Prologue
There was the faintest whisper of sound behind him. He whirled on the ball of his foot.
The animal was in the air, in mid-leap from a house-sized boulder that he had just passed. It was steer-sized, six-legged, with a mouth hinged like a shark’s, green and spotted with blotches like sun patches on sward. Detail merged into horror; he saw a confused swirl of claws and teeth.
In panic, he threw up his bands, arms rigid, palms at a ninety-degree angle toward the beast. Green flame wrapped around his wrists and focused. Fire shot out at the beast.
Even as he did it, he knew that it was a mistake.
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The October One looked at him from the height of her ornamented chair. Two powerful Adepts held him, one by each arm, standing in front of her, just behind the yellow line. His head hung; he could not look her in the eyes.
“You killed an animal,” she said in her gravelly, flat voice. He made no answer, could think of none.
“You used your Skill in a way visible to all, in fire and smoke and flame. You . . .”
There was desperation in him. He thought he was about to die.
“There was no time!” he cried, his body trembling, looking at the floor.
“Nonsense!” she thundered. Her black hair seemed to swirl with a life of its own. Her face, ageless, expressionless, held two glowing yellow eyes, which he dared not look upon.
Her downward slash of a mouth opened. Her voice came again. “We were watching; it was The Test. You could have taken one step aside and placed yourself in Shadow. You could have . . .” She paused. There were several other ways, none that would have attracted the attention of anyone nearby. There were even ways he could have killed without notice, without sound.
But killing was not the issue here.
He waited for the judgment that he knew was coming. He was eighteen years old, and there was nothing in him but fear.
He glanced desperately at the man on his right. Cor-Reed, his teacher for seven years, stared unmovingly ahead, gnarled face set in its habitual frown, streaked hair thin and half gone on a glistening scalp, lips turned forever down in impatience with the universe, almost sneering. No help would he found here. When he had failed with the animal, he had failed Cor-Reed most of all.
The hand on his arm tightened, until he could feel the pain.
“Enough!” the woman grated. Her voice was so low that it was almost a whisper. Asher gasped, and the pressure eased. “Judgment and punishment are mine. You, Cor-Reed, might defend this boy. You might tell me of his training, of the flaw that you and other Guild teachers have worked on for the last seven years, of the hope you had in the promise of his other attributes, his aptitude toward the Skill.”
She breathed. The boy had not heard any intake of breath from her since he had come to her chamber almost eight minutes ago, and he was attuned to such things, For the first time now, she breathed.
“Enough.” She passed her hand over her eyes, closing them for a moment. The boy could feel the weakness in her. But then she hissed, and he could feel the strength. “The Law of October is plain. ‘Six years, and no more than seven, shall an Apprentice labor, whereupon the Apprentice will he tested, one Test and one alone.’ This one has been tested.
“Look at me, Asher Tye.” There was finality, grim and hard, in her inhuman voice. The boy’s head drew up, and his eyes looked into hers. He did not want to, resisted with all his strength, but she had the Power in its full measure. He was but a failed student of it.
Hazel eyes met yellow. She used no further force, merely looked into him.
“You have failed the Test,” she said. “The Test beyond which there is no appeal. In accordance with our Law, I decree that you will be erased, expelled from the Guild, and sent back to your home world. Without Skill. Without Power. Without the Guild.”
Erased . . . The taking of his mind. The message of the words, the force of the yellow eyes, hit him like a nail-studded club. Violent emotion, fear, terror, a sob coming out of the lower depths of his body without his volition . . . His head shook as the frustration came into him, beating against the other emotions that were brimming to the surface and drowning him.
The woman saw it, and he knew that she saw it, and so he understood exactly when she whispered: “The flaw.”
She needed to say no more.
Then, in a movement of creamy fluidity, she stood. The black, gold-edged robes of the October Guild fell around her gaunt, unseen body. Her black hair writhed silently. Within it, there was the occasional tiny, bright flicker of static electricity.
“Cor-Reed, Dan-Gheel,” she spoke to the two men who held Asher Tye. “The Judgment is finished. You will take him to the Probe.”
The men inclined their heads a fraction, the closest to a bow that the Guild ever allowed. The hands tightened around the boy’s arms, and he felt himself turning and walking out of the chamber.
Walking toward the Mind Probe.
Terror overflowed altogether then, and he struggled, kicking the shin of Dan-Gheel, trying to tear away from Cor-Reed.
But they placed a Calmness on him which he could not resist. Yet the Calmness was external; controlling his body alone. He raged inside.
The Mind Probe would erase all the Skill out of his mind—cleanse seven years out of him, and leave him as he had been when he had come here.
An eleven-year-old child—in an eighteen-year-old body.