Excerpt

Chapter One

Cool morning light streamed over the high walls of the Lux Temple, while the vast city outside its gates fell strangely silent. In the temple courtyard, Cymin took a deep breath and prepared to begin the most important procession he would ever lead. He wore the pearl mask of the aloof East Deity for the occasion. His sister Yinni's face was hidden behind the gold mask of the benevolent West Deity. Wigs crafted from raw silk threads covered their shaved heads. The richly embroidered gold robes of their costumes billowed and fluttered, exposing their bare feet.

Behind them, sixty of their fellow tuteli clerics filled the narrow stone space, all standing in formation and waiting for the morning bells to announce the opening of Lux Temple's Spring Exhibition. Brilliant regalia, archaic weapons and beautiful musical instruments abounded. Ahead of them all rose the temple's huge ironwood gates, and beyond that, the secular world, filled with fascinating people, forbidden delights and all their future challenges.

Cymin bounced on his toes and rolled his shoulders, attempting to shake off a little of his nervous anticipation. This year's procession was expected to draw more spectators than any in the last twenty years, and the exhibition matches afterwards would be attended by the top combatants from the Five Mage Schools. Cymin's final year defending the honor of East Deity could be his most triumphant yet.

Or an utter humiliation—but Cymin didn't allow himself to think about that. Instead, he stole a glance to his sister. At twenty, Yinni was two years older than him but still three inches shorter. She tapped her graceful fingers along the Black Staff in her right hand. Only that betrayed her nervousness. Noticing Cymin's gaze, her fingers stilled.

"We'll astound the crowd and trounce all challengers," Yinni assured him. "By the end of the exhibition, thousands of new worshipers will flood the temple with donations and come begging for blessings from us."

"Only if all the people out on the street forget that we're just their local tuteli under these costumes," Cymin teased her, though in truth he wished to the Heavens that she could be right. "Once they remember that, they'll go back to looking down on us."

"Shut up and let me bask in my glorious delusion," Yinni responded. She then gestured grandly to the tuteli assembled behind them. "We're all beautiful today."

Cymin couldn't argue with that, and he didn't want to, in any case.

"Today we're divine!" he agreed, loudly enough for his voice to carry across the entire gathering—from the twenty costumed performers to the vast retinue of musicians behind them. Cheers and a few giggles met his proclamation.

All three of the tuteli adepts standing directly behind Cymin and Yinni laughed and patted each other's backs encouragingly. They were all close to twenty years of age and specifically selected for this year's procession on account of their grace as well as their skill in tempering fei'lux to power the spells embedded in their ancient weapons. They, like Cymin and Yinni, wore refined deity masks and moved with practiced finesse, transforming displays of swords, staves and spears into elegant dances.

Together, the five of them represented the nation's most revered and recognizable deities, the Five Guardians who had defended the Hallow Gates during the creation of the world and later subdued the Carnal Gods. While Cymin and Yinni represented the deities of the day and night, respectively, their three fellow tuteli adepts were costumed as the deities of the earth, sky and water.

If this had been 200 years earlier, during the reign of mage-kings, hundreds more deities would have filled out their ranks—at least one for every occupation, location or interest anyone could think of—but in the century since the People's Revolution, most of the expansive pantheon had been abolished.

Five deities were enough for the revolutionaries; any more than that constituted excess.

Behind Cymin and the other adepts came fifteen novice tuteli ranging in ages from six to twelve. They struggled to contain their excitement, several of them spontaneously performing the cartwheels and somersaults they'd be expected to display along the parade route. Others waved their hands in the air and struck poses as ferocious beasts. Strings of brass bells tinkled from their wrists and ankles, and bright ribbons adorned most of their headdresses.

These children were meant to evoke the deadly adversaries of the deities. Those dressed like dragons, sea serpents and other mythical beasts represented the defeated Carnal Gods who were still worshiped in the nation of Piiroc. Novices wearing floating ribbons and layers of colorful gauze were sharwae, guardian spells that had been corrupted from their original protective purposes so much that the deities had to fight and defeat them.

And last came the children adorned in chaotic splashes of body paint and riots of flowers, reeds and seashells. They played chuuraun, chimeric monsters born of creatures and spells that supposedly had been fused together by the savage fei'lux storms of the archaic days before the Storm Towers had been built.

Of course, all those mythic horrors and wonders were long gone. Or at least, they should have been—though this year might change that. Cymin turned his long black staff over in his hands and stared at the gates ahead of him, willing them to open.

At last, the city clock towers resounded with nine bells. The ironwood doors of the Lux Temple's Sun Gate swung open and Cymin bounded out. He landed gracefully on the open street at the start of the parade route. Hordes of onlookers lined the roadside, and at the sight of him, countless excited voices suddenly roared. There were so many more spectators than he'd expected that Cymin nearly missed his second leap. Behind him, the temple musicians commenced to play, and for a moment the clamor of drums, horns and gongs of the procession nearly drowned out the shrill whistles and cheers of the assembled crowd. But not for long.

Everywhere Cymin looked, he saw more and more people. Shopkeepers, clerks and bike couriers gossiped with workers still wearing their factory overalls. Students dressed in bright green school jackets clustered around their instructors while little children waved from their parents' shoulders. Beggars and street vendors wove through the throngs while radio reporters and even a film newsreel crew jostled for good positions. He met the gazes of hundreds of strangers in a single glance. They filled the walkways, crouched atop newsstands, leaned from the windows and balconies of nearby teahouses and even perched on the tile rooftops.

Had all seven million of the capital's residents actually come out to watch the temple parade this year?

For the briefest of instants Cymin froze with shock. Then his fourteen years of training took over. In his right hand he raised his long staff. The gold teardrop-shaped finial at the top of it glinted in the sun, looking a little like a candle flame. Beside him, Yinni lifted her matching staff. Deep inside the Black Staves lay rods of goldwork, each etched with a treasury of ancient spells—the Thousand Blessings that once shielded entire cities from droughts, plagues and sieges. Though without fei'lux coursing through them the staves were little more than very heavy sticks.

Cymin flexed his left hand and began to draw fei'lux down from the seemingly tranquil air. A tingling current shot through the spell filaments—gold threads implanted into his hands and arms—and then spread across his chest. He spun in a circle, letting the fei'lux circulate through his body—tempering its erratic currents to match his heartbeat. In the time it took for him to complete one rotation, he calmed the torrent of blazing fei'lux to a steady stream of energy.

Then with his right hand he released that gentle flow of power into the Black Staff and channeled it to the gold rods at the core. Tiny gold sigils all along the shaft began to glow. Each sigil was itself powerless, but when grouped together they made up spells. The gold finial capping the staff flashed nearly as bright as the morning sun. Its light flickered across the gathered crowd while wisps of a silvery vapor coiled around the crown of the staff like steam.

Cymin leapt and spun again, twirling the staff as he went. Beside him, Yinni did the same. What appeared to be a playful dance was in reality a precise discipline, every step, leap and turn relating to the exact position of one of the thousand spells hidden within the staff. Those spells combined to make a larger spell array. Years of constant training and practice ensured that Cymin and Yinni not only roused the right spells but that they did so in perfect synchrony, their matched dance steps mirroring the flows of fei'lux they released. Cymin swept to the right, Yinni to the left. Sigils all along their staves glinted in time to the swelling music. Today they gently woke the sequence of spells that created a vast floating veil.