When they arose the next morning, a brown-robed visitor awaited them. A spare-framed, tall woman with close-cropped white hair and piercing blue eyes stood in the main hallway. She took a few steps to stand in front of Tris, and looked at him as if she were taking his measure and weighing his soul.
"You are Martris Drayke?"
"I am."
"What do you seek here, son of Bricen?"
Tris held her gaze unwaveringly. "To understand my power and control it. I have to find a way to defeat Arontala and unseat Jared."
The sister looked at him appraisingly. "Very well. Our time is short, and the quest is great. At the coming of the Hawthorn Moon, Arontala will attempt strong magic—blood magic—to free the soul of the Obsidian King. If he succeeds, we will see conflict and darkness greater than in the time of the Great War."
"Can't the Sisterhood stop him?" Tris asked. "I mean, you are experienced mages—"
"Only a Summoner can stop him." She met Tris's eyes. "And you are the only Summoner in the Winter Kingdoms." She paused.
"Teach me," Tris said levelly. "We came here to find out how to overturn the darkness, in Margolan, Isencroft and Dhasson."
"It is the same darkness, and the same quest," she said. "Your paths are woven together by the hand of the Lady. I have come to be the first of your teachers. I am Sister Taru."
Tris began his lessons with Sister Taru and Maire right after breakfast. As Vahanian headed for the salle, and Carina, Kiara and Carroway— with Berry at his heels—paired up with keepers and headed into the depths of the Library, Taru guided Tris to a sparsely furnished study. Maire lit a fire and set a pot of tea to boil. Finally, Taru motioned Tris to sit. She and Maire sat down to face him.
"So you are the grandson of Bava K'aa," Taru said. "My Sisters believe you are her mage heir. What say you?"
Tris met her gaze. "I have always been able to speak to spirits, call them, see them—even when others couldn't. Not just on Haunts. I remember some lessons with grandmother, when I was young. Simple pathworkings, warding spells, household magic. But since the murders," he said, and his voice caught. "Since the murders," he repeated, willing his voice to hold, "I feel power I've never felt before—in me and around me. Sometimes, like with the slavers, it flows through me, past what I can control." Taru and Maire listened as Tris recounted the story of their journey, the ghosts he had encountered and those he freed, and finally, the spirits of the Ruune Vidaya.
When he ended his tale, Taru and Maire exchanged glances. "In the years since Bava K'aa died," Taru began quietly, "mages have been sent to the Ruune Vidaya to quiet the spirits. None succeeded and none returned. Yet you have lived to tell the tale, you, barely twenty summers old, a fledgling mage, and you have bent the forests' spirits to your cause, bargained for the safety of your friends, and then given them their rest!"
Tris flushed and looked down. "I know it sounds hard to believe."
"Except that we have confirmed it," Taru said evenly. "The Ruune Vidaya is no longer haunted. I believe that any mage of power could feel the wrenching of the currents that night. I felt it myself, although I did not know the cause. Wild magic, barely still within the Light," she said, fixing Tris with her stare.
"I felt pretty awful for quite a while," Tris admitted sheepishly. "If you could, please, teach me how to stop passing out every time I do a large working. I can't fight Arontala if I keep doing that."
A faint smile came to Taru's lips. "Trained mages have died amidst that kind of storm," she said. "Yet you did not."
"Help me," Tris said. "I'm acting on instinct, and it isn't enough. If Carina and Alyzza hadn't shown me how to shield back at the caravan, I'd be mad from the spirits by now. That night, in the forest, the shields almost didn't hold. I thought—" he started, and then stopped, afraid to put into words something he only felt. "I thought," he started again, "that I might lose my soul there. It felt as if... I was being pulled to pieces—by the power, and the spirits."
Taru was watching him closely. "Your instincts are correct," she said. "You were closer to death—and your soul's destruction—than you may realize. An untrained mage could not have managed what you did. That is not instinct," she said, leaning forward, "and that is not talent. That must be training, deep training, that someone wanted you to forget."
"Look at me, Tris," Maire said, and Tris shifted in his chair. From the folds of her cloak, Maire withdrew a crystal carving of the Lady with her quatrain icons. "I want you to focus on this," Maire said, her voice soothing. "We're going to do a pathworking, and I'm going to take you deep into your memories. It will be as real to you as when it occurred. The way may not be easy."
"I'm ready," Tris said.
Taru set a warding around them. Then, within the warded circle, she set another warding, this one separating Tris from herself and Maire. "I cannot gauge your reaction or your control," the Sister said. "This is for your protection as well as our own."
"I understand."
Maire set the focus icon on the table in front of him. "When do you remember first working with your grandmother?"
Tris thought for a moment. "Grandmother always let me follow along with her. She taught me to call handfire the same summer I started my schooling. I was five or six," he recalled. "I don't think I helped with her pathworkings until I was eight or nine."
Taru nodded. "That is the age when a child with promise would begin serious lessons. Take him back to his tenth year," she instructed Maire. "And let's see what he knew."
Maire met his eyes. "Focus on the icon, Tris," she said, "and listen to my voice. Fix the icon in your mind. Memorize it. Make your picture detailed, as if you have it in your hands. Weigh it. Feel its texture, how cool it is to the touch, how smooth. See how it shines. Smell the incense that clings to it. Taste the incense in your mouth. Once it is real, hold that image. Hold it. Now, make it disappear. Hold the emptiness. Hear nothing but my voice. Hold the empty space. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply. Again. You are present in that empty space. You are ten summers old, with your grandmother in her study. What do you see?"
Tris opened his eyes, and looked around him at Bava K'aa's rooms in Shekerishet. The familiar smell of her candles mingled with the scent of wood smoke and incense. Summer sun streamed through the mullioned windows, casting a parquet of shadows on the floor. On the table lay the instruments of a pathworking—a bit of parchment, her athame, a candle, some herbs. Near him, his grandmother bustled about, moving between the table and the fire, where a small pot simmered on the hearth. He could feel the energy of her warding, creating a sense of safety around the perimeter of the braided rug she used as her workspace. Tris heard himself describe these things aloud, as if in a dream, separate enough from himself that he did not wonder at it.
"What do you know of magic, Martris Drayke?" he heard a distant voice ask. Bava K'aa continued her work, as if the voice spoke to him alone. Here within the warding, he did not fear the voice.
"I have completed the first level of wardings, and the second level of workings," he replied, his voice thinner and cracking on some words, in the way of a youth on the verge of manhood. "I'm not permitted an athame yet. I can summon the spirits and dispel them. I have watched grandmother bless their passing over, joined her in the spirit plains, to feel how it is done. We practice many hours each day."
"Good, very good," the voice soothed. Now close your eyes. A year has passed. You are eleven. What do you know now, Martris Drayke?"
The boy looked around himself at the familiar workroom, at the goblets and half-burnt candles, at the worn mortar and pestle, at the vials and boxes. "Grandmother says we must hurry," he replied. "Sometimes, Carroway helps us. I have set wardings, and used her scrying ball. We have gone to the crypts and summoned the spirits of my fathers, and once, we turned a demon." The boy shuddered. "It came in the guise of a spirit, begging a favor. It asked for harm to fall on the living, which is not permitted. I refused, and it showed its true nature. I fought it and turned it without her help, but only barely. I was sick for three days and mother was afraid I'd taken a fever." He paused. "We are at the third level of wardings and the fourth level of workings."
"You are a clever boy," the voice responded. "Now, close your eyes once more. It is the summer before your fostering. You are fourteen. What of your mage studies now?"
The boy's voice was deeper, no longer a child's. "I have walked among the vayash moru and I can work fifth-level pathworkings. I have helped grandmother with battle scryings, and I have called spirits. I have intervened between the living and the dead, and made the passing for those who wish to seek the Lady. Grandmother is worried." "Why?"
"Because I go to my fostering, and she has not finished my training. We work dawn to dusk. I am tired. She has gotten mother to postpone the fostering twice, and without explaining the true reason—she cannot sway father again. She says I must not show my powers, not even to mother. But she is also anxious to send me away."
"Why?"
The boy paused. "She is afraid for me. She fears Jared will harm me."
"Tris," a voice called. "Come back. Breathe."
Just as quickly, the scene left him. This time, the memories remained—of Bava K'aa and of the workings.
Maire and Taru were watching him with concern. Maire fetched Tris a warm cup of tea, which he accepted with shaking hands.
"If I knew how to work magic then," Tris asked, his voice unsteady but once again his own, "why didn't I use it against Jared? Lady and Whore, if I could have used magic, why didn't I?"
Taru considered for a moment while he struggled to steady his nerves. "I believe your grandmother knew of your situation, and did what she could to arrange the 'fortuitous accidents' that intervened on your behalf. But Bricen would not hear her about Jared. To protect you, your grandmother buried the memories of your training deeply. Tell me, what specifics did you remember, of all the time you spent with her, before this working?"
Tris thought hard. "Just that she wanted me around, and I was happy to be there." He frowned. "I know that it kept me busy, but before this, I couldn't have told you how."
Maire nodded. "I suspect that even before Jared brought Arontala to Shekerishet, he was coming under Arontala's influence. Bava K'aa would have sensed that. She must have known that if Jared—and Arontala—suspected that you bore any magepower, they would have killed you." She paused. "Perhaps, she also knew that her own time was growing short. She could not protect you for much longer—at least, not as a living mage. Hiding your training was her best hope of preparing you to protect Margolan someday."
"Then why did I begin to use my power after the murders?"
"Sometimes, those with magegift do not know their power until there is a great shock, a fear so deep and so complete that it opens all channels and frees whatever blocked the flow of power," Taru said slowly. "I do not know what trigger your grandmother intended," she added. "Perhaps your power would have come at a certain age or in a certain place. But the grief and fear and anger you felt the night of the murders were strong enough for you to use the most primal instinct to survive." She paused. "For you, that meant triggering your gift."
She sat back and looked at Tris. "What do you remember now?"
Tris thought for a moment, and stared at the tea in his cup. "A lot," he said quietly. "It's like someone opened a door to a room in my mind that I never knew was there before."
Taru nodded. "Your grandmother pushed you hard. By your account, you reached the level of a fifth-year student. It is a solid beginning."
"But Arontala is a full sorcerer!" Tris protested. "And the Obsidian King the greatest mage of his time. How can I hope to defeat them?"
Taru considered carefully. "With mastery comes arrogance. It is in your favor if they underestimate the strength of your power. Your gift is very great," she said, "but I am not yet sure you can control it. Which means that it might be wrested from you and used against you, or—"
"Or?" Tris countered. "That's not bad enough?"
"Or it may take over, as it did in the forest, blasting through a channel that cannot contain it, destroying both you and everything around you." She paused. "First, we must prepare you to win back the sword of your grandmother from the spirit of King Argus who guards it, here in the catacombs below the Library. For good reason have you come to Westmarch."
"I don't understand," Tris said. Who is King Argus? And why must I win his sword to defeat the Obsidian King?"
Taru and Maire exchanged glances. "King Argus was the king of Principality during the Mage Wars. He fought beside your grandmother against the Obsidian King."
"He was a friend of my grandmother's?"
Taru frowned. "An ally, it might be more truthful to say. Argus's first and only allegiance was to Principality. He could be a ruthless enemy. He kept his own counsel, and fully trusted no one, except perhaps Bava K'aa. But one thing was unquestionable—Argus was the sworn enemy of the Obsidian King. Truly sworn, because in the last, darkest days of the Mage Wars, when all seemed lost, Argus swore Istra's Bargain to offer his life for that of the Obsidian King. The Lady granted his oath. And it was the sword Mageslayer, ensorcelled at its forging with great power, that Argus and Bava K'aa wielded to strike the deathblow to the Obsidian King." She paused.
"Even were you a fully trained mage, there are some among the Council who do not think you could succeed without Mageslayer. Therefore, we must risk retrieving it."
"Risk?"
Taru met his eyes levelly. "So great was Mageslayer's reputation—and perhaps, its power—that Bava K'aa and Argus determined it must be guarded. Some argued that it should be destroyed, but perhaps Bava K'aa feared that we might one day face another threat. So Argus, who was himself a Summoner—though lesser in power than Bava K'aa—agreed to stand watch over Mageslayer, in a crypt below this building." She took a deep breath. "None may retrieve the sword, except it be won in combat. Many have tried. None have returned. To fail means joining Argus on his watch. Argus's spirit is bound here by strong magic, because he fell not a day's ride from these walls, at the foot of Gibbet Bridge."
"We've only got until the Hawthorn Moon."
Taru shook her head. "Less than that. You must reach Principality City before the snows set in, when the best armies are to be bought. And we are still too close to the Margolan border for you to stay here."
"Could Jared really reach us here in the Library? Isn't it spelled?"
Taru nodded. "You are safe from his armies within these walls. But we cannot allow him to cut you off from Principality City, and every day that passes makes that possibility greater. Our time is short."