Chartomancy

Chapter Twelve

28th day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th year since the Cataclysm

Nemehyan, Caxyan

Jorim Anturasi stood alone in the dark as the heavy gold door closed behind him. It shut out all light, leaving him blind in the subterranean chamber. Even when it had been opened, the weak light coming through had let him see little more than the end of the walkway a dozen feet into the room.

He moved forward, cautiously, feeling for the edge with his toes. He could hear water splashing and echoing through the cavern, but the faint sound did not help him navigate. Instead, the dripping reminded him of how the chamber had been formed and, while the Amentzutl had clearly worked portions of it, they had left most of it untouched.

His toes reached the edge of the walkway. One more step and I am on the path to becoming a magician. That very thought sent another chill through him, but in its wake ran a thrill. He had always been an adventurer and explorer, and now he would be the first man from the Nine to explore magic. It might have ruined men like Nelesquin and his other vanyesh, but the Viruk clearly used it, as did the maicana. Or in a more controlled manner, every Mystic.

All the terror tales of the vanyesh crowded into his mind, but then he remembered Kaerinus. He had survived since the Cataclysm. He now resided in a prison in Moriande, and during the Harvest Festival conducted healings. If that is not a good use of his power, what would be? His sister Nirati had even been healed in the last Festival, and while he saw no obvious change in her, she had been happier afterward than he’d seen before.

He rolled his shoulders to loosen them, then took a step forward into the darkness. His left foot hit something solid where nothing should have existed, and this surprised him. He took another step and, this time, his right foot encountered emptiness and he began to fall.

Upward.

Panic arced through him as he ascended faster and faster. He pulled himself up into a ball, utterly confused, then his body splashed into water, headfirst. Cold and bracing, it closed around him. He started to sink, but it still felt as if he was rising, which was impossible. Without light, he had no way to orient himself.

Then, ahead of him, a golden spark blossomed and began to grow. He stretched out and started swimming toward it. As he grew closer he could see it was light pouring down from above. But it’s coming from a direction that should be below! Still puzzled, he struck for it and twisted himself through a narrow tunnel that ended in a heavy wooden grate.

Jorim gathered himself beneath the grate and braced his arms and legs against the tunnel’s sides. He pushed up, ignoring the burning in his lungs, and slowly the grate began to rise. Kicking hard, he rose through it, feeling the edge scrape down along his back.

The light from above vanished, but Jorim swam hard for where it had been. He broke through to air again far more quickly than he had expected, and his feet found solid purchase at the tunnel’s edges. He stood there for a while, head and shoulders above the water, catching his breath.

He remained in the darkness until his breathing returned to normal. Then he looked around and, at first, could see nothing. Then, off to his left, a soft green glow began. He turned toward it and found the light growing to illuminate three individuals-two men and a woman. They all wore loincloths and golden masks. Though he could not see their faces, he recognized them as three of the eldest maicana by the serpent images on their masks.

The woman, who stood flanked by her companions, raised both hands to shoulder height. “In your birth into this place, you have experienced all of the elements. It is through them you reach mai. The recovery of what you entrusted to us, Tetcomchoa, shall begin here.”

Her companions likewise raised their hands, then all three brought them together, quickly, in the same motion one might use to strike flint against steel. And as if their hands were made of such, sparks flew. They danced in the air as if rising on a column of smoke, then congealed into one spark that arced over Jorim’s head.

He spun to see where it landed. A small flame began to burn in an earthenware lamp. It rested on a small island in the lake, created by concentric stone disks, stepped like the pyramids the Amentzutl raised. On the uppermost, on the opposite side from the flame from him, a slender young woman knelt, her hands on her knees, her head bowed, her long, dark hair hiding her breasts.

Nauana. Jorim smiled, not having seen her during his ritual purifications. What he knew of Amentzutl beliefs came from her. She had served as his liaison with the maicana, and through her the orders needed to destroy the invading Mozoyan had been issued.

He turned back toward the elders, but their light had already vanished. Given no other alternative, he slowly approached the island and mounted the steps. Water dripped from his beard and hair, down his lean body. He did not hesitate as the water exposed him, for the Amentzutl did not share his people’s taboos concerning nudity. Reaching the penultimate step, he slid to his knees on the top platform and faced Nauana.

Her dark eyes flicked up. “Welcome, Tetcomchoa. The maicana have chosen me to teach you the ways of magic. If it pleases you, we shall begin.”

Jorim nodded in accord with the formality of her words and manner.

She looked down at the flame for a moment, then back up. A tremulous note entered her voice. “I would ask of you one favor, Lord Tetcomchoa. I am returning to you what you gave the maicana. Please do not humiliate me for showing you what you already know. Do not patronize me. Guide me and all I possess will be yours.”

Jorim let the corners of his mouth twitch back in the hint of a smile. “I would never humiliate you, Nauana. I know nothing and am anxious to learn.”

She remained silent for a moment, then pointed a finger at the flame. “You will learn the most important invocation first. You see the flame. Which of the elements does it possess?”

Jorim concentrated. The Amentzutl had developed an interesting cosmology, which was all tied up with their six gods, half of whom had two aspects. The three singular elements or aspects of anything were solid, fluid, or vapor. Tetcomchoa, the serpent god, ruled the aspect of vapor, since smoke rose and twisted in most serpentine ways. Three other gods, with their dual aspects, covered the paired elements of light and shadow, heat and cold, and destruction and healing. In the Amentzutl world, anything could be described as a mixture of those elements.

“I see it as having four elements: heat, light, destruction, and vapor.”

She nodded. “It also heals, for in destruction new things are created. Recall that Omchoa, the jaguar, slew his twin Zoloa and consumed him, so he is two that are one. This flame has five elements, all in a balance that allows the flame to thrive. At the same time, the elements of shadow and cold have been unbalanced.”

“I see the sense in that.”

“Good, then we shall have you see the sense in something else.” Reaching back, she dipped a finger in water and then allowed a droplet to drip onto the lamp. It hit close to the flame, sizzled, and rose in a puff of steam. “Here you see water that is fluid become water that is vapor. You know that water can also be solid.”

“Ice, yes.”

“But you know it cannot be those three things at the same time, yet it is always water.”

Jorim nodded. He’d not thought about anything in that manner before, but could instantly see that most everything could be found in those three states. He’d seen metal turned fluid in a furnace, and had no doubt that were it hot enough, it might rise as steam.

Nauana half closed her eyes. “The very nature of a thing’s being-that which makes it what it is regardless of form-this is how these things exist in the mai. Mai is like the light from the sun, but there are many suns and they always shine. Mai is everywhere and defines everything. That which we see and touch and taste and experience are all maichom-you would call it magic-shadow. Only through mai may we see the thing as it is, and as we know it through mai, we can use and manipulate it.”

She reached a hand toward the flame, palm out. “Use a hand to feel the flame. Feel the heat. See how the light plays over your flesh. Watch the flame dance. Encompass all of it.”

Jorim took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. He raised his right hand and stretched it toward the flame. The light did play over it, wavering shadows as it twisted and flowed. He brought his hand close enough to feel the first hints of warmth, then closer. The heat intensified and where his hand eclipsed it, some of the light glowed red through his skin. He watched the flame, matching its undulations to the rise and fall of heat and the sway of shadows.

Her directive to “encompass” the flame baffled him for a moment. What she wanted was for him to take physical aspects-things he could sense-and to carry them into the theoretical realm of the mai. He knew magic existed, but only in the way that he accepted the existence of things he’d never seen. While he had seen Mystics duel and otherwise had seen evidence of magic, he had still been insulated from its reality. She wanted him to push past that.

He could identify the aspects of the flame and sought to keep all of them in his mind, according none of them ascendance, even as the light flared or the heat rose. By opening himself to all of them, embracing all of them, he would not be doing what most people did, which was to diminish things. Most people, while they knew all the elements that went into fire, tended to concentrate on one or the other. If you needed light, you lit a torch. If you were cold, you kindled a fire. If you wanted to clear brush or get rid of debris, you burned it, then spread the ashes on the fields as fertilizer. Fire was thought of not as what it was, but as a means to an end.

Jorim refused to allow himself to be so lazy. He forced himself to experience the flame as an amalgam of his sensory experience. He listened for it, watched it, felt it. He brought his hand through the flame and back, feeling the way it caressed his flesh. He caught the acrid scent of hair singeing on his hand.

And then he found it. Just for a heartbeat, there was something more. A fusion of everything that surrounded its true essence like a shell on a nut. He sensed the thing within. It existed, the truth of fire. The second the concept of truth struck him, he knew that was how his mind would classify the essence. It was truth. It was distillation. It was that without which the thing did not exist.

His head snapped up. “I felt it. I saw it. The truth of fire.”

Nauana smiled. “Very good. My lord recovers his knowledge quickly. The truth, as you call it, is part of the secret teaching. When you realize that, you have the key. That which defines the truth is mai. The mai is what you use to change the truth, to redefine it. For this first lesson, however, you only need a trickle, and you only need to modify two aspects of this particular flame.”

“Which two?”

“The flame exists because enough mai was used to stabilize an imbalance. Where the flame exists, cold and shadow are held at bay.” She looked into his eyes. “You will touch the mai and rebalance things.”

Jorim found himself nodding matter-of-factly even though his hand trembled and his stomach began to tighten. His first brush with magic, just sensing the truth of flame, was passive, learning to see things in a new way. He’d had that experience countless times before. As a cartographer, he saw the world quite differently from others.

He steeled himself. He did not know if he truly were Tetcomchoa-reborn or not. He did not know if he could use magic-at least not beyond how it would be used as a Mystic cartographer, if he ever became that good. His learning how to use it, however, did not demand that he would use it. The learning itself did no harm; it was only in how it was used that could do harm.

And if the Amentzutl are right about centenco, to refuse to learn could be a disaster.

Jorim calmed his mind and reached out to find the truth of fire again. It took work, but he retraced the steps that had led him there before and found it. Reflected from it, like sunlight from a mirror, he found the mai. In his mind it was soft and resilient, like a porridge that had not hardened, but was not fluid either. When he tried to grasp it, it squirted away from him. So he stopped trying to grab it and, instead-as if it were a living thing-teased it forward.

He wove it through the shadows of his fingers and bound into it the sense of cold he felt from his wet hair against the nape of his neck. He used the mai to strengthen shadow and cold, to embolden them. He brought them forward and they lapped at the flame the way water flows and recedes on a beach. With each successive wave, the cold dark tide rose and the flame shrank.

And finally, it was smothered, instantly plunging the chamber into darkness.

Nauana’s voice filled the room with soft, steady tones. “This, then, is the first lesson. It is easier to restore a balance that has been disturbed through the mai than it is to unbalance something. Balance is the key. As you become stronger, you will be able to use more the mai, but you must beware attempting to unbalance too many things.”

“What happens if I do?”

“Mai is everywhere, even in us. It gives us life.” Her voice became colder. “If you attempt too great an invocation, a balance will be maintained. Mai will be drawn from the nearest source: you. It may kill you. It will exhaust you.”

“How do you know if what you are trying to do is too much?”

“When you fail to waken from the attempt.”

A spark sprang from her fingers and the lamp ignited again. She looked at him solemnly. “Now, my Lord Tetcomchoa, you will restore the balance again. And again. You will do this until you are satisfied you have mastered this invocation, and then you will do it again.”

He smiled. “My sense of sufficiency is not good enough?”

“It is, my lord, but such are the decrees you laid down when you gave us the gift of your knowledge.” Nauana nodded toward the flame. “Begin, please. Centenco is a time when the world is out of balance. Only you, a god, can restore it to the way it must be.”