Shatterglass (15 page)

Tris wiped a thumb over her eyelids and restored her spectacles to their proper resting-place. Whether it was due to lightning or his own expanded seed of glass magic, Keth could bear higher temperatures than most people. He might even be able to hold fire in his bare hands, Tris thought. She would ask Daja, the smith mage, when she got -

“Home” was the next word of her thought. Tris’s eyes burned with sudden tears. After all this time, she still tricked herself, thinking Discipline cottage was nearby and that Daja, Sandry and Briar would be there when she returned for the night. But they weren’t. Discipline and Sandry were in Emelan, months of travel to the north. Daja was in Kethlun’s home country of Namorn, even further north; Briar was on the road to Yanjing in the distant northeast. They were truly scattered and Daja wasn’t here to judge Keth’s magic.

Tris sniffed and locked her attention on her student. Keth brought his gather of molten glass out of the furnace, twirling his blowpipe as he did. His grip on his breathing was shaky.

“Gently,” she murmured, watching the reddish-orange glass change colour as it began to cool. “Remember the feel of your magic.”

He kept the pipe spinning and carefully blew down its length. Tris saw the lightning blaze of his power show through the pipe. He blew steadily, far longer than she could have managed. When his lungs were empty, Keth reheated the glass as he took in fresh air. The power in his breath was brighter still in the pipe this time. Tris, about to say something, held her tongue. He reheated again, but she knew he’d lost the count of his meditation. This time, when he blew into the pipe, glass-coated lightning darted from the end and dropped to the earth without shattering. Chime dashed under a corner worktable and stayed there.

“Relax,” Tris said as Keth turned beet red with frustration. “Calm down, drink some water, try again.”

“Y-you -!” he began to yell, turning on her. Tris met his eyes with her own, wanting him to see that this was normal, it was to be expected. She knew it was maddening to think a thing through perfectly, only to have it go awry the minute she actually tried to do it.

Whatever he’d meant to say, Keth chose not to say it. Instead he walked around the shop, touching vases, bowls, jars and suncatchers until he was calm. After that he set another crucible to heat and drank some water.

They were so caught up in their work they didn’t even notice Antonou’s wife had come with Keth’s midday. She couldn’t pass through the magical barrier or catch their attention. At last she fed some chunks of grilled lamb to Little Bear, then went back to her own work.

By late afternoon both student and teacher were sweat-soaked and exhausted. In addition to the glass lightning, Keth had produced a few other mistakes. When the breath caught in his throat on his second try, droplets of molten glass exploded over the workshop. They glinted in the light of the furnace like dark gems. Next came an egg-shaped blob of black glass, then a lump that sparkled with tiny lightnings. The last failure was a glass coil that burned the toe off one of Keth’s boots. Chime had yet to leave her hiding place.

Tris looked at the glass coil, then at Keth. Knowing she was about to trigger an explosion, she said as gently as she knew how, “This isn’t working. You’re exhausted and probably starving. It’s time to stop for the day.”

“No,” he told her stubbornly. “You don’t know the yaskedasi. I do. I’ve been living with them for eight months. The Ghost is killing their sense of, of excitement. Of fun, joy…” He fumbled to express his thought. “Khapik was the first place I’ve been where I c-could forget what h-happened to me. The, the Ghost is killing Khapik.” He collected a fresh gather at the end of the blowpipe.

Tris wanted to scream. She was hungry, she was soaked in sweat, she wanted to be out and about. She was pouring magic into the barrier to keep the wild bursts of Keth’s power inside. What was so wonderful about Khapik? she wanted to yell. There were theatres, inns, musical performances, women and men who flaunted themselves in form-fitting clothes, gambling dens and wine shops. Every city had such places.

She said none of these things as Keth drew a shuddering breath and started to blow into the pipe. As a teacher her duty was to encourage Keth, not discourage him. From her own experience, Tris knew he would give himself enough discouragement without help from her.

“Nothing yet, then?” someone asked from outside the barrier. It was Dhaskoi Nomasdina,

crisply dressed in a clean red tunic and blue stole, his short black hair still wet from the bath.

Keth, startled, made an apprentice’s mistake and puffed hard into the blowpipe. The molten glass at the end bulged, coated in tiny lightnings, and grew to the size of his hand. Tris and Nomasdina froze, watching. Tris could see that Keth’s hands trembled, but he continued to work, carefully twirling the pipe to see what shape his most recent accident would take. The bulb expanded to a perfect globe, then broke away. Keth reached out and caught it in one hand before it could fall.

That answers that question, thought Tris. He can hold hot glass.

The globe was a twin to the one he’d made at Heskalifos. Miniature lightnings played inside and outside of the glass, growing thicker and longer until they coated it entirely.

“You did it!” cried Nomasdina. “What do you see?”

“Lightning,” Keth said gloomily and sat on a bench with a thump. Tris gently took the blowpipe from him and set it aside.

“May I look?” Nomasdina asked. “Maybe I can spot something. Dhasku Chandler—”

“Tris,” the girl interrupted. “Just Tris. Don’t touch it unless you’ve got some kind of fire magic, Dhaskoi Nomasdina. It’s hot, still.” She held out her hands. Glumly Keth handed the globe to her. It was warm to her touch, but only warm. She could handle molten rock for brief periods.

“But I could look at it,” argued the arurim dhaskoi, “maybe see between the lightnings.”

Tris turned the globe over in her hands. The lightnings were still excited. They whipped around the globe so fast that she saw no gaps between them. Reaching for them with her own power, thinking to draw them off, she failed. To her magical senses it felt as if the bolts were locked inside sheaths of glass that turned her power away.

Well! she thought, amused by the lightning’s defiance, I’m not to tinker with you, is that it? “I doubt you could see through them, Dhaskoi Nomasdina,” Tris replied. “But you’re welcome to look.”

“Dhasku Chandler,” the man said.

“Why is ‘Tris’ so hard to say?” she demanded, still looking at the ball in her hands, running her own power around it, trying to find a path inside the glass. She could no more do that than she could shift the lightnings outside it.

“But it’s the dhasku I need,” Nomasdina explained. “The dhasku who’s so strong that all the charms I know to break a circle of protection aren’t working. And the ones taught to the arurim dhaski are usually effective.”

That made Tris look up. Nomasdina stood outside the barrier she had raised, his hands against it. Starbursts of silver light spread around them as he tried to push through her protections. “I’m sorry, Dhaskoi Nomasdina,” she said, contrite. “You must be pretty good if you can stand to touch it,

though.“ She went to the door and erased part of her circle with her foot, gathering her power back into herself as the barrier gave way. Little Bear came bouncing in to see if anyone was interested in petting him.

“Please - under the circumstances, you should call me Dema,” the Tharian told her.

As he walked past her, he lifted the ball from her hand. “Ow” he cried, juggling the ball from one hand to the other. “It stings.”

Tris took the globe back from him. “Lightning has that effect. Among others,” she added, looking at Kethlun. “Do you remember how this happened?” she asked her student.

“No,” he said with a sigh. He idly scratched the dog’s ears. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“Maybe that’s it,” Dema remarked as he sat on a bench. Chime trotted out of her hiding-place and began to sniff his hands. “Not thinking.”

“It’s harder than I thought,” Keth admitted. “What brings you here, anyway?”

“The honest answer? Hope. I’m on my way to Elya Street for the start of my watch,”

replied Dema, wriggling his fingers for Chime. “I thought I’d stop by, on the chance you were here. And I was right. Now we have something to work with.”

“If it clears in time,” Tris reminded him. Eyeing her student, she added, “Keth, you’re in no shape to try and draw out your lightning.” She passed the globe to him as he slumped on a bench. He’d drained off all of his power for the time being; she saw not a flicker of it inside his skin. At least the lightning on the globe bothered him no more than it did her.

“No,” Keth replied, stubborn. “I’ll clear it and I’ll see what the Ghost looks like. I have to. He’ll kill someone else.” He began to breathe for meditation, staring at the flashing globe in his hands. Tris and Dema waited patiently.

Finally Keth glared at Tris. “Where is it?” he demanded accusingly. “This magic of mine? I don’t feel it. It’s a crackly buzz in my head, but I don’t hear it. You took it, didn’t you?”

Tris folded her hands in front of her, stifling her irritation at the question. She knew all too well how it felt to be as exhausted as he was. “I can’t take magic from people,”

she replied in even tones. “Even if I could, you have none to take. Keth, look, it’s the study and the work of magic that builds up your reserves. You just started to learn today. You don’t have reserves. The only thing that will bring your power back is food and rest. You’ll have power to use tomorrow.”

“Someone will die,” whispered Keth.

“Maybe not,” Dema said briskly. “I’ll take the globe to the arurimat. If it clears before the murder, we’ll go where it leads us. And if we don’t, well, you’ll have other chances to make this work.”

Keth slumped forward, resting his forehead on his globe.

Tris felt sorry for him, but knew he wouldn’t thank her for showing pity. “On your feet, Keth,” she said briskly. “Is your octopus done?”

As Keth checked the annealing oven and began to clean up, Tris looked at Dema.

“He’s been at it since this morning, trying as hard as he could,” she said.

“I know,” Dema said with understanding. “When you’ve drained yourself, that’s it.

You have to eat and rest until your strength comes back.”

“It’s not just her coddling me?” Keth asked, his voice sluggish. His back was to them.

“I don’t coddle,” Tris said sharply.

“No, she isn’t,” Dema added. “Every mage learns, when you’re finished for the day, you’re finished. You’ll only make yourself ill if you try to do more magic. Look here, I know a good eating-house near the arurimat. I’ll pay — it’s the least I can do in trade for this.” He pointed to the globe Tris still held. She put it in the basket she’d used to carry Chime’s food and dishes, and handed it to him: Dema accepted the basket with a bow of thanks. “I hope you’ll come, too, Tris.”

She smiled. “Thank you, but I’m tired. I think I’ll go back to Heskalifos. Keth, you are taking Dema up on his offer, yes?”

Dema grinned at her, then looked at Keth. A trace of concern crossed his sharp brown features. “Come on, old man,” he urged Kethlun. “They’ve got a sauce for lamb cooked on skewers that will make you think you dine with the emperor of Aliput.”

“Then he goes home to sleep,” Tris added. She sighed. “And we wait for the globe to clear.”

Dema made the circle of the All-Seeing on his forehead. “Maybe it will clear before time,” he said.

Keth looked at him and smiled crookedly. “An optimistic lawkeeper. Now there is something unusual.”

“Have a proper meal and you’ll be an optimist, too,” Dema said, ushering Keth out of the workshop.

Tris watched the two men walk away, smiling when Dema draped an arm over Keth’s shoulder. She’d got a very favourable impression of the arurim dhaskoi the previous night, once they’d got over their original misunderstanding about the use of torture.

As he’d questioned Keth, she’d watched his face and listened to his voice. He wanted to catch the Ghost, and she didn’t think it was all about glory for Dema. It didn’t seem to be much about the yaskedasi, either, but Tris would settle for what she thought he did want, the end of the killer’s lawlessness.

Once the men were gone, she went into the glass shop to ask Keth’s cousin Antonou a favour. Would he mind if she left Little Bear and Chime in the courtyard for a few hours? She would get them later, without disturbing the family. Not only did Antonou agree, but his quiet, shy wife found a meal of table scraps for Little Bear. Tris thanked them, and ordered the dog and dragon to wait for her return. She brushed the soot and dirt from her pale green dress — woven and sewn by Sandry, it refused all stains and hardly wrinkled - and headed down the street.

This Ghost mess revolved around Khapik, and Tris had yet to see the place. She had heard of it, long before they had reached Tharios. Other travellers, learning where they were bound, sang the praises of Khapik: its gardens, its entertainers, its food, its wine. The best performers worked there at some point in their careers; the guests who saw them spread their names from the Cape of Grief in the south to Blaze-Ice Bay in the north. Some men had spoken more fondly of Khapik than they did of their families. To Tris it seemed that many of the young people they’d met were saving their money for one holiday only, at Khapik.

She’d seen Khapik when they rode into Tharios, of course, or at least, its brightly painted walls. Normally she might not have gone there. While she loved music, acting, tumbling and food, she thought it folly to pay for such things when she had to watch every copper. Now, though, Keth’s globes had given her an excuse at least to look around.

She Joined a river of visitors all headed in the same direction, on foot, in sedan chairs, on horse-, camel-, or donkey-back. The caravan master who’d brought her and Niko to Tharios had mentioned that no wagons were permitted inside Khapik. She wondered if the prathmun had to carry the garbage, night soil and dead bodies out of Khapik by hand, without using their carts. She wanted to ask a prathmun who drove his cart across the Street of Glass if that was the case, but there were too many Tharians around, all retreating from cart and driver, most drawing the circle of the All-Seeing God on their foreheads.