“Kali is the demon-slayer. Perhaps this is a demon she has conquered?” Kyra hazarded.
“You are too literal,” said Shirin Mam, “but that is one way of looking at it. Actually, the creature represents time. The three heads stand for the past, the present, and the future. Kali is beyond the reach of time and so too is the Markswoman who uses this word of power.”
“I don’t understand,” whispered Kyra.
“You will,” said Shirin Mam. Kyra wanted to ask for an explanation, but her teacher had already walked to the next pillar.
The next carving was even more ghastly than the previous one. A fire raged through a field, ravaging people and animals alike. Their faces and bodies were distorted, melting into one another. In the middle of the field Kali—untouched by the flames—stood in a familiar pose. Her right hand was raised in benediction. Her left hand clutched the severed, blackened head of a demon.
Shirin Mam pressed her lips together, disapproving. Then she gave a fierce grin and said, “Agnisthil.”
And now Kyra was in the carving, screaming and twisting as the flames burned her flesh.
“Focus,” came Shirin Mam’s sharp voice. “Fix the hall in your mind and you will return to it.”
Once more Kyra shut her eyes. But it was difficult to ignore the searing of her flesh and the thin, screaming sounds from her own throat. It’s not real, she told herself. It’s the hall that’s real.
By the time she made it back, she was panting with the effort it had taken to wrench herself away from the flames.
“If you’d rather not go on . . .” said Shirin Mam softly.
“Do I have a choice?” demanded Kyra.
“You always have a choice,” said the Mahimata. “The only binds are those that you lay on yourself, or those that you allow to be laid on you.”
“What about you?” said Kyra before she could stop herself. “Did you allow yourself to be killed? If so, it was a poor choice.”
Kyra expected Shirin Mam to deny this, or scold her for her impertinence. But Shirin Mam only looked at her, a little sadly, and Kyra grew warm with shame. “I’m sorry, Mother. Please go on with your lesson. What does the word—the word you said—what does it do?”
“It is the cleansing fire which destroys falsehoods and shows you the truth. Not to be used lightly, for the truth can hurt you worse than those flames did.”
Shirin Mam walked to the next pillar. Kyra followed, apprehensive, but knowing that she did have a choice and she had chosen to continue with this lesson.
They went from pillar to pillar, image to image, and every word of power that Shirin Mam spoke snatched Kyra from the hall and threw her into a world of horror. She fell into the depths of an abyss, was trampled in the middle of a battlefield, and tossed by the giant waves of a dark, turbulent sea. She even struggled to emerge from a grave, choking as her mouth and nose filled with dirt. Gradually she got better at fixing the hall in her mind and was able to return to it more quickly. But by the time they came to the last pillar, she was trembling with fatigue and dizziness.
The last carving was innocuous, almost pleasant in comparison to the others. It was simply the carving of a door, plain and unadorned. Kyra stopped, and terror wrapped its fingers around her throat.
“No more,” she said. “Please.”
“One more,” said the Mahimata, her voice implacable. “The word is Tamam-shul.”
The hall vanished and nothing came to replace it. Kyra floated, a tiny speck in the vast emptiness of the universe. From somewhere came the distant, emotionless thought: I have been here before—and—I am dead.
Time passed, or perhaps it didn’t. There was no way to tell.
A grating voice disturbed the darkness: “Come back.”
No, thought Kyra. She floated farther, trying to get away from the voice. It was peaceful here.
“The hall, Kyra. Remember the hall.” The voice was full of urgency.
What hall? Kyra tried to remember. It was hard to care, in the womb-like nothingness of this place, about the world that existed beyond it.
“Kyra, remember your blade.”
Blade? Yes, she did have a blade. She had killed a man with it. She had plunged it into his heart, sending him to this same emptiness in which she now floated.
But wait, she wasn’t dead yet. What was she doing here?
With sickening clarity, Kyra remembered the door in the secret Hub. She fought against the darkness, limbs flailing as she tried to claw her way out of it. The darkness didn’t want to let her go. It held on, tendrils reaching into her nose, mouth, and eyes, choking and blinding her. Finally she wrested herself out of its grasp and fell to the floor, sweating and weeping.
The Mahimata knelt in front of her. “I almost lost you there. You didn’t want to return.”
Kyra took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. “It is that door,” she rasped. “The third door of the secret Hub.”
Shirin Mam bowed her head. “For each of us it is different. For you, a door. For me, it was a blade. This word of power tells us how we will leave the world.”
Kyra sat up, brushing away her tears. “So you did die by a blade. I think I know whose hand held it, Mother, but I have no proof. Tell me, who killed you?”
Shirin Mam hesitated. “The Mahimata of Kali.”
“Tamsyn. Just as I thought,” said Kyra, and although Shirin Mam had affirmed her belief, despair flooded her. Had a small part of her hoped that she was wrong? That Tamsyn was not a monster, and that, perhaps, Shirin Mam had died a natural death?
Yes, of course. And then Kyra could have absolved herself of her own guilt in the matter—maybe even gone back to her Order.
But there would be no absolution now, not until she had defeated her teacher’s murderess in a public duel. Kyra clenched her hands and despair was driven out by cold fury. “I am going to kill her, Mother. I will avenge you, I swear it. But why couldn’t you see through her? Why can’t the others see through her?”
“We all see what we choose to,” said Shirin Mam. “Do not imagine that you know everything. Although I must say that you have done well today.”
Despite the fact that she had been drowned, buried, trampled, burned, and finally killed off by this lesson—never mind that she wasn’t even physically present—Kyra felt a glow of accomplishment. Shirin Mam rarely complimented a student, and to be told that she had “done well” was praise indeed.
“Of course,” continued Shirin Mam, “you won’t actually be able to use the words of power you have learned, not yet.”
“But, Mother,” protested Kyra, “you said that if I remembered the images I should be able to summon the right word. If I cannot use them, what was the purpose of this lesson?”
“Remembering them is only half the battle,” said Shirin Mam. “You actually have to need the use of the word as well. And now,” she added, rising from the floor, “it is time I left you.”
“Wait.” Kyra scrambled up. “There are many things I must tell you.”