A Muddle of Magic. Alexandra Rushe

heed my command. Make me all knowing.”

      Seratha felt the room still, as though the universe held its breath; then the god stone flared, bright as a star. The incandescence spread from the gem to Zared, filling him with light.

      His radiant form expanded. “At last, I see the infinite.” Throwing his head back, he laughed. “Look upon me, Durngesi, and weep, for I am become the sun.”

      “ʼTis you who should weep, Zared,” the Durngesi said, “for you have asked what the stone cannot give. Even the gods are not all knowing.”

      “What?” Rooted to the spot by his enormous limbs, Zared screamed in horror. His hands were bigger than the wheels of an ox cart and his skin, a moment before aglow with light, had turned to stone. “No, stop! I take it back. I did not mean it.”

      The god stone burned brighter, unheeding. Taller and taller, Zared rose until his grossly distended head pressed against the turreted ceiling. The beams creaked and groaned and gave way at the pressure.

      “Quickly.” The Durngesi pulled Seratha toward the door. “Before the tower comes down upon our heads.”

      He guided her, numb and unresisting, down the winding stone steps and into the courtyard. The pavers split, and huge fissures opened in the ground, spewing chunks of earth and rock, as the tower behind them shook and rumbled. Screams came from within the turret, and servants and seers poured out, fleeing in terror from the collapsing structure.

      The skaldiff Naadra stumbled into the courtyard. “You,” she said, spying Seratha. She raised a thin arm. “Why do you linger in safety while our master and brethren are within? Help them.”

      “Help them yourself, woman, and you will,” the Durngesi said. “This one is no longer yours to command.”

      Placing his arm around Seratha’s shoulders, he turned and led her away.

      “Where are you going?” The skaldiff’s voice rose shrilly. “Do not walk away from me, novice. You will be punished for your insolence. I will—”

      A loud crash ended Naadra’s tirade. Seratha looked back. The skaldiff had been crushed where she stood, buried beneath falling debris. One hand peeked from beneath a huge stone. The skaldiff’s fingers twitched and went still. Seratha stared at the grisly evidence of Naadra’s demise and felt nothing but relief. The beatings and abuse were at an end.

      “Hurry,” the Durngesi said, taking Seratha by the arm.

      Dodging falling stones, he guided her away from the crumbling spire, through the gate, and up across the land bridge that connected Shadow Mount to the mainland. They reached safety and stopped to look back.

      “It was a lie,” Seratha said. “Zared was nothing he pretended to be.”

      “Let not rancor take root, lest it consume you. Envy and resentment were Zared’s undoing.”

      “The members of the Circle have the sight. Why did they not see their own doom?”

      “Dreams are fickle, and seers seldom foresee their own troubles. You know this.”

      The Durngesi was right. Worry and emotion blinded a seer to the cares of their loved ones and themselves. This was as it should be, the novices were taught, for the life of a prophet was a life of service to others.

      “I was a fool to join the Circle,” Seratha said. “It was a sham.”

      “Nay, child. The seers did much good, ere Zared tainted their purpose.”

      An ashen-faced woman shoved past them with her skirts pulled up around her fat knees. “Merciful gods,” she said, panting.

      Seratha recognized the woman from the kitchens. She was a cook for the seers. Seratha had toiled for hours, peeling potatoes and chopping carrots, roasting chickens, and baking bread that she had not been allowed to eat. Gruel had been the sustenance of the novices, thin and unsweetened.

      Below them on the rocky finger of land where the tower stood, Zared’s tumid form burst through the tile roof in a shower of stone and mortar. With a creak of shifting stone, his arms, now the length and breadth of full-grown firs, were forced inexorably over his distended head. His vast palms clapped together with a dull boom and something shining flew into the air. The god stone, Seratha realized, watching, dazed, as the sparkling gem dropped into the sea.

      The remains of the tower collapsed in a flume of dust and rubble. When the smoke cleared, the tower was gone, and a gray monolith stood in its place.

      “Na’ima’s paw, is that Zared?” Seratha asked, startled from her lethargy.

      “Aye, what is left of him.”

      “He’s alive, then, within the stone?”

      “Some small part of him, I think.”

      Seratha clenched her fists. “Good. I want him to suffer.”

      “Spoken like a Wind Rider. The Durngesi make fierce enemies. It is good that you have not forgotten.”

      The Durngesi disappeared behind a small cairn and returned with a pack. Removing a tunic, breeches, and a pair of boots, he tossed them at her feet. “I brought you these. Put them on. The shift you wear is thin.”

      Seratha knelt to examine the clothing. The garments had been fashioned of drekalli hide and worked until they were soft and supple. She recognized her mother’s neat stitches at once.

      “These are my things,” Seratha said. “You were so certain Zared would release me?”

      “I was certain of his avarice.” A smile played about the Durngesi’s mouth. “Zared was a greedy man and a rogue. This I knew from our first meeting.”

      “Would that I had your wisdom.” Seratha was bitterly ashamed. “I was dazzled by his fine clothes and manner.”

      “Do not chastise yourself. Many older and wiser than you have been fooled by the High Seer.”

      “He was a charlatan and a swindler.”

      “Aye,” the Durngesi said. “He used his gifts for evil and gain, but that is at an end.”

      Suddenly, Seratha could no longer bear the scratchy robe against her skin. With a sound of disgust, she strode to the edge of the cliff. Pulling the shift over her head, she hurled it into the wind. The garment whipped sideways and snagged on a gnarled shrub halfway down the bluff, where it hung, flapping in the bitter gusts off the sea, like a dark-winged bird of prey.

      With trembling fingers, Seratha jerked the kerchief from her hair and unbound her tresses. She stood there for a moment, naked, her face to the sea and her long hair swirling around her hips, then donned the raiment of her people.

      Squaring her shoulders, she turned. “I am ready.”

      “Not quite.” He handed her a belt and a dagger. “A Durngesi is not dressed without steel.” He watched her slip the belt about her waist and slide the dagger into its sheath. “The welts and bruises on your body are many.”

      “The skaldiff was fond of the cane.” Seratha’s mouth thinned. “I was her particular favorite.”

      “She will never hurt you again. Are you strong enough to travel?”

      “I am.”

      “Then let us leave this unhappy place. Your parents await your homecoming with great joy.”

      “They love me and I them, but they do not understand me.”

      The Durngesi’s mobile mouth twitched. “The eternal lament of the young.”

      “I cannot stay in their tent,” Seratha said. “I am much…changed.”

      The Durngesi regarded her thoughtfully. “I plan to rest among our people a few days, then journey on.”

      “Whither do you go?”

      “The