Ginn Hale - Lord of the White Hell book Two

Once Kiram did notice it, he couldn't easily look away. Its place on the windowsill could have been a chance happening. A lamp might be set down anywhere at any time. But the shape of the lamp was so distinctly Haldiim that Kiram couldn't help but think it was meant for the Solstice.

"It belonged to my great-great-great-grandmother," Scholar Blasio said.

"It looks like a Haldiim Solstice lamp," Kiram commented cautiously.

"That is, in fact, exactly what it is." Scholar Blasio handed Kiram his tea. Kiram remembered accepting tea from the scholar before and thinking there was something familiar about its flavor. Now he recognized the taste. Musni's mother served the same red-tipped leaves to her guests; many Haldiim descended from northern lineages favored this smoky blend.

"There used to be an entire Haldiim population here before King Nazario purged them from the land" Scholar Blasio opened the wooden box of sugar almonds. He took one but didn't eat it. Instead he handed a second one to Kiram. Kiram hardly tasted the candy. He'd been feeling so alone that he hadn't even considered that other Haldiim could be hidden among the Cadeleonians who surrounded him.

"Most of the Haldiim were killed or fled" Scholar Blasio went on. "But there were a few with Cadeleonian parents or grandparents who could pass without notice."

Instinctively, Kiram searched for some physical trace of Haldiim heritage in Blasio's face. There was nothing. With his thick build, pale skin, and dark eyes and hair, Scholar Blasio could have served as a perfect example of a common Cadeleonian. No doubt Nazario's scourges had wiped away any Haldiim who could be recognized at a glance, leaving behind only the most perfect of chameleons.

"Believe it or not, Donamillo and I are descended from a Bahiim lineage." Scholar Blasio gave Kiram a wry smile.

"I." Kiram didn't know what to say. "I wouldn't have ever guessed. I mean, not until I saw the lamp."

"This is the first year I've lit it since I left my mother's home." Scholar Blasio's expression was distant. His gaze rested on the flickering lamp. Absently he popped a sugar almond into his mouth and suddenly his grave countenance brightened. "My word, these are good!"

"They're one of my mother's most popular specialties."

"Yes, I can see how a person could make a fortune with a candy like this one. Sweet success, hmm?"

"Yes, exactly," Kiram agreed. He didn't want to mention his mother's many other assets and properties when Scholar Blasio obviously came from a far more deprived family.

"Donamillo didn't want me to tell you this-I mean, about our heritage. I think he worried that you would let it slip to the other scholars or the holy father, but." Blasio poured himself a little more tea and then refreshed Kiram's cup as well. "King Nazario is long dead and I see no point in you feeling isolated and alone when there are two other Haldiim living with you. So I decided that I would tell you. I claimed illness to get out of the chapel vigil and lit my lamp for the first time in years." A look of melancholy flickered across Scholar Blasio's face. "Then my courage failed me. I can't say why, but I just couldn't bring myself to fetch you and tell you what I wanted to say. I must sound like a coward to a young man like yourself."

"No," Kiram replied. "I can't imagine having a secret like yours." Even as he spoke Kiram realized, with great irony, that he did have a secret as deep and private as Scholar Blasio's and he was even less inclined to speak of it.

"You keep a secret too long and it gains a kind of power over you, I think. It starts to own you." Scholar Blasio ate another candy almond and then leaned back in his chair, seeming for the first time to completely relax. "You can't know the state I was in when you showed up at my door." Scholar Blasio shook his head. "But now that I've told you, it really doesn't seem so important. I'm Haldiim."

"I'm glad. Now I don't have to spend Solstice alone." Kiram drank more of the tea.

"It is a relief to escape that wretched chapel. The entire affair is dull, depressing and far too sober." Scholar Blasio suddenly hopped up from his chair and went to a small cabinet. He returned to the table with a round of hard cheese, half a loaf of bread, and a flask that smelled of honey wine.

"Let us have as proper a Haldiim Solstice as we can" He poured the liquor into Kiram's empty teacup and then served himself.

"To light, friends and honesty." Blasio offered a toast.

Kiram drank happily and after several more toasts, he taught Scholar Blasio the Solstice song. They sang together, discussed two new mathematics papers, and from time to time Scholar Blasio made little confessions of his secret life. He described the pranks Donamillo had often played on their Cadeleonian neighbors and his own attempts to reclaim the power of his Bahiim ancestors.

"For nearly two years I kept lurking under old trees, hoping one of them would somehow commune with me. Donamillo would deny it but I know he did it too. We couldn't help it. Our grandmother was always telling stories of our glorious Bahiim ancestors" Scholar Blasio rolled his eyes and Kiram laughed. He guessed that he had gotten a little drunk after all.

"It was years before I realized that the Bahiim magic was long lost, if it had ever really existed at all."

"I used to think it was all just stories," Kiram admitted. "But there are some things I've seen that have given me doubts."

"I'm sure" Scholar Blasio said. "Rooming with Javier Tornesal, I imagine you've seen quite a lot of Bahiim power. Of course it's in the completely wrong hands." Scholar Blasio leaned forward in his chair and gazed intensely at Kiram. "It's like some kind of divine joke, really. The power of all shajdis lost to the Bahiim and yet somehow a Cadeleonian beef head has inherited one."

"I don't think he's a beef head at all," Kiram objected.

"No, I suppose he's not." Blasio smiled at Kiram and ate another slice of the pungent cheese. "I have to admit I had feared that he would mistreat you when you first arrived. But young Lord Tornesal has proven himself a very decent man, despite his mediocre mathematical skills. He's earned a great deal of my respect for that. Who knows, maybe the shajdi is not in the wrong hands after all."

"So, you've always known the white hell was a shajdi?" Kiram asked.

"Me? No. Donamillo recognized it when he saw the previous duke burn the city gates in Labara with his bare hands. At the time it infuriated him to realize that a shajdi had fallen into the hands of a Cadeleonian but things changed after he started teaching here. The same thing happened to me. If you spend enough time teaching boys, seeing their families and watching them grow into men, you realize that we are all just people. No matter what faith we follow or how we celebrate. The greatest wisdom of the Bahiim is knowing that we are all one: Haldiim, Cadeleonian, Mirogoth, Yuan. The names are superficial. The same humanity exists within us all. We come from the shajdi and we return to the shajdi. We all carry it within us."

Kiram nodded, benevolence and alcohol lending a sense of immense profundity to Blasio's words. It seemed a perfect time to raise the Solstice song and to Kiram's pleasure Blasio joined him. Then Blasio taught him a hearty, Cadeleonian New Year song so that he'd be able to sing along when his Hellion friends were finally allowed to sing again. The two of them ate and drank and sang until the hour grew late. At last Kiram wandered up to his room, humming to himself, and fell asleep nestled in Javier's bed.

His slight hangover the next day hardly stood out in the sea of his sleep-deprived classmates and instructors. Most of the classes were released early. For the first time all year Kiram found the library full of students, most napping in the quiet warmth. The Hellions had claimed a big table far from the drafts of the door and noise of the hall.