The First Binding, page 74
The Master Binder stepped onto the first of the planks, which should have given out under his weight. At least creaked. It did neither. “Come.”
I followed, eyeing each step I took with all the care and fear that the whole staircase would fall apart any second. Once none of that happened, I finally found my voice and asked the questions on my mind. “This is another binding too?”
He nodded. “You’re quick, aren’t you?”
I couldn’t tell if he was mocking me or just speaking matter-of-factly. We talked and ascended in silence for a minute before Master Binder cleared his throat, looking at a window that sat askew in the stone wall.
“What did you think of him, Ari?” He stared at the glass as he waited for my answer.
“Krisham? He seemed a little…” I chewed over what else I could say. “Different.”
“He is. Is that bad, though?”
I didn’t have to think about that one. “No. Not at all.”
Rishi Ibrahm nodded, but it didn’t seem like he’d been paying me any mind really. He took a few more steps before falling into a steady walk.
I moved behind him. “What’s … wrong with him?”
“Hm? Oh, some would say he’s cracked. Others would say nothing at all. At least the ones here. Depending on the day and how many bindings he’s used, Krisham will tell you that he’s what’s wrong with him, and Sheru is what fixes him. It happens to those who think they know what they’re getting into with the bindings. Everyone thinks they know, but what people think they know is never quite the same as what they actually do.
“That’s what happens with the bindings, Ari. There is a cost to magic—old magic especially. If you wish to enforce your will on the world, shape it—shift it—make it—break it, what do you think will be the cost, hm? If you wish to affect it, do you think you will be spared its effects on you? There. Are. Costs. Krisham knows this. He has paid them.” The strength went out of Rishi Ibrahm’s shoulders and his posture sagged, but he still continued up the stairs.
“Where are we going?”
He ignored that. “So many questions. But you’re still asking the wrong ones. You should be asking, ‘Why is Krisham like that?’”
I thought about it, then wondered whether I really wanted to know the answer.
“The bindings take a mental toll. You’re familiar with a piece of that, aren’t you? You’ve studied how to shape the folds and hold them. You’ve told me about the candle and the flame, though I’m surprised you were taught that. It’s an old exercise that’s fallen out of practice for over a hundred years. But the toll is still there. This isn’t the place to discuss it, however. We’re going higher up. Keep your footing, and keep your hands on the rails.”
I looked to the sides of the stairs and realized there was nothing to hold on to. That brought me up short and I nearly fumbled. “There are no rails?”
At that, the Master Binder laughed and stopped in place.
I almost bumped into him, adjusting my weight to compensate. The action threw me off-balance and I tipped sideways. A scream hadn’t even formed in my mouth, but I tried to let it out anyway.
A hand reached out and grasped my robes. “Ahn.” Master Binder held me with little visible effort and none of his weight shifted as he did. He stood as firm and fixed in place as Krisham’s cup. He pulled. He twisted. And he grunted.
I ended up back on my feet, perfectly in place on the step I’d tumbled from. “You … you ass!” My hands clamped to my mouth as I realized I’d just insulted one of the Ashram’s masters.
Rishi Ibrahm took no offense, however. “I can be. Made my point, though, didn’t I? You think too far ahead, and not enough of now—here.” He jabbed a finger at the planks below us. “You’re too fast, Ari. And never present enough, which is a part of being a binder.” He said nothing else and resumed walking.
We went up in silence until we reached a landing that led onto another circular floor like where we’d come in.
Rishi Ibrahm raised a finger to his mouth, gesturing for silence.
I nodded.
He led me through the curving hall, stopping outside a room shut with a metal door.
I stared at it, wondering what warranted a door like that in the Ashram. Every one I’d seen so far had been some form of wood. A few places had sliding screens of tightly woven fabric in wooden frames, but no iron or steel.
He picked up on my curiosity. “Wood is easier to break.” The Master Binder rapped a hand on the door, drawing a hollow metal clang from it. “Metal, less so.”
All of which meant the doors were subject to being broken. By what and how concerned me.
The door shook and a heavy clang rang from the other side like the sounding of a gong. Then another. The door shuddered. Then, then came a noise like hail on steel—heavy, unrelenting, and hitting as hard and fast as a storm.
I looked at the door, then the Master Binder.
He exhaled and reached into the folds of his robes. Rishi Ibrahm produced a key and slipped it into the lock, opening the door. “I should go first. He might react poorly to a new face.”
There’s a person in there? The sounds had me thinking of stories of caged monsters and the like, all vying to break free.
The room inside had been made from a motley assembly of brick and stone. Odd sections of the walls were missing, exposing another layer of the same materials behind. Some of those had fallen as well.
A look at the floor revealed what had become of them. Shattered pieces of brick and stonework lay scattered across the ground.
Master Binder shut the door behind us. It closed with a weighty thump that almost sounded like the previous crashes against it.
It was not a reassuring sound.
I looked at the metal door and saw small imperfections in its form. Indentations, shallow, but as wide as my hand, peppered its steel frame.
In place of a proper bed, a thin mattress rested on the floor with too many blankets for any one person’s needs. And that was it. Nothing else at all in the room.
A young man, maybe the same age as Krisham, sat cross-legged on the mattress, looking at Master Binder. He had the build of someone who frequently skipped his meals. His sleeveless black shirt and short-cropped breeches were more suited to the summers in the south than up here in Ghal where he should have been freezing. His dark hair had been pulled into a tight and single tail. “Master Binder.”
Rishi Ibrahm lowered his head … slowly. Very slowly. The gesture reminded me of something not unlike acknowledging a skittish or dangerous animal. “Reppi. How are you doing today?” The Master Binder looked over his shoulder to the door, then back to the young man. “You’ve been tearing at your room again.”
Reppi nodded. “It’s slipping. I am. Everything is.” He threw himself back and sprawled across the mattress. “It’s there—everywhere, always there. The folds. They’re filled with it, you know? You do know. Of course you do.” He sighed in what could have been frustration, but I had a hard time telling with him.
“So you’re taking it out on the door? And if you keep this up, you’ll pull enough bricks and stones free from the extra walls you’ll expose your room to the outside.”
Reppi made a sound like he didn’t much care.
“It’ll be cold.” Rishi Ibrahm’s voice held a touching note of concern, but he didn’t let it bleed too much into his words. It had been just enough to be heard. “How bad has it been, Reppi? Are you cold already?” He glanced to the many blankets, then back to the walls. “If you are, I’ll see to having the stones replaced. This place is old, I’m sure the cold finds a way through.”
Reppi shook his head and he returned to his sitting position. “It’s okay. I think I’ll be fine. If not, I can ask someone to share that binding from the first floor.”
I waited for him to explain that one, but Rishi Ibrahm nodded as if he understood.
Catching my look, he answered me. “Did you feel the current of warm air downstairs?”
I had. “Yes.”
“It’s a few minor bindings together. My guess is they’ve been carved into the undersides of the shelving planks. You’d never look there when distracted by books. They circulate warm air while moving colder air out.” Rishi Ibrahm turned his attention back to Reppi. “I’m impressed you were able to pick up on that being used while up in your room.”
Reppi shrugged. “Wasn’t hard. Been bored. I sat. I Listened. I felt. I knew someone had done it when I’d gotten better at Listening to the stone and the walls.”
Master Binder acted like that made perfect sense.
All I took out of it was that the bindings could be detected by others clearly proficient in them. Something that remained beyond my skill set.
For now.
“Are the headaches back, or have you been spared that much?” Rishi Ibrahm drew closer to Reppi, but he still remained noticeably out of arm’s reach.
The young man raised a hand and waggled it in a so-so gesture. “Sometimes. I snap out of the folds too much. But sometimes—many times, it’s easier to be in them. Safer. But you can’t just sit in them. You have to bind, you know? Otherwise it just sits and builds and builds. Bigger, louder, brighter. The folds grow and everything you see just…” He trailed off and pressed his hands to his head.
“Shh.” Rishi Ibrahm finally closed the distance and came to Reppi’s side. He eased the young man back onto his mattress, covering him in his blankets with the care I imagined a father would show a son. “Just rest. I’ll be back later to check if you need anything.”
We left the room soon after, Rishi Ibrahm locking up behind us.
“There’s more to see.” He moved farther down the hall, leading me to another set of stairs. We went up this faster than before and didn’t stop until we reached the next floor. “This is nearly to the top but it’s high enough up for your lesson.” He motioned to another room.
This one had a pair of sliding doors layered in thick and padded mats. A metal latch held two slats together that prevented either door from being opened.
I saw no way for a key to fit into that contraption or for it to be undone by brute strength.
Rishi Ibrahm put his hands on it and leaned close enough his lips could have brushed the metal. He whispered something I couldn’t hope to hear and the latch opened. The doors slid open and he motioned for me to follow him inside.
I did, easing the doors almost fully shut behind me.
This room had nothing in common with the last but for its dimensions and general shape. The walls had more of the cushions and padding that were on the door. A proper bed and wooden frame rested in here. The color of the walls pulled my attention back to them and away from the bedding.
The pristine white of the cushions had been marred in places by red stains that looked like they’d flake free any moment from the fabric. Then I realized what they were.
Blood.
The walls were stained with more blood along them than any one person could safely lose.
A woman sat in one corner, idly clawing at the padding. She wore a thinner set of robes much like mine. Her hair had been cut short, leaving the wild curls to fall no farther than her ears. When she looked at me, her face reminded me in some parts of a feline: sharp-featured, round in all the right places, with eyes that seemed a bit too large and with an animal brightness in them.
“I don’t like him.” She turned her head back to the wall and resumed the bored scratching.
Rishi Ibrahm snorted. “That makes two of us.”
I glowered at the Master Binder.
“How are your fingers today, Immi?” The Master Binder walked over to her, but stopped a few steps to her side. He peered at her hands, then the walls. “That is a lot of blood.” He sounded no different than someone making a comment about the weather.
She shrugged. “It is. I always heal, though.” Immi raised two fingers that had been rubbed raw. The outermost surface of her skin had been sloughed away to reveal reddish pink flesh that bled. She waggled them, clearly not in pain. Then she closed her eyes. “Start with whent, then go to ern,” she recited.
The skin over her fingers slowly knitted itself together. Then it looked like it had never been scratched away at all.
And I didn’t even see the last transition. It was like a trick of the mind. Something out of storybooks.
Like the bindings.
One moment bloody fingers; the next, they were the fingers of someone who’d never hurt them.
Immi returned to her scratching. “I don’t get hurt. Not really. Time is fluid. I’m only ever temporarily losing skin and blood, but it always comes back. So, I’m never really hurt, am I? I’m just in the process of losing and regaining. Shedding and then healing. It’s like a snake. I’m growing. Sometimes I just get too old for my own skin. Or … it gets too old and boring for me. I can’t remember.”
Rishi Ibrahm swallowed. His mouth moved but he said nothing. And suddenly, the young master looked nothing like his age at all. No. He looked … old. Not in any sense of his appearance. His features still carried all the youth of someone in their late twenties.
His body just lost the strength to stand perfectly straight, almost like someone in their later decades having grown too tired to hold themselves up. His shoulders sank. His back hunched just enough to be noticeable. And all the brightness left his eyes.
“Have you gone any days of late without scraping at your fingers, Immi?” Rishi Ibrahm sank to his knees but still moved no closer to the woman.
She shook her head. “Technically, I never have, because every time I do, my fingers are put back right. So then, they’ve never been rubbed raw, right? They’re just in a continuing fluctuating state. But if I end each night with them returned, does that mean I went a day without leaving them bloody? I don’t know.”
One of Rishi Ibrahm’s eyes twitched, and it could have been my imagination, but the barest hint of moisture welled at their corner. It vanished as soon as I thought I’d seen it. The man cleared his throat and rose to his feet, motioning me with a curt gesture of his head.
I took the silent cue and stepped out of the room, shutting the door.
He didn’t follow and left me to wait outside for a few moments. Eventually, Rishi Ibrahm slid the door open, stepping to my side. He dragged the back of a hand against his eyes and I pretended not to see it. “Have you ever heard and seen the pains of those closest to you? The things you can’t fix and can only hope to mollify?”
I thought back to my life as a sparrow. Then to a time before that—to Nisha. I nodded.
“Then you understand sometimes the only thing a man can do is cry. And no one should see a grown man cry, Ari.” Rishi Ibrahm moved past me and led the way in silence.
I had no reply. I’d known that pain when Taki passed at my side, suffering, burning, and delusional until his final breaths. And I did cry.
I finally found my voice when we reached another room. The doors ahead were an odd mix of stone and metal that I could make no sense of. Slabs of rock intermingled with sheets of bronze in a manner that should never have held together.
It took me another moment of hard concentration to recognize it for what it was. Another binding. I reached out almost on instinct before knowing what I was doing. My fingers brushed against the mix of stone and golden metal, feeling the cold of it more than the texture of its surface. “What binding is holding these together? Whose rooms are these?” I regretted the question as soon as I’d asked.
Rishi Ibrahm placed a hand against the metal-stone mixture, smiling almost like having seen an old friend after a long time. “Mine. At least once upon a time.” He pushed on the door, then frowned. “Someone’s bound it up after I left. Who would have done that?” His expression warped, growing tighter, face quivering with quiet rage. Rishi Ibrahm held his hand on the metal and stone, closing his eyes and muttering something under his breath.
The walls of the tower shook. Loose stone and dust rained down on us. And all the while, I noticed the only things that seemed immovable were the bound and crooked wooden planks of the staircase.
The door of stone and iron remained as fixed and firm as before.
Master Binder scowled and lashed out with a foot. He regretted it a moment later, pulling back and clutching the appendage much like when he’d kicked the desk. After a string of less-than-inspiring and creative cursing, he readdressed the door. “Oh, right.” A sly grin spread across his face. “Ahn.” He touched the center of the door, then ran his hand in a circle around the space. “Ahl. Oh, Ari, you should get down now.”
“What?” I didn’t have the chance to think or say anything past that.
The door vibrated with an intensity that set the surrounding frame quivering.
That was enough of a sign for me to drop to the ground.
A sound like thunder, then lightning striking stone, filled the space. Parts of the door exploded and showered the air above me, falling down the long drop of the tower. The metal pieces either fell to the ground, or hung suspended from the frame—bowed and bent. An opening of sorts filled the space between it all.
If you were willing to contort yourself, that is.
Rishi Ibrahm clapped his hands together. “Ah, good enough. Imagine that, keeping me from my old rooms.” He stepped into the mangled doorway, then paused. “Wait, I made that door so they wouldn’t try to coop me up in here again.” He threw back his head and laughed as if realizing something extraordinarily funny that he’d overlooked.
I didn’t see the humor in it and began reconsidering wanting to learn from the man.
“Come on in, Ari.” Master Binder went into the room.
I got to my feet, knowing whatever hesitation I had was pointless now. I’d come this far and wanted my answers more than any concerns over Rishi Ibrahm’s sanity. A rush of cold air struck me as I neared the door and rushed in through the openings of my robe. I knew why once I’d stepped into the room.
