route, just as he had unconsciously memorised the pattern cast by light through the vents around him, the expression on Sal's face, the smell of the dust in his nose--everything, in fact, that he had seen and sensed that day. The memories crowded his mind like a roomful of people, jostling his thoughts and distracting him from serious contemplation. The only way to be rid of them, he had learned, was to find new things to distract himself with, to prevent the wash of associations that came with each familiar sensation. When every moment he had ever experienced could be recalled as clearly as the present, the weight of the past soon began to overwhelm the brief flicker called now.
Sleep helped. Sometimes after a good, long rest he awoke feeling almost calm, as though his mind had reorganised itself overnight, putting everything back into place and steeling itself against the mad clamour as the day began. Mornings like that were to be treasured, and encouraged. His memory was always perfect, but there were different ways of remembering, some better than others: memories could come unbidden or in response to a trigger; he could seek them deliberately or let them was over him, uncontrolled. That was what it boiled down to. Or so his father said. He had to learn how to control his gift, or else it would become a curse. As well as Stone Mage teachers, there were numerous lunatics and renegades among his ancestors. An only child, he didn't want the last Van Haasteren to let the side down.
He was being careful. And when he wasn't being careful, at least he
was finally having fun. In the previous
month, he had seen more things than he had in all the years before combined. He had seen the full moon stall over the Nine
Stars during the Stone Mage Synod and soon, in just two days, he would see the
full moon rise again over the
Something crunched under his open palm, bringing him back to earth. He looked down and found a fine powder where the brittle bones of a long dead mouse or bird had once been. He didn't flinch; he was well used to such things from his exploration of the ancient spaces of the cliff-city in which he had grown up. It was a small price to pay.
Two more rooms, also empty. So much for treasure, he thought, his enthusiasm beginning to wane. Perhaps it was time to start heading back to his room. Sal was right about getting some sleep. He could almost feel himself getting tired, if he really tried.
Halfway to the open vent leading to his room, he stopped. Just within earshot he made out a low mumble of voices. Wondering who could be up so late at night--apart from himself--he slithered in the direction it came from. Two rooms along, a bright, silver light shone up through a vent into the dusty crawlspace. Lying flat on his stomach, he peered carefully down through the vent but could see only the tops of heads below, one pitch black, the other white.
Two voices floated up to him.
"--thought they would have contacted
us by now," one was saying. Strong
to the point of overbearing and sharp as a whip, it could only have belonged to
Radi Mierlo, Sal's maternal grandmother, the woman who had lied to and
manipulated Sal in an effort to get him to return to the
"It's not us they want," replied
a voice so thick with bitterness that Skender could picture Shom Behenna's
sneer perfectly. The ex-warden had
rarely spoken to the kids in the caravan, but when he did he made no attempt to
hide his feelings over the fall from grace he had suffered at Sal's hands. By allowing himself to be tricked into breaking
his vows, Behenna had been publicly humiliated at the Synod a month ago, and
was likely to be punished on his return to the
"So you say, Shom, but they can't have one without the other. Without you, without me, none of this would've happened. They'd still be looking for Sal and Shilly right now. They owe us."
"They own us," Behenna corrected her. "Question them all you like, but they'll do what they want."
"I would question them, if they'd only talk to us."
"They'll come when they're ready, and not before."
"Yes, yes--I see the picture quite clearly. Except for one thing: how do you know all this? In all the time you've been with us, in all the time you were chasing Sal, did they talk to you even once? How can you speak with any authority about your mysterious masters?"
There was a small silence. Skender held his breath, terrified of making the slightest sound that might alert them to his presence above them.
"They told me to get the
children," Behenna said in a grating voice that rose in tone as though he
was daring her to defy him, to tell him he was wrong. "They told me to get the children, no
matter what it took, and to bring them back to the
"But would you have been so willing if you'd know what it would cost? That you'd find yourself before a disciplinary hearing as a result? I wonder. I suppose you're expecting a reward for your efforts; a pardon, perhaps. That's why you have such blind faith in their trustworthiness: because it's the only way you're going to come out of this clean." Sal's grandmother snorted. "Well, if the Mierlo family has learned one thing, it's not to put our trust in anyone--blindly or otherwise. I've made my own arrangements. Highson is expecting us. He'll be waiting for us when things begin. I'd rather place my bets on a man I can see and touch than on a phantom, any day."
"The Weavers are not phantoms."
"No? How can you be so sure--here of all places?" She stifled a yawn. "Your hearing is in a matter of days. If the Weavers don't appear by then, I suppose you'll know exactly where you stand. For now, Shom, I suggest we get some rest. We'll need all our strength for tomorrow, no matter what happens."
The black-haired, black-skinned man grunted and headed for the door. He took with him a cloud of tension that seemed almost palpable.
Radi Mierlo watched him go, and then moved across the room to lie on the bed. Her eyes glittered in the faint light, staring at the ceiling.
"The Weavers are not to be taken lightly," said a new voice, rasping and metallic.
"Be quiet, Mawson. Until I address you directly, I don't want you to say another word."
Skender peered more closely through the vent and made out the marble shape of the stone bust called Mawson on the floor in once corner, near Radi Mierlo's many trunks of belongings. Now that he knew to look for him, the man'kin's presence was obvious. Skender should have known he'd be there. The animated head and chest of a man who may never have lived, yet existed so deeply in the Change that he saw things no human did, had travelled with them all the way from Ulum with the rest of the Mierlo's possessions. Bound to Sal's grandmother by some sort of life-debt, the man'kin had no choice but to obey her every request--but Skender knew from experience that he knew ways to bend the rules, when he wanted to.
He didn't like telling stories, either. Skender had tried many times to get him to talk about the things he must have seen in his long, unnatural life, hoping that would liven up the trip south. But he had remained tight-lipped. "Man'kin don't tell stories," Mawson had told him once. "There are too many endings and too many beginnings. The only thing we can be certain of is the now."
Skender had no idea what that meant.
Complete silence indicated that Mawson was
obeying the latest instruction from the woman who owned him. That was a shame, Skender thought, for he
would've liked to learn more about the Weavers--the mysterious people who Sal
suspected might have something to do with his enforced return to the
"The Weavers are not to be taken lightly," Mawson repeated.
Skender jumped; it had sounded as though the man'kin had been whispering right into his ear. He froze, waiting for Radi Mierlo to berate Mawson for disobeying her instruction, but she didn't stir. In fact, her eyes had closed. She looked like she was going to sleep.
"Are you talking to me, Mawson?" he sent to the man'kin through the Change.
The stone bust looked up at the vent and nodded, once.
Skender thought fast. So much for going unnoticed. The man'kin must have picked him out from the many minds surrounding it, using the Change. He had known he was there all along!
But Mawson hadn't told on him. He could have informed his mistress that there was an eavesdropper at any time during her conversation with Behenna, and Skender supposed that would've been the right thing to do. Instead, the man'kin had stayed silent. Why? So it could make sure Skender got the point about the Weavers? Was it trying to tell him that, not Radi Mierlo?
There was another explanation.
"You can't talk to me, can you?" he silently asked the man'kin.
Mawson solemnly shook his head.
That explained it. Until I address you directly, Radi Mierlo had told the man'kin, I don't want you to say another word. All Mawson could say until freed from her instruction was the one string of words he had already uttered.
"The Weavers--"
"Yeah, yeah. I know. They're not to be trusted. And how frustrating for you." Skender smiled at the bust's predicament. "Whatever you're trying to tell me, it'll have to wait."
The man'kin's gaze drifted away, as though tired of the conversation.
All right, he thought. I can take a hint.
He slithered through the crawlspace to the vent over his room. The last thing he wanted to do was ruin his chances to explore by being caught. If Mawson had spotted him so easily, someone or something else might too.
He shimmied back to the vent belonging to his room and scrambled like a rat down the crude ladder he had made out of his cupboard and a chair beneath it. As he quietly rearranged the furniture as it had been, his mind turned over everything he had learned during his exploration. Skender and Sal were both nearby, which was reassuring. Everyone was keen on keeping those two together as much as was possible, although he still hadn't worked out why. Even his father, Skender Van Haasteren the Ninth, had thought the same. This Skender would figure it out, or he wouldn't feel worthy of being the tenth in his line.
As for the rest... Behenna
thinks he's working for the Weavers.
Radi Mierlo was in contact with Highson Sparre, Sal's natural father. Plans within plans within plans--and he was
sure they weren't the only people in the
#
Shilly was startled out of restless sleep by rapping on her door. She climbed awkwardly out of bed, still dressed in her travel clothes, and was told by a black-robed and hooded man that her presence was required before an examining committee.
"Examining what?" she had protested, trying futilely to get the sleep out of her eyes. The mirror-like glass light hanging on one wall seemed much brighter than it had the previous night.
"Your fitness for the Novitiate," he replied. Three people had come to wake her, all identically dressed, but he was the only one who spoke. His voice was deep and commanding, as though used to having orders obeyed.
"I don't know anything about a Novitiate," she responded. "Who says I'm interested in joining?"
"That's what you're here to find out," said the attendant.
Shrugging to conceal her nervousness, Shilly slipped her crutch into its well-worn place under her armpit and followed them out of the room. The attendants took her along narrow corridors lined with arches on both sides. The arches had been filled in with bricks, so what might once have been a pleasant thoroughfare was now a narrow tunnel. She didn't know where they were going; she didn't know why she was being taken there. All she could do was hope that she would wake up in time to make sense of things when she arrived.
Don't be afraid to follow your heart. The words of the elderly Mage Erentaite were some comfort. It's a journey we all must take, if only once in our lives. Shilly knew that the decisions she had made and allegiances she had chosen were right--or the closest to right she could discern at that time--but her leg still ached with a dull throb she suspected she would carry for the rest of her life. Every step sent a dagger of pain up her hipbone and into the base of her skull, reminding her that even being right could be costly. The hooded attendant walked briskly, seemingly ignorant of her handicap, and she refused to say anything, to admit any weakness in front of them.
Deep down, she feared that the time of
reckoning had come. She had been
dreading this moment ever since the caravan had left Ulum, weeks before--ever
since she had made the decision that had brought them across hundreds of
kilometres from the Nine Stars to the
A crippled, untalented girl. Dead wood.
All dreams of rescuing Lodo and learning how to use the Change would have to be forgotten if she couldn't show the Sky Wardens otherwise. Her life might as well be over.
It was up to her, then, to ensure that it didn't happen.
Troublemaker, tourist, try-hard.
They came to an open door twice as high as the attendant leading the way. It hung open, and she heard voices echoing from the chamber within. A woman was addressing someone out of sight, and Shilly's heart beat fast at the thought that it might be the Syndic. But the voice wasn't the same: Nu Zanshin wasn't so velvety; she wore her strength on her sleeve.
"--won't be long now, I'm sure," the woman was saying as Shilly was led into the room. "Ah, here she is now. Does that address your concern, Sal?"
Shilly took in the scene in at a glance. The room was cavernous and gloomy, with pillars and alcoves alternating around the walls, creating numerous opportunities for shadow. There were no windows, just a silver brazier on a wooden stand in the centre of the room, casting a steady, blue light. Sal and Skender were seated on two low stools before a tall, emaciated woman dressed entirely in black. Even inside she wore a wide-brimmed hat that culminated in a low, skull-hugging top. Her face was not hidden in the same way as the attendants bringing her to the examination, and her features were a surprise: sharply delineated, inhumanly gaunt. Her skin was so pale Shilly could see veins through it. Shilly had become somewhat accustomed to paler features after her journey through the Interior, but this woman was even whiter than Skender. She had almost no colour at all.
Beyond the woman, the room contained only hooded attendants, standing in the alcoves lining the walls like sentries, faceless and motionless. Despite the eerie threat they conveyed, Shilly breathed a sigh of relief. No sign of the Syndic. Not yet, anyway.
"Yes, it does. Thank you," said Sal. He looked as relieved to see Shilly as she was to see him, and as exhausted; he had clearly been dragged out of bed in his old clothes, like her. Skender was even filthier than he had been the night before, but was fairly vibrating with eagerness. After shooting Shilly a quick wave, his attention was back on the skeleton-thin woman before them.
"The Novitiate is like a school, right--where you train your students?" the boy asked as Shilly was shown to the seat next to Sal. She wasn't given then option to decline.
The woman tilted her head in assent. Her voice rolled like an orator's. "To the Novitiate is given the task of training Sky Wardens. I am Master Warden Atilde. It is my purpose to assess every applicant upon arrival to determine if the Selectors have correctly assessed their abilities. This includes you. You are behind by some weeks, and although I have been told that you have received some education at the Interior school known as the Keep, you must understand that this in no way guarantees that you will pass my examination. Our standards here are quite different."
"But we didn't apply to join the Novitiate," Sal said. "What if we don't want to be tested?"
"You are here now, and I will not have you wasting your talent. I made that very clear when I heard you were coming. Who you are means nothing to me; it's what I can make of you that matters." Master Warden Atilde's eyes glittered oddly in their sockets, and a chill went down Shilly's spine when she realised why. The woman's eyes were translucent, as if made of glass--but with no attempt to disguise them as real eyes. Atilde had to be as blind as the Mage Erentaite--yet was just as able to see, impossibly. There was no question of who the woman was looking at: Sal, then Skender, then lastly Shilly.
"Now we are all present," Atilde said, "we can begin." She raised her stick-like arms as though trying to make herself look larger, like a lizard puffing itself up. Her black robes billowed around her. "The Change comes in many shapes and forms, but through us it can do only three things: it can promote our understanding of the world; it can imitate the appearance of the world; and it can alter the substance of the world. Theory, illusion and actuality--these are the foundation stones of all our teaching. A Sky Warden must master two of these three in order to graduate, and all must have more than a passing familiarity with the third. The exercises I am about to give you will determine how far advanced each of you is along these three roads.
"Shilly first." With a series of sweeping gestures, the warden drew a design out of glowing lines in thin air. It looked like a star made out of smaller stars and turned slowly clockwise once complete. "Can you tell me what effect this visualisation would have on the world?"
Shilly studied it closely, wanting to impress even though she resented the way their desires had been so casually dismissed. Her part was easy to play.
The design reminded her of one Lodo had shown her a long time ago, one of a number that both Stone Mages and Sky Wardens could use.
"It melts ice," she said, "or freezes water, depending how you use it."
"Could you demonstrate the difference for us?"
Atilde gestured. One of the attendants came forward with a glass of water and handed it to Shilly. She stared at it for a moment, thinking, Now what do I do? She had no talent; all the knowledge in the world couldn't help her turn even a thimbleful of water into anything else without a grain of ability to make it happen.
Then she felt a hand on her shoulder. A voice in her head whispered: "Use me."
Shilly shook her head, knowing without needing to look who the hand and voice belonged to. She had sworn never to Take from Sal again after almost draining him dry in the Keep. She could have killed him, or worse.
"You have to, Shilly. The wardens need to see what you can do. If things don't work out--" Sal hesitated minutely. "--they're your best hope of getting what you want."
The bald statement flashed through her mind like a crack through glass. She wanted things as they had once been, with Lodo free and whole and teaching her to use the Change. Would the Sky Wardens give her that? Would Sal? She didn't know.
"We agreed, remember?"
And he was offering...
She closed her eyes and reached through him for the Change. It stirred immediately at her command. The visualisation rotated smoothly in her mind, then poured through her, into the glass. With soft crunching noise, like stepping on dead leaves, the water turned to slush then swelled into a solid block of ice. Cold blossomed in her fingertips.
Sal squeezed her shoulder and withdrew his hand.
"Well done, Shilly." Atilde's thin lips pursed in something that might have been approval. The attendant that had given her the glass took it away. "For your last test, I want you to show me something important to you. An image from your past." The gaunt figure approached with gloved, claw-like hands extended. Corded fingers gripped Shilly's wrists in a surprisingly strong grip and pulled her to her feet. "Your friend will not assist you, this time."
Shilly couldn't look at the woman's ravaged face. It was like staring too close at a jellyfish. She averted her eyes and struggled through a rising panic to think. She had to concentrate, focus on the task she had been given. She wouldn't have Sal to help her, this time, and she had to impress Warden Atilde. Something from her past, yes: but what?
A glint of glass under Warden Atilde's black robe caught her eye. It was a torc similar to the one Behenna had let her touch, on the way to the Nine Stars. Atilde's was full of swirling bubbles, frozen in the act of escaping. The way it hung around the warden's neck reminded her of the charm Lodo had worn around his own neck: a thumb-sized carving in brown-grey stone, shaped like a blunt-featured child. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the memory, picturing it in her mind. Lodo had used the charm to predict the weather, saying that it could feel storms passing over the feet of distant mountains. When she touched it, it whispered words too faint to be understood. Lodo had been given the charm by Skender's grandfather when he had studied at the Keep, and its name was--
"Yadeh-tash." Atilde's voice was approving. Shilly opened her eyes and saw an illusion of the charm floating in the air between them, as distinct as the real thing, but silent, dead. It had no weight, no substance, and would dissipate into nothing the moment she let the thought of it slip from her mind. Keeping it in place was like holding a butterfly between her hands. It wanted to fly away but was too fragile to break free; at the same time, she liked the feeling of mastery it gave her. Maintaining the illusion required a delicate touch.
Her concentration shattered the moment Atilde's words sunk in. "You know what tash is?" she asked, startled.
"Of course." The warden's translucent lips formed a faint smile as the illusion wavered and vanished. "I am expert in all aspects of the Change."
The thin hands released her. Shilly fell back onto her stool as though the muscles in her good leg had turned to water.
"Skender next." Atilde brushed past Sal to approach the boy on the far stool. Skender looked nervously up at the Master Warden as she loomed over him. Atilde took two steps backward and drew another design in the air.
"Explain," she said, indicating the intricate pattern of interlocking curves, each one a pronounced U. "Tell me what this does."
A look of dismay passed across Skender's face. "I don't know," he said. "I've never seen it before."
"I suspected as much; it's a Sky Warden visualisation, and you have been trained the Interior way. But the principles behind this are not dissimilar to some your father teaches. You should be able to work it out." Atilde gestured at the pattern again. It began to pulsate gently in and out, as though breathing.
Skender's dismay only deepened. Shilly wished she could send the answer to him through the Change, but they might as well have been separated by walls a mile thick. The pattern influenced air movement in enclosed spaces, such as houses. Without the Change, she was mute.
Skender shook his head. "I don't know," he repeated. "It makes water less salty?"
Atilde smiled thinly and gave him the correct answer. "Now," she said, grasping Skender's hands as she had Shilly's, "make it work for me."
The boy concentrated, drawing on the warden's talent rather than his own, and managed to make a fitful breeze dance through the room. The wide brim of Atilde's hat fluttered in front of her face.
"Thank you, Skender. Lastly, show me something precious from home. Demonstrate the third path of mastery."
Skender's brow furrowed. For a moment nothing happened, then far above them something moved across the shadowed ceiling. Shilly looked up into the face of one of the guardians protecting the Way between the Keep and Ulum--an enormous stone statue six metres high. Its face scowled down at her, then lifted up out of sight, and disappeared.
"Big is not necessarily better, young Van Haasteren," Warden Atilde scolded.
"I wasn't trying to show off," he said, at least half-seriously, Shilly thought. "I didn't know that you could create illusions of man-kin, and I wanted to give it a go. That's all."
"Why wouldn't you be able to?"
"Because--well, you can't create illusions of people because they have minds. Man'kin have minds, and I assumed--"
"All living things have minds," Atilde informed him, "but not all minds are the same. Animals have minds that exist entirely in the present, with little or no thought of tomorrow or yesterday. Humans travel from past to future in a dynamic tension between both extremes; it is this motion that makes them difficult to recreate. Man-kin, on the other hand, see all things at once, hence their ability to foretell or reveal things that are not known to us." Her face darkened. "There are other minds that see in yet different ways, and you may learn about them during your studies here--but that is a topic for another day. Suffice it to say that you should have guessed the illusion would work because Shilly showed us yadeh-tash. That charm and the man'kin are fundamentally the same, although they share no common origin."
Satisfied that Skender had taken her point, Master Warden Atilde moved to her right to confront Sal.
"Last but not least," she said to him, "it is your turn. Give me your left hand."
Warily Sal obeyed, and with two swift movements she undid the charm around his wrist that he, Skender and Shilly had tried many times to remove on the way from Ulum. A seemingly simple band of plaited leather, it dug tight if Sal strayed too far from his grandmother. It also had an inhibitory effect on his use of the Change, although his talent was so great that nothing could contain it completely.
Atilde drew another charm in the air, a series of dots and lines with no apparent order.
"Tell me what this would do."
Sal shook his head.
"You don't know or you won't tell me?"
"I don't know," he said. "Does that mean I fail the examination?"
Atilde's eyes narrowed. "This charm turns dust into fog. Show me how it works."
"I can't. I'm on the wrong side of the Divide."
"You are a wild talent. That doesn't stop you."
"I thought the idea was to control wild talents, not encourage them."
"The idea is to learn, boy, and you won't learn unless you do as I say." Atilde's glassy stare locked with Sal's for a long, strained moment.
Then he looked away. He stared hard at the pattern, and Shilly felt the Change flex through him. Instantly every mote of dust in the room turned to a tiny drop of water. A thin mist hung in the air, glittering in the silver light, and moisture coated every surface.
"Very good, "Atilde started to say.
But Sal wasn't done. The Change flexed again, and a sudden gale whipped through the room, sending the mist into a furious whirlwind. A third time the Change responded to Sal's command, and every droplet of water suspended in the air turned to ice.
As the room filled with swirling snow, blinding her, Shilly felt a hand on her arm dragging her toward the door.
"Stop!" Atilde's shout coincided with strong hands reaching out of the snowstorm and holding Shilly still. She felt Sal struggling beside her before his hand fell away. There was a sound like glass breaking in the distance, and suddenly the air was full of dust again.
Some went up her nose. She sneezed instantly.
"I see we're going to have to keep our wits about us," Atilde said, striding calmly across the room to where Sal was held by two attendants. The hood of one of them had fallen back, revealing a silver-haired, dark-skinned man with a severe expression. He held Sal tight as Atilde reattached the bracelet to Sal's wrist, then he let go and replaced his hood.
"No further testing is required," Warden Atilde said to all of them. "I judge you worthy of the Novitiate. Classes commence in two hours. You will be present, or your stay here will become decidedly less comfortable."
"I don't care about comfort--" Sal began.
"You should care." The Warden's icy eyes flashed at him. "I'm the only thing standing between you and the Syndic. The Alcaide has seen to that. The fact that one of you is the son of an important Stone Mage grants you unique status, irrespective of what certain other parties want. This arrangement might not be permanent--but it could be, and it would be wise not to sink your ships before you've sailed them. If you want my advice, it would be to behave."
Sal swallowed his protest with a visible effort. Atilde was right: it wouldn't pay to cause too much trouble too quickly. Shilly wanted to ask why the Alcaide had sent them to the Novitiate--to help them or to hinder them--but there were too many things battling for her attention at once. She could only ask one thing at a time. And she had a role to play.
"You mean you're going to let us study here?" she asked.
"Temporarily--at least until your situation is resolved. I know there are some ambiguities; that's not my concern. My job is to ensure that you perform while you are in my care." She briefly but pointedly fixed Sal with a stare.
"You will stand out," she said, turning to pace, her gloved hands clapping lightly behind her back. "As I said, the term started weeks ago. People will wonder why you are special, to be allowed in so late. I will not tell them; that battle is for you to fight. My only advice to you is this: don't turn your back on what you have been given. Each of you is strong, in your own way, and you should take the chance to learn how to use those strengths. To do otherwise would dishonour what you have--and some gifts can be taken away."
She nodded to herself, as though confirming that she hadn't forgotten anything.
"That's all. Take them to see their new home."
The attendants lining the wall closed in. Shilly didn't resist as she, Sal and Skender were guided out of the room, leaving the unearthly pale woman alone with the settling dust.