Deep magic second coll.., p.23
Deep Magic - Second Collection, page 23
part #2 of Deep Magic Collection Series
After turning down a handful of side streets, she merged into the current of human traffic flowing to the city center. The smells of caramelized nuts and chili-peppered potatoes kneaded her stomach, but she ignored the vendors. Her eyes latched onto the limestone pyramid dominating the horizon. Her old home and prison: the Temple of the Bonded.
Getting inside would be no problem. She and Kavai had explored all the servants’ passageways and hidden alcoves as children. Finding Kavai wasn’t the issue either. He would be in the convalescence chamber, most likely still unconscious. The issue was that the gift she meant to give him would be his undoing.
But the best gifts required the heaviest sacrifices.
* * *
Whoever told you eight was the average age for a Starbonder’s abilities to manifest mustn’t have expected the relentless whining after your eighth birthday. I remember the tutors sharing stories about your refusal to continue your training. You had to be willed into compliance at every turn—and the Starbonders didn’t relish wasting their reserves on a moody child. The master pyromancer even said you’d threatened not to eat until they showed you how to move things with your mind like Ruzaal. Poor deluded child that you were, you demanded to be shown this “great power” everyone claimed you had, but that you’d never seen evidence of.
So they showed you.
I should have known when Father took me in his arms that last day. He held me too fiercely and for too long. When he didn’t come home that evening, the masters told me the stars had called him back to the heavens.
Did you never question it? A carpenter as skilled as our father, and we were expected to believe an improperly angled roof had caved in on him? You were too busy throwing a fit like only a Third Order Starbonder could, as volatile as the star that chose you. But I don’t blame you for not realizing it then. I was thirteen, and the stars hadn’t enlightened me to the truth either. It was years later, when my suspicions had kindled and I’d stolen into the archives, that I learned there was a sacrificial burning the night Father died.
I imagine Ruzaal waited before activating our father’s sacrifice, because it was moons later that your will first began to manifest. About the same time the Starbonders began giving you those “herbal supplement” capsules with your morning meals, allegedly to strengthen your body against the strain of using your will.
Mother must have known she’d be next. She probably wanted to prepare us, to ease us into envisioning a life without her. I don’t know if the “blood sickness” was her idea or the Third Order’s. But it was perfect: a disease with no outward traces, no visible symptoms. All she had to do was complain of fatigue and nausea once in a while, and we would be reminded that she was temporary.
In the years leading to Mother’s death, questions began to surface. How many Starbonders have living parents or siblings? How do stars choose their sacrifices? And if sacrifices are for giving our bodies back to the stars, why do we hoard our remains in the Hall of Ashes? I didn’t understand how the same questions hadn’t occurred to you—you, who spent your childhood studying the dance of heavens, who could ask the stars why they were taking our loved ones from us. I wanted to grab you and scream at you to open your eyes, but every time you asked why I was so sour I found myself grumbling some excuse. I couldn’t share my suspicions with you. It was like an invisible hand closed around my throat whenever I tried.
Suspicions festered into certainty the more I investigated. The deaths of Starbonders’ families, the sacrificial burnings we were never allowed to watch, the herbal supplements religiously consumed by Starbonders yet always absent from the kitchen cabinets. As time went by I grew certain you’d put the pieces together too, but had turned away so you could have your power.
The day Mother died I confronted Ruzaal. I asked him what happened to his family, if he takes “herbal supplements,” and if there would be a burning in the square that night. I demanded to be taken to our mother’s body. He knew he could no longer will my ignorance. But it wasn’t enough. Ruzaal forbade me from going to the square, and despite my mind’s screams, my legs listened. The hand of his will remained cinched around my throat. I was crippled, silenced, my mind trapped in a prison of flesh. I knew whose screams would wash over Qatana that night, but that knowledge changed nothing.
* * *
Nyssoh waited until the shamans left the convalescence chamber, their baskets of incense and medicinal herbs dangling from their elbows, then slipped out from behind the pillar at the corridor’s end. She brushed aside the beaded straw tassels hanging from the doorway. Saffron-infused smoke burned her throat as she drew up alongside the one occupied pallet at the chamber’s end.
Sweat gleamed on Kavai’s face. His brow was furrowed and his features strained, the ridge of scar tissue on his branded cheek taut like a serpent constricting around its prey. His hair hung in sweat-dampened waves down the unburnt side of his head, while the other half was clean-shaven and marred with scar tissue.
Nyssoh ran two fingers along the damaged cheek’s indentations. So powerful yet so helpless, her brother. A chained starling set ablaze. She slid the letters from her cape pocket. Her heart pumped with the strain of acting against the Starbonders’ will. Or was it with the knowledge that she was about to do something she shouldn’t be able to?
Ruzaal had willed her against speaking the truth to Kavai. But writing the truth was a different matter, so long as she didn’t deliver her words into her brother’s hands. That would be an act of revolution against the stars’ chosen representatives. That would make her a Libertarian.
Nyssoh extended the papyrus scrolls toward Kavai. Her arm moved closer until the letters hovered over her brother’s chest. All that was left was to slip them inside his tunic.
Her fingers locked like frozen claws, arm dropping to her side. She released the breath she’d been holding. There was no breaking her bonds. Her mind might be free, but her body remained a puppet dancing on the strings of the Starbonders’ will.
The starling bound in chains, fire streaming from its open beak, wingtips trailing flames . . .
But she didn’t have to break her bonds. She only had to bend them, wrap them around her enslavers.
The sensation of will draining from her announced Ruzaal’s presence. Nyssoh stuffed the scrolls back inside the folds of her cape before his shadow darkened the doorway. “I knew you’d find me,” she said without turning.
Boots clicked on limestone as Ruzaal closed the distance between them. His exhale brimmed with the same disappointment she’d imagined on his face in the rainforest. As if she’d dragged him into the room by force. “You shouldn’t have returned. I have no choice but to take you to the sacrificial temple.”
“There is always a choice.”
“Nyssoh—”
“Don’t.” She spun to face him. “Don’t tell me my death is written in the stars and you have no power over it.”
The burns on Ruzaal’s left cheek gleamed white as his jaw tightened. They were sparing, as far as bonding scars went—four ridges like claw marks running from forehead to jaw. His hairline was untouched, but Nyssoh had never known Ruzaal to sport anything but a clean-shaven head. It accented the short black beard tracing his mouth.
“I thought the attack that nearly claimed your brother’s life would change your outlook on Libertarian blasphemy,” Ruzaal said.
Nyssoh shut her eyes. Civilians screaming, scattering. The flames on the Libertarians’ banners coming to life against a smoke-ridden sky. She opened her eyes and found the brooch fastening Razuul’s cape at his throat: the onyx starling with its flaming opal eye, sigil of the bonded.
“Kavai didn’t know what he was doing,” Ruzaal continued. “There was no technique behind his will. Yet when it washed over the city, every terrorist had his bones ground to paste, while civilians got up and brushed themselves off amid the carnage. The stars dealt their retribution to those who failed to recognize their authority.”
“Your authority.”
“It is the destiny of the chosen to enforce the stars’ wills.”
He may as well have written the Book of Destiny, Razuul, for all he quoted it. But unlike the others, his eyes never kindled when he did. Nyssoh wondered who’d smothered the fight in him, left him with no desire save to smother the fight in others. “What happens after my ashes are used up?” she asked. “Or if there’s another attack on the Hall of Ashes? Who will be left for him?” And who do you have left to love, Ruzaal? Who do you have left to burn?
“The stars will provide.” Ruzaal’s eyes snapped to her, cool and dark like solid gold. “Questions were always your downfall.”
She gave a bitter laugh. “I was a lamb for slaughter whether I was aware of it or not.”
“Unaware, you could have spent your last years happy. I suppose there is some measure of free will. It is reserved for the self-destructive. Those like the Libertarian rebels. Like you. I tried to shield you from pain, but you chose it. Just like you’re choosing it tonight. Why did you come back, you burning fool?”
His eyes flared, and with a shock Nyssoh realized he’d wanted her to escape. As much as a Starbonder could want anything that contradicted the stars’ wills. We’re all puppets, all slaves to the Book of Destiny.
“I . . . had to say good-bye to Kavai,” she said in a tight voice.
Ruzaal looked to the form lying on the bed. “He’ll be all right. It’s not uncommon to lose consciousness after depleting a reserve through one act. Your brother rid us of the Libertarian insurrection for years to come. But this was only the first battle. The theocracy will need Kavai in the coming war. And Kavai will need fuel to power his will.”
A lump lodged in Nyssoh’s throat. “You can’t will him into ignorance forever. One day his mind will break free, as mine has.”
“No, Nyssoh. The stars’ grip on their bonded is unwavering. Myself, I was told the truth when I was just a boy. But the Book of Destiny has ordered Kavai’s continued ignorance. The stars say he will refuse to use his power if he knows, and we cannot afford that with revolution on our doorstep.”
This was it. Nyssoh would bend her chains, twist them around the master. “If you could will Kavai into maturity, would you?”
“Of course.” Silence spread for a moment, and then Ruzaal exhaled. “Stalling won’t help either of us.”
Nyssoh nodded and turned her back on him, bending over the pallet to press her lips to Kavai’s forehead. It is Ruzaal’s will for you to mature, Brother. With these letters, I thrust maturity upon you. The new command overriding the former. The chains bent to her own design. As she embraced Kavai, a fluid motion transferred the scrolls from her pocket to his.
Nyssoh straightened and turned. Fear drained the warmth from her, making her tremble. It was quickly replaced by a spark of comfort: the knowledge that she was dying for a good cause, the certainty of her noble purpose—
“No!” she growled, shrinking back from Ruzaal.
“I wanted only to relieve your fear.”
“I need this to be my decision.”
He shook his head, but the grip of willpower released her as he extended his hand. “Always choosing pain.”
The cold returned, an iron grip seizing her stomach. Nyssoh smiled through it and took Ruzaal’s hand, the rebels’ chants ringing in her ears.
Rather killed than let myself be willed.
* * *
You loved me best of all. That’s why they saved me for last. I was for an emergency. A holy war with the Libertarians is certainly an emergency.
I need you to know that I didn’t abandon you that day. Since the first flaming arrow sailed over the parapet, I thought you were behind me. Then I realized you weren’t among the current of stamping feet and flailing arms. My calls for you went unheard over the screaming chorus.
And then you were there, standing on the parapet surrounded by flames, arms outstretched and palms outward. Your silhouette glowed from the force of will. Barely twenty years old, and you were trying to will several hundred people at once.
I pushed against the crowd to reach you. But willpower exploded from you like a tempest and sent everyone for leagues sprawling. I woke up with body parts steaming around me. Each of the dead had the Libertarian sigil stitched to his tunic: a flaming starling wrapped in chains.
I should have been among them, Kavai. For years I’ve known I was a Libertarian. Ruzaal knows it too, and has kept a strict watch over me. Had I been allowed to live longer, perhaps I would have learned how to elude even his will.
Word spread quickly that the Libertarians were headed for the Hall of Ashes. Some reached it. They emptied urns into the rivers, stamped ashes into the dirt. Risking their lives to defile our most holy place.
To anyone watching, I must have looked like any other grief-stricken citizen, one of hundreds surging to the Hall of Ashes in search of loved ones scattered to the wind. In our parents’ alcove, two dust-free circles marked where their urns had once sat. The horror hit me then. Your fuel was gone, and I would be the replacement. I wanted to join the mourners around me. But I was mourning for myself.
I never understood why you couldn’t remove the order’s blindfold as I have. You’re a Starbonder of the Third Order, yet Ruzaal wills you into ignorance as easily as moving a piece on a gameboard. Whatever power the stars have given you, Kavai, it isn’t willpower. Yours is the power of a nocked arrow. Controlling objects and people isn’t willpower. Controllingyourself is. That’s what Libertarians do that Starbonders can’t.
Ruzaal doesn’t want to take responsibility for my death. It comforts him to think the archer, not the arrow, performs the sin. But the arrow doesn’t think, doesn’t feel. It isn’t alive.
I’m sacrificing myself not for your star’s will, but for yours. You have a choice: continue controlling others at the expense of those you love, or control yourself and step away from your star-given power.
Whatever you decide, Brother, the choice is of your making.
See you in another life,
~ Nyssoh
ABOUT ALEXANDRA BALASA
Alexandra Balasa attends the University of Texas at Dallas, where she is a teaching assistant and PhD student in literature and creative writing. Although she ponders existentialism, is obsessed with owls, and collects rocks, she promises she is not a cliché. After all, she does not own any cats (the neighbour's cats, who have appropriated her house, don't count). She writes speculative fiction with a psychological edge, and her writing explores questions of identity and moral ambiguity. Her writing has appeared in venues such as PodCastle, Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores, and the Lorelei Signal.
Facebook: alexandra.balasa.35
Twitter: @BalasaAl
LULLABY FOR THE TREES
By Sarina Dorie | 10,000 Words
A SINGLE NOTE rose out of Mama’s throat. It was so beautiful, I forgot my cold and only felt wonder. The high, sweet song wove a pattern in the trees around her, brilliant sparks of magic bursting like fireworks in the dark shadows under the ancient boughs. I rubbed my eyes in awe. This had to be my imagination playing tricks on me, something inspired by watching too much television.
Mama’s voice could melt hearts and sing the forest awake. At least, that’s what Papa said. Tonight she sang, and the great oaks shivered. The twisted apple tree above her unbent his trunk and straightened to his full height. The air filled with the perfume of apple cider and autumn, making me feel safe and content.
I watched from behind a cluster of birches some distance from the immense apple tree. In that moment, I came to believe the folktales from the old country. My parents had told me about vilas, the maidens who were nature fairies, and leshii, the tree people. The grandfather apple tree came alive. His cracked bark smoothed, reminding me of human flesh, and the surface of his trunk gathered into an expression of admiration. He spoke with a voice as resonant as church bells, and when he sang, I knew I was in a sacred sanctuary.
The twisted limbs remained still, but they creaked and groaned as if dancing in a windstorm. Mama raised her arms, and her cape fell open, exposing the pale gown she wore underneath that looked like it belong to another time. Papa often teased her about being a romantic. Only being six, I wasn’t sure what a romantic was. I suspected it had something to do with kissing, something my parents were quite fond of.
Mama danced around the tree, singing with joy. A percussion of pops and clicks echoed around us and vibrated through my body. My fingers twitched, and my toes, numb with cold, warmed in the embrace of music. She and the tree sang a duet. The grandfather apple tree’s roots shifted as she danced around him. Any moment it felt as though he might uproot himself and twirl her in his arms.
I found myself swaying to the melody. When the first note escaped my lips, the forest music soured into silence. The magic died. The tree was just a tree. The air no longer smelled of hot apple cider and merriment, but rotting apples and wet mildew.
My mother leaned against the gnarled trunk, out of breath and spent. She looked up at me and frowned.
Knowing I would be in big trouble for spying, I ran. She called after me, but I didn’t heed her words. I raced along the moonlit path. My feet crunched past the caved-in shack and then through the field of our neighbor’s farm. In a few more minutes, I rushed up the porch steps and snuck back inside. A floorboard creaked as I tiptoed to bed. The pounding of my heart was loud enough I was surprised I didn’t wake Papa. I expected to hear Mama march up to the door, the creak of rusty hinges signaling her arrival. I waited to be chewed out.
In the morning, Papa woke me. He didn’t question why twigs were stuck to the hem of my nightgown or why my bare feet were covered in dirt. “Dobryj ranok, Liliya,” he said in Ukrainian.
