Daja raced upstairs to get her staff. “I like carrying it,” she told Sandry, who eyed it with distaste. “It prevents misunderstandings.”
“Walking with girls,” Briar grumbled as the four ambled down the spiral road. “Respectable girls. I can’t never show my face in Sotat again.”
“You’re just complaining to be complaining,” Sandry pointed out. “We haven’t done anything to you.”
“Yet,” he retorted, and fell silent.
Five boys from his old dormitory approached them on the road. One of them was the youth who’d claimed Briar had stolen his cloak-pin. Inside his pockets, Briar’s hands doubled into fists.
“It’s the thief,” sneered one boy.
“A thief and a Trader,” added another, holding his nose. “Which is the lowest, do you think?”
Daja shifted her staff until she gripped it with both hands. She wouldn’t start a fight, but she wouldn’t put up with nonsense, either.
“A thief’s a thief,” said Cloak-Pin icily. “It doesn’t matter if you call it that or ‘Trader.’”
Sandry grabbed Briar and Daja by the elbow. “Don’t do anything!” she hissed. “They’re not worth the trouble it takes to blow them from your noses.”
“I don’t need a keeper,” hissed Briar, yanking away from her.
“Who’s your play-pretty, thief-boy?” Cloak-Pin demanded.
“Who’s the fatty?” muttered one of the others. Tris went pale.
“They let just anyone into the Circles, don’t they?” jeered the boy who disliked Traders. He threw the core of an apple he’d been eating at Tris and made oinking sounds.
Suddenly the air went cold. Something tightened around and inside the children in the blink of an eye. A faint crackling filled their ears.
“That’s what this is!” cried Cloak-Pin, his eyes bright and gleeful. He didn’t seem to feel anything odd. “A herd of pigs! A small herd, maybe, though Fatty and the Trader show promise—”
The hair rose on Sandry’s arms. “Tris, no!” she hissed, feeling somehow that Tris was the source of the weirdness in the air.
“Let’s get out of here.” Daja grabbed one of Tris’s arms, holding her staff up as a warning for the boys to keep their distance.
Briar grinned savagely and put a hand under each arm, where he’d once carried two knives. Niko had taken them all, but these bleaters couldn’t know that.
The youths backed off nervously. Quickly the four from Discipline took a path that cut across the loops of the road. Sandry and Briar stayed close to Tris, who was now pouring sweat. Only when they’d put two gardens between them and the boys did they slow down.
“Why did we do that?” Briar came to a halt in front of the girls, hands on hips. “We could’ve had a nice tumble, taught them some respect.”
“I don’t know why we did it.” Daja leaned on her staff and wiped her own sweating face on her sleeve. “I just had an idea that we had to.”
Sandry dug in her belt-purse until she found a small glass vial with a silver filigree cap. Opening it, she thrust it under Tris’s nose.
Until that moment, the other girl had been staring into space, her pupils shrunk to pinpoints, her face sickly white. When the fumes from the smelling salts burned her nose, she gasped and sneezed. As she groped for her handkerchief, the feeling of something stretched much too tight faded from the air.
“I—I got mad, didn’t I?” she whispered.
“We all got mad,” said Briar.
Tris looked at each of them frantically. “Did anything happen? Hail, or wind, or—”
“No,” retorted Briar, shoving his hands into his pockets. “And I’da felt better for a proper tumble. Girls,”
“Nothing?” whispered Tris, clutching Sandry’s arm. “Nothing happened?”
Sandry shook her head and returned the smelling salts to her pouch. She’d forgotten she had them, until just now. I’d better keep them handy—just in case, she told herself. In case of what, she refused to think.
Niko met them in front of the Hub and led them through the main doors. When Briar moved toward the kitchens, the man grabbed his arm and pulled him in the opposite direction, to an enclosed circle of beautifully carved wood. Inside, a wide stair wound through the tower’s heart. Holding the door, Niko gestured for the boy to start walking down. Sandry, Daja, and Tris followed.
As the staircase door closed behind them, all four halted and looked around.
“It feels odd in here.” Sandry whispered, without knowing exactly why. It wasn’t frightening-odd, as when the boys had teased them—it was more pure, more soft. Briar scratched his suddenly tickling scalp. Tris frowned. Daja ran a hand over the beautifully carved wall and flinched: for a moment the wood had felt alive. Biting her lip, she touched it again. This time it felt like nothing more than wood polished until it was as smooth as glass.
“The staircase is spelled,” Niko told them quietly. “The magical power in the Hub is so great that each part of the tower must be shielded from the others, to keep the different magics from bleeding into each other. In terms of magic, this is the cleanest place in all Winding Circle. You’re having your first lesson in meditation here.”
“Why?” Sandry wanted to know. “We’d be more comfortable at Discipline.”
“Today we sacrifice comfort for security,” replied Niko. “Every creature has magic, even if it’s just the magic of life. In meditation, you open your mind—any magic you have spills out. By learning to concentrate here, any power you release will stay here, without affecting anyone else.”
“What’s magic got to do with me?” demanded Briar. “If I have any, it don’t bother me.” Daja nodded; Sandry and Tris both looked troubled.
“That’s all very well and good, my boy,” Niko said dryly, “but have you ever thought that you might bother magic?”
Briar goggled at him.
“Make yourselves comfortable.” Niko picked a spot on the ground floor landing and sank into a tailor’s seat. The others each chose a step. “We’ve only an hour—I couldn’t arrange to keep this floor empty for any more time than that—so let’s begin.”
It was familiar to Tris at least, particularly since she had tried it again before going to sleep the night before. One thing was different: instead of breathing with the sound of waves, they counted as a way to time each step. Listening to Niko’s soft instructions, the four inhaled as they counted to seven, held the breath as they counted to seven, and released it, counting to seven. They did this over and over, not even noticing when Niko stopped counting aloud for them.
When his leg cramped, Briar opened his eyes, examining the wood of the staircase. Niko was talking quietly, explaining how they must pull their minds from the entire staircase into something small. That was easy for the boy: right in front of him, someone had fitted a many-petaled rose into the carving. Shutting his eyes, Briar felt the change physically as he sank into the rose, petal by petal. Sandry placed herself in the wool fed to a drop spindle, feeling herself grow tight and thin and long as she spun herself into thread. Daja squeezed into the rounded striking surface of a fuller and locked her mind on the warmth of hammering cherry-red iron. Once again Tris made herself into a rope of wind.
“I believe that will do for one day.” Niko sounded very pleased.
As if waking up, the four opened their eyes. For a moment they all felt cramped and knotted up, as if they had been pressed into small, tight balls. As they moved, the pain of stiff legs made them feel like themselves again.
Niko got to his feet and shook out his over-robe. “Now, while we’re here I want to take you on a tour of the Hub.” He led them down the stair, deep into the earth. At the bottom, he opened a small door.
Inside lay an immense, circular room with rock walls and a dirt floor. Torches provided most of the light. At the center of the room, a fire with no fuel burned in a shallow pit, watched over by four dedicates—one in the green of Earth, one in the yellow of Air, one in Fire red, the la
st in Water blue. They said no word; they didn’t move. The fire held their attention.
The children’s skins prickled. It was hard to breathe. Old, patient strength filled the room, the strength of magic built and tended for centuries. Ghosts whispered, saying things none of them quite understood. Daja heard metal call from underfoot. Kneeling, she found pieces of black, glassy rock embedded in the dirt. Briar heard the roots of plants, twining around each other to form a giant net. Tris felt the shift of rock and the trickle of water between stones. Air pressed on Sandry. For a moment she thought that she stood on the whorl-wheel of the biggest drop spindle in the world. And perhaps I do, she thought, startled. With the Hub to serve as the shaft, all Winding Circle is shaped just like a drop spindle.
Niko stood by the wall, motioning for them to join him. Tris glanced at the four dedicates by the fire. They never moved. Since they wore their habits with the hoods up and their hands were tucked into their sleeves, she couldn’t be sure that they were alive.
“This is the heartfire—the true center of Winding Circle,” Niko whispered. “There are magics that keep this temple city whole, drained, fertile—without them, the bowl in which it rests would be a lake. All of those spells end in the heartfire chamber, and they are protected by those who guard the fire.”
“What was that glassy stuff in the floor?” Daja asked. “It seemed—funny.”
“It’s not of this world.” Kneeling, the man ran his fingers over a shiny piece of stone. “Thousands of years ago, a rock from the stars crashed here, leaving the crater where this place is built. The stones are its remains. Their magical power can be used for many things. They made it possible for Winding Circle’s builders to anchor complex protective spells here without their affecting the magical work done afterward.”
Standing, he led them out of the room and up the stairs. Once they reached the ground floor and continued to climb, they could see that the stair curved around open space, where vertical rope cables were strung. Above, something rattled. A set of ropes began to move, carrying an open box down before their eyes. Inside were five slates.
“That’s how information coming into the upper floors is passed to Honored Moonstream and the individual temples,” Niko explained. “The dumbwaiter carries the slates to the ground floor, where runners pick them up.”
“I saw no runners when we came in,” Daja pointed out.
“They waited outside, until we had finished meditating,” answered Niko. “They would have found us—distracting.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” demanded Briar.
Sandry guessed, “It’s to do with the thing Niko said, about us spilling magic?”
Niko smiled and nodded. “That’s exactly it.” He brought them to a halt on a landing. Opening the door to the staircase, he beckoned for his students to look into the room beyond. It was a broad, airy chamber, its curved walls fitted with open, unshuttered windows. There were small tables, stacked with slates and chalk, placed in front of comfortable chairs. Only five chairs were occupied, by men and women in different-colored habits, all with a black stripe along the hems. These dedicates sat back, eyes closed, ignoring the breezes that plucked at their clothes and hair.
Novices in white patrolled noiselessly, checking the table before each occupied chair. One found writing on a slate beside an elderly man in blue. Picking it up, the novice padded over to the door. The children stood aside to let her pass. Leaning over the rail, she tugged a rope.
Niko led the way upstairs once more. “That is the place of hearing,” he explained. “Those initiates—”
“What’s an ini-whatsit?” asked Briar.
“You saw the black stripes on their habits? That means they are initiated into the methods of temple magic. They listen to the winds for voices and report—”
Tris stumbled, and fell. Daja hauled her up. “What’s the matter with you, merchant girl?”
“They hear voices on the winds?” Gray eyes feverish, Tris grabbed Niko’s arm. “They hear people talking?”
“From every imaginable location,” he said.
“They really hear voices? Really? They don’t just make up things, or—or hear what isn’t there?” The other children stared at her.
“You hear voices?” Niko demanded sternly. “What do they speak of?”
“They—plenty of things. Shipping, weather. Sometimes booty, cow disease”—she blushed—“or sex. My family said I was crazy, or lying, or cursed—”
Sandry wrapped an arm around Tris and glared at the mage as if this were his fault.
“Your family was mistaken,” he said, smoothing his mustache. “The voices of madness are more interesting than what you’ve heard. From now on, tell me anything that you see or hear this way, understand? It may be important.”
Tris gulped in air, getting herself under control. Only when she felt better did she step out of Sandry’s hold.
“Come on,” Niko ordered, when it was clear she was all right. The five of them started climbing again.
The seeing room, on the next level, looked much like the hearing room, except that dedicates here looked into bowls of water, or crystals, or mirrors, and the windows were covered with precious glass. Above that was the bird-cote, where messenger birds came and went from all around the Pebbled Sea. Higher up was the great clock that set the rhythm of Winding Circle’s hours. The four would have stayed there all day if they could, watching the huge gears turn. Niko finally had to shoo them out, reminding them that it would soon be midday.
When they reached the ground floor, he stopped them from opening the door to the staircase. “Practice the trick I taught you—the pulling-in, becoming small—whenever you can. See if you can do it without having to meditate first. You all know me well enough that you’re aware I don’t ask things without a good reason.”
“Then what is the reason?” Sandry wanted to know.
For a moment she thought that he was actually going to answer her, but he seemed to think the better of it. “I’d prefer not to go into it just yet,” he said regretfully. “Some things will be easier for each of you if you work through them yourselves first.”
There was a rolling boom; the ground quivered beneath them. The clock overhead continued to strike, telling the community and the surrounding farms that it was midday.
“Now, back to Discipline. Tris, I’ll come for you after the rest period. We have more work to do,” Niko said, opening the staircase door. “And all of you practice your meditation!”
Once the midday meal was over, Briar climbed the stairs to the attic. On his first day here, he’d found a trapdoor in the ceiling—now he pulled down the ladder beneath it, undid the latch, and crawled onto the roof. Seated on its peak, his back resting against the stone chimney, he could watch Rosethorn toil below. She worked among flowers today, passing up the afternoon rest period.
This is living, he thought. No Thief-Lord to hound him for more loot; he was fed, warm, dry, and lazing on a fragrant straw bed. The wealth of gray clouds rolling across the sky meant that the sun wasn’t likely to burn him. Rain was coming, but not for a while. What he needed was a nap.
The moment he closed his eyes, the image of the ailing greenhouse tree entered his mind. Rosethorn had wanted to see it, but he had a feeling Crane would not want to show it to her. Rosethorn might not even want to look at the tree if she knew it was one of Crane’s.
Nap, he told himself firmly. Them that know plants are looking after the tree.
Something crunched nearby. He looked: the merchant girl was climbing onto his roof. He scowled. “Just because we live together doesn’t mean I like you. Go away.”
“I have the right to be here,” Tris snapped. “More, because my room’s just below.”
“I didn’t come out to be hearing girl bibble-babble,” he warned.
“I’m not bothering you. Go back to whatever you’re doing, and let me be!” She clambered over the roof’s peak and settled on the other side, where he couldn’
t see her. Briar leaned back too hard and fast, and banged his spine on the rocks of the chimney. Wincing, he sat up. Any moment she would chatter, that was certain. He’d be drifting into a little nap, and she’d start asking questions about where he came from and what he did to get here.
Silence.
He fidgeted. Why didn’t she say something? Was there ever a girl who didn’t talk her teeth out? Certainly that Sandry had a mouth that ran on fiddlesticks.
Silence.
She had to be asleep. The moment she woke, she’d start bothering him.
Briar leaned back against the chimney, with more respect for its bumps than the last time, and closed his eyes. There, in his mind, clear as anything, was that sick tree. He opened his eyes with a muttered curse and returned to worrying about the merchant girl.
Time passed, in silence.
The suspense was killing him. He crawled to the peak of the roof and looked over. There she lay, hands behind her head, staring at the sky.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Tris blinked. All through the meal and cleanup, she’d been thinking of deep breaths like sea waves, and of pulling her mind into one small spot. Once she was settled on the thatch, her lungs fell into the breath pattern easily. When Briar interrupted her this time, she was so deeply calm that she didn’t mind.
“Watching a storm get born,” she told him.
The boy frowned. He’d seen folk hypnotized at a fair, made to do silly things by the mage who put them in a trance. When they spoke, they sounded just like her. “Storms don’t get born,” he scoffed. “They’re just there.”
“You aren’t looking right,” she replied, still peaceful. “See? We’re in a spot where you can watch clouds grow.”
He looked up, but it was hard on his neck. “They just look like clouds.”
“Wait. Pick a small one, and keep an eye on it. It helps if you do that breathing thing Niko taught us.”
He squinted, but his neck refused to bend at that angle. Directing a scowl her way—not that she saw anything but the view overhead—he lay down on his side of the roof, just over the peak, and did as she suggested. Slowly he drew breath in, counting, then held it, then let it go. The sound of air moving through his lungs made him think of the breezes that ran over the thatch. He focused on the thickening clouds.