It was the class taught by Zario that combined all the other subjects into the craft of the gifted Shagara male. Al-Fansihirro: art and magic.
“The thought you invest in your work will determine its success. The color of the ink is as vital as the paper. What you add to the ink intensifies your intent. The talishann must be perfect. Never think that a hasty sketch on a scrap of paper with whatever ink is to hand will function as you wish simply because you bleed onto it. What we do is an art, as truly as our lost brothers pound out their hazziri in metals.”
This last sentiment occurred often in his lectures, and when it did he invariably looked at Qamar. Qamar looked right back, unblinking. His complete lack of knowledge about anything to do with the making of hazziri—despite the key carved with the talishann for exit he had used to open the locked door of his room—irked Zario. Something, anything, the slightest hint of vague rumors—Qamar was a total disappointment to him regarding the traditional arts of the Shagara and, Zario implied, a total waste of his valuable time. For although they could not refuse education to one of their kind, they all suspected he would take what he had learned back to Tza’ab Rih at the first opportunity and use it in the service of the Empire’s ambitions exactly as his great-grandfather and grandfather had done.
Qamar did not disabuse them of this error. It amused him to see them grind their teeth as they imparted some arcane magical formula, some obscure piece of herbal lore. He knew they were thinking that they were facilitating the very thing their forebears had fled Tza’ab Rih to avoid. He did not tell them that he had no intention of returning home.
He had two reasons for this. First, no one among the Shagara had ever succeeded even in slowing the rapid ageing of a Haddiyat. This told him everything he needed to know about the state of magic and medicine in his country. They could not do what he was determined to do. He could have received much the same education in signs and symbols there as here, but the people inside this fortress had something his kinfolk did not: plants the desert-dwelling Shagara had never seen and did not know how to use. The tools were here. He knew it. Whether it happened in metal and gemstones or ink on paper, he was positive that somewhere in the compendium of tradition and experimentation lay his answers. This land that had tried to kill him would be his salvation. He knew it.
The second reason was just as personal, though it became a reason almost without his being aware of it. Solanna Grijalva had not returned to her own people. If she had her reasons for this, Qamar was unsuccessful in discovering them. Her original purpose—to convince the Shagara to come to the aid of those fighting the Tza’ab—had failed. They would never turn directly against their “lost brothers.” Why she had lingered at the fortress, when she had had the vision that had sent her and Zario to the seaport, and why she stayed now that he had been rescued from himself, Qamar could not have said. Perhaps she found the mountain air beneficial to her health.
She stayed. Rather than work with the other women in the daily chores of the fortress, she became a teacher. Every child between the ages of four and ten was required to sit in a schoolroom five hours of every day, learning to read, write, and cipher, reciting long passages of The Lessons, listening to lectures about the history of all civilized and barbarian countries and especially about the history and beliefs of the Shagara. Solanna’s residence here allowed a new subject to be taught: her language.
Naturally, he attended her classes. He was not the only adult to do so. The men and women who had dealings with the world outside the fortress already knew much about the local tongue, but within a few months Solanna had everyone speaking nothing else in her classroom.
That she used these lessons to disseminate her version of history amused Qamar endlessly. He never actually laughed aloud, but every time he smirked or smiled, she scowled at him and demanded to know his view of whatever event she claimed had taken place or whatever motive she ascribed to the Tza’ab.
And then they would argue.
One early evening in autumn—Solanna’s classes were held after work had finished for the day but before the evening meal—she began the lesson by saying, in her own language, “The invading army that came northward from Tza’ab Rih was a blatant violation of all decency and honor—”
“Or it would have been,” Qamar agreed, “if we hadn’t been invited.”
Solanna gave him a glower, and continued, “Count Garza do’Joharra and King Orturro do’Ferro da’Qaysh—”
“—were each so incredibly furious with the other that they committed the same act of desperation,” Qamar said, “because they knew neither could best the other on the battlefield.”
“—were betrayed by underlings who wished to seize power for themselves—”
“Eiha!” Qamar exclaimed, wide-eyed. “Was that why Orturro had Don Pederro’s throat cut?” To the others in the class, he continued, “I was always told that when it was seen that the Tza’ab had won the battle—”
“By treachery!” Solanna snapped.
“—Orturro ordered his nephew’s death. He’d acted as ambassador to Sheyqir Alessid, you see.” Turning back to Solanna, he said, “But I never learned what happened to Baron do’Gortova, who acted as emissary for Count Garza.”
Solanna did not reply. Another of the students said, “I think he killed himself, didn’t he?”
“No,” an older man corrected, “his wife was unable to live with the disgrace and poisoned him.”
“I thought it was his daughter.”
“I heard he went into exile in Merse.”
“No, it was Ghillas. Or maybe Elleon.”
“Eiha, enough!” Solanna cried. “The fact is that the baron was heard of no more. And the fact is that the Tza’ab took control of both regions. They set up puppet rulers—”
Qamar couldn’t help it. Laughter rendered him breathless for a few moments, while Solanna glared and the other students wondered what was so funny. At last he managed, “I would dearly love to hear you call Ra’abi that to her face!”
“As I was about to say,” she went on, tight-lipped, “all real power rested with the husband of the Empress because the Empress, of course, was incapable of governing. She was, in fact, entirely mad.”
Qamar felt the smile freeze on his face.
“They will tell you, in Tza’ab Rih, that she withdrew from public life to devote herself to prayer. This is not true. She was of the Shagara tribe, like all of you, and her shame at the uses to which her people’s knowledge had been put by her power-hungry husband was at last too much for her. She agreed with your ancestors, in fact, that Shagara gifts ought not to be used for evil purposes but for healing and protection and all the other things you’re learning how to do. And it serves as a warning, I think, to adhere strictly to these ways and not allow yourselves to be corrupted. Remember always how the Empress, unable to bear the wickedness her husband accomplished with the help of the Shagara, in the end lost her sanity.”