Skymaster, p.13
Skymaster, page 13
part #3 of The Guildmaster Saga Series
Agnet and Bayar were still in danger. The spear-fighter was still back there. Rasim clenched his eyes shut, trying desperately to feel the filled space in the air. It was possible with sea witchery. A talented Seamaster could tell where there were obstacles in the water. Sandbars interrupted the flow of sea water, threatening ships. Even the vast ponderous whales that sometimes breached the surface could be felt as filled-in spaces within the water by a sea witch who knew how to look for them.
If it could be done with water, it could be done with air. If a whale was an interruption in the shape of water, then the people should feel like interruptions in the air. Rasim clung to that idea, feeling for the other people in the arena.
Agnet and Bayar were low interruptions, close to the ground. It was easier for the air to flow over them, like they were part of the sand. The spear fighter, near them, was higher, vertical. The air had to split around that, rather than flow over it.
Rasim, breathing through his teeth, pushed at Mikkel's attacking wind until it ran into the tall, upright person space, and heard the woman's scream of surprise as the air itself seized her and flung her away from her prey.
He finally got to his feet, leaning forward even though the wind itself was no longer pressing on him. Over his shoulder, he said, "Stay alive," before turning his full attention to Mikkel.
The Skymaster's stance had changed entirely. His feet were wide, his arms spread, and he, like Rasim, leaned forward a little, as if bracing himself against attack. A terrible, mad smile contorted his face. With a shock, Rasim recognized it as the same smile Nasira had had when she said she had nothing left to lose. "You don't have to die today, Mikkel."
He hardly spoke the words, but the air carried them at his whim. Mikkel's smile grew even more awful. "I have to win, or I have to die. They promised they would set my family free, if I died."
"And you believe them?"
Mikkel screamed, a sound as loud as his windstorm, and sent the smashing power at Rasim again. It hit like a blow, but Rasim's toes were deep in the sand, borrowing its strength so he could stand fast against the attack. Stonemasters were notorious for their strength. Rasim had always supposed it was just from working heavy stone. Now he thought he knew better.
Mikkel's family was out there somewhere. Here, at the arena, probably, because his masters would want him to have seen them. Here, where his masters could see if he failed in his part of the bargain, and slay Mikkel's family instantly. That family was probably also enslaved, so they would either be in the arena itself, in the cages, or...
...or watching from the best vantage in the arena, where they too could know whether they would die through Mikkel's actions, or if he would.
A profound hatred filled Rasim. It was unforgivable to own other people. It was unforgivable to force him to think like slavers, to try and imagine how he would be most cleverly cruel to those he owned. He glanced toward the seats, searching for the colors that indicated wealth, and the most luxurious of the sitting spaces. There were a handful of them scattered around: covered boxes to keep the viewers cool, banners flying to proclaim nobility or money.
Skymasters on the Waifia used a trick they called bending light to make distant things seem closer than they were. Rasim had seen the same kind of effect with water droplets. He pressed the two ideas together in his mind and caught his breath as the audience suddenly magnified, skywitchery shrinking the apparent distance until he could easily see the features of each person in the box.
None of them were slaves with knives to their throats. He looked into another box, and then another, and another. In the fourth he found two children with light, sun-golden brown skin, much like Rasim's own, kneeling in front of a spear-bearing guard. Behind them stood a Moranese woman. A guard held a blade at her throat, although her features were so calm and composed that Rasim wouldn't have guessed she was terrified, if it weren't for the way her gaze was locked on the arena below.
He didn't want to risk slamming anyone around, not with knives and spears in the guards' hands. Not without more certainty of his ability to control sky witchery. But he'd created bubbles of air within water many times, by pushing water away from himself. Maybe he could do something similar with sky magic.
It took longer than he hoped. Finally, though, as Rasim himself struggled with the unfamiliar power, the nobles within the box became woozy. Rasim's head began to pound, and a sudden surge of witchery sent the nobles to sleep, but made Rasim himself stagger. For a moment there, it had felt like he was using Missio's drug again: like he was unstoppable. But that sensation left him as quickly as it had come, leaving him wanting more and also suddenly afraid. If using more than one magic could make him feel that rush of addiction, then doing so wasn't safe for anybody but the royal family, after all.
Even as he fought the memory of that heady use of magic, the guards in the nobles' box collapsed. The woman flinched as the knife dropped away from her throat. Rasim sent words to her on the air, hoping she would understand. "Dress yourself in noble clothes, quickly, and go to the docks. Find an Ilyaran ship called the Waifia and get on board, if you can, or hide nearby. I'll send Mikkel to you as soon as I can."
To his astonishment, the woman didn't even hesitate, much less question orders arriving out of thin air. Either she understood him, or knew how to seize an opportunity when it presented itself. Whichever it was, within seconds she had arranged someone else's dramatic headpiece to fall over her own head and shoulders, obscuring her slave's collar, and was dressing the children similarly. Rasim turned away, aware that both very little and also too much time had passed since Mikkel's attack. The audience was losing patience.
The witchery he held at bay yearned to fly free. It wanted to dance. Air was not accustomed to restraints, and neither, it seemed, was the magic that commanded it. Air moved like it was alive, all on its own. That was different from the other two magics he'd knowingly used. Water pooled in things, collecting itself together, and stone, left on its own, didn't do much of anything, at least not within a human lifetime. Air flowed constantly, though, and all Mikkel was doing with it was throwing slabs. Rasim twisted his fingers and sky witchery caught in them, spilling upward.
A funnel of air appeared. The audience shrieked with delight, and Rasim sent the funnel whipping around the arena, keeping it high enough to pick up very little sand. It did snatch light bits of cloth from the audience, who roared with protesting laughter as their scarves and cloaks made brightly colored streaks in the funnel. Those colors lashed around each other, beautiful, deadly shapes, like wings in the spinning wind. Like something alive inside it was shaping it. Concentrating so hard his head began to hurt, Rasim whispered across the distance to Mikkel. "Your family is safe. Look to their box."
The Skymaster glanced sharply at him, then turned on his heel to stare incredulously at the empty box above. "They'll be waiting for you at the docks," Rasim promised. "Now will you help me?"
"My name is Karluk," the Skymaster whispered back, "and I will do anything you ask."
Rasim grinned so widely his face hurt. "Let's bring the arena down."
16
Karluk's shock was clearly visible even without witchery to enhance it. Rasim couldn't stop grinning. "A sandstorm, first, to drive everybody out. I don't want to kill people, Karluk, Skymaster of Ilyara. We have to be better than that. A sandstorm and then we shatter the locks." Rasim brought his funnel down to the arena's surface. Sand whipped into it, creating a sifting, roaring sound that the audience echoed. There were moments where Rasim could almost see through the sand, as if speed turned it to glass in the same way heat might. Those were just the bits of cloth, though, creating flashes of brilliance even in the dusty yellow of the rising dust. But it seemed like there was something in it. Something living, something invisible, something powerful….
"And I thought you didn't have magic," Karluk said across the distance. "Keep it out of my way, and I'll make as much of a mess as I can. Then—"
"Then go after your family," Rasim said suddenly. "Get out of here before the panic starts. Tilarea keep you in her arms, Karluk. Good luck." He broke his funnel into two as he spoke, and that was as much as he could do. They were eager to leap around and create chaos, and he got dizzy if he watched them too long.
The audience, though, was on its feet with outrageous delight. People were throwing things into the funnels now: food, clothes, even weapons, and Rasim realized they had never seen a sandstorm. They had no idea how much damage wind funnels could cause with bits of straw, never mind daggers or arrows. He brought one of the funnels as near to Karluk as he dared without breaking the Skymaster's concentration, and the audience roared even more loudly. They were so excited to see impending death, Rasim thought sickly. They wanted so much to see him swept up and destroyed. That was awful, to take so much joy in someone else's pain.
A sudden staggering sweep of power answered his whirling funnels. Karluk ripped the one nearer to him apart with such ease that Rasim staggered. Then Karluk wrested control of the other one away, sending it spinning across the arena. Rasim protested so loudly his chest hurt, but the audience stomped their feet, shaking the air itself with their cries. Chastened, Rasim flung himself into the fight, more concerned with creating a mess than hurting anyone.
Karluk seemed to be performing with the same gusto, and the onlookers, unaccustomed to the treat of witches doing battle, didn't seem to care. That was good. Just maintaining the sandstorm overwhelmed Rasim, and he had a brief, longing thought of working with water again. Their whirlwinds slammed together, almost collapsing with their own power, then suddenly surging into a massive tornado that finally got a few shrieks of terror, rather than delight, from the viewers.
Color flashed in the cyclone, bright clear hues that made it absurdly beautiful, despite its deadly potential. He had the sense again that there was something alive in it. Something that was now awakening, having slept before. Across the distance, as the twister grew, Rasim caught a glimpse of fear in Karluk's face before the Skymaster's voice sounded in his ear. "We have a mess. Now, how do you mean to bring down the arena?"
"Let me worry about that. Get out of here. Make sure my friends get out too. Take them to the Waifia."
"The Ilyaran flagship is here?" Astonishment sharpened the Skymaster's tone.
"Aye, but the captain is playing a long con, so be careful." As Karluk and the others ran for the exit under the protection of the lashing sand, Rasim bent all his concentration on the storm. He wanted to spill it into the seating, but at its current power and speed, he didn't dare, not if he expected to keep everyone alive. And as Karluk retreated, he released his control over the enormous working, leaving Rasim to hold together a magic he'd barely even touched before that day.
Barely. Barely, but he had, or at least he thought he might have, now that he was thinking about it at all. He'd shouted through the storm when the Seamasters had found Captain Nasira's old, wrecked ship, the Sinaz. He had believed then that one of the Skymaster journeymen on the voyage had helped him, making his voice carry, but he'd never gotten the opportunity to ask about that, and then he'd forgotten. And his voice had carried strangely far only a week or two ago, when he'd commanded the Waifia's crew to fight against the slavers, too.
Now, standing rooted in the earth through stone witchery, struggling to contain an immense act of sky witchery, he wondered how many times in the past few months he'd used a magic he didn't think he could even touch, much less master.
Not that he dared think he'd mastered sky witchery. The funnel of air fought him with every spin, as if a living thing inside it clawed to get out. Rags and cloaks and daggers glittered within its depths, lashing toward the tornado's outer edges. If even one of those weapons came free, someone would almost certainly die. Rasim shot a desperate glance toward the exits, but Karluk had fled, the other gladiators in his wake. No one would help Rasim break the massive show of power into pieces and send it hissing through the stands to chase the audience away. No one but he could drive the wind into narrow cracks in the arena's thick walls, finding weak spaces to break apart so he could tear the whole monstrosity down.
A shrill bit of humor sliced through Rasim at the idea that he could even do any of that. Getting himself and everyone else out of there without anybody dying would be a wonder all by itself.
The tornado, or something within its tight-wound center, was fighting him. He'd felt it awakening while he and Karluk tangled with each other. Now it seemed like the roaring, sand-filled winds were trying to expose something that had always been hidden in the air. Eyes clenched shut, teeth set together, Rasim put the backs of his hands together and pushed them forward, like he could reach into the cyclone's heart. Sweat spilled into his closed eyes, tickling his nose as he struggled to unwind the twisting winds.
The windstorm shattered with a thunderous silence, and in that silence, people began to scream.
Sand sprayed in Rasim's face, blinding him for long seconds. He wiped it away, tears dripping from the sting. He only slowly realized that he'd fallen to his knees, that his hands were buried in inches-deep sand. He shook it free and wiped his face again to the sound of screams, and lifted his gaze in baffled exhaustion.
A creature of glass shimmered in the air above the arena, threads of color spinning through four rapid-beating, translucent wings. It was cousin to a dragonfly, but a hundred times larger, and with a body more serpentine. Its legs, though, were slender and segmented, bunched together at the beast's chest. Wings rode high on its shoulders, leaving it mostly lashing tail that broke sunlight into a thousand prisms as it flickered through the air. Given the size of the thing, its neck was comparatively short. Its head was small and dominated by huge faceted eyes.
Eyes and teeth, Rasim saw in horror. Innumerable pin-like teeth, so clear they could hardly be seen, at least until the creature spun in the sky and plunged toward the sand to land, all six legs driving downward into one of the fallen blade-users. The fighter's body convulsed under the impact and the glasswing serpent lifted a bloody, spear-like foot to stab the dead person again. People screamed, Rasim among them, but unlike those who sensibly ran from the arena, Rasim searched the sand near himself for a weapon. A spearhead, half buried in the sand, glinted in the sun, and he seized it, then, trembling, ran at the glasswing.
It sprang into the air as if it saw him coming. As it whipped around, its many-faceted eyes glittering, Rasim realized it probably had seen him. It hissed, a terrible gas-filled breath that made the air waver with its foulness. Then its tail slashed toward him, and thin, glass-like shards flew from its tip. Rasim dove to the side as daggers of clear, shimmering air hit the sand and blackened it. Heat rose from the delicate weapons, which cooled almost instantly, even as more of them sprayed toward him. Rasim flung up a wall of air, desperate to protect himself, and the air itself turned solid when the glass daggers struck it.
Of course it did. That was what the glasswing was. A creature of solid air, like the sea serpent had been a thing of the water, like the stone snake had been made of the mountain itself. Rasim thought the glasswing had been called by the battle of magics within the cyclone, as if so much skywitchery concentrated so fiercely had drawn its attention. It screamed, a thin sound like glass scraping, or like wind through narrow canyons, and dove at Rasim. At least it was going after him, not the audience running from the arena, but he was one boy with an inadequate weapon and a magic he barely understood.
He threw his spear at it anyway, aiming for one of the swiftly-fluttering wings. The glasswing spun around and snatched his spear from the sky, breaking it between its needle-like teeth. Its tail slammed toward him, trying to catch him with a deadly blow, but he threw himself to the side again, landing in a spray of sand. The glasswing pounced, its feet driving toward him with unnatural points. Those feet were weapons, meant only to kill. Rasim slid away from them feet, scrambling down the length of the creature's belly to hide beneath its long thrashing tail. He could see the sky through it, distorted and shot with the glasswing's brilliant prisms, but still blue, as if he looked through thick glass or heavy air.
The glasswing bent double, looking under itself with its astonishing eyes. Then its tail twitched inward, the stinger spraying shards of solid air again. One of them caught the glasswing in its own belly and it squealed, another high horrible sound of howling wind. Rasim gave a panicked laugh, glad to know it was vulnerable to something, while also all too aware that he, too, was vulnerable to witchery.
He threw another wall of air, trying to protect himself, and the glasswing danced above him, stabbing with its vicious feet, slamming its vast tail, snarling with glittering teeth, but not, Rasim noticed, shooting its spikes at him again. A few lay near him and he scrambled toward them, seizing their hafts to turn them into weapons of his own. They turned to air in his hands, leaving him grabbing handsful of sand. The glasswing drove a spear-like foot toward him and caught the leg of his trousers, scoring blood but not really hurting him. He yelled anyway, and the great creature screamed in delight, its feet smashing blows toward him faster and faster.
Rasim rolled toward its tail again, but the glasswing danced back with him, the wind crying through its voice sounding ever-more triumphant. He flung a handful of sand up, trying to command it to turn to stone, to protect him. Although the wall it made was as thin as paper, the glasswing's driving foot caught in it, and would not come out.
Its triumph turned to rage as it swiveled, trying to free itself. The fragile leg snapped and the glasswing flung itself into the air, its broken limb dripping color that dissolved into wind. Rasim stared for the space of a heartbeat, then, with a clarity of mind that went beyond thought, he ran across the sand toward the fallen blade-wielders.
