The Spirit Gate by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff Read Free Book Online Page B

had served at Lorant, longer since one had schooled there. The art
of the Mateu had long been without its shai complement. Perhaps it was time for
the two streams of magic to recombine.
    Kassia grimaced at such a self-congratulatory thought, but
deep inside she could not deny she felt confidence in her own ability. She had
the raw talent to have a real effect in the world around her, she needed only
discipline—discipline
Lorant offered. Eyes on the proud walls, gold where the rising Sun blessed
them, she squared her shoulders. Today she would go to Lorant and apply for
initiation. Today she would change her own life.
    oOo
    She wore her best dress. An orderly riot of bold colors on
a field of midnight blue, it had faded only slightly in the years since her
wedding to Shurik Cheslaf. The pattern was traditional; the four points of the
compass rendered as a brightly hued cross in the four elemental colors—green, blue, red and
yellow. This was set in the midst of a double circle—the inner circle green for Itugen, the outer circle
golden for the Sun in Mat’s
sky. She did not cover her hair, but marched up the long, tree-lined road to
the college bare-headed, entering beneath its grand arches into the main
courtyard.
    Apprentices, Initiates and lay students went here and there
about their business; she saw no priests, Aspirants or Mateu. Since everyone
else was in motion, Kassia targeted the shaggy, white-haired old man who was
tending the school of kites.
    “Excuse
me,” she said to his back as he reeled in a message to the royal yam, “but do you know where
I must go to apply for initiation?”
    “Just
a moment, boy. Just a moment. I’ve
a kite to bring down, here, and another to send up. I suppose you can wait a
moment, eh?” He turned then, and got an eyeful of the “boy” behind him. His good eye—the
one not hidden by a patch—widened
to a stupefied circle of charcoal gray, and his yellowed teeth tightened on the
deer horn pipe he clamped between them.
    Uncomfortable beneath his disconcerting gaze, Kassia stifled
anger and schooled her face to a neutral expression. “I suppose I can, though it would only take you a
moment to help me, I’m
sure.”
    The man loosened his grip on the pipe stem and blinked at
her. “Initiate,
heh?” The gray eye looked her up and down. “You’re
not the usual type.”
    “Meaning,
I’m not male?”
    “Meaning,
you are shai. There have not been shai at Lorant since the death of Marija of
Ohdan. Many years now.”
    “Well,” Kassia said, with more confidence than she felt, “soon there will be shai here again.”
    The kite master raised his brows, the left one peeking above
the edge of his eye patch. He pointed over her shoulder at the main facade of
the huge stone building that dominated the courtyard. “In through the center door there. Turn to the left.
You’ll want the
Headmaster’s
parlor. You’ll
see the banner by the door.”
    She thanked him and turned to go.
    “Let
me know how you do,” he said to her back.
    She glanced over her shoulder, mouth open in reply, but he
had already gone back to his kites. They danced to the movement of his fingers
upon the strings, this one rising, that one dipping earthward. It would be
pleasant to linger, to watch him handle them, but Kassia turned away from the
pleasant and toward the unknown.
    Within Lorant it was as he had said; she entered a broad,
high-ceilinged hall with a gallery overlooking it on three sides. Light fell
from clerestory windows above the door through which she entered, cutting
great, bright slices out of the tarry shadows in the hall. The long beams of
radiance seemed so solid Kassia imagined for a moment she might reach out and
feel the texture of sunlight.
    She heard voices to her right, and glanced that way. A group
of Initiates clustered around an open doorway. The banner hanging there
indicated it was a library or archive. Not wanting to draw their attention, she
turned her face away and saw a