When Shalla and I used to get into one of our interminable fights as children, my father would wait patiently until one of us had won or we’d both simply run out of energy and then he’d look at each of us in turn and say, ‘So, done then?’
One of us – usually the one my mother had commanded to sit down so that she could place a cold compress on a swollen eye or bruised cheek – would take note of my father’s tone and mumble, ‘I suppose.’
‘Good,’ my father would say, and clap his hands once as if he were banishing a spell. ‘Then we’re all friends again.’
Most times we were too exhausted to question his rather dubious logic, but on the one occasion when I challenged him on it he took me aside and said, ‘You fought. Victor and vanquished were decided. Whatever began the dispute is now resolved.’
‘I’m supposed to be friends with her? She—’
‘She won this time. Next time perhaps she will lose. Either way, there is no virtue in continued hostility. The Jan’Tep do not hold grudges.’
At the time the idea was inconceivable to me. Every fight, whether with Shalla or someone else, felt like a life-or-death struggle waged over the greatest of causes, even if that cause was merely determining the rightful owner of a toy. But Shalla would do just as our father requested and act as if nothing had happened. ‘Just a little game Kellen and I were playing,’ she would say when Abydos asked why one of us had an arm in a sling. Not knowing what else to do, I would just nod and agree, convinced that Shalla was somehow mentally defective for being able to so convincingly pretend a fight had never happened.
It wasn’t until the day after my fellow initiates had tried to cripple Ferius Parfax and myself that I realised Shalla was the normal one.
‘Will you be joining us today, Kellen?’ Master Osia’phest asked. I looked up to see him standing a few feet away from where I sat on a bench between two of the columns. The other initiates, waiting around the oasis, pretended I wasn’t there.
Osia’phest’s question was stupid of course. He’d seen my magic fail – everyone had. I wasn’t going to be able to draw a soul symbol, or craft a spellstone, or summon a power animal, or perform any of the other tasks that could be used as proof of passing the second test. So the old man already knew I wouldn’t be participating in the trials today. But – and here’s the ridiculous thing – for him not to have asked the question might have implied that there was some other cause for my present weakness, such as having got involved in an unsanctioned duel on the side of a suspected Daroman spy. By now the whole town must have heard about it, but legally I hadn’t done anything worse than anyone else who’d been there. So now, just as my father used to do after Shalla and I got into a spat, we were all going to pretend nothing had happened.
‘No, master,’ I replied. ‘I’ll just watch from here for today. I’ll continue the trials when …’ When what? When the insane dowager magus decides to give me an object of power so I can fake my way through the test? No, don’t think like that. I was going to find a way to make my magic work again. If I could convince Panahsi and a couple of others to help me, there were still things I could try to get my bands to spark. In the meantime I’d be damned if I was going to let Tennat or anyone else think I’d given up. ‘I’ll be coming here every day to observe,’ I said defiantly.
He nodded sagely, and then came closer and quietly asked, ‘Have you tried casting one of the simpler forms, perhaps one of the evocations of breath? Perhaps here in the oasis you can—’
‘You know I can’t,’ I said, practically growling under my breath. I felt immediately guilty for my outburst. Master Osia’phest had been the most understanding of my situation out of everyone. And yet I still couldn’t keep the anger down. ‘Even if I could, what good is casting a stupid breath spell? It’s the weakest form of magic.’
He took a seat next to me on the bench. ‘Do not underestimate breath, Kellen.’ He slid the right sleeve of his robe up to reveal the silver tattooed sigils representing breath shimmering brilliantly under the withered canvas of his wrinkled forearm. ‘Breath is the power of movement, Kellen, of channelling. It can give voice to other forms of magic. Perhaps on its own it’s not quite so impressive as ember or iron, but combined with other magics, breath can be … remarkable.’
At this point I’d settle for mediocre.
‘Go on,’ Master Osia’phest said. ‘Show me the first evocational form for breath. Unless of course you’ve forgotten the fundamentals?’
‘I haven’t forgotten anything,’ I said. I could recite by heart the intonations and cantillations for all the breath spells. I’d mastered the somatic shapes, the envisionings, the anchorings. All of it. Just like I had for sand and ember and iron and all the others. There wasn’t a single initiate in my clan who knew the forms as well as I did, not even Shalla. It just didn’t make any difference.
‘The first evocational form,’ Osia’phest prodded me.
I forced myself into a moment of calm, softened my gaze and envisioned the movement of air. That’s always the hard part with breath spells: holding something that can’t be seen in your thoughts. I reached out with my hands, extending my index and middle fingers to form the somatic shape of direction, pressing the tips of my ring and little fingers into my palms, the sign of restraint and control. My thumbs pointed straight up, the sign of Please, ancestors, let me cast this one stupid spell.
I set my will upon the air and spoke the single-word incantation. ‘Carath.’
A tiny sliver of wind passed through the space between my hands, following the line of my index and middle fingers. It was barely enough to trace a thin line in the sand at my feet no more than six inches long.
‘Well …’ Osia’phest said. ‘It’s not … so bad. Your abilities are not as promising as they used to be, but they are not entirely gone either.’
To understand just how pathetic that statement was, you’d only have to remember that this close to a Jan’Tep oasis you could take a deaf, dumb and blind Daroman sheep herder, show him the spell and he’d probably summon up a more vigorous gust of wind than I just had.
Osia’phest patted me on the leg before rising from the bench. ‘As it turns out, you aren’t the only student feeling unwell today.’
It was only then that I noticed Tennat some forty yards away across the oasis, sitting on a bench just as I was, hunched over and looking, from this distance, utterly miserable. He had none of the cuts and bruises he deserved though, no doubt because his father had healed them. Ra’meth, in what can only be an injustice on a cosmic scale, was an even better healer than my mother.
‘Initiate Tennat found himself unable to perform the preparation spells this morning,’ Osia’phest went on. ‘In fact, his situation appears to be worse than yours. I had him attempt the same spell I requested of you, and he couldn’t summon any of the breath magic whatsoever.’